So, I recently Completed* this game. I will say that I liked it, overall. However, if it wasn't for the Thousand Years of Dreams sequences, the game would have been utterly ... well, bog standard JRPG. Bog standard JRPG is fuck boring, nowadays, and has been done for 15 years.
So, what are is Thousand Years of Dreams? Okay. The basic plot point for the game is that you play as Kaim, an immortal. He's been around for 1000 years, unaging. However, he's lost his memory. Over the span of the game, you can unlock 31 memories of past events. These sequences are entirely text, with backgrounds, music, and sound effects. The backgrounds and audio accompaniment are there for effect and such and work well. The stories told by these dreams, however, are amazingly well written. The author of these dreams wasn't a stock JRPG writer (thankfully), but a Japanese short story author, and it SHOWS. These stories are moving. There was more than one that caused me to tear up, more than one that caused me to actually consider life and, to use a bit of a trite phrase, the human condition. They were the best part of the game and some of the best writing I've ever seen in a game, ever.
The rest of the story? Fairly mediocre. None of the characters are really anything new. None of the characters, aside from one, Jansen, are terribly amusing and a handful are even annoying. Jansen, however, is a well done comic relief character. Sed, also, is interesting, though he only shows up about 80% of the way through the game, which is disappointing. He's also a clear Cid-from-Final-Fantasy expy. But, well, given Mistwalker's composition, one can hardly be surprised.
Really, my biggest disappointment with the plot is that ... Well, the only thing that really indicates that you're playing immortals is the odd age difference between Seth and her son and a few other character interactions. The ending felt hollow, too, because of this - It's a standard ending, everyone's happy, yadda yadda. Which doesn't really work for immortals. Dreams aside, that you're playing immortals becomes mostly unimportant for most of the game. I wish they would have really used that as an important part of the plot - Show the characters truly move through time. But, well, then it wouldn't be a standard, boring JRPG, and we can't have that, now, can we?
Sigh. But onto other things.
The music, well. The music was done by Nobuo Uematsu. The man is a great, great composer. The standard battle theme for this game is damned well done, as is the miniboss, boss, and HolyShitThat'sABoss music are also great. I was generally impressed by the music. The graphics... Shrug. They work and they work pretty well. Fairly pretty.
The combat system is a general purpose turn based system, add in a decent spell casting system, a different take on rows, and timed hits. For spells, each spell has a casting time. So, depending on the spell's casting time, it can go off before anyone goes, after, anywhere in between, or even the next round. Getting hit while casting slows down casting (for you *and* the enemy). Which is where the row system comes in. The damage reduction for being in the back row is much more significant than just half damage - It depends on the amount of HP the people in the front row have. Having one person in front is less effective than 2. It's pretty neat. The timed hits are standard things. Time it right, you deal more damage or add effects to your hit. Don't and you don't. The effects are based on the ring you're wearing. Which brings me to the amount of customization this game does and does not have.
The rings! They're fuckall pointless! Okay, no, they're not. However, what you can do with them, in the end, is. Ring component items make up 90% of the items you'll receive in this game. They're all mostly worthless. The difference between just having a basic damage up ring and an element ring is negligible. It would be nice if you could really customize your rings and put what you wanted onto them, but you can't. You're allowed a small set of rings that you can make and that's it. It's annoying, really. To make a ring that has more than one effect, you take the two rings with the individual effects to a ring maker, who combines them. Why couldn't *any* combination work? It would have been nice.
Skills! Here's the best thing about the game, mechanically. All the immortals you have (4), can learn skills off of accessories and from the mortals in your team. Of the skills they know, they can have an amount equipped, which can be increased with items you find. So, you can fairly heavily customize your immortals. However, due to this, mortals really... suck in comparison. So, it's a bit odd, endgame, when your immortals are horrifyingly good and can do everything, but your token included mortal is barely functional in comparison. It'd also be nice if you didn't get enough skill slots to include literally every ability worth having, and if the abilities were a bit more interesting or smaller. I'd like if I had to actually make choices and make people specialize.
Overall? Fun game, worth it for the Dreams, but not amazing.
*Okay, to be honest, I didn't get all the achievements, but I don't give a damn about achievements in most anything. So, I didn't have to find every treasure in the entire game, which is the most retarded achievement known to man, anyway. Further, I didn't get all the seeds, as, well, see above. I did all the major sidequests and killed all the optional bosses. So, I think that suffices.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
VVVVVV
The Letter V six times might be a better title, as I think(?) that's how it's supposed to be said. Whatever. So, what the hell is it? A very simple in execution platformer. There are exactly 3 movement controls: Move left, move right, and flip gravity. While a few other games have done this or done this for certain segments, this game relies on it as its only way for you to move vertically. As long as you're on a solid surface, you can flip gravity. Combine this with a fast paced environment, with a few twists, and you have an amazing game.
The game is pretty simple, all told. Your goal is to explore a strange dimension that you and your crew have been sent to, and to find and rescue them. Also along the way are twenty trinkets to collect. The game is divided into levels, though only in a cursory way. There's an overworld to explore, and then from there you can find levels, which share a theme and have a crew member to rescue. Further, the levels are where most of the action is - While there are spikes and trinkets in the overworld, most of them are in the levels. As a nice touch, every screen that's in a level has its own name, typically a descriptor of the screen or a hint as to how to solve it. Or, in some cases, mocking the player for their insolence.
The game is hard. Flat out difficult. For those following along (all none of you), you'd know that I love difficulty in games, as long as it's fair. And VVVVVV's difficulty manages to be the epitome of fair. There are checkpoints everywhere (Some rooms have up to 4), and rarely do you have to repeat a section because you died, though the trinkets (which are optional to collect) throw this off. To put in concrete terms, despite playing the demo and playing two of the levels before buying the game, and thus starting my death count, I died almost 1500 times in just over 3 hours of playing this game. That is a truly impressive amount of deaths. Yet, due to the incredibly short respawn time and commonness of checkpoints, I felt like I had never really lost more than a few seconds of progress. Nothing felt unfair.
While this game is pretty short, clocking in for me at about 3:10:xx with getting all the trinkets, I can say that the game has absolutely no filler. It was three hours packed with "WHOA!" and "... This is AWESOME!" and "Holy shit!" moments, when I got to new sections or finished particularly exhilarating sections. This game has one of the absolute best auto-scroll sections I've ever seen. I normally dislike auto-scroll levels, but this one left me wanting more. It was an adrenaline pump.
Now, to talk more about the trinkets and the difficulty. I'd say about half my deaths came about due to one trinket, that you have to go through 6 screens, then back through, to get. It's pretty devious, actually. The trinket is on the other side of a basic platform, with a single block in the way. To get past it, you have to gravity flip up through 6 rooms, lined and covered with spikey death, hit a disintegrating platform at the top, then gravity flip back down through them. It's referred to as Doing Things the Hard Way (The initial room's title) or as Veni, Vidi, Vici (the name of the first 3 rooms of the challenge, in sequence). When done right, the sequence takes about 10 seconds. Yet, it took me about an hour to complete. And yet? I loved it. It became pure muscle memory and quick reflexes when I finally did it (twice! In a row!) at the end. It was me telling my brain to bugger off, I needed to work at a level that's sub-brain processing to beat it. Which I loved. It might not be for everyone, but, well. Optional. Getting the trinkets really adds to the game, though, as some of the most devious, clever, and fun puzzles are for trinkets.
Lastly, the music. It's all chiptunes. Some people like chiptunes, some people hate em. It takes the right type of chiptune, for me, but I loved the music. I even went off and bought the soundtrack for this game, separately.
Where can you find it? Here, for a demo, link to the demo online, or to purchase it, for $15. Right after playing the demo, my immediate, instinctive response was "... I need to get this". Which, I did, and then played it and ;loved it. Despite the shortness, I feel like what I paid was well worth it. Some people might point out it was $5 per hour to play, I'd point out that it was an amazingly fun hour for each of those $5.
Finally, To steal from another review I read for this game, at Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
Except, I think, instead, I'll ask him if he's Terry Cavanagh, the developer of VVVVVV ... And when he says yes? I'll give him a big hug and say, as he's confused and feeling violated of his personal space, I'll say, "That was for Veni Vidi Vici!"
The game is pretty simple, all told. Your goal is to explore a strange dimension that you and your crew have been sent to, and to find and rescue them. Also along the way are twenty trinkets to collect. The game is divided into levels, though only in a cursory way. There's an overworld to explore, and then from there you can find levels, which share a theme and have a crew member to rescue. Further, the levels are where most of the action is - While there are spikes and trinkets in the overworld, most of them are in the levels. As a nice touch, every screen that's in a level has its own name, typically a descriptor of the screen or a hint as to how to solve it. Or, in some cases, mocking the player for their insolence.
The game is hard. Flat out difficult. For those following along (all none of you), you'd know that I love difficulty in games, as long as it's fair. And VVVVVV's difficulty manages to be the epitome of fair. There are checkpoints everywhere (Some rooms have up to 4), and rarely do you have to repeat a section because you died, though the trinkets (which are optional to collect) throw this off. To put in concrete terms, despite playing the demo and playing two of the levels before buying the game, and thus starting my death count, I died almost 1500 times in just over 3 hours of playing this game. That is a truly impressive amount of deaths. Yet, due to the incredibly short respawn time and commonness of checkpoints, I felt like I had never really lost more than a few seconds of progress. Nothing felt unfair.
While this game is pretty short, clocking in for me at about 3:10:xx with getting all the trinkets, I can say that the game has absolutely no filler. It was three hours packed with "WHOA!" and "... This is AWESOME!" and "Holy shit!" moments, when I got to new sections or finished particularly exhilarating sections. This game has one of the absolute best auto-scroll sections I've ever seen. I normally dislike auto-scroll levels, but this one left me wanting more. It was an adrenaline pump.
Now, to talk more about the trinkets and the difficulty. I'd say about half my deaths came about due to one trinket, that you have to go through 6 screens, then back through, to get. It's pretty devious, actually. The trinket is on the other side of a basic platform, with a single block in the way. To get past it, you have to gravity flip up through 6 rooms, lined and covered with spikey death, hit a disintegrating platform at the top, then gravity flip back down through them. It's referred to as Doing Things the Hard Way (The initial room's title) or as Veni, Vidi, Vici (the name of the first 3 rooms of the challenge, in sequence). When done right, the sequence takes about 10 seconds. Yet, it took me about an hour to complete. And yet? I loved it. It became pure muscle memory and quick reflexes when I finally did it (twice! In a row!) at the end. It was me telling my brain to bugger off, I needed to work at a level that's sub-brain processing to beat it. Which I loved. It might not be for everyone, but, well. Optional. Getting the trinkets really adds to the game, though, as some of the most devious, clever, and fun puzzles are for trinkets.
Lastly, the music. It's all chiptunes. Some people like chiptunes, some people hate em. It takes the right type of chiptune, for me, but I loved the music. I even went off and bought the soundtrack for this game, separately.
Where can you find it? Here, for a demo, link to the demo online, or to purchase it, for $15. Right after playing the demo, my immediate, instinctive response was "... I need to get this". Which, I did, and then played it and ;loved it. Despite the shortness, I feel like what I paid was well worth it. Some people might point out it was $5 per hour to play, I'd point out that it was an amazingly fun hour for each of those $5.
Finally, To steal from another review I read for this game, at Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
After playing VVVVVV for a little while, the power of prophecy gripped me. I became aware that during the next year or two, Terry Cavanagh will be approached in a bar by someone unknown to him. Possibly an industry function, possibly in a more general setting – I can’t be sure of the time or place. But this conversation is going to happen:
“Are you Terry Cavanagh?”
“…yeah.”
“As in, VVVVVV Terry Cavanagh?”
“…yeah”.
And then they’ll punch him in the face.
“That’s for Veni, Vidi, Vici, you bastard.”
And Terry will deserve it. As he, in a very real way, totally asked for it.
Except, I think, instead, I'll ask him if he's Terry Cavanagh, the developer of VVVVVV ... And when he says yes? I'll give him a big hug and say, as he's confused and feeling violated of his personal space, I'll say, "That was for Veni Vidi Vici!"
Friday, March 05, 2010
Dragon Quest 4: Chapters of the Chosen
Aah, as I finally get around to finishing this game on DS. This is another one of my favorite games from my childhood. So, it's hard to actually analyze this game, given that I've beaten it a good... dozen times on NES. It's gotten the standard modernization to being more like other Dragon Quest games - You have a bag, whips hit groups, everyone can equip accessories, medals now reward based on number collected as opposed to using them as currency, they changed the character names (probably for accuracy and all, but it bothers me), and all the spell names (and some of the monster names) become utterly retarded... But it can't all be good, eh? So, is it overall better?
In short, yes.
In long, Oh god Cristo doesn't cast Beat or Defeat every other turn in combat and against bosses that are immune to it YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
...
In longer, let's get down to the review.
So, the largest change, as I implied, is that in chapter 5 you can control every character in your party, unlike the NES version. In the NES version, you control the Hero and give a general idea to the rest of the party for what they should do. This works kind of neatly, as they can react to things on the fly - eg, if you have full health at the beginning of the round, but take damage before your healer acts, they'll heal. And if you trusted them with items, they'll even semi-smartly use items. The characters aren't actually that stupid in some ways.... But they suck at using not-healing spells. Now that you can control everyone, offensive spells and buffs can be effectively used. The typically considered best part in the NES version was Hero/Ragnar/Alena/[healer], and [healer] is typically Cristo. Alena and Ragnar hit things hard. That's all they do. The casters, Mara and Brey, were ... meh, as they didn't cast effectively or use their buffs.
So, my goal in playing this was to switch up my party structure, and throw in a caster. Maya/Mara, and I couldn't have been happier in doing so. That makes me happy, really. It's not surprising, I suppose, given their usefulness in other games, but, hey.
Other added content: They added in an epilogue chapter, which gives the game a true happy ending. I'm not sure if I particularly like this ending more, as it makes the real enemy someone that gets mentioned all of once before the epilogue, and the whole making everything a happy ending thing is.. meh. However, the extra content was still fun. The optional bosses were rough, but required no real grinding. I went straight from game end into epilogue dungeon to beating the epilogue bosses. Sorta surprised me, after Dragon Quest "GRIND FOR DAYS TO DO THE EPILOGUE" 8. Buuut that's a good thing.
They also added an immigrant town, which was alright. Pretty easy to do, and a source of easy mini medals. It has a wifi aspect that's totally optional.
Graphically, it's spiffy and fancy and has camera rotation. It's neat. It actually allows for a bit easier dungeon exploration, heh, as you can see more of the dungeon, due to the rotation.
Audiowise, well, Koichi Sugiyama is brilliant. Always has been. The audio on this game is spruced up from the NES version, given better soundchips. And there's some actual orchestral stuff. And DQ4 had a great OST to begin with. So, it's great.
My total time for completion was about 20 hours - Though, again, I know this game forwards, backwards, and inside out from the NES, and like 90% of it still applies. So, it'd probably be longer for people not intimately familiar with the game and its mechanics. Same goes for my assertion about not having to grind for the epilogue, I suppose.
In short, yes.
In long, Oh god Cristo doesn't cast Beat or Defeat every other turn in combat and against bosses that are immune to it YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
...
In longer, let's get down to the review.
So, the largest change, as I implied, is that in chapter 5 you can control every character in your party, unlike the NES version. In the NES version, you control the Hero and give a general idea to the rest of the party for what they should do. This works kind of neatly, as they can react to things on the fly - eg, if you have full health at the beginning of the round, but take damage before your healer acts, they'll heal. And if you trusted them with items, they'll even semi-smartly use items. The characters aren't actually that stupid in some ways.... But they suck at using not-healing spells. Now that you can control everyone, offensive spells and buffs can be effectively used. The typically considered best part in the NES version was Hero/Ragnar/Alena/[healer], and [healer] is typically Cristo. Alena and Ragnar hit things hard. That's all they do. The casters, Mara and Brey, were ... meh, as they didn't cast effectively or use their buffs.
So, my goal in playing this was to switch up my party structure, and throw in a caster. Maya/Mara, and I couldn't have been happier in doing so. That makes me happy, really. It's not surprising, I suppose, given their usefulness in other games, but, hey.
Other added content: They added in an epilogue chapter, which gives the game a true happy ending. I'm not sure if I particularly like this ending more, as it makes the real enemy someone that gets mentioned all of once before the epilogue, and the whole making everything a happy ending thing is.. meh. However, the extra content was still fun. The optional bosses were rough, but required no real grinding. I went straight from game end into epilogue dungeon to beating the epilogue bosses. Sorta surprised me, after Dragon Quest "GRIND FOR DAYS TO DO THE EPILOGUE" 8. Buuut that's a good thing.
They also added an immigrant town, which was alright. Pretty easy to do, and a source of easy mini medals. It has a wifi aspect that's totally optional.
Graphically, it's spiffy and fancy and has camera rotation. It's neat. It actually allows for a bit easier dungeon exploration, heh, as you can see more of the dungeon, due to the rotation.
Audiowise, well, Koichi Sugiyama is brilliant. Always has been. The audio on this game is spruced up from the NES version, given better soundchips. And there's some actual orchestral stuff. And DQ4 had a great OST to begin with. So, it's great.
My total time for completion was about 20 hours - Though, again, I know this game forwards, backwards, and inside out from the NES, and like 90% of it still applies. So, it'd probably be longer for people not intimately familiar with the game and its mechanics. Same goes for my assertion about not having to grind for the epilogue, I suppose.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Trine
So, I've been hearing rave reviews for this game, since it came out. I finally got it thanks to a friend, as a Christmas gift. I've been playing it on PC. And... Well, let's get on to the review.
First, I have to say. The game started out feeling brilliant - Each character plays different and brings something different to the team, and the physics seem tight. Then you realize that the Knight, the character meant to be used in combat, is useless and outshined by the thief entirely when it comes to combat. And then that the physics isn't nearly as tight as they should be. Wait until you hit something based on rotation and you'll see proof of that one. Or have your boxes start to fall through the floor. Or... And so on. The game oscillates between making you feel brilliant by solving a puzzle, feeling frustrated by bad camera work or the physics engine working in unexpected ways (the game is *horrible* at weight), and not knowing how to feel, as you solve something by things breaking in the right way, at the right time. The clever moments are worth it, though.
Each character gets new abilities as you go along - The thief just gets better at slaughtering things, the Knight, with his last upgrade, gets something useful (a very upgraded weapon), and the Wizard gets physics toys. So, the roles go to Thief being mobile, Wizard being physics breaker/puzzle solver, and Knight is meat shield.
The game gets... tedious and annoying, more than anything else. The enemies come in larger waves and are harder to kill, but are never really a threat. that, and there's roughly 5 enemies, if I'm being generous. Skeletons, giant skeleton, giant ogre... thing, bats, and spiders. Combat just got kinda boring. The enemies are just thrown at you as fodder, instead of being used as strategic obstacles.
Also, the final level is horribly designed, and made of frustration, which could have been easily alleviated without even making it easier - It has a classic case of forcing you to watch the level's intro every time you fail. But, it's ... badly done, in my opinion, besides that, for reasons I'd rather not get into because of spoilers.
And a final note: The music in this game was fairly outstandingly boring. It was boring ambient music at its worst. It barely seemed to follow the theme of the levels, and, as a note of how bad it could be: The music in the background of the final level, during the climax, was ... something I'd expect to hear in the background of a medieval ball scene, in a movie. Uhm... Okay? That's just bad.
Evaluated without regard to amount of time and fun for the money spent, this game is fairly mediocre. Not horrible, but not amazing, either. Given how cheap it is, though, that's a few bonus points. Wait for it to be on sale on Steam for $5 and its definitely worth it, but be prepared for frustration.
First, I have to say. The game started out feeling brilliant - Each character plays different and brings something different to the team, and the physics seem tight. Then you realize that the Knight, the character meant to be used in combat, is useless and outshined by the thief entirely when it comes to combat. And then that the physics isn't nearly as tight as they should be. Wait until you hit something based on rotation and you'll see proof of that one. Or have your boxes start to fall through the floor. Or... And so on. The game oscillates between making you feel brilliant by solving a puzzle, feeling frustrated by bad camera work or the physics engine working in unexpected ways (the game is *horrible* at weight), and not knowing how to feel, as you solve something by things breaking in the right way, at the right time. The clever moments are worth it, though.
Each character gets new abilities as you go along - The thief just gets better at slaughtering things, the Knight, with his last upgrade, gets something useful (a very upgraded weapon), and the Wizard gets physics toys. So, the roles go to Thief being mobile, Wizard being physics breaker/puzzle solver, and Knight is meat shield.
The game gets... tedious and annoying, more than anything else. The enemies come in larger waves and are harder to kill, but are never really a threat. that, and there's roughly 5 enemies, if I'm being generous. Skeletons, giant skeleton, giant ogre... thing, bats, and spiders. Combat just got kinda boring. The enemies are just thrown at you as fodder, instead of being used as strategic obstacles.
Also, the final level is horribly designed, and made of frustration, which could have been easily alleviated without even making it easier - It has a classic case of forcing you to watch the level's intro every time you fail. But, it's ... badly done, in my opinion, besides that, for reasons I'd rather not get into because of spoilers.
And a final note: The music in this game was fairly outstandingly boring. It was boring ambient music at its worst. It barely seemed to follow the theme of the levels, and, as a note of how bad it could be: The music in the background of the final level, during the climax, was ... something I'd expect to hear in the background of a medieval ball scene, in a movie. Uhm... Okay? That's just bad.
Evaluated without regard to amount of time and fun for the money spent, this game is fairly mediocre. Not horrible, but not amazing, either. Given how cheap it is, though, that's a few bonus points. Wait for it to be on sale on Steam for $5 and its definitely worth it, but be prepared for frustration.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Half Minute Hero
Occasionally, I play a game that turns a genre on its head and makes me think about things in a totally new way. Half Minute Hero is one of those games.
The basic premise of this game is that you have to save the world in 30 seconds. And then, again. Many, many times. In the main game mode, Hero 30, there are 51 levels. In each one, you have to kill an Evil Lord who is casting a spell to end the world. You have, in each level, 30 seconds before the spell goes off, and game over. And yet, each one contains... most of the elements of a standard JRPG. Dialogue, combat, equipment, items, inns, treasure, and, in some, even gaining party members. So, how the hell does that work?! Well, first, on normal, time is stopped in towns, letting you have a bit of breathing time to buy items, equipment, and get quest hooks. Yep, quest hooks. Secondly, you can actually rewind time back to 30 seconds left, IF you have the money. Yeah, you're working with the Goddess of Time to save the world. But, she's greedy, so you have to pay up. Most levels are well designed enough such that going for the strictest time possible is a challenge, rather than what's expected of the average player, though the levels are still tough.
Finally, the coolest thing, I thought, about Hero 30 was that many of the levels had multiple ways to finish them, some even leading to branching level paths. In some ways, this is the least linear JRPG I've ever played. Some levels are beatable in clever ways and also grindy ways, etc. The game warns you about branching paths, and tends to indicate different ways of doing things via the titles you can earn for each map.
Then, there are 3 other modes that have different mechanics - Princess 30, which is SHMUPlike, Evil Lord 30, which is RTSlike, and Knight 30, which is actionlike. Each one is 30 levels, where you have a 30 second time limit, though, for Knight 30, you're fighting *for* the time to run out. Each level is short, sweet, and challenging. And, as in Hero 30, there are ways to give yourself a bit more time.
Finally, the game ends with 2 more Hero modes. Hero 300 and Hero 3. The former is the story's epic climax, the latter is a balls hard challenge where you have, well, what it says on the tin... 3 seconds before the world ends. That was a fun mode ... in both a sarcastic, dear god, why and in a ... wow, that was fun to work out sort of way. The game, via takikng out the random, makes each level a bit of a puzzle, though one that involves reflexes to do well. An RPG that requires reflexes is an amusing thing, too.
It's an amazingly well done deconstruction of RPGs, and I loved it.
The basic premise of this game is that you have to save the world in 30 seconds. And then, again. Many, many times. In the main game mode, Hero 30, there are 51 levels. In each one, you have to kill an Evil Lord who is casting a spell to end the world. You have, in each level, 30 seconds before the spell goes off, and game over. And yet, each one contains... most of the elements of a standard JRPG. Dialogue, combat, equipment, items, inns, treasure, and, in some, even gaining party members. So, how the hell does that work?! Well, first, on normal, time is stopped in towns, letting you have a bit of breathing time to buy items, equipment, and get quest hooks. Yep, quest hooks. Secondly, you can actually rewind time back to 30 seconds left, IF you have the money. Yeah, you're working with the Goddess of Time to save the world. But, she's greedy, so you have to pay up. Most levels are well designed enough such that going for the strictest time possible is a challenge, rather than what's expected of the average player, though the levels are still tough.
Finally, the coolest thing, I thought, about Hero 30 was that many of the levels had multiple ways to finish them, some even leading to branching level paths. In some ways, this is the least linear JRPG I've ever played. Some levels are beatable in clever ways and also grindy ways, etc. The game warns you about branching paths, and tends to indicate different ways of doing things via the titles you can earn for each map.
Then, there are 3 other modes that have different mechanics - Princess 30, which is SHMUPlike, Evil Lord 30, which is RTSlike, and Knight 30, which is actionlike. Each one is 30 levels, where you have a 30 second time limit, though, for Knight 30, you're fighting *for* the time to run out. Each level is short, sweet, and challenging. And, as in Hero 30, there are ways to give yourself a bit more time.
Finally, the game ends with 2 more Hero modes. Hero 300 and Hero 3. The former is the story's epic climax, the latter is a balls hard challenge where you have, well, what it says on the tin... 3 seconds before the world ends. That was a fun mode ... in both a sarcastic, dear god, why and in a ... wow, that was fun to work out sort of way. The game, via takikng out the random, makes each level a bit of a puzzle, though one that involves reflexes to do well. An RPG that requires reflexes is an amusing thing, too.
It's an amazingly well done deconstruction of RPGs, and I loved it.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Dissida: Final Fantasy
Or, the worst designed game that I put ~80 hours in.
See, I love competitive games. I've had so much fun going 0-30 in a fighting game, because it's going up against another person, not an AI. I love that. I know people that play Dissidia, and I wanted to play against them.
Then... I found out just how much effort it took to actually max characters out in Dissidia, to be able to play it against other people. At 80 hours in, I didn't have a character that was at maxed out strength. Or even near to.
Now, let me digress. There's a large amount of customization available in this game. Abilities are your attacks, that you can choose from and set the activation input for, based on what direction you're holding, relative to your opponent. Bravery attacks lower your enemy's bravery and raise yours, and are triggered by square. Bravery is the amount of damage you do on a successful HP attack, which are mapped to circle. Each character has a varied number of these. Abilities also include increasing your speed, jump height, number of jumps, and ways to conditionally increase how often you critical hit (to deal more brave damage).
There are 4 equipment slots, which each character able to equip a subset of each one, which... I dislike as an idea, as it cuts options to characters in a fairly arbitrary manner.
Accessories increase your damage or defense, how long you stay in EX Mode, how quickly you can get into EX Mode, etc. and there are 10 accessory slots... once you earn up to that number, via grindy methods.
EX Mode being this game's version of supers. You build up a meter, via picking up EX Core that randomly spawn and EX Force balls that get generated by clashes between the fighters. Once you get full bar, you can activate EX Mode, which typically makes your character's attacks better, and allows you to deal more damage on your HP attacks.
Strength, for this, includes fairly optimal accessories and equips. This game is, to put it nicely, FUCKING STUPIDLY grindy. I just got tired of it. Any game that requires you to play it that long to get to the point where you can start playing against other people is just *dumb*. Levels in a fighting game aren't an inherently bad idea and neither is customization, via like how accessories and equipment and the abilities in this game work. Hell, I think they're amazing ideas, if not incredibly hard to balance. However, the equipment in this game isn't typically a customization vector - It's the standard Final Fantasy obsession with numbers. All the majority of the equipment does is raise your stats. Now that is an inherently bad idea in a fighting game. A few do give you abilities, however, but in some cases, the best choice is static to each character... taking away customization. Though, it does help make the system a bit more transparent, the implementation here is just a barrier to entrance.
Same, really, are accessories. There are tiers of accessories, with the best one requiring hours of grinding to get. Sigh.
Now, to get to a customization vector that's really just... bad. Summons! They're the equivalent of a bad SNK boss, an ability to just destroy your opponent or boost you, through no fault of theirs or no skill on your part
Now, as another design thing, EX Mode entrance automatically breaks you out of a combo you're in, and puts your opponent into stun. This... is, in my opinion, dumb. It means that, if you have a full bar, you can break out almost any attack that's close range and immediately hit with an HP attack. There's changing things up due to your opponent having stock, and then there's making it impossible to attack you. It allows you to punish perfectly acceptable play. And, if this is how the person wants to use EX Mode, it would be next to impossible to bait it out of a smart player. Gah.
Now, to be fair - The game does do a lot of things I really liked. The game is mostly very fun. The characters are very different playing from each other, giving each matchup a fairly different feel to it, and there's a large cast of characters, 22, with no clones. For a fighting game, that's very impressive. The customization is a great idea, in theory. As a single player experience, it's fun until you, inevitably, get really bored with it, as there's an insane amount of content density. Getting everything would take, probably, another 100 hours on top of my play time, to say nothing about maxing out each character. So, fun single player in a fighting game is a pretty insane thing. The AI, though, I do have to say... it's fairly obvious that they cheese you by reacting to your button presses, to do things that no human could ever do. They're stupid, in their own time, though, as well. I mean, I did put 80 hours into the game, and they were fun, if not... stale, towards the end.
Competitively... if you can find people willing to fight on terms that are fair to everyone (so, you know, not via Adhoc online play), then it could be fun. But, really, only under that idea. And then, that takes some of the fun out of the game, as it destroys customization aspects. So... blech.
So, the game was designed to be amazingly grindy. For a fighting game, that's just a bad idea. I liked some of where Square was going with this, but overall, bad design decisions just made me... stop. Abruptly and suddenly. My annoyance just went over the top, in the end.
See, I love competitive games. I've had so much fun going 0-30 in a fighting game, because it's going up against another person, not an AI. I love that. I know people that play Dissidia, and I wanted to play against them.
Then... I found out just how much effort it took to actually max characters out in Dissidia, to be able to play it against other people. At 80 hours in, I didn't have a character that was at maxed out strength. Or even near to.
Now, let me digress. There's a large amount of customization available in this game. Abilities are your attacks, that you can choose from and set the activation input for, based on what direction you're holding, relative to your opponent. Bravery attacks lower your enemy's bravery and raise yours, and are triggered by square. Bravery is the amount of damage you do on a successful HP attack, which are mapped to circle. Each character has a varied number of these. Abilities also include increasing your speed, jump height, number of jumps, and ways to conditionally increase how often you critical hit (to deal more brave damage).
There are 4 equipment slots, which each character able to equip a subset of each one, which... I dislike as an idea, as it cuts options to characters in a fairly arbitrary manner.
Accessories increase your damage or defense, how long you stay in EX Mode, how quickly you can get into EX Mode, etc. and there are 10 accessory slots... once you earn up to that number, via grindy methods.
EX Mode being this game's version of supers. You build up a meter, via picking up EX Core that randomly spawn and EX Force balls that get generated by clashes between the fighters. Once you get full bar, you can activate EX Mode, which typically makes your character's attacks better, and allows you to deal more damage on your HP attacks.
Strength, for this, includes fairly optimal accessories and equips. This game is, to put it nicely, FUCKING STUPIDLY grindy. I just got tired of it. Any game that requires you to play it that long to get to the point where you can start playing against other people is just *dumb*. Levels in a fighting game aren't an inherently bad idea and neither is customization, via like how accessories and equipment and the abilities in this game work. Hell, I think they're amazing ideas, if not incredibly hard to balance. However, the equipment in this game isn't typically a customization vector - It's the standard Final Fantasy obsession with numbers. All the majority of the equipment does is raise your stats. Now that is an inherently bad idea in a fighting game. A few do give you abilities, however, but in some cases, the best choice is static to each character... taking away customization. Though, it does help make the system a bit more transparent, the implementation here is just a barrier to entrance.
Same, really, are accessories. There are tiers of accessories, with the best one requiring hours of grinding to get. Sigh.
Now, to get to a customization vector that's really just... bad. Summons! They're the equivalent of a bad SNK boss, an ability to just destroy your opponent or boost you, through no fault of theirs or no skill on your part
Now, as another design thing, EX Mode entrance automatically breaks you out of a combo you're in, and puts your opponent into stun. This... is, in my opinion, dumb. It means that, if you have a full bar, you can break out almost any attack that's close range and immediately hit with an HP attack. There's changing things up due to your opponent having stock, and then there's making it impossible to attack you. It allows you to punish perfectly acceptable play. And, if this is how the person wants to use EX Mode, it would be next to impossible to bait it out of a smart player. Gah.
Now, to be fair - The game does do a lot of things I really liked. The game is mostly very fun. The characters are very different playing from each other, giving each matchup a fairly different feel to it, and there's a large cast of characters, 22, with no clones. For a fighting game, that's very impressive. The customization is a great idea, in theory. As a single player experience, it's fun until you, inevitably, get really bored with it, as there's an insane amount of content density. Getting everything would take, probably, another 100 hours on top of my play time, to say nothing about maxing out each character. So, fun single player in a fighting game is a pretty insane thing. The AI, though, I do have to say... it's fairly obvious that they cheese you by reacting to your button presses, to do things that no human could ever do. They're stupid, in their own time, though, as well. I mean, I did put 80 hours into the game, and they were fun, if not... stale, towards the end.
Competitively... if you can find people willing to fight on terms that are fair to everyone (so, you know, not via Adhoc online play), then it could be fun. But, really, only under that idea. And then, that takes some of the fun out of the game, as it destroys customization aspects. So... blech.
So, the game was designed to be amazingly grindy. For a fighting game, that's just a bad idea. I liked some of where Square was going with this, but overall, bad design decisions just made me... stop. Abruptly and suddenly. My annoyance just went over the top, in the end.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
MAGFest 8
MAGFest. My lord. MAGFest was all sorts of amazing.
So, MAGFest stands for Music and Gaming Festival. It started on Dec 31, ended on Jan 4. There was a party every night except the night of the 4th - So, 4 concerts, each with a few bands. This was sort of amazing. There was also a huge ballroom full of consoles and TVs (and the challenge section) and a large area outside of that with arcade machines (On Free Play!) set up, and then past that was the dealer section. There were also 3 panel rooms, a LAN/computer room, a video room, a Jamspace, and a table top room. So, yeah. There was a LOT to do. At Megacon, a couple years back, the con started to ... lull after a couple days. MAGFest was *just* as awesome on the last day as the first day.
But, you know. I just realized the best part about the entire thing, in talking to a friend about it. The best part was that I felt like I belonged. See the anecdote about Select Start, later. All the people around me thought that was awesome. In the elevators, people would just talk and joke and get along. Total strangers, but it felt like we were all, because we were there and geeks, friends. It didn't feel like a con - It felt like, as the owner said on the last day, a party with all my closest, 2200 of them, friends.
Gaming:
So, I played a whole bunch of fighting games while I was there. There was a Japanese style SF Alpha 3 machine set up, a Versus City machine. I probably played a good 90-100 matches on that. Probably won like 10-15, heh. Still damned fun. The first night I was there, though, I ended up playing like 10 matches against a guy, before someone asked for next. So, I walked over to shake my opponent's hand, say good matches, eg, have good ettiquette. So, I notice he has a special badge, and ask him if he was one of the staff or what. Nah, he says he's here for his website. So, I ask what site, and replied, "Screw Attack". I got schooled in SFAlpha3 by the owner of Screw Attack. Ha. That was great. I actually saw a second guy who mains Adon, which surprised me. He was much better than mine. Other fighting games I saw: Alpha 2 (On Saturn. The Dpad on the Saturn controller really is amazing. My lord. My execution on that sucker was PERFECT), 4, HDR, MvC, MvC2, Capcom vs SNK 2, BlazBlue, and some Japanese game.
Further, to scratch my gaming nerdiness: SHMUPs. On arcade. ON FREE PLAAAAY. I didn't get to pay as many as I wanted, as there were only 5 (ha, only.) and so they tended to be busy. Still were amazing. I also got the chance to play Death Smiles on 360. Which ... god *damn* I wish the game came out in the US. It is an amazingly well done game. It does a lot of new thigsg and does them well. Hopefully it's emulatable.
Rhythm games! I played SO MUCH Taiko Drum Master. It was great. Started to hurt my hand after playing it a bunch, heh. It's such a great game, too. Found out that it has an anime op/end section. I played Lucky Star and Haruhi's op, heh. I also played a decent amount of IIDX, which ... I am terrible at. Really terrible. But, better than at Keyboardmania, which I also tried! Gaaah. IIDX is at least fun, and I'd want to play it more later. Though, FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. While I was playing it at one point, some kids walked up and sat 2P ... and one of them asked me if it was a ripoff of DJ Hero (Which was also set up in the console room). No, ya dumb shit noob. The game that came out more than a decade ago was clearly the one ripping off DJ Hero. Fucking fuck hell. I ... tried to not show the "god damn why are you so ignorant, know your roots, fuuuuuuck" in my voice as I told them that DJ Hero ripped Beatmania off. Guitarfreaks and Drumfreaks were there, too. But I didn't play them.
Etc: I played Steel Battalion. That was a ... crazy experience. It was actually damned fun. I wasn't very good at it, but I did get to the 3rd mission before I died. I really enjoyed it. It felt really awesome to play the game. It could be tightened up, and I wish the game was a bit less realistic in some ways (you fall over if you turn too fast and there's no jump jets, which would be *AWESOME* with the pedals), but it was great. I wish I could find it... I sorta doubt, though. If they ever try again, for a current console, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Challenges:
Another interesting thing they did at MAGFest, in the console room, was the challenges section. About 15 laptops set up with various emulators and SNES controllers set up on them to do video game challenges. There were 100 of them. The guy that won ... did 96. The ones that weren't done were Super Metroid Expert, Super R-Type Expert, Wolfenstein 3D Expert, and Punch-out Expert. Super Metroid and Punch-Out have been around for multiple years and people that are stupidly good at games have played them and tried very hard, but they survive, unbeaten. Wolfenstein and Super R-Type are going to not continue. The guy that runs them finds them too hard.
I ... played to do some, but I didn't end up doing any. I just lacked the patience to do even the ones I knew I could do, if I took 10-15 minutes of trying. I missed out on some small challenges, but ah well.
http://courtwright.org/m8challenges/
If you look, look carefully. Some of them are deceptively hard. The MMX ones? You *can't dash*. Yeah. Ew. And SMK? You can't survive a race if you place 5th. Yeah.
Concerts:
The bands I stuck around for that I liked: Brentalfloss, Rare Candy, Select Start, The Megas. The first, Brentalfloss, I'd seen a bit of, but not much. It's slightly arranged versions of video game songs, with vocals to them that tend towards funny. He was just an over all awesome guy. He had a song, which I didn't record and isn't on YouTube (which, to be fair, this is the first time he's performed it...) called 'At the Gaming Con', which is roughly the feeling of being at MAGFest, and one would hope gaming cons as a whole. That ... you're surrounded by your peers. Be a total fucking geek. Don't worry, there's someone worse. Get excited: Everyone else is, too. I've got more to say about him, later, but that'll be about his panel.
Rare Candy: Guitar, bass, keyboard, drums. They were really good. I ended up buying their CDs. They had a clean sound, and I loved the keyboard that was included. They did a fucking amazing arrange that was LttP Dark World INTO Death Mountain. I loved it.
http://www.rarecandyband.com/
Select Start: They were out of Gainesville, so I had to go see them. And I am SO GLAD that I did. Mostly because... the band layout was 2 flute, 2 violin, a double bass, an acoustic guitar, and a keyboard. Fucking mini-orchestra. It was beautiful. I recorded some of their songs, too. So, now, a short anecdote about their set. I was maybe 5 feet from the stage, maybe 10 feet from the guy that would talk between songs to introduce them. He introduces a song, "So, maybe some of you have heard of a composer, Yasunori Mitsuda *cheers* ... He composed an album, Kirite-" at which point, I jump up and do something between squeeing and yelling 'YEAH!', being ... the only reaction by the crowd. The guy speaking says, " ... Well, I guess we made someone happy" to which I reply, "Sorry! I just love this album!". And, well, I loved the band. I bought their shirt. If they had a CD, I'd buy that, too. I ended up talking to them their set - "Hi! I loved your set, you were awesome. By the way, sorry, I was the Kirite guy", heh. To which they liked my outburst, heh. We talked a bit about them and Kirite and such. I loved it.
http://www.selectstartband.com
[Kirite, as a note, was an album compsed to go along with a book. I've barely ever seen anyone else know about it. It is amazing.]
The Megas: I don't have nearly as much to say about them. They do Megaman covers, with fairly awesome lyrics. They're good stuff.
http://themegas.com/main/main.html
Other bands: You know. I discovered that I don't really like listening to chiptunes live. Or bands that are entirely guitar. I like the music, but not so much live. I listened to a few Metroid Metal songs, and ... left. They're good, but I just can't get into it, live. I need other instruments or voice, or ... something. Same applied to a few other bands I tried to listen to. Ah well. I still LOVED the concerts, given that I saw 4 bands I really liked over 4 days. Everything can't be everyone's bag, eh?
Backloggery:
So, I met some people that I know via Backloggery! That was pretty cool. I met KasumiBlue and Ashen. Ash normally hung out in the LAN room, and Kasumi normally hung out with me or in the LAN room to play Dissidia (to be expected). And this got me to start *playing* Dissidia, to... dear lord, help me. Both of them were really nice, and we got along. Kasumi and I hit up a few panels, but Ash normally stayed in the LAN room, though we hit up the dealer's room a couple times. They were both very cool, and I liked meeting them both. Ash also worked an 8 hour shift at the Challenges section, that Kasumi and I hung out with her during, as it was from 10PM to 6 AM, so, ew.
From left to right: Ash, me, Kasumi
But, this is why I want there to be a Backloggery meet up at MAGFest 9.
Panels:
Brentalfloss had a great panel. He's a cool guy, and he played a few songs that he didn't at the concert and aren't even on YT. And asked our opinion of the 'At the Gaming Con' song. Further, he got drunk, as a GPX guy just sort of ... brought up a bottle of rum, and poured him some, unprompted. And refilled it. He had about 4-5 shots by panel end. Though, amazingly, about 30-45 minutes after the con ended, he showed up at a piano I was near, and asked if he could play. Despite his drinking earlier, he played piano amazingly, and improvised songs based on the names of all the people around (me included! :D). The cool thing ... I saw him arond at the con, a bunch. Playing games, at the Sid Meier panel, at the closing cermonies, etc. He's just another guy that loves gaming. He's one of us, he just happens to also sing.
Sid Meier was great to see, too. He was very chill and answered a bunch of questions about the early days of his developing and such. Also announced a Facebook Civilization game, which is crazy. He also played piano and sang in the jam space, heh.
VG music name that tune. This was audience entry, but I didn't go up, sadly. I think I would have actually done pretty well - Though, it would have, a bit, depended on the categories that went up while I was there. I knew 4/5th of the RPG category, instantly, and would have picked up 3 points easily (though the 4th would have been reflex, heh). Crazily, Okami went up ... and no one on the panel knew it. What the fleep. It was in the Capcom category, even. And also, a Muramasa song came up, and I was the only one in the room to know it. Yay marathoning it recently. This is where Kasumi and I met, which she would have done pretty good, too.
VG trivia - As hosted by Jon St. John ... AKA, the VA of Duke Nukem. Yep. Video game trivia hosted by Duke Nukem. It was amazing. One of the teams named themself "I'll rip off your head and shit down your neck" just to hear him say it in the Duke voice. I think I would have aced this, too, as I knew ... a large amount of the content. I think the best question was, "In what game did the peasants revolt against the nobles because they had *pause* l i t t l e m o n e y?" with each letter of the last bit coming up at the end at a very slow pace. Which ... apparently, I was one of the few people in the room that got the gag, as the FFT intro text came up ... very ... slow...ly. Alas, though, I wasn't chosen to be a contestant, here, either.
Auction/Closing - They were ... fairly awesome, but can't be explained too well, without being there. Heh.
Dealer room/Swag:
I bought: Lunar: Silver Star (no, I don't have a SegaCD ... but I want to own it), Saiyuki: Journey West (SRPG that I don't own...), a Gurren Lagann shirt, the Rare Candy CDs, and a Select Start shirt. There was a bunch of other awesome swag, but I didn't want to spend *that* much money.
... Whew, I wrote a lot. Yeah. I loved this con, so very much.
To close: WOOOOOOOOOOOOARGH! (which is ... about the right way to write out MAGFest's rallying cry, the Collosus scream from X-Men arcade)
Can you tell how much I loved it, though? Given how much I've gushed?
So, MAGFest stands for Music and Gaming Festival. It started on Dec 31, ended on Jan 4. There was a party every night except the night of the 4th - So, 4 concerts, each with a few bands. This was sort of amazing. There was also a huge ballroom full of consoles and TVs (and the challenge section) and a large area outside of that with arcade machines (On Free Play!) set up, and then past that was the dealer section. There were also 3 panel rooms, a LAN/computer room, a video room, a Jamspace, and a table top room. So, yeah. There was a LOT to do. At Megacon, a couple years back, the con started to ... lull after a couple days. MAGFest was *just* as awesome on the last day as the first day.
But, you know. I just realized the best part about the entire thing, in talking to a friend about it. The best part was that I felt like I belonged. See the anecdote about Select Start, later. All the people around me thought that was awesome. In the elevators, people would just talk and joke and get along. Total strangers, but it felt like we were all, because we were there and geeks, friends. It didn't feel like a con - It felt like, as the owner said on the last day, a party with all my closest, 2200 of them, friends.
Gaming:
So, I played a whole bunch of fighting games while I was there. There was a Japanese style SF Alpha 3 machine set up, a Versus City machine. I probably played a good 90-100 matches on that. Probably won like 10-15, heh. Still damned fun. The first night I was there, though, I ended up playing like 10 matches against a guy, before someone asked for next. So, I walked over to shake my opponent's hand, say good matches, eg, have good ettiquette. So, I notice he has a special badge, and ask him if he was one of the staff or what. Nah, he says he's here for his website. So, I ask what site, and replied, "Screw Attack". I got schooled in SFAlpha3 by the owner of Screw Attack. Ha. That was great. I actually saw a second guy who mains Adon, which surprised me. He was much better than mine. Other fighting games I saw: Alpha 2 (On Saturn. The Dpad on the Saturn controller really is amazing. My lord. My execution on that sucker was PERFECT), 4, HDR, MvC, MvC2, Capcom vs SNK 2, BlazBlue, and some Japanese game.
Further, to scratch my gaming nerdiness: SHMUPs. On arcade. ON FREE PLAAAAY. I didn't get to pay as many as I wanted, as there were only 5 (ha, only.) and so they tended to be busy. Still were amazing. I also got the chance to play Death Smiles on 360. Which ... god *damn* I wish the game came out in the US. It is an amazingly well done game. It does a lot of new thigsg and does them well. Hopefully it's emulatable.
Rhythm games! I played SO MUCH Taiko Drum Master. It was great. Started to hurt my hand after playing it a bunch, heh. It's such a great game, too. Found out that it has an anime op/end section. I played Lucky Star and Haruhi's op, heh. I also played a decent amount of IIDX, which ... I am terrible at. Really terrible. But, better than at Keyboardmania, which I also tried! Gaaah. IIDX is at least fun, and I'd want to play it more later. Though, FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. While I was playing it at one point, some kids walked up and sat 2P ... and one of them asked me if it was a ripoff of DJ Hero (Which was also set up in the console room). No, ya dumb shit noob. The game that came out more than a decade ago was clearly the one ripping off DJ Hero. Fucking fuck hell. I ... tried to not show the "god damn why are you so ignorant, know your roots, fuuuuuuck" in my voice as I told them that DJ Hero ripped Beatmania off. Guitarfreaks and Drumfreaks were there, too. But I didn't play them.
Etc: I played Steel Battalion. That was a ... crazy experience. It was actually damned fun. I wasn't very good at it, but I did get to the 3rd mission before I died. I really enjoyed it. It felt really awesome to play the game. It could be tightened up, and I wish the game was a bit less realistic in some ways (you fall over if you turn too fast and there's no jump jets, which would be *AWESOME* with the pedals), but it was great. I wish I could find it... I sorta doubt, though. If they ever try again, for a current console, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Challenges:
Another interesting thing they did at MAGFest, in the console room, was the challenges section. About 15 laptops set up with various emulators and SNES controllers set up on them to do video game challenges. There were 100 of them. The guy that won ... did 96. The ones that weren't done were Super Metroid Expert, Super R-Type Expert, Wolfenstein 3D Expert, and Punch-out Expert. Super Metroid and Punch-Out have been around for multiple years and people that are stupidly good at games have played them and tried very hard, but they survive, unbeaten. Wolfenstein and Super R-Type are going to not continue. The guy that runs them finds them too hard.
I ... played to do some, but I didn't end up doing any. I just lacked the patience to do even the ones I knew I could do, if I took 10-15 minutes of trying. I missed out on some small challenges, but ah well.
http://courtwright.org/m8challenges/
If you look, look carefully. Some of them are deceptively hard. The MMX ones? You *can't dash*. Yeah. Ew. And SMK? You can't survive a race if you place 5th. Yeah.
Concerts:
The bands I stuck around for that I liked: Brentalfloss, Rare Candy, Select Start, The Megas. The first, Brentalfloss, I'd seen a bit of, but not much. It's slightly arranged versions of video game songs, with vocals to them that tend towards funny. He was just an over all awesome guy. He had a song, which I didn't record and isn't on YouTube (which, to be fair, this is the first time he's performed it...) called 'At the Gaming Con', which is roughly the feeling of being at MAGFest, and one would hope gaming cons as a whole. That ... you're surrounded by your peers. Be a total fucking geek. Don't worry, there's someone worse. Get excited: Everyone else is, too. I've got more to say about him, later, but that'll be about his panel.
Rare Candy: Guitar, bass, keyboard, drums. They were really good. I ended up buying their CDs. They had a clean sound, and I loved the keyboard that was included. They did a fucking amazing arrange that was LttP Dark World INTO Death Mountain. I loved it.
http://www.rarecandyband.com/
Select Start: They were out of Gainesville, so I had to go see them. And I am SO GLAD that I did. Mostly because... the band layout was 2 flute, 2 violin, a double bass, an acoustic guitar, and a keyboard. Fucking mini-orchestra. It was beautiful. I recorded some of their songs, too. So, now, a short anecdote about their set. I was maybe 5 feet from the stage, maybe 10 feet from the guy that would talk between songs to introduce them. He introduces a song, "So, maybe some of you have heard of a composer, Yasunori Mitsuda *cheers* ... He composed an album, Kirite-" at which point, I jump up and do something between squeeing and yelling 'YEAH!', being ... the only reaction by the crowd. The guy speaking says, " ... Well, I guess we made someone happy" to which I reply, "Sorry! I just love this album!". And, well, I loved the band. I bought their shirt. If they had a CD, I'd buy that, too. I ended up talking to them their set - "Hi! I loved your set, you were awesome. By the way, sorry, I was the Kirite guy", heh. To which they liked my outburst, heh. We talked a bit about them and Kirite and such. I loved it.
http://www.selectstartband.com
[Kirite, as a note, was an album compsed to go along with a book. I've barely ever seen anyone else know about it. It is amazing.]
The Megas: I don't have nearly as much to say about them. They do Megaman covers, with fairly awesome lyrics. They're good stuff.
http://themegas.com/main/main.html
Other bands: You know. I discovered that I don't really like listening to chiptunes live. Or bands that are entirely guitar. I like the music, but not so much live. I listened to a few Metroid Metal songs, and ... left. They're good, but I just can't get into it, live. I need other instruments or voice, or ... something. Same applied to a few other bands I tried to listen to. Ah well. I still LOVED the concerts, given that I saw 4 bands I really liked over 4 days. Everything can't be everyone's bag, eh?
Backloggery:
So, I met some people that I know via Backloggery! That was pretty cool. I met KasumiBlue and Ashen. Ash normally hung out in the LAN room, and Kasumi normally hung out with me or in the LAN room to play Dissidia (to be expected). And this got me to start *playing* Dissidia, to... dear lord, help me. Both of them were really nice, and we got along. Kasumi and I hit up a few panels, but Ash normally stayed in the LAN room, though we hit up the dealer's room a couple times. They were both very cool, and I liked meeting them both. Ash also worked an 8 hour shift at the Challenges section, that Kasumi and I hung out with her during, as it was from 10PM to 6 AM, so, ew.
From left to right: Ash, me, Kasumi
But, this is why I want there to be a Backloggery meet up at MAGFest 9.
Panels:
Brentalfloss had a great panel. He's a cool guy, and he played a few songs that he didn't at the concert and aren't even on YT. And asked our opinion of the 'At the Gaming Con' song. Further, he got drunk, as a GPX guy just sort of ... brought up a bottle of rum, and poured him some, unprompted. And refilled it. He had about 4-5 shots by panel end. Though, amazingly, about 30-45 minutes after the con ended, he showed up at a piano I was near, and asked if he could play. Despite his drinking earlier, he played piano amazingly, and improvised songs based on the names of all the people around (me included! :D). The cool thing ... I saw him arond at the con, a bunch. Playing games, at the Sid Meier panel, at the closing cermonies, etc. He's just another guy that loves gaming. He's one of us, he just happens to also sing.
Sid Meier was great to see, too. He was very chill and answered a bunch of questions about the early days of his developing and such. Also announced a Facebook Civilization game, which is crazy. He also played piano and sang in the jam space, heh.
VG music name that tune. This was audience entry, but I didn't go up, sadly. I think I would have actually done pretty well - Though, it would have, a bit, depended on the categories that went up while I was there. I knew 4/5th of the RPG category, instantly, and would have picked up 3 points easily (though the 4th would have been reflex, heh). Crazily, Okami went up ... and no one on the panel knew it. What the fleep. It was in the Capcom category, even. And also, a Muramasa song came up, and I was the only one in the room to know it. Yay marathoning it recently. This is where Kasumi and I met, which she would have done pretty good, too.
VG trivia - As hosted by Jon St. John ... AKA, the VA of Duke Nukem. Yep. Video game trivia hosted by Duke Nukem. It was amazing. One of the teams named themself "I'll rip off your head and shit down your neck" just to hear him say it in the Duke voice. I think I would have aced this, too, as I knew ... a large amount of the content. I think the best question was, "In what game did the peasants revolt against the nobles because they had *pause* l i t t l e m o n e y?" with each letter of the last bit coming up at the end at a very slow pace. Which ... apparently, I was one of the few people in the room that got the gag, as the FFT intro text came up ... very ... slow...ly. Alas, though, I wasn't chosen to be a contestant, here, either.
Auction/Closing - They were ... fairly awesome, but can't be explained too well, without being there. Heh.
Dealer room/Swag:
I bought: Lunar: Silver Star (no, I don't have a SegaCD ... but I want to own it), Saiyuki: Journey West (SRPG that I don't own...), a Gurren Lagann shirt, the Rare Candy CDs, and a Select Start shirt. There was a bunch of other awesome swag, but I didn't want to spend *that* much money.
... Whew, I wrote a lot. Yeah. I loved this con, so very much.
To close: WOOOOOOOOOOOOARGH! (which is ... about the right way to write out MAGFest's rallying cry, the Collosus scream from X-Men arcade)
Can you tell how much I loved it, though? Given how much I've gushed?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)