Lv 4 ~ Mother 3

 I am the self-proclaimed largest fan of EarthBound (Mother 2 in Japan) in the entire universe, yet I have no idea why it took me so damn long to actually play through its long-anticipated sequel (triquel?), Mother 3. I freaked out when I heard that this game was going to be released for the 64DD, and nearly cried when I heard it was canceled. I freaked out again when I caught wind that it was being redeveloped for the GameCube, and nearly had a heart attack when that was canceled, too. Finally, though, the game was completed and released on the Game Boy Advance in Japan and, although it will probably never, ever see a US release (I'm assuming due to the major plot line surrounding around a race of transsexual beings known as the 'Magypsies'), thanks to Starmen.net, I was able to enjoy the translated ROM. Oh, happy day!

 Having played and beaten EarthBound so, so, SO many times since I was 10 years old or so, I had really high expectations for this game, which is basically a classic, turn-based RPG with a light-hearted, almost comedic approach. Unlike EarthBound, this RPG isn't necessarily set in an almost mockingly modern setting, possibly due to the fact that it takes place in the "Nowhere Islands". The setting is much less "United States city", like its predecessor, and, unfortunately, the world you get to explore isn't nearly as vast as it was in EarthBound. However, the visual style is exactly the same as it was in EarthBound, and there was a constant barrage of nostalgia that made me constantly giggle like a giddy schoolgirl. The names of the various psychic abilities, the sound effects, the music and even a lot of the same sprites for NPCs are featured in Mother 3, and although they aren't necessarily exactly the same, it's perfectly fitting for a follow-up title. Fantastic.

 The story is told quite cleverly, and follows a multitude of characters (namely Lucas, Kumatora, Dusty, and Boney)--two of which are gifted with psychic abilities--on their journey to rid their land of a tyrranical "king" by the name of Porky (also known as Pokey in the US translation of EarthBound). At various points in the game, characters join your party temporarily, and the game flashes back, forward, or to another party's perspective in present-time.While I do appreciate this take on storytelling, for me, it was often difficult to follow, and far too often was I asking myself who would eventually end up in my "final" party because characters come and go so often. Thankfully, the game doesn't require experience-grinding, so it ultimately wasn't too much of an issue.

 The gameplay in this title is pretty much what you'd expect from a traditional RPG. You explore various areas with your party (which constantly is shifting, as mentioned before), battle monsters and level up to learn new abilities. The battle system is simple and turn-based, and characters act based on their speed statistic. The new additions to the battle system were totally rad, though! One of the most notable aspects of EarthBound was the battle music--unlike in most RPGs, different music played when you were fighting with an enemy, and not just a difference in random-encounter monsters and boss battles. When facing the "New Age Retro Hippie", the music would shift to a rock 'n roll sound. When fighting robotic enemies, the music would become techno-tastic and mechanical. Mother 3 continued this awesome aspect and took it one step further and incorporated music into the battle system, itself.

 When fighting, you can actually combo your basic attacks by pressing the button to the enemy "heartbeat", which, essentially, is the beat of the background music, and you can chain up to fifteen hits together. At first, this seems like a really simple task, but later on in the game, the music becomes erratic and complex, so comboing against final bosses and enemies is quite an arduous task, indeed. Another neat aspect is that when a character or enemy attacks, a sound effect or musical instrument rings out, in various pitches and tones to correspond with the current music track playing. Some characters had trumpets, some had guitars. Boney the dog, one of your final party members (which made me really happy, since Ness's dog King left the party early on in EarthBound), makes a bark noise when he attacks, which I always adored hearing. I really thought this was a fun way to take advantage of the awesome soundtrack, as well as keep otherwise simplistic and monotonous battles somewhat engaging. This game's soundtrack is absolutely outstanding.

 Battle scene of what was going to be the GameCube version of Mother 3.

 Only two of your characters continue to learn abilities as they level up, Lucas and Kumatora. Duster and Boney don't have psychic abilities and don't even learn new abilities past what they begin with, so that's a little bleh, but whatever. Learning abilities isn't as simple as leveling up as it is in EarthBound, however. Once they have reached the level necessary to learn an ability, they experience a "fever" while their mind realizes a new ability, during which your party is unable to dash on the field map. It's an interesting concept, and I understand because it's psychic abilities and all, but it was a bit of a downer, for me.

 I am quite saddened as a fan of this series to admit that I was a bit disappointed. My expectations were so, so high because of how amazing EarthBound was, and although Mother 3 was incredibly charming and addictive, it lacked something that I just can't put my finger on: that spark that EarthBound had from beginning to finish. Having that said, it's not a bad game at all. I'd go so far to say that it's astounding. The humor is spot-on, and that is the primary appeal of the Mother series, anyway. I found myself constantly laughing out loud at silly lines spoken by random NPCs, as well as a lot of the monsters encountered (although they weren't nearly as memorable as the ones in EarthBound, like the Cranky Old Lady), but most amusing were, of course, the Magypsies, the race of tranny, bearded, immortal beings that the plot of the story eventually revolves around.

 What I thought was the most appealing about Mother 3 was, as I said before, the addition of a music-based combo system in the battle. I was also incredibly impressed by the storytelling devices used, although I didn't really care for the whole "chapter" method. There were lots of flashbacks, lots of shifts in perspective, and far too much party member shuffling. Having so many temporary party members was a bit frustrating -- it made me feel like I was wasting time leveling characters I knew I wasn't going to be taking to the end of the game, but in general, I was impressed by the way the story was told, and the plot was certainly much more in-depth and emotional than it had been in EarthBound.

 I really hated the fact that I had to wait so much time after leveling up Lucas and Kumatora for them to learn a new ability instead of just freakin' learning it. I had to walk around without being able to dash 'til they decided to realize whatever new power they learned from leveling up ten minutes prior. Bleh.

 Something else that was totally disappointing was the overall serious and dark tone. EarthBound was incredibly light-hearted and silly, all of the way until the final battle. In Mother 3, the game starts out... well, dark. Incredibly dark. So dark that I cried. Several times. This game is just plain sad. It lightens up a bit, here and there, but over all, the tone of this game is much, much more serious than its predecessors, and that killed it for me. The whole appeal of EarthBound, to me, was the light, goofy atmosphere of it all. Bummer.

 It took far, far too long for the central plot of the game to even be explained, and it certainly seemed rushed, particularly the ending. Oh geez, the ending. I have never been so disappointed when beating a game since... well, okay, never. It honestly pissed me off; it was a fun experience, but the ending made the entire journey feel like it was totally not worth it. There were so many loose ends that weren't tied off, and never will be. Sigh.

 The cons do not outweigh the pros, for me, with Mother 3, but once again, keep in mind that I'm comparing it to the masterpiece that is EarthBound. So I apologize to those of you who are huge Lucas fans, but please understand that Mother 3 simply doesn't live up to the amazingness that is Ness's game of origin. Overall, I did enjoy playing it, although I felt like I was having to force myself through it, as opposed to being helplessly addicted to it, and once again... the ending. Oh gawd, the ending. Just... there... wasn't even an ending! Just... ugh!!!

• Audio: 4.5
• Gameplay: 4
• Originality: 4 
• Story: 5
  
• Visuals: 3.5
• Overall: 4
• Difficulty: Very Easy
• Completion Time: ~25 Hours

+ Excellent retro-styled graphics and soundtrack

+ Nostalgic, yet engaging battle system

+ Quirky humor that fits perfectly in the Mother series

+ Incredibly emotional and surprisingly deep storyline

- Too many flashbacks and perspective-shifts

- Fairly short completion time with an unsatisfying ending

Lv 3 ~ Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

 Yeah. I know. I've totally been neglecting this blog and my whole beating-a-game-a-week project for 2011, but I'm bound and determined to actually stick with it! I apologize for having not posted in so long, and for not actually playing games as regularly as I should have been. It's rather delayed, but here's my review for Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords.

 Yeah, when this game first came out several years ago, myself and many others were quite obviously intrigued. Piecing the words "puzzle" and "quest" together instantly makes one think "puzzle RPG", which, well, is exactly what this game is. The game involves your hero character (obviously) who ends up wrapped up in a war against the evil Lord Bane who is apparently in the process of assembling a dark army in an attempt to conquer the world (sound familiar?). While the plot is simple and nothing particularly unique, it's surprisingly in-depth, and the various party members and characters you meet have well-designed back stories and personalities.

 The game play itself involves a Bejeweled-esque system where you shift two adjacent gems in order to make matches of three or more. However, in this game, the gems you match add mana of that particular element to your mana pool (earth, wind, fire, or water), give you gold, experience, or inflict damage to your opponent. You then can use your stored mana to cast spells and abilities to hinder your opponent, inflict damage, heal yourself, cast buffs, or clear gems on the board. As you battle enemies and progress through the game, you gain experience and gold, increase your various stats, equip (and eventually craft) weapons and armor, even ride a mount, seize control of cities, and capture monsters to learn more spells from them, and beyond the primary plot, there are numerous side quests to keep you occupied and help you build up your character.

 This game has a surprising amount of depth, and the gameplay is ridiculously addicting, especially when it comes to finding ridiculous (and often unfair) combos of spells and equipment. Although the puzzle game itself is incredibly monotonous and the matches tend to take far too long (especially late game, when you and all enemies have tons of HP), I still managed to find myself playing this game whenever I needed to kill time but not devote all of my attention to a game. As a result, I ended up playing this game very, very slowly over several years. It often got too boring and tedious for me to just sit down and consistently play.

 This game is available on just about every platform in existence, and I played it on the DS, so I have no idea what the differences are between versions, but the graphics, animations and special effects were rather lackluster, although they certainly do get the point across. Fanciful graphics aren't necessary for this sort of a game, but they certainly make it more appealing. The music (all of maybe two or three different tracks) is also bland and repetitive, and so are the sound effects. I played the game with sound muted most of the time, because of how "bleh" it was.

 As with all games, there were a few disappointments. One in particular was the level cap. 50. I played as a druid (there are several classes to choose from), so I had a rough time leveling up at first, but I ended up hitting level 50 long before I encountered the final boss. A friend of mine played as a knight character (who gets a huge focus and bonus on experience gems), and complained that they were level 50 before they even reached the halfway point of the game.

 Another disappointment was the city seizure concept. I took control of every city and citadel I came across -- and I was disappointed that there was never any sort of rebellion or revolt. The game made it out like that would occur after so much in-game time passed, but this never, ever happened. I thought it would have been a really neat mechanic.

 Finally, the spells. Each character class has multiple spells that, when used in a particular order or pattern, guaranteed victory. Even on the hardest difficulty setting, I had no problems completely preventing my opponent from acting at all, getting endless turns and completely dominating. I'd simply start the match with all of the mana I need to cast "Entangle" thanks to the equipment I was wearing, spam "Gust of Wind" to transform all gems into air gems, and repeat until I had enough mana to cast "Death Gaze", which pwned my opponent's HP. While fun, it completely ruins the multiplayer function of this game.

 Puzzle Quest certainly isn't the best puzzle game in existence, but you have to give it huge credit for combining the puzzle and RPG genres for the first time.Surprisingly in-depth and certainly time-consuming, it's a great game to play casually if you have a ton of time to kill. Unfortunately, it seemed a little cheaply made and had far too many easily exploitable strategies to make it actually "challenging" like the title's name suggests.

• Audio: 1
• Gameplay: 4 
• Originality: 5
• Story: 3
  
• Visuals: 2
• Overall: 3
• Difficulty: Adjustable (I played on Hard, and it certainly was difficult)
• Completion Time: Variable, based on class and difficulty (Definitely took me +40 hours as a druid)

+ Very clever concept; the source of the puzzle-RPG hybrid genre boom

+ Surprisingly in-depth storyline with plenty of characters

+ Addictive gameplay

- Story is awfully cliche for a fantasy-themed game

- Terrible audio and lackluster graphics

- Cheap, exploitable strategies make multiplayer a joke

Lv 2 ~ Dance Central

Goodness, it's not even February and I'm already slacking off on my project. No more of that, I say! Anyhoo, as I mentioned in my last post, I've been working on Dance Central. Without further ado, here's my review!

 As its name implies, Dance Central is a music-rhythm game that focuses on dancing. Derp. Thanks to the Xbox 360's Kinect peripheral, Harmonix was able to take the concept of a dance game to much further heights than the popular Dance Dance Revolution, Pump It Up, and In The Groove series. The game requires no controller to play -- and it tracks your body movements with surprising accuracy. There's a little window that displays your silhouette, so you can use this as a makeshift mirror to ensure that you're moving your body properly and are completely visible by the Kinect.

 The game features a "Break It Down" mode, which teaches you the dance moves step-by-step, allowing even those with two left feet to have a good time with this game. The song features over 30 popular songs with a wide array of genres, both in music (rap, dance pop, house, etc.) and dance styles (vogue, jerkin', dancehall). Dance Central also features a cast of interesting (and sometimes annoying) characters, each with unlockable alternate costumes, and a crap-ton of achievements to help increase your Xbox 360 GamerScore.They're certainly not easy to come by, though, particularly because this game is physically demanding -- I've been working on this game for three weeks, now, and I'm only at 80% completion. (N.B. ~ I did manage to obtain all achievements after little more than 2 months.)

 As with most modern music-rhythm games, new songs and dances are made available thanks to DLC, and with how popular this game is, I'm sure there will be many more to come.

 Back when I first got my Kinect, I played Konami's DanceMasters, first, because I was ecstatic that it contained ParaPara dances. That game has nothing on Dance Central. Navigating the menus are so simplistic and natural, the graphics are vivid, the music is catchy, and the song selection, although I didn't like it at first (because I was unfamiliar with most of the songs), provides a huge variety in dance routines. Harmonix did an excellent job of cutting out the simplistic moves from otherwise complicated dances, allowing you to gradually familiarize yourself with moves as you progress from easy, to medium, and finally, to hard difficulty.

 Some moves in certain dances seem to be unusually picky about accuracy, and the timing is sometimes off with what the on-screen dancer is compared to what you should be doing. Thankfully, though, sections of the dancer's body will glow red if you're not hitting that body movement correctly... but it certainly doesn't really help you adjust your body to figure out how to fix it. Being able to do moves in slow-motion in "Break It Down" mode has made this game much more enjoyable for me, although it's still frustrating when I know I'm doing a move correctly but the Kinect disagrees.

 If you have a 360, and are willing to fork out the cash for a Kinect, you MUST get this game. Not only is it great for beginners and challenging for those who happen to be gifted at dancing, but it's also a blast to play with friends, and it's an incredibly fun way to get a work out. I'm sure that Harmonix could have done a bit more with the game (Dance Central 2, anyone?), but in my opinion, it's already at near-perfection. Get this game. Do it. Thank me later when you're having so much fun.

• Audio: 5
• Gameplay: 5
• Originality: 4 
• Story: 1
  
• Visuals: 4
• Overall: 4
• Difficulty: Adjustable (Very Hard if you're aiming for 100% completion)
• Completion Time: +40 Hours

+ Vibrant, club-themed graphics with well-designed 3D character models

+ Incredibly diverse songlist and dance routines

+ Amazing for playing at get-togethers and parties

- A "mission mode" would've been nice

- Co-op mode is non existent

As Ulala once notably said... "Staaaaaaaaaaay tuned!"

Groovin' with Dance Central

 For my 2nd game of 2011, I have been working on Dance Central for the 360 Kinect. As the first Kinect peripheral title I've delved into, I'm incredibly impressed and I'm really enjoying this game.

 A few entries back, I made a post comparing Dance Central to DanceMasters, which is Konami's version of a Kinect-based dancing game, and I'm still actively working toward completing this game and getting all of the achievements (requiring surprising amount of work, actually!), so I'm not going to post my complete review and impressions of the game until sometime this weekend.

 I did want to go ahead and see if there were any suggestions for what my next game should be, so if you have any ideas, check out my game library and comment with any ideas you have! Thanks, guys!

Castlevania HD: Chapter 8

I managed to get the last achievement, so this game has been officially completed by me. Whoo!

On another note, Konami released the DLC Chapter 8 level today, "The One Who Is Many", based on the underground area of Symphony of the Night... so of course, it features Legion as the boss of this level.

 According to the Castlevania HD wiki, three more levels are in the works and all are supposedly going to be released during the month of January, ultimately bringing the total number of levels up to 11. Also, the prices for these levels are cheaper than the 400-point Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 is just 320, and the following are scheduled to be 320, 240, and 240, respectively. There's still no word on when Simon Belmont is going to be released, but also according to the wiki, Hammer is no longer an officially-confirmed upcoming character, although Getsu Fuma has been confirmed.

Lv 1 ~ Castlevania HD

Yes, it's true, I've been playing Castlevania: Harmony of Despair on Xbox LIVE Arcade for a few months, now, but I still haven't managed to collect all of the achievements for the game. So, given the fact that I'm such a huge Castlevania fanboi, I've decided to give this multiplayer fan-service game the honor of being my first game to complete in 2011.

 In a nutshell, CV HD is delicious fan-service for anyone who has ever been a fan of the Castlevania series. The plot is minimal, and basically involves a book (called the "grimoire") that contains the history of Castlevania that somehow comes to life (a la Neverending Story), thus reviving Dracula, his castle, and the past vampire hunters contained within canon Castlevania history. The game starts you out with five characters: Soma, Alucard, Jonathan, Shanoa and Charlotte, and offers more (and new levels) through DLC, including Julius, Yoko, Richter, Maria, and Simon. Of course, the only characters I'm remotely interested in are the cute female ones, 'cause I'm an uberfag.

 As with past Castlevania titles, the game involves 2D side-scrolling RPG action, although the EXP/Leveling Up system isn't featured. Each of the levels contains elements, music, and enemies from past Castlevania titles, and there's hundreds of items and abilities to collect for each character. Since there isn't leveling up, each character has a personal method of strength-progression, typically involving increasing the strength of abilities through use or by collecting spells and sub-weapons, depending on your character of choice. This gives the game limitless replay value, despite the game only having six levels (without DLC) and two difficulty modes.

 The real shining aspect of CV HD is the fact that it's the first multiplayer Castlevania title. Unfortunately, it's only multiplayer online and not locally (at least, on the XBLA version...), but it still makes the game incredibly fun to play with friends.

 Alright, so I'm obviously biased. I absolutely adore the Castlevania series, so I've been completely addicted to playing this game, whether solo or with friends. There's tons of items to collect, and despite there not being a leveling system, I find myself desperately grinding away to make my favorite characters as strong as possible (Charlotte,  Maria and Yoko, in case you're wondering!). I'm impressed with the fact that Konami managed to put out a patch in December to balance the characters a bit, although Soma and Richter are way overpowered in comparison to the rest.

 Having that said, there are a few cons to this game that I have to point out, unfortunately.


 The first downfall is how ridiculously expensive the DLC for this game is. The game itself is 1200 Microsoft Points, which equates to $15. The Chapter 7 DLC is 400 points, and each of the (currently) four DLC characters are 240 points each. If you want all of the DLC, you have to fork out 1360 points, which is more than the game itself. Add the fact that there's another DLC pack on the way, bringing the total cost of all of the DLC to 2160. Goodness.

 Speaking of DLC, another con is the fact that DLC characters don't display properly unless you've also purchased those characters. If you haven't forked out the points for Julius, Yoko, Richter, and Maria (and soon, Simon and Getsu Fuma), you'll see other players who are using them displayed as minimally-animated "Axe Knight" sprites. You can't see their weapons animating properly, nor the majority of their abilities, and it's rather frustrating, to me. In my opinion, seeing other people play as DLC characters would make me want to purchase them, as opposed to seeing an Axe Knight running around, who I constantly try to attack because I think it's an enemy.

 I also think that not including the classic EXP-gain and "leveling-up" system from past Castlevania titles is a bad idea. I understand that they wanted to make the game less level-based to be more accessible to casual players, but a substantial amount of character growth is still necessary for each character; I've personally put nearly 50 hours into completely mastering all of Charlotte's spells, for example. Having a max level to hit would add even more replay value to the game, especially since characters all share the same item pool. Once you've found good items, you can equip them on any of your other characters. Being nearly completely item-based is a bit of a bummer.

 There is minimal lag, endless replay value, and tons of Castlevania nostalgia to be had, so I highly recommend this title, even if you're unfamiliar with the Castlevania series. It would actually serve as a great introduction to the series, because seeing each of these characters within Harmony of Despair might encourage players to see them in the other games they make appearances in. Since there are a few things from past Castlevania titles that I would have liked to see in this game, I can't give it a perfect score, but this game has certainly been one of the best XBLA titles I've played, to date.

• Audio: 5
• Gameplay: 5
• Originality: 4 
• Story: 2
  
• Visuals: 3
• Overall: 4
• Difficulty: Very Hard
• Completion Time: +60 Hours (if you plan on "maxing" characters and collecting items)

+ Nostalgic graphics with plenty of fancy enhancements

+ Robust soundtrack featuring original and remixed versions of famous Castlevania music

+ Diverse characters with plenty of customization options 

+ It's a MULTIPLAYER CASTLEVANIA!!!!

+ Virtually endless re-playability

- Storyline is virtually non-existent

- Classic experienced-based leveling system replaced with "character progression"

- Local co-op is only available on the Playstation Network version

- Very, very expensive if you want all of the game's content and characters

I managed to obtain all of the game's achievements, too. Huzzah!

Until next time... game on!

Dance Central vs. DanceMasters

 It's the first week of the new year, and it's time for me to get started on this game-a-week thing. The only problem is... it's already Wednesday and I still haven't decided what game to play and beat. I'll probably end up not finishing this week and have to beat two games next week, but eh... as long as I stay on schedule, it's all good, right?

 I was given a Kinect along with Dance Central from a friend over New Year's, and I picked up DanceMasters with some of the holiday money I had accumulated. After about a week of toying around with the Kinect, I'm actually rather impressed. The accuracy is surprisingly high, and although I had to rearrange the furniture in my bedroom in order to play, it seems to function pretty well even without a ton of space. From what I've experienced, the main issues lie within the specific way game developers are dealing with in-game navigation.

 Dance Central, Harmonix's entry into the Kinect market, is very solid. The game actually eases players into the dances, allowing you to learn each part of each dance step-by-step, and it clearly tells you what areas of your body you aren't moving right if you're not getting it down. What impresses me the most, though, is how easy menu navigation is. It seems spot-on and incredibly precise, especially when compared to Konami's Kinect dance game, DanceMasters.

 Unlike Dance Central, DanceMasters wasn't localized for a US release -- the game features the same track list that was used when released in Japan and other countries (the game is referred to as DanceEvolution everywhere else, I believe), so none of the music is popular or recognizable outside of those who are familiar with other BEMANI titles and Dance Dance Revolution, with exception to the two Super Eurobeat tracks on the game, which will be known by anyone into Initial D or the ParaPara dance scene. Because I'm such a BEMANI and ParaPara nerd, I picked up this title, but I definitely don't recommend it if you're not a fan of those, as well, and here's why.

 DanceMasters makes no attempt to teach players how to dance the routines. Of course, the game also doesn't take into account full body motions during each dance, and just requires players to match silhouettes and "ripples" on-screen, but still. The routines don't change between each difficulty -- there's just less silhouettes and "ripples" to be judged upon. I've only managed to score well on the ParaPara dances that I already knew before playing this title, and I don't know if I have the patience to play through every song a million times just to learn the dances. The "Break It Down!" aspect of Dance Central makes it a much better choice. I suggest DanceMasters if, and only if you are a huge fan of the Konami series of BEMANI music-rhythm games.

 If the aforementioned reason isn't good enough of an explanation, here's another. The menu navigation system in DanceMasters is enough to make you pull your hair out. It's finicky and inaccurate, and I spend more time trying to choose the song I want to play than I do actually dancing. Comparing these two titles is a great example of how to, and how NOT to develop menu navigation with the Kinect.

 Overall, I like the music selection in DanceMasters more (because I'm a BEMANItard), but Dance Central is obviously the better game. They're both fun, and both have their pros and cons. Either way... I won't be able to "beat" either game within a week, simply because my body doesn't have the capability to move that strenuously for so long. I'll decide on something to beat, this week... but I certainly hope this tiny tangent has been able to satisfy, at least a teensy bit.

Until next time, game on!