NES Games I Beat #63: Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout

There's not much to say about this one, AVGN got it right, this is annoying game with very little challenge where you rack up lives like no other. The controls are delayed slightly and feel sluggish, the enemies are vicious, there only 6 worlds with 4 levels each, the bosses are uninspired Looney Tunes characters and sometimes you just skip them and it's laughable. It looks an sounds ok though the music is a bit repetitive and grates in time. You'll bet it in a few hours and never need to touch it again. It's so boringly average it's not worth being a Kemco NES game, I mean it that I enjoyed Crazy Castle a bit more than this so I recommend you just play that instead. 4/10.

My New Review on Fire N Ice is up on my channel! It took me forever but it's finally here! How great is this inventive game? Find out:I'd appreciate some constructive criticism/ any comments too too, thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2C6QCkYTno&feature=youtu.be

Today's NES/ Pixar Pickups/ Epic Game Haul: August 11, 2015

First and foremost the rare and illusive Miracle Piano in box (missing a lot of the extra cords but otherwise pretty cool). Cars and Monsters U Collectors Edition for Pixar Pickups, two great movies. For the Master System I got 3 more games, complete, two being great arcade ports, all $6. A jak and dater map, 25 cents. knights of the old republic and Crimson skies (free) for Xbox. A Pokemon red/green guide $4. An obscure Atari game Space Cavern for $1. And finally Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 for N64, a very uncommon game for that system, free for my glitchy copy of Tomb Raider. And that's that, all in all an excellent day of finds!

NES Game I (Nick) Beat/Played #62: Color A Dinosaur

So here it is, the rare and infamous Color a Dinosaur, one of the most uncommon NES titles to graze the late Library of the system. This 1993 release is one of most vile, impractical, and useless to even the core concept. This is essential the barest of bones MS Paint coloring game aimed at the youngest of kids an fails miserably as you can only fill in the most obscure, awful patterns onto the most trashy looking of dinosaurs. It's only remembered for being rare and one of the worst "games" ever. People paid $60 for this and the price is actually more now. Get a coloring book and regular colors for about $5 and you'll have a much better time. Even back then that would have been the better option because at least there you can employ some creativity. The music was notably done Tommy Tolirico and its ok but that's the only thing that can be considered good. 0.1/10. At least it is sort of a game but to the most minimum extent.

NES Quest Review

It’s not often that a documentary like this comes along. Ok, video game documentaries are pretty common but this is a bit more than meets the eye. At first when discovering the trailer by sifting through any NES related videos I could find on Youtube, I thought this trailer was some kind of elaborate April Fools joke because there’s no was such an epic movie premise like this could truly exist. It’s simple. One man. 667 NES games. 30 days. No internet purchases. Go!
Reflecting upon the two plus years I’ve feverishly spent getting most of my NES collection, just under 500 games currently, the concept was genius. The better part was the hook of can he make it in such a short time? “The clock’s always ticking and ultimately it’s the big boss at the end of this game.” The quest itself is a wild ride to watch and while every game is not shown and often prices are not given, it’s still fun to see Jay’s bartering skills grow with his collection. The top 20 games is a big focus of this half of the film, obtaining those milestone titles necessary. It’s also great to see that the game stores and collectors often worked to help Jay by lowering prices, giving him games, or even trading items they searched a lifetime for. This was great to see the heart of our retro community and how people come together in times of challenge to lift those in need to where they need to be. Since I don’t want to spoil anything, I’ll just say the actual quest itself is quite the ride, twists and turns, emotion, passion, and it’s a lot of fun to witness.
The other portion of the NES Quest focuses around gamers and the community explaining what exactly makes the NES so special. There’s a lot of great commentary on the matter by some top individuals and while I’m sure the special features flesh these out even more it leaves me wanting to hear more. Still, what’s here is great commentary on our community and the magic behind the NES and it’s understandable that some stuff had to be cut for run time as this is a movie after all. The nice 1 hour 32 minutes runtime is tightly packed, little to no filler, and it’s a joyful balance of the quest and these members of the community and their passion behind the games.
Overall, this is very enjoyable film. While a vast knowledge of the NES library helps to add some extra punch to that enjoyment, I’d argue without said knowledge the film does enough to teach you about its subject matter and get you invested either way. It’s well shot and produced, the cast is great and are very likable/ relatable, and the overall quality is high. Not only is it a fun and interesting documentary for hardcores like myself but also a great jumping off point to learn about the retro gaming community and the NES in general. It’s very unique and while you think you’ve seen it before with shows like Game Chasers, the different amount of knowledge these guys bring to the table is astounding.
I’m giving it an 8.5/10. Cheers to you Jay for making your goals and dreams come true as well as you Rob and the rest of you who made this film as it’s an excellent achievement and something I’m going to be returning to constantly as I climb the ladder to achieving my complete NES set.

NES Games I Beat #61: Contra

What’s left to say about Contra? It’s a classic game synonymous with the NES and its arguably Konami’s most fondly remembered arcade port for the system. It’s great, the music is pumping, the action is intense, and it’s hard as shit even when you use the famous code which is referred to as the “Contra Code” by some but it’s really the Konami Code as it originated in Gradius not Contra. With 120 lives though (through 4 continues) the becomes a lot more playable. There’s only 9 stages but their packed full of pulse pounding, high gunning action. It’s fun, it’s a classic, there’s no need to overanalyze and review it as too many have done so before. 8/10.

NES Games I (Nick) Beat #60: Sesame Street 123

Part of this game is stupid, boring, and lies to your face. It’s called Sesame Street 123 but in Ernie’s Magic Shape’s, a game as boring as sin where all you do is match pick shapes to make a construct to match the other one on screen, there is no math. The graphics are decent for NES and the music is ok too. The controls are awkward as you can only go one direction as far as it goes before it loops around with any button. On the other side we have Astro Grover which is about counting but each individual game actual does a decent job of teaching adding, counting, subtracting. For shit of this caliber, it’s boring but it does its job well enough. Also, there’s not enough representation of Squids in this game to the amount of kids that would be playing this. We decided to score it higher because of the Grover part and the lack of wanting to kill ourselves like in certain Elmo N64 titles… so we’re giving it a 3/10. Trash, but for trash it’s not too bad at teaching kids, at least in the Grover part.

 — with John Black and Nick Christison.

Today's NES Finds: August 4, 2015

Two games cheap from EBay and that's all she wrote!

Zone of the Enders: 2nd Runner Review

To be honest the first Zone of the Enders game was kind of an underwhelming mess at points. I mean everything was just ok. The story and gameplay were all just very standard. This is mostly why I put off playing the sequel for so long but man did I ever miss out until now. Who new the sequel would actually be a game with fun mechanics, a somewhat engaging story, likable characters, and a fix to most of the problems of the original.
I'm not saying it's perfect, God knows I wanted to kill my comrades barking orders at me during the minefield and pulse hallway sequences but aside from these we get joy of piloting Jehuty all over again with an adult this time and Leo is now a bit more mature as well and he pilots the Vic Viper, a rig which can transform into the actual Konami classic ship of the Gradius series! And there's a persistent, threatening villain this time! Everything has been kicked up a nock to put this into the category of memorable and good.
The short review is the game is pretty cool, you feel like a badass piloting your mech, it's only 6 hours long, there's a ton of cool characters, and the game is overall fun to play with a streamlined, linear path instead of some half baked levels like in the original. Is it going to blow your mind? No. But you can certainly do a hell of a lot worse.
It's worth playing, maybe I'll even go back to it someday just because it's a rockin' experience at some points. 8/10.

Ico Review

I beat Ico the other day (7/30/15), twice by the next night. Short review: it's good, unique, interesting, had some tricky jumps but other than that the world, atmosphere, and characters all draw you in and it's a well designed short game. To review it further is to deny you its experience. If your hesitate, just play it. Get it on PS3 in the remaster, it looks great that way and you'll get Shadow of the Colossus as well. For a more in depth analysis, check out this video:
http://youtu.be/d-nr_hw0oQg

Today's NES Finds/ Pixar Pick Ups: July 28, 2015

Today was a winner, I had to turn away from a miracle piano in box and a kings knight on Nes but dang it if I didn't make the right choice! Starting in the middle we have a collector's edition Bloodborne guide, on top of which sits my new iPod nano and a copy of zelda gba ($13 and $12). Dash Galaxy for only $3 (but it became free) up top with the two toy story films I was missing for $13 each, and f117a, an uncommon Nes game I picked up cheap on eBay. Finally, a copy of a game I've wanted to get back for a while and now that it was $14 rather than $24, I thought now was opportune. So that's it, overall a really solid day of finds!

Pixar Rankings: July 27, 2015

The revised list is in, I've seen Inside Out again and I still have to, for now, pin it at the #1 spot. I played in my head with nostalgia vs. how good the movies are and in the least nostalgic way possible (I'm human bias exists). I weighed feelings like how on repeat viewings I felt about Toy Story 3, how long it'd been since I'd seen it for a third time versus Inside Out on a third time and there's tons of variables to consider here like the fact that Toy Story 3 has the power of it's entire franchise to build emotion that can be fully unleashed in it's third film whereas Inside Out can do it all in significantly less time in a single film. Ultimately Andy isn't a well developed character at all though and he's meant to be a stand in for us as kids so thus we put all this love into him and fuck I love him too, seeing him grow up was a defining moment of how we all grew with him between 2 and 3. And yet, all of that took 3 movies and 15 years whereas Riley's more true to life situations and emotions are vastly more relatable on a complex human level and situational use to which the viewer can remember from there own life and connect with Riley on that level as well as through the actions of her and her emotions. It's more realistic in that sense, not to mention everything is strung together and weaved with perfection while the whole movie unravels with a twist of emotions we feel for Riley because we've been there. We as humans have never been toys and so while the concept is interesting and we can feel for them because of our ultimate nostalgia with our own toys (especially when they and your childhood nearly gets burned to a crisp before your eyes) Inside Out provides a different light of the message on how to grow up. Andy gave up his toys as we did at the end of Toy Story 3 and while Riley still has a lot of room to grow, we see that she has a strong will to overcome her own lack of experience, she realizes maybe she doesn't know everything and that maybe that's ok, her parents will help her someday reach adulthood. If the quality of the Inside Out sequels (if there ever are any) holds to that of the Toy Story films, it has the potential to be an even better trilogy but even without these Inside Out masterfully stand as a culmination of every Pixar film before it, the memory sequence of Up, the connection and emotions of being a kid and the innocence of that from Toy Story, the competitive spirit of Cars, the evolution of a strong female character from Brave, the mesages of overcoming your fears from the Monster's Inc movies, the family aspects of Incredibles, and the heartfelt moments from all the rest are collected and refined here with the best artstyles yet, switching from humans that are that Pixar style, to vibrance and colorful world inside Riley's head, the music which takes you on a journey in it's own, and the overall packaged feel this movie can produce allow me to see past my nostalgia for the Toy Story franchise and realize how brilliant this one film got it! This may be Pixar's Magnum Opus and their Swan Song with films like TS4 and Good Dinosaur on the way but damn it I'd love to be just as blown away as I was here. I honestly thought this movie was gonna be a generic kids movie through the original previews but the amount seamlessly clever writing, heart, and uniqueness on display here proved me dead wrong. This is why I placed it over Toy Story 3. It's earned the podium to be one of my favorite movies by one of favorite movie studios, Pixar. and the perfect end to my marathon.

Pixar Rankings List

1. Inside Out
2. Toy Story 3
3. Toy Story
4. Up
5. Toy Story 2
6. Cars
7. Monster’s Inc.
8. Wall-E
9. Monsters University
10. The Incredibles
11. Ratatouille
12. Brave
13. A Bug’s Life
14. Finding Nemo
15. Cars 2

Yesterday's Pixar Pickups: July 24, 2015

After Inside Out fucking blew me away a few weeks back, I restarted my epic quest from 4 years ago to see all the Pixar movies and rank them. Well now I'm near the end of that with just 4 movies to go and so I I've realized that these are some really great movies and maybe I ought to finally collect them all physically on Bluray. So here's the start of a new segment: Pixar Pickups! The rules are simple: since these movies go for about $22 roughly on Amazon, it's my goal to find them for a good deal less. Has to be Bluray, collectors edition preferred. And no retail stores like Walmart, that's too easy. Pawn shops, game stores ( like Disc Repaly and VGE), etc. 

So today I found Toy Story (CE) for $11 and Brave (CE) for $13 (free really I had credit) at The Disc Replays, and wall-e for only $5 at a pawn shop! Also got that dragon quest joker guide and that manual for games I don't have but they were super cheap. So, the update is I own 4/15 Pixar Films! (I'm counting Inside Out because I preordered it already). Would have got this out yesterday had I not been 36 hours without sleep and dead from finals. Lol

Today's Game Finds: July 16, 2015

A bunch of Xbox exclusives, three of which were presents from my friend John, of which Stubbs the Zombie means the most as we found that shit together! Also Gun Valkyrie, Pirates (which nick recommended), Rouge agent, and Hunter the reckoning. Three Dreamcast games as well, Evolution, Carrier, and Seventh Cross! All games pictured were less than $7 each. Good day for finds and friends.

July 11, 2015

So Inside Out, one of the best movies I've seen, movie of the year so far! It's cleaver, it made me laugh, cry, feel, and I loved it so much. I can't say enough good things. Extremely good, 10/10 go see it now!

July 8, 2015

After years of searching I finally found Oracle of Seasons and have it in my collection again for a deal of $10 at disc replay in the mall! I stupidly got rid of it as a kid but smartly kept my box and manual so now I have it complete again! It makes me so happy to have it back as I sunk literally weeks into this one as a kid thus it's also going to be heavily nostalgic. I've been waiting for this deal for about 7 years so I could finally have it back. Today was a good day to look.

Shenmue Review 

I just beat Shenmue on Dreamcast and since ya'll tend to favor my shorter reviews and for the fact that a long review would take tons of effort I'll instead give my brief impressions. 

So, Shenmue is a great game. It was expected to save the dying Dreamcast and did not since it was deliberately a lot slower of a game than some expected and lacked mass appeal. Nowadays, especially with the third game recent being reborn, it's a better time than ever to jump in but the price has spiked on the game so good luck finding a copy.

Gameplay wise Shenmue has a solid fighting system, decent tank controls, cool quick time events (which were invented here btw), and a detailed town to explore. Everybody has something to say and seeking information is a big part as the story of Ryu's father's death is the driving force behind the narrative. While these are Shenmue's core gameplay styles many more exist here too. The basic encompassing thought is that you live out Ryu's life in all aspects and interact with people in realistic ways. 

This is one of Shenmue's standout features, the living, breathing world. Little touches bring it together, shops to buy figurines (maybe just one more...), cassettes, and often just hang out. There's an arcade, bars, etc. etc.All of the people are fully voiced and have something to say with good animation on the characters for the time. While the voice acting is cheesy in execution there's a lot of humor to it's delivery.The story gets more epic and depthy as time goes on (no spoilers here) and is good. The music is good, the characters are memorable. The cutscenes are epic and make for some cool set pieces to show off the Dreamcast and this awesome world.

These are my ramblings. It's good, expect a slow, well thought out game with lots of exploring. It's hard to do this game justice, thus I barely tried to but I'm definitely happy with the experience I had. It's a unique game that is underpraised at points by gamers. 8/10. It's good play it. It's the only way to judge for yourself.

Today's NES Finds: July 3, 2015 

Best part is I didn't have to leave the house even! The Shenmue 2 was won on eBay for about $200 under the price it goes for, while the Dantes inferno I got because of the Gaming Historian's video on it, and the Eliminator Boat Duel was gotten for cheap. The Megaman cartoon and Kickmaster, a rather pricy and uncommon game by Taito, were purchased by my friends at Half Priced Books in Cedar Rapids! Glad to finally add this one to my set!

NES Games I Beat? #59: Bubble Bobble

Bubble Bobble was a popular arcade title by Taito originally release in 1986 in arcades and 1988 as a home console NES port. Being one of the most beloved and classic Nintendo titles it’s a huge phenomena of a game and for good reason. I have very few points to cover so we’ll hit them quick and call it a day and leave the rest to a song I’ll link at the end that perfectly captures my feelings.
The gameplay in this game is very fun, fairly easy but sometimes challenging, and has a good amount variety. It’s all based on finding an angle to put your enemies into bubbles and then hit them again to destroy them for good. Some enemies are fast, some are slow. Bubbles often have to be stacked and can be jumped upon to gain height. Figure it out and navigate the 100+ levels. In this sense there’s a lot of content here and some levels will take you a while. You have unlimited continues and passwords but only three lives to finish each level so it’s a pretty easy but fair balance.
The one level I think is rather broken however is level 57 and could be considered the sticking point to people who want to get anal as to whether or not I’ve beaten this game as I tried for over a year to pass this level and just gave up. I finished every single other level and beat the final boss twice so I experienced everything in my opinion. This is my only other sticking point of negativity is that the good endings can’t be obtained with a single player which is bullshit and I just don’t care.
Overall, it’s a solid game with good gameplay and excellent mechanics (minus one level). It’s a fun, addictive NES title, the music/ graphics are good, and it’s overall just a charming ass title that puts you in a good mood. I’ll give it a 7.5/10.
Here’s a song by Brental Floss to sum up this game even better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLVxvQ3a2n8

Today's Game Finds: June 17, 2015

Mostly a bunch of Saturn games, a Master System common and an NES manual as well as a game genie genesis guide and a Mario Party 2 guide for a $1. In total minus Child of Light this was all $20 and I bet I coulda spent that on 1 Saturn title online easily so I made out pretty good.

Super Mario Land Review

In 1989 the gaming scene was revolutionized with the launch of Nintendo’s Gameboy and of course this meant it would launch with a title from their flagship franchise, Super Mario. While Super Mario Land is now met with mixed opinions and is often said to not stack up to Super Mario Bros. 3, the so called “greatest NES game of all time”, I actually tend to disagree with the criticisms as their superficial. I think this is a worthy entry into the Mario series and for its time having this on the go was a technical marvel.
There’s not much to say other than the graphics were slightly scaled back, the gameplay is slightly different due to the level design so jumps have to be done more carefully, the music is really good and catchy, and it’s a short game of 4 worlds, three levels each. It’s also pretty easy as I mastered it in a night but gets fairly more challenging at world 4. There’s also now shooter stages on two levels which are done really well and are totally fun.
Overall while different, it’s imaginative and does well to show off the console even with its limitations. It’s a fun, short game that still stacks up today so buy into the people who say it’s bad. It’s a retro game sure but if the first Super Mario Bros can still be enjoyed with its vast limitations there’s no reason this one can’t be as well. I’ll give it an 8/10 as it’s a great portable Mario Gameboy title.
The whole reason I jumped back into this game is because of Brental Floss and his amazing song about this game being so damn catchy and managing to worm its way into my mind so if you like funny, informative video game music and have a few minutes to spare here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAtWQ_xn0kI

NES Games I (and Mayabb) Beat #58: Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom

What can be said about the obscure less common NES games like this one? While there isn’t much information out there its clear some of these games have gained a cult status in the age of retro emulation. Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom, developed and published by Hudson Soft, it released to seemingly mild praise in February of 1991 making it one of the later titles on the console. In terms of genre, its along the lines of a text/point and click adventure. But why has this game garnered a following? What’s so special about it?
The most common thing that draws someone like myself to this game is just how impressive it is for an NES title. PCs at the time had a lot in this genre to offer but NES players had the Kemco trilogy and Nightshade and that was really about it. Also given its kiddy, cutesy style and vegetable/ fruit characters it’s not surprising hardcore gamers passed on this release. Also, this was right around the SNES was looming in the distance so games like this got swept under the rug. Despite this it got a measly two page spread in Nintendo Power Issue #22 with a very vague and unhelpful walkthrough of the first few levels.
The gameplay is that of a text based adventure in that you can use a set number of functions to navigate like move which gives directions the player can move, look to examine the room, check is used to examine objects in a room, talk, take, use for items, give, buy, hit, fight, praise to flatter, dump for getting rid of inventory items, since you can only carry a limited number, item, and Percy to get aid from your sidekick Percy Persimmon. From there it’s pretty much up to the player to use these functions to explore and find items to satisfy requirements and help people out or to make your way through various obstacles. These are essentially the puzzles you have to work through in your mind and solve in order to progress. They all have answers that aren’t too cryptic and for the most part this game isn’t weighed down with bullshit like some cryptic games of this style and era. Also the characters here are lively and filled with useful information, items, and humor making this world feel alive. Each command also can generally lead to some humorous observations and events that the writers cleverly put at every turn to keep even mistakes lively and fun. Even gag items are put into the game with no purpose but to deceive you and Percy tosses them at the end of each level anyway.
Movement of areas will quickly show the massive variety in areas of this game. While the backgrounds are just static images to set the mood and item layout, they’re really very well detailed and the graphical art style is at times happy, cheerful and vibrant as well as other settings being dark, moody, and somber. Looking at this game’s world and it’s plethora of vegetable races and characters is a treat at every moment because of how good the presentation of these elements is. It’s just a really clean, vibrant art style that invokes the feelings of a fantasy world. Not to mention the music and it’s rhythmic, soothing nature ranging into eerie, desolate tones as well that perfectly complements the art to a T. On three instances the game’s world will even shift to a first person dungeon which can make the player feel helpless and lost.
Some enemies do take the player on in a combat setting but all this is is a game of rock, paper, scissors and then a look away game to decide the winner. This is admittedly a cheap combat system but it’s mostly reserved to boss fights and isn’t a huge hindrance on the experience. Though it does lead to the one way to die in this game which in turn leads to having to restart the current level after inputting a password. Luckily the passwords are short the levels won’t take long if you remember how their done. While there are 9 levels total, the game takes over 2 hours if you know it and about 5-7 hours or longer for the uninitiated. Loosely following a walkthrough can also make it a tad less frustrating if you’re not opposed to such things.
The story is pretty basic, the princess is kidnapped, go save her but the underlying themes here actually lead to some pretty dark stuff. There’s an overlying war between the Resistance and the Farmies embedded in nearly all the things you do, you get captured at one point and have to break a bunch of others out, you’re nearly drowned for not talking in torture, you defile a grave to find a giant blender robot to take on the Saladians, and the capture a little peanut girl by a banana lead to you murdering that banana and pulling her out of it piece by piece dismantling its body and carrying it and the girl back to her parents to prove its dead. The way villages feel suppressed and at every turn the enemy seems to have captured more innocent vegetables to kill (especially since some Farmies higher up are humans) reminded me of (and I’m serious here) World War 2 and the Holocaust in terms of theming as through metaphors the game seems to be hinting at this parallel very strongly. I guess that would make the last guy Hitler, in which case we killed Hitler with rock, paper, scissors.
Overall this game is a really gem that has a beautiful world, an excellent art style, an atmospheric and amazing soundtrack, surprisingly deep/dark tones, environments, and story, good humor, memorable characters, fun puzzles, and a charming and cute overall aesthetic. While it can go some weird places and the play style is not for everyone, it’s still highly recommended as a rom download and for collectors. It’s very obtainable today surprisingly through Virtual Console but a really cart is not really easy to come across as it goes for $70+ online.
In the end I really enjoyed this game so I’m going to give it a 9/10. While it’s kind of sad this may be the very last NES game Mayabb and I will ever beat together, this game will always remain even stronger in my soul for this reason and will assuredly become nostalgic for this fact as well some day.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Review

The follow up to the hit fighting game P4 Arena, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is actually a sequel with a follow up story line to the cliffhanger of the last game. It was again published by Atlus and developed by Arc Systems and then released in September of 2014. Given that the game play and presentation is very similar to the last game I won’t be diving very deeply into those areas and if you’re looking for more on those my previous review is a nice starting place to jump off from into this review as well. Oh and there will of course be spoilers for the first game, P3, P4, and of course this game here but if you’ve followed me for any amount of time you’ve likely been privy to those anyway.

In terms of story, the continuation is good, adding this time Rise, Junpei, a new character Sho, the Shadows make a return, and even Adachi and Marie make appearances now. The streamlined nature of the way the story is told is this game’s biggest fix of all. If you’ve read my last review, you’ll recall a system to where the player tediously trudges through a variation on the same story upwards of 12 times and a few more with a different story for the P3 characters. This was clunky, uninteresting at times, felt very sloppy, and caused for a lot of confusion. Here, the story is set on one path with branching narratives and two separate stories for P3 and P4, an exceptionally better system as to only make the player slog through a different enough story line for a second time and a small bit for a true ending. This vast improvement fixes nearly everything broken about the previous game’s story telling mechanism.

Since this game is essentially a visual novel with a fighting game sprinkled in, story is very important. The cliffhanger from the first game of who was controlling Labyrs is solved in Sho who is an experiment with the Plumes of Dusk both Aigis and Labyrs posses on a human who then gains a malicious second personality. These experiments were being carried out by Ikustski, the main villain in Persona 3. Sho was thrown out as a child and developed a mistrust towards humans, the only way he knows to communicate being through… fighting. Ok really? It’s kind of silly and video gamey sometimes but overall the plot becomes that Sho makes fake shadows of everyone to fight their Personas for… Persona fragments which are apparently something that his shadows can fight out of everyone’s Personas. The shadows aren’t very well implemented story wise and it seems like a missed opportunity given what they were in the original Persona 4. After basically resurrecting a Tarturus-esque tower atop Yasogami High of Inaba, he then uses it to bring a variation on the Dark Hour which covers Inaba in a red fog and will bring about the end of the world if not stopped in a few hours. Now we have our fighting game I guess… 

Much like in the previous game this leads to a lot of sections of fighting random characters and seeing random groupings of characters and while it generally felt fine there was a lot “humorous” scenes I just kind of blazed though or if a character was explaining something I already knew. This is here in a far less extent thanks to only two or three plotlines happening at once but it could get grating at times. A lot of dialogue with the shadows was really pointless too. So while the execution still leaves a lot to be desired it’s really not that bad. In the end Adachi and Yu, or Labyrs in the P3 story, end up slaying the beast Sho turns into to save the day as always. The final boss itself is a large beast to the right of the screen that shoots fireballs and beams etc. which is a good idea on paper but having to run or jump to him feels clunky and he does a lot of damage which sucks. Also, he has no life bar to indicate all you need to do is dodge his attack and perform a few combos to win. Other than that he’s pretty easy and not that great but I give them points for trying something different. It ends up that Sho got his start from the final boss in Persona 4 so it’s nice to see her threat wasn’t an empty promise. 

Over all the story is a mess but the characters do save it so much. Their interactions and stories are what make everything interesting and some of their resolves were kind of admittedly emotional for me though I am surprised we’ll possibly never see the P4 characters graduate high school or any of that as there is supposedly only one more game in Persona 4: Dancing All Night… Hopefully since Sho got away their actually setting up for him to become the villain of that game? It better be or this plot point is going to be a seriously lame cliffhanger. 

I know I’ve sounded pretty harsh on this game but I did like a lot of the same stuff that inherently comes with this being the sequel to P4 Arena. Basically the things I liked there (characters, storyline, music animation, gamplay) are all present here. My main problem is in Sho though and while he is essentially the literal foil to the bonds and friendship our characters share, he’s just not as interesting as Labyrs and her incredibly emotional, amazingly crafted, and just all around epic storyline from the first game. So that’s actually the downfall here is that it’s a typical sequel story where in it’s just not as memorable as the first but this isn’t a bad thing, what’s here is fine and solid enough for what it is.

Bottom line is this, if you liked the first game, you’re going to enjoy what’s here. It’s more of the same and is a step up in multiplayer as you have more characters and the shadow dynamic wherein you can choose between shadow or normal for each character for a high attack or defense build that also lowers the other stat. The story is just about on par with the previous regardless of its flawed nature because of the characters and their interactions. If you’re a fan of the series, this’ll be pretty good for you. 

I’m giving it a 7.4/10 for being a pretty solid all around experience for fans of these game.

The funniest part about this game for me is actually how I got it though. I was looking for the original P4 Arena and at the time this game was still brand new at $60 as it had come out only a month or so before. I had seen the original at Disc Replay for $20 no manual with a weird sticker on the front and passed on it. Later at the Moline VGE I found it for $12 with manual, my lucky day! Unfortunately they informed me the “disc wasn’t there” (likely story) but then he offered me a disc of P4 Arena Ultimax instead for $12. Of course I couldn’t pass that up but now I’ve got two of the same case as I purchased the original I mentioned earlier when it got down to $16.

NES Games I Beat #57: Super Mario Bros. 2

After the classic Super Mario Bros., which revitalized the video game industry as well as began the boom around the platforming genre and brought the NES to the forefront of entire entertainment, there was a lot of hype for the sequel. Nintendo, not wanting to saturate our market with the same game, spared us from what we now call the Lost Levels which to Japan is the true successor to the original game by giving us a reskin of a game called Doki Doki Panic. Unfortunately, like Zelda 2, the different style of gameplay turned off a lot of fans and thus there’s a negative stigma by some that consider this game to not be a true Mario game. This is mostly wrong however as originally this game was developed as a Mario title but later shelved and reskined for that IP for a festival in Japan. Aside from that, Super Mario Bros. 2 is a superb title that deserves to be seen on its own merit and on its merit as a sequel.
While I don’t usually start on this, it is a beautiful looking and sounding game for 1987 NES and it holds up very well today. As a marked improvement to its predecessor definitely shows aesthetically how far development had come in that time. All the 7 worlds now feel unique as there are actual environments like deserts, mountains, waterfalls, night levels, caves, etc. This gives an advancement to the theming in a significant way. The music also made a huge leap and all the new tracks are incredibly memorable from title to the last screen. The characters and all of the enemies look vastly more defined through this clean, crisp style of graphics and overall it’s just a well done upgrade to the presentation in general. In terms of story, it’s bare bones. It’s all a dream though so there’s that.
The gameplay is a vast step up too taking on a different direction. No longer will you be jumping on enemies to kill them rather you’ll just stand on top of them at which point you can pick them up and throw them at other things. There are also radishes everywhere that can be picked out of the ground to be used for this same purpose though this can also lead to picking up bob bombs, 1 Ups, etc. One of these items, the potion, allows travel into a world called the Subcon which if done in the right area can reveal mushrooms that permanently increase your two hit health bar for the rest of the level or warps which can be useful in skipping worlds. The tricky part is finding these spots as often their a bit of a ways from where the potion is discovered.
Also the radish spots can be picked for coins which get used in a minigame that is the main way of getting lives through chance. This is kind of a flawed system as there’s barely skill to getting them and the difficulty ramps up in a lot of spots so not being able to get lives can lead to death. While you have two continues, anytime you have to continue you go back to the beginning of world you’re on. The continue function is a marked improvement but I often felt the three life standard you then are set with was often not fair to counteract the amount of areas and deaths the player would then need to take on again. This is relevant to players who want to experience every level and beat the game in chunks like I did but it also affects places like the final world wherein if you die its almost impossible to make it back to and through Wart’s castle due to how deadly it is.
That’s pretty much my biggest complaint though as the rest of the game, while difficult, is a very enjoyable experience. Through the platforming and unique puzzles based around your abilities to pick things up, the charge jump, and the mechanic of standing on enemies it is clear that there’s enough solid, fun, and interesting things going on here to keep a player engrossed. The variety is nice too given that there is another improvement in that you can choose one of four characters at the beginning of a stage with separate play styles and speeds each. Mario is well balanced and a bit faster than Luigi who has an elongated jump. Toad is extremely nimble and picks things up faster while Peach is slower but has an essential temporary floating ability that comes in handy for some of the trickier platforming. Another neat aspect is the vertical platforming that was similar to Kid Icarus in design and even would introduce vines and ladders with enemies to keep you on your toes. While it is a cool feature especially in its time, I always chose Peach because of her maneuverability.
While the platforming brings a lot of unique elements to the table, the boss battles are what stood out to me as they were always designed in such a way that you had to think about how to get the weapon (be it a mushroom stool or and egg) to the enemy and hit them at the right time as to not be hit. The pacing of these bosses and their stages was brilliant too as we start with a standard Birdo fight that will evolve based on the environment as the levels go on as well as Birdo himself becoming faster and later shooting fireballs instead of eggs. Mouser takes this to the next level by throwing bombs that can only be caught and must be timed perfectly when thrown back making for a sense of tension and panic constantly. Tryclyde isn’t to challenging but plays with the concept of a still boss that has massive fire breath wherein the timing of dodging that and the ability to block his fire breath by building a barrier of mushroom blocks make for even more interactivity. Clawgrip is devilish as the player must dodge and then jump onto thrown rocks which is rather challenging. Finally, Wart is a culmination of these concepts and a reverse Birdo wherein the player has to dodge his screen filling bubbles and still catch falling vegetables then throwing them into Wart’s mouth as he attempts another bubble attack. All of these bosses are memorable and follow a natural progression in difficulty and concepts which is excellent game design a deserves its fair share of praise.
In conclusion, this is a very fun game to just play with a very inviting and vibrant, colorful world. The presentation and music is really good, the gameplay mechanics are well realized and implemented, and the bosses are epic and memorable. The continue system can be a pain but at least it’s there and incentivizes getting better at levels. This is an absolute gem of a game and is thus far my favorite of the Mario NES trilogy as in my opinion it just has so much to love and experience here. Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 are benchmark titles and paved the way for so many games to come but all the innovation here also seems to be often vastly underlooked which is a shame as those games garner unreal but somewhat deserved praise leaving this on in the dust. All the unique flair and charm this game has and its ambitious attitude for an earlier NES title is admirable and shows how this game is leagues beyond just being some game with a Mario reskin.
For these reasons I’m proud to award it a 9/10 as its not only one of the great underlooked Mario games but also a very underrated NES platformer.

Today's NES Finds: June 3, 2015

The shitty but rare Color A Dinosaur! Paid less than retail by far so thanks Disc Replay! Also picked up Parasite Eve complete for $10! Just glad to have that piece of shit behind me and to have a game I've been actively seeking.

June 1, 2015

The rare and elusive Sharp NES TV, considered by most to be a holy grail Nintendo item! The clearest NES picture around! It's something special to have a piece of history like this in my collection!

Demon Souls Review

Demon Souls is an often over looked gem usually being over shadowed by its little brother and progeny through a spiritual successor of Dark Souls. While it was well received in its inception, it’s odd this is less talked about just because most people played Dark Souls first. Now, having never played that game, this is a fully unbiased review from somebody who hasn’t been spoiled to what most claim to be the superior title.
Demon Souls was released in February 2009, exclusively to the PS3, and was developed by From Software and published/ localized by my boys at Atlus. It’s very weird to think Persona 4, a PS2 title and one of Atlus’s best, was released only a few months prior to this but that’s hardly relevant. What we have is a freedom induced action role playing title. How hard is this game? So hard it killed my original PS3!
The first thing a player is tasked to do is create their character and it’s all framed around a very depth set of choices and sliders for so many minute details that it’s actually very impressive just how many things a player can mess with to get their appearance just right. I have a tendency in this sort of games to create a cutish lady versus the macho guy character for one of a few reasons. Firstly, girls kicking ass is excellent and underutilized in games. When there’s a choice for memorable female in gaming that the player can control it’s far more satisfying and unique in my opinion. Secondly, the aesthetic persona of a player’s vision of their ideal character is vastly important here as the option is presented. As I said the customization here is super in depth for appearance and you’ll get a standard choice for classes which is sort of a basic mould for what kind of build of a character you want to play. I chose knight because I like a heavy built character that can take a lot of damage and swings hard.
Once a character has been completed and you proceed into the only open level, you’ll begin to notice the token difficulty most players seem to build this game up with, it’s almost legendary for it at this point. The enemies are smart but also predictable so once you get their patterns down it’s no problem getting through them but prior to then it’s likely you’ll die many times figuring out how and where their placed. This is ok though as this entire game is cleverly built around this in not only level design but enemy placement as well. See, the pacing of the first level sets you up for most things you’ll encounter later, a hole where you fall and don’t get your souls back, enemies that progressively get smarter, unlocking areas through exploration and switches, firebombs, dragons, tough areas you can go to… or not! You, the player is in control… after the first boss.
It’ll take a while to make it through the first part of level 1 for beginners more than likely but all of that will teach you the mechanics of exploration and combat, attacking, blocking, watching for ins and outs to strike, rolling, parrying, etc. There’s a lot of nuances and variations to this formula. If you’re a conservative player like me you’ll grind this game’s currency, the souls, to death and upgrade weapons only to find once you’ve made it through the challenging first level that the boss is a joke. Use fire, he goes down insanely easily. After this though, the game opens up entirely.
At this point you are introduced to a blind witch who can level any skill you’d like with varying affects to your build as a player and this is the brilliance and lastabilty to these games as no two runs will ever be the same due to the myriad of choices the player is given. Say you just want to level up endurance so that you can hit/run harder/longer or you just want to diversify into all skill sets, the choice is up to you! Hell, you don’t even have to level up if you don’t want to, people have beaten the game level 1 with a basic slave shield! That’s the beauty here. No restrictions. You go to whichever level you feel like and do it at your own pace. There are very few gates, other than the player’s skill, to stop someone from reaching the end of any of the 5 levels as soon as they want to.
There is some challenge in the fact that souls are currency and experience to level up with all at once but it works rather well. It’s a bit devious that you lose all your souls every time you die but if you’re truly good enough it’s a simple as getting back to the point where you lost them to retrieve them. This incentivizes the mastering of enemies and levels so that the same mistakes are not repeated and the player gets better because of it. This is a clever piece of design.
Gushing about all of the details of the levels and world and how fucking beautiful and excellent some of the visuals are would be useless as the atmosphere here is beyond explanation. Simply put it’s very dark, moody, but in more of a somber way that doesn’t depress and rather captivates the player. The sound design is also really excellent from the voice work to the swinging of swords to telegraph an attack is all fine. It just feels like a very engrossing world by the design and characters that each serve a unique purpose and you can save or kill along your journey. Some can craft you spells or even special weapons out of the boss souls as well or they just sell you stuff. Also while there is a story and characterization, it’s all completely optional as well which is a great touch.
There’s very few complaints I have but a few would be the inability to sell stuff for souls as I ended up with some much junk stockpiled given I stuck with the same shield and axe the whole way and just powered those up so all the extra stuff I found around was useless to me even though I kept it all. The other thing is the bosses were generally not even that challenging. While unique, they certainly went down pretty easy with the exception of the last guy in level 1, the False King who has an ability that actually steals you’re last level which is utterly bullshit. While the levels each felt very unique from one another, the design of the ones with narrow paths often pissed me off as they served to make me fall due to targeting the enemy and I see that as a weak challenge.
Also, the amount of grinding for a conservative player like me was pretty insane. Now I’m down for a good grind and generally it was not too tedious for me as the game is fun enough to grind in but I’m guessing I spent around 30 of my 80 hour adventure grinding so it’s notable, though I was never bored which is vastly important. The other stupid thing was the Soul/Human forms. Okay so I lose a ¼ (a ½ without the cling ring) of my health and can’t have that just because I died once in a game designed around dying and retrying? It’s an arbitrary but unnecessary challenge and I know it can be circumvented via beating a boss or using a stone but what’s the point? It’s just a worthless mechanic.
Anyways there’s probably a lot I missed given it’s 9:30 in the morning but the bottom line is this is a great depthy, lengthy, balanced, and excellent adventure. It’s fun to talk about with other’s who know it like my friend John because of all the little subtleties that make it so excellent and discuss the different playing styles and parts of the game. The complaints are minor ones and don’t detract much from the experience much.
In the end this is about a 9/10 game. I enjoyed it a lot, so much so that I found myself constantly wanting to play it, thinking up strategies to get past the next part or a boss I was stuck on. It’s an engrossing experience I would highly recommend.

May 28, 2015

I did again! 100% completed my favorite game of all time, Tomba! The best part is I got a full playthrough of footage now as well! It was actually really close to failing as there are some infamous missions that can be messed up but I worked the system and pulled through! And all the emotions of joy and that nostalgic glow of my younger days playing this rushed back with every step. But nostalgia alone can't carry a game thus the fun I have every time I run through this is something beyond all that. It's just a masterful game altogether. So happy I was able to do this again. It's funny how hopelessly in love I am with this game and the feels it gives me.