FMW

Hello, here we should post our rants/pet peeves/secret furies. However, we should take pains not to fill up too much space with them. It's really easy to go overboard when you're really upset about something, so let's be careful not to do so. Example Rant: The Sales of Innovation The most polished products on the market are always going to be the derivative titles that build upon ideas/mechanics of their predecessors. Video games are not necessarily stagnant as some have claimed. However, the innovative games just aren't selling like the less daring AAA games nowadays. Nintendo is in a bit of a tight spot with this right now. There have been some GREAT games that made innovative use of the DS, but almost without fail those games were reviewed more harshly and sold less than traditional competition. Why am I mad about this? After all, I can still buy the innovative games for myself, no? Sure. I can right now. However, I don't see third parties making innovative gems like Contact, Away Shuffle Dungeon, or 999 for future consoles. Hell, even TWEWY which was well polished and used the DS features sold far less than more traditional JRPG fare. The same goes for Wii except doubly so. Budgets are bigger for console games, and publishers are getting burned even worse on sales. Seriously, Dead Space Extraction was the most innovative in that franchise. It was really really great. It was different and on Wii though, so it didn't sell nearly as well as it deserved to. (Note: I recognize that it doesn't take much to be more innovative than the main Dead Space games) In conclusion: it is logical for consumers to purchase the most polished product. However, if we consumers ever want more from our video games than we're getting right now, then we must be willing to buy less polished games that try new things.

The only console I own is a Wii. I will grant that 2011 looks quite sparse. However, Nintendo has taken to announcing games very shortly before launch lately. There are enough games that have been hinted at or haven't been localized at all that it possible that this will be a fantastic year. Imagine if Xenoblade, Zelda, Pikmin 3, The Last Story, and the Fatal Frame remake all get released. Of course, it's also possible that none of those will be. Consider - 2010 looked quite sparse in January too. That year gave us Metroid, Galaxy 2, Kirby, Sin and Punishment, DK, Trauma Team, Red Steel 2, and more. So my conclusion is - too early to tell. How I feel as a gamer who only owns a Wii - I'm fine. I'd need to be a quite the voracious gamer indeed to have played all the 2010 games. I still don't own Kirby, Sin and Punishment, or Red Steel. I want to pick up Goldeneye too if I can. Honestly, that's about how many console games I buy in a year. 4 or maybe 5. So I'm still fine.

Chrono Trigger:

Coke Blak > Any other beverage ever

The first NGE movie The second NGE movie The Cowboy Bebop Movie

Throughout your entire adventure, I have been a thorn in your side. Your quest has been to stop my evil reign. Along your journey you have seen villages burned, maidens kidnapped, and chapels desecrated. You reach me after battling through my castle fortress filled with hellspawn and diabolical traps. I'm atop the central tower, lounging on an uncomfortable looking throne of stone. Opening cutscene: The fight is pretty rough. I'm quite difficult on my own, and when things look bad for me I move to execute one of the several innocent characters I've kidnapped over the course of the game. If I succeed, it's game over. When a prisoner is teleported into the battlefield, you must make it your priority to rescue him/her. This invariably allows me to retreat and heal. There will be four prisoners. All four were once party members, and you thought that I had killed all four of them. The fourth is Hero's father who "died" heroically early in the game. Each rescued character grants a buff to the party which makes it possible to survive my next (increasingly powerful) attack pattern before escaping. By the end the party is basically invincible, and I'm throwing out entirely unreasonably powerful magic attacks. It's close. I ban healing in the final phase, so it's a gauntlet run to finish me before I finish you. Victory Cutscene; Fin

The Chrono Trigger box art is pretty fantastic. Another game that has a really cool box is Pikmin 2. And the alternate cover: Both are good, but I think I prefer the first one. The second image is just a bit too busy for my taste. That said, they're both head and shoulders better than what we usually get. Edit: I can't make the pictures show up. Sorry.

Ironically not "slime"

But I forgot the most important cool thing! You know the lame villain characters? Yeah, they're generic and lame. Good job with Vayne's speech in Rabanstre though. Not many games would dedicate a CG movie to making their villain seem like a nice guy. I actually fell for that little ruse for a while. BUT: the meta story about free will vs. fate is important and cool. Vayne wants to cut the world free of the gods. Ashe does too. Vayne wants to rule the world once the gods are out of the way. Ashe wants to rule part of the world once the gods are out of the way. See the significant difference? There isn't one really. Now think about Balthier. He's already done the whole free will vs. authority thing, except on a much smaller scale with his dad instead of gods. Balthier doesn't have any particular reason for tagging along with Ashe. He isn't even her constituent! Why does he do this? "Because he's a party member!" you say. "Shut up!" I say back. Balthier sees Ashe facing the same crisis he once faced. Balthier ran away from his problem, and built himself a new life constantly on the run. Balthier doesn't want Ashe to meet the same fate. Through Balthier's subtle guidance, Ashe finds a path that is neither submission to fate (the gods) nor running from it. The most significant line in the game is at the top of Pharos, where Ashe ultimately chooses between Abeing bound to the gods, the past, and power or B uncertainty. Balthier knows the correct answer. He know more about nethicite than anyone there, and he certainly isn't impressed by the misty dead man. He doesn't tell Ashe this though. He says "It's your choice". This is the fundamental difference between Ashe's decision and Balthiers. Balthier was made into a Judge, given a strict path to follow. He learned from that, and allowed Ashe to make a mistake if she saw fit. Had Balthier stepped in and tried to force Ashe away from her dead husband wraith, even with the best of intentions, he would have turned her away from the correct decision. So Balthier's decision to promote Ashe's free decision ultimately resulted in the world being granted free will as well. It's pretty heavy stuff. I haven't done it justice with this write up. It's cool. The entire game is laced with the fate vs. free will thing really. There's rebellion/empire for Vaan, duty/family for Basch, daddy issues for Balthier, restrictive society/exodus for Fran, and Gods/no Gods for Ashe. Only Penelo doesn't face a variant on fate/free will, but that's because she might as well not have existed as far as the story goes. Seriously, a wasted character. Oh yes, and what is the imperial succession by blood but the most ritualized form of fate? Larsa faces this stuff too. TLDR If you want to go all literary on this game's story, it will not disappoint you. Those who complain that it lacks "heart", don't realize that it has something much better. "Brains"

FF XII is my choice. There are issues with it though, so let's start with those: Most of the NPC characters are more interesting than the party characters. Vaan/Penelo have tenuous justification at best for venturing into the increasingly dangerous situations the story throws at you. Nobody specializes, the license board makes all people able to do all things. The villain characters are incredibly generic. There are so many great things though! The music is the best in the franchise. Period. It transcends "video game music" and becomes something much more. Nobody hearing it would ever suspect that these were written for a video game. It fills the fields with wonder, and the caves with uncertainty. It fills Naubudis with remorse. It fills the final boss battle with kicking ass. Seriously - listen to the final boss music. Battle for Freedom it's called. There's more compositional know-how going on there than in some entire soundtracks. The production values are through the roof. Good stuff. I think it will even age well. Hard to tell now though. The combat system effectively brings ATB to 3 dimensions. I cannot stress enough how important this was. Since the advent of 3D, JRPGs have been using the tricks from the NES and SNES eras. This game finally moves beyond those. It amazes me how FF XIII turned out. It's like JRPGs are still looking for a way into the future. IT'S RIGHT HERE! COPY THIS GAME! The story is cool. Balthier is hero-with-daddy-issues #4634, but he pulls it off so well it didn't even occur to me that he fit the cliche until I'd finished the game. Basch is stoic badass #435625, but his relationships with the much more interesting Gabranth and Larsa make him cool anyway. Vaan is zero-to-hero #99999999, and he's... lame. Penelo is longtime friend of the hero with inevitable romance #99999998, and she's...lame. Fran is longtime friend of the hero with inevitable romance #99999999, and she's... cool. I swear, Square Enix just added Vann/Penelo as a foil for Baltheir/Fran. The two pairs are very similar, and fulfill similar archetypes. The difference is that one is cool and one isn't. I'm not entirely sure how/why, but it confounds me how the same story writer could create the same thing twice, but only succeed once. If you know how to write a good heroic couple, do it for both of your heroic couples! ...This is too long isn't it? TLDR: FFXII is better than your favorite FF.

You know what game you should keep your eye on? The DS game Radiant Historia. It's from Atlus, so we know localization will be stellar. This link will take you to a trailer that highlight the potentially interesting story and battle systems: http://www.siliconera.com/2011/01/12/radiant-historia-lets-you-rethink-that-decision-about-destroying-the-world/ It comes with a soundtrack CD, so I'm willing to bet that the music is going to be pretty stellar too.

I like the SMT games. I like Persona 3-4 the best. This is because P 3/4 break up the pacing really well. One is never doing the same thing for too long, unless you really want to. The characters are pretty well written too. Better than most other games, that's for sure. Between those two, I give the edge to P4. The graphics and voice acting are both slightly better. The writing is much better too. It was incredibly fresh to play a JRPG that wasn't about saving the world. P4 kinda drops the ball at the end though. It's really tough to get the "true" ending, and the story veers away from it's previous strengths. Personally, I missed the true ending the first time through because I actually SPOILERS wanted to kill that guy. You needed to be playing really really close attention to the internal logic of the game to realize why he was innocent. NOT SPOILERS ANYMORE. I like the P3 music a little bit more, but I think it's all a matter of taste. They're both good. P4 has better battle themes, for which it gets mad props. I like the atmosphere of Strange Journey, but grinding on its own doesn't work. The EX missions don't do much for me. Normally it was tolerable because the grinding was also exploration, so I always had two missions. Complete the map, and fill all my little XP bars. The end is not tolerable. I have explored everything, but still need many many levels to hope to challenge the final boss (I took the chaos path). Plain old grinding is lame. I know that there's still more to explore in the final zone, but checking every wall for invisible doors is lame too. I haven't finished this game, because everything at the end is lame. Devil Survivor is cool, but also needs to cool it on endgame difficulty. I'm near the end of the game, and even after grinding for a very long time I still can't beat a particular boss. It's pretty lame, because this isn't even the final boss. I shouldn't need to look up online how beat something. I really really like the split storylines though. Very cool. Also, I'm pretty sure someone died midway through the week who didn't need to. I look forward to playing through again and trying to save him. I really like the SMT twist on SRPG though. Good good stuff. What's really telling though is that it throws aside so many classic SRPG systems. There are no weapons/armor/equipment, it doesn't matter where someone's facing, and they don't really do terrain bonuses either. I almost think of Devil Survivor as a happy medium between SRPG and JRPG.

The virtual console is pretty cool. I've had a great time discovering which old "classics" can still appeal to a gamer who didn't play games until the end of the N64 generation. I'm not demeaning old classics in any way, but it's been interesting to discover which games you had to have been there to enjoy, and which ones hold a more universal appeal. Here's what I've discovered: Super Metroid is all kinds of awesome, now and forever. Sin and Punishment is great because it follows it's muse without compromise. Super Castlevania IV is possibly the best game ever. The music, controls, and atmosphere are all there. And turning the music off for the final boss, only to kick in at the end with the character theme? It's so brilliant I'm amazed it hasn't been done to death. Castlevania Rondo of Blood is pretty cool too. It's no Super Castlevania IV though. I don't like Super Mario Bros 3. The thing about the Mario franchise is that it cannibalizes itself. Every cool thing in SMB 3 is something I've seen a cooler version of in a later installment. Since I've played all the 3D Super Mario games and both New Super Mario games, SMB3 really held very little for me to discover. I don't like Kid Icarus. Single block platforming is not fun. Replaying levels over and over again is not fun. I love Gunstar Heroes. Nintendo needs to buy out Treasure. Those two companies make the best same-room cooperative play I've experienced. Together, they could unite the world. I liked MegaMan until Wiley's Castle. That level isn't fun. It's brutal. The level is designed to kill you, and when the level doesn't the technical limitations probably will. The first 6 levels were great though. Starfox 64 is everything I could ask from a rail shooter. I kinda wish Nintendo wasn't remaking it though, because I already know these levels backwards and forwards. I would LOVE a new set of levels with SF 64 mechanics though. Metroid... I don't get it. I can see how the game design evolved into Super Metroid and the rest of that awesome franchise, but I don't understand what's fun about Metroid I. I request either recognizable landmarks or a map system please.

Dear Dean: Which Zelda to play first? That's actually a really good question. Even though MM is my favorite, it definitely shouldn't be your first. It isn't representative of the franchise, and it's greatest strengths lie in subverting Zelda cliches. It wouldn't be nearly as powerful to someone who doesn't have the proper preconceptions of how Zelda works. You shouldn't start with either of the NES games. They are interesting for genealogical purposes, but both are frustrating and ugly. Don't touch the CDI crap either. Don't start with Twilight Princess. It's well crafted, but it can't compete with it's contemporaries. It is, perhaps, the best N64 game ever made. Nothing in the design really seems to require more than could have been done a decade ago. You shouldn't start with Wind Waker because it's polarizing. I don't rightly understand why, but many people don't care for that one. Just in case you are one such person, steer clear. I think perhaps the best place to start would be with The Minish Cap. The game looks really good, has great music, and sports what is perhaps the most tightly designed over world in the series. It's a game you can get lost in if you want to. Every screen holds a host of secrets, each one just barely buried beneath the last. It definitely emphasizes puzzles over combat, but I think that too is representative of the best of the series. The other bonus to The Minish Cap is that it's short if you want it to be. For the first game in the franchise, I wouldn't recommend a lengthier entry just in case you don't like it. If you do like it though, you can invest at least an extra dozen hours uncovering things. I know I certainly did. Most of all, The Minish Cap exudes charm. If you don't fall in love with this game, then there's no point in trying other Zelda iterations. No other Hyrule is as vibrant, expressive, or layered as this one.

I think that Pokemon is intrinsically good. The formula works quite well. However, I wish that it was possible to increase the speed of the game. Many things just feel slow and clunky to me. Needing to use HMs for environmental puzzles is a tedious process. There are several similar games that have much quicker environmental interactions that they could copy. I'm thinking of Golden Sun, Zelda, or Lufia. The other thing that needs a speed increase is the battles. The only way I could make the battles bearable in Platinum was to turn of battle animations. I shouldn't need to do that. Speed up the text, or better yet, give me an option to turn it off entirely. Once one is familiar with the game, is the narration text really necessary? I recognize the graphics for the statuses and I can tell how much my health has gone down. Actually, that could be really exciting. You get hit for half your HP, and you don't think that the enemy should have that kind of stopping power. Do you stay in and hope that it was a critical hit? Or do you retreat? Or at the very very least, let me manipulate menus while attack animations are running. Anything to speed up the plodding pace of combat. Even without animations, it's very very slow. I'd almost welcome an ATB system, just because that would force the game to keep on moving!

I really liked it the first time through, and I think that the included side story about Tin Pin is hilarious. However, I haven't been able to complete the game on later playthroughs. Week 2 just really drags. I want to get through to week 3, especially because week 3's battle system is my favorite, but I just haven't been able to get over that hump. I love how cinematic they were able to make it only using 2D images though. Very good creative stuff. The only other game I've played that was at all similar is Trauma Team.

It's Majora's Mask. On a technical level, all Zelda games are fantastic. All the games have clever puzzles, the stories are usually pretty similar to one another, the graphics are always impressive for the hardware, and the music is always good (sometimes great). Exception made for Zelda II. I haven't played it. But when every game in the franchise gets all of these things right, it really takes something special to make the game stand out from the crowd. WindWaker had awesome graphics, and stands out based on those. That's my second favorite Zelda game. Majora's Mask had that something. It was terrifying. Very rarely in an explicit way, but throughout. The entire game is built on the foundation of OoT (one of the most technically impressive games in the franchise) and subverting it. The music is more ominous. The graphics focus on deep red and purple colors, colors that aren't found often in nature. MM is a better horror game than most horror games because it's atmosphere is so unrelenting, and it's terror so subtle. One never finds a really "comfortable" place in Termina. There is no fishing hole equivalent. Then there's the whole "moon going to destroy the world in 3 days" thing. The story is unique to the franchise, and inextricably ties the atmosphere, narrative, and gameplay together. The Ocarina of time is instantly established as a symbol for the better times of the past, and this works really well because so many people feel real nostalgia for OoT. This instrument becomes your only lifeline, in more ways than one. Also, you're playing as child Link. The designers went out of their way to build the world so that it's just a bit too large for you. Where the vast expanses of Hyrule were inviting, the scale of Termina leaves the player feeling isolated and out of place. For players of OoT, it's even worse. These players are familiar with Link as much more powerful, and it's kinda shocking when little things like Deku Scrubs are dangerous again. Oh yes. And the transformations. I don't think I need to say more about them. The opening sequence is amazing in how vulnerable it leaves you feeling. MM is the best Zelda game because it's different from all the others. It breaks new narrative ground, and also new atmosphere and new gameplay mechanics. It keeps all the strengths of the other Zelda games, and piles all of these on top. WW is the second best, because it added new graphics and atmosphere. The additions weren't as seamlessly integrated into the game structure though, so it falls just a bit short.

Here's a great Wii game I'll bet everyone here missed: Speed Racer - The Video Game. The Wii version of the licensed game that came out along with the movie a while back is actually a ton of fun. I can only imagine it would be better if I knew anything at all about the franchise. Trauma Team is really great too. Better than either of the previous Trauma offerings. The co-op is extremely well done. If you have someone who plays games with you only occasionally, try this one. The idea of playing the board game "operation" is non threatening enough, but I guarantee they will end up asking about the story and insisting that you play the full movie sequences for them.

Fire Emblem 8 is my favorite of the games I've played, hands down. I've played 8, 9, and Shadow Dragon. I really like the splitting story in 8, and I also like some of the crazier classes. It's less balanced than the other FE games I've played, but I found it really rewarding to raise little Ewan into a completely OP necromancer, or Amelia into a game breaking general. Actually, I really liked necromancers period. They did interesting things to battle strategy. I kinda wish Intelligent Systems would bring them back. It also helps that FE 8 was my first FE game. FE 9 was really long, which was good. It also had gorgeous CGI cutscenes. Sure, there were only 5 or so, but they were enough to let my imagination go wild with what the rest of the game was supposed to look like. In my head, every battle looks like those movies. I didn't like the story as much as FE 8 though. I also didn't care for the Laguz too much. FE Shadow Dragon is just an entirely different beast. It's much less the rock, paper, scissors game I'd grown accustomed to. It's bloody HARD! However, it's missing a significant story element and support conversations. The result is that the game feels kinda sterile to me. The characters never get a chance to become more than bundles of statistics. That said, I really really like the battle animations. Every FE game should have animations like these. I plan to buy Radiant Dawn someday but... It's expensive. It's impossible to even find at regular retail price, much less a discounted used price. I guess Nintendo didn't print many copies of the game or something, because this game skipped the phase where it's cheap, and went straight from new to sought after collectible. I keep hoping that I'll find a deal on it somewhere, but I guess that's becoming less likely every day...

Frosted Mini-Wheats here! I like most games, but I can't afford many. My systems of choice are Nintendo because Nintendo software is cheapest. I work in customer service. It's not a bad job really. I've definitely gotten better at dealing with people because of it. I guess it's only a matter of time before my job is outsourced to India though. My favorite game is Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I know it's kind of a boring choice, but OoT was not only my first 3D video game, it was my first video game at all. Period. The fact that it happened to be fantastic just helps matters.

Games were pretty lucky, actually. When the medium was in it's infancy, a developer's options for delivering an enthralling and/or exciting experience were limited. The games couldn't handle much on the screen at one time, nothing looked good, music was incredibly limited, and you could only present a limited number of colors. Oh yes, and everything was in 2D. The result of this was that games developed some really weird patterns. Because developers couldn't make things exciting through spectacle, many games instead became really really hard. The idea was that killing a nigh unrecognizable pixel Dracula would be more exciting if it was super hard, and players had to struggle mightily to do so. This actually worked out pretty well, and still works today (Demon's Souls). Another solution was to back away from blockbuster action, and instead try to appeal to a player's intellect. I think this is why RPGs developed so quickly. Developers could pull from rule sets already established to be basically balanced, and try to capture a more esoteric sort of fun. I reference Fire Emblem as a classic game that was fun because of the turn based nature of the strategy. Players could be entertained for hours staring at a difficult battle grid just trying to figure out what to do. Consider how much money and effort goes into generating a similar hour of single player entertainment in a Call of Duty game. Eventually, turn based combat developed an interesting sibling in the ATB battle systems. ATB allowed the developers to inject more urgency into battles, but they kept the still necessary control over how many sprites would be on the screen and more or less what would be going on. It was ideal for the SNES and N64 eras, when technology sat on the edge of the great 3D-2D divide. Fast forward to today, when technology no longer hinders developers like it once did. It is no longer necessary to find alternative ways to entertain players beyond the traditional. Games like Call of Duty are the biggest bread winners, just as The Expendables earned a ridiculous amount of money. It would be easy at this point for the gaming industry to follow the pattern of the movie industry, releasing fewer titles and following roughly the same genres. I'm not sure what we would offer to the romantic comedy crowd, but I'm sure someone would think of something. But wait! That isn't how things are turning out! Why? Because games evolved so damn quickly. Both the creators and consumers of our earlier games are still around and spending money. This creates a very strange market situation indeed. The market for turn based combat and sprite graphics is roughly equivalent to a market for movies that are black and white or silent. There was rarely a great vision for turn based combat, it was forced by technological constraints. As long as there is a market for retro games, they will be created. That's why JRPGs still exist. WRPGs convey all the same gameplay elements, but with more urgency and excitement. Usually better graphics too, but that's more of a toss up. Anyway, we have this weird market where there remain a select few who developed a taste for the slower, more methodical strategy of turn based action and still want it despite the development of newer flashier game technologies. So what is the future for these classic game styles? I think they will live on as long as their audience does, but only proportionally to their audience. Advance Wars has an audience, sure, but not nearly as large as Starcraft's. This smaller audience means that JRPG budgets will usually be smaller than other games, forcing JRPGs to cut corners in graphics and audio technology. Ironically, the fans keeping these games alive probably won't mind too much. That's what they were weaned on, after all. ATB battle systems in particular though? I think they're doomed. ATB helped span a technology gap that no longer exists. If a developer wants to keep battles frantic, they can do that just by letting it all happen at once. The processors can handle it. Likewise if a game opts to aim for the retro gamer demographic, it is more likely to be uncompromising and remain steadfastly turn based. It's easier to balance and again, it's not like retro gamers are clamoring for the prettiest, most instantly gratifying experiences. In fact, they want the opposite. So I think that ATB was a step to compromise two different styles of game that have since seen their audiences separate. Only games that try to appeal to multiple RPG audiences are really messing with it anymore. We have FFXIII that tried to appeal to fans while still be exciting enough for the newer crowd, and we have Fallout which is similarly compromising between fans of older RPGs and fans of shooters. These games are few and far in between. I think that ATB will continue on this path to eventual oblivion.

Metroid Other M is not a great game. It is good, but not great. I think everyone expected great, because up until now Metroid as a franchise has basically been batting 500. You should buy Other M, and buy it new. This is because Other M experiments. Buying Other M used or not at all is casting a vote either for another 8 year hiatus or for a swift and speedy return to the franchises roots. Now make no mistake, I like traditional Metroid games. However, you know what I like even more? I don't know yet. I want to find out. I bought Other M new, and I viewed it as a vote for continued experimentation. Odds are, Nintendo won't ever surpass Super Metroid if they remain restricted to the Super Metroid formula. Of course, this logic would justify buying any crappy experimental game. Don't do that. I don't condone purchasing bad games. There are two reasons why you should still buy this one. It is good, and we can trust Nintendo.