Game Time - 6/3/2012

I'm back and it's way less hot, which means I'm far less irritable this week.

Last Game Time I mentioned that I ordered the DS RPG Radiant Historia. Everything I read or watched about the game couldn't have been any more praiseworthy. At first I was excited, but after playing it for myself I'm severely disappointed. I expected to be playing it nonstop, but I've been having to take frequent breaks. It just doesn't feel right.

During one of those breaks I picked up the 5th Humble Indie Bundle. If you haven't picked it up yet, I suggest that you do. Who doesn't want to get Amnesia, Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP, Limbo, and PSYCHONAUTS for the low price of whatever you want to pay? To top it off if you pay more than the average you'll also get Bastion. To be honest I only bought it to get the updated Psychonauts on Steam. I used to have it on disc, but it has since been lost.

Buying the Humble Bundles always makes me feel good. I get a ton of great games for a solid price and donate to charity all in one fell swoop. The part that makes me feel not as great about it is my terrible laptop. It used to overheat all the time for absolutely no reason, but no longer! When playing Psychonauts my laptop overheated and I completely lost my cool. In a fit of rage I disassembled the piece of garbage and found out that my heatsink was 100% clogged with dust. I removed it and now my laptop doesn't overheat at the slightest provocation! It was an exciting time to say the least.

Mission accomplished! It's Game Time!

Radiant Historia

I watched a handful of videos on Radiant Historia before I purchased it. In almost all of them the person speaking claimed that it was the greatest JRPG they had played in years. More than once it was compared to Chrono Trigger in the scope of it's greatness. As you may have heard Chrono Trigger is my favorite game, so the claims obviously piqued my interest. After playing I'm fairly confident in saying that the only thing the two games have in common is that their plots both feature time travel.

When I started Radiant Historia I liked it a lot, but the further I got into it the more I began to dislike what was going on and it's only getting worse. You take control of a character named Stocke. He's basically a secret agent for the kingdom he lives in. When he gets sent on a mission he's given a special book called the White Chronicle that allows him to travel back and forth to certain events in time. He uses the book to access a land called Historia where he talks to these two little kids who no one else can see.

This is the game's box art. Surprise, you get all of these characters in your party. 

Without getting too deep into a plot summary I'm just going to say that it's Stocke's job to fix certain events in time. There is one true timeline and it's being tampered with. This concept it pretty cool, but it's either executed super poorly or I'm missing something. I think the part where it gets weird is that there are two time lines that you have to jump back and forth between. You start the game in one and play for a while. Something bad happens that can't be avoided, so the only solution is to go to the other timeline where you'll do something to fix it. Once it's fixed you go back to the original timeline. This process repeats over and over, which makes the plot seem extremely disjointed.

You're forced to switch time lines just when the plot is actually getting interesting, so it kills almost all of the stories momentum. By the time you get back to the previous time line you've forgotten almost all about what the hell was going on, or at least I do. Stocke is the only one (at least so far) who knows about the time traveling, so it's almost like there are two completely different plots going on in the game. I guess what I don't like is that the entire game feels so segmented. If the game had just gone linearly going back and forth between the time lines I may feel better about it, but instead you're just not allowed to progress until you get farther in the other one.

This is what the timeline looks like. except without the Japanese. 

There are some interesting things going on in the plot, but I just don't know what to think. People are turning into sand spontaneously and I want to know all about that, but I almost don't want to keep playing. Normally I can look past this kind of issue with a plot, because the characters are interesting. In this case they're not, which is frustrating. All of the characters have so much potential, but it seems as if it won't be fully realized. I'm around 13 hours into the game and all of the characters still seem super flat and I'm willing to bet it's due to the way the time travel works. Stocke is the same person across the whole game, but even he seems like an empty shell. He acts cold towards everyone, but he secretly cares. Now, one would expect that to be the basis for his character, which would be expanded upon throughout the course of the game. Surprise, it still hasn't been expounded upon THIRTEEN HOURS INTO THE GAME. You know what I know about him? He's cold towards people, everyone inexplicably thinks he's the coolest, his best friend has a robot arm, and he doesn't really question what the deal with his time travel powers are.

Despite my displeasure with the plot I do enjoy the battle system. Unlike most turn based RPGs it's more focused on strategy than strength. While your levels and equipment do matter the way you approach each battle matters a whole lot more. The reason for that may be because it's a mashup of a turn based battle system and a strategy RPG (Final Fantasy Tactics-esque games). The three party members you have chosen appear on the right side of the screen, and the enemies appear on the left side on a grid. Using skills the enemies can get pushed around, which allows for a whole lot of strategy. Pushing enemies onto one another makes it so they can be attacked at the same time. You can target one foe at a time, or try and be more efficient by attacking them all at once. In order to do that you need to have your party do all of their skills in a row. This isn't always possible, so there is also an option to give up a characters turn so they can go multiple times in a row later. The best part is that I've leveled a lot, but I've never gotten overpowered. Instead of gaining ridiculous amounts of strength and defense the characters seem to learn more skills so that you have more options in battle.

It's possible to attack all of the enemies in the battle at the same time. 

I want to like this game, but so far I just haven't been able to do it. The distaste I've felt so far is something I haven't been able to shake. I'll probably end up putting it down for a few weeks and coming back to it. Perhaps I just need a palette cleanser.

Psychonauts

As I mentioned in the intro I played Psychonauts around the time of it's release in 2005. Since then I've lost the disc, so I was excited to get the new and improved Steam version. At first I was worried that the game wasn't going to be as good as it was when I was fifteen, but thankfully I was wrong. Psychonauts is still as good today as it was back then.

I'm a huge fan of Tim Schafer's work, so it's not surprising that I like Psychonauts so much. On top of Schaefer's influence it probably helps that Eric Wolpaw was writing for the game, because it's just funny. Humor is something that I think is hard to get right in a video game, but Wolpaw clearly knows what he's doing. Between Psychonauts and Portal he's made some genuinely funny games. They're not going out of their way to be funny, they're just doing it.

I guess there is something inherently funny about Psychonauts, because the concept is unconventional. It's all about a kid named Rasputin (Raz) who's run away from home in order to attend a summer camp for psychic children. A summer camp full of psychic kids gives plenty of opportunity for some pretty weird situations. They're all being trained so that they can learn to advance their powers and become international secret agents known as Psychonauts (Hence the game's name).

Look at these campers! I wouldn't be able to resist going to Whispering Rock! 

I think one of the reasons I like the game world so much is because I always wanted to experience a real summer camp. I only went to a day camp, which I hated with a burning passion. All of the kids at Whispering Rock are all cooler than the lame group of people I went to camp with. I guess Whispering Rock is the camp I wish I had gone to. Although my camp sadly would have had marginally less psychic kids. The world of Psychonauts immediately pulls me in and I love that.

In recent years I've heard a lot of people complaining about the platforming in the game. Playing it again I don't know what all the fuss is about. It's a platformer from the mid 2000's with some psychic powers thrown in as abilities. Nothing around that controlled super well. I didn't have any trouble with the controls when I was younger and on a much worse computer, so maybe people have higher standards than I do. While the controls can be annoying at times they've never pulled me out of the experience.

Psychonauts is a game that I think everyone should play. It's the definition of a cult classic. It was released to critical acclaim, but it completely bombed in stores. That may be due to the fact that the PS2 and Xbox ports were horribly broken, but it still should have done better than it did. If you were one of the people who played those awful versions of the game you should pick up the new and improved steam version. You just have to know what you're getting yourself into.

Ready for some E3!

This coming week it's E3! It's one of the biggest events in gaming, so I get super excited for it every year. I want a lot of cool stuff to happen this year, but I doubt it's going to. Sony and Microsoft are a year off from their new consoles so they probably won't have much to show off.

Nintendo on the other hand has a whole lot to prove. The Wii U will be out this coming "holiday" or so they claim. The true potential of the system hasn't been shown, but we can only hope that they'll bring out some awesome games. My worst nightmare is that the system will have a launch lineup like the 3DS and Vita. You would have to pay me to buy a Vita right now, because there's only one game I even want to play.

I don't want to get too much into speculation, so I'll just slip out of this post quietly.

     -Manny.

Review of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

This review is based on my experience with the DS version of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Score: 5/5

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is the newest game from Ace Attorney creator Shu Takumi. During the time he was writing Ace Attorney 3 he came up with the idea to create a new mystery game dealing with ghosts. The end result was Ghost Trick, which is an adventure/puzzle game combination. Unlike the Ace Attorney franchise the player has direct control over the main character, which allows for a more immersive experience while retaining the unique characters and charm of those games.

When the game begins you’ll take control of Sissel and much to his surprise he’s dead. Sadly he’s got amnesia, so he doesn’t remember much of anything except what he looked like, because he can see his corpse. He doesn’t have much time to lament though, because as he comes to he notices that a murder is about to take place. A blue skinned assassin is holding a red haired woman at gun point, but because he’s dead Sissel thinks he can’t do anything about it. Just when things seem at their worst a lively desk lamp named Ray lets Sissel in on the fact that he has special powers known as ghost tricks.

As you can imagine these tricks are the foundation for the entire game and the first scenario plays out much like the rest of the game. The red haired woman gets shot, but all is not lost. If Sissel touches her body with his spirit he can go back to four minutes before her death and save her. How can he do this though? Well, that’s where the actual gameplay comes in. Sissel’s main power is that he can possess intimate objects and manipulate them. In order to move about through objects you’ll first need to enter the ghost world.

The blue dots are image cores you can possess. The line is Sissel traveling between them.

Entering the ghost world is as simple as touching a button in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. The world will turn red, objects will turn blue, and people will turn yellow. Anything you can interact with will have a circle in the middle known as a core. Sissel can move from core to core, but he can only reach so far, so making a path is often your goal. When inside an object its details will appear on the upper screen, including whether or not you can manipulate it. In order to manipulate an object you’ll need to return to the normal world and tap the trick button at the bottom right hand side of the bottom screen. The action performed depends on the object Sissel inhabits.

In order to solve each scenario you’ll need to use the objects in a specific order or way. It’s simple enough to achieve your goal. To me Ghost Trick has the perfect difficulty level, because it never gets super frustrating. While most puzzles need to be performed under a timer you can redo them as many times as you want, and each time the game will try to point you in the right direction. On top of that the puzzles are never extremely difficult. They get fairly challenging, but if you think about any situation long enough, then chances are you’ll figure out what to do. While nothing is overtly hard the game still makes you feel smart when you do solve the puzzle. Afterwards you’ll be rewarded with the next story sequence, which makes it all worthwhile.

The trouble with adventure games is that they don’t have a whole lot of replay value and sadly Ghost Trick is no different. The puzzles are entertaining, but unless the story grabs you, you’re not going to keep playing. In this case the story had no trouble drawing me in. It took me eleven or so hours to complete the game and I did it in just two sittings. I couldn’t stop once I had started, because I was so invested. When the game starts you’re thrown right into the action with very little explanation of who Sissel is, or why he has these special powers. It doesn’t help that he has amnesia, which is such a played out trope. I thought that the whole amnesia thing was going to bug me, but I feel like it’s handled quite well in Ghost Trick. Sissel doesn’t spend the whole time lamenting over his lost memories, he just gets down to business so he can figure out what the hell is going on.

I mean, just look at Sissel. He means business.

He figures out pretty early on that it’s a special night and that all of the people he meets are related to him in some way. It’s a classic one night mystery. Sissel is told he’ll cease to exist once dawn breaks, so he needs to find out before then. Finding out about who Sissel is and what he’s all about is the reason to play this game, but he wouldn’t be able to support an entire narrative on his own, so it’s good that he gets some help.

The Ace Attorney series is notable for it’s whacky and unique characters and Ghost Trick is no different. It just goes to show that Takumi knows how to make some compelling and varied case of characters. The hyperactive pooch Missile, the determined detective Lynne, and the smooth operating inspector Cabanela are just a few of the faces you’ll meet in game. Their stories are all compelling and their dialogue is excellently written,however I think that the animation used in Ghost Trick helped to make them larger than life.

In the Ace Attorney series the action is all based around static character portraits on a static background, the same is not true of Ghost Trick.  While they still have character portraits in conversation each character is also cel shaded, 3D, and fully animated on screen. When they move around it looks genuinely good. I want to say that it’s rotoscoped, but I don’t know that for sure. The movement looks genuinely good and it adds a lot to the games personality. Inspector Cabanela is known as the man who dances through life and he sure does do a lot of fantastic dancing. This animation paired with the characters makes them all feel very alive, which is one of the reasons I cared so much about all of them.

This video shows just how great Cabanela's dancing is.

The final ingredient of Ghost Tricks immersive world is the music. It was composed by Masakazu Sugimori the man behind the Ace Attorney and Viewtiful Joe soundtracks. His work on the original Ace Attorney soundtrack is argued to be his best work by his fans. To no surprise his excellent composing skills are back for Ghost Trick and he hasn’t lost his touch, if anything it’s gotten a whole lot better. Every song in the game compliments and adds to whatever is happening. I often found myself getting caught up in the music. For example, whenever Missile’s theme would play I would get a big goofy grin on my face. I’m even listening to the soundtrack as I write this, because it gets me so pumped up. Each song calls a specific moment from Ghost Trick to memory and that means the soundtrack did it’s job well.

Even after completing Ghost Trick I couldn’t stop thinking about it. At first I thought it was because of how the ending came together, which was immensely satisfying, but now I realize it was more than that. The game as a whole just fits together so well. Very rarely do I want to go back to a game immediately after completing it, but Ghost Trick was completely different, which is extra surprising given it’s an adventure game. The characters are memorable, the puzzles are fun and challenging, and the soundtrack is incredible. Very rarely do all the elements of a game come together as well as they do in this game.

I’m going to put it bluntly. Ghost Trick is a great game. If you can pick this game up I highly recommend that you do so. It’s only climbing in cost, so you should do it before it’s too late. Alternative there are versions for android and IOS now. The first few chapters are free and the remaining three chunks of the game you have to pay for individually. I don’t care which version of Ghost Trick you play, but I think that you should play at least one, if not all of them.

     -Manny