As for the oldies I took the plunge into the critically acclaimed Saints Row the Third and didn't find it to be very enjoyable. Alternatively I played the not so special Warriors Orochi 3, but had a ton of fun.
I played some Mega Man Battle Network as well, but probably won't write about it until I finish all 6 games in the series again. I'm at the end of 4 already, so that time is close at hand.
So yeah, I played some video games. Let's get into it. It's game time!
Attack of the Friday Monsters: A Tokyo Tale
Recently I was made aware of the series Boku no Natsuyasumi, which is a Japanese series exclusive to the PlayStation. Each game in the series focuses on the summer vacation of a child. Needless to say it's very much based around Japan and Japanese culture, so none of the games in the series have been released here. Then there's the fact that there isn't exactly a lot of gameplay. You walk around and play a few mini-games. From what I've seen the series basically amounts to a visual novel where you get to walk around, which sounds awesome to me. Which is how I ended up playing Attack of the Friday Monsters. The series creator of Boku No Natsuyasumi became part of level 5's Guild 05 project where developers make smaller download games for the 3DS. Seeing the game I got excited, but thought it would never see a translation. Much to my surprise the last time I booted up the 3DS store it was on there, so I purchased it immediately.
Attack of the Friday Monsters is just like the games in the Bolu no Natsuyasumi series. It's more or less a visual novel. However instead of focusing on summer vacation it revolves around a boy named Sohta who has moved to a new town. This new town has a television station where they film monster movies every Friday night. The kids and adults all gather at the top of the nearest hill and watch the battles play out, or at least that's what Sohta has heard. Since this game is only a story I won't give anything away. I will say that I think it was very well written though. The entire time the game keeps you guessing as to whether or not the monsters the villagers are talking about are real. Yes, there is a TV station, but that just makes you think the monsters are fake by default. As you progress you'll start to doubt that and ultimately find out what's true at the very end of the game.
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| Who could forget that the monsters come out on Friday!? |
While the story is very well executed that doesn't mean this game was without flaws. All you do is walk around the town and talk to its various residents, which I loved doing. You get a sense of who everyone is and it's actually quite refreshing to be able to just leisurely stroll around. You need to find certain things or talk to certain people to advance the game, but the town is small enough where that's never an issue. Despite that the game gives you a glowing indicator of where you need to go at all times on the map which takes away any challenge. You're always going to know exactly where to go.
Apparently walking around and being immersed in the town wasn't enough for a downloadable title so they threw in a monster card battling game. That's all fine and good, but I feel that it actually takes away from the game. The way you collect cards is by finding a certain number of glowing "glims" on the ground. Once you have enough of the same color they'll form a card. When you have five cards you can battle the kids in town. If you lose to them you'll become their servant. They can cast weird spoken spells on you, but really all they do is make you fall down and stand back up if you lose or decline their invitation to battle. If you win however, you can do the same to them with the added bonus of them giving you any information you want.
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| Card battles are pretty boring. |
The way you play is painfully simple. The game is literally ro-sham-bo. Each card is either rock, paper, or scissors with an attack value assigned. Each player throws down 5 cards face down. The game will tell you if two of your cards win, lose, or draw and give you the option to switch the places ot two of your cards. When both players do that all the cards are flipped over. If there are any draws the monster with more attack power takes the win. The person with more wins is the winner.
The card battles end up padding out the game unnecessarily. It's especially dumb, because if you yourself use the same magic spell as your opponent then they'll go easy on you, which basically means they let you win. Other than the card battles I really liked the game. It's not the kind of thing that gets released in the US often, so I was more than happy to support it. I could use some more visual novels that are more game than novel.
Saints Row The Third
This past year it was impossible to go without hearing how awesome Saints Row the Third was. Everyone seemed to love its stupidity, but seemed to agree that there was something special about the game. However, my brother who absolutely loved Saints Row 2 did not and still does not share that same opinion. He says that the campaign is too short and none of the jokes are funny. If prompted I can get him to go off on quite a rant about just how bad he thinks it is. He tends to exaggerate quite a bit and I think his hatred of this game is a bit too strong, but I do agree with him when he says he doesn't think it's anything special.
A lot of people were upset when GTA IV was a great deal more realistic than its predecessors. I was not one of those people. I liked the fact that GTA wanted to be taken a bit more seriously, but kept true to its kind of goofy roots. GTA IV still has its fair share of weird and childish stuff in it, but it takes a little more digging to get to. Saints Row on the other hand starting with Saints Row 2 went in the complete opposite direction. They threw out almost any realism the series had in favor of pure ridiculousness. What I do like about Saints Row the Third is that you're basically invincible in order to make the game more fun.
Right from the start you're more or less invincible. As the game progresses and you do side missions you'll earn money and respect which you can use to gain more abilities. I'm not at the end of the game yet, but I'll bet that by the time I am it'll take a serious amount of enemies to even make a dent on my health. I can rocket out of a car's windshield and walk away basically unscathed already.
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| Yeah, this is basically what the game is all about. |
The issue I have with Saints Row the Third is that I don't have fun while I'm playing it. I might be a fool for feeling this way, but I play GTA games to go through the story. I usually don't mess around and cause as much destruction as possible. Saints Row the Third let me know right off the bat that it wasn't really the game for me though. It starts ridiculous and continues to gets even weirder. They do an amazing job of setting the tone. In fact some of those moments are the ones I enjoyed the most. Shooting up a mansion full of enemies while Kanye West's Power is playing is actually pretty funny. The fact that there is a pimp who speaks exclusively in an auto-tuned voice is probably my favorite part of the game. These things alone can't make me truly enjoy the game though.
The story missions revolve around trying to take down an evil syndicate that for some reason has it out for the Saints. What I really don't like is that so far I've been playing for around six hours and almost every mission is just an introduction to one of the far too many side activities. I have no problem with side activities it's just that I don't find any of the ones in this game fun. So learning how to do them just to unlock another mission where I do the same thing isn't very rewarding. Perhaps when I'm no longer relegated to this side mission tutorial hell the missions will begin picking up.
I feel like I don't need to say that the combat isn't very great, but I will anyways. It's the same type of third-person shooting that these types of games have always had (GTA included). I feel like there should have been some kind of vast improvement to the system by now, but there really hasn't been. You auto-lock on to your targets until they're dead. Or if you want to kill everyone way faster auto-lock and then flick the stick up a tad to aim perfectly for a headshot. It's something that I really hope is better in GTA V, because I don't find the combat to be any better in GTA.
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| Zimos is the best character in the game. |
Saints Row the Third just isn't really the game for me. As I said it made it clear right from the start. Regardless I still don't think it's the masterpiece that everyone made it out to be, but that's just my opinion. But hey, if it's the kind of thing you're into the fourth one is coming out in a few weeks and it seems to be basically the same game but even more insane.
Warriors Orochi 3
I was trying to get my mind off of a few things, but didn't want to concentrate on what I was doing too much. What better way to play a game, but not have to pay attention than to boot up a Musou game. I quickly realized that I had Warriors Orochi 3, but had never played it.Knowing nothing about it I booted it up, because I thought it was just another Dynasty Warriors clone. Little did I know it literally was a Dynasty Warriors that crossed over with the other musou games like Samurai Warriors. You know what, this game is not good, but I had a damn fun time playing it.
As I've said many times in the past I really like Musou games. They're kind of mindless, but for some reason I find them to be fun. I don't really like Dynasty Warriors itself though. The character designs of the ancient three kingdoms just aren't outlandish enough for me. I don't want to beat down thousands of enemy soldiers with normal swords. I want something that's a little more crazy. So what if you added in Samurai Warriors? Apparently that's exactly what you need to get me on board. Warriors Orochi doesn't just bring the Samurai Warrior franchise on board though it also brings in the likes of Ryu Hyabusa from Ninja Gaiden and even Ayane from Dead or Alive. There are a ton of characters made just for the Warriors Orochi series as well. There are well over 100 different fighters in the game and most of them have insane weapons.
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| Her sword is electric. I'd say that's insane enough. |
Unlike other Musou games this one lets you use three characters at a time. You can switch between the three at any time by using the triggers. If any one of the three dies you lose. When not being used the characters will restore health and constantly generate energy for their special attacks. It doesn't seem like a huge change but it makes the gameplay a bit more fast paced and exciting. With this new gameplay mechanic the ways you can beat down your enemies become so much more varied in a single combat scenario. They try to get change your character up in battle, because each character needs to actually participate in order to get experience.
Oh yeah, there's a story too I guess. The evil Hydra has killed almost everyone, except for the three main characters. They magically get sent back in time by this creepily pale girl in order to save all the other warriors and find a way to win against Hydra. You get to go through a bunch of huge battles where you fight all the characters because they either hate you, or are being possessed by demon magic. Once you defeat them they will usually join your cause. Sometimes you have to go back and beat the same exact map again, but it's been altered slightly. All that matters is that you have a ton of characters to choose from and most of them are pretty interesting.
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| Why wouldn't Ayane be in the game? |
It's not a good game by any means. It's pretty tedious and barely has a story. Regardless I enjoy beating down thousands of soldiers with a single warrior. It's satisfying. Another version of this game is coming out later this year called Warriors Orochi Ultimate. They're adding even more characters to the mix, so I might have to pick it up if it comes to the US. By then though I may have had my fill since One Piece Pirate Warriors 2 is coming out on the 20th of August, which I'm unrealistically excited for.
Summer is Ending!
This summer was front-loaded with games and it seems that the back end is going to be pretty game heavy as well. Next week I'll be picking up the first true Wii-U release otherwise known as Pikmin 3. I hope for Nintendo's sake it's as good as they've been hyping it up to be. The Wii-U is already selling like a pile of poo though, so I'm sure the release of a unique first party game will do nothing but increase the consoles sales.
On the 6th Tales of Xillia will arrive at my door which is awesome, because I could use a solid JRPG. At the end of the month both Dive Kick and One Piece Pirate Warriors 2 will be on the PlayStation store, so look forward to hearing about the stupidly fun time I plan on having with both of those.
I'm getting hyped up just thinking about the coming month. If I start to think too far ahead though my brain might explode, because we've got GTA V and new consoles just around the corner! It's an exciting time!
Peace out.
-Manny.
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