I absolutely loved GTA V, but I'm not going to talk about it in depth here. It deserves its own special time, which it will be getting some time in the next few days. I have to gather up my thoughts, because I have a whole lot of them.
Other than that I only really played two games for any reasonable length of time. I made the mistake of buying Pokemon Rumble U, and I had $60 of PSN credit so I ended up getting Dragon's Crown for free. I actually like it despite how some aspects of it make me sigh in disappointment.
Without any real GTA talk this edition will be a bit light, but that's okay. Video game talk is still video game talk. It's game time!
Pokemon Rumble U
Every time a new Wii-U game comes out I hope that my buyers remorse will go away. Pikmin 3 was a great game, but it left me wanting so much more. I really don't know why I was expecting anything different from Pokemon Rumble U.
Pokemon Rumble is now apparently a spin off series of Pokemon. The first game titled Pokemon Rumble was a downloadable title on the Wii. It introduced the concept that there are Pokemon Toys that come to life when no humans are around kind of like Toy Story, except with way worse animation. Also every one of them is windup and looks kind of like a blob. Anyways, it was a fun little co-op game. Each player controlled a Pokemon and could do one of two moves. As you progressed through the stages you would randomly get new and more powerful Pokemon.
A 3DS sequel Pokemon Rumble Blast came along as a full blown retail release. It had a lot more content and an actual plot! Now we're here on the Wii-U and Pokemon Rumble U is stuck somewhere in-between its two predecessors. You don't traverse through levels. Instead you fight hordes of Pokemon in different arena settings, which isn't very exciting. None of the levels are very challenging either.
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| I don't really get what's ascetically pleasing about this art style. |
The story exists, while simultaneously barely existing at all. In the beginning you're treated to what can barely be called a cinematic. Some Pokemon toys were dropped in the river on accident and they need to find their way back to the toy store where they belong. However, along the way they'll encounter Pokemon who have been brainwashed and don't want them to go back. These later scenes are played out by showing a picture on the screen with text that scrolls so slow it's painful.
I did have fun playing co-op with some friends. If I had played the game solo I don't know that I would have finished it. What blows my mind is that the game is $18. Let me be the first to say that, that's way too much money for the game. It's still a downloadable title like the original, but it costs more and has far less content. Sure you can play as every single Pokemon, but that doesn't matter if all you need to do is repeatedly use the same attack at the center of an arena. At least traversing the levels gave the feel of more interactivity.
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| Ohh nooo she dropped the Pokemon! |
Maybe I would have liked the game a lot more if I had bought some of the NFC toys. Apparently you can pay in game money to level the toys up and buy them new moves, which you can not do with any of the in game Pokemon. I'd consider buying the Lucario figure, but putting down another $6 dollars to a price tag that's already way too high doesn't seem logical.
Things like this make me feel like the Wii-U is going to continue to flounder.
Dragon's Crown
Perhaps you've seen Dragon's Crown before. The game is entirely hand drawn and animated. It looks gorgeous both when it's still and in motion. Perhaps you've also seen the female wizard character with comically large breasts, or the Amazon warrior with the worlds most gross looking thunder thighs? Yeah, the art direction of this game is a little questionable.
Dragon's Crown was developed by Vanillaware. All of their games are hand drawn and beautifully hand drawn and animated just like Dragon's Crown. Muramasa, and Odin Sphere are just two examples. What's weird is that neither of those games have the insanely sexualized characters that this one does. I would forgive the game if it were just the two playable characters that were hypersexualized, but it doesn't really stop there. The game is set in medieval times and it does a very good job of setting that vibe. The narrator is amazing and gets you right into the correct mindset. Then you enter the magic shop and the shopkeeper's boobs are taking up over half the screen as she moans asking you what you'd like. It's not even funny, it's just kind of gross. Weird things like that happen in levels as well. A full screen mermaid appears at one point. She's half fish, but she still has a normal human butt. Also she's naked?
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| Is it safe to have boobs that large!? |
It all comes across as immature. Most of the women in the game have a huge rack, or a huge butt. It's like what would come out of a middle school kid's mind. I'm also well aware that there are people who are way into that kind of thing. That would be fine and dandy if it weren't at odds with the rest of the game. That is to say it's a very well done loot driven, side-scrolling, beat-em-up game with many RPG elements thrown in for good measure.
I personally play as the archer, who is oddly the only female who looks like a normal human being. She has reasonable proportions and is covered up by a cloak. That's not really the point though. As a game Dragon's Crown is actually very fun. Yes it's a beat-em-up, but it's not the kind where you can really mash attack until everything dies. Technically you could do that, but it wouldn't end up working out very well later in the game. Pushing the attack button with different directions will result in different attacks. They can be chained together to juggle opponents. The better your combo the higher your score. Since score is your experience you want to get as high a score as possible. When you throw in different skills and characer specific abilities there are a ton of ways to mangle your foes.
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| This is what it's all about. Wailing on enemies and getting sweet sweet loot. |
On top of being a competent playing game it looks incredible in motion. Juggling foes has never looked this fabulous with all of it's hand drawn goodness. Normally these types of games get stale after a few hours, but with all of the loot to collect and quests to complete there's a lot to do in Dragon's Crown. I haven't done it yet, but I can see myself continuing to play even after the main quest is over. It's a fun game. In fact I'm going to be playing it with some friends tomorrow.
What drags me down is how immature the designs of the women are in the game. I know I sound like some white knight protecting the sanctity of women, but that's not what I'm trying to say here. It's just a bad design decision that is at odds with the rest of the game tonally. It makes it seem like an immature waste of time and I bet a lot of people dismissed it when they first saw the sorceress character. People wonder why video games aren't taken seriously, and character designs like that certainly aren't helping. It can't even really be defended as a stylistic choice, because so few characters in Vanillaware's other games look like that.
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| The art looks insanely good in all Vanillaware games. |
So yeah, the character designs aren't the best, but the game itself is superb and I recommend it, especially if you like playing co-op with friends. Surprisingly the online works well too if you want to play with some strangers.
The Holy Grail
I'm going to be typing up my thoughts on GTA V later this week, so look forward to that gem. This month was a bit light in terms of the games I played other than GTA, but that's okay. Next month is basically the holy grail for me in terms of video games.
Somehow three franchises that I love unconditionally all have games coming out in October. Disgaea D2, Pokemon X/Y, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies will soon be in my hands. I don't even know how I'll be able to choose which one I want to play at any given time. Just thinking about it makes me giddy.
All three are undoubtedly going to be awesome, but I'm looking forward to Pokemon the most. In case you haven't seen it there are some major leaks happening. People have gotten the game a few weeks early and are posting things at an alarming rate. The time before new Pokemon games always gets me so excited!
I promise you next months edition of Game Time will not be light on content. In fact it might be too long for its own good. Perhaps I'll have to make a few separate posts. I'll think more about that when the time comes though. In the mean time thanks for joining me for another installation of Game Time. See you next time.
-Manny
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