Memorable Melodies: Magical Dreamers from Chrono Cross

Song: Magical Dreamers

Game: Chrono Cross

Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda

Chrono Cross gets a lot of hate, but I personally love it. It has a unique battle system, tons of characters, and a hot soundtrack. In fact, I think the one thing that everyone who plays the game agrees on is the fact that the soundtrack is awesome, because it is.

In case you ever want to play through the greatness that is Chrono Cross I won't spoil the story for you. This song plays during a pivotal moment during the game and has always stuck with me. It's super cool, because a play takes place while the song is playing. A story unfolds and gives life to the music. You learn the tragic past of star crossed lovers and the land where they fell in love.

Of course if you've played the game you know that Magical Dreamers is a remix of the Marbule island theme with way more electric guitar. Electric guitar is dope! 

It's super late and I can't really come up with any more coherent thoughts about the song. If you like this and have not or never will play Chrono Cross you should look up the scene where it plays in the game. It's probably in my top five video game scenes of all time,

Christmas Week Break

I apologize for the sudden lack of content.

On Wednesday I streamed Inazuma, but I did not put up an episode of Shame Time. I also did not do a Memorable Melody. I've been super busy making a Christmas present for someone and hanging out with friends and family for the holidays.

Everything will go back to normal next week with the hot addition of Game of the Year podcasts and lists. In addition I will be uploading an episode of Scrubbin' It Up when I go to sleep tonight.

Thank you for understanding!
Happy Holidays!

Memorable Melodies: Theme of Cody from Super Street Fighter IV

Song: Theme of Cody (Cody's Theme)

Game: Super Street Fighter IV

Arranged by: Hideyuki Fukasawa

Today I chose Cody's Theme from Super Street Fighter IV both because I think it's dope, and not a lot of people understand where it came from. At first you hear it and think that Hideyuki Fukasawa really knows how to make a sick jam, but if you listen closely you'll notice that it isn't an original piece at all. It is however heavily altered.

In the early 90's Capcom put out an arcade beat em' up called Final Fight. The two main characters of that game are Cody and Guy, who you may now recognize as Street Fighter characters. The mayor of Metro City, Mike Haggar, gets a call that the Mad Gear Gang has kidnapped his daughter. It's up to Cody and Guy to rescue her!

At some point Capcom decided it would be cool to have Cody and Guy transfer over to street fighter starting with the Alpha series. This is what makes Cody's theme doubly cool. It's an arrangement of the original Final Fight's opening theme.

If you watch the above video you'll be able to hear the sweet sounds of Final Fight. The soundtrack was contributed to by seven different composers, so credit for it could go to Manami Matsumae, Yoshihiro Sakaguchi, Yasuaki Fujita, Hiromitsu Takaoka, Yoko Shimomura, Junko Tamiya, or Harumi Fujita.

Cody is my main in Street Fighter IV, and I love listening to his theme. It gets me super pumped up, so if I ever need to get things done I can always crank up Cody's Theme and get down to business. 

Note: In case you don't know anything about Street Fighter IV, there have been four major iterations of the game. Cody came in during the second iteration Super Street Fighter IV.

Memorable Melodies: Black Tar from Xenoblade Chronicles X

Song: Black Tar

Game: Xenoblade Chronicles X

Composer: Hiroyuki Sawano

Vocals: David Whitaker and MPI

I don't even know how to describe this song. I booted up Xenoblade Chronicles X and you're almost immediately thrust into the open world. The first thing I noticed was the music in battle. It starts off super intense, and then the lyrics kick in...

Seriously, almost every song in Xenoblade Chronicles X has lyrics. They're also insane. Watch the video above. The dude talks about killing his friends. What!?

I can't decide if I like this song, or hate it with a burning passion. It's so weird. It doesn't help that the music in the game is poorly mixed, so it's all super loud even in cutscenes. People are trying to talk and someone is yelling about killing his friends and black tar. 

This song certainly is memorable.

The Great Undertale Experiment

This past Monday I played Undertale to completion in two sittings. It took me approximately seven hours to get through the game. For those of you who don't know what Undertale is, it's an indie RPG made by Toby Fox with the help of a few other people. It has been widely praised since its release and has accrued quite a massive fan base. When these types of games blow up I tend to ignore them, because I often find myself disappointed by the hype. However, in the case of Undertale I found myself profoundly interested within the first few minutes.

Around the time of the game's release I watched a video of the first hour or so on the video game website Giant Bomb. Not knowing anything about the game I wanted to check it out. I watched the entire video and got a grasp of what was happening in the game. In case you can't tell I'm being purposely vague here. It took me a while to get to the game, but when I did I was hooked, as I previously mentioned. On my first playthrough I got to the end of the game and it was possible for me to view the game's "true ending," which I did. Many video games do this, and I often find it annoying. It's normally frustrating, because you have to do a very specific set of tasks in order to see the best possible ending and the game doesn't let you know what those are.

Due to the fact that I had seen the advertising for Undertale, and the first hour of gameplay I was able to discern the path to the true ending. I absolutely loved playing through the game, and the ending is something that will stick with me long after other games I've played recently fade from my mind. Despite that I felt like I cheated myself out of discovering the true ending of Undertale naturally. I wondered how someone playing through the game with little to no knowledge would fare. Would they be able to do it? How quickly would they lose the ability to see the true end?

I reached out to a friend who I knew would be interested in the game. I made sure he knew nothing of the games marketing and hadn't seen anything about it. He agreed to let me watch him play through the game, which he would be doing completely unaware of the games mechanics. Below I will document my failed experiment.

If you're intrigued by this then I implore you to go on steam and purchase Undertale. You can play through it relatively quickly, and I think it's a truly worthwhile experience. The writing is excellent, and the gameplay mechanics are fairly unique. If you're not interested in playing the game, or just really want to read about the experiment, then please continue past the game's logo below.

I'm going to spoil the game's mechanics, and tell you how to get the true ending. You have been warned,

The basic plot of Undertale is simple. Long ago there was a war between humans and monsters. The Humans drove the monsters underground and created a barrier to seal them inside. The Monsters have been living underground since then, and are trying to make the best of it. You play as a human who falls down a hole in a mountain only to find that they are now trapped in the land of the monsters.

The steam page gives you a similar brief synopsis, and also has a list of bullet pointed features. It lets you know that you can date a skeleton, see a bunch of dogs, and hug a volcano. There are many bullets, but the first one states that killing is unnecessary. This is the key to Undertale. So, someone who stumbles across the game on steam will have this message implanted into their brain before they even boot up the game. For me it was taken a step further, because I watched that video of the first hour of the game.

Like many old school RPGs, Undertale has random encounters. You'll be walking around when all of a sudden you'll be pulled into battle. All you see in front of you is your enemy, and four options to choose from. In order from left to right they are FIGHT, ACT, ITEMS, and MERCY. Almost every turn based RPG I can think of has a fight command, which is generally the best way to start any combat scenario. In Undertale when you choose FIGHT a bar appears on screen and a white cursor moves back and forth on it. The closer you stop it to the middle the more damage your character will dish out.

Next up we have what is actually the most important command and that is ACT. In order to properly explain it I'll need to use an example. Let's take an enemy you fight a little way into the game. It's a deer that has been decorated by some local teens, and it is upset about it. IF you go into act, you'll be given a few more options. The first one will always be "check," which lets you see the attack, defense, hp, and a brief description of the enemy.  The other options are enemy specific, but in the case of the deer you have the options to decorate or un-decorate. If you decorate you can add more to the deer's burden. However, if you un-decorate it enough it will become thankful. Whenever you meet the requirements to make an enemy happy their name will become yellow. This means that you can go to the   MERCY command. Under MERCY you can either spare or flee. When an enemy's name is yellow you can spare them, which will make them leave the fight. You get zero EXP from this, but will receive some money.

This is what it looks like when you choose FIGHT.

Yes, I know I left out ITEMS, but it's not really important. You just use items to heal, there's nothing special about the command. Since all of these things take up a turn you'll have to defend against enemy attacks. This means that once you fight or act if the enemy is still in play you'll be transitioned to a defensive scenario. A box appears in the middle of the screen and a red heart is inside. This is the heart of the main character. Various white attacks will appear in the box and try to hit the heart. You have to use the analog stick to make the heart dodge the attacks. After a few seconds you'll be able to choose another action.

As with most RPGs you can level up, in this case it's called LV. So you need a certain amount of EXP to get more LV. This is where the game turns everything you know about RPGs on its head. You actually don't want any EXP, or you can't get the true ending. Near the end of the game a character judges you based on your actions. He explains that EXP stands for Execution Points, and that LV stands for Level of Violence. In order to see the true ending of Undertale you can't kill anything for your entire playthrough. I did this on my first way through, because I knew you could spare monsters. I just didn't know why I would want to do it.

This is where the final judgement happens.

This is where my experiment came in, but like I said it definitely failed. My friend started playing, and was a little way through the tutorial. The first combat scenario has you fighting against a training dummy. The game has you talk to it by using the ACT command. In the next room the first "random" encounter happens against a frog monster called a Froggit. My friend hit the attack command, and killed it in one blow. I didn't say anything when he did it.

A few rooms later there is a pedestal with a bunch of candy on it. A sign in the game says to take one. He took one, and then another, and another. When you take too much candy the stack falls over and the candy litters the ground. He felt bad about it and told me he wanted to load his save. At that point I could no longer hold back, because I'm a big softie. I mean shit, he felt bad because he took too much candy. Imagine how he'd feel if he got to the end of the game and realized he was executing innocent monsters. I asked him if he wanted to get the true ending, to which he replied yes. I followed up by asking him if he knew why he could no longer get it.

This is the Froggit in question.

At first he thought it was because of the candy, but I assured him it wasn't. He kept guessing until he said "I killed the frog." He then asked if he wasn't supposed to kill anything. I didn't answer, but he definitely knew at that point he shouldn't kill anything. I totally botched my experiment a few minutes in, but it was worth it.

I asked him why he attacked the frog, and he said it was because it attacked him first, which is actually not the case. When combat starts you go first. He attacked the frog first, but that's just because every RPG since the dawn of time has wanted you to kill your enemies. It's just the first thing your mind goes to. Does that mean we're all malicious killers? No, it just means that video games rarely have us question our actions.

He ended up playing all the way through the game without killing anyone and saw the true ending just as I did. From what I could tell he really enjoyed the game, which was cool to see.

There's something special about the way Undertale handles itself. Yes you get the "good" ending for not killing anything or anyone, but you totally can kill pivitol characters. You can strike down boss monsters and then they're completely gone from the game. It's cool that the game tries to give you hints so that you don't kill those characters, but it might not always catch on. Puzzling out the solution to resolve conflicts peacefully was often very stressful for me, but that made it more rewarding in the end.

It's probably a good thing I'm not a scientist, because I'd be super bad at keeping the experiment under wraps. I am still glad I tried it out though, because it yielded the results I wanted it to. I had a feeling that someone who was unaware would kill the first monster they met. It's funny, because even if he had figured out not to kill anyone else that one tiny frog would have kept him from seeing the true ending unless he started all over once he got to the end of the game. Instead of stopping him from seeing what I think is one of the best video game endings I've ever seen I had him restart before he got too far.

Undertale is special. Very rarely do I have so many emotions when playing through a game. I laughed out loud, smiled, and even teared up at one point. I tried my best not to tell you about any of the characters or scenes so that you could experience them for yourself if you haven't already. It's definitely not for everyone, but at the very least I think it's worthwhile to see the game's mechanics in motion.

Thank you for reading all about my failed experiment!

Party Game Sundays: Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival (Part 1)

When I first saw the announcement of Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival I thought that it could be cool. Mario Party is fun to play with a group of friends, and I really like Animal Crossing. To make things even better the game was supposed to be a free download, and you'd just need Animal Crossing Amiibo to play. Well, that's not what ended up happening. Nintendo decided it would be better to have consumers pay $60 for the game, and two Amiibo. I inexplicably bought Mario Party 10 for $60 so, why not this game where I get two Amiibo as well? I regret everything.

Man, this game is not good. It's not bad either. It might be the most mediocre video game I've ever experienced in my life. I hear you asking "Is it like Mario Party?" My answer to you is yes, it's exactly like Mario Party, except with all the parts where you interact with the game stripped out. It's essentially a digital board game. You roll dice, and that's really it.

CAN YOU FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!?

The quintessential mode in the game is called Board Game. In order to play you need at least two Animal Crossing Amiibo. If you only have two Amiibo you can still have up to four players, but the other two will have to be villagers. On top of that they'll also be at a distinct disadvantage. See, the entire point of Amiibo Festival is to have the most happiness points at the end of a month. You pick a month, and each time every player goes that counts as a day. Every single turn you have to tap your Amiibo to the game pad in order to roll the dice. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs a swift kick in the head, because it means you have to either pass the game pad around the room, or sit right on top of the other players.

Once you roll you get to choose where you want to move. Each time someone who is using an Amiibo rolls they get a single point of happiness, people using villagers don't, because they didn't bring an Amiibo to the Amiibo Festival. If you land on a pink space you'll see an event and get some happiness. If a money bag is on the same space you'll also earn money. Alternatively if the space is purple you'll lose happiness and money instead. There are also special event spaces that change every turn, which have you button through a lot of text for little to no payoff. So, yes you roll a die, and then read an event. Something happens and you arbitrarily gain or lose happiness and money. Sounds fun right!? It's not.

Digby's hype meter if off the charts!

To try and add more depth to the game it layers on a few other mechanics. There is a gyroid at each corner of the map, and if you reach them they'll put a stamp on your stamp card. This nets you a large amount of happiness, especially if you collect all four stamps. My personal favorite part of the game happens on Sundays. Joan the Boar comes and sells turnips, which allows you to play the stalk market. You are allowed to purchase turnips in groups of ten, and then sell them for a profit. Every space has a price that turnips sell for. Sometimes it's high and sometimes it's low. It's like the stock market...

This is all there is to the game. No excitement, just reading. I often just use all of my money to buy turnips and hope they sell high just so I can feel alive while playing. At the end of a game every 1,000 bells you have (Animal Crossing's currency) you get one happiness point. The happiness points tally up and then the game is over. If you have an Amiibo the happiness points are saved to it unlocking new outfits you can wear during the board game...*sigh*

Each Amiibo has six outfits to unlock.

There actually are mini-games, but they're totally separate from the board game mode. After playing through a board mini-games unlocked. In order to play them you need to use Amiibo cards. Thankfully the game comes with three so you can try them out. Each game is relatively similar and has you swiping the card on the game pad for a terrible random thing to occur. There are about 7 games and none of them are fun or take skill.

What's insane is that I played the board game mode three times. Each session takes over an hour, and nothing really even happens. On top of that the events started repeating IN MY FIRST SESSION! They didn't even write a wide variety of reasons for your character to get happy or sad! How is that possible!? What's even more insane is that after the third session I unlocked the ability to edit the game board. So now I can add buildings to the board to make different events happen. They didn't think that would be a good thing to have from the start? I have yet to see what the game is like with that new addition, but sadly I will find out. I have agreed to play the game once a month with the Sunday crew, so that's great.

This image looks so fun. Why isn't the game?

I will be back for a second part to let you know if the game gets any better with the addition of new event spaces. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it doesn't.

Game Time - November 2015

I played a lot of stuff in November, but didn't really complete as much as I want to. So now I'm stuck trying to beat 5 more games by the end of the year. Yes, that's right. I was able to cross one game off of my 6 game list in a mere 2 days. I liked Undertale so much that I beat it in 2 sittings! However, I won't be talking about that in here. I have some Undertale related stuff in the queue though, so look forward to that in the coming days. I promise it will be cool.

Oh yeah, I also beat Yo-Kai Watch!, which was interesting. I enjoyed myself quite a bit. Instead of talking about it here I recorded a podcast about it. It's the 10th episode, so check it out right here.

The reason we're here this month is to talk about the games I played, but didn't complete. Well, I guess you can't really complete Battlefront. I did only play it once though... First person shooters just aren't my thing. I'll play it again, but I have a ton of other stuff to do. I definitely didn't beat Yoshi's Wooly World or Fallout 4 though. I still have so much to do, so let's start this edition of Game Time!

Yoshi's Wooly World

I don't want to generalize here, but many modern video games have a lot of violent imagery. Are video games too violent for you? If they are then boy have I got the game for you! A GAME WHERE LITERALLY EVERYTHING IS MADE OF YARN AND MAKES YOU FEEL WARM AND FUZZY INSIDE!

In all seriousness though, have you seen gameplay of Yoshi's Wooly World? Everything in the game is made of yarn, sequins, buttons, and felt. It's the most twee video game conceivable by modern man. The visuals are astounding, but the gameplay isn't on the same level. It's okay, but nowhere near as tight as the original Yoshi's Island was. However, it's clear that Nintendo is going after a different audience with this product.

*SQUEEEE*

Good Feels, the developer behind this game also produced Kirby's Epic Yarn a few years ago. The issue I had with Kirby's Epic Yarn was that it was too easy. By the time I got halfway through the game it took all of my willpower just to stay awake. Wooly World isn't quite that easy, but it's challenge comes mostly from looking for hidden collectibles. This is something that a lot of recent Nintendo games have done to cater to both hardcore fans and those who are less into crazy challenging gameplay. It's a system that works, but it leaves me yearning for more.

As you may expect you control the lovable dinosaur Yoshi on a quest to rescue his friends from danger. It plays a lot like the original Yoshi's Island, but everything is a lot slower. You still shoot eggs (balls of yarn in this case) at enemies with a moving reticle, but there's never any urgency to it. You do have to hit things, but you can take your sweet time doing it.

This is real, I assure you.

To be fair to the game I'm only about halfway through the game, so it could get a lot more challenging in the later half, but I'm not expecting much of a change. I am definitely not finding every collectible though and I'm okay with that. In fact Wooly World may have too many collectibles in each level. To get 100% completion you need to find five hidden pieces of yarn, five flowers, twenty stamps, and have max health (20 HP) at the end of a level. For those of you keeping track that's fifty things per level. That's crazy, and super daunting. Everything is pretty well hidden, so I had to give up on my completionist nature on the third or fourth level to continue having fun with the game.

I am actually having fun with it, and the visuals consistently make me squeal in delight. I just wish that I could have a cute Yoshi video game and a challenge at the same time. Sadly it doesn't seem like Nintendo is going to be offering that to me any time soon.

Star Wars Battlefront

Guys, I don't like first person shooters. That means that I only played Battlefront the first day I got it and pretty much had my fill. I might try it out a few more times, but I just don't have a whole lot of fun playing competitive first person shooters. I don't think they're bad or anything, they're just not for me.

With that said I think that Battlefront is a technical marvel. There are all kinds of arguments about the season pass being priced at $50 dollars and whether or not there is a lack of content in the game, but I think everyone needs to stop and look at the game. Literally just look at it, and I guess listen while they're at it. It's ridiculous how authentic every battle feels.

It's super fun to take these down.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people who watched Star Wars as a kid wondered what it would be like to battle on the snow planet of Hoth. Battlefront is the closest you're going to get to experiencing that battle. The visuals are top notch, and the sound design is superb. DICE is known for their excellent sound design in Battlefield games, but with Battlefront they turned it up to eleven.

It's not just Hoth though. Every battle looks and sounds awesome. You spawn quickly and run out into the fray, and it feels like an accurate representation. The blasters sound just like they do in the movies as their shots whiz by your character's head and explode behind you. Everything is chaotic in a way that feels accurate to the Star Wars universe and I think that's important. This game is and always was supposed to be Star Wars fan service. DICE delivered on that.

I don't like playing as Luke.

Yes, you can complain about a lack of maps, and sometimes unbalanced matches, but in the end DICE made an authentic Star Wars Game. It plays well, and it's one of the best Star Wars games out there. There are a lot of Star Wars games out there, but a vast majority of them are not quality products. If this is the benchmark for quality in new Star Wars games going forward I will buy every single one of them without hesitation.

Fallout 4

Every single time I play this game my feelings about it change drastically. Sometimes I lose myself for hours in the post apocalyptic wasteland, and others I want to throw my controller at the wall. I thought Fallout 3 was okay, which is apparently at odds with the thoughts of everyone else on the planet. I think Fallout is an okay franchise, but I'd much rather play The Elder Scrolls. To the surprise of no one Fallout 4 is just a whole lot more of Fallout 3 on new platforms with newer graphics. This is why I am often unable to deal with how janky the game is. It's largely more of the same. Sometimes to a fault. The game takes a little time to explain to you the games new systems, but leaves you out to dry with all of the old ones. It doesn't even explain how to get into VATS or what it does. Seriously? People who didn't play Fallout 3 will pick this one up and have no idea what the hell is going on.

It's one thing when an NPC doesn't face you when talking, or when they hover off of the ground a little bit. It's a completely different thing when the game crashes every time you try to leave a building, or has the frame rate drop to the single digits if more than three enemies try to fight you inside of a building. Yes, I realize that these things will most likely be fixed in later patches, but that probably won't make me feel any different about the game. There are only so many hours of looking inside of ravaged buildings for crappy items I have in me before I don't care any more.

Who likes the color brown!?

As I said initially there are times I love playing Fallout 4. The companions are mostly written well and the side quests I've stumbled upon have been pretty cool as well. I've only done a few steps in the main quest line though, and I don't think it could get much more boring. That tends to be standard fare with Bethesda RPGs though, the best writing is almost always found outside of the main quest. All you're doing is trying to find your kidnapped son, who probably doesn't even remember who you are.

I will say that the gun-play is a lot better this time around. In Fallout 3 VATS was a necessity, because even if you were pointing the barrel of a shotgun right at someones head it could still miss due to your stats. In Fallout 4 if you have someone in your sights your bullet will hit. VATS is still handy though, because you can get perks and things to do more damage with it. Bethesda also took the time to overhaul the leveling system so that there is no longer a cap. Instead now every level you get a single skill point, which you can put into one of your stats, or a perk. It makes things a lot simpler for leveling.

There are tons of perks to choose from. I think you need to be over level 200 to get them all.

I don't really know what to say about this game. If you liked Fallout 3, you'll like this too. You roam around the post apocalyptic Boston area and ransack buildings while shooting stuff. Sometimes you find cool loot, but most of the time it's worthless. I want to be super excited about this, but when other super polished open world games like The Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid V came out in 2015 I just can't give Fallout a free pass.

GOTY

I initially thought that 2015 wasn't a very good year for games. However after looking at the list of games I completed that came out this year I realized that I was 100% wrong! So many amazing games came out this year, and I haven't even completed a bunch of the ones I want to. As I said before I still have five more games I want to complete before the year is over. Even without those five games I'm having a hell of a time figuring out what my list is going to be.

The main issue I'm having is that I don't know what my GOTY actually is. Up until recently I was sure it was The Witcher 3, but as of right now I'm considering something else.... I don't want to get too much into it. As always there will be a written list and podcast to let the world know what my top ten games of the year are. In fact, I may even have multiple podcasts where I talk to my friends about what their favorite games of 2015 are.

There's a whole lot for me to get done by January 1st. I have a whole lot in the pipe. I'm going to start up Party Game Sundays again, so I need to write one of those by this coming Sunday. I'm going to try and record an Undertale Podcast, and write up something special involving it. I don't want to say what it is in case I don't get it done! I also am theoretically going to record two or tree GOTY podcasts. *sigh* I probably shouldn't have said any of this here, because now I'll feel obligated to get it all done...

See you guys next month!

Memorable Melodies: Undertale from Undertale

Song: Undertale

Game: Undertale

Composer: Toby Fox

There is something about this song that hits me right in the heart. All of the previous songs I've put up for Memorable Melodies have just been sick jams, or songs I often hum to myself. This one is different. This one is special. I'm twenty-five years old, and this song brought a tear to my eye. I guess it was  a combination of the song and what was happening when it played in the game. 

Undertale is mostly funny, but in that moment it was undeniably sad. You walk into an area and it's immediately familiar. At that moment I realized where I was and what the game was going to tell me. The only way to advance is to walk through the area as a decidedly soul crushing tale is recounted to you. It's done in a rather creative way. You then understand why the world of Undertale is the way it is, and have to find the strength to do what must be done in order to change it. It's heavy.

It probably sounds like I'm being hyperbolic here, but I'm honestly not. Sure, it may not hit you in the same way, but it certainly did hit me. If you have a passing interest in video games do yourself a favor and play Undertale. Even if you're not a fan, it is still something that's worth experiencing.

This song is so good!

Podcast Episode 10 - Yo-Kai Watch!

Another month has gone by, which means that it's time for another podcast. This month I talk about Yo-Kai Watch! and why I think it's so interesting. Do you know what Yokai are? How into Japanese ghosts are you? Listen to the podcast to find out!

End of the Year Rush

I had the past three days off, and in those three days I expected to play a lot more video games than I did. This means that I essentially have the month of December to beat six more games, which is a very unrealistic goal that I hope to complete. This is the kind of thing that shouldn't matter at all, but I really enjoy making game of the year lists. I like looking back on the games that came out in a year and seeing how I felt about all of them. It's made even harder by the fact that I tell myself I have to complete a game in order to put it on my list. This doesn't mean I have to 100% the game, it just means that I have to see the narrative or single player portion through to its completion and see the credits. This isn't possible in everything, so it's definitely a case by case basis.

There is only one more game coming out this year that I will be playing, so five of the six games I hope to beat I already have in my possession. I will now rank them starting with the one that I'm most likely to complete.

1. Splatoon (Wii-U)
2.Life is Strange (PS4)
3. Undertale (PC)
4. Yoshi's Wooly World (Wii-U)
5. Fallout 4 (PS4)
6. Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii-U)

Realistically I will probably only finish three of these games before the year is over. If I only beat one of these though, I want it to be Splatoon. For starters the single player is super short, and I'm already over halfway through it. The reason I want to beat it so badly is because I honestly think that it deserves a spot on my top ten list for the year. Nintendo took a huge risk and it paid off.

Life is Strange is feasible as well. It's a 5 episode game where each episode is approximately 2-3 hours long. I have already completed the first two chapters, so I have rougly 6-9 hours left to go. If I actually motivate myself to play it on my next day off I can definitely beat it!

Update: Undertale is amazing. Everyone should play it!
Then we have Undertale. I've seen a lot of people speak highly of this PC indie title, but I have yet to start it. I've heard that it takes around 5 hours to complete, so I hope I can get around to starting it. This is one of those games that I want to try and complete in a single sitting, so I need to block off some time to do so.

I made a huge mistake and purchased Yoshi's Wooly World the other day. I love the game, but I don't think I should have bought it when I did. So far I've beaten 2 out of the 5 worlds in the game, and have had a lot of fun with it. I mean come on, Yoshi is literally made of wool. It makes my heart feel all warm and fuzzy, but I think all the other games on this list are more important in the grand scheme of 2015.

This is where the list makes me want to break down and cry. The main story of Fallout 4 is relatively short, but I have a serious problem when it comes to games like this. I always do as much of the side content as possible. In a Bethesda game like Fallout that is actually a majority of the game, and it's where all the cool stuff happens. When I sit down to play Fallout I intend to main-line the story, but end up running around doing everything else for like six hours. As much as I want to beat the game, I'd rather keep doing all of the side content.

Finally I have Xenoblade Chronicles X. It comes out on December 4th, and there is no way I'm going to complete it. The game is so dense that I can't even begin to fathom how much content is in it. It has MMO style combat like the previous Xenoblade, but takes it into a gigantic open world with a million other systems layered on top. Watching gameplay videos of this game makes me want to cry as someone who would like to beat it before the year it through. This may be the one game I allow myself to put on a top ten list without having completed it. Seriously, it takes like 30 hours to get a robot, which is pictured on the games case! If I don't know how I feel about the game after that long, then its definitely not one of the best games of the year.

So there you have it. This is my goal for the rest of the year. I don't know how many I'll get to, but I'm going to try my damnedest!

Honest Opinion: Bethesda RPGs are a little too broken

At this point in time many people are enjoying their time with the newly released Fallout 4. I was, up until two nights ago when I last played. Bethesda RPGs are known to be a little janky, and it makes sense that they are. The scope of the worlds they create are unparalleled, so when people don't look at you while talking, or float a little too far off the ground it's kind of funny.

There's another type of jank that Bethesda games bring to the table that's not quite as funny, and at this point has me considering whether or not I should continue to play the game. The last time I played I found myself in a building with a lot of security in it. Many terminals to hack and robots to loot. I did my business, and then made a save. I then continued to do a few more things and made a quick save. There was an elevator to another part of the building, which I then took up. At the top I got gunned down by an assault robot I had never seen before. That's fine, I can just load my last save and go back there. Wrong!

Upon loading the game I go back into the elevator and hit the button to go back up to the top of the building. Immediately the frame rate drops below ten and continues to chug for a few minutes. The game eventually went back up to speed, but the elevator kept on going. I waited a minute and it still didn't stop. No big deal right? That kind of stuff can happen when a game has so many moving parts. Giving it the benefit of the doubt I load again, and it does the same thing. I load a third time and the game crashes to the main menu of the PlayStation telling me that an error occured and the game had to close. Cool!

What made me even more angry was that the PlayStation then told me I should try updating the game, There is no update. When a game crashes like that, especially on a console it kills all of my motivation. So I just turned off the PS4 and went about my life doing other things. Earlier today I booted it back up. I tried the elevator again hoping that it would work, but once again the frame rate chugged and when it came back up to speed the elevator never stopped.

Fine. I decided to give up on the building. I open the door to go back out into the wasteland and the game crashes! Oh sweet! So now I can't go up in the elevator, or get out of this building without the game breaking. Amazing!

This wouldn't be nearly as frustrating if my last save wasn't far before this point. People always recommend making multiple saves and saving often, but I had two saves very near to each other that are now both unusable. The autosave system also only works after ten minutes go by and you look at your pip boy, or you eneter a building. Surprise, I hadn't looked at my pip boy in a long time, and the most recent autosave is in the building that crashes the game when I try to leave it! Yes, I can go back to a save that was a half hour or so before this point, but now I'm always going to be worried that the game is going to break in spectacular fashion.

I realize that these kinds of things don't happen to everyone, but when they do they're devastating. There is a very real scenario in which I would have had to start the game all over after playing for over twenty hours.

I know that the amount of variables in Bethesda RPGs make them nearly impossible to playtest, but this kind of stuff is ridiculous. Maybe a patch will come out eventually to un-break this building, but will I still care then? Who can say?

Memorable Melodies - Lookin' Fresh from Splatoon

Song: Lookin' Fresh

Game Splatoon

Composer: Toru Minegishi

It's getting close to the end of the year, which has me thinking about all of the games that came out in 2015. As I try to whittle the games I've played down to a top ten list Splatoon keeps popping into my mind. I remember everyone getting excited about it when it was first announced, but I couldn't have cared less at the time.

After playing Splatoon I totally changed my mind. Nintendo took a risk, which they normally don't do. Splatoon is a fresh and friendly take on third person shooters. Shooting ink everywhere is a blast and the game truly feels unique. 

What's even better to me is that the game is overflowing with style. The inklings you play as are way into fashion, and all of the clothing is as hip as it can be. To match the hip and colorful style of the characters the soundtrack of Splatoon sounds like it came from an early Gorillaz album. It's got some sick hip-hop beats. My personal favorite is the shop music. There are four shops, and the song gets remixed slightly in each one. 

I'm here to tell you that the jam playing in the shoe store is the freshest track I've ever heard in a Nintendo game. Seriously, just check it out. In my mind this song and the style of Splatoon are synonymous. 

I hope that the success of this game means that Nintendo will be more willing to go outside of their comfort zone in the future. 

Memorable Melodies: The Rusty Anchor from Grim Fandango

Song: The Rusty Anchor

Game: Grim Fandango

Composer: Peter McConnell? (Don't actually know)

This past Friday I completed one of my all time favorite games on stream for charity. In fact, I do it every year. The game already meant a lot to me, because it was one of the first games I have fond memories of. It also touches on my writing sensibilities. It's both well written, and funny, which is harder than you'd think to pull off in a video game.

However, now it holds an all new meaning. The first time I streamed on Twitch for real I played through Grim Fandango while my friend Noukeo got to see it for the first time. I've come a long way since then, and it's cool that my yearly playthrough of the game can now be something more by raising money for charity.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is that I still find new things in each playthrough of the game I have, When the HD re-release of the game came out I found out that if you show Glottis an item you would never normally show him he bursts out into song. So, there is a point in the game when you get a piece of paper that says the rusty anchor, and a number on it. You're supposed to bring it to the tattoo parlor, because it's referring to one of the sample tattoos in the book there. It's cool, because there's no real reason you'd ever show Glottis the item, but if you do you're treated to a delightful little sea shanty!

Extra Life 2015 Was a Success!

This is it! This is the entirety of my Extra Life 2015 stream in 9 parts! I had a ton of fun doing this, and I'm proud to say that we surpassed our goal of $100 dollars. We ended with $130, which is crazy. If you read this, and still want to donate Extra Life accepts donations a bit after the date. Our team can be found at www.extra-life.org/participant/drac96

I just want to thank everyone who stopped by to keep us company, and everyone who made a donation to a good cause. Watching this back a bit there were audio issues, especially in the Rivals of Aether segment. That one was totally my fault, because I didn't turn down the PC audio like I should have. Other than that sometimes it's hard to hear us talk when a game is being played. The game audio was a little bit too loud, but it's also hard to pick up audio from multiple people, so I did the best I could.

Excuses aside, I hope you enjoy the videos above. If I had to say, part 3 is the absolute best part! We play Ultimate Muscle: Legends Vs. New Generation, and it is an absolute blast. We make custom characters based on the people who donated! Zucchini Zach, and Tusslin' Tiff are so good. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time!

Thank you all again. I've come a long way in the past year, and I hope to expand in the years to come.

Game Time - October 2015

As I mentioned in the last edition of Game Time, my two most anticipated games of 2015 came out in October. That's right, Rock Band 4 and Disgaea 5 hit me on the same day! To no one's surprise those were really the only two games I played last month, and while I "beat" them I'm still playing the crap out of both of them. 

There's not much introduction to be done here, so without any further dawdling we're going to get right into it. It's game time!

Rock Band 4

There was a time around 2008 when video games centered around the playing of plastic instruments were very popular. The craze started with the original Guitar Hero, and Peaked around the time Rock Band 2 came out. Rock band was, and is a lot of fun to play in a large group. If you have all the equipment you can have a guitarist, bassist, drummer, and singer. Most songs only take a few minutes to complete, so it's super easy to switch people out as needed. I personally remember having like twenty people over to my house on a weekend I came home from college, and it was a complete blast. Much to my dismay that was around the time Rock Band 2 released, and that was when the plastic instrument fueled games started to burn out. Their decline was completely understandable, because there were over six guitar hero games, and at least 5 Rock Band Games. What made it even more upsetting was that Guitar Hero stopped focusing on guitar and started encroaching on Rock Band by adding drums and vocals in order to properly compete. The sheer amount of games being released at an insane clip caused the genre to collapse in on itself.

This is why Rock Band 4 has me so excited, because the plastic instrument genre can return once again. It's crazy, because Guitar Hero is also making a comeback, but they have returned to their guitar only focus, which means that it's not "directly" competing with what Rock Band has to offer. I feel weird saying that, because I really only play guitar in Rock Band, but that's fine. The reason I am so down with Rock Band 4 is because I can use all the DLC I bought when the series was at its peak, and I didn't have to buy new instruments either!

Man, there are no exciting Rock Band 4 pictures huh?

I've seen a lot of people complain that Rock Band 4 is a bare bones product, which it is. However, when you consider what the game is accomplishing behind the scenes I feel like the fact that it exists at all is a miracle. For the previous entries in the franchise Harmonix teamed up with EA and WB in order to get their games out. Now Harmonix is more or less a fully independent studio, and they did not get a major publisher for Rock Band 4. They instead partnered with Madcatz who is a hardware manufacturer to get the game out to the masses. This is extra cool, because Madcatz produced brand new higher quality instruments for the game. Even though I didn't need to I purchased a new guitar, and it's amazing. The strum bar is much sturdier than the previous ones, and it makes playing a lot more comfortable.

Now, this is where Rock Band 4 gets crazy. Not everyone is aware, but licensing music is a nightmare. Obviously Harmonix had to go out and license new music to put in Rock Band 4. What's insane is that they also went back and re-licensed almost every single DLC track from the previous entries. Over time they put out over 1,800 songs, and only a handful are not available for purchase anymore. So this means that since I bought some songs on PS3, that I was able to download those songs on the PS4 for no additional cost! It doesn't stop there though. It hasn't happened yet, but all the previous disc based games excluding Beatles Rock Band will be exportable to Rock Band 4 as well. The catch with those is that you had to have exported them into Rock Band 3 previously. In the case of Rock Band 3 you will have to have played it on your account so that they can verify your purchase of the game when the export becomes available. This only works going from Xbox 360 to Xbox One, and PS3 to PS4, which makes sense. Wait though, it gets even better! If you still have your old instruments lying around you can plug them into a PS4 and have them go right off the bat. The Xbox One makes it a little more complex, because you need to buy an adapter, but at least you can still get everything to work.

Rock Band 4 still looks like Rock Band!

Seriously, Harmonix went above and beyond in bringing Rock Band and all of its content to the current generation of consoles. The main game doesn't have much in the way of features right now, but it will gain more over time. See, Harmonix is going to use the game as a platform, which will have free updates over the course of the games life. All it really has right now is a career mode, super limited character creator, and quick-play. It's basically a vehicle to play your old content on the current generation of consoles, and it works very well for that. On top of all of this they have spun up the old DLC machine, and are releasing three new songs every week.

So far I've had a ton of fun playing songs every Friday with my friends. I'm not the best player, but I just enjoy playing the game. I'm not upset about the missing features that many others seem to be upset about, because they'll probably make it into the game eventually. There is a huge update patch already planned to come out in early December. Harmonix did a lot of work to get everything to work on the current generation of consoles and I seriously respect it.

Disgaea 5

Disgaea is a crazy franchise. It takes the regular strategy RPG genre and makes it infinitely more complex by throwing as many systems as it can on top of it. They all end up working together in the end, which makes this one of my favorite franchises of all time. I picked up Disgaea 2 on a whim in high school and ended up playing it and trying to figure out what the hell was going on for weeks. I stayed up like 18 hours a day at a friends house as we played through it and dabbled in the madness. What's cool about Disgaea is that it gets better with each iteration. I'm not talking about the story, but the gameplay. In each successive game the mechanics are explained better, and streamlined to make everything less frustrating.

None of this means anything if you've never played a game in the franchise, or you haven't watched it before, so let me explain a little bit. Strategy RPGs generally have you send around ten characters into battle. You then move them one-by-one on a grid. If they move up to an enemy they can attack, or use a skill. Disgaea plays like that as well, but it takes the level cap and cranks it up to 9,999. You can then start your character over by reincarnating them, and bringing them to 9,999 again at which point they will have higher stats. You can do that until the character is technically 186,000. This isn't exactly how it works in Disgaea 5, but it was like that in the previous games. As if getting to 186,000 wasn't crazy enough you can also go inside of your weapons and fight monsters in order to make them stronger. Everything can level up, and eventually you can do it ridiculously fast, which feels amazing! Disgaea is all about leveling and doing insane damage with overblown stats.

I did actually like these drawings.

You don't really see how crazy the franchise can get until the story is over, which in my opinion has been the worst part of Disgaea 5 so far. I streamed most of my playthrough of the game, which is now archived on YouTube. Near the end I started to get very impatient, because the story went on way too long for its own good. Most of the time the story doesn't bother me, but in 5 the overall plot is super generic. The only thing saving it is the characters interacting with one another, but sometimes even that is super awful.

The main character is Killia, who is a cool looking demon who likes to eat a lot. In the first scene of the game he saves princess Seraphina, and she "makes" him help her take down the evil Void Dark. Void Dark has been taking over netherworlds and generally being evil, and on top of that Seraphina's dad is trying to make her marry him. Obviously she doesn't want to do that, and for reasons not initially apparent Killia wants to take him down too. Through a series of events they meet more characters who are going against Void Dark and form a rebel army to take him down. It sounds alright, but the plot is the one of the most generic revenge plots I've ever seen. It doesn't help that the game is at least twice as long as all the other games were. Like I said previously the characters are cool, but even they wear thin. By the end of the game they had repeated the same lines and reasoning for so many hours that I just didn't care at all anymore. Every time anything would happen I would call it beforehand on stream, because all of the conflict in the story and between characters was so predictable. Like, if Killia hadn't been funny and cool then I might have stopped playing the story all together. If the characters had been allowed to interact without the stupid revenge plot getting in the way all the time it might have been an enjoyable story.

I thought this so many times during the story!

My favorite part of Disgaea games is when the story is over. That's when you unlock all the cool extra characters, and challenge stages. You don't really get to level like a crazy person until you get the proper maps to do it on. I am now in the process of going insane and leveling my characters to the best of my ability. There's always a point when you beat the game where you're too strong to level on the stages you have, but too weak to beat the enemies that let you level up super quickly. I'm stuck in the middle ground, but am on the cusp of breaking through.

If you want to see what Disgaea 5 is all about then head over to my YouTube Channel, and keep an eye on my Twitch account. All my streams are archived, and I've been recording videos of myself playing through the games many pieces of DLC. Even if you don't have any interest in playing, I recommend you check out what the game is all about anyways. It has a lot of interesting concepts that you don't see very often in  strategy RPGs.

Just When You Thought It Was Over

Even though my two most anticipated games of the year have come and gone, November is going to have some crazy stuff! For starters Yo-Kai Watch! the Japanese sensation is finally coming out in English on the 6th. Then, just four days later Fallout 4 is coming out. I feel weird about Fallout, because I'm not excited for it. I would like to be, but I feel like my mind can't comprehend that it's actually coming out so soon after its announcement. 

Then, as if Fallout wasn't going to be huge enough, Battlefront comes out the following week! How the hell am I going to play Fallout 4 and play multiplayer with my friends in Battlefront!? I want to cry, because my time management skills recently haven't been the best. That's not something to talk about here though.

Trust me, I'll find a way to play everything and then write about it next month. See you on the other side.

Podcast Episode 9 - Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The 9th episode of the podcast is here! See, I told you it was going to go monthly... Yes, I did wait until the last day of the month, but it totally exists. I pretty much ramble about Metal Gear Solid for about an hour, so if you're into that check it out!

You can listen to it here, on the Game Time With Manny page on Soundcloud, or subscribe on Itunes!

Memorable Melodies: Lively Town from Shining Force 2

Song: Lively Town

Game: Shining Force 2

Composer: Motoaki Takenouchi

On Wednesdays I generally wait for a piece of video game music to pop into my head, and then write about that. This week nothing came to me naturally, so I sat and thought about it for a bit. Then all of a sudden, the town theme from Shining Force 2 exploded in my brain and I got super hyped up. Seriously, this song is amazing. 

It helps that this song brings back a lot of fond memories. You meet a phoenix named Peter, who looks like a turkey with an afro at first. When he gets promoted he looks like a legit phoenix, but when you first meet him in the town he looks ridiculous. He chats you up and then starts following you around. 

Back in the days of the SNES and Genesis the sound chip defined what all of the music on the system sounded like. To me, not having a Genesis, all of the music tends to sound like farting. I'm sorry, but it really does. This is why I am such a huge fan of all the music in Shining Force 1 and 2. It actually sounds like real music, and not a symphony of farts. It has a ton of layers, and sounds unlike any other song on the Genesis that I've heard. 

Memorable Melodies: DANGANRONPA from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Song: DANGANRONPA

Game: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc!

Composer: Masafumi Takada 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Danganronpa is a dope game. Initially I expected nothing out of it, but was blown away by how good the game actually was. Who would have thought that a murderous bear holding kids hostage in a high school could be so compelling? Seriously, if you haven't already checked it out, read my Game Time ID on the game here.

This song is one that has really stuck with me though. Partially because it's awesome, and partially because it has become a joke for me. At the beginning of the song a robot voice says Danganronpa, and then the song really pops off. For a very long time whenever I would say Danganronpa I would follow it up by imitating this song. Thinking about it now, it's not really very funny, but I definitely thought it was.

Other than my stupid joke it's still a memorable song. Right when the game comes to the main menu this sweet jam starts right up to let you know just how weird the game really is. Hell, sometimes I turn on my Vita just to hear it. 

Memorable Melodies: Lord Laharl's Hymn from Disgaea

Original

8-bit remix

Song: Lord Laharl's Hymn

Game: Disgaea (All of them)

Composer: Tenpei Sato

Last week I did not get a chance to write Memorable Melodies, because it was the first day I got to play Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance. I have been a proponent of Disgaea ever since I accidentally picked yp Disgaea 2 in the mid 2,000's. I was at Gamestop, and had enough money to buy a game. Disgaea 2 caught my eye, so I got it. Initially I thought it was just a weird strategy game, but a few chapters in I realized it was insane. I found myself in a swamp. All my units were leveled into their mid-teens, and there is Etna a few hundred levels higher than them. I thought this was something that was impossible to beat, but little did I realize that you can grind to level 9,999 multiple times! Stats get crazy in games, but now in Disgaea 5 stats can go up to 40 million, literally.

I have a weird thing for grinding in RPGs and seeing my characters get stronger. Disgaea cranks that feeling all the way up and makes me super happy. 

The type of game it is isn't the only reason I like it though. All of the Disgaea games have a heartfelt story that is often goofy, but very self aware. All of those things sound counter-intuitive, but somehow they mesh together very well. The main character of the original Disgaea, Laharl, is the epitome of what Disgaea is. He's selfish, lazy, and egotistical, but deep down he has a great love for his comrades. He makes appearances in every other Disgaea game in one form or another, and I couldn't be happier about that. He wants to be the center of attention, so he travels around telling everyone he is the main character, even when he isn't.

I love Laharl, and by association that means I also love Lord Laharl's Hymn. It's in every Disgaea game, and you hear it a whole lot. I have played each of these games for over 100 hours, so the song is ingrained in my mind. A lot of video game songs put a smile on my face when I hear them, and this is definitely one of them!

Note: Laharl is the kid pictured in the top video who has blue hair, and a cape.

Review of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

This review is based on my experience with the PS4 version of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Note: There are spoilers for the end of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes in this review.

Score: 5/5

Metal Gear Solid has been one of the most iconic franchises in video gaming since Solid Snake infiltrated Shadow Moses Island on the PS1 in 1999. However, like all good things the franchise has seemingly reached its conclusion. Over the past few months fans have been treated to news of series creator Hideo Kojima having issues with Konami, and saw his name slowly being removed from any marketing related to the game, even the game's case. Rightfully so, this had many fans worried about how well Metal Gear Solid V would turn out. As with most things Kojima has done the wait for his theoretical swan song has been trying, but it was sure worth the wait. This is quite possibly the final time we'll see Big Boss outside of a pachinko machine.

It's funny, because the Metal Gear franchise has often been derided for having more instances of the player watching as opposed to playing. In both the Phantom Pain and its prologue Ground Zeroes there are very few cutscenes. They're made up almost entirely of gameplay. On top of the new found focus on gameplay the controls have been updated. Previous games in the franchise were perhaps too ambitious, which often lead to buttons doing too many things depending on the context. It often felt clunky. The Phantom Pain actually plays and controls like a modern video game, which took me by surprise. No longer did I find myself fighting against the controls to complete a task. It helps that its all fairly simple. All you really need to do is aim, shoot, reload, sneak, and switch weapons. The controls are set up similar to how they used to be where circle is on reload, but you can change the controls to essentially be the same as modern first person shooters if you prefer that style.

I got a whole lot of use out of this assault rifle.

It's made even better by the fact that you can actually use many different weapon types and not really be chastised for it. In previous Metal Gear Solid games your rank during a mission was based almost entirely on stealth and the time it took you to complete the mission. Now you can kill literally everyone, and as long as you do it well and fast enough you can still achieve an S rank. This means that I experimented with weapon types I would normally never use. I went into tons of scenarios armed with a rocket launcher and a shotgun and actually did quite well. On top of that enemies with guns aren't infuriating to deal with. As long as you don't stand directly in the line of fire you can make it out of most situations. Big Boss has regenerating health, so gone are the days of scavenging for rations and taking a knee in battle to use them in order to heal. It makes Big Boss feel like much more of a badass than he previously did, which fits his persona in the story.

The Phantom Pain takes place immediately following the ending of its prequel, Ground Zeroes. Big Boss returned to Mother Base to find it swarmed with enemy soldiers. Before he could set down and defend his home his helicopter transport is blown out of the sky. The Phantom Pain begins with our protagonist in a hospital bed waking up from a nine year coma. The doctor explains that he's in rough shape. He's missing an arm, and has a piece of shrapnel stuck in his forehead that won't ever be able to come out. Since Metal Gear is all about the story I don't want to give away too much. I'll say that you get out of the hospital, and start building a brand new Mother Base in order to get revenge on the organization that destroyed everything Big Boss has been working towards.

Miller wants revenge for what happened in Ground Zeroes.

The rebuilding of Mother Base is actually a large component of the game, which is very similar to the building of Mother Base in the PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. On missions every soldier you encounter has a set of stats and you can recruit them to your cause. All you have to do is put them to sleep, or beat them down with your fists, and you can Fulton them out of the area. Once the soldiers make their balloon exit they will be assigned to an area of Mother Base based on what their highest stat is. The better the units you have in each area the more you can develop for Big Boss to use in combat. Development starts off with no wait time and very low requirements, but the game quickly ramps up so that you need to scrounge for units constantly and then have to wait anywhere between 18 minutes and 5 hours for your research to finish. This sounds tedious, but there's something very satisfying about strapping a balloon to every soldier, animal, and vehicle you see. Development time becomes a non-issue as well, or at least it did for me, because I was so engrossed in playing the actual game that I would completely lose track of time. The main problem ends up being resources, because eventually you need insane amounts of them and the world doesn't necessarily always provide them.

This is where the online mode comes into play.You build an FOB (Forward Operating Base), which is essentially another Mother Base. You can then invade other player's FOBs and steal their resources. I only did this a few times, because I kept getting wrecked. You can deck out your FOB with all kinds of security measures like drones, traps, and security cameras. If you're online when someone tries to infiltrate your FOB you will be notified and you can get into the fray and take them out. It's a cool mechanic, but I often found myself being invaded by people who were much better equipped than I was, so there was no way for me to stop them. If I ever did get good enough then I could retaliate and take back everything I lost, but I was never able to successfully do that. It helps that once you get invaded you can not be invaded again for another 6 hours, so my resources were not constantly being stolen. People were coming at me with things I didn't even know existed and were using tactics I had never seen before, which made me realize that the game will let you do just about everything you can think of and pull it off.

Expect to be looking at this menu a lot. Upgrading Mother Base is very important.

I'm not kidding, almost everything you can think of to do the game will probably let you do. Want to have your horse poop in the road so a jeep spins out on it? You can do that. Do you want to put C4 onto a jeep, Fulton it away, then blow it up right next to a helicopter? You can do that. Have you always wanted to hide in a Porta Potty and play poop sounds from your phone to make guards suspect you less? You can do that too. When I say the options are limitless, I'm being mostly serious. There are so many things the game will let you do that are very surprising. There is detail in things that there shouldn't really be any detail in. On top of that the open world lives and breathes in a way that I never would have expected. Enemies contact other bases, and are aware of things that are happening outside their general field of view.

With the release of The Phantom Pain, Metal Gear as a franchise did a 180 degree turn from how it used to be. Gone are the forty minute cutscenes filled with anime craziness. They've been replaced by shorter scenes that are still crazy, but they're much fewer and far between. All of that craziness has been transplanted into the gameplay. You're much more likely to see something nuts while running around the world than you are in a story sequence. I never would have expected that the series could evolve so much, but I'm glad that it did. Initially it feels like a lot of the Metal Gear charm is gone, but it just takes some getting used to. It's still a Hideo Kojima game, so you know you're in for a wild ride.

Big Boss and his clones have become iconic characters in the world of video games.

I'm willing to make the bold claim that The Phantom Pain is one of the best action games ever produced. It has a scope that's unparalleled in video games, and everything comes together to make a cohesive package. Sure, there are some things I could nitpick, but none of them stand out enough to tarnish this otherwise great entry into the Metal Gear franchise. Sure it doesn't tie up the story of the whole franchise with a pretty bow, but I didn't really expect it to. That's what I like about Kojima. He likes to keep the fans guessing. I think it's great that the final entry in such an iconic franchise is fresh and fun as opposed to being buried under the weight of its predecessors design and mechanics. If you have a platform that you can play The Phantom Pain on, then I highly recommend you do so. You will not regret it.