Game Time - August 2015

As August and Summer draw to a close I still have a few games left to talk about. Even though I was visiting various cottages and playing Ultra Street Fighter 4 at Summer Jam 9, I actually found time to play video games. Most of which were new!

One such game that I won't be talking about here is the Rare Replay Collection for Xbox One. It collects 30 Rare developed games from the past 30 years. Obviously games like Donkey Kong Country can't be featured, but fan favorites such as Viva Pinata, and Banjo Kazooie are. All I want to say about this is that all companies releasing a game collection in the future should take note. This is how you collect games into a package!

As for brand new releases I picked up LBX or Little Battlers Experience for the 3DS. It's a robot fighting game from Level 5, the makers of Inazuma Eleven. It has as much charm and content as most other Level 5 games.

Next up we have the game I wish I didn't pay $60 dollars for, but had to have, One Piece Pirate Warriors 3. It's Dynasty Warriors, but with One Piece characters...for the third time!

Last but certainly not least I finally got around to playing Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. It's not new, but I did break the seal on my disc copy. That makes it new, I guess? I had to prep for the true Metal Gear Solid V, so it was going to happen sooner or later. Speaking of MGSV I'm in the process of playing through it right now and I need to get back to it.

It's game time!

LBX: Little Battlers Experience

For some reason Level 5 decided that they wanted most of their franchises to be pan-media. They started with Inazuma Eleven and have continued on to LBX and Yokai Watch. Inazuma just had a game and an anime, while LBX and Yokai watch have expanded into the toy realm as well. With all of their franchises the games come first. However, in the case of all of these franchises they take a while to see the light of day outside of Japan. For example, there are three LBX games in Japan and the first one is only just coming out here now when it was first released in 2011.

In Japan the success of these games leads into an anime, while here in the U.S. it was the opposite. LBX was dubbed and shown on Nickelodeon. It was actually quite popular, despite the fact that half of the episodes were cut out for audiences outside of Japan. That's right. This show about battling tiny robots was too violent and professed ideas not suitable for American children! To be honest it is kind of crazy some of the stuff that takes place in this game. No joke, I had to stop a tiny robot from assassinating a prime minister, None of this makes sense without context though, so let me give you some.

Now that the cardboard is reinforced no one will get hurt!

Tiny robot toys called LBX were released to the public, but their battles proved to be too dangerous. After some kids got hurt they were banned. After a few years someone invented a super strong cardboard box for the robots to battle in. I can't make this up, it's called reinforced cardboard! Even though they're still super dangerous outside of the cardboard, because you can use them to kill people... Anyways, now kids love controlling these hot toys with their phones.

The gameplay is relatively simple. You control your customized robot in battle in third person. It can hold two weapons that each have a basic attack. Each time you attack it costs stamina. Running and jumping also decrease stamina. The game is essentially all about stamina management. If you run out you're left vulnerable and your attack decreases. After a few seconds it recharges, but the battles in LBX tend to last only 20 or 30 seconds. Every second and point of damage is crucial.

All the kids love a good LBX battle!

I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of the gameplay, but it's not bad, My enjoyment comes from collecting the hundreds of robot parts and weapons. I've always liked any game where you can customize robots for battle. Custom Robo and Gotcha Force on the Gamecube are two excellent examples of this. While I like those games better LBX definitely has an interesting story to back it up. I'm almost done with the story, so I'll wait to make a final judgement until the end.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3

I don't want to type a lot about this game. It's the same as Pirate Warriors 2, but with ten new additional characters. You mash square and triangle in order to decimate hordes of enemies. I enjoy it, but it's not for everyone. As opposed to basic gameplay I'll talk about the new systems they implemented.

In the previous game you equipped coins in order to increase your stats. Now you can spend coins permanently to upgrade your stats. This works out a lot better, because you don't have to mess around with changing out coins. You get coins by completing various missions, and each time you defeat officers in battle. If you defeat an officer with a special attack you get even more coins.

These are all the playable characters! (There are many non-playable characters on  here)

The other main change is the Kizuna Rush system. Each map you will be given specific partner characters who you can freely switch between. As you fight the bar next to the partner will fill up across three levels. At level 1 you will be able to push either square or triangle after you end a combo to have the partner attack as well. If the partner kills enemies they will be counted as ! kills. What sucks is that ! kills are one of the three things you're graded on each level and I've only ever gotten it to S rank one time.

Once the kizuna gauge is filled you can push R2 to power up. This will make your character stronger for a limited time. You can push circle to unleash a special from both characters. You can also chain Kizuna specials up to 3 times. So if you enter the powered up R2 state with two characters, the third time you do it and execute a special everyone used so far will attack in unison with you. It's super powerful.

Gotta destroy all the enemies!

Pirate Warriors is a lot different, but mostly the same. I like when they try to make refinements to the generic gameplay and test out new mechanics. It's always hard to try new things, so they get a kudos for trying.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

When I saw a disc based copy of Ground Zeroes on amazon for $5 dollars I jumped right on it. It's been sitting on my shelf for approximately six months now. I decided to pop it in on August 31st, because I wanted to prepare for the release of the true Metal Gear Solid V the following day. After playing Ground Zeroes I now agree with everyone who said it was an overblown tech demo, because it is. It took me an hour to complete, and only had story in the beginning and end.

As a Metal Gear game it was kind of disappointing, but as an open world stealth playground it was amazing. It makes sense that this is how Metal Gear would transition to the new generation of consoles, but I can imagine it won't sit well with most fans.

It's a sneaking mission.

My issue with a lot of stealth games is that once you're caught you're completely screwed. With the new non-terrible controls in Ground Zeroes it's easy to gun down everyone once you're caught. Sure you won't get a very high score, but at least you'll complete the mission. Even better is that you have a lot of options. There are tons of ways to approach any given scenario. It's fun to figure out a plan and then execute on it, but the scale is just too small.

I don't really have much to say about Ground Zeroes to be honest. It's a fun sandbox with almost no content. Sure you can do side missions, but it all takes place on the same military base. It's more or less a proof of concept for the full game. I actually would have been angry if I paid $30 for it. After playing MGSV proper I can say that the scale of the game is much larger than anything Ground Zeroes had to offer,

Metal Gear!?

I don't know what to think about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain yet/ I do know that it has started off September with a bang though. It certainly doesn't have as much story as the previous entries in the franchise, but so far the gameplay makes up for it. I really liked MGS 1-4, but I was not a huge fan of the controls. Most of the time I felt like I was struggling with the controls to make it to the next story beat.

That said, I'm going to keep playing V to see what happens in it. Maybe the open world stealth will wear thin, but it definitely hasn't happened yet. Next Friday I'll be picking up Super Mario Maker for Wii-U as well, and on the 29th we'll all get to witness the magic of Persona 4 characters dancing.

The games are going to start coming fast and furious, which means that I need to get playing! See you guys next time!