Game Time - September 2019

Game: Borderlands 3
Developer: Gearbox
Platform: PS4

I felt myself in the minority when I didn't want Borderlands 3 to just be more Borderlands 2. Sadly, the game we got out of Gearbox almost 8 years later is essentially Borderlands 2 with a new coat of paint. The humor I found to be grating in 2 is somehow even worse in 3. I enjoyed my playthrough of it, but I don't know how much I will come back to it. The post game content isn't as plentiful as I would have liked, and I am not generally the type to come back months later when new content is added.

The main praise I can give Borderlands 3 is that the actual act of shooting is vastly improved from its predecessor. Guns feel like they have actual weight now and are actually fun to shoot. The addition of mantling over obstacles and sliding on the ground add some much needed mobility to the action as well.

Borderlands 3 is fun enough, but I still can't believe it didn't change up the formula more. People often say don't fix what isn't broken, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been improved upon even more. The sluggish menus and small inventory make picking up new guns a chore, which shouldn't be the case in a game about looting guns. I'll check out the game again when the first piece of DLC releases. Hopefully it can do something to hook me back in.


Game: Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
Developer: Capcom
Platform: PS4

I have well documented my love for Monster Hunter on this page, so it's pretty clear that I was going to like Iceborne. Despite that I still wasn't ready to like this expansion as much as I do. Tons of monsters have been added with a few new ones and a ton of old favorites. My all time favorite sabre tooth tiger boy the Barioth has finally come back to me and I couldn't be happier.

I expected the new story content to be over withing 20-30 hours, but right now I'm 90 hours in and still going. Granted, I haven't been main lining the story and doing all the side missions, but I'm only 40 hours off from how much I played the base game. Nights have been completely melting away and I couldn't be happier about it.

The expansion introduces master rank, which is the equivalent of G rank from previous games. This means that all monsters from the base game have been updated with new moves as well. This gives new flavor to old content, which is awesome. The biggest change to the core gameplay is the clutch claw, which is essentially a grappling hook you can use to get up on monsters constantly. I could go on about how great this expansion is, but I'll cut it off here. Iceborne is great.


Game: Kind Words
Developer: Popcannibal
Platform: PC

The world has seemed a lot more awful in the past few years, so it's nice to see that there is a safe place for people to go and talk about their problems. Kind Words isn't necessarily a game, but it is sold on Steam. Upon launching the game a deer who also happens to be a mailman lets you know that they are new to the job and need your help writing letters.

Your entire job in Kind Words is to try and help other people with kind messages. You can start simple by writing a nice quote and sending it out into the world as a paper airplane for others to see. The meat of the experience comes from answering other people's requests. In case it isn't clear these are requests written by real people. Everyone has tough times, so people write up letters asking others for help and advice. You can look through recent requests and answer them. I try to stick with advice I know I am qualified to give, but I'm sure all responses are welcome.

I put up a few requests and have gotten an overwhelming amount of responses. I actually feel a lot better about the problems I was having. which is pretty cool. My problems aren't too serious, but many I have seen are. The game knows to take mental health issues seriously and often surfaces phone numbers people can call if they need immediate help. While it may not exactly be a game, I have found myself going back to a lot just to restore my faith in humanity.

Game Time - September 2018

Game: Dragon Quest XI

Developer: Square-Enix

Platform: PS4 (Also on Steam)

Dragon Quest XI is the JRPG I've been craving. It's odd, because there isn't really anything new to it. It's a very classic turn based RPG with all the elements you would expect from a game of this type. This is normally the sort of thing that would bum me out, but it knows exactly what it is. It takes the formula that you know and love, and just does everything well. It has tons of charm, a compelling story, and all the content you can handle. I am currently 75 hours in and I have at least a few more dungeons to go. Personally I have been engaged the whole time, but I can see how a game of this length would burn some players out. 

Most Dragon Quest games have a very predictable plot with a few over the top twists. Dragon Quest XI is no exception. It has some wild twists that were shockingly not revealed in any pre-release marketing or reviews. There are wide swaths of the game that I can't even talk about without spoiling some very interesting things. It's an impressive feat that I didn't know the main twist of a game that had been out in Japan for a year before its release here. That didn't stop a co-worker from spoiling the entire ending for me this past weekend! 

The western release improves upon the Japanese release in a few ways. First of all it the voice acting. Every character has a strong European accent to the point where it's comical at times. However, for the most part it's very well done. The original Japanese release does not have any voice acting, which I find to be an odd choice. At TGS they announced a Switch version, which will be adding Japanese voice acting. The other brilliant addition to the western release is the ability to dash. Previously you had to walk around at a relatively brisk pace, but with the addition of the dash you can blaze trails around any enemy. At first it seems a little too fast, because enemies definitely can't catch you. Later in the game you come to appreciate its greatness though, because sometimes you just don't want to fight. 

I'm a handful of hours away from the conclusion of my journey and I'll be sad when it's over. This is the kind of JRPG experience that doesn't come along very often in the modern era of games, so I'm trying to savor it. 

Game: Marvel's Spider-Man

Developer: Insomniac

Platform: PS4

As soon as I heard that Sony had contracted Insomniac to make a Spider-Man game I knew it was going to be awesome. I wasn't wrong. For years people have been lamenting the slew of mediocre to terrible Spider-Man games that couldn't seem to recreate the amazing web slinging mechanics of Spider-Man 2 on the Gamecube and PS2. After waiting patiently since 2004 our long nightmare is finally over. Insomniac made a great Spider-Man game!

Insomniac saw what people liked about the traversal in Spider-Man 2 and made their own top notch web swinging system. It always feels cliche to say things like this, but you really feel like Spider-Man. The second the game opens you take control of a swinging Spider-Man as you're shown how to quickly zip around the city. The system is very intuitive and takes hardly any time at all to get used to. It's simple and very fast. I think the thing that makes the system feel complete is that you never really get stuck anywhere. If you mess up and end up climbing a building it's possible to run right up the side and then continue swinging from there, or even sip straight from point to point if needed. It's an easy to execute system, but you can get super fancy if you're up for it.

Outside of the great web swinging the combat feels really good as well, but a bit familiar. If you played the Batman Arkham games the combat will be all too familiar. The dodge and counter system that those games popularized is alive and well here, but with some web shooting thrown in. You clobber enemies and use gadgets until Spidey-Sense lets you know it's time to dodge and then go right back to pummeling thugs. 

The plot is standard fare for an outing in the Spider-Man world. You fight a bunch of interesting villains and stop a plot to wreak havoc on the city. The story is fine, but the gameplay mechanics are really what carries the game through its 30 or so hours. The one downside I can really think of is that the side missions aren't too great. However, that didn't stop me from getting the platinum trophy. Insomniac did an excellent job with this game. Its already the fastest selling PS4 exclusive, which is a crazy thing since God of War just came out a few months ago. 

Game Time - September 2017

I've been waiting for the month of October all year. Tomorrow one of my best friends is getting married. Then at the end of the month I'm going on a week long vacation leading up to my 24 hour Extra Life stream. I have an action packed few weeks ahead of me, but before I can fully dive in I have to tell you about the games I played in September!

The month started strong with Monster Hunter Stories. I am still playing it every so often, but have not yet completed it. I never would have guessed that a Monster Hunter JRPG targeted at children would appeal to me so much.

Then a few weeks later Capcom dropped Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite. The presentation of the game and marketing leading up to its release made it seem like it was going to be a garbage fire. Unsurprisingly people are trashing it to the ends of the earth and back. The kicker is that it's actually super fun to play! I really like it.

The last game I played was Cuphead. The hotly anticipated indie release has finally come out, and it's everything I was hoping it would be. The 1930's cartoon aesthetic needs to be seen to be believed. In motion it looks stunning. On top of that the frantic boss fights are very fun and challenging.

We have a lot to talk about. It's game time!

Monster Hunter Stories

The fact that I love Monster Hunter is no secret. I feel deep into its trap a few years ago and haven't looked back. It's been a while since a Monster Hunter game has been released in the West, and for some reason Capcom decided to keep XX as a Japan only game. While Monster Hunter World will release in late January the only thing to tide me over until then was Monster Hunter Stories.

The Monsters you know and love are here, but they're small and cute now!

I normally never download demos of games, but I had to know what this one was about. What's crazy is that the demo is just the first five or six hours of the game. You can do almost everything available to you, and the progress even carries over to the main game. By the time the demo concluded I was hungry for more, and ended up getting the game when I otherwise wouldn't have.

I think the most surprising thing about it is that it is essentially a Pokemon game. You collect and battle with cute versions of all your favorite monsters from the series. It starts off very simply. Battles consist of choosing one of three types of attacks, either Technique, speed, or power. Each beats another, so you're playing roshambo. If you lose a trade the enemy still takes damage, but not as much as they would have. Each monster has its own tendencies, so just like Monster Hunter you need to learn each enemies habits to beat them effectively. As the game goes on the patterns get more diverse and you can mix things up by using skills of your own. It has a ton of charm, and while it's not the most complex game out there it manages to capture the charm of Monster Hunter in its own way.

Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite

In my eyes Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite will be the new Street Fighter V. Everyone on the Internet will mercilessly dunk on it without having actually played the game. Alternatively it could be used as a case study in how to absolutely fail to market something effectively. From the start Capcom has mismanaged this games public perception. The models don't look great, but initially they looked even worse. Chun-Li's face looked so bad it quickly became a meme. It is also now coming out that the team was given a very small budget and an incredibly short time to develop the game (to the surprise of no one). When you add in the fact that the roster is largely old characters composed of re-used assets it's hard to see the game in a positive light.

Despite all of that, I decided to try it out anyways. My brother is an absolute Marvel vs. Capcom fanatic. Marvel 3 was the first fighting game he got truly good at, and I loved watching him play. Hell, I just love watching Marvel in general. So I am happy to report that this game has excellent gameplay. The fighting is good in this fighting game. I can's stress this enough. Yes, you only use two characters now instead of three, but the fact that you can tag your partner in at any time and continue your combos allows for so much creativity. The control has changed up a little from 3. You now have a light punch, heavy punch, light kick, and a heavy kick. Crouching heavy punch is a universal launcher, so doing sick aerial combos is still very easy to do. It's fast paced, and very fluid. It feels good!

Still screens look so bad, but it plays just fine.

Do I think this game deserves a lot of crap for the way it was marketed? Yes. However, when you actually play the game its easy to see that it's a good fighting game. I don't think it's wrong to like a fighting game because the actual game is great, but the content surrounding it is not. So far it has absolutely tanked in sales, but I am personally hoping for it to have a long tail. Like Street Fighter V they are going to be selling DLC characters. Capcom has a plan for this game, so thankfully I think we'll have many years of Marvel tournaments to look forward to.

Cuphead

Cuphead began development in 2010 and it is finally seeing the light of day. The 1930's cartoon inspired game was first shown in an indie game montage during a Microsoft E3 press conference. Details started to trickle out and it was revealed to be a sidescrolling boss rush game. Even back then it was said to be fiendishly difficult despite its playful cartoon look. At first there were only bosses, but the game was put back in the oven to add some platforming levels. I can safely say that the platforming levels are my least favorite part of the game, but the bosses are awesome.

Cuphead is a relatively simple shoot-em-up. You run from side to side and shoot magic bullets from your finger. The challenge comes from the fact that you need to keep shooting while simultaneously dodging everything that gets thrown at you. You begin each encounter with three health, and after three hits you're finished. In order to defeat your enemies you'll need to learn the patterns for each phase of the fight. Damaging enemies enough will get them to change up their strategy. It's cool, because you never know exactly how long a fight will go, but if you fail a progress bar of sorts will let you know how close you were to victory. To ease the burden of the game you can purchase different types of shots and charms to help in specific scenarios. The shots have varying damage and range, while charms will give you specific power-ups. While it's certainly possible to beat the game with the default shot and no charms it's not necessarily going to be easy.

If I didn't know better I would think this is a still from a 1930's cartoon.

The game is definitely about the gameplay, but it does have a story. It's actually surprisingly dark. Cuphead and Mugman sneak out of their home and visit a casino. They get on a hot streak in craps and think they're unbeatable. Turns out the Devil owns the casino and he challenges them to a bet. If they win, they get tons of cash, but if they lose he gets their souls. They obviously lose, but plea for their souls. The devil agrees to release their souls if the duo can collect other souls he is owed. So each boss you defeat is someone who owes their soul to the devil. Both this concept and the difficulty are in direct opposition to the beautiful and fun art style, which might be why everything works so well. This game controls like a dream and looks like you're literally playing a cartoon. Cuphead rules!

OCTOBER!

As I stated at the beginning of this fabulous edition of Game Time, October is upon us. I am unrealistically excited for Fire Emblem Warriors. I've been craving some mindless Dynasty Warrior action and now I can get it! However, the true best Switch game is also releasing. Super Mario Odyssey will be out right before the end of the month. I can't even begin to describe how ready I am to play a brand new 3D Mario product. It's been a long time since Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Odyssey looks like it's going to be a worthy successor.

What's even better is that both of those Switch games are going to be out in time for me to play them on a five hour plane ride. It will be my first plane ride with a Switch, and it should be a great time.

Game Time - September 2016

The crisp fall air is upon us, and so are tons of video game releases! As I said in last month's Game Time I had started playing God Eater 2 right at the end of August. I played it a whole bunch, but Sadly didn't finish it. I might go back to it at some point.

On September 6th Trails of Cold Steel 2 came out, and I tried to play it as much as possible. However, the Legend of Heroes series is known for having its games be ludicrously long. I played Trails of Cold Steel a few months ago and it took me around 60 hours to finish. The second game is a lot more open, so I have a feeling it's going to take me a whole lot longer.

On September 9th Ace Attorney 6 came out, so I put Trails on hold. Over the course of a week I put 40 hours into the game, and completed it. At first I was worried, because the game wasn't really grabbing me, but by the end I was super into it.

Now that we're in the heat of fall video games are coming out at a rapid pace. It gets even more crazy, because I actually want to play a bunch of them. I'm using up a great deal of my spare time, and money. Since there's a bunch I should be playing let's get right into this. It's game time!

God Eater 2

I initially played God Eater Rage Burst on the PSP. I played it for hours and hours with a friend. His PSP's analog nub broke and we never ended up finishing all the extra content. I definitely did enjoy the hell out of it though. That was before I had gotten into Monster Hunter, so I was afraid that I wouldn't enjoy God Eater 2 because of that. After playing the real thing I fell out of love with all the less complicated Monster Hunter clones I came across. Luckily God Eater 2 is just different enough to hold my interest.

At the most base level you could call anime Monster Hunter. That's mostly true, but it definitely plays a lot differently. You play as a person called a God Eater. God Eaters are essentially the protectors in a post-apocalyptic world that has been overrun by monsters. The monsters are essentially gods (duh). They were experimented on and given a wrist band called a God Arc. This allows them to summon a huge weapon, which is powerful enough to slay the beasts threatening humanity. These God Arcs can actually eat the monsters to gain power, which is one of the core game mechanics. If the monster you're fighting is alive and you bite into it you'll be powered up. If the monster is down and you eat it that's how you harvest its part.

There are new weapon types like the scythe in God Eater 2

God Eater 2 plays very much like the original, but now there are more monsters and a few more weapon types. Unlike Monster Hunter, God Eater tends to be very forgiving. While animation priority is still a thing, it doesn't matter very much. You can take a lot of hits, and your teammates can easily heal you. I'd describe this as a very arcadey experience. You don't always have to use a lot of strategy and can often just mash your way to victory. Obviously the difficulty ramps up over time, but it never gets anywhere near as hard as Monster Hunter.

One thing God Eater has over Monster Hunter is an actual plot. The first game was great and had a lot of deep characters to interact with. So far the second game is interesting but has not quite hooked me yet. There's a lot of creepy characters in this one, and a ton of religious symbolism. It's interesting, but very little is actually happening. At least it's diving into the back story of every character, but it goes a bit too slow for its own good. There have been times when the story starts going somewhere, but then immediately takes a sharp turn into some weird filler stuff.

This is the crew you'll be rolling with for the duration of the game.

Overall I think that God Eater 2 is a solid game. At the time of writing this you can also get the first game for free when you purchase the second, so it's a good way to get on board with the series. It's a competent hunting game that deals with style over substance. It's not the most complex game around, but it's fun to hold its own.

Trails of Cold Steel 2

Trails of Cold Steel 2 is hard to talk about. The first game takes a hard turn at the end, so any information about the second game, even trailers, spoil a ton about what happens in the first game. The last few hours of the original game absolutely blew my mind. I saw almost none of it coming, so if for some reason you want to play the original, then do not ready any further. You have been warned!

Spoilers start here:

A friend of mine played Trails of Cold Steel at the beginning of 2016 and absolutely loved it. The issue he ran into was he loved it so much, but had no one to talk to about it. That led to me playing through the whole game while he watched. At first I was a little iffy on the game, but in the end it ended up growing on me, The first game focuses on a group of kids at Thors Military Academy that are chosen for a special class called class seven, They were chosen because they come from vastly differing backgrounds. You spend most of your time at the school, but go on field studies as well. Throughout the course of the game you learn a ton about each character in your class. The reason I ended up liking the game so much is that each character is characterized very well. It's not like most JRPGs where only a few characters are built upon, which is great.

We're here to talk about the second game though, and man is it a lot different. The end of the first game has the main character Rean Schwarzer essentially getting his own Gundam. Seriously, he receives a giant humanoid robot, which he can then pilot. So now outside of the regular turn based battles of the original game you also have to fight in your robot, Valimar. These battles differ in that you can attack the enemy robot in one of three places. If you attack the weak point, then you do more damage and can perform a follow-up attack. Yes, there were two of these battles at the end of the first game but you do them much more often now.

Valimar, the Ashen Knight.

No longer are you at school, because now the nation is engaged in all out war. The noble faction has raised its own army, which is trying to take over the entire country. They assassinated Chancellor Osbourne, who was a proponent of making everyone equal at any means necessary. It sounds good at first, but you find out that he's actually done some pretty heinous stuff in the name of equality. It's a good old fashioned class struggle and class seven is at the center. Instead of learning in a classroom you need to travel around the country and try to keep everyone safe. Class Seven decides to remain neutral in the war and just try to keep civilians safe. This means that you go around the country and try to recruit other students from Thors to your cause.

What's crazy is that I've already played the game for 50 hours and I don't think I;m even halfway through the game. While the original was more or less linear, this game allows you to travel pretty much anywhere at any time. It takes a bit to open up, but once it does there is almost too much content.

All of Class 7 gets hot new clothing!

The issue that I'm having with the game is that it's not always holding my interest. The first game was paced rather slowly in order to learn about everyone, so I thought that the second game would have awesome stuff popping off all the time. That isn't necessarily the case. I've taken two breaks from playing it to complete other games, because I don't want to burn out. There are so many new characters that seem cool, but so far they haven't done a whole lot. Things are picking up where I am now, but it's still not making me as excited as I would like. Hopefully there's an insane third act plot twist in this one as well. I enjoy the game's battle system and characters, so I'm excited to eventually finish this game.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirits of Justice

I absolutely love the original Ace Attorney trilogy. I had always wanted to play the franchise, but the DS cartridges got pretty expensive back in the day. Capcom decided to re-release them on the Wii virtual console and I was able to net all three for a reasonable price. Prior to that I had never really played any visual novels, but ended up getting sucked right in. Ace Attorney may be mostly reading, but you actually have to use deductive reasoning and interact with the game. It has gotten me to try out a bunch more visual novel series and I am very grateful for it. However, even after playing other games like it I still think that Ace Attorney is my favorite.

The original trilogy is incredible. It ended in a way that gave me a feeling of closure. However, at the time I started playing the games the 4th entry in the series Apollo Justice had already been released. Most people really didn't like it, so I was hesitant to play it. In the end I did and ended up being one of the few people who really likes Apollo Justice. It seemed like the series was done for, but Capcom decided to try and revive the series with a 5th game. It brought Phoenix back to the forefront, but also had Apollo. It ended up being successful enough for a 6th game to be released, which is why we're here now.

OBJECTION!

Spirits of Justice is the end of the second Ace Attorney trilogy, and like the first trilogy it did not disappoint. Just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, Ace Attorney is a game about lawyers. Phoenix Wright runs an agency where he hires people who have special talents. It turns out that included his magician daughter Trucy, and two defense attorneys Apollo Justice and Athena Psyches. Apollo has been around for a bit, but Athena was introduced in the previous game. She's still a bit green, but she seems like she's coming into her own now.

The original trilogy dealt a lot with spirit mediums, spirit channeling, and fantastical things in general, Apollo Justice, and the 5th game moved away from the spirit obsession, but the 6th game i right back at it, I guess with a name like "Spirits of Justice" you probably already figured that out. It's a bit hard to explain if you've never played the series, but Phoenix used to have a partner named Maya Fey. She's a spirit medium in training, She is the head of a village of spirit mediums called Kurain Village. Spirits of Justice opens with Phoenix going to the country of Khura'in to see Maya who is almost done with her spirit training. In order to truly run her village she must master spirit channeling. This sounds really stupid, but Kurain and Khura'in are two different places. Khurai'in is a different country in the world of Ace Attorney.

The new prosecutor Nayuta is from Khura'in

Almost as soon as Phoenix steps off the plane into the distant land of Khura'in he gets ropes into a murder trial. He quickly finds out that the legal system doesn't quite work the same in the foreign land. The royal priestess performs a seance with the deceased, which allows her to see their final moments. From that they determine whether or not the accused is guilty. However, due to a ludicrous thing called the Defense Culpability Act there are no lawyers. This is because under the act defense attorneys are given the same punishment as the accused should they lose. Phoenix being the upstanding guy he is ends up doing the trial anyways, and ends up getting the first not guilty verdict in 23 years!

From there the story spools out into a crazy adventure. Since it's a visual novel finding out the story is the entire game, so I'll refrain from giving away anything else. The adventure runs about 40 hours long, which is almost twice as long as the 5th game. I rarely got stuck, but it does suffer a bit from the classic Ace Attorney logic leaps. Sometimes you can see what the game wants you do do, but you're five steps ahead. It's always a bit annoying, but now you can get hints from the game if you get stuck for too long. That eases the pain of being stuck forever and having to look up a walkthrough.

The divination seance is a large component of trails in this game.

In terms of actual gameplay Spirits of Justice has a lot more going on than the previous games. This is because it uses almost every gameplay system from previous games. Phoenix can tell when people are lying with his Magatama, Apollo uses his magic bracelet to see nervous ticks, and Athena uses her psychology to find inconsistencies, When in Khura'in you have to watch the divination seance, which adds a whole new layer to cases. It's essentially a video that can be used as evidence. It doesn't sound too cool at first, but when you can see a crime from the victims point of view it opens up a ton of new things to look at. They even bring back the forensic science of Emma Skye. There's a lot more going on than than in any other Ace Attorney game, and I don't think that any mechanic outstays its welcome. It's another great end to a trilogy and I can't wait to see where they take things next. The ending means that a lot is going to have to change, which I'm very excited about.

Rocktober

Somehow a year later I am still playing Rock Band 4 at least once a week. What's even more amazing is that Rock Band 4 performed well enough to deserve an expansion. You can bet that I'll be playing that on October 18th.

I'm also kind of interested in trying out the PlayStation VR. One of my friends is getting it, so I'll at least be able to try it out. Hopefully it's good, otherwise I don't know if VR will continue to be a thing in the coming years. Only time will tell.

I took a break from playing Trails of Cold Steel 2 to mess around with Yo-Kai Watch 2 and I've been enjoying myself so far. Originally I was interested in Yo-Kai Watch! from an academic perspective, but now I am genuinely into it. Hopefully I can beat both of them this month, but I don't know if I'll have enough time. It's weird to be playing games that are 40 hours or more back to back.

Somehow I'll make it work! See you next month!

Game Time - September 2014

I played three very different games this month. The first was a sweet sweet rhythm game, the second was a Dynasty Warriors game, and the third was a loot based first person shooter. These games couldn't be more different than each other and I had a lot of fun playing all of them. Those are just the ones I'm going to talk about here though.

In case you missed it I put up a Game Time ID of the first Danganronpa. I'm currently playing the 2nd game and it's pretty damn good. I also decided to buy Shovel Knight on the Wii-U, because I got a craving for some retro platforming action. I won't be talking about either of those this month, but I figured they were worth mentioning.

I have a lot to say, so it's probably best if I get right into it. It's game time!

Theatrhythm: Curtain Call

The original Theatrhythm, Final Fantasy Theatrhythm came out in 2012 and I was absolutely in love with it. It was only natural that I would purchase the sequel and love it more than the first one. In an unsurprising turn of events Curtain Call is basically the same game as the original. It adds a few new modes and a whole metric shit ton of content. The gameplay remains essentially unchanged though.

Theatrhythm is a Final Fantasy rhythm game in which you slide and tap the stylus in line with the beat of a song. Curtain Call added the ability to use the buttons and the circle pad on the 3DS as an alternative control style. I tried it for a bit, but didn't like it very much. I've seen a ton of people saying that they have an easier time getting good scores using the buttons, but I already don't have a very hard time using the stylus.

The gameplay remains the same in Curtain Call.

Just like the original game you create a party of four Final Fantasy characters. As you play the game they level up and gain stats. The stats don't really matter to the gameplay unless you're challenging a particularly hard song. You lose health each time you miss a prompt, so the higher level you are the longer you can stay alive. There are a ton more characters to choose from this time around. Not only are there characters from the 14 main Final Fantasy games, but there are some from the spin-off games as well. Characters from Crystal Chronicles, Mystic Quest, Type-0, and more now make an appearance.

On top of the new characters there are a ridiculous amount of new songs as well. All of the ones featured in the first game return, as well as every single DLC song from the first game. When you add in all the songs from spin-off games the total quickly jumps past 200 playable songs. If you're a Final Fantasy fan you'll recognize a vast majority of them. What's cool is that there is a such a wide array of songs to choose from, so if you're not a fan of a game there's plenty more songs to choose from.

Quest mode is a fun addition

There are also two brand new modes in the game. The game now has a versus mode where you can challenge other players to your favorite battle songs. You can battle the AI, local players, or players on the internet. I can't seem to get the online battles to work. Every time I try to join someones game I get a 3DS system error. I've seen other people complaining about it, and it seems to be fairly common. Hopefully it's something that gets fixed soon, because the battles are quite fun. You play the songs like normal, but after hitting so many notes you get an EX power-up and something bad happens to your opponent. Most of the effects make it harder for your opponent to hit notes, but some of them are totally worth it. If you just want to test your skills you can play on the hardest difficulty without power-ups as well.

The other new mode is a quest mode. Randomly generated overworld maps are created and each node on the map is a song. You choose which node you want to go to, and some of them will have boss characters. If you reach the end you have to fight a final boss, and if you kill it you'll be victorious. This is similar to the Chaos mode from the previous game, but it has a little bit more depth. It's trying to make you feel like you're on a Final Fantasy-like adventure even though it's just a rhythm game. This mode is how you unlock most of the characters, because it's the most likely to give you the shards necessary to do so.

You can hang out with fat chocobos now too.

Theathrhythm Curtain Call is an amazing game. I've played it for far too many hours already and I'll probably continue to do so. This time around each DLC song is only $0.99 as opposed to the $1.99 in the previous game. That means I'll be able to convince myself I need to buy way more songs. If you don't like Final Fantasy this game is absolutely not for you. It's essentially a nostalgia factory for fans of the series. If these games keep selling well hopefully Square will realize they need to make a similar game for all of their classic RPGs.


Hyrule Warriors

I don't know what there is to really say about Hyrule Warriors. It's a Dynasty Warriors game with Zelda characters. As you have heard me say many times in the past I love me some Dynasty Warriors action. Yes, I realize that the gameplay is super repetitive and not very complex. I also don't care. It's fun to slash through hundreds of enemies with little no no resistance while sweet guitar riffs happen all around me. The difference this time is that I get to to it as Zelda characters.

I don't really know why Nintendo let this collaboration happen, but I'm perfectly okay with it. I just don't really know how people who don't like Dynasty Warriors are going to take it. There is a buttload of Zelda references in the game, which are amazing. I just don't know if that's enough to get people to enjoy a Dynasty Warriors game if they don't already. It's the same formula, but now you can be Link.

Dynasty Warriors: Link Edition

There are actually some cool new additions to the game that I hope Tecmo Koei takes back to their other Dynasty Warriors games. Hyrule Warriors has a lot of giant monsters in it, as do a lot of other games in this series. The difference here is that all the monsters are weak to specific items. The Gohma Queen shoots her laser eye and then it's weak to an arrow show. Once the monster is knocked down they're left open to attacks, If you hurt them enough you'll do a crazy powerful move on them that takes away a ton of health.

I think that the addition of collectibles on the map is great as well. Zelda games often have you searching for Golden Skulltullas or things of that nature. They appear in this game as well. A web appears on the map and then you have to search the area. They're often obscured by a rock or something. When you attack them they give you some lame concept art, but the idea behind having collectibles in each map is cool.

Defeating large monsters is actually pretty fun.

There's only so much I can say about the game. You push the same button over and over to kill hundreds of enemies as Zelda characters. I think it's amazing, but a lot of people don't.

Destiny

Bungie is almost exclusively known for creating the Halo franchise. So when the news that that would no longer be making Halo hit it was a pretty huge deal. That was years ago, when the world found out they were making Destiny. There's been a huge amount of marketing about the game and I feel like people have been talking about it ever, It's Bungie's first non Halo game in a super long time, so it's only natural that people would be excited. In fact this is the first PlayStation 4 game that almost everyone on my friends list has. So the real question is it a good game? Yes and no.

I want to like Destiny, and I do to a certain extent. However, in the games current state I think that it's repetitive and boring. For those who don't know it's a first person shooter with MMO trappings. It also has some elements of Borderlands and Phantasy Star Online as well. It has shooting that feels very good and is easy to control, and you get guns that vary in terms of how they shoot and how much damage they do. One of the problems the game has is that the guns aren't varied enough. Sure they get better in terms of damage, but all the auto rifles are still basically the same exact thing. It's a shame, because the game is all about collecting weapons and armor in order to get better.

Get ready to shoot lots of aliens!

Playing Destiny with friends is great. It's super easy to get into a group and do whatever. There are always missions and things to do. That's where Destiny is kind of not doing it for me. The part where I have to grind the same levels and missions over and over is not exactly what I would call fun. The games story is an absolute joke to boot. Every single mission involves you putting out your little robot buddy to scan something. Immediately following that enemies attack and you fend off a few waves. That's literally the central crux of every single mission in the game. To make it even worse all of the lore isn't even accessible in the game itself. You have to go to Bungie's website to read cards you've unlocked by playing the game...

The level cap at the moment is 20, but you can advance to level 30 by grinding for loot that has light on it. When I say grind I mean it. I've done the same story missions dozens of times with friends just to try for a chance to get better armor. These missions aren't really that fun either. The act of shooting enemies is satisfying, but I find all of the bosses to be super tedious. Most of them are nothing more than bullet sponges. Shooting the same enemy for twenty minutes until it dies and maybe drops something that's worth a shit is not appealing to me. What's even less appealing is fighting those same bosses over and over to try and get faction reputation so that I can buy better armor and guns.

This is my hot Destiny character.

Destiny frustrates me, because it has flashes of brilliance in it. It's also extremely flawed, especially the loot system. When your players would rather find exploits to get loot to drop rather than play the actual game then you have a serious problem on your hands. If I didn't have friends playing the game still I think I would have given up on Destiny by now. When playing with people I'm still having quite a bit of fun, but that tends to be because I'm normally not focusing on the game. I think that Bungie can turn my feelings around with the expansion packs they're going to release. More varied missions, and a tweak to the loot system could do a lot for the game. In fact this Tuesday they're changing the drop system quite a bit. The game has so much potential and I hope that eventually it can be fully realized.

SUUUUPER SMASH BROTHERRRRRSSS

This coming Friday Super Smash Bros. for 3DS will finally be released. I tried not to get excited about it, but I ended up getting psyched anyways. Yes, I hate the way the circle-pad feels on the 3DS for playing Smash, but it will still be a fun time anyways. The new characters are all pretty cool and the game itself is pretty fun. I've played the demo a few times to get a feel for it and I definitely like playing it a lot more than Brawl. It's not quite as fast as Melee was, but it still feels pretty good. It's just a damn fun game to play. When the Wii-U version comes out I'll be 1,000,000 times more hype, but until then I'll be content playing as Peach on the 3DS.

Before Friday I'll be receiving Shadow of Mordor, which is also super exciting. It's been getting crazy good reviews, so hopefully that will be awesome as well. There are a bunch of other games I'll be getting in October as well, but for some reason they're all coming out on the 24th or later. So I'll have a huge gap between when Smash comes out and other games I want to play. I'll try to fit something in there, but it's entirely possible Shadows of Mordor will be long enough to fill that void.

These next few months are going to be hot. I need to go prep myself mentally, so I'll see you guys next time.

     -Manny

Game Time - September 2013

It took me a little over a week to complete the story of Grand Theft Auto V. Just as I suspected I had an incredible time going through it. What's weird is that I didn't feel exactly how I thought I would about it. Instead of being a ground breaking game with tons of new ideas it instead perfected a stagnating formula. In my opinion Grand Theft Auto V is the peak of the open world genre at this point in time. Open world games have been getting old, but GTA V shows that open world games can still be improved upon, but better yet they can still be well produced. Open world games are always filled with a certain amount of issues due to the sheer amount of processes going simultaneously. GTA V takes previously made conventions and polishes them to a never before seen luster.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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