In terms of awesome games this month was a doozy. On the 8th I picked up Disgaea D2 in store, because I hadn't pre-ordered it yet. For some reason I thought it was coming out at the end of the month, which was when I had planned on making time to play it. Due to my miscalculation I haven't played as much of it as I would have liked. I'm a solid 8 or so hours in and so far it hasn't grabbed me as much as I was hoping it would have. However, there's still plenty of time for that to happen.
The real reason I didn't play much Disgaea is because Pokemon X and Y came out a short four days later. In order to play as much Pokemon as humanly possible I requested off from work on the 12th and 13th. In those two days I played over 24 hours worth of Pokemon X. It was awesome, and the game continues to be awesome after 78 hours of play. I've still got a lot to do and I don't see myself stopping any time soon.
On the 24th the 5th game in the Ace Attorney franchise was released as a downloadable only title on the 3DS. I still wish it would have been a full retail release, but I understand that the franchise hasn't exactly had the most stellar sales in the west. Hopefully this game makes up for that and all future games in the series are localized. I'm up to the 5th and final court case in the game and shit's getting very real. I'll probably end up finishing it tonight or tomorrow. All I know is that Phoenix Wright made his return to the courtroom well worth my time.
I have so much to say about these games, so I better get into it. It's game time!
Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness
At some time in my high school career I picked up a copy of Disgaea 2 not really knowing what it was. I played through the first few chapters just as I would any strategy RPG. I still remember the map where everything changed for me. It was in a swamp and for some reason I had to fight Etna. She was level 1,000 or higher and my characters were barely 20. I was decimated, but found out I was supposed to be. It became my new goal to get strong enough to beat her. Little did I know that I would be able to get my characters to level 9,999 multiple times through insane level grinding with exponential experience. I played the living hell out of Disgaea 2 and from that point on I was hooked. Eventually I went back and played the first game, and since then I have played and been horribly addicted to each new iteration.
After going back and playing Disgaea 1 it became my favorite game in the franchise. For some reason I really like the main character Laharl, even though he's an egocentric whiner. Perhaps it's his lack of a shirt and the bad-ass laser sword he uses that make me like him so much. He ends up being my most used character in every game despite not being heavily involved in any of the main stories aside from the original game. With Disgaea D2 he makes his triumphant return as the main character.
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| Laharl turns into a lady during D2. I really like the character design! |
I still love Laharl, but D2 has made me realize how little I like Etna and Flonne. There are only so many times you can joke about not having any boobs before it becomes upsetting. I don't want to be mean, but Flonne is too dumb for me to handle. I realize she's an angel who was kicked out of heaven and she's super innocent and naive, but it's just annoying. I didn't like the part she played in Disgaea 4's story either. In fact, I think she detracted from the overall feel of that story. This is what bugs me about D2 the most. It's a direct sequel to the story of the original game, so it focuses on the original three main characters. In theory that would be awesome, but for some reason the only other story character you get is a little girl who claims to be Laharl's sister. I don't like her at all either, so I'm stuck using the generic characters, Laharl, and the three story characters I find to be annoying. Once I get to the post game I can unlock the characters I liked from Disgaea 4, but I feel like that's a long way to go with a lackluster set of characters.
The story seems weak, which is putting me off a bit. It's a shame though, because everything else seems so well done. It eases you into the combat and teaches you a lot better than previous iterations of the franchise did. I want to beat the game so I can get sucked into the endless grinding and loot progression that I so desperately crave. Hopefully I can get past the characters I don't like and focus on how awesome Laharl is to get me through the game. Now that I'm winding down on Ace Attorney I should be able to play, or at least try to play a bit more.
Ace Attorney 5: Dual Destinies
I don't care what anyone says; Apollo Justice was a great game. Sure, he may not be Phoenix Wright, but that's okay. The original Ace Attorney trilogy ended in such a way that I didn't mind that Apollo had taken his place as the main character. With that said I'm glad that Phoenix is back as a playable character and back in the spotlight. Even though this time he's sharing his spotlight with Apollo and the fresh out of law school Athena Cykes.
Ace Attorney 5 plays just like the previous entries in the series. It's essentially a visual novel, but at certain points you'll need to explore crime scenes for evidence and present said evidence in court at the right time. What's nice is that everything is easier this time. When searching for evidence you control a cursor shaped like a hand pointing with it's index finger. When an area can be investigated a circle will appear over the index finger. To make things easier on the player the circle will turn into an X if you've already searched that area or object. It makes the investigations less frustrating, because you can easily see if you're missing anything. In a similar vane you can travel anywhere at any time. In the previous games you could only move to certain places if you were close to that place, which was terribly annoying. You'd have to backtrack through several screens for no reason whatsoever.
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| Look at how badass Apollo looks! |
All of the character models are now full fledged 3D. You can see Phoenix yelling objection as a glorious 3D model instead of his regular old 2D sprite. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it looks really good and allows for a much wider range of motion. It's only really noticeable with the 3D turned on though. For some reason without it everything looks very flat. Without it the characters look painted on the background. With the 3D on everything looks like it was much more depth. Each background has several layers, and certain objects are accentuated. It reminds me of how I thought Kingdom Hearts 3DS had better graphics with the 3D on. It probably isn't the case, but it sure looks a lot better to me.
If the addition of 3D models isn't enough for you then perhaps you might enjoy some anime cutscenes. They're interspersed throughout the game and add to the story in a way that wasn't previously possible. The part that cuts the anime down for me a bit is the fact that's it's voice acted. It's not exactly the best voice work that I've ever heard. What makes it worse is that it's at odds with the rest of the game, which isn't voice acted at all. They could have easily gotten away with having no voice acting, because the scenes mostly show actions as opposed to conversations. The actors aren't even necessarily bad, they just don't fit the characters very well in my opinion. Since there have been 4 previous games in the franchise where the only spoken words were hold it, take that, and objection the voiced scenes are generally off-putting.
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| Witness Phoenix in all his 3D majesty! |
The good news is that in regular Ace Attorney fashion the new characters are very well done. Athena Cykes is a brand new lawyer that Phoenix hired. I'm in the final case now and I still don't know exactly what her deal is, but she's an interesting character so far. She's easily excitable, but knows when she has to get serious. Just as Phoenix has his magatama, and Apollo has his magic bracelet, Athena has a robotic talking necklace named Widget. Widget will say what Athena is thinking, but he also allows her to sense discord in people's emotions. In the court room this adds a brand new way to cross examine. Occasionally she will sense discord and launch into an emotion detection sequence. As the witness speaks there are four emotions that they can be feeling. You must figure out what emotion doesn't fit with the testimony in order to bring out the truth and enact justice.
As is common with each game there is also a new prosecutor. Prosecutor Blackquill is a prison inmate who for some reason is allowed to work in a court of law. He was convicted of murder seven years prior to Ace Attorney 5. I have yet to find out what he was convicted for, but I'm super pumped to find out. He's generally very calm and collected, but becomes angry when he feels like his time is being wasted. Like the other prosecutors he is fairly hostile towards any opposing lawyer. He often sicks his pet bird on people, and throws knives across the court room. You know, things that are totally legal. He's a great opponent, because it seems that he believes in justice as opposed to only caring about a guilty verdict.
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| The anime scenes would be so much better without the voice acting. |
As I mentioned previously I have just started the final case and I can't wait to see what happens. In the beginning though I wasn't very interested in the story. The first case failed to grab me, but it's importance isn't clear until the third case. I can't tell if it's the way this game is written, or if I'm just not used to the logic of the series anymore, but I keep finding myself not knowing what to do. Generally the series has it's own internal logic, but there have been numerous occasions when I just have no idea what evidence I'm supposed to present in court. I've found myself getting much more frustrated than I did in previous titles despite the fact that everything is much more streamlined. Part of that may have been due to the fact that the story hadn't picked up yet. So while the experience has been frustrating it's been great to see Phoenix take up being a lawyer again after his supporting role in Apollo Justice. Overall it feels like an Ace Attorney game that's super streamlined, but slightly more frustrating than it used to be.
Pokemon X
Pokemon is and always has been one of my favorite franchises. Even though it doesn't change a whole lot with each iteration, it changes just enough to keep me coming back for more. This time Game Freak changed much more than usual and the result is amazing, which makes this the best generation of Pokemon yet.
To really shake things up Game Freak added in a whole new type. Dragon Pokemon are generally known to be overpowered. They are almost always very strong and have few weaknesses. In order to combat that Fairy type was added in order to take Dragon type down a few notches, because as we all know faeries are a dragon's only true weakness. What's insane is that fairy Pokemon are totally immune to Dragon moves. This addition might sound like a small thing, but it totally changes the entire basis of Pokemon battles. It's going to shake up competitive battling in a major way. I use a fairy Pokemon on my team and it's pretty awesome.
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| Sylveon is my favorite fairy Pokemon. It's a beastly special defense tank. |
As if adding a whole new type wasn't enough Mega evolution is now a thing. Certain Pokemon can now mega evolve by holding a special stone. For example Tyranitar can turn into mega Tyranitar when holding Tyranitarite. When a Pokemon mega evolves it gets better stats and in some cases new typing, and a new ability. There are only around 20 Pokemon that can mega evolve, which means that a lot of people are going to start using those Pokemon. You're only allowed to have one Pokemon go Mega in a battle, so you can't just run a team of all super powered megas and steamroll everyone.
The most mind blowing change in X and Y is that everything is fully polygonal. All the models in the game are 3D and it's incredible. The overworld and characters don't look like anything special, but battles are amazing. The detail in animation of every single Pokemon and attack are unmatched! Since every main line Pokemon game prior to this has been fully sprite based this is a big change and a large step forward for the series. The only tradeoff is that the frame rate doesn't always hold up in battle, especially if you utilize the 3D of the 3DS. More often than not if you have the 3D turned on in battles the frame rate will drop by half during each attack animation. It's disappointing, because it all looks so good! The models still look good though, so it's just as nice to see the models without the 3D cranked all the way up.
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| The Pokemon models look very good for being on the 3DS. |
Everything seems to happen faster in X and Y as well. You can immediately run, which is normally an ability you have to earn. Then after the first gym you gain access to the roller blades, which almost double your movement speed. Battle text scrolls faster by default as well making battles move quicker. It seems to me that leveling up your Pokemon takes less time too. For some reason you still gain Exp even if you capture a wild Pokemon now. The main reason leveling is faster though is due to the Exp. Share. While this has been an item in every single game it now shares the experience between every Pokemon in your party as opposed to just one. To make it even more mind blowing it's not even an item that a Pokemon has to hold anymore. Instead it's a key item that you can turn on or off at your discretion.
All around it seems that the series is trying to become more accessible. You get right into the game much faster than you did before, and it's a whole lot easier to level up and move around. Even the previously intense meta-game of your Pokemon's stats has been made easier. I don't want to get into the intricacies of EVs and IVs here, but I will say that they're now both easier to control. EVs have been completely trivialized, because now you can just play a soccer-like minigame for an hour or so completely max out the EVs you need on a single Pokemon. Breeding for IVs used to be overly complicated and take a good amount of luck, but I was able to breed a Pokemon with perfect stats in just a matter of hours. Sure, I got fairly lucky, but it's still way easier to do now. This all means that more people can get into Pokemon now, and people who previously found the competitive aspect too daunting can now get into it much more easily. This will be the first generation where I have a competitively viable team to use online.
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| Competitive battles might be much more prominent this generation. |
Many people complained that there were only 70 brand new Pokemon, when there has been at least 100 per generation previously. I was upset at first too, especially since most of the designs are kind of poor. Now that I've played the game I no longer have any complaints. With less Pokemon it was much easier for Game Freak to add in all kinds of new features and make the Pokemon we all know and love into something much better than it was before.
I've been playing Pokemon since the original games came out over a decade ago and I've liked each and every iteration of the franchise since then. I can say without a doubt that this generation is the peak of the entire series. Game Freak has hit an all new high and I hope that they can top it with the next iteration. People complain that these games are too similar every year and for the first time this entry is actually very different. I love Pokemon so much. It's one of my favorite franchises and it makes me so happy that it's still so awesome after all these years.
A New Age is Dawning
This console cycle is coming to an end. On November 15th the PS4 will be here and with it an all new era of gaming will begin. While there may not be many exclusive games coming out for the thing it's still very important. The week after the Xbox One will be out and then we're truly into the next generation of console gaming.
I pre-ordered the PS4 and it will be at my door on the 15th. Since I can no longer get Watch Dogs until June of 2014 I am going to have to settle for Assassin's Creed 4 instead. I'll probably type up a whole bunch of stuff about the PS4 as I use it. Also expect me to post some videos of myself playing video games over the next few months. The PS4 allows for direct streaming to Twitch, which I can't wait to try out.
The next edition of Game Time will take place in an entirely new era of gaming!
-Manny
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