Matt has recovered from the flu just in time for us to talk about little to no news. Luckily we have actually been playing things, which we talk about before moving on to rating Capcom's performance this generation.
News - 1:28 to 18:15
What We Played - 18:16 to 1:12:55
Capcom - 1:12:56 to 2:08:19
Specific Game Time Stamps
Wind Waker - 22:00 to 25:49
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Demo - 25:50 to 49:31
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX Demo - 49:32 to 55:09
Timespinner - 55:10 to 56:56
Guacamelee - 56:57 to 59:27
Granblue Fantasy Versus - 59:28 to 1:12:55
Showing posts with label Capcom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capcom. Show all posts
Friday, March 6, 2020
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Game Time - May 2019
Game: Dauntless
Developer: Phoenix Labs
Platform: PC, PS4, and Xbox One
I would describe Dauntless as a more simple version of Monster Hunter. It is to Monster Hunter what Fornite is to Player Unknown's Battlegrounds. To further that metaphor Dauntless is free and shares a very similar art style to Fortnite. Dauntless launched a few weeks ago while I was away for Memorial Day Weekend. The queues were three or four hours long and people were digging it. After seeing that I decided to see what it was all about. My initial thoughts of it being a more simple version of Monster Hunter was spot on. While you hunt monsters in a large area there are much fewer weapons with less complex movesets. After killing a monster you get some of its pieces in order to craft more armor, but there are less kinds of monster parts.
It's a cool thing, because the fact that its free makes it available to a much wider audience. I also think that it will work as a springboard for people to eventually get into Monster Hunter. Since Dauntless is free it has a lot of free to play elements. There is a battlepass that levels up as you play, much like many first person shooters on the market. You can pay for better prizes and higher experience gain in the "Hunter's Pass" as well as buying consumable items and things of that nature. The few hours I played for I had a good time, but felt it was too simple as someone who plays Monster Hunter quite a bit. Some of my friends who played hit a wall, that made it so they would have to grind a ton to move on. This is something that happens in every game, but is often exacerbated in free to play games.
I don't know that I'll go back to Dauntless, but it is a really cool game. Everything you do leads to progress, so even if you're going back to fight weak monsters with friends you're still making progress. The absolute best part is that it has full crossplay. PC, PS4, and Xbox one users can all play together at the same time. In the future the game is coming to Switch and they'll be in the hopper as well. It's an awesome thing that gives me hope for crossplay in the future. The issue for me is that once I played real Monster Hunter everything trying to ape its style feels like a pale imitation to me.
Game: Cytus Alpha
Developer: Rayark
Platform: Switch
A few months ago I started playing a mobile rhythm game called Cytus 2. In addition to be a unique and interesting rhythm game it also had a very cool story. The original came to Switch with all the DLC and I just had to pick it up to see what led to the awesome game I had been playing. What I got was essentially the same gameplay (which is great), but with an interesting story portrayed in a boring way. While Cytus 2 has you leveling up characters, figuring out codes, and reading in world messages Cytus Alpha dumps text on you in paragraphs with no real context.
In the world of Cytus Alpha a disease has crippled humans and their plan to survive is to freeze everyone while robots rebuild the world. Things don't quite go as planned and some of the robots become sentient. It's interesting, but just reading large paragraphs of text between playing songs doesn't make it compelling. I never looked forward to completing 8 songs to read this story, whereas in Cytus 2 I constantly want to see the next story beat.
The good thing as that as a rhythm game it's great. For the Switch they added a button mode that is functional, but doesn't feel great. When playing handheld you can use the touch screen, which works surprisingly well on Switch. I prefer the touch control, because it's what the game was designed for and it feels cool to tap around the screen like a pianist. The way the game plays is a horizontal bar bounces up and down the screen. Circles will appear, and when the bar coincides with them you have to tap their center. It starts off simple, but with the addition of hold and slide notes things get hectic pretty fast. Cytus Alpha is a great collection of everything the original Cytus had to offer at a much cheaper price than buying all the DLC in the mobile game.
Game: Ace Attorney Investigations 2
Developer: Capcom
Platform: DS
In May the fan translation patch for the Great Ace Attorney finally finished. In a state of excitement I ordered the Japanese cartridge and learned that I would need to get custom firmware on my 3DS in order to tun the translation. I added custom firmware to my old 3DS, because if I messed it up it wouldn't matter too much. Thankfully all the tutorials online are almost foolproof and go into super in depth explanation about every aspect of the process. Being high on the success of getting custom firmware I then went on to add DS emulation to that 3DS. I've had a cartridge for Ace Attorney Investigations 2 for a while, but the translation for that game only runs on a dumped ROM in an emulator. Personally playing DS games in an emulator really bothers me, so I got the real thing running on my 3DS!
Much to my dismay I remembered that I had never beat the original Ace Attorney Investigations, so I started that over and ended up completing it over the course of a few weeks. It was an enjoyable experience, but man is the second game much better. The first case drew me right in, but then I fell off the game in the second case. It was so poorly paced that when I got to the third case I had to put the game down and take an extended break. I'll eventually get back to it and complete it and move on to the Great Ace Attorney.
Investigations differs from traditional Ace Attorney games because you play as a prosecutor. Everyone loves Miles Edgeworth, but now you get to play as him. Regular games in the franchise see you navigating areas through a series of menus, but with Investigations you move Edgeworth around manually to investigate crime scenes. The original Investigations introduced a mechanic called "logic" that sees you combining two pieces of information to come to a new conclusion. Investigations 2 layers another mechanic called "logic chess" on top of that. Edgeworth enters into 1 on 1 conversations with people. Throughout the conversation you look for tells (similar to newer games in the franchise) and attack statements that may be false in order to gain more information. It's an interesting mechanic that mixes things up further from the traditional Ace Attorney games.
Developer: Phoenix Labs
Platform: PC, PS4, and Xbox One
I would describe Dauntless as a more simple version of Monster Hunter. It is to Monster Hunter what Fornite is to Player Unknown's Battlegrounds. To further that metaphor Dauntless is free and shares a very similar art style to Fortnite. Dauntless launched a few weeks ago while I was away for Memorial Day Weekend. The queues were three or four hours long and people were digging it. After seeing that I decided to see what it was all about. My initial thoughts of it being a more simple version of Monster Hunter was spot on. While you hunt monsters in a large area there are much fewer weapons with less complex movesets. After killing a monster you get some of its pieces in order to craft more armor, but there are less kinds of monster parts.
It's a cool thing, because the fact that its free makes it available to a much wider audience. I also think that it will work as a springboard for people to eventually get into Monster Hunter. Since Dauntless is free it has a lot of free to play elements. There is a battlepass that levels up as you play, much like many first person shooters on the market. You can pay for better prizes and higher experience gain in the "Hunter's Pass" as well as buying consumable items and things of that nature. The few hours I played for I had a good time, but felt it was too simple as someone who plays Monster Hunter quite a bit. Some of my friends who played hit a wall, that made it so they would have to grind a ton to move on. This is something that happens in every game, but is often exacerbated in free to play games.
I don't know that I'll go back to Dauntless, but it is a really cool game. Everything you do leads to progress, so even if you're going back to fight weak monsters with friends you're still making progress. The absolute best part is that it has full crossplay. PC, PS4, and Xbox one users can all play together at the same time. In the future the game is coming to Switch and they'll be in the hopper as well. It's an awesome thing that gives me hope for crossplay in the future. The issue for me is that once I played real Monster Hunter everything trying to ape its style feels like a pale imitation to me.
Game: Cytus Alpha
Developer: Rayark
Platform: Switch
A few months ago I started playing a mobile rhythm game called Cytus 2. In addition to be a unique and interesting rhythm game it also had a very cool story. The original came to Switch with all the DLC and I just had to pick it up to see what led to the awesome game I had been playing. What I got was essentially the same gameplay (which is great), but with an interesting story portrayed in a boring way. While Cytus 2 has you leveling up characters, figuring out codes, and reading in world messages Cytus Alpha dumps text on you in paragraphs with no real context.
In the world of Cytus Alpha a disease has crippled humans and their plan to survive is to freeze everyone while robots rebuild the world. Things don't quite go as planned and some of the robots become sentient. It's interesting, but just reading large paragraphs of text between playing songs doesn't make it compelling. I never looked forward to completing 8 songs to read this story, whereas in Cytus 2 I constantly want to see the next story beat.
The good thing as that as a rhythm game it's great. For the Switch they added a button mode that is functional, but doesn't feel great. When playing handheld you can use the touch screen, which works surprisingly well on Switch. I prefer the touch control, because it's what the game was designed for and it feels cool to tap around the screen like a pianist. The way the game plays is a horizontal bar bounces up and down the screen. Circles will appear, and when the bar coincides with them you have to tap their center. It starts off simple, but with the addition of hold and slide notes things get hectic pretty fast. Cytus Alpha is a great collection of everything the original Cytus had to offer at a much cheaper price than buying all the DLC in the mobile game.
Game: Ace Attorney Investigations 2
Developer: Capcom
Platform: DS
In May the fan translation patch for the Great Ace Attorney finally finished. In a state of excitement I ordered the Japanese cartridge and learned that I would need to get custom firmware on my 3DS in order to tun the translation. I added custom firmware to my old 3DS, because if I messed it up it wouldn't matter too much. Thankfully all the tutorials online are almost foolproof and go into super in depth explanation about every aspect of the process. Being high on the success of getting custom firmware I then went on to add DS emulation to that 3DS. I've had a cartridge for Ace Attorney Investigations 2 for a while, but the translation for that game only runs on a dumped ROM in an emulator. Personally playing DS games in an emulator really bothers me, so I got the real thing running on my 3DS!
Much to my dismay I remembered that I had never beat the original Ace Attorney Investigations, so I started that over and ended up completing it over the course of a few weeks. It was an enjoyable experience, but man is the second game much better. The first case drew me right in, but then I fell off the game in the second case. It was so poorly paced that when I got to the third case I had to put the game down and take an extended break. I'll eventually get back to it and complete it and move on to the Great Ace Attorney.
Investigations differs from traditional Ace Attorney games because you play as a prosecutor. Everyone loves Miles Edgeworth, but now you get to play as him. Regular games in the franchise see you navigating areas through a series of menus, but with Investigations you move Edgeworth around manually to investigate crime scenes. The original Investigations introduced a mechanic called "logic" that sees you combining two pieces of information to come to a new conclusion. Investigations 2 layers another mechanic called "logic chess" on top of that. Edgeworth enters into 1 on 1 conversations with people. Throughout the conversation you look for tells (similar to newer games in the franchise) and attack statements that may be false in order to gain more information. It's an interesting mechanic that mixes things up further from the traditional Ace Attorney games.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Podcast Episode 32 - Monster Hunter World
In this episode of the podcast I discuss what Monster Hunter World is all about and how I think it was able to succeed on a global scale.
Friday, February 9, 2018
Game Time - January 2018
I decided to take December off from writing and now I'm back to start 2018 with a bang! 2017 was a stellar year for Video games, and 2018 looks like it's going to be great as well.
To start I'll talk about Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which is the last game I started playing in 2017, but the first game I beat in 2018. It's the first new expansive RPG for the Switch and it delivered in all the ways I wanted it to.
As for some hot new 2018 releases I've got Dragon Ball FighterZ and Monster Hunter: World. Sadly I have only played a bit of DBZ, but it seems like it's actually a good fighting game. Monster Hunter on the other hand has pretty much consumed my life since its release. Boy do I love me some Monster Hunter.
It's game time!
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
I played the original Xenoblade Chronicles for over 100 hours before getting burned out. I forced myself to do everything I saw, until I just couldn't do it anymore. I came back to it a few months later and finished it. For my initial 100 hours of play I loved that game. The MMO like combat pulled me in deeper than I ever would have expected. The real draw for me was the interesting story though. That's why I bounced off Xenoblade Chronicles X. There was barely any narrative whatsoever, but Chronicles 2 brings it back.
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| Xenoblade Chronicles 2 returns to the originals narrative heavy roots. |
I don't even really know where to start with this game. The combat system is a more simplified version of the original with a ton of complex and slightly convoluted systems are layered on top of it. To start the original game had you using a fairly large pool of skills that once used would go into a cooldown state. Depending on your style of play you could swap out skills when you needed. Chronicles 2 cuts down drastically on the skills known as artes and each character only has three they can use in battle at a time. Each character auto attacks like an MMO and then you use skills to do more damage and inflict status effects. At first it sounds more simple until you get into the combo system.
The world of Chronicles 2 revolves around beings called blades. They are essentially sentient weapons. The characters you control are called drivers, who bond with crystals to make the blades appear. Once summoned they are bound to the driver and you can use them in battle. They each have different elements, which leads us back to the combo system. Each driver can have three blades equipped. In addition to their three skills they have a special attack that can level up from 1 to 4 by using skills. Once you use a special a combo meter will start and a branching path will appear on screen. You then need to find the next element in the chain in order to continue the combo. Once you complete a full tree which takes three special attacks an orb will begin floating around the enemy with the color of the last element you used in the chain. You can then "burst" by filling another meter. Once you do that you get a chance to break the orbs you have on an enemy in order to do massive damage.
 |
| The UI is just as overwhelming as the battle system! |
Confused? I certainly was for the first few hours of the game, because the tutorials are not super great and you can't really review them. The entire system revolves around working to built these combo chains, which takes a long time. Due to that even battles with weak enemies can take upwards of ten minutes because your meant to do a ton of damage with your burst. At first it seemed tedious but once I got the hang of it every battle seemed like a puzzle. The battle system is the core of the game. Overall the game is fun, but man does it have some huge flaws. The map is atrocious, and getting blades revolves around random chance, but the entire experience as a whole was something I greatly enjoyed. It's the first real AAA rpg for the switch and it's at least worth a look.
Dragon Ball Fighterz
I'm going to be real here, I've played this game three times. Twice during betas, and once to get trounced by my brother and a few friends because I focused all my time on Monster Hunter instead. What I have played of the game is very fun though. I kind of knew what to expect from a DBZ fighting game made by ARKSYS, but I have been pleasantly surprised by it. Just like Xrd the game looks beautiful in motion and in stills it looks just like the anime. In terms of gameplay it was a lot of intricacies you'd expect from.an ARKSYS game, while remaining assecible for the average player. If you just want to have some fun with DBZ characters you can mash one of three attack buttons to do cool looking auto combos. On the other hand if you want to go wild with super long combos you make yourself it's got you there too.
 |
| Like Guilty Gear Xrd before it FighterZ is a beautiful game. |
I'm excited to really dive in and see what the story is all about. It introduces a new Android character (21) and she seems pretty cool. You have to beat the story to unlock her as a playable character so I haven't seen much of her on streams. So far people seem to really like the game and I hope it succeeds in a huge way for ARKSYS.
Monster Hunter World
Monster Hunter World came out last Friday. I have played 80 hours since then. I have killed monsters for approximately two full work weeks now and I don't regret a single moment of it. As some of you may know I fell down the Monster Hunter rabbit hole for the first time with Tri Ultimate on the Wii-U. The thrill of the hunt caught me and since then I have put over 1,000 hours into the franchise as a whole. What's a bummer is that most of the time people are dismissive about the franchise because it doesn't do a good job of explaining a lot of it's systems and it can get overwhelming fairly quickly. Now we have Monster Hunter World, which does a lot to try and make the series appeal to a wider audience, and for the most part I think it succeeds.
I could list the quality of life changes World makes, but that's not going to mean anything to a lot of people. What I can tell you is that there has never been a time to start playing the series. For once it has a tutorial that is serviceable enough to get you into the swing of things. It is by no means perfect and misses a few things, but at least it does enough to get prospective players started.
 |
| The scale of the monsters and the world are much larger than ever before. |
Just in case you don't know what Monster Hunter is, the title says it all. You hunt large monsters and use their parts to craft weapons and armor. This is all done in service of hunting more monsters! There are 14 weapon types which are all very different, and I equate them to different characters in a fighting game. At first glance their movesets seem very limited, but under the surface they are all very nuanced. Finding the true potential of a weapon is a large part of the fun I find in the game.
In previous iterations you would travel around various maps and travel through loading zones to attack monster. In World each map is one contiguous zone, and there is an emphasis on everything being more like actual nature. Everything is lush, and the monsters interact both with the environment and each other. Capcom took a calculated risk by moving Monster Hunter from handhelds to home consoles, but after selling 5 million copies worldwide in just three days I think their gamble paid off. The franchise is seeing success on a global scale like never before and I can't wait to see what kinds of updates this new formula receives. It just might be the best Monster Hunter yet.
2018 is Going to Be a Banger
Every time a new Monster Hunter comes out I get sucked in for a long time. In my extreme hype for World, i decided to import Monster Hunter XX for the Switch. Going to back to a game without all of the improvements and quality of life changes that World made has been rough so far. Despite that I've been sticking with it and continue to play two Monster Hunter games at the same time...
When I get completely burned out of Monster Hunter I'm going to transition back to playing the new Digimon game. I have a lot of thoughts about it... As a turn based RPG I like it a lot, but as a story based game I can't stand it. It's the equivalent of playing a filler episode from an Anime.
Most of the new releases on the horizon that I care about are in March. So it's entirely possible that I'll just continue to play a whole lot of Monster Hunter.
Friday, October 6, 2017
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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| 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.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Memorable Melodies: Let's Have Fun! from Gotcha Force
Song: Let's Have Fun!
Game: Gotcha Force
Composer: Mitsuhiko Takano
I'm a big fan of fighting robots, so when I found out about Gotcha Force I had to have it. I remember looking around the area where I live for it, but it was nowhere to be found. A few months later I found it in a now defunct retail outlet near my Grandma's house an hour or so away from where I live now. I was apparently one of the select few who actually got a copy of Gotcha Force, because it's quite rare now. The cheapest copy you can get on Amazon currently is about $150. It's a shame, because it's a really fun game.
Gotcha Force is one of the five games that Capcom pushed out on the Gamecube in an exclusivity agreement they made with Nintendo. It's a game about small toy sized robots that land on earth. The robots interact with humans, and ask them to help in the fight against evil robots who have also come to earth.
The game has a very Saturday morning cartoon style, which is part of why I love it so much. There are tons of robots to collect and battle with and most of them are fairly unique. You play as the tiny robots in everyday locations such as a bedroom, or a garden. There's a lot of Anime yelling going on, and everything is very colorful.
Adding to the Saturday morning aesthetic is the music. Most of the tracks in the game are jazzy and upbeat. That's not very surprising, since the composer also did the music for Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. That's about as jazzy as you can get. It set's a happy tone despite the fact that you're fighting robots to determine the fate of the world.
The track I picked for this week is the one I remember hearing the most. It makes me think back to being a lot younger and sitting with my brother for hours playing the game. There's something about jazzy tunes that makes beating down on robots so much more enjoyable.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Memorable Melodies: Title Screen from Mega Man 2
Song: Title Screen
Game: Mega Man 2
Composer: Kenji Yamazaki
I love video game title screens, and the title screen of Mega Man 2 just might be my all time favorite. You pop the cartridge in and the game boots up. Text begins to scroll telling you what's going on and what the game is all about. Then, the screen starts scrolling up while focusing on a building. The music starts soft, but as the screen scrolls up it gets faster and faster. Then, BOOM! You're at the title screen and Mega Man is standing there with the title of the game above him as one of the best songs in all of video games fills your ears.
Every time I watch the video above I get so hype that I can barely contain myself! There's just something about the way the song builds up and then starts to go nuts that gets to me every time.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Game Time - February 2016
February happened, and I am somehow still standing. I played a few of my most anticipated games of 2016, and had a wonderful time. Sadly I didn't end up beating any of them yet, but I will get there eventually. I am right at the end of Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, and I guess you can't really beat Street Fighter V. Well, I did beat the story mode, so I guess that counts? Who knows!
Cyber Sleuth came out at the beginning of the month and I streamed it a whole bunch, so if you want to see any of that check out my YouTube channel for all kinds of Digimon content.
Right now I'm playing Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest and it is kicking my ass. They weren't kidding when they said it was hard. It's especially rough, because I never want to let anyone die.
Street Fighter came out too and I've been playing that at least once a day. I'm trying to get moderately good at it, but I am not quite to that goal yet. Spoilers, it's a fighting game!
Okay, let's talk about video games now!
Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth
Digimon is one of my favorite franchises of all time. I love the anime series, and a majority of the games have been pretty good. At some point Namco Bandai stopped localizing the titles, so here in America we missed out on quite a few solid Digimon Games. One of which was Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth on the Vita. Fans started a petition that got a crazy amount of signatures to bring it out in English. Now a few years later it has finally come out on both PS4 and Vita.
Digimon games have changed a lot over the years. On the DS they began to take the form of something more like Pokemon than previous iterations. You run into Digimon in battle and scan them. Once you've run into them enough you can reform them and have them as your own. Once you have them in order to Digivolve them you have to meet specific stat requirements. If you reach max level and can't meet the requirements to digivolve you can de-digivolve them. This makes it so that they have a higher max level.
Combat is turn based, and uses a similar weakness system to Pokemon. There are virus, vaccine, and data type Digimon that all have their own respective weaknesses. Cyber Sleuth follows the same pattern as the 3DS games, but the requirements to digivolve are way less annoying. They are exclusively based on stats and not how many battles you've fought. There are a ton of Digimon to collect, and the battles are fun.
The core gameplay is fine, but the rest of the game doesn't always hold up. The game starts very stylishly, and moves along at a decent clip. However, after the first few hours the pacing begins to fall apart. Many chapters don't involve any tie to the main story, and instead have the main character running around doing pointless garbage. It doesn't help that almost all of the games environments are introduced fairly early on, and then are repeated for the rest of the game.
It's a solid game, but the repetition of areas and random quests can be a little grading. It doesn't help that the translation is a bit spotty, so when the story does happen its not always the best. Seriously, the main character is only a silent protagonist sometimes. They make jokes about him being silent and not talking very much, but there are numerous scenes where he talks to people directly. What!? It's a good thing that the battling and collecting Digimon aspect of the game is good, or I don't know that I would be as into the game as I am.
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest
Fire Emblem games are always very similar. They are turn based tactics games with tons of generic anime characters. The reason I come to FE games is the combat. It's challenging and fun, and to me the permanent death of characters adds an extra layer to that. I personally have to restart every time someone dies. I don't care that people say this is cheating, or "un-pure." I want to do the best tactically, so when someone does die it's enough punishment to start the map over again.
I'm saying this because I've been starting over in Conquest a whole bunch. In case you don't know about Fire Emblem Fates it comes in three versions. Birthright is supposed to be the easier game for newcomers. You can level up your units easily by completing challenge maps. Money is also easier to come by. Conquest is meant for veterans of the series and is very challenging. There is limited money, and the experience you get in each chapter is all you get. There is a third version called Revelation as well, but I don't know what's different about that. Obviously with each version you get different characters, but I don't have any idea what the gameplay difference is in Revelation.
It's odd, because the last FE entry was originally going to be the last in the franchise due to poor performance of previous entries. The development team put every popular feature in the game as a sendoff to the series. It ended up selling very well, so Nintendo decided to keep the franchise going with Fates. Instead of adding anything new to the game they kind of just decided to make three games instead of one. Sure, weapons don't have durability and you can change the field a little bit with weird dragon magic, but it still feels like Fire Emblem. It's not "new." I like FE in general, so I'm okay with this, but it might be why I feel so underwhelmed by the game.
The tactics you know and love are still there, but some of the charm is gone. It doesn't help that all of the characters are boring to me. Normally FE characters are generic anime archetypes, but they have interesting quirks. Everyone in Fates is generic and that's it. I don't really have any interest in any of the characters. It feels like Waifu Simulator 2016. It's a game about tactics, not anime wives.
The tactical portion of the game is genuinely good from what I've played in Conquest. The maps aren't all the generic kill everyone maps that I've become accustomed to from the series. There are actual different objectives that make combat feel a lot more varied. I've had to survive for a set amount of turns, defend a point, and escape the field. It's not all good though, because it makes some of the stages feel gimmicky. Like right now I'm stuck on a chapter where wind blows my guys around. People keep dying because they get blown into a group of enemies. I'm sure there's some strategy I haven't thought of yet, but as of right now the map just seems shitty for the sake of killing your units.
Street Fighter V
I like fighting games, and I love Street Fighter V. I knew months before the games release that I loved it. I played every single beta for hours. It's a Street Fighter game. It's faster than Street Fighter 4 and adds in some new mechanics. V-skills are used by pushing medium punch and medium kick at the same time. Depending on the character it does something cool. Ryu can parry, Birdie eats food, and Ken can dash. Once you use the V-Skill enough you can push both heavy punch and kick to activate V-trigger. Once again it does something different depending on the character, but it's always cool. Ryu, Ken, and Cammy power up, while characters like Nash teleport around. It's an interesting mechanic that makes the characters feel way different than their SF4 counterparts,
When the game came out the servers crashed under the load of people who were trying to access the game. This happens quite frequently to online based games when they launch, but people always forget that. This means that the backlash to the game has been quite strong. People weren't able to play the game online for a whole two days! I understand why this upsets people, but local play is where fighting games shine anyways. There's no input delay at all! Where SFV gets a little rough is that if you're connected to the server while in an offline mode and lose connection you are kicked back to the main menu. Seriously, I was in a local versus match and the game booted us out of it. That was shitty,
Since the first two days of the games release it has worked flawlessly for me. I've fought hundreds of online matches, and none have had a bad connection. The net-code is very solid. It's based on rollback, so if the connection is rough the characters will teleport around a bit. You definitely want to be wired in to the router if you're going to be playing SFV online.
The main gripe people have with Street Fighter V is that there is almost no single player content whatsoever. Story mode is a series of fights that took me about an hour to beat. All you do is see some poorly drawn art and then do a one round fight where you have full meter. It's lame. Other than that you can do training mode, or survival. In survival you fight against the AI, and keep the same health after each round. You can spend points after each round to get stat bonuses, and regain health. It's also lame!
Street Fighter V is amazing. The fighting is incredible. It's easier to link things, so doing combos isn't as ridiculously hard for me as it used to be. I am also a huge fan of the new V system. I get why people are upset the game has no single player content, but they also probably weren't super into Street Fighter to begin with. It's a fighting game. You are supposed to fight other people. I get that not everyone wants to do that, so if you don't want to do that don't buy the game.
March
Pokken Tournament comes out next week, I feel like I should be super excited about a Pokemon fighting game, but right now I'm not excited at all. Hopefully I get more hype as the date gets closer.
Before Pokken, the Division comes out. I played the beta and liked it a lot. I'd describe it as a more enjoyable version of Destiny. The final release could deliver on what the beta promised, or totally ruin everything. I guess we'll just have to find out!
See you next month!
Cyber Sleuth came out at the beginning of the month and I streamed it a whole bunch, so if you want to see any of that check out my YouTube channel for all kinds of Digimon content.
Right now I'm playing Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest and it is kicking my ass. They weren't kidding when they said it was hard. It's especially rough, because I never want to let anyone die.
Street Fighter came out too and I've been playing that at least once a day. I'm trying to get moderately good at it, but I am not quite to that goal yet. Spoilers, it's a fighting game!
Okay, let's talk about video games now!
Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth
Digimon is one of my favorite franchises of all time. I love the anime series, and a majority of the games have been pretty good. At some point Namco Bandai stopped localizing the titles, so here in America we missed out on quite a few solid Digimon Games. One of which was Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth on the Vita. Fans started a petition that got a crazy amount of signatures to bring it out in English. Now a few years later it has finally come out on both PS4 and Vita.
Digimon games have changed a lot over the years. On the DS they began to take the form of something more like Pokemon than previous iterations. You run into Digimon in battle and scan them. Once you've run into them enough you can reform them and have them as your own. Once you have them in order to Digivolve them you have to meet specific stat requirements. If you reach max level and can't meet the requirements to digivolve you can de-digivolve them. This makes it so that they have a higher max level.
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| I've been grinding to get these guys. I'm so close! |
Combat is turn based, and uses a similar weakness system to Pokemon. There are virus, vaccine, and data type Digimon that all have their own respective weaknesses. Cyber Sleuth follows the same pattern as the 3DS games, but the requirements to digivolve are way less annoying. They are exclusively based on stats and not how many battles you've fought. There are a ton of Digimon to collect, and the battles are fun.
The core gameplay is fine, but the rest of the game doesn't always hold up. The game starts very stylishly, and moves along at a decent clip. However, after the first few hours the pacing begins to fall apart. Many chapters don't involve any tie to the main story, and instead have the main character running around doing pointless garbage. It doesn't help that almost all of the games environments are introduced fairly early on, and then are repeated for the rest of the game.
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| Every area in the game looks like this. |
It's a solid game, but the repetition of areas and random quests can be a little grading. It doesn't help that the translation is a bit spotty, so when the story does happen its not always the best. Seriously, the main character is only a silent protagonist sometimes. They make jokes about him being silent and not talking very much, but there are numerous scenes where he talks to people directly. What!? It's a good thing that the battling and collecting Digimon aspect of the game is good, or I don't know that I would be as into the game as I am.
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest
Fire Emblem games are always very similar. They are turn based tactics games with tons of generic anime characters. The reason I come to FE games is the combat. It's challenging and fun, and to me the permanent death of characters adds an extra layer to that. I personally have to restart every time someone dies. I don't care that people say this is cheating, or "un-pure." I want to do the best tactically, so when someone does die it's enough punishment to start the map over again.
I'm saying this because I've been starting over in Conquest a whole bunch. In case you don't know about Fire Emblem Fates it comes in three versions. Birthright is supposed to be the easier game for newcomers. You can level up your units easily by completing challenge maps. Money is also easier to come by. Conquest is meant for veterans of the series and is very challenging. There is limited money, and the experience you get in each chapter is all you get. There is a third version called Revelation as well, but I don't know what's different about that. Obviously with each version you get different characters, but I don't have any idea what the gameplay difference is in Revelation.
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| Which game will you be playing? |
It's odd, because the last FE entry was originally going to be the last in the franchise due to poor performance of previous entries. The development team put every popular feature in the game as a sendoff to the series. It ended up selling very well, so Nintendo decided to keep the franchise going with Fates. Instead of adding anything new to the game they kind of just decided to make three games instead of one. Sure, weapons don't have durability and you can change the field a little bit with weird dragon magic, but it still feels like Fire Emblem. It's not "new." I like FE in general, so I'm okay with this, but it might be why I feel so underwhelmed by the game.
The tactics you know and love are still there, but some of the charm is gone. It doesn't help that all of the characters are boring to me. Normally FE characters are generic anime archetypes, but they have interesting quirks. Everyone in Fates is generic and that's it. I don't really have any interest in any of the characters. It feels like Waifu Simulator 2016. It's a game about tactics, not anime wives.
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| Waifu simulator 2016. |
The tactical portion of the game is genuinely good from what I've played in Conquest. The maps aren't all the generic kill everyone maps that I've become accustomed to from the series. There are actual different objectives that make combat feel a lot more varied. I've had to survive for a set amount of turns, defend a point, and escape the field. It's not all good though, because it makes some of the stages feel gimmicky. Like right now I'm stuck on a chapter where wind blows my guys around. People keep dying because they get blown into a group of enemies. I'm sure there's some strategy I haven't thought of yet, but as of right now the map just seems shitty for the sake of killing your units.
Street Fighter V
I like fighting games, and I love Street Fighter V. I knew months before the games release that I loved it. I played every single beta for hours. It's a Street Fighter game. It's faster than Street Fighter 4 and adds in some new mechanics. V-skills are used by pushing medium punch and medium kick at the same time. Depending on the character it does something cool. Ryu can parry, Birdie eats food, and Ken can dash. Once you use the V-Skill enough you can push both heavy punch and kick to activate V-trigger. Once again it does something different depending on the character, but it's always cool. Ryu, Ken, and Cammy power up, while characters like Nash teleport around. It's an interesting mechanic that makes the characters feel way different than their SF4 counterparts,
When the game came out the servers crashed under the load of people who were trying to access the game. This happens quite frequently to online based games when they launch, but people always forget that. This means that the backlash to the game has been quite strong. People weren't able to play the game online for a whole two days! I understand why this upsets people, but local play is where fighting games shine anyways. There's no input delay at all! Where SFV gets a little rough is that if you're connected to the server while in an offline mode and lose connection you are kicked back to the main menu. Seriously, I was in a local versus match and the game booted us out of it. That was shitty,
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| Cammy activating her V-skill. |
Since the first two days of the games release it has worked flawlessly for me. I've fought hundreds of online matches, and none have had a bad connection. The net-code is very solid. It's based on rollback, so if the connection is rough the characters will teleport around a bit. You definitely want to be wired in to the router if you're going to be playing SFV online.
The main gripe people have with Street Fighter V is that there is almost no single player content whatsoever. Story mode is a series of fights that took me about an hour to beat. All you do is see some poorly drawn art and then do a one round fight where you have full meter. It's lame. Other than that you can do training mode, or survival. In survival you fight against the AI, and keep the same health after each round. You can spend points after each round to get stat bonuses, and regain health. It's also lame!
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| Play fighting games to fight, not for single player story. |
Street Fighter V is amazing. The fighting is incredible. It's easier to link things, so doing combos isn't as ridiculously hard for me as it used to be. I am also a huge fan of the new V system. I get why people are upset the game has no single player content, but they also probably weren't super into Street Fighter to begin with. It's a fighting game. You are supposed to fight other people. I get that not everyone wants to do that, so if you don't want to do that don't buy the game.
March
Pokken Tournament comes out next week, I feel like I should be super excited about a Pokemon fighting game, but right now I'm not excited at all. Hopefully I get more hype as the date gets closer.
Before Pokken, the Division comes out. I played the beta and liked it a lot. I'd describe it as a more enjoyable version of Destiny. The final release could deliver on what the beta promised, or totally ruin everything. I guess we'll just have to find out!
See you next month!
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Memorable Melodies: Epilogue ~ The End of the Night
Song: Epilogue ~ The End of the Night
Game: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Composer: Masakazu Sugimori
Masakazu Sugimori is well known for his work on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and Phoenix Wright: Justice for all. Both of those are great, and really add to games. The soundtrack he produced for Ghost Trick is no different and I personally think it's the best out of the three. If you asked me to sing/whistle songs from the first two Phoenix Wright games I couldn't do it on cue. Ghost Trick is another story though.
One thing that makes a video game tune particularly memorable to me is when it ends up being tied to a particular scene in my mind. In the case of this one it's tied to the credits of Ghost Trick, because that's the point where it plays. Man, the ending of Ghost Trick is insane. At first I didn't even believe it. I had to set my DS down several times in shock as it played out. The ending continues into the credits as scenes detailing what happened to the characters play out. Interspersed between the character vignettes are the credits.
During the credits I felt gleeful. The game was a wild ride that had some great twists. Epilogue is a combination of the main theme of Ghost Trick and a new melody that makes you feel victorious, It says that the struggle is over and it's something to be happy about.
Thinking about the Ghost Trick ending gets me all warm and fuzzy inside. This song sure is a doozy, What a great game! Capcom needs to put out more stuff like this.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Game Time - February 2015
I only played two new games in February. Sure, I played a whole ton of Inazuma Eleven 2 and 3 on stream, but this month I'm here to tell you all about the hot new releases I played!
Well, I guess the first one isn't so hot. It's technically not new either... I'm almost ashamed to say that one of the two games I played a ridiculous amount is One Piece Treasure Cruise. It's a mobile game, and it's not exactly what I would call an amazing game. It's not even that fun to play. I sure played the hell out of it though, and will probably continue to do so.
The game I played the most in February was just as I predicted in the last edition of Game Time, and that was Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. I pre-ordered the New 3DS XL bundle from GameStop. The way GameStop does pre-orders for exclusive bundles is stupid, so I thought I wasn't going to get it until the 23rd. However, it came a week earlier than I had expected which afforded me a great deal of extra time to hunt monsters.
This month we only have two games to talk about, but I definitely have a bunch to say about both. It's game time!
One Piece Treasure Cruise
While browsing Siliconera I found an article about a stealth release of One Piece Treasure Cruise here in the U.S. Being a huge One Piece fan I downloaded it, no questions asked. I had nothing better to do, so I ended up playing it a whole lot the night it came out. Normally I download mobile games and expect them to be minor time killers, or something I'll play for a week and then give up on. It's surprising, but I genuinely like One Piece Treasure Cruise and will continue to play it for the foreseeable future.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's a great game. It's not. In fact, it borrows heavily from the Puzzles and Dragons formula. You collect units, some of which are generic pirates and marines, while many units are One Piece favorites like Luffy and Zoro. You build a team of six units in order to battle. In order to battle you need to tap the screen at the right time. Words fly around the character being attacked and eventually converge in the center of the enemy. If you tap your next unit right when the words converge you'll get a "perfect." You'll do more damage and be granted a multiplier for future attacks.
The part where it's like Puzzles and Dragons is outside of battle. The way you keep your units, level them up, and evolve them are all ripped right out of P&D. Each unit has a stat and color associated with them. For example Luffy is red, which is the color for strength. As you play you'll collect units which you can feed to the units you use frequently. If you feed Luffy other red characters he'll get bonus experience for the color match. Once a unit reaches their max level you can evolve them, which obviously makes them stronger.
In order to evolve a unit they must be max level. In addition you need to have the proper "evolution" type units. It's the same as in P&D, except the evolution units take the form of crabs, seahorses, dragons, and penguins. Each day of the week there are special levels where you can collect the things you need in order to evolve your units. Each unit you feed to another one costs in game money. The higher the level of the unit you're feeding, the higher the cost is. That's why you want to try to get turtles, which grant a ton of experience.
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| The team in this picture is nuts. No way they started with that... |
Yeah, it's a mobile game. Each stage takes a certain amount of stamina and when you run out you have to wait for it to recharge. If you want you can pay 0.99 for a rainbow fruit. You can use them to refill your stamina, try to recruit special units, increase the amount of units you can carry, and come back to life when you lose in battle. So far there has been absolutely no reason for me to even think about throwing money at the game. They were having a launch event that gave a rainbow fruit every day. Now there's a new event for the game reaching 1 million downloads, which is also giving one fruit a day. Currently I'm sitting at 30, which is a ton. Shit, that would cost $30!
It's definitely not a masterpiece, and it's normally not even the kind of thing I'd play. However, I love me some One Piece so that's helping out quite a bit. The one thing that bothers me is how little content there seems to be in the game currently. It only goes up to the fight with Arlong, which is almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. For some reason they've decided to release one island a month, which is cool, except for the fact that the Japanese version of the game is way farther along. I know they need to try and sell each new batch of units, but it seems like they could have thrown it all out at once and had people going insane to buy a chance to get their favorite character. I'm not a mobile business man though, so what do I know?
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate
In April of 2013 I found myself deep in the clutches of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. I tried the demo and for some reason that I can't truly explain it hooked me. Since then I've played over 400 hours of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, which is by far the most played game on my Wii-U. Eventually the game's grip on me loosened and I moved on with my life. When I saw that Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate would be coming stateside I was ecstatic. My body was ready to dive deep into the Monster Hunter universe again.
A few weeks prior to the game's release I began to feel some apprehension. I began to think about whether or not my love for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was something that could be repeated. See, this past year I played Dark Souls and loved it immensely. I actually think that Monster Hunter allowed me to appreciate Dark Souls, whereas I wouldn't have previously. I will reiterate, I love Dark Souls. It is now one of my favorite games of all time. Dark Souls 2 on the other hand I did not like quite as much. It wasn't as well put together as the original, and it was trying to emulate something I had played a loved. This is why I thought of Monster Hunter. Each iteration is very similar in terms of mechanics and general gameplay. What if my love of Monster Hunter 3 couldn't be replicated?
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| The Gore Magala is an awesome new monster. |
I'm glad to let you know that my love of Monster Hunter 3 can, and has been replicated. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is everything I had hoped it would be and more! It's the same monster hunting action I loved before, but it has so many new elements that make it even better. For starters you can totally jump now. That might sound like a seriously mundane thing, but it completely changes the game. You can run off of edges, and in a Zelda-like fasion your hunter will fling themself into the air. In the air you can attack, ad if you manage to knock the monster down you can mount it! This triggers an animation of your hunter holding on for dear life. You have to repeatedly stab the monster until a bar fills up. The monster will struggle, so at specific times you need to stop attacking and hold on. If you succeed the monster will fall and you'll have free reign to beat it down for a few moments. It's pretty brutal, but very effective.
There are tons of nuances that people who've played the series will pick up as they go. There is one major change that benefits the series greatly though and that is the addition of a proper tutorial. Normally I wouldn't celebrate the addition of a tutorial, but for Monster Hunter it makes all the difference. If I hadn't looked up tutorial videos for the previous entry in the series I never would have been able to pick it up. There is so much that the series just assumes you know and at times it can be very frustrating. Now that's not really something new players need to worry about. Since the game has a legitimate story now there are characters who will tell you what to do as you go on hunts. There are tons of missions in the beginning of the game that are dedicated to teaching you all the basics, and even a bunch of later missions that teach you some sweet advanced techniques. There are even tutorial missions for each of the weapons that tell you what they do and what attacks are effective in what situations! It's crazy that it took the developers so long to put a basic tutorial in, but now new players can ease into the game. I'm sure there are a bunch of hardcore fans who are upset by this addition, but personally I think it's a huge step forward.
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| I still use the Great Sword exclusively. |
Just like with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate I've played this game a whole lot so far. I think I'm sitting at around 85 hours right now. It's cool, because it seems like I still have a lot of content to get through. Somehow there are even more monsters in this than there were in 3, and there were a whole boatload in that. You can bet that when I'm not streaming Inazuma Eleven, I'm playing Monster Hunter. If you've never played the series before or are scared to try it you should read the thing I wrote when I first played it here.
And Then There Were Games
March will finally be the month when I begin to buy a ton of new games each month. Off the top of my head I can think of Final Fantasy Type-0, Mario Party 10 (*Barf*), Inazuma Eleven GO 2: Chrono Stones, and Bloodborne. At some point I will be streaming all of these except for Mario Party, because no one wants to see Mario Party, including me...
Anyways, I need to get back to playing Monster Hunter. I'll see you all next time.
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