Memorable Melodies: Jake's Theme from Advance Wars Dual Strike

Song: Jake's Theme

Game: Advance Wars Dual Strike

Composer: Yoshito Hirano

When people think of Intelligent Systems they tend to only think about Fire Emblem. I'm going to sound like an asshole here when I say that I wanted Fire Emblem Awakening to be the last Fire Emblem game. Instead it was a huge success. I, and many others loved it. Within the past month we got three new Fire Emblem games. That's cool and all, but I personally would have preferred a new Advance Wars game.

I feel like Advance Wars has been forgotten by everyone but me at this point. That's something I cannot allow. Its gameplay is somewhere in between a turn based tactical RPG and a real time strategy game. You as the player are the commanding officer, so you create units and tell them where to go. Each officer has different abilities and powers that they can activate under certain conditions. You use infantry to take over buildings. Those buildings determine your income each turn, and what units you can build. So unlike Fire Emblem you keep making new units each turn. While not ideal, I tend to make a butt-load of tanks. Taks are cool.

I'm not here to say that Advance Wars is better than Fire Emblem. I am however here to say that the music in Advance Wars is vastly superior to the music in Fire Emblem. Sometimes during tactical combat you need to get amped up, and the music in Advance Wars totally does that. Advance Wars: Dual Strike, the third game in the franchise, introduced a new character named Jake. He loves rock music, so obviously his theme would be totally jammin'. 

Not only is Jake's theme awesome, a majority of the music from the franchise is top notch. If you're a fan of tactical video games this is definitely a series you should check out. It's got great gameplay and music. What's not to love?

Game Time - May 2013

You know what? I don't have an introduction for this week. I played two older games and a newer PC release. I enjoyed all three. How much you ask? Well let's find out together. It's game time!

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Now that Ace Attorney 5 coverage has been picking up my urge to play more Ace Attorney has picked up as well. Last month I finally finished Apollo Justice, but it just wasn't enough to whet my appetite. In order to relieve my insatiable hunger for more Ace Attorney I picked up the final US release of the series Ace Attorney Investigations. It's slightly different from the normal Ace Attorney Formula, but only very slightly.

This isn't just your run of the mill Ace Attorney title. It's all about investigating crime scenes as prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. It may as well be called Ace Attorney: CSI Edition. I expected playing as a prosecutor to be far different than playing as a defense attorney, but sadly that is not the case. This is still essentially the same game it was before, except you never truly go into the courtroom. Somehow Edgeworth gets mixed up in a series of murders. Obviously as a big time prosecutor he must get to the bottom of what exactly transpired in each given scenario.

You can walk and run around small environments!

Yes, you do the exact same thing in the normal Ace Ace Attorney Games. You check out the scene, gather evidence, and talk to people. The main difference is that you get to walk around! I know, it's a mind blowing change that would lead you to believe that it adds to the game overall. Surprise, it doesn't. Even though you can walk around the crime scene you still aren't allowed to leave until you find everything you need to. The only benefit walking around conveys is that you can walk to other pieces of interest instead of navigating a menu, which is equally effective. Although I assume drawing out full sprites for every character takes much more work.

Edgeworth is a smart dude, so he can use logic. Examining things sometimes allows him to deduce things about the scene or crime at hand. These deductions are added to the brand new logic menu. In the logic menu you can fuse two pieces of logic alchemy like into a piece of evidence, or another piece of logic. It's not anything mind-blowing, but it is different.

Kay is great and I hope she's in Ace Attorney 5

It's cool to see Edgeworth in the side of the Ace Attorney franchise that we never see. However, I would have preferred something a little more different than the main series. It would have been a cool spin on everything if you actually did have to go into the courtroom as a prosecutor. Proving someone is guilty would actually be quite different than trying to prove their innocence, plus every person you defend as Phoenix or Apollo is innocent. Sadly this ends up being more of the same with a few minor changes.

Even though it's more of the same I still love it. It's nice to be able to learn more about Edgeworth and Gumshoe firsthand. The new characters they introduce are actually quite well done too. I really hope that Kay the lovable ninja/theif makes a guest appearance in Ace Attorney 5. The story is still quite good, although I don't think it's quite on par with the rest of the series. What sucks is that this game didn't sell well when it was released although I can kind of see why. Due to that fact, the second Ace Attorney Investigations may forever be a Japan only release.

Super Metroid

For years I've  heard about the greatness that is Super Metroid and now that it's been released on the Wii-U virtual console for a whopping 30 cents I've finally gotten around to playing it. At first I was afraid that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, because people really like to talk it up. Thankfully this is one of the times where the game actually lives up to the hype. It's one of the most atmospheric 2D adventure games I've ever had the pleasure of playing. It's easy to see how people look to this game and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night when they try to explain games of this ilk and their quality.

Super Metroid hasn't been all fun and games so far though, it has also been quite sobering. It's a common complaint that modern games hold the hand of the player a little too often. After playing a few hours of Super Metroid I can now say that modern games have made me soft. Games today are chock full of tutorials and hints to get you through difficult spots and let you know the game mechanics. This game is nothing like that though. Samaus is more or less dumped on planet Zebes and then you're left to your own devices. Sometimes upon picking up weapons and power-ups there will be instructions on how to use them, or what they do, but that's not always the case.

I love the title screen for this game.

You have to figure out where to go all on your own. There is nothing there to hold your hand. There are no magical bread crumb trails, or pop-up hints when you're taking too long. There were multiple times where I came to a complete stop, because I literally did not have what I needed to advance. I've had to backtrack on multiple occasions and gotten completely lost, even with a map. What's weird is that Super Metroid is a product of the era when I started playing games. It's not like I'm unaccustomed to games of this difficulty, it's just that I'm not used to having to figure things out all on my own anymore. I'm actually glad I'm having trouble finding exactly where to go and what to do. I actually enjoy banging my head against the game until I make progress. It's not like the game is impossible to figure out, it's just that it takes more than one look to figure out exactly what you need to do.

For fun I decided to hit up the Miiverse to see if anyone else was having the same type of experience that I was. People weren't exactly having a sobering epiphany about how modern games like to hold your hand and stroke your ego. Instead I saw countless posts about people getting frustrated, because they couldn't figure out what to do in any capacity. More often than not people were taking screenshots of where they were to ask for help. It's crazy to think that there is a whole new generation of gamers out there who might not like this type of game, because it doesn't spell everything out for you. Thankfully I still like figuring things out for myself, so I'm going to continue playing. Sometimes working to figure something out is more rewarding than getting it immediately on your first try.

Game Dev Tycoon

Many moons ago I bought my first android phone. At that time I entered the world of mobile gaming by purchasing Game Dev Story. As you may have surmised it was a game about game development. The goal of the game was to make the best video games you possibly could. In order to do so the game required you to hire and train employees in game making. They would all toil away by putting points into your game, which would then be reviewed and make you money or completely tank. The cycle would then continue until you either got bored, or lost all of your money. Most of the time I got bored, but that didn't stop me from buying Game Dev Tycoon for the PC this past week.

I know what you're thinking. Game Dev Tycoon sounds almost exactly like Game Dev Story. Guess what? You're right, they are almost the exact same game. In fact, they're so similar it surprises me that there is no type of legal action involved. While the games may be very similar I still find what Game Dev Tycoon has to offer appealing to a certain extent.

Get ready for a lot of bars and sliders.

You start off all by yourself making games in your garage. At first you can only develop games for the PC and G64, the cleverly renamed C64. You choose a platform, genre, and topic. In my case I always start by making Fantasy Rpgs for the G64. Once you choose what to make the development process starts for "real". Three different colored bars with sliders will appear. There will always be three bars, each one representing an area of focus. Sliding each bar will determine how much focus you put on that specific aspect of the game. Once finalized different colored bubbles will fly from your characters head. Design and Technology are what you want a lot of to make your game succeed. However, bugs and research will also be created. Once the game is finished you can push it out for release immediately or give yourself some time to fix the bugs. Shortly after release you will get four reviews from "famous" gaming publications. The reviews will dictate how well your game sells. After the review roundup it's time to make a new game and start the cycle all over again.

As your company makes games you'll gain money to put towards even better and new games. You'll eventually be able to research new technologies, design custom engines, hire employees, and market your games. New mechanics get rolled out at a regular pace to keep mix up the gameplay and keep it exciting. I use the word exciting liberally, because in reality this is a game about watching numbers count up and progress bars fill. There's something about it that's oddly satisfying to me though and I got pretty sucked in the first few times I played.

I always lose the game shortly after I make it to this office...

While the game is still enjoyable I kind of ruined it for myself. My first few play sessions I would make it up until the Super Nintendo era of gaming before my company would completely tank. The games my company was releasing were getting terrible reviews, even if they were technically better than the previous releases of the same type. After failing a couple of times I visited a wiki to discover what I was doing wrong. Apparently if the games you create aren't at least 20% better than the previous one of that type then they totally bomb. Knowing this totally broke any connection I had to the game, because now I can only think of the numbers. Yes the game is mostly just numbers anyways, but before it was masked by a sense of discovery.

Since I purchased the game I have received several emails from the developer. These emails seem to acknowledge the fact that the game can be pretty unforgiving at certain stages. They're planning to fix those issues in order to accommodate other play styles. Hopefully one of those play styles is mine. I'm going to wait until the new version of the game comes out before playing any more, because I really don't enjoy exploiting the system.

Get Hype For E3!

Now that we know a bunch about the PS4 and Xbox One it's time to start getting excited for E3. Since it's the dawn of a new console era it's sure to be exciting. We'll finally get to see a whole bunch of next generation titles, which are hopefully as awesome as I'd like them to be. Maybe we'll even catch a glimpse of the ever elusive Final Fantasy Versus XII, but only time will tell. I'll probably have a whole bunch of thoughts and opinions about E3 as it's happening, so check back in a few weeks to see all that good stuff.

In terms of games June is actually going to be pretty big. I thought that the summer dry spell had already started, but turns out that was just a brief respite from my extreme spending habits. Even though I've been hearing nothing but negativity surrounding the futuristic Remember Me. I still decided to pre-order it anyways. Hopefully that's good. Then you've got Animal Crossing New Leaf and Project X Zone for the 3ds, which I'm super excited for.

Maybe I'll even break down and buy The Last of Us, because every time I see a new trailer for it my brain tells me that I need it. Do I really need another zombie game though? I don't know, but stay tuned to Game Time to find out.

Review of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

This review is based on my experience with the DS version of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Score: 5/5

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is the newest game from Ace Attorney creator Shu Takumi. During the time he was writing Ace Attorney 3 he came up with the idea to create a new mystery game dealing with ghosts. The end result was Ghost Trick, which is an adventure/puzzle game combination. Unlike the Ace Attorney franchise the player has direct control over the main character, which allows for a more immersive experience while retaining the unique characters and charm of those games.

When the game begins you’ll take control of Sissel and much to his surprise he’s dead. Sadly he’s got amnesia, so he doesn’t remember much of anything except what he looked like, because he can see his corpse. He doesn’t have much time to lament though, because as he comes to he notices that a murder is about to take place. A blue skinned assassin is holding a red haired woman at gun point, but because he’s dead Sissel thinks he can’t do anything about it. Just when things seem at their worst a lively desk lamp named Ray lets Sissel in on the fact that he has special powers known as ghost tricks.

As you can imagine these tricks are the foundation for the entire game and the first scenario plays out much like the rest of the game. The red haired woman gets shot, but all is not lost. If Sissel touches her body with his spirit he can go back to four minutes before her death and save her. How can he do this though? Well, that’s where the actual gameplay comes in. Sissel’s main power is that he can possess intimate objects and manipulate them. In order to move about through objects you’ll first need to enter the ghost world.

The blue dots are image cores you can possess. The line is Sissel traveling between them.

Entering the ghost world is as simple as touching a button in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. The world will turn red, objects will turn blue, and people will turn yellow. Anything you can interact with will have a circle in the middle known as a core. Sissel can move from core to core, but he can only reach so far, so making a path is often your goal. When inside an object its details will appear on the upper screen, including whether or not you can manipulate it. In order to manipulate an object you’ll need to return to the normal world and tap the trick button at the bottom right hand side of the bottom screen. The action performed depends on the object Sissel inhabits.

In order to solve each scenario you’ll need to use the objects in a specific order or way. It’s simple enough to achieve your goal. To me Ghost Trick has the perfect difficulty level, because it never gets super frustrating. While most puzzles need to be performed under a timer you can redo them as many times as you want, and each time the game will try to point you in the right direction. On top of that the puzzles are never extremely difficult. They get fairly challenging, but if you think about any situation long enough, then chances are you’ll figure out what to do. While nothing is overtly hard the game still makes you feel smart when you do solve the puzzle. Afterwards you’ll be rewarded with the next story sequence, which makes it all worthwhile.

The trouble with adventure games is that they don’t have a whole lot of replay value and sadly Ghost Trick is no different. The puzzles are entertaining, but unless the story grabs you, you’re not going to keep playing. In this case the story had no trouble drawing me in. It took me eleven or so hours to complete the game and I did it in just two sittings. I couldn’t stop once I had started, because I was so invested. When the game starts you’re thrown right into the action with very little explanation of who Sissel is, or why he has these special powers. It doesn’t help that he has amnesia, which is such a played out trope. I thought that the whole amnesia thing was going to bug me, but I feel like it’s handled quite well in Ghost Trick. Sissel doesn’t spend the whole time lamenting over his lost memories, he just gets down to business so he can figure out what the hell is going on.

I mean, just look at Sissel. He means business.

He figures out pretty early on that it’s a special night and that all of the people he meets are related to him in some way. It’s a classic one night mystery. Sissel is told he’ll cease to exist once dawn breaks, so he needs to find out before then. Finding out about who Sissel is and what he’s all about is the reason to play this game, but he wouldn’t be able to support an entire narrative on his own, so it’s good that he gets some help.

The Ace Attorney series is notable for it’s whacky and unique characters and Ghost Trick is no different. It just goes to show that Takumi knows how to make some compelling and varied case of characters. The hyperactive pooch Missile, the determined detective Lynne, and the smooth operating inspector Cabanela are just a few of the faces you’ll meet in game. Their stories are all compelling and their dialogue is excellently written,however I think that the animation used in Ghost Trick helped to make them larger than life.

In the Ace Attorney series the action is all based around static character portraits on a static background, the same is not true of Ghost Trick.  While they still have character portraits in conversation each character is also cel shaded, 3D, and fully animated on screen. When they move around it looks genuinely good. I want to say that it’s rotoscoped, but I don’t know that for sure. The movement looks genuinely good and it adds a lot to the games personality. Inspector Cabanela is known as the man who dances through life and he sure does do a lot of fantastic dancing. This animation paired with the characters makes them all feel very alive, which is one of the reasons I cared so much about all of them.

This video shows just how great Cabanela's dancing is.

The final ingredient of Ghost Tricks immersive world is the music. It was composed by Masakazu Sugimori the man behind the Ace Attorney and Viewtiful Joe soundtracks. His work on the original Ace Attorney soundtrack is argued to be his best work by his fans. To no surprise his excellent composing skills are back for Ghost Trick and he hasn’t lost his touch, if anything it’s gotten a whole lot better. Every song in the game compliments and adds to whatever is happening. I often found myself getting caught up in the music. For example, whenever Missile’s theme would play I would get a big goofy grin on my face. I’m even listening to the soundtrack as I write this, because it gets me so pumped up. Each song calls a specific moment from Ghost Trick to memory and that means the soundtrack did it’s job well.

Even after completing Ghost Trick I couldn’t stop thinking about it. At first I thought it was because of how the ending came together, which was immensely satisfying, but now I realize it was more than that. The game as a whole just fits together so well. Very rarely do I want to go back to a game immediately after completing it, but Ghost Trick was completely different, which is extra surprising given it’s an adventure game. The characters are memorable, the puzzles are fun and challenging, and the soundtrack is incredible. Very rarely do all the elements of a game come together as well as they do in this game.

I’m going to put it bluntly. Ghost Trick is a great game. If you can pick this game up I highly recommend that you do so. It’s only climbing in cost, so you should do it before it’s too late. Alternative there are versions for android and IOS now. The first few chapters are free and the remaining three chunks of the game you have to pay for individually. I don’t care which version of Ghost Trick you play, but I think that you should play at least one, if not all of them.

     -Manny

Game Time - 5/27/2012

It's ridiculously hot right now. No exaggeration, I can feel the moisture in the air. 

It may surprise you, but I have a hard time thinking of ways to start these. Since it's sweltering hot I don't especially feel like putting in the extra effort for a good intro, so I'm just going to jump right into it.

This past week I bought Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble (Almost wrote Jumble!), and Ghost Trick. I also played the new Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC Requiem of the Goddess.

Game Time is here once more!

Final Fantasy XIII-2 - Lightning: Requiem of the Goddess

Man, video game names have been pretty bad lately huh? I realize this is DLC for an already poorly named game, but it's just an awful mouthful. 

I went into this DLC fully expecting it to be a complete piece of garbage, so it was a pleasant surprise when it wasn't. Unlike most or perhaps all of the previous DLC for Final Fantasy XIII-2 it actually adds on to the story. The part that makes me mad is that the information given in this DLC about the story definitely should have been in the game to begin with. It makes the ridiculous stuff that happens at the end of the game make a little bit more sense. This takes place after the game ends and while it's ending. I'm not going to talk about it here, because I already shit all over the story in another post. If you want to spoil everything feel free to take a look at that.

So what's this DLC all about you ask? Well, it's all about Lightning fighting Caius and that's it. This DLC costs 5 dollars and all you do is fight Caius. Typing it out like that makes it sound terrible, but it's actually pretty fun. I'm willing to admit that the battle system is the most fun part of the game and this DLC focuses entirely on that. 

If you want to pay $5 to fight Caius over and over this DLC is for you.

Instead of the tradition roles Lighting has far stronger roles at her disposal. The only role she doesn't have any access to is medic. Instead, she only has access to ten potions and a single elixir to heal herself with. With all of these tools at your disposal you'll fight a super buffed up version of Caius. At the start he will completely wreck you, but you'll still get some crystarium points. Once you lose a few times Lightning will level up, which makes her stronger and gives her access to new roles. This DLC isn't meant to be very long, so Lightning can only get to a max level of ten.

All you need to do in order to complete the DLC is beat Caius super quickly. If you do it fast enough he'll turn into Midnight Bahamut. If you can best Midnight Bahamut then you'll be rewarded with some story for your troubles. Overall I'd say that this is just a challenge for people who like battling in XIII-2. Since battles were my favorite part of the game I had a fun time for about an hour. If you didn't feel like me, then there is absolutely no reason for you try this out.

Oh yeah, Midnight Bahamut is in the DLC too.

Viewtiful Joe : Red Hot Rumble

I still have four Gamecube controllers. Granted not all of them are fully functional, but I still have them. This is one of the reasons I actively look out for fun multiplayer Gamecube games. I guess it also helps that there are three other people around for me to play with most of the time. In case you were wondering where I was going with this, then you'll be happy to know that Red Hot Rumble is one such game.

I've had my eyes peeled for a decent copy of Red Hot Rumble for a while now and this past weekend I finally found one. It's not exactly what I expected, but I think that ended up being a good thing. For some reason I didn't look up any gameplay beforehand, so I was under the impression that it was basically super smash with Viewtiful Joe characters.

After playing the game I still feel that it's kind of similar to Super Smash., but it's actually quite different. Instead of just mindlessly beating the living shit out of everyone on screen there are actually objectives in Red Hot Rumble. No matter what stage you choose there will be a variety of objectives you're supposed to complete. The objectives are all over the place. You might be beating up enemies, collecting gems, staying alive, capturing the flag and a bunch of other things I can't remember right now. 

Defeating bosses is also an objective.

The way you win in Red Hot Rumble is to have the most V coins at the end of a stage. When you complete an objective you'll get about 1,000 V coins, but they'll also show up randomly. This makes staying alive just as important as completing objectives, because if you die you'll lose a whole lot of coins and that's never a good thing. 

One of the things I don't like about Red Hot Rumble is that sometimes it's really hard to tell what's going on in the match, especially if there are four people playing at the same time. The stages are already fairly busy, so when you throw in enemies, four players, and a bunch of objects it can become a little much. Adding to the problem are the famous powers from Viewtiful Joe. When people are using mach speed, slow down, and zoom all over the place it gets way harder to get your bearings.

Red Hot Rumble is a great multiplayer game. It's fast paced, competitive, and ridiculous. It may help that I like the Viewtiful Joe Universe a whole bunch, but I think it's a solid game regardless.

There's a lot going on here and it's super blurry. Welcome to Red Hot Rumble!

Ghost Trick

As you may be aware, I am a big fan of the Phoenix Wright series. So when Ghost Trick came out and I found out it was made by the same team I knew that I had to have it. Unlucky for me the game got kind of rare, so I couldn't find it online for it's normal price and it wasn't available in any stores around me. 

This past weekend when I was out looking for Red Hot Rumble I came across a $20 dollar copy of Ghost Trick at one of my local Gamestop's. There are three around here, which is kind of dumb. Anyways, I found Ghost Trick with it's case and instruction manual for $20, but I didn't get it. For some stupid reason I decided to see if I could find it cheaper. 

The next day I knew I would regret it if I didn't buy it, so I went all the way back to Gamestop and bought it. I was a bit worried I wasn't going to like it very much, but after playing the game for five minutes I knew that wasn't the case. 

The dead man is Sissel and he's pretty cool.

I don't mean to sound crude here, but I fucking love Ghost Trick. In fact I'm upset that I didn't play it when it first came out. It took me eleven hours to beat the game and that was in just two sittings. I literally played the game for five and a half hours twice, because I wanted to see the ending so badly. 

In case you're unaware you play as a ghost named Sissel in Ghost Trick. He has recently died and doesn't remember anything about himself other than his name. He finds out that he has special powers known as ghost tricks. This allows him to move from object to object and manipulate them. He can also use phone lines to travel long distances. These are the tricks that are used to solve puzzles.

Sissel's other trick is that he can bring people back from the dead. If he can get to their body he can go back four minutes before they died and save them. It's unique, and engaging, and I absolutely love it.

The flaming blue dot is the object Sissel is possessing. The others are where he can go.

I'm still coming off of my Ghost Trick high, so as of right now I'm basically only going to be able to say how much I love it. To save you that repetition I won't dwell on it. 

Lately I've been slacking on doing reviews. I've had a lot less free time and I've been trying to use it to play games. This means that I haven't been writing as much, which is just plain wrong. That is why I am going to make the promise that I will review Ghost Trick by next week. It was awesome and I need to write up a review. So if you want to hear more about Ghost Trick check back later this week for a review.

IT'S SO HOT!

After proof reading this I noticed that it wasn't my best work and for that I apologize. However, in my defense my brain is pretty much melting in the heat. I really hope that this summer isn't consistently this hot, or I may just spend the entire summer sweating into the couch.

E3 is almost here and I'm super pumped. In order to stave off my excitement I have acquired the critically acclaimed DS RPG Radiant Historia. Apparently it's amazing, but I haven't started it yet because I've been playing and thinking about Ghost Trick (Which I will be reviewing this week). 

Hopefully I'll find some other stuff to check out, or maybe I'll just melt away in the heat. There's absolutely no way of knowing!

This has been another edition of Game Time. See you next week.

     -Manny

Adventure Time On DS!

Finally, staying up until 5 AM has paid off!

Browsing through the Internet I came across the twitter of Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward, where I saw this GIF.

Pendleton tweeted that the popular show Adventure Time will be getting its very own video game on the Nintendo DS later this year. He's working with WayForward, the minds behind the likes of Shantae in order to bring us an awesome DS game.

You can find all of his tweets here. Hopefully he'll be updating his twitter with all the latest news about the project. For right now all we can do is wait.

     -Manny