Game Time With Manny: Status Update

Hello everyone who consumes any kind of media I put on the Internet,

It's been five or six months since I posted a general update, so I feel like that time is upon me again. I let you guys know that I'm tweeting much more often, I continue to stream on Twitch, I upload videos to YouTube, have a Google+ page, and record podcasts. I've been trying my best to update everything as much as possible, but as always some things fall to the wayside. This isn't intentional, but I only have so much free time to dedicate to all this stuff.

Yes, I stream Inazuma Eleven every Wednesday, and I stream Thursday Throwback every Thursday. These are two things you can count on every week (With very few exceptions). You can also count on me posting a new edition of Game Time to the blog every month. Yes, sometimes it's a few days after the month is over, but I do get it done. For instance, I haven't posted anything for July yet, because it will be going up in an hour or so. It's almost done I just have one final game section I'm working on. So these things you can always count on me having up.

As for everything else I'm all over the place and I apologize. I started off the podcast train pretty strong, but fell off hard. I then tried to get back on the train, and only did two episodes before falling off again. When recording episodes 6 and 7 of the podcast I had every intention of making a new podcast every two weeks. That's realistically not going to happen, especially if I want them to be an in depth discussion. So in order to make them less sporadic I've decided to give myself a schedule of one podcast a month. This gives me time to actually record something, and give you a reasonable time frame to expect it in. So you can expect a new podcast before August is over.

Then there's Party Game Sundays. There was a time when we would actually play a party game every Sunday. That time has passed. We still do play games on Sundays, but they tend to be good local multiplayer games now. I have a ton of games to write about that we've played I just haven't gotten around to it. This coming Sunday I will be putting up the first one. So since we stopped playing party games I wondered if I should even keep doing the feature. I have decided to keep it along with the name, but won't promise something every Sunday. It will definitely be happening a few times a month though.

The main thing I regret is not typing enough on the blog. This all started as a gaming blog and then I branched out. Posting on here only once a month is too infrequent. So along with Party Game Sundays making a semi-regular return I was thinking of doing a weekly feature about game music I am fond of. I still need to think of a good name, but it would be generally easy for me to write up a bunch of short things about music and have them auto post once a week.

As for YouTube I am of the same mindset I was before. I like uncut video. That's why I post all of the Twitch archives on my channel. Within the past few weeks I came up with a new series called Scrubbin' it Up, in which I play various fighting games online. Right now there is only one episode up and it's me playing Godzilla on the PS4. I was planning on doing some with the Street Fighter V beta, but that plan was ruined. So yes, I am still going to update the series, but it will be starting next week (or soon after) and then going every other week.

So let's review what's going on with bullet points.

• Inazuma Eleven Streams every Wednesday
• Thursday Throwback stream every Thursday
• Podcast once a month
• New edition of Game Time on the blog every month
• Party Game Sundays on the blog every other week
• A new musical related blog feature every week (Starting soon)
• Scrubbin' it Up an online fighting game video series on YouTube every other week

I like doing all of this stuff, but over the past year I've found that free time is at a premium and I can't do everything I want to. So thank you to everyone who reads the blog, watches my videos, and listens to the podcast. I appreciate each and every one of you. 

Dark Souls 2: Darker, But With Less Soul

I've been putting off writing about Dark Souls 2 for far too long. Now that the first DLC has been released I feel like today is as good a day as any to finally get all these Dark Souls 2 thoughts off my chest. The reason that I'm not playing the DLC right now is that I'm kind of worried about it. 

I loved Dark Souls. It was an experience that is still fresh in my mind months after playing it. Since Dark Souls 2 came out so soon after I finished the original I was looking forward to it with anticipation. The fact that I'd be able to go through the new game with a sense of discovery was something I was super excited about. Discovering everything with the entire world at the same time was a really cool experience. The issue is that I can barely remember any of it. In order to understand that I had to leave myself to ruminate on the experience for a few months.

Leading up to the game's release info about the new and differing mechanics were being trickled out. Word on the street was that the game was a lot harder, which it was in the beginning. By the end I was walking through the game with little to no issue. 

Darker?

Many people play the Souls series for the challenge it provides. While I liked the challenge in Dark Souls, it was never really my main draw. Yes, I did feel good about myself when I overcame a challenge. I'm just not a huge fan of games being hard for the sake of being hard. Dark Souls was punishing, but it was often my fault if I died. I'm not in the majority with my thoughts though, so people obviously wanted the game to be more challenging.

Initially I found the game to be much harder. The main contributor to that is that when you die, you lose a percentage of your max health. So now you lose all of your souls, and have less health upon death. You can still reclaim your souls, but it's not quite as easy to reclaim your lost health. In order to do that you need to use a consumable effigy. Early on these items are very scarce, so I found myself often walking around with around half my max health. The early game difficulty is exacerbated by the lack of healing available to you. At first you only have consumable healing gems of varying sizes, which are also far and few between for a while.

The creepy old witches give your your first effigy.

Eventually though you get your very own Estus flask, which you can upgrade until you have 11. Unlike the previous entry you don't have to kindle each bonfire. Your upgrades are permanent, and like the previous game the flasks refill at each bonfire. Dark Souls 2 has far more bonfires and areas than its predecessor, so refilling is never a difficult task. It also helps that you can fast travel between all bonfires you've come across right from the start of the game. This had to be added, since you can no longer level up from any bonfire. You need to talk to the cloaked woman near the bonfire in the game's hub city Majula. 

Another change is that weapons degrade much faster. This would make the game more challenging if they didn't get fully restored at every bonfire. If your weapon does end up breaking you'll need to repair it at a blacksmith, but it never costs a whole lot. Your rings can break now as well, and those do actually cost a lot to repair, because most of the time their effects are amazing. They did however, make it so you can wear four rings now, which will net some pretty insane stat boosts. One ring in particular, the cling ring, makes it so you can't drop below 75% max health from death. Needless to say that's a pretty good one to have. 

There are so many more bonfires now.

Leveling in Dark Souls 2 comes much faster as well. By the end of the game I was a way higher level than I was at the end of the original. Granted, the stats are changed up a bit to compensate for the greater amount of souls available, but there was a point where I started to feel overpowered. In this game I took up the slower moving great sword, and sometimes I would also have a shield to block. A lot of people say that this makes the game easy, but I don't believe in sacrificing my enjoyment of a game in order to make it more difficult.

The thing that really made the game harder at first though was the difference in movement. I'm not a huge fan of the movement in Dark Souls 2. To me it feels way less sensitive. You really have to push the stick in order to get moving, where as in the original you could lightly touch the stick and creep along. It made the player character in the original feel much heavier, whereas the character movement in Dark Souls 2 feels kind of light and floaty. This much is just personal preference, but it definitely took me a while to get used to. If you don't know how your character is going to move, it's a huge issue when you need to make precise dodges and attacks.

This was basically me the entire game.

Dark Souls 2 is much different, but it's also largely the same. It's the same franchise that people have come to love, with some differentiating features in order to make it more difficult. It was harder for me at first, but by the end I was crushing everything I came across pretty decisively. There was certainly no Ornstein and Smough moment of sheer frustration in this game. At most I got stuck on a boss for three or four tries.

Much Less Soul

Before I get into this section I want to say that I enjoyed my time with Dark Souls 2. It was a well crafted sequel that was very much meant for fans of the series. They tried to do all the right things and a lot of them worked in favor of the gameplay. So now I'm going to get into exactly why I liked Dark Souls 2 way less than its predecessor. I'm willing to admit that the gameplay is improved overall, but the way the world design was nowhere near on par with the original.

I have come to terms with the fact that I didn't like Demon's Souls, because of its level based structure. I did however, fall in love with Dark Souls because of its open world nature. The entire world was connected in a logical way, and it was even connected in physical space to boot! I loved the fact that you could turn a corner in a new area and find yourself in an area that you had visited hours before. It was truly a well planned out world that felt like so much time had been out into it. I don't want to say that Dark Souls 2 was less thought out, but it certainly was not as well designed from a world building perspective.

This map is not possible if you go by the way everything is laid out in the game.

The town Majula acts as a central hub, much as the Firelink Shrine acted as a hub in the first game. From Firelink you could go to one of a few areas, which were all interconnected. From Majula you can also choose to go to a few areas, but none of them are connected at all. Instead of being a huge interconnected world Dark Souls 2 consists of several spokes that all come to a close in a dead-end. There's nothing less appealing to me than coming across a dead-end in what is essentially an open world game. My issue goes much deeper than that though. In the original you could see everything in the world. You'd be on a mountain top and be able to see other explorable areas. This is not the case in Dark Souls 2, and it bothers me because of how completely different each area is. Yes, it's cool to have a ton of different terrain types, but when you can't see the fiery volcano that's insanely large from anywhere else in the world it really breaks the experience for me. 

The physical world isn't the only issue I had either. Let's take the bosses for example. There are a ton of them, but if you asked me to recall any of them I'd only be able to think of a select few. In the original Dark Souls whenever you came across a boss it was a crazy encounter and each one felt unique. In Dark Souls 2 there may actually be too many bosses and far too many are humanoid. It's like someone saw how much people liked fighting Artorias in the first game and decided to do throw a ton of humanoids in. If they were all interesting it wouldn't be an issue, but many of them are very straightforward fights. There were a few cool ones though like the fight with a giant spider for example. 

Hmmm why can't you see this insane lava wasteland from anywhere?

I know I'm in the minority, but I really like the story of Dark Souls. Finding out about each individual character and boss was interesting. The world was very well built and had a ton of backstory. I feel like a tool saying that Dark Souls 2 isn't as well built, but it definitely seems to be lacking something that the original had. I had barely any idea what was going on with the plot of Dark Souls 2, and I was actively looking for it a majority of the time. Maybe it's something I needed to dig deeper for, but the fact that you just suddenly kind of appear in a new world isn't exactly the best plot setup.

 Perhaps it's the fact that Miyazaki didn't have a direct development role, or maybe my experience with the original game is something that can't be replicated. I just can't help but feel that some of the magic of the first game has dissipated in the second.

On to the DLC

With all of this being said I can't wait to try out the DLC. It will be coming in three episodes, all of which involve looking for crowns. Maybe this will have the interesting story I was looking for in the game, or maybe it will at least fill out a lot of the gaps. At the very least it will be interesting to see if I can get right back into the way the movement works, or if I'll have to get used to the way everything works again. I liked the game, but I just can't help but feel like it could have been so much more.  

Dark Souls 2 was a fun experience. I enjoyed it while I was playing it, but that experience has almost completely faded from my mind at this point, which is extremely disappointing to me. I could still tell you about the story of the original game. If you set me down in the world of the original I could still give you directions and tell you exactly what you need to do. I could tell you where bosses are, and what strategies worked for me. It's an experience that is solidified in my mind, which rarely happens anymore. I just wish Dark Souls 2 could have replicated that. 

Game Time ID: Grand Theft Auto V

Note: It took me so long to write this, because I was waiting to see what GTA Online was all about. As of writing this I still have not had a chance to properly do that. For some reason I can't connect to other players with any regularity. I can't tell if it's because it's still horribly busted or if it's because my internet connection is terrible. I'll keep trying it out every so often, because it seems interesting. It just isn't fun by yourself. Especially when almost any of the missions require 2 people to play. With that said this will only be about the single player.

Starting with Grand Theft Auto 3 on the PlayStation 2 Rockstar essentially created the modern open world sandbox game. With each successive entry in the series it got increasingly crazy and impressive. San Andreas was the last in the PS2 trilogy and it's still to this day one of my favorite games. When they moved to the current generation of consoles with Grand Theft Auto IV they also went for a more realistic world. Not everyone was very receptive to it, but that's the direction they went down. With Grand Theft Auto V Rockstar kept the realism of IV, while injecting the humor and zaniness of the PS2 iterations.

Somehow Rockstar always outdoes themselves with this franchise and I promise you that Grand Theft Auto V is no different. Initially I was expecting it to be earth shattering and filled with new ideas to reinvigorate the genre. That's what I thought I wanted. Instead what I got was what I essentially see as the apex of open world gaming. Rockstar has in my opinion perfected the formula for open world games and I don't know where they can really go from here. All I know is that GTA V was one hell of a game.

Epic Crime Saga

Unlike previous entries in the franchise GTA V has you take control of not one, but three main characters. When described it sounded like you would be able to seamlessly switch between any of the three characters at any time and they would be going about their regular everyday lives. In reality it doesn't work exactly like that, but it's close enough. Using the right stick you can switch to the character of your choosing. The camera zooms out above the city and within ten seconds it zooms back in onto your newly selected character. They'll be doing something random. They're all pre-coded events, but they give the illusion that the characters are living out their everyday lives when you're not using them. It's a really cool effect.

You take on the roles of Michael, Franklin, and Trevor. Michael is a middle aged man who lives what most would consider a life of luxury. He has retired from bank robbing, but longs to have that same kind of excitement in his life again. Franklin is young hood who wants to get into some legitimate crime and with the help of Michael he's able to do that. Last but not least there's Trevor and he's quite literally a psychopath. He used to run jobs with Michael before their whole operation was put to rest. The story revolves around these three characters and their series of elaborate heists. 

You get to know Trevor, Franklin, and Michael very well by the end of the game,

These three unlikely friends are amazing characters. They may be caricatures, but they're extremely well realized caricatures. I often find that when games try to tell this kind of story they fall flat. However, that's never been the case in the GTA games for me. I think that the high quality of the voice acting is one of the major factors that sets this franchise apart from so many others. You'll meet all kinds of characters throughout the game and very few of them even give sub-par performances. The story really drags you in and it's hard not to keep going from mission to mission just to see what's going to happen next. It's an epic crime saga that's truly exhilarating to experience. It has everything you'd want in a crime story. 

It also helps that the amount of detail in the game is unparalleled. The world is gigantic and every single nook and cranny of it is filled with minute details. There's a scene early on in the game where you go to a hackers house. You can walk all around inside and see readable papers lining the walls, anime figures, computer screens filled with information, and food littered all over the floor. It's all so intricately placed and it's only in the game for a scarce five minutes. I don't know if you can every go back inside the house, but regardless it's filled with a ridiculous amount of detail for such a short scene. That kind of thing happens all the time as well, it's not just that one scene.  

Look at the detail in that city!

With Rockstar's track record they can take as long as they need to make a game. They did take an awfully long time with GTA V, but you can actually see it. It's not like with most games where it's apparent that they were just throwing money at it to try and make the game better. They created a living breathing world heavily based off of California. Specifically the city of Los Santos is based off of Los Angeles. I've seen people claim that there are tons of landmarks, even tiny local restaurants in the game, which is a level of detail that most games just don't have. Hell, the venue for E3 is even accurately portrayed. What other games have full blown fake movies and TV shows you can watch? How about a fully featured fake internet that you can browse? The amount of content in the game is absolute madness. 

Open World Mayhem

One of the major issues with the GTA games in the past has been the gameplay itself. GTA games consist of two main activities, driving and shooting. Driving has always been fine, but in GTA IV they changed the handling to be closer to real life. In the end everything handled like an unwieldy boat and it was generally very unsatisfying. With GTA V the handling is much closer to what it was during the PS2 iterations of the franchise. It has a very arcade-like feel. You can get up to speed very quickly and the handling is loose, which makes it very easy to take sharp turns. 

Driving still takes up a majority of your time in GTA V. You'll have to drive to a mission marker, where you'll be given a mission and sent to drive somewhere else. More often than not you'll be sent to a location to shoot some guys. When you're done you'll then have to drive back. This didn't bother me so much, because I enjoyed the driving in the game. I know that some people do not though and it can get to be a bit tedious when missions are far away. Sometimes it can take upwards of ten minutes to reach your destination. In that case you can forgo driving yourself altogether and take a cab to your destination. It's not quite as beneficial though, because you won't be gaining any driving stat points.

You do a lot of driving, but the handling makes it fun.

Just like in San Andreas you can level up your stats in GTA V. You may not have to worry about getting fat, but you can increase your skill at driving, shooting, and many other things. For example the more you drive the better your driving skill will be. Some characters are innately better at things than others are. For example Franklin is good at driving, so he will automatically be able to handle cars much better than Trevor can. To add a little bit more flavor to each character they have a special ability to complement their innate skill set. Franklin can slow down time while driving in order to make hair-pin turns, Michael can go into a bullet-time state in order to take down enemies, and Trevor goes into a rage state where he takes almost no damage. They're not game breaking, but the abilities are nice to have in a pinch and help differentiate the characters a bit.

The shooting mechanics have been tweaked in a way that makes the act of killing enemies trivial. Rockstar apparently got the memo that their combat wasn't exactly the greatest. Previously you could target an enemy and switch to other targets with the push of a button. You had to be facing the enemy though. In GTA V you can just push the button to target and your reticle will automatically snap to the nearest enemy. If you flick the stick in the direction of another enemy it will move to auto target that enemy instead. This makes it super easy to pop out of cover and mow down every enemy in your path with little to no effort. It's not the most satisfying system, but it takes away a great deal of the frustration from previous iterations of the franchise. You can also free aim if you like, which works fairly well, but isn't anywhere near as efficient. I probably would have used free aim if I wasn't trying to complete combat scenarios as quickly as possible to see the next story beat. Plus you go down pretty easy, so I didn't find myself aiming for very long.

The auto aiming makes it very easy to take down helicopters.

While it is true that most missions just involve you driving and shooting GTA V is actually good about mission variety. Moreso than in past games you're sent to do things other than shoot someone in the face. An early mission has you buying clothes so you can sneak into the San Andreas equivalent of FaceBook to plant a bomb in their new prototype phone. One mission, which I found to be quite disturbing has Trevor torturing a suspected terrorist. You're given a choice of what torture device to use and then you have to perform button prompts to actually do the torturing. It did an excellent job of making me feel super uncomfortable. One of my personal favorites had me repelling down a building in order to kidnap someone.

The missions that truly shine in GTA V though are the heists. Apparently Rockstar heard that everyone really liked the bank heist in GTA IV, so they made a whole game based around large heists just like that one. At first you'll be tasked to stake out the area so that you can formulate a plan. Once you have all the information the game draws it all out on a whiteboard and makes you choose one of two ways to go about the heist. You'll get the opportunity to pick crew members you think will be able to help you out. Each crew member has their own unique stats and will take different shares of the money you get from the heist. If the crew members live through the heist their stats will increase, or they'll die on the job and be gone for good. 

The heists are easily the best missions in the game.

When you select how you're going to go about the heist you'll be sent to collect the supplies needed. The heists are probably the best part of the game, which makes it a shame that there are so few of them in it. During a job there's a sense of tension unlike anything I've felt in a video game before. They're very exciting, because you took the time to get everything ready and can see it all play out. Supposedly GTA online will have heists at some point, so maybe I can get my fix there when the time comes.

Outside of combat and driving there are many activities you can take part in. The sad part is that I didn't really take place in all that many of them. You can dive for treasure in a submarine, golf, do yoga, run triathlons, base jump, and a whole slew of other side activities. The only one that I did end up playing was tennis, just because I had to see what it was like. Surprisingly it was actually a serviceable mini-game, but not anything to write home about. It's cool that the world is populated with all of these things to do, but there's really no incentive to do them. They're just there to fill up space and give you something to do outside of the missions. I don't know that I'd say content just for the sake of having content is the best thing in the world.

Where Can They Go From Here?

It's hard for me to imagine where the Grand Theft Auto franchise can go from here. Rockstar created so many excellent characters and a compelling story. On top of that they created a world so rich in detail that I don't even have the time or wherewithal to see it all. They've taken everything they've learned since GTA 3 and laid it all out there. The level of realism they've reached is both technically impressive and somewhat scary at the same time. 

I don't really know that I want another Grand Theft Auto game after this one. I'm sure that if they release another one I'll jump all over it though. It just seems like at this point there's nowhere for them to go but down. I've seen a fair amount of people who disagree with this sentiment, but the internet is full of complainers. 

Grand Theft Auto V is undoubtedly one of the best games of this console generation. If you haven't played it you definitely should. The gameplay isn't the most compelling out there, but it's well worth putting up with in order to experience the world class characters and writing.

     -Manny

A Bizarre Adventure into Importing: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle

I've been a big fan of Japanese games for as long as I can remember. Over the years there have been numerous titles I've wanted to play, but had no way of doing so due to a lack of localization. A combination of the language barrier and high cost has kept me from importing games. It's especially a problem since the majority of games I would want to import are all heavily text based. On top of that most consoles are region locked and I'm not totally irresponsible with my money, so I can't justify buying a Japanese console.

This past June however, I imported my first game. It was Captain Rainbow for the Wii. The Wii is region locked, but if you use the homebrew channel you can play games from other regions. While I may have imported it I still have not played it. Captain Rainbow is very story based and pretty much incomprehensible without English text. The reason I got it was because there is an English fan patch in the works and the $20 price tag was too cheap for me to pass up. Hopefully I'll get to play it in early 2014, but that's not why we're here today.

Some time within the last year I began to see trailers for an all new Jojo's Bizarre Adventure fighting game developed by Cyber Connect 2. They're the studio behind the incredibly animated Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm games. Something about the trailers caught my attention  and I hoped that it would be localized here. After a bit of research I found out that it had/has little to no chance of ever seeing a release outside of Japan.

What is it?

When I made the decision to buy Jojo's Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle I knew very little about the franchise it was based on. I had played the original Capcom developed fighting game on the Dreamcast, but it was just a weird novelty fighting game to me. I have now consumed a fair deal of the Jojo universe and know a whole lot more about it.

The series is a still ongoing manga (Japanese comic book) written by Hirohiko Araki that began in 1987. There are 8 parts each with their own protagonist. They all focus on the eternal battle between the Joestar family and the immortal vampire DIO. Each part takes place in the time frame when it's written, so the current part 8 was started in 2011 and that's when it takes place. For some reason each main character's name has Jojo in it somehow. For example the original main character's name is Jonathan Joestar. Both names start with Jo. It's a really weird series. Who knows why that's the case.

These are the 8 protagonists. They are all part of the Joestar bloodline.

Recently a new anime was started that has gone on for two seasons. It covered the first two parts of the manga. These are the two least known entries of the entire series. The characters use a special energy called Ripple (Hamon in Japanese) in order to do what are essentially magical karate attacks. The series started to gain most of its popularity during the third part. This is the part that the Dreamcast game was based on. Chances are if you've seen any Jojos it's from the third part since it's the only part that was translated to English in both manga and anime form.

Instead of using ripple the characters instead began to wield stands. Technically though stands are the manifestation of an individual's ripple. You could even say that it's their persona. A stand is essentially a ghostly figure that gives the user supernatural powers. So yeah, they're basically ghosts that stand behind a person and help them pummel others. It's all pretty confusing, but that hasn't stopped me from diving head first into the series. I've now watched the first season of the anime and just recently finished reading the third part of the manga in its entirety.

This is my favorite character Jotaro. He's the main character of part 3 Stardust Crusaders.

I really find the series to be interesting, because it's so off the wall crazy. DIO threw a steamroller on top of someone just because he could! That's why it saddens me that there is such a slim chance that the series will ever make it outside of Japan. It's quite literally a copyright nightmare. Perhaps you noticed that the bad guy of the entire series shares his name with the band DIO. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Characters throughout the series and their stands share the names of famous western bands and musical acts. These are just a few of the ones I can think of : Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Pearl Jam, Cars, Doobie Brothers, Lisa Lisa, Devo and Vanilla Ice. No joke, one of the villains in part three is named Vanilla Ice. Part three of the manga was translated into English by VIZ Media, but almost all of the names had to be changed. Araki the creator of the series is strictly against name changes, which is one of the main reasons why no other Jojo related things have left Japan. If they can't change the names then they're going to get their pants sued off.

Hong Kong Dollars

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle came out on August 29th. I had the game that same day. Leading up to the release I began to watch every single video about the game that came out. Everything about it was so unknown to me, which made it supremely interesting. The animation was gorgeous and the characters looked so weird. At that point I had only watched the first season of the new anime and had never even looked at any of the manga. It was about a week before the game came out that I made the decision that I had to have it.

This is the video that put me over the edge.

Originally I had pre-ordered a physical copy of the game, but as of the release day it still had not shipped. I cancelled my order and decided to purchase a digital copy. In order to do that I had to buy some digital PlayStation Network cards, because US credit cards don't work on the Japanese PlayStation Store. I quickly realized that Japanese PlayStation cards were ludicrously overpriced and bought some Hong Kong PlayStation cards instead. They were a fair amount cheaper and for some reason the Hong Kong PlayStation Store is in poorly translated English. It may have been one of the shadiest things I've ever done on the Internet.

A friend instructed me to go to the website Pcgamesupply.com, because he had purchased Hong Kong PSN cards from them before. I bought two 200 Hong Kong Dollar cards and an 80 Hong Kong Dollar card. This gave me enough to purchase the game for 449 HKDs. I gave the site my credit card information at which point they charged me the $79 for the cards. Yes, I paid $79 for a $60 game. That's how overpriced the stupid PSN cards are. Not even ten minutes later I was able to view pictures they had taken of physical PSN cards in order to get my codes. I punched them in and began downloading the game. I've had the game for around two weeks now and I regret nothing.

It's an All-Star Battle

I didn't read the third part of the manga until this past week. Despite a lack of knowledge I still managed to fall in love with the game.

All-Star Battle is a straight up fighting game. It is almost void of all story and the main menu is entirely in English. That means I can navigate to where I want to go fairly well and learning how to play isn't too hard because it's fairly similar to other fighting games. The weird game specific things I figured out as I went along. What's crazy is that it's not a very good fighting game. It's fairly unbalanced and broken in a myriad of ways, which makes it pretty fun. It probably helps that I'm not good at fighting games, so I'm not good enough to have issues with specific characters and game mechanics. It's an ignorance is bliss type of scenario. All I know is that it's fun to hit the other character and it's even more fun to hit them with a crazy floating stand.

The character doesn't even need to punch the enemy themselves if they don't want to.

As I said previously the game is beautifully animated. What makes it even better is that something insane happens all the time. When I was messing around with the game at first almost every single attack was mind blowing. I now know just how insane everything in the series is and this game captures that very well. Everyone makes super flamboyant poses and screams out craziness. It's especially weird to hear someone yell Red Hot Chili Peppers in English during a constant stream of Japanese. The entire game is pure unadulterated Japanese madness in a way that I haven't been able to experience in years. This kind of stuff doesn't usually make it's way to the West anymore.

There are just over 30 characters in the main game with more coming as downloadable content. It's nice that each character feels unique, so I might actually buy the additional characters. Apparently I'm not the only person who thought it was a good game either. In its first week over 400,000 copies were sold in Japan.

The characters and animation in the game look beautiful.

That isn't to say that there haven't been any complaints about the game. The story mode is terrible and I'd probably be more upset if I could read or speak Japanese. You basically go through a series of fights with spoken text in between. You can beat it in two hours maximum. It's kind of disappointing considering how much effort CC2 puts into the story for their Naruto games. The killer for a lot of people is the campaign mode though. In campaign mode you can unlock alternate costumes, colors, taunts, and poses for the characters. At first it sounds awesome, but for some reason progress is gated like a free to play game. You fight against computer controlled versions of other people playing the game and computer controlled bosses in order to unlock everything. Each battle uses one bar of a battery and when that battery runs out you have to wait real time for it to refill. As of right now it takes 55 minutes to refill the whole thing, but eventually that's going to turn into 3 or 4 hours, which is far too long.

These things don't bother me very much, because I don't know any better when everything is in Japanese. Sure it's annoying that I can't unlock everything all at once, but it's keeping me playing the game. Plus it's not like I'd be able to sell it back since I got a digital copy. For my first imported game I think that I did pretty well. I didn't have any problems getting it and I am totally on board with everything it has to offer. It was my gateway into the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure universe.

I think this game is fun. You should check it out.

If you find any of this interesting I highly recommend you check out videos of the game. It's complete and utter madness, but it's surprisingly fun to play and even watch. I'm going to be purchasing all the DLC and since this is an import game I might write up something new for each piece I download. People need to know if the characters are worth downloading or not!

Update: During the Toky Game Show it was announced that Jojo's All-Star Battle would indeed be coming to America. I can't wait to see what they change. I'm generally intrigued to see how well it will sell here. Looks like I'm going to have to buy it again. At least now I can get a physical copy.

     -Manny

Game Time ID - Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

I absolutely love JRPG's and I've been waiting for one on the current generation of consoles to truly hook me in a way that they used to. Before anyone gets offended I'm not trying to say that none of the JRPG's that came out this generation are good, it's just that I haven't felt very strongly for any of them. I like games that try to create a deep world with so much to do that it almost becomes overwhelming. Ni No Kuni is exactly that. It's the game I've been waiting for this entire console generation and I'm so glad it came over to America.

When I first saw screenshots of Ni No Kuni I was blown away by how beautiful everything looked. Upon further research I found out that the game was developed by Level 5 in conjunction with the esteemed anime studio Ghibli. Level 5 has had a lot of cel-shading in their games like Dark Cloud 2, and Dragon Quest VII. They've gotten quite good at this particular art style, so now it looks almost as if everything is hand drawn while at the same time getting rid of all the weird shadow effects that tend to plague the style.

Level 5 has made some quality RPGs in the past, but by adding the Studio Ghibli name they are guaranteed to sell quite a few more copies of the game. Upon playing the game it's easy to see the influence Ghibli had on the game. Their art direction can clearly be seen on all of the characters and monsters. It also comes across in both the anime cut scenes and the in-engine scenes, because the animations are top notch. Everything about the game is beautiful. There were moments where I just took a break to look around. The locations are extremely vibrant and varied it's just...ugh...BEAUTIFUL!

However, if the game only looked pretty, had solid animation, and cut scenes I wouldn't like it as much as I do. It does an excellent job of creating an in depth world, which is entirely backed up by lore. It's easy to get lost in its grand scale. Honestly, it feels like a callback to the 16-bit JRPGs I love so much. There's something about it that fills me with a nostalgic feeling and I just can't help but smile.

The Another World

No I'm not going crazy. The another world is the literal translation of Ni No Kuni. That's because the main premise of Ni No Kuni is that you travel to a magical fantasy world that's separate from life was we know it. The story focuses on Oliver, who is a 13 year old boy that lives in a town called Motorville with his mom. As you might expect Motorville has a large focus on cars, so Oliver is no different. He and his friend sneak out at night to test drive a vehicle they've been working on for quite some time. Things don't go very well and Oliver almost drowns in a nearby river only to be saved by his mother at the last moment. Things seem to be okay for everyone except for Oliver's mom. The sudden shock of almost losing her son causes her to have a heart attack, which she dies from shortly after. This may sound like a major spoiler, but it happens within the first hour of the game and is foundation of the entire story.

With the passing of  his mom Oliver shuts himself away in his room where he spends most of his time crying. He decides to pick up the doll that his mom made for him when he was a child and a sudden flood of memories causes him to start blubbering all over the poor thing. Much to his surprise the thing comes to life before his very eyes and begins talking to him in an amazing Welsh accent. Turns out his name is Mr. Drippy and he's the lord of the faeries in another world. He was turned into a doll by an evil wizard named Shadar who threatens the peace of the other world. Drippy tells Oliver that he's the fabled pure hearted one who's destined to defeat Shadar. In an unexpected twist Oliver denies Drippy until he finds out that he might be able to save his mother. With that bit of info Oliver decides to help the lord high lord of the faeries and ends up traveling to a whole new magical world.

Mr. Drippy welcomes Oliver to his world.

The other world is quite literally magical. In order to get there Oliver has to acquire a wand and the Wizard's Companion, which he does with a little help from Drippy. The Wizard's Companion is one of the main reasons I am so enraptured by this game. What's crazy is that it's an actual book. There are hundreds of pages filled with detailed information about the world and it's inhabitants. You can access the companion from the menu at any time outside of battle. Each page is like a scanned PDF. You can move around the page and zoom in. You can see spells, alchemy recipes, a bestiary, maps, an ancient alphabet, and fairy tales. Some of the pages will be missing, but as the game progresses they will fill in. The description of an in game book may not be very appealing, but it's implemented surprisingly well. When you open the book it shows every section you can go to. In order to get where you want you can select it with a cursor, or you can zoom in until it appears. The transitions are smooth and everything feels natural.

In Japan there was also a DS version of the game that shipped with a physical copy of the companion. In that version of the game it was crucial to solving puzzles and advancing in the game. The PS3 version doesn't "need" it quite as much. There are occasions when you'll be asked to decipher ancient text, which can be found inside the companion. There aren't any instances where you have to do this, so if you don't feel like it you can skip it entirely. There isn't actually any reason that you'd have to look inside the companion, but I would highly recommend that you do. The localization of it is incredible. The fairy tales are oozing with personality and it can help you find hidden treasure on the world map.

I wish I had gotten a physical copy of the Wizard's Companion.

The Wizard's Companion isn't the only part of the game that has amazing localization. The same goes for the entire game. There are times when playing JRPGs that I question whether or not certain scenes and characters were changed for the US translation. Sometimes things just seem a little out of place or off, but that didn't happen once during my play through of Ni No Kuni. It all feels so natural, even the voice acting. The world is completely believable.

Pokemon Battle?

I've seen Ni No Kuni's battle system described by many as a cross between Pokemon and the Tales series. That might be the easiest way to explain it, but it's not necessarily correct. It does share quite a few similarities with both though.

Battles in Ni No Kuni are not random. Monsters physically manifest on the world map and in dungeons. They can be avoided, or run into for a bit of battling. Like most games with this type of encounter system if you attack from behind you'll be at an advantage, but if the enemy gets you from behind they have the advantage. When the game begins you can only control Oliver in battle and he's super weak. He can physically attack with his tiny wand, defend, use items, or cast spells. His physical attack isn't ideal, but he ends up being very good with magic as the game advances. These options are shown in a radial menu at the bottom corner of the screen. Using the left stick or d-pad you can switch between options. The similarity to the Tales series is that you can control Oliver's movement with the right stick. He can move 360 degrees, so you can dodge enemy moves and get into position for casting.

The human characters are not as durable as their familiars.

Shortly after his arrival in Mr. Drippy's world Oliver is given access to a familiar, which is a monster created from the power of his heart, which is when the battle system really opens up. Familiars are what make people liken the game to Pokemon. They're tiny little creatures who you can collect and evolve for more power. They can be one of the four signs of sun, moon, star, or planet. Each  type has strong and weak match ups against the others. On top of that there are six elemental types to be aware of.

Oliver (and other party members you acquire throughout the game) can fight themselves or call upon one of their three familiars in battle. Controlling familiars works the same as Oliver. You use the left stick to pick their actions and the right stick to control their movement. Every one will have the option to attack, but not all have the option to defend. Some have defend, some have the option to evade, and some can't do anything against incoming attacks. Familiars will learn new attacks and magic through leveling, which are called tricks. Much like Pokemon they can only have a few of these moves at a time and you'll have to manage what they have and what they need to forget.

Familiars are generally better than Oliver, but you can't use them forever. Each one has a stamina bar, which will decrease as long as you are controlling them. If the bar runs out they will become unusable for a short time, so you'll want to switch between the human character and their other familiars at all times. There will also be cases where you'll want to use spells or items and only human characters like Oliver can do that.

The battles can be a little overwhelming at first.

At around the ten hour mark you'll be given the ability to charm the critters you're fighting and make them your own. There are quite a few of them and the capture rates are generally pretty low, so if you want to capture them all it's going to take quite a bit of work. To add in even more fun  every familiar has three stages. The first form can be fed a drop to go to the second form. From the second form they must be fed a jumbo drop and you get to choose one of two third forms for it to turn in to. There quite a few options.

The system isn't super complex, but it can be a lot to take in at first. It's a lot to keep track of. I've seen people complaining that the game is too hard, but I've also seen people saying it's too easy. I personally completed the game only dying once. When I did die it was entirely my fault for not healing when I should have. I also tend to grind a whole lot, so take that for what you will.

Refreshing

Ni No Kuni is like a breath of fresh air. As I mentioned previously it's a callback to the 16-bit JRPGs of old, but that's not all that's refreshing about it. JRGs tend to be very melodramatic and the main characters are often as emo and brooding as you can get. Oliver is nothing like that, despite the fact that his mom recently died and he has no one to take care of him anymore. Throughout the whole game he's surprisingly upbeat. Normally kid characters in video games are supremely annoying, but Oliver manages to likable. The game as a whole has a very innocent feel to it. Oliver says jeepers all the time as he goes around mending broken hearts on his way to save a world in peril with his welsh accented pal Mr. Drippy. The overall plot of the game is filled with RPG cliches and anime tropes, but that's exactly what you'd expect from a Japanese RPG. Aside from all the brooding and spiky hair, which normally defines the genre.

It's obvious that Ni No Kuni is a labor of love. Level 5 and Studio Ghibli did their best to combine their talents into a single project. All of that hard work could have been lost if it wasn't for the amazing attention to detail by the localization team. The world is developed in a way that makes you want to explore every nook and cranny and talk to every character.

Look at this! How can you not want to meet all of these characters?

If you've completely written off JRPGs this game won't change your mind. However, if you still have it in your heart to give this type of game a try then you should. Ni No Kuni is the kind of game that used to eat entire summers when I was a kid. It'll take a lot of time to see it through to the end, but it's definitely worth it. I know that once I started playing I had a hard time stopping. The game was released on the 22nd, and since then I've racked up 70 hours of play time, but I completed the main story at around 50 hours of play time.

I could go on and on throwing up my love for the game all over you, but no one wants that. JRPGs of this caliber have been few and far between this console generation. Ni No Kuni took a long time to get here, but it was certainly worth the wait.

     -Manny

Game Time ID - Persona 4 Arena

Who can't think of good names for features? The answer is me! As I mentioned in the previous post I wanted to change up the Game Time feature a bit, while still keeping it's original form as a monthly thing. I am now going to attempt to do that. 

This new incarnation is called Game Time ID, or in-depth if you want to get a little wild. This week I'll be sharing my thoughts on the time I've spent with Persona 4 Arena with you. Will this new iteration of Game Time stick around? I don't really know, but let's find out together.

It's Game Time!

When I first heard that there was going to be a Persona 4 fighting game I didn't really know what to think. My skepticism subsided as soon as I heard it was being developed by Ark System Works. I love Persona, and I love Blazblue as well as Guilty Gear, so Persona 4 Arena naturally started to sound like a great idea. Persona 3 and 4 characters in a fast paced anime fighter? I was ready to take the plunge into whatever AKSYS was going to offer me.

This past Tuesday Persona 4 Arena was released in America and I have barely stopped playing it since.

Round 1...FIGHT!

I'll admit I went into Persona 4 Arena expecting it to be Blazblue with a Persona skin over it, but that definitely isn't the case. Sure, it's still a fast anime fighter with a bunch of odd systems thrown on top of it, but it doesn't feel the same to me at all. For starters it's much more accessible.

Everyone wants to do a cool looking combo when they're playing a fighting game, but it's not always super easy to pull off. In P4A they make sure that you can do at least one. By pressing square repeatedly you can do a pre-set auto combo, which is actually pretty good. At first it takes a while to get used to that concept, but after a while it becomes an integral part of the game. Another option good for beginners is pushing L1. It will do your DP attack, which is almost always invincible on start-up and it happens instantly. For those of you who don't know what that means, it's basically a move that makes you invincible while it's starting and it happens instantly. It comes in handy, but it is often abused. It can easily be overcome once you know what to look for.

I know that when some people hear the words auto, or easily accessible in conjunction with fighting games they cringe. However, those things are not at odds with the skill level that can be achieved in this game. Sure it's easier than most AKSYS games to get into, but it can get insane pretty quickly. If you want to practice up and do some super long combo that takes away half your opponents health then you can still do that. What I'm saying is that you'll probably get decimated during online play at some point unless you practice up on your Persona skills.

This is Mitsuru's DP. AKA the bane of my existence.

P4A controls slightly different than other AKSYS fighting games and I guess any other fighting game except Jojo's Bizzare Adventure. That's because each character in the game is a Persona user (Kind of like Stands in Jojo). Everyone has a normal and a heavy attack with their weapon, but they also have a normal and heavy attack with their Persona's. AKSYS characters tend to have a lot of variety, but because each character has both a Persona and a weapon this game seems to stand out even more. 

All special moves in the game are done using one or two quarter turns forward or back. Some of Mitsuru's moves need to be charged, but she's an exception. This makes everything relatively simple to pull off as opposed to the 360 degree rotations and half circles these kinds of games often get crazy with. 

I could go on for a good long while about all the other crazy systems this game has going on. In fact most characters have some special bar or meter involved with their moves. However, I'll settle for describing for a few of the overall systems. The burst from Blazblue makes a return, but with an interesting variation. If you're in a combo you can press square, triangle, and circle at the same time to burst out of the attack. Once you burst a B will slowly start to charge up underneath your characters health meter. If it refills you can burst once again. In a Persona reference you can also burst in order to cancel your own moves to continue on a combo. This is called one more burst, which is a reference to the one more attack you get in Persona when you attack an enemies weakness.

There are 13 characters in P4A and they're all unique.

Another reference to Persona is the all out attack. Your character will rush towards the enemy and if they hit you'll enter a cartoon-like scuffle. Mashing buttons will increase the damage, but when you push triangle you can launch the enemy into the air. This allows for some pretty good combos and it's a reference to the source material, so it's doubly cool.

P4A plays great. Like all AKSYS games the animation is outstanding and the movement flows so nicely. Everything happens super fast and still controls great.  

Story Mode

I come to the Persona series for it's strong characters and plot lines, so I was naturally excited for the story mode in Persona 4 Arena. Like Blazblue P4A takes the visual novel approach to story telling. P4A leans much more heavily on the novel part of visual novel. I'm not kidding, it's like reading a novel. It's actually to the point where there is too much text to read.

The story takes place two short months after the Story of Persona 4. The main character Yu Narukami has come back to Inaba for Golden Week. As you can imagine things don't exactly go as planned and everyone ends up in the TV world again. The midnight channel started airing again and all of the playable characters from Persona 4 were featured on it. For some reason they were all said to be taking part in a tournament, which is what ends up happening in the TV world.

They're all ready to take on the P-1 Grand Prix.

This is where the problem I have with the story mode comes into play. It's only been two months since the events of Persona 4. Not a whole lot has changed, so they have to rely heavily on the use of internal monologues for each character. As events happen text will load up the screen with each individual story characters thoughts. Have you ever wanted to get inside Chie's steak filled mind? Well now is your chance! These internal thoughts are broken up by a whole lot of voiced dialogue and around six fights per story.

That sounds pretty awesome right? Well, it starts to grate on you. As interesting as each character's internal thoughts are there are only so many times a different take on the exact same situation can be exciting. Each character goes through four fights in the P-1 Grand Prix, and then there are three fights after that, which I don't want to spoil. The problem is that the same thing happens every single time. There are some slight variations, but none of them are interesting enough to go through multiple times. Blazblue gets away with this style, because the same thing is happening over and over, but it happens differently every time. 

Can you handle this for around 20 hours?

Each character's story took me around an hour and a half to complete when I was actually paying attention to what I was reading. That time inevitably sped up as I began to care less and less. Overall the story will take around twenty hours, which is huge for a fighting game. As I said though it's not exactly the most exciting thing you can do with your time, but it does have some interesting parts and there are certainly some implications about what Persona 5 could be. 

I'm going to go ahead and say that if you don't have a vested interest in the Persona universe, then there is absolutely no way you should play the story mode in Persona 4 Arena. The enjoyment you'll get out of the story completely depends on how much you care about the universe.

Persona references for everyone!

Persona 4 Arena is an interesting game. It will obviously appeal to people who are invested in the Persona universe. It will also appeal to avid fighting game fans who have no knowledge of the characters and world. Then you have people like me who are fans of both and in that case the game is amazing. I honestly have no idea how people who aren't very fond of either would feel about it.

In that case I'd have to guess that it wouldn't be very great. The story would be super boring, but the fighting could still become a draw. It's odd, because a few years ago this would have been a very niche title. It was only within the past few years that the Persona franchise skyrocketed in popularity.

As common sense would dictate people who are into Persona will derive much more pleasure from this game. ATLUS made sure that this game was chock full of the stuff you want to see. It's basically made of fan service (No, not nudity). I main Yosuke and in his opening animations he falls down from a rope, and crashes his bike. People who haven't played Persona 4 would have no idea why I smile every time those animations happen. It's little things like that, that make this game so special to me. It feels like ATLUS is really in touch with it's fans. AKSYS translated that love and made an amazing game.

This kind of game doesn't normally turn out as well as P4A. Everyone should check it out, unless of course you don't like the Persona franchise, or fighting games. In which case you would be CRAZY!

     -Manny