Game Time - August 2014

I played a whole lot of the Inazuma Eleven series over the past two months. In fact, I beat all four games in the series that have been released in English so far. So far I've probably played for a grand total of 300 hours, and I still have so much more left to do. So yeah, I played through all of Inazuma Eleven 3: Bomb Blast, and Inazuma Eleven GO: Shadow this month.

Other than that I played through a majority of Xillia 2, and I keep changing my opinion of it. One minute I feel like it's a decent game, and the next everything about it really upsets me. Hopefully by the time I beat it I'll have a solid opinion.

Since the Inazuma Eleven games are long, and Xillia 2 is a million hour long RPG I didn't play a whole lot of other stuff this month, but I did manage to play a little bit of the InFamous: Second Son DLC. I like it so far, but I don't know how much longer I'll feel that way... It's got some interesting design choices.

InFamous First Light

I thought that Fetch was an amazing character in InFamous: Second Son. She was pretty much the only character besides Delsin that had solid development. She had gotten into some trouble with drugs, but was recovering. Plus, her neon powers were amazing. So it's only natural that I'd purchase the DLC where you play as Fetch and learn more about her backstory. Somehow I feel like I got swindled out of $15...

Yes, First Light has you playing as Fetch. It takes place months before Second Son when Fetch was first brought to Curdun Cay, the conduit prison. She's being trained to control her powers and in the process of doing so she's forced to tell the story of what happened to her brother. You get to play those sequences, and those are the best part. You get to run around Seattle as Fetch, who unsurprisingly has the same Neon powers that Delsin stole from her. The story is what I like, not so much the playing part...

At least it has a sick logo?

When doing missions in Seattle you can do side missions, just like in Second Son, except that they're all super lame. In order for Fetch to get skill points you have to collect neon gas. You can just run around and collect it, or you have to chase it during race events. You can also do some sweet neon graffiti. It's not exactly the most stellar content, especially when it's been taken almost directly from the main game. Delsin couldn't run races, but who would want to do that anyways, because it's lame. Running around Seattle is lame, but the story missions almost make up for it.

What really throws me off about this DLC is that when Fetch isn't telling her story you have to play through battle arenas in Curdun Cay. Enemies will show up, and sometimes you'll need to run over a hostage in order to rescue them. These types of battle arenas are generally bad filler content in games, so the fact that they're one of the main pieces of content in this DLC is more than a little upsetting.

Fetch can make some awesome neon graffiti.

I can see this being an amazing DLC for people who don't own Second Son, because it's standalone. If I hadn't done all of this same stuff as Delsin for around 12 hours earlier this year I might think First Light was an amazing purchase for just $15. However, since I did play Second Son when it first came out this just seems like a quickly thrown together cash grab I was tricked into getting because Fetch was a solid character in the main game. I'm interested in seeing her story through, but I can guarantee I won't be doing all the optional missions, and I'll fight in the battle arenas as little as possible.

Tales of Xillia 2

I had a lot of problems with the first Tales of Xillia, which you can read all about here. A lot of the problems I had with the first game are still present in Xillia 2. The story doesn't make a whole lot of sense, the areas are wide open (They're literally the same areas), and you're always told exactly where to go. On the other hand the characters are all marginally better, and the battle system is still super fun.

To me Xillia 2 feels like it's either cut content from the original game, or a very large story expansion. It has a brand new main character named Ludger Kresnik. For some inexplicable reason he can't talk. I'm a fan of silent protagonists in games, but in this case it's very out of place. All the other characters talk a whole lot. It wouldn't be as weird if characters didn't speak directly to him in ways that warrant a response. Apparently there's a story reason he doesn't talk, but I have seen no evidence of that and I'm around 40 hours in.

Ludger can't talk, but he can sure shoot pistols.

Other than Ludger's weird silence the story characters are all pretty good. One of the new characters the game introduces is a little girl named Elle. Normally children characters in games are obnoxious, but something about Elle makes her very endearing. She is lost and was separated from her father, but is constantly trying to fulfill a promise to him. It helps that she carries around Ludger's super obese cat Rollo, who I am absolutely in love with.

What bothers me about Xillia 2 the most is that the writing in it is super inconsistent. The game had a strong beginning, but a few hours in everything fell apart. It was almost like a completely different set of writers were put on the game for a few hundred pages of the script. At some point the characters start throwing out all kinds of terms as if you should know them when in reality you don't know what the hell is going on at all. Within the past few hours it has gotten better, but I still feel like there's something missing. It doesn't help that the game has serious pacing issues. It's separated into chapters and at the beginning and end of each you're given a ton of sidequests to do. People like me will do them all, which takes around two to three hours. So you're taking breaks from the main story for hours at a time when you don't even know what's going on in the first place.

All hail our lord and savior, Rollo.

Just like with the first game this makes it sound like I totally hate Xillia 2, when I don't. The battle system is super fun and action oriented, but everything surrounding that needs a lot of work. The fact that Ludger can switch between dual blades, a sledgehammer, and dual pistols is cool, but it doesn't change anything drastically. All of the exploration and sense of discovery is gone, which is something I really hope they fix in the next Tales game. It will help that they're not going to be reusing all the same assets again...

Inazuma Eleven 3/GO

I played and beat the first two Inazuma Eleven games in July. I then continued to play Inazuma Eleven 2 until all of my players were level 99, which took around 85 hours. For some reason I then decided to import a 3DS from England in order to play Inazuma Eleven 3, and Inazuma Eleven GO. Inazuma Eleven 3 continues the story of the first two games and acts as a finale to the trilogy. It's mostly the same as the previous two, but layers a few new mechanics on top of everything. Players get tired more quickly and the amount of TP players have for special moves was greatly decreased. It also added the ability to chain shots together, which was very handy in a lot of situations.

My favorite part about 3 though is that it's about an international soccer tournament, so you get to see the game's representation of countries other than Japan. The British team is super fancy, the American team stays in a junkyard, and the Italian team all sound like they're trying to impersonate Mario. It's an amazingly harmless view of the world's countries that only comes off as slightly offensive. It helps that since it's pretty much an anime version of soccer, so it takes itself very seriously. There's no chance they were trying to make subtle jokes or anything.

In Inazuma Eleven 3 the story team is the best!

From Inazuma Eleven 3 I moved right on to Inazuma Eleven GO, which focuses on a mostly different set of characters. Ten years passed after the original trilogy, so now all the characters I thought were cool from the first game have grown up and are around my age (24). What's cool is that they are actually an integral part of the story, because they have to pass on their knowledge to the next generation of players. What sucks is that I'm not really a fan of most of the new characters. The main character in particular I find to be insufferable. His name is Arion Sherwind, and he's super upbeat like Mark was. Unlike Mark however, Arion is super emotional. He truly believes that soccer as a sport has feelings, so he's always worried about making soccer sad. Yeah, that's a real thing.

There are a few characters I like though like Viktor Blade, who inexplicably has a Russian accent. In fact all of the characters talk with accents. These kids all live in Japan, so why does each one have a different accent? Maybe they were like that in the original Japanese, but even then it still wouldn't make sense. It also helps to make the voice acting extra awful, when it wasn't even that great in the first place.

I really wasn't feeling the players in Inazuma Eleven GO...

Inazuma Eleven GO changes the series completely, because it was the first game made specifically for the 3DS. Instead of being sprites everything is completely in 3D. It makes everything look awesome, but there are far less special moves for your players to learn. I've heard that Inazuma Eleven GO 2 has a whole lot more special moves, so I hope the lack in this game is because of the hardware switch. Due to the shift to 3D the actual soccer matches feel and play a lot differently as well. You can no longer pass to anyone, because the ball won't pass right through opposing players. You have to hold the stylus down in order to kick it over their heads. They also added a mechanic that gives certain players access to fighting spirits. They are literally spirits that the players summon in order to become much stronger.

When you have a fighting spirit summoned on a player it's almost impossible for them to lose the ball, and their shots are far stronger than they normally would be. The downside is that the players can only have the spirit summoned for a certain amount of time, and while the spirit is summoned they become tired much more quickly. It adds a new dimension to the game, because you not only have to worry about the stats and elements of an opposing player. You now also have to worry about the stats and element of the fighting spirit that player has as well. When you go against the computer the AI isn't the best, so you can usually steamroll them with whatever you have. However, I think that once I can play a human being the fighting spirits will be much less effective.

Fighting spirits are a cool new addition to Inazuma Eleven GO.

I have now beaten all of these Inazuma Eleven games, but I am still leveling up my teams in both 3 and GO. You'll probably hear me talk about the games a lot more in one form or another, because I still think about the series far too much for my own good.

The Storm Begins

It's a good thing I beat all the Inazuma Eleven games, because the fall game storm is upon us. From September up until around March there is a nonstop stream of games coming out that I don't know I'll be able to keep up with.

I still haven't beaten Xillia 2 and Dangonronpa 2 for the Vita will be arriving at my house tomorrow. Then a week after that I'll have Destiny. The trend continues from there when a new game comes out weekly, and sometimes two games come out a week. It's going to be an action packed fall and I'm very excited for it.

I'd keep going on, but I really have to get on Xillia 2 or it's never going to get finished. See you all next time!

     -Manny

Sly Cooper References in InFamous: Second Son

Now that you can copy screenshots to a USB drive on the PS4 I decided I should do that.

Back when I was playing InFamous: Second Son I took screenshots of all the Sly Cooper references I found in the game. Here they are for your personal enjoyment. The quality of the images is actually quite high for how small the files are. I'm very impressed. Now I can take my own hot screenshots for PS4 games I write about.

Game Time - March 2014

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't spend a majority of this month playing Dark Souls 2. In fact I'm taking a break from it right now in order to write this. I've decided to not write anything about Dark Souls 2 yet, because I haven't beaten it. I have a feeling I'm very close to the ending, so when I get there you can bet I'll have a whole lot to say about it.

There were a few things this month that tore me away from Dark Souls 2 though, which is what I'll be telling you all about in this installment of Game Time. InFamous: Second Son came out, which I believe to be the first true next generation game for the PS4. It looks incredible for a console game.

I finally got around to playing Fez too, now that it has been released on PlayStation consoles. I bought the PC version for like $2 a while back during a Steam sale, but only played it for an hour or so. This time I downloaded it on the PS4 and actually completed it. I now understand why people praised it so highly when it originally came out.

I also played the newest addition to the BlazBlue franchise, but I'm not very enthused with it. It's another BlazBlue game and I find it harder and harder to get excited about the franchise. It's even harder now that ARC System Works has shown Guilty Gear Xrd Sign. It just made me realize how much more I like Guilty Gear than BlazBlue. That's not to say that BlazBlue is bad, I'm just not as into it as I once was.

Welcome to Game Time.

InFamous: Second Son

When a new console comes out, I find myself wanting to show it off. When the PS4 came out this past November there really weren't any games I could do that with. If I was going to do that now though I would definitely use InFamous: Second Son. For a console game it looks incredible. The graphics are amazing, but they're accentuated by the ridiculously awesome motion capture of all the actors. Delsin Rowe, the main character of Second Son is a Native American in his early to mid twenties. The way his body and face move it's almost like he's a real person. It's weird though, because it doesn't have an uncanny valley feeling that games like Heavy Rain had. It probably helps that he's actually a decently well written character while Cole, the protagonist in the previous 2 games, was generally pretty awful.

Second Son takes place in Seattle, Washington. The city itself is nothing special, but it sure looks good. It's like any other open world city really. You traverse the world in order to go from mission to mission while random events take place. Like the previous games you can choose to be either good or evil and the events will help you work towards either side. What really impressed me about the city is that the textures on everything didn't look like total shit. If you walk up to a sign you're actually going to be able to read it and it's not even blurry, which is some next level stuff.

Look at the texture on Delsin's hat. That's true next generation right there!

I wish I could say that InFamous: Second Son had a whole lot to offer outside of its awesome visuals, but I just can't. In terms of story it's the same kind of thing that always happens when super powers are involved. Some people think they're really cool, while other people feel that anyone who has them is evil and should be imprisoned. In the InFamous universe people with powers are called conduits, but the people who fear them call them bio-terrorists. Delsin discovers that he's a conduit when he comes into contact with a conduit who has the power of smoke. Turns out Delsin can take the powers of other conduits and use them himself.

As you may have guessed since Delsin can steal powers he receives a few different powers throughout the course of the game. He has to seek out new powers so that he can fight an evil lady with cement powers who is imprisoning conduits. Oh yeah, he also wants to get the cement shards out of his family and friends so they can walk again. I don't want to spoil the powers, but I will say that they're all pretty cool. You start off with smoke, which lets you go through vents to get up buildings, dash through fences, and shoot fire from your hands. It all handles very well and makes you feel like a proper superhero. You can get up buildings easily and move around with little effort, which makes traversing the huge city of Seattle fun. It feels a lot more smooth than the other InFamous games, which is nice. The only downgrade is the climbing. Previously you could just mash the jump button to climb up a building, because you'd stick to almost any ledge. This is no longer the case, so climbing is rarely ever an option.

Smoke is a cool power, but I like the second power you get the best.

I really like InFamous: Second Son, but at the same time it's extremely disappointing. The story was pretty good for the first half and then it starts to go downhill. The second half has a few missions that don't really seem related and then all of a sudden the final showdown is happening. The whole second half felt very rushed and the ending is super abrupt. What's even more disappointing though is that the only really cool thing about this game is that it looks awesome. Sure that's great and all, but I want the PlayStation 4 to bring new gaming experiences to the table. I realize that this is very early in the console's life cycle, but Second Son is just more of the same with a new character who has a different set of powers. Yes, it does control better, but that would have come with iteration anyways.

Second Son is a fun ride that looks pretty, but it's short lived and ultimately the same as the previous 2 entries in the franchise. If you have a PS4 it's definitely something you need to check out, but I have a feeling that once more games are released for the console it won't be remembered for very long.

BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma

I'm not good at fighting games. This is something that I've come to terms with over the past few years. I'm decent at Super Smash Brothers Melee, but that's a very different beast from your traditional fighting game like BlazBlue. The only fighting game that I ever got remotely good at was the original BlazBlue. I could actually do a combo, which is something that I certainly can't do anymore. I used to like buying new fighting games to try them out and have fun, but I can't really do that anymore. A lot of the people around me are on a much higher level than I am, so there isn't ever really a period where we're on a level playing field. I get destroyed on the regular and don't really have any fun doing it. The last fighting game I really had fun with was Jojo's All-Star Battle, but since it's not a competitively viable fighting game no one will play it with me.

Despite knowing all of this I bought BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma anyways. I mainly got it for the story, which I suppose I'm still interested in. The entire series I've been waiting for my favorite character Jubei to become playable. He's a cat-man with a huge sword and I think he's awesome. Somehow, despite being a main character in the story he's still not playable and it's killing me! Somehow they can make up totally new characters who are playable in each game, but leave out a previously existing character who plays a major role in the story!

I just want to play as Jubei! *Weeps*

So far I haven't played a whole lot of the story, but I do enjoy it. It's in the form of a visual novel. High-res character art of two characters appear on either side of the screen with a text box. It's all voiced and fairly well done. At times it can be a bit unbearable though, which is what's really bogging me down. Sometimes the game can be just a bit too Anime. The characters interactions can be super dumb. It gets even worse when you stumble onto a joke ending. I don't think they're funny and I find it had to believe that anyone thinks they're funny, but I'm sure someone must otherwise they'd stop doing them. I hope they stop doing them.

I'm going to enjoy the story. I just don't know why I keep buying these games. I don't enjoy fighting the computer and get frustrated with my general ineptitude. Hopefully I can re-ignite my passion for fighting games. Guilty Gear Xrd Sign might be the game to do that, because it looks amazing. Also I really like Guilty Gear.

Fez

I wasn't a part of the Fez zeitgeist, but after playing it I wish that I was. The game is amazing. I thought this was going to be one of those indie titles that I finally get a chance to play and then find out it was blown way out of proportion. For Fez that certainly wasn't the case. Everything is awesome whether it be the music, art style, or gameplay mechanics. Everything in the game congeals to make a completely unforgettable game. Fez is the epitome of a polished video game. You can tell that every fiber of Phil Fish's being was put into creating this awesome game.

Fez at first glance is just a 2D platformer, but the protagonist Gomez quickly gets the power to rotate the world with his magical Fez. He is given the knowledge that the world is truly 3D, which makes the game very interesting. In order to make it so that Gomez can get to his destination you must rotate the world, which is in actuality 3D. When you rotate the world you can use new objects as platforms. If you see somewhere you don't think you can get to there is a high probability that you can actually get there if you rotate the world just right. Describing it makes it sound sound really boring, but in action it's really something amazing. It adds something to a genre that's been done to death.

It blows my mind that this image is just one of four possible options of this game state.

In order to advance in the game you need to collect golden cubes. You can also collect anti cubes although they're much harder to get. Golden cubes you can get by picking up bits of cube, or by completing platforming sections. Anti cubes require you to go a layer deeper into the game and figure out its ridiculously deep secrets. For one of the anti cubes I got I had to download a QR code reader on my tablet that gave me a button combination to enter on the controller. What's nuts is that that's one of the easier things to figure out. A lot of them have to do with a language derived from what look like Tetris blocks.

Once you beat Fez the journey isn't over, but it might be for me. There are all kinds of secrets to be discovered and the additional powers you get from completing the game allow for you to do some pretty crazy stuff. It makes you realize that nothing in Fez is just an art choice, or a piece of the background. Everything means something and it's up to you to figure it out. When the game first came out I remember the internet collectively working to figure out how to unlock all the secrets the game had to offer. I don't know if I'll ever get around to decoding the games crazy Tetris language, but it's cool to know it's there. I'm thinking about looking up a FAQ just to go through the insanity that happens after the game is "over."

I love the Fez Soundtrack so much.

I feel weird talking about Fez because it's so old now. I can't believe it took this long for it to come to PlayStation consoles and I don't know why I never bought it on the Xbox 360. It's a very immersive game. I originally planned to play it for an hour or so, but ended up not stopping until I had beaten it, which probably took around 6 hours. Most people have already played Fez, but if you haven't then you really need to. At least look up some of the amazing tracks on the soundtrack.

What's coming out?

I don't think I have any new games I'll be purchasing in April, which is good because I need to catch up with the ones I already have. As I mentioned at the top I'm still deep into Dark Souls 2. I've also started playing the HD remaster of Final Fantasy X for some reason despite the fact that I hate Tidus with every fiber of my being. It's even more annoying that they pronounce his name Tee-dus.

I'm sure I'll play a whole bunch of stuff, so we'll meet back here next month to talk about it.

    -Manny