I felt bad that I didn't include much talk about Rare Replay in the August edition of Game Time, so here's some Rare goodness. This week it's all about the introduction of Banjo Kazooie.
There's something about Rare games that's magical and fun. It's hard to describe, but their games are full of a whimsy that most other developers can't even come close to. A large part of that comes from the art style and music. As we saw a few weeks ago Dave Wise is an excellent composer, but Rare also likes to hire Grant Kirkhope for many of their projects.
Kirkhope has a very unique style, which is very easily discernible. What I like about the intro to Banjo Kazooie is that it shows all the signature Kirkhope instruments. His style has a whole lot of banjos. xylophones, and any woodwind instrument you can think of. I mean seriously, Mumbo busts out a Saxophone!
While I like almost all the music in Banjo Kazooie, this intro theme in particular strikes an emotional chord with me. It takes me back to the days of video game rental stores and my fascination with everything on the Nintendo 64. Sadly, both of those things are gone now, but that's the time this song reminds me of. Even better, this song personifies Rare to me. It has style and whimsy you won't find anywhere else.
As August and Summer draw to a close I still have a few games left to talk about. Even though I was visiting various cottages and playing Ultra Street Fighter 4 at Summer Jam 9, I actually found time to play video games. Most of which were new!
One such game that I won't be talking about here is the Rare Replay Collection for Xbox One. It collects 30 Rare developed games from the past 30 years. Obviously games like Donkey Kong Country can't be featured, but fan favorites such as Viva Pinata, and Banjo Kazooie are. All I want to say about this is that all companies releasing a game collection in the future should take note. This is how you collect games into a package!
As for brand new releases I picked up LBX or Little Battlers Experience for the 3DS. It's a robot fighting game from Level 5, the makers of Inazuma Eleven. It has as much charm and content as most other Level 5 games.
Next up we have the game I wish I didn't pay $60 dollars for, but had to have, One Piece Pirate Warriors 3. It's Dynasty Warriors, but with One Piece characters...for the third time!
Last but certainly not least I finally got around to playing Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. It's not new, but I did break the seal on my disc copy. That makes it new, I guess? I had to prep for the true Metal Gear Solid V, so it was going to happen sooner or later. Speaking of MGSV I'm in the process of playing through it right now and I need to get back to it.
It's game time!
LBX: Little Battlers Experience
For some reason Level 5 decided that they wanted most of their franchises to be pan-media. They started with Inazuma Eleven and have continued on to LBX and Yokai Watch. Inazuma just had a game and an anime, while LBX and Yokai watch have expanded into the toy realm as well. With all of their franchises the games come first. However, in the case of all of these franchises they take a while to see the light of day outside of Japan. For example, there are three LBX games in Japan and the first one is only just coming out here now when it was first released in 2011.
In Japan the success of these games leads into an anime, while here in the U.S. it was the opposite. LBX was dubbed and shown on Nickelodeon. It was actually quite popular, despite the fact that half of the episodes were cut out for audiences outside of Japan. That's right. This show about battling tiny robots was too violent and professed ideas not suitable for American children! To be honest it is kind of crazy some of the stuff that takes place in this game. No joke, I had to stop a tiny robot from assassinating a prime minister, None of this makes sense without context though, so let me give you some.
Now that the cardboard is reinforced no one will get hurt!
Tiny robot toys called LBX were released to the public, but their battles proved to be too dangerous. After some kids got hurt they were banned. After a few years someone invented a super strong cardboard box for the robots to battle in. I can't make this up, it's called reinforced cardboard! Even though they're still super dangerous outside of the cardboard, because you can use them to kill people... Anyways, now kids love controlling these hot toys with their phones.
The gameplay is relatively simple. You control your customized robot in battle in third person. It can hold two weapons that each have a basic attack. Each time you attack it costs stamina. Running and jumping also decrease stamina. The game is essentially all about stamina management. If you run out you're left vulnerable and your attack decreases. After a few seconds it recharges, but the battles in LBX tend to last only 20 or 30 seconds. Every second and point of damage is crucial.
All the kids love a good LBX battle!
I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of the gameplay, but it's not bad, My enjoyment comes from collecting the hundreds of robot parts and weapons. I've always liked any game where you can customize robots for battle. Custom Robo and Gotcha Force on the Gamecube are two excellent examples of this. While I like those games better LBX definitely has an interesting story to back it up. I'm almost done with the story, so I'll wait to make a final judgement until the end.
One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3
I don't want to type a lot about this game. It's the same as Pirate Warriors 2, but with ten new additional characters. You mash square and triangle in order to decimate hordes of enemies. I enjoy it, but it's not for everyone. As opposed to basic gameplay I'll talk about the new systems they implemented.
In the previous game you equipped coins in order to increase your stats. Now you can spend coins permanently to upgrade your stats. This works out a lot better, because you don't have to mess around with changing out coins. You get coins by completing various missions, and each time you defeat officers in battle. If you defeat an officer with a special attack you get even more coins.
These are all the playable characters! (There are many non-playable characters on here)
The other main change is the Kizuna Rush system. Each map you will be given specific partner characters who you can freely switch between. As you fight the bar next to the partner will fill up across three levels. At level 1 you will be able to push either square or triangle after you end a combo to have the partner attack as well. If the partner kills enemies they will be counted as ! kills. What sucks is that ! kills are one of the three things you're graded on each level and I've only ever gotten it to S rank one time.
Once the kizuna gauge is filled you can push R2 to power up. This will make your character stronger for a limited time. You can push circle to unleash a special from both characters. You can also chain Kizuna specials up to 3 times. So if you enter the powered up R2 state with two characters, the third time you do it and execute a special everyone used so far will attack in unison with you. It's super powerful.
Gotta destroy all the enemies!
Pirate Warriors is a lot different, but mostly the same. I like when they try to make refinements to the generic gameplay and test out new mechanics. It's always hard to try new things, so they get a kudos for trying.
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
When I saw a disc based copy of Ground Zeroes on amazon for $5 dollars I jumped right on it. It's been sitting on my shelf for approximately six months now. I decided to pop it in on August 31st, because I wanted to prepare for the release of the true Metal Gear Solid V the following day. After playing Ground Zeroes I now agree with everyone who said it was an overblown tech demo, because it is. It took me an hour to complete, and only had story in the beginning and end.
As a Metal Gear game it was kind of disappointing, but as an open world stealth playground it was amazing. It makes sense that this is how Metal Gear would transition to the new generation of consoles, but I can imagine it won't sit well with most fans.
It's a sneaking mission.
My issue with a lot of stealth games is that once you're caught you're completely screwed. With the new non-terrible controls in Ground Zeroes it's easy to gun down everyone once you're caught. Sure you won't get a very high score, but at least you'll complete the mission. Even better is that you have a lot of options. There are tons of ways to approach any given scenario. It's fun to figure out a plan and then execute on it, but the scale is just too small.
I don't really have much to say about Ground Zeroes to be honest. It's a fun sandbox with almost no content. Sure you can do side missions, but it all takes place on the same military base. It's more or less a proof of concept for the full game. I actually would have been angry if I paid $30 for it. After playing MGSV proper I can say that the scale of the game is much larger than anything Ground Zeroes had to offer, Metal Gear!?
I don't know what to think about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain yet/ I do know that it has started off September with a bang though. It certainly doesn't have as much story as the previous entries in the franchise, but so far the gameplay makes up for it. I really liked MGS 1-4, but I was not a huge fan of the controls. Most of the time I felt like I was struggling with the controls to make it to the next story beat.
That said, I'm going to keep playing V to see what happens in it. Maybe the open world stealth will wear thin, but it definitely hasn't happened yet. Next Friday I'll be picking up Super Mario Maker for Wii-U as well, and on the 29th we'll all get to witness the magic of Persona 4 characters dancing.
The games are going to start coming fast and furious, which means that I need to get playing! See you guys next time!
January is always a slow month for new releases, and this is one January where I am totally okay with that. I have a lot of games in my ever increasing backlog... Good thing I'm not playing them and have opted to play a ton of old games instead!
So, as you may have noticed, I've been streaming a lot more often lately. I am trying as hard as possible to share my love for Inazuma Eleven. I streamed all the way through the first game in less than a week and now I've moved on to the second. You can always check that out at Www.twitch.tv/drac96
I'm still working my way through Sunset Overdrive, but my interest is waning as the game goes on. That's the only "new" game I've been playing. I've spent a lot of time replaying old games this month. I replayed Pokemon Snap a few nights ago, and have been going through the original Super Mario. However, I will be writing here about the Donkey Kong Country series. I had never beaten the second one before, but now I have.
To go along with my more frequent streaming I did a playthrough of the Grim Fandango Remaster. Even though I played through it a few months ago for Extra Life, I still felt the need to play through the Remaster twice this past week. On my first playthrough I just wanted to see what it was all about, so I went through the game to get all of the trophies and listen to the director's commentary. I then went through it again on stream and beat it in under five hours.
Buckle up, it's game time!
Sunset Overdrive
It's official. I have been stricken with open world fatigue. Open world games are cool, but there is rarely anything compelling to do in the large open world, and the mission structure is almost always boring. Sunset Overdrive isn't really any different.
Yes, it has a whole load of style, but I just can't really ever get into it. The game is at its best when you're traveling seamlessly throughout the world. In terms of movement it reminds me of Jet Set Radio Future, but without roller-blades. For some reason the main character has magical shoes that allow him to grind on all surfaces, and he can inexplicably dash through the air. To me that's the best part of the game. The movement mechanics feel great, and make me as a player feel like I'm doing some legitimately cool stuff.
Traversing the world is fun, but shooting isn't.
Where it falls apart for me is that it is just another third-person shooter that takes place in an open world. Insomniac is great at creating zany weapons, but in the end you're still just shooting energy drink crazed monsters (basically zombies) with guns. It's even more frustrating, because almost every mission is a fetch quest, or deals with defending a single point. That sucks.
It's a shame the gameplay makes me feel this way, because I think Insomiac had some great ideas. The movement is amazing, and the world is filled with color and interesting characters. Normally these kinds of games keep me occupied, but I'm just getting a bit tired of them. I haven't played it in a few weeks, so hopefully when I boot it up later toady I'll feel refreshed. If not, I'll just have to take a break from open world games. It doesn't help that almost every release in recent memory has been open world...
Donkey Kong Country
During the SNES era I didn't personally own a lot of games, but I did rent a whole lot of them. I remember renting Donkey Kong Country one and two quite often. I personally was able to beat the first game, but never got a chance to do the second. For Christmas one year I was given Donkey Kong Country 3, which I still have now. I was also able to complete that.
New Years Eve Noukeo, Landers, and I were going to try and complete all three games on stream. However, Landers got sick, so we didn't go through with it. A few weeks later Landers and I decided to sit down and try to play through them all. We beat the first two games, but it took us nearly ten hours. We then went through the third game another day and that probably took us around two hours.
This isn't your Grandpa's Donkey Kong!
Just as I remember, these games are fairly difficult. Donkey King Country 2 is especially devious. The first two games took us a long time, because we weren't used to how the series handled at that point. If we did another run through, I'm sure we could do it much faster.
Prior to these play sessions I didn't like Donkey Kong Country 2 very much, but I've come around to it now. The music in it is incredible, possibly moreso than the other two entries in the series, which also have great music composed by Dave Wise. In fact, I'm listening to the song Klomp's Romp from the first stage of the game as I type this!
I feel that this series gets a lot of undeserved flak. People seem to think that the platforming hasn't aged well, and that the graphics look terrible. I still think the graphics look good, and they were top notch for their time. It's even more impressive when you think about how all three games were made within such a short time frame. The platforming is still some of the most satisfying I've ever played as well. It's something that's easy to learn, but hard to master. The series certainly ramps up in difficulty too. The first game starts easy and gets very hard. The second game starts easy and then immediately becomes punishingly difficult. We lost around thirty lives on a single level. After that we really had to step up our game. By the time we got to the third game I couldn't tell if it was much easier, or if your skills had just evolved from playing two.
This series is one that I have very fond memories of, and it was nice to see that reality matched up with my nostalgia for once. We're still planning on streaming it sometime, but we don't have any solid plans yet.
Grim Fandango Remastered
I'll say it before and I'll say it again, Grim Fandango is one of the greatest video games ever made. There are two games I attribute my continued video game obsession with, and they are The Ocarina of Time, and Grim Fandango. I first played Grim Fandango when I was around ten years old. It came out in 1998, and I played it a few years later. I was obsessed with Manuel Calavera and his journey through the Land of the Dead.
My dad worked in a computer store, and I would visit him there all the time and play a bunch of games. They mostly built computers and sold components, but they always had a shelf of software. It rarely ever sold, so the same games would mostly be there. One box that always caught my eye was Grim Fandango. Eventually I convinced them to let me play it, and I ended up with a burned copy of Grim Fandango. My dad left that job, but eventually went back to it a few years later. When he returned Grim Fandango was still there, and they decided to just give it to me. Sadly, I don't have the box, but I do have the original game discs.
I love all Grim Fandango related art.
It's been seventeen years since the game's original release, and now it has been remastered. The original publisher LucasArts was shut down when Disney acquired Lucasfilm. In a recent deal brokered by Sony the studio headed by Grim Fandango's writer Tim Schafer was given permission to remaster the game.
While I've played Grim Fandango countless times, many people have not. To make matters even worse it doesn't run easily on modern PCs. It only works, because fans have made programs and patches to get it to run. However, now anyone with a modern PC, PS4, or Vita can get in on the action. I've seen a lot of people complaining about this as a "lazy" port, but that's just plain wrong. As someone who's played this game recently I can tell you that the character models look a whole lot better. A whole bunch of lighting was added, you can play in 16:9, there are new camera-related controls, and director's commentary. Most important of all it's now available to many people in an easily approachable format.
I still think this would be the coolest tattoo ever.
I can't stress enough how much I think people should play this game. It is legitimately one of the best video game narratives I have experienced, which is helped by the fact that it's 90% narrative! The whole world comes together so well. Hell, it had incredible voice acting even in 1998! If you haven't checked this game out, you definitely should. At the very least you should watch my Extra Life stream where I played it.
Let the Hunt Begin!
There may have been no new games this month, there will be one in February. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate comes out on February 13th. Due to GameStop sucking, I won't be getting it until at least the 23rd. I won't get into it, but there's some stupid reason that they had to order the Monster Hunter 4 New 3DS bundle through their website. So I had to pay in full and get screwed on shipping!
I don't really care when I get it, because I'll get plenty of use out of it no matter when it comes. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was my first entry into the series and I played it for almost 400 hours. This game has more content, and new mechanics! I bet I'll play it for even longer than Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. I'm very excited.
Next month be prepared for some serious Monster Hunter 4 talk. See you guys next time.
