Game Time - 7/15/2012

I played a whole bunch more Final Fantasy VIII and I like it far more now. I can now safely say that it doesn't deserve all the shit it got back in the day. I fully stand by my observation that people were still high off of Final Fantasy VII, so they didn't like it very much. While it may be a whole lot different than previous entries in the series it was trying to do some interesting things. They don't all work, but they're certainly interesting.

Other than that this week was a bit light on the gaming. The Steam summer sale is now underway, but sadly my laptop isn't good enough to play a lot of the games I'd like to get. Despite that fact I was finally able to pick up Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. The unique puzzle gameplay always looked interesting to me. I had been waiting for it to go on sale on PSN, but it never ended up happening. So now I have the PC version and I think it's pretty rad.

I'm thinking about starting Final Fantasy VI, but I'm thinking I should finish VIII first. I don't know what I'm doing with my gaming time anymore. It's getting out of hand. I have to start finishing the games I buy. 

Anyways, it's game time!

Final Fantasy VIII

Last week I finished off my Final Fantasy VIII talk with how I didn't really like the story or the characters. Now that I'm about 40 hours into the game my feelings have changed. The story is now fairly good, while I still don't like any of the characters. They were all unappealing to me before, but now I at least understand why they act the way they do and that's a pretty huge thing. The character development has actually allowed me to understand the characters. 

The only character who's really "changed" at all is Squall. He started off as a total asshole and now he's uncomfortably emotional. I am now truly able to understand why people say he's the most emo Final Fantasy character. I have not personally experienced all of the characters in every game, but I think it's safe to say Squall takes the cake.

EMO!

I still find the battle system and mechanics as interesting as I did before, but now I have a much deeper understanding of them. With that being said, the system is really easy to break. You can farm 100 of a spell very easily, which will make most stats go up a whole bunch. It gets even more crazy if you equip the correct spells to each stat. Correctly junctioning spells makes the characters crazy strong, so when you use that in conjunction with the GF summoning it's almost impossible to lose. At 40 hours in I'm nearing the end of the 3rd disc and I'm unbelivably strong. I've been taking out most bosses in a few turns, which seems a little too easy. 

On the other end of the spectrum I can see how this game could be very hard. The junction system isn't exactly the most easy thing to understand, so if you're not doing what you're supposed to things could go south fast. Luckily I checked out a bunch of stuff on the internet before getting too deep, or I could have been in that same boat.

What does ST-A/D mean? I couldn't tell you.

Now that I've had some more time to think about it I really like Final Fantasy VIII. Despite that fact, I don't think I'm going to be finishing it for a while. I have a problem when it comes to Final Fantasy games that often carries over to other games (*cough* XENOBLADE *cough*). What happens is I'll get to the end, or very close to the end and just stop playing the game. I have no idea why. I can already feel myself nearing that point with VIII. I'm trying as hard as I can to push myself forward, but now I really want to play VI.

It's not even that I get stuck. In IX I did almost every sidequest. I could probably crush the final boss into oblivion. I just choose not to. It's a serious issue that I hope I can fix in the future.

Clash of Heroes

Clash of Heroes is not really like any other Might and Magic game. Instead of being a first person game, a strategy RPG it's a puzzle game. I don't exactly know why Ubisoft decided to produce it, but they did and it's actually pretty cool. It was originally on the DS, but it was later ported to PC and consoles with some DLC. I managed to purchase the PC version and it's DLC for just under $5.

So what's the deal with this puzzle game you ask? Well, it's all about battling. So far I've played through some of the campaign, which sets you up with a Hero who controls a select group of forces that they bring into battle. When a battle starts both sides spawn units on an 8x6 grid. There are three types of units, basic, elite, and champion. At first you only start off with basic units who will be one of three colors. The way you make them attack is by matching 3 like units of the same color (Just like Bejeweled!). Depending on the unit they'll have to charge for a few turns and then run straight to the other side of the screen for a set amount of damage.

Battles in Clash of Heroes generally look like this.

Elite units act a bit differently. Once again they'll be one of three colors, however in order to activate them you'll have to put two basic units of the same color behind them. They do more damage and take up more space than basic units, but you can only have up to ten of them in your party. Once they die, they die permanently, so it's a good idea to use caution when it comes to elites. It's possible to buy at monuments on the map, but they can be a bit pricey.

Champion units are basically the same as Elites, but it takes four basic units of the same color to make them attack. This isn't exactly the easiest thing to pull off, so they do crazy amounts of damage. I personally don't like to use Champion units, because as I said they take forever to charge. I usually end up getting worked before they charge up. Each hero has a certain amount of HP, which is lowered when units reach the back of the field.

This is what the game looks like outside of battle.

The part that makes this more like a puzzle game than a turn based battle system is that you have so many moves per turn. You can either move a unit from one place to another, or get rid of a unit. Calling for more units will also use a move. You can just go crazy and moves things around, but you can end up getting a lot more done. If you delete units in order to create matches then you'll get a move back so you can do a bit more.

What I don't like is that the battles are a bit random. Depending on how your units come into the battle you'll either be in a good situation or a bad one. There's never a set way the battle is going to go. I lost more than a few battles due to poor unit placement, which is kind of annoying. It would have been cool if each battle was set up in a certain away, because then each individual battle could have been a puzzle. This is why i like the puzzle challenged you can find around the map. They give you certain units and you have to figure out how to win in a single turn.

If you create multiple groups of the same color they form links.

Hearing me describe this puzzle game probably isn't the best way to figure out the intricacies of the game, but I did the best I could. I like what it's done so far and I'm interested to see where it's going.

PFFFFFT

I feel like I haven't played a brand new game in forever, which isn't true because I played Theatrhythm last week. Sadly this coming week isn't going to have any new games in store for me. The next release I'm looking forward to is Kingdom Hearts 3DS on the 31st. I would have been pumped about The Last Story, but they decided to delay it again. It's been out in Europe for a while, so I have no idea what's up with that.

I guess this is my way of saying that next week is going to be pretty lame. I'm going to be gone for a few days so I don't know if I'll get much gaming in.

See you next time!

     -Manny

Game Time - 7/8/2012

There haven't been a ton of interesting games released on the 3DS so far. I've bought almost all the first party games, but I've been looking for some interesting third party games. When I saw that Square was going to be releasing a Final Fantasy rhythm game I got kind of excited.

Final Fantasy Theatrythm was released this past Tuesday and I wasn't really expecting much from it. It's a rhythm game with Final Fantasy songs. I originally thought it was only going to be good for nostalgia, but it ended up being a whole lot more fun than I expected. I never thought I'd have racked up more than twenty hours on a handheld rhythm game (especially in such a short time span).

I've at least tried to play most of the Final Fantasy games. I even played a two week trial of XI. Somehow I ended up skipping over VIII though. I remember there being a whole lot of hate for it on the internet. Looking around now though I think that the hatred may have misplaced. VII was so loved that I think VIII could only have been a disappointment to fans of the series.

Playing the Final Final Fantasy VIII songs in Theatrhythm made me curious about what it had to offer. My curiosity got the better of me, so I ended up purchasing Final Fantasy VIII on the PlayStation Network. I've only played a few hours of it so far and I don't really know what to think. The battle system diverges greatly from the previous entries in the series while trying to keep the same overall feel. There are a lot of things going on and they're not all apparent at the start.

Somehow I ended up having a very Final Fantasy filled week without even intending to. Unexpected gaming can sometimes be the best kind though.

Final Fantasy Theatrhythm

As I mentioned previously I wasn't expecting much from Theathrhythm. Watching the trailers it looked like a standard rhythm game, and to top it off it looked super easy. If you're judging it from watching gameplay I'd highly recommend you try it out for yourself. The gameplay is a lot more entertaining than it looks and it gets viciously hard on the higher difficulties.

 What's interesting about Theatrhythm is that it tries to combine RPG elements with rhythm gameplay. You make a party of four Final Fantasy characters before you start playing any music. As you play the game they will level up and get stronger. Their stats and abilities won't change the gameplay very much, but they do make small differences. On top of that you can equip items for additional bonuses.

I wasn't expecting the RPG element of Theatrhythm.

At first glance it seems almost as if the RPG elements do absolutely nothing, but that's not exactly true. Sure, on the lower difficulties they don't really matter, but they do when you're trying your hand at harder songs and difficulties. When you mess up in a song you'll lose HP, so the more you have the more time you'll have before completely failing a song. Higher strength will allow you to defeat more enemies in battle, which will net you better and more frequent drops.

Yes, you heard me right. There are battles in this game and that's one of the cool things about it. There are three different game types that vary slightly in order to mix up the gameplay. They all revolve around the same basic concept. There will be one circle, or multiple circles on screen. Colored circles will fly at your circle and you have to tap, hold, or slide the stylus on the screen in time with the music. Red circles are for tapping, green for holding, and yellow for sliding. It's a simple enough concept, but once the notes start flying it can get pretty intense. Hitting notes perfectly will net you criticals, which give you the highest score.

Battles get a whole lot more difficult than this. 

The three game types are battle, field and event. In battle there are four circles (one for each party member) and the notes fly at each character. Each time you hit a note it will damage an enemy on the opposite side of the screen. As you may have guessed getting criticals does more damage. In field type your party leader is traveling across the world and you just have to tap along with the music. Event type is basically the same, except the notes all appear on a pre-made track while scenes from a Final Fantasy game appear in the background.

Theatrhythm is clearly trying to capitalize off of its immense nostalgia, which it does quite well. Where it truly got to me was that it had more depth than your average rhythm game. Despite the fact that it doesn't have a story and its cutesy art style makes me want to vomit I still keep coming back to it for more. There's just a lot to do. I want to unlock all of the characters and songs. For some reason I find it to be extremely fun. It's just an added bonus that I'm pretty good at it. I don't know how much longevity the game will have once I've played all of the songs a million times, but it's hitting the spot for me right now.

If you've been skeptical of this game I really think it's worth trying out. If you don't like Final Fantasy or it's music then this certainly isn't for you.

Final Fantasy VIII

Man, Squall is a serious douche. Before deciding to try out FFVIII I had only experienced him in Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia. Apparently neither of those games colored his character in a proper manner. He's just an outright asshole and on top of that he's super emo. He wants to be left alone and he doesn't want to hear what anyone has to say so far. He actually told someone to go talk to a wall instead of him. What a douche.

Aside from really disliking Squall (or Leon as every other game has tried to tell us) the game is up in the air for me. The battle system is a great departure from all of the previous games. While it's still turn based and has the same options a lot has changed that makes it feel very foreign. For starters it has a was bigger focus on summons. In previous games summons were just attacks used to do some heavy damage, but in VIII they do a whole lot more. They're called GF's and apart from being summoned in battle they make up most of a characters strength.

Not only do your party members level up, but your GF's do as well. They gain power and grant characters abilities. What's interesting is that by equipping magic to the GF's your character will gain stat increases and elemental damage. The fact that you can equip magic to a GF is another part of why VIII is so different. There is no MP, so you can potentially use spells unlimitedly. The catch is that you have to have them first.

There's a whole lot going on here.

When a character has a GF equipped they can use the ability called draw. At certain points in the overworld, or in battle characters can draw spells. This will give characters access to spells. When using draw you'll gain a set number of spell uses, so they're essentially like consumable items. This adds a whole different dynamic to battle, because you need to go in prepared. Spells are also the primary way characters gain strength. While leveling still increases their stats it's not very significant, or at least it isn't a few hours into the game. Equipping magic to the GF's does grant large stat buffs though.

On top of that there aren't very many weapons available. Each character only has a handful they can get throughout the game. Instead of acquiring them you have to upgrade a single weapon with materials acquired through battle or from shops. This makes the GFs even more important, because they're the main way to develop your party.

It's a whole lot different, but it seems like a cool concept. Square was trying to do something different and I can respect that. Learning to do everything is needlessly complicated, but it seems like there will be a ton of customization once I slog through all of the games lingo.

Maybe Squall gets better as the game goes on. At least I hope so...

As far as the story goes I have no idea what to think so far. Not a whole lot has happened. Squall goes to a school for soldiers known as SeeDs. Well, they seem more like mercenaries than soldiers. There is a war going on though and they're sent out on missions. That type of scenario seems ripe for cool characters, but everyone seems iffy so far. Hopefully everything picks up as the game goes on. It seems cool so far, so I'm going to keep on going with it.

EVO 2012

GET HYPE!

I took a break from watching this year's EVO in order to write this. The Super Street Fighter IV finals are on right now and I'm anxious to get back to watching. There's something awesome about the hype that surrounds fighting games. I almost lost my mind during the Marvel 3 finals. I really wanted Yipes to win, but sadly he was eliminated yesterday.


In fact, everyone I want to win gets eliminated during tournaments. Combofiend was doing fairly well, but he ended up losing to F Champ. I feel okay with F Champ taking the whole thing though, because at least it wasn't Chris G and his super lame Morrigan style.


It just occurred to me right now that most people will have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. For those that don't know EVO is the worlds largest annual fighting game tournament. It's intense, so if you haven't every seen it you should take a look.

My brother is super into fighting games so I've watched my fair share of tournaments with him. That's how I got to know about a lot of the people in the community. It's hard to explain, but it makes all of the matches way more exciting when you know who's playing.

Anyways, this has been another week in gaming. I have no idea what's coming up in the week ahead, but that's part of the fun.

See you next time.

     -Manny

Game Time - 6/3/2012

I'm back and it's way less hot, which means I'm far less irritable this week.

Last Game Time I mentioned that I ordered the DS RPG Radiant Historia. Everything I read or watched about the game couldn't have been any more praiseworthy. At first I was excited, but after playing it for myself I'm severely disappointed. I expected to be playing it nonstop, but I've been having to take frequent breaks. It just doesn't feel right.

During one of those breaks I picked up the 5th Humble Indie Bundle. If you haven't picked it up yet, I suggest that you do. Who doesn't want to get Amnesia, Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP, Limbo, and PSYCHONAUTS for the low price of whatever you want to pay? To top it off if you pay more than the average you'll also get Bastion. To be honest I only bought it to get the updated Psychonauts on Steam. I used to have it on disc, but it has since been lost.

Buying the Humble Bundles always makes me feel good. I get a ton of great games for a solid price and donate to charity all in one fell swoop. The part that makes me feel not as great about it is my terrible laptop. It used to overheat all the time for absolutely no reason, but no longer! When playing Psychonauts my laptop overheated and I completely lost my cool. In a fit of rage I disassembled the piece of garbage and found out that my heatsink was 100% clogged with dust. I removed it and now my laptop doesn't overheat at the slightest provocation! It was an exciting time to say the least.

Mission accomplished! It's Game Time!

Radiant Historia

I watched a handful of videos on Radiant Historia before I purchased it. In almost all of them the person speaking claimed that it was the greatest JRPG they had played in years. More than once it was compared to Chrono Trigger in the scope of it's greatness. As you may have heard Chrono Trigger is my favorite game, so the claims obviously piqued my interest. After playing I'm fairly confident in saying that the only thing the two games have in common is that their plots both feature time travel.

When I started Radiant Historia I liked it a lot, but the further I got into it the more I began to dislike what was going on and it's only getting worse. You take control of a character named Stocke. He's basically a secret agent for the kingdom he lives in. When he gets sent on a mission he's given a special book called the White Chronicle that allows him to travel back and forth to certain events in time. He uses the book to access a land called Historia where he talks to these two little kids who no one else can see.

This is the game's box art. Surprise, you get all of these characters in your party. 

Without getting too deep into a plot summary I'm just going to say that it's Stocke's job to fix certain events in time. There is one true timeline and it's being tampered with. This concept it pretty cool, but it's either executed super poorly or I'm missing something. I think the part where it gets weird is that there are two time lines that you have to jump back and forth between. You start the game in one and play for a while. Something bad happens that can't be avoided, so the only solution is to go to the other timeline where you'll do something to fix it. Once it's fixed you go back to the original timeline. This process repeats over and over, which makes the plot seem extremely disjointed.

You're forced to switch time lines just when the plot is actually getting interesting, so it kills almost all of the stories momentum. By the time you get back to the previous time line you've forgotten almost all about what the hell was going on, or at least I do. Stocke is the only one (at least so far) who knows about the time traveling, so it's almost like there are two completely different plots going on in the game. I guess what I don't like is that the entire game feels so segmented. If the game had just gone linearly going back and forth between the time lines I may feel better about it, but instead you're just not allowed to progress until you get farther in the other one.

This is what the timeline looks like. except without the Japanese. 

There are some interesting things going on in the plot, but I just don't know what to think. People are turning into sand spontaneously and I want to know all about that, but I almost don't want to keep playing. Normally I can look past this kind of issue with a plot, because the characters are interesting. In this case they're not, which is frustrating. All of the characters have so much potential, but it seems as if it won't be fully realized. I'm around 13 hours into the game and all of the characters still seem super flat and I'm willing to bet it's due to the way the time travel works. Stocke is the same person across the whole game, but even he seems like an empty shell. He acts cold towards everyone, but he secretly cares. Now, one would expect that to be the basis for his character, which would be expanded upon throughout the course of the game. Surprise, it still hasn't been expounded upon THIRTEEN HOURS INTO THE GAME. You know what I know about him? He's cold towards people, everyone inexplicably thinks he's the coolest, his best friend has a robot arm, and he doesn't really question what the deal with his time travel powers are.

Despite my displeasure with the plot I do enjoy the battle system. Unlike most turn based RPGs it's more focused on strategy than strength. While your levels and equipment do matter the way you approach each battle matters a whole lot more. The reason for that may be because it's a mashup of a turn based battle system and a strategy RPG (Final Fantasy Tactics-esque games). The three party members you have chosen appear on the right side of the screen, and the enemies appear on the left side on a grid. Using skills the enemies can get pushed around, which allows for a whole lot of strategy. Pushing enemies onto one another makes it so they can be attacked at the same time. You can target one foe at a time, or try and be more efficient by attacking them all at once. In order to do that you need to have your party do all of their skills in a row. This isn't always possible, so there is also an option to give up a characters turn so they can go multiple times in a row later. The best part is that I've leveled a lot, but I've never gotten overpowered. Instead of gaining ridiculous amounts of strength and defense the characters seem to learn more skills so that you have more options in battle.

It's possible to attack all of the enemies in the battle at the same time. 

I want to like this game, but so far I just haven't been able to do it. The distaste I've felt so far is something I haven't been able to shake. I'll probably end up putting it down for a few weeks and coming back to it. Perhaps I just need a palette cleanser.

Psychonauts

As I mentioned in the intro I played Psychonauts around the time of it's release in 2005. Since then I've lost the disc, so I was excited to get the new and improved Steam version. At first I was worried that the game wasn't going to be as good as it was when I was fifteen, but thankfully I was wrong. Psychonauts is still as good today as it was back then.

I'm a huge fan of Tim Schafer's work, so it's not surprising that I like Psychonauts so much. On top of Schaefer's influence it probably helps that Eric Wolpaw was writing for the game, because it's just funny. Humor is something that I think is hard to get right in a video game, but Wolpaw clearly knows what he's doing. Between Psychonauts and Portal he's made some genuinely funny games. They're not going out of their way to be funny, they're just doing it.

I guess there is something inherently funny about Psychonauts, because the concept is unconventional. It's all about a kid named Rasputin (Raz) who's run away from home in order to attend a summer camp for psychic children. A summer camp full of psychic kids gives plenty of opportunity for some pretty weird situations. They're all being trained so that they can learn to advance their powers and become international secret agents known as Psychonauts (Hence the game's name).

Look at these campers! I wouldn't be able to resist going to Whispering Rock! 

I think one of the reasons I like the game world so much is because I always wanted to experience a real summer camp. I only went to a day camp, which I hated with a burning passion. All of the kids at Whispering Rock are all cooler than the lame group of people I went to camp with. I guess Whispering Rock is the camp I wish I had gone to. Although my camp sadly would have had marginally less psychic kids. The world of Psychonauts immediately pulls me in and I love that.

In recent years I've heard a lot of people complaining about the platforming in the game. Playing it again I don't know what all the fuss is about. It's a platformer from the mid 2000's with some psychic powers thrown in as abilities. Nothing around that controlled super well. I didn't have any trouble with the controls when I was younger and on a much worse computer, so maybe people have higher standards than I do. While the controls can be annoying at times they've never pulled me out of the experience.

Psychonauts is a game that I think everyone should play. It's the definition of a cult classic. It was released to critical acclaim, but it completely bombed in stores. That may be due to the fact that the PS2 and Xbox ports were horribly broken, but it still should have done better than it did. If you were one of the people who played those awful versions of the game you should pick up the new and improved steam version. You just have to know what you're getting yourself into.

Ready for some E3!

This coming week it's E3! It's one of the biggest events in gaming, so I get super excited for it every year. I want a lot of cool stuff to happen this year, but I doubt it's going to. Sony and Microsoft are a year off from their new consoles so they probably won't have much to show off.

Nintendo on the other hand has a whole lot to prove. The Wii U will be out this coming "holiday" or so they claim. The true potential of the system hasn't been shown, but we can only hope that they'll bring out some awesome games. My worst nightmare is that the system will have a launch lineup like the 3DS and Vita. You would have to pay me to buy a Vita right now, because there's only one game I even want to play.

I don't want to get too much into speculation, so I'll just slip out of this post quietly.

     -Manny.

Review of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

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

Score: 5/5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     -Manny

Max Anarchy (Anarchy Reigns) Demo Impressions

Over the past few years PlatinumGames and Sega have partnered to bring us crazy games like Mad World, Bayonetta, and Vanquish. Platinum has proven that they know how to put on the crazy while still creating engaging gameplay to go along with it.

Platinum's new game Anarchy Reigns (Max Anarchy in Japan) continues their track record of sheer craziness. Much like Bayonetta and Mad world Anarchy Reigns is a brawler/action game. Interestingly enough it takes place in the same universe as Mad World and even focuses on some characters from that game, like the main character Jack. 

Anarchy Reigns was set to drop in the U.S. July 3rd and Europe a few days later, but now it's TBA in both territories. Just like all of Platinum's previous games Sega is publishing this one as well. It's no secret that Sega is in dire straights financially, so it's entirely possible that the game will only be released in Japan now. Platinum has stated multiple times that the game has been localized in it's entirety, so that information is keeping my hope alive.

Lucky for Japan their release date has not changed and the game will be released there on July 5th as planned. It's lame that it may not come out here, but the Japanese version is ripe for importing if you're into that kind of thing. For some odd reason the game will have the option for both English voices and text. Much to my surprise the demo that was put up on the Japanese PSN today had those English options as well. I immediately downloaded it, because I had to find out what it was all about.  

You can change it all to English!

Combat

First and foremost Anarahcy Reigns is a brawler, so the first thing I did in the demo was rush over to the training mode. I've watched my fair share of gameplay videos and I was eager to find it the gameplay felt as good as it looked and in my opinion it does.

Like most other brawlers Anarchy Reigns uses two main attack buttons. If you push square your character will bust out with a weak attack and if you push triangle they'll go with a heavy  attack. Creating combos is easy and they can get up to what seems like four consecutive hits. One, two, or three weak hits and then a heavy hit will make up a majority of what you're doing. You can vary the timing of the button presses and add directional inputs to change the attacks even further. This is basically how all brawlers work, but it's similar to Devil May Cry and Bayonetta in the way that your skill matters. If you get good enough you can do some really cool stuff. Learning to juggle opponents and how to get them into aerial combos seem to be a key parts of developing skill.

This video shows off a bit of training mode.

When you're fighting normal enemies you pretty much tear them apart. After two or three hits they'll explode and you can turn your sights to the next target. However, when it comes to fighting other characters and bosses it gets a whole lot more complex and fun. They won't just sit there and take your beatings. They'll hit you back and they'll hit hard. Blocking works well and it doesn't seem easy to abuse. Holding down R2 will set your character in place and they'll block incoming damage from the front. If you take too many hits the guard will break and you'll be susceptible to a lot of damage. If you notice your opponent start to block you can grab them out of it as well. 

The battles in Anarchy Reigns can get pretty hectic and blocking doesn't always work. In fact if an enemy hits you from behind you can be in pretty serious danger. Platinum took this into consideration and added a few things to help deal with those hectic situations. The first is the ability to do an area attack in exchange for some of your characters health. The attack will blow away all enemies around you so that you can escape and potentially avoid a great deal of damage.

If you're doing well enough in the battle an aura will appear around your character. If you then click in both sticks you'll enter rage mode. When in rage mode you'll attack much faster and be allowed to use your killer weapon without penalty. To use your killer weapon you'll need to hold the L2 button in conjunction with the light and heavy attacks. Attacking with the killer weapon is way more powerful. You can also use the killer weapon without rage mode, but it will take away your health.

Each character has a weapon. Jack uses a chainsaw, while Leo uses crazy leg swords.

The combat is well done and it seems like Platinum is trying to promote skilled play. Mashing buttons will do some damage, but if you time your hits and know what you're doing you'll kick some serious ass.

Single Player

I'm going to be honest when I say that I don't know what the hell was going on in the story of Anarchy Reigns, but I didn't care at all! It was straight up insanity. 

The game is going to feature two different campaigns, white and black. In the black campaign which I tried out first you play as Jack the main character from Mad World. It began with a ridiculous FMV video which looked beautiful. Blacker Baron, the pimp from mad world, and his consort Mathilda have tracked down Jack in order to take him down. 

This might sound a little bad, but I feel like this game is how Japanese people imagine American culture. Blacker Baron has an oddly high pitched voice and he says mother fucker, or fucker almost constantly. To top it off he has a grill that says fuck you on it. It's all ridiculous, but I love it. To make things even more odd almost all of the in game music is rap. With how weird everything is it all fits together well. The world they've created feels unique and definitely shows off a very Platinum style.

Jack is the main character if the black side, and Leo is the main character of the white side.

After a bit of talking a fight between Jack and the Baron takes place. It's what you'd expect, a battle. Near the end an event occurs that has bombs dropping down onto the stage. When you win you'll be given a score, which will translate into what level of medal you get. Platinum medals are the highest honor and it seems that the more points you get the more stuff you'll unlock in the game. 

On the white side you play as the cyborg Leo and his story is a lot less ridiculous. He walks out of a bar with his friends and is ambushed by a bunch of thugs. You then transition to gameplay, which allows you to roam around the immediate area. There are enemies to fight in order to get points, but the true goals are the pillars of light. Each pillar is a mission. Green pillars are free missions that you can do over and over to get points, while red pillars are main story missions. In Leo's he fights a weird lizard man. 

The look into the campaign isn't very deep, but what they showed has me very interested. Like all of Platinum's work the story seems to be bat shit crazy and I can't wait to see what else it has in store.

Multiplayer

I thought it was weird that Anarchy Reigns was going to have a large focus on Multiplayer when I first heard about it. Now that I've played it I still feel that way.

Games like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry need precise timing to pull off the more advanced maneuvers and Anarchy Reigns is absolutely no different. When you introduce lag into the equation it loses some of it's functionality. Then when you add in four opposing players it loses even more than functionality.

I realize that I'm an American playing on a Japanese demo's server for an unreleased game, so I'm willing to cut the multiplayer a little slack, but I wasn't too keen on what I played.

The demo has two available modes for play. Death match, which has four players in a free-for-all and team death match, which has two teams of four players. I only played a few games of team death match, because that's what quick match throws you into. I played five matches and in four out of those five matches my team was mercilessly slaughtered. 

This was basically happening to me the entire time I played multiplayer.

Whenever I would spawn I'd find the nearest player and try to attack them. It almost never worked out in my favor. I'd try to block, but the delay made it so I didn't start blocking before they got me into an insane combo. There were times when I'd get into a fight with someone and it would go fairly well, but then I'd instantly die when someone attacked me from behind. Since the camera is positioned behind the back it's almost impossible to tell when someone is coming up from the back. 

To add to my woes I would get double teamed a lot. If two people attack you at the same time you're screwed. As far as I can tell there is no way to get around it. One person will combo you, then the other and it'll continue in an endless cycle until you're dead or they choose to leave you alone. This wouldn't be a problem if each team member fought someone, but I had a lot of people disconnecting. People were also using items to instantly kill me, which was getting extremely frustrating.

Before I played the game I expected the multiplayer to be pure chaos and it is, but not really in a good way. I kept getting super frustrated, because it felt like there was absolutely nothing I could do. The same solid base mechanics were still there, they just weren't working at the speeds I needed them to. 

The last match I played I ended up doing fairly well, but that was because half of the other team dropped out for some unknown reason and were replaced with computers who didn't move at all. When I was fighting people in that match everything seemed to be going well. At first I thought that the problem was just me, but it seems to be that whatever team gets a kill first either shuts out or decimates the other.

A lot goes in in a match of Anarchy Reigns.

In each multiplayer match you'll accumulate points, which seem to go towards some type of unlock system that isn't really present in the demo. At the start of a match you can pick an ability for your character that modifies something about their moves. There are only a handful to choose from in the demo, but there are a ton of locked boxes that I assume you get by gaining a whole bunch of points in the retail version.

I know I sound fairly dismissive of this, mainly because I am. The concept of a multiplayer brawler just doesn't play in my mind. The fact that I'm an American playing on a Japanese server doesn't help at all. If the game ever does come out in America I'll give the multiplayer a fair shot, but right now it's not looking too hot from my perspective. I'll try it out some more later this week to see if my opinion changes any. If it worked properly it could be super fun, because the core gameplay is fun.

Conclusion

I've been looking forward to Anarchy Reigns for a long time. I wasn't expecting it to be anything spectacular, but I came away from the demo liking it a whole lot. The combat is simple, but seems to have a lot of depth to it. It's not exactly like Bayonetta and DMC, but it's similar. In fact it reminds me a lot of God Hand. Even the overall style of the reminds me of God Hand. 

It sucks that it's not coming out here in July anymore, but it sucks even more that it might not come out here at all anymore. Sega isn't even going to be showing the game at E3 and it's completely finished. This may be the first game I ever import, because I just have to see what the final product is like.

The demo is definitely something you should try out if you've been interested in this game at all. It's really easy to set up a Japanese PSN account for free and you'll have no problem finding the demo. On the 360 the demo is restricted to Gold users right now, but tomorrow a free weekend is starting so you'll be able to pick it up then. 

I recommend giving it a try. It's fun at the very least. 

     -Manny

Game Time - 5/27/2012

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

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

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

Game Time is here once more!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh yeah, Midnight Bahamut is in the DLC too.

Viewtiful Joe : Red Hot Rumble

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

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

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

Defeating bosses is also an objective.

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

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

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

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

Ghost Trick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IT'S SO HOT!

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

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

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

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

     -Manny

Game Time - 5/20/2012

I've played a few odd video games in my day, but this week I may have topped everything.

To start the week I got a ridiculous craving for some story based rhythm games. My personal favorite game of that type is Parappa. In an attempt to satiate that craving I picked up the PSP re-release of the PlayStation classic. It didn't exactly turn out the way I expected. 

Since Parappa didn't end up being what I wanted I needed another game. I ended up getting the PSP re-release of the PS2 game Gitaroo Man. Somehow I never ended up buying the PS2 version. It's a shame, because I thought the game was freaking awesome, but the PS2 version is super expensive now. It might be a bit weird, but it was just what I needed.

As if Gitaroo Man wasn't ridiculous enough I picked up the super obscure PS2 game Chulip. If you want to get a little crazy there should be a heart between the u and the l, but I'm not that intense so there will be no hearts here. I was trying to get rid of my unneeded bookmarks, when I came across the Amazon product page for the game. I bookmarked it my freshman year of college. After looking up a few videos I decided to take the plunge down into weird town and ordered it online. I don't want to talk it up, but I'm confident in saying it's the weirdest game I've ever played.

I don't know how this week ended up getting so weird, but it really did. So get ready for an all weird edition of Game Time.

Parappa The Rapper (PSP)

I love Parappa. What's more lovable than a rapping dog who's in love with a sunflower? The answer is nothing. 

All joking aside, I really like Parappa. It's super weird, but more than that it's creative. Like most rhythm games it would be absolutely nothing without good music. Each rap is about a different situation that Parappa needs to overcome and they're all fairly entertaining. In fact, I'm listening to Prince Fleaswallow's Rap now, and I recommend you do the same. 

For Some reason Parappa is attracted to a sunflower.

The gameplay of Parappa is very similar to Simon Says. The Master will do their verse first to demonstrate and as Parappa you must copy the button presses with the correct rhythm. It's exceedingly simple, so it may not be engaging for some people. This may be the reason why games of this type don't get released very often anymore. I think the reason Parappa got away with it was because of its sense of style. All of the character's are made to look like paper. When you pair that with the fact that it's based around animals rapping it's just an interesting experience.

Despite my love for Parappa I don't own a copy of the PS1 game. I did play it when I was younger though. I do however have Parappa 2, and the series spin-off Um Jammer Lammy. Since the PS1 version of Parappa is so expensive I thought I'd try to round out my collection with the PSP version. Much to my dismay I didn't have as much fun as I wanted to.

The PSP version of Parappa certainly doesn't have the funky flow.

The sense of style and the awesome music remained, but the gameplay just wasn't working for me at all. I passed the first level with flying colors, but the further into the game I got the worse I was. When I hit the 4th stage I hit a brick wall and couldn't pass it for hours. I thought that I was hitting every button at the exact time I was supposed to. The timing in Parappa is odd, but I could hear Parappa saying what he should have, when he needed to. I got so mad I thought about smashing my PSP, but instead I went to the internet to see what I was doing wrong.

It turns out that the PSP version of Parappa isn't a good port. In fact, it's downright bad. I found numerous forum topics and even a news story on Destructoid about how the timing wasn't right in most of the songs. I also found people saying that the delay was due to the PSP having low battery. Much to my amazement that was actually the problem. When I plugged in my PSP the game worked totally fine. I wasn't doing anything different, but I was passing all of the songs. This is simply inexcusable for a handheld game. You should definitely be able to play the game without having the battery charged fully.

Gitaroo Man Lives!

After my poor experience with the PSP version of Parappa I didn't have high hopes for the PSP version of Gitaroo Man, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I had never played Gitaroo man before this and now I'm upset that I didn't. As you'd imagine it's a rhythm game based around the guitar. It wouldn't be a proper rhythm game unless its story was utterly ridiculous bordering on nonsensical though. Gitaroo man has that going for it too.

This is Gitaroo Man. The game is just as ridiculous as he looks!

The story follows U-1 (A play on U-2) and he's basically a loser. He's trying to impress a girl, but he just can't seem to do it. While he's sulking in his room a weird little demon attacks him and his dog Puma gives him a guitar. The guitar is known as a Gitaroo and U-1 can wield it to become the mighty Gitaroo Man. When in his super form he can shred jammin' hot riffs in order to take down his enemies.

The story ends up taking him to planet Gitaroo, which is under the control of the evil Zowie ( A play on David Bowie). Since he's in possession of the last Gitaroo, U-1 must rise to the occasion and save the planet. In doing so he gains the courage to get with the girl he wanted. Typing the plot out like I just did makes it sound a lot less crazy than it actually is. You really have to play it, or see it to understand what I'm talking about. 

The gameplay of Gitaroo Man isn't like your average rhythm game. While you still need to push the buttons at the right time there's a bit more to it than that. Each song in Gitaroo Man is a battle. You'll start by charging up your health with the sweet sound of your guitar. A blue line will move towards the middle of the screen. Your job is to follow that line with the analog stick in order to activate it. Red circles will appear along the line and when they reach the middle you'll need to push circle in order to have U-1 play a note. If the circle extends you'll have to hold circle for that amount of time. This same method is used to do damage to your opponent. 

Things become more like a normal rhythm game when you're defending against enemy attacks. Buttons will fly towards the middle of the screen and if you time the presses right U-1 won't take any damage. The whole battle concept is interesting and it's executed fairly well. It makes you feel like you're doing more than just making the music keep going. 

Chulip

As I wrote up the previous two sections I realized that they don't sound super weird. While they are actually weird, you have to see them to understand. That's how I know Chulip is on a whole new level of craziness, because it still sounds weird even when it's typed out. It's a game based completely around kissing.

Yeah, that's right. It's a game about kissing. There is no combat, only exploration and kissing. You take the role of a boy who has just moved to a new town. He's recently had a dream about kissing his dream girl and it turns out she lives in town! Sadly she doesn't want to kiss him, because he's poor and has a bad reputation. Don't worry, it's just as shallow and ridiculous as it sounds. 

In order to kiss the dream girl under the tree of love (It's a normal tree with the face of an old man peeking out) the hero must first kiss other denizens of Long Life Town in order to get his reputation up. In order to keep the premise as weird and creepy as possible you have to name both the boy and the dream girl. If there's anyone you want to kiss really bad Chulip offers you the chance to creepily base your entire experience around them.

You're going to be kissing everyone in town with those sweet sweet lips.

Again. there is no combat in this game, only exploration, item collection, train riding, saving on the toilet, sleeping on the floor, and kissing. At the beginning of the game the hero has a weak heart. When people say mean things to him, you pick up poop out of a trash can, get rejected when trying to kiss someone, or get hit by something your heart will be broken. It starts at 5/5, but the more people you kiss the more you'll be able to take. Right now I'm up to 60/60 and I can take quite a bit of rejection and poop. 

So how do you kiss people? The easiest people to kiss are the citizens who live underground. At certain times or under certain conditions they'll dig up out of the ground. Fumes will circle their head and if you move too fast they'll beat the hell out of you and your heart will break. The key is to sneak up on them and wait until they're no longer angry. Eventually music notes will appear around their head and that means it's time to plant one on em'. Each time you successfully kiss someone you'll be rewarded with an exquisite scene. You and the character you kissed will spin around in space while the word CLEAR appears in all rainbow as fireworks go off. Oh yeah, also weirdly sensual saxophone music plays. 

Why yes, that is a man in a trash can he's kissing.

The other option is to kiss normal non-angry citizens. However, they're a lot tougher to handle. Instead of waiting for them to calm down you're going to have to do a quest for them. Most of them are super obscure and they're borderline impossible to figure out. The developers knew this, because the instruction manual doubles as a strategy guide, which is bananas. It's not a lame list of hints either. It literally tells you how to kiss everyone and complete everything. I wanted to try and play without using it, but after a certain point it was impossible. The game just doesn't give you enough information. I'm pretty close to the end and I've had to use the manual quite a bit.

For some reason I like this game in an un-ironic way. There's something relaxing about it. All you do is try to figure out how to kiss people. A lot of the game involves waiting and traveling. There are four areas and none of them are super large, but they're all interesting enough to explore. Since the game is so insane I still don't have a full grasp on it yet. If you want to see some of it for yourself I suggest looking up a lets play of it on Youtube. There are a few of them and they're quite funny.

SO WEIRD

I used to think Parappa was weird, but it pales in comparison to Chulip. I just don't understand how such a thing was created and I especially don't understand how or why it was every translated into English. I can almost guarantee it didn't sell well. At least they can say that the idea was original?

I still don't quite understand how I got sucked into this past week of weird gaming, but I kind of liked it. I can only hope that the trend continues on into the coming weeks.

This has been another edition of Game Time. Have a nice week and maybe try to kiss everyone in your town.

     -Manny