Saxton Hale supports hard mode!

Hello, readers, and welcome to this week’s editorial-word-thing! If my love of Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls were not a dead giveaway, I really enjoy difficult games. Sure, beating games on super hard mode gives a player a lot of bragging rights, and some games attach achievements and unlockable game modes to clearing the harder difficulties, but I, personally, just love the feeling of barely beating a boss or level. There are a lot of ways games can make themselves appear more difficult, and many new gamers fail to see a point in “hard mode” or “game overs.” Hopefully I can shed a little bit of light on both of these areas, after all, it is one of my favorite parts of any game.

So, why do games have “game over” screens? It seems silly that developers would pour months into making their games, praying that gamers can experience and enjoy the entire game, only to include setbacks and difficulty spikes that force the player into a game over, right? A good difficulty curve makes a game more memorable; a player is going to remember the ten game overs received in the final dungeon of doom a lot more than that boss the party killed in a few hits earlier. Any rewards from a difficult spot, especially cutscenes, are going to feel a lot more like rewards, and less like something the game throws at players to progress the story along. The biggest thing to come out of a difficult game, though, is the lack of hand holding the game does. We have all played games long enough to know what to do in most cases, and things like games forcing players through tutorials, pointing players directly to the next quest spot, or respawning players right where they died at simply feel like insults after all these years.

Grinding is never fun, but leveling up is.

Of course, hard games can feel a bit insulting or downright infuriating at times, too, depending on what methods the game uses to spike its difficulty. One of the main ways of making games feel harder, by increasing enemy levels by large amounts, and forcing players to grind, is not even a real increase in difficulty at all; a good RPG should challenge players by forcing them to modify old tactics and come up with new strategies on the fly, like the cliche elemental-weakness changing boss or Demon Wall, not by ripping players away from the story so that they can go punch slimes for ten more levels. Another poor method, which also happens to be from RPGs, is poor balancing of items and skills. Oblivion, for example, is horribly guilty of this; in Oblivion, characters who fight with magic or ranged weaponry are much weaker than a pure face-to-face melee character, and spend a majority of their fights running backwards, throwing spells and arrows at a single target, and the second two or three more monsters join the fight, players might as well concede defeat and reload their last save. To a somewhat lesser degree, games that employ skill trees, such as Breath of Death and Dragon Quest IX, can also cause players to put themselves in a tight spot; since these games give players various skills to pick from upon each level-up, it is possible to pick skills in such a way that characters are much weaker than the game intends for them to be by a certain level or area. In Breath of Death it is possible to give a certain character skills that only work in a single dungeon, while Dragon Quest IX will not say a word if the player tries to pour all of their skill points into a talent tree a character is not able to use. While it is possible for players to research the best possible character types and skill set ups for a game, it is no less frustrating when a player realizes fifteen hours into a game that they picked the wrong skill a few hours back.

Difficulty for action games is a little harder to pull apart. Recently, extremely hard action games have begun to carve out a niche for themselves with games like Ninja Gaiden and Demon’s Souls, and many other games feature optional insanely difficult modes, such as Resident Evil 5‘s professional mode and Muramasa‘s shigurui mode. The same infuriating, horrible, dirty methods of increasing difficulty in any kind of action game are the exact same methods that make these games what they are, . Instant death is easily the biggest issue, though; not only is it a massive slap in the face, but killing players outright removes the stress and fear that comes from being almost dead in favor of pushing players back to their last save point. Being left with barely enough health to survive the next attack, despite how easy the game may be, can make any situation feel like the hardest, scariest part of a game ever, one false step and the player might lose all their hard earned progress so far. Being almost dead is one way the fights in Dark Souls and Monster Hunter seem so fun. Another mixed method is limiting a player’s resources, which is practically a requirement for survival horror games, but in other situations this method can make games feel impossible. For example, the scarcity of ammo in Fallout 3 can put particularly trigger happy players in situations where they are out of bullets very often, there were tons of points in Dark Souls where I found myself wishing I had just one more potion, and Cave Story+‘s hard mode limiting the player to only three HP(read: not very much) makes the game nearly impossible.

The feeling of finally beating hard mode is always great.

Despite how much I may hate some dirty tricks games use to up the difficulty, I still love trying to overcome the hard parts, be it grinding, trying to fix an underpowered character, or limping through a dungeon with no potions left. I would love to see this “super hard mode” niche continue to grow for action games, and possibly even reach the more traditional-style RPGs, but in the meantime, there is always Dark Souls and the Shin Megami games to replay. Of course, there are many more ways games can be difficult, such as throwing players into unfamiliar situations, limiting the players ability to level above enemies in an RPG, and so on, but that is what the comments and future articles are for! What are some readers’ opinions on difficulty or favorite hard games? Does difficulty even make a difference, or does it ruin good games?

3D Dot Game Heroes boxart

With everyone going crazy over Skyward Sword, it seems fitting to review another amazing Zelda game! One so amazing that it does not even have The Legend of Zelda in its title! 3D Dot Game Heroes does such a great job mimicking the classic top-down Zelda games that it almost feels odd that the player’s character is not set to Link by default. Dungeons play out just like one would expect from a not-quite-Zelda game, and the various sidequests and NPCs in town all parody other gaming classics. However, despite all of its 8-bit charm and retro game nods, 3DDGH feels strangely empty and railroaded compared to the older Zelda games it tries so hard to impress.

The dungeons in 3DDGH are just like what one would expect from The Legend of Zelda. The player, who is definitely not-Link, runs around the dungeon, hunting for the boss key. In each dungeon, not-Link finds a new weapon to use throughout his journeys, but unlike the newer Zelda games, the boss of each dungeon does not require the player to use the dungeon’s treasure. Instead of the puzzle-like boss fights of newer games, boss battles involve bashing the boss with a sword until he dies. The first two bosses can prove to be somewhat challenging, due to the players low amount of hearts, but as the game progresses and the player gets access to a larger health bar, potions, and magic, the bosses get easier. By the end of the game, it is possible to simply chug potions while slashing the final boss to death.

3DDGH lets players design any kind of 8-bit hero they want!

Sadly, 3DDGH lacks many puzzles throughout the game, unlike its Zelda role-models. There are a few puzzles in the game, such as simple block sliding puzzles and a labyrinthine forest, but the bulk of the gameplay lies in smashing things with a sword, an area which 3DDGH makes some interesting improvements in. Rather than having one or two swords, such as a wooden sword and Master Sword, 3DDGH features a ton of swords, ranging from the stereotypical “hero’s sword” to a giant fish. Each sword can be upgraded to do more damage, have a farther reach, or do various magical effects. The sword upgrade system is tons of fun and lets players have different weapons for all kinds of situations, but in nearly every case, the player needs to be at full health to use the upgraded swords. With even half a hearts worth of damage, all of the strength and size improvements to one’s sword vanish. Yes, it is possible for players to grind up a sword with strength high enough to top bosses in a few swings, so one could argue that requiring a full health bar for all those upgrades to work balances the game out, but that does not make it any less frustrating!

Believe it or not, that is one of the smaller swords.

3DDGH features all of the locations one would expect from a Japanese fantasy game. A magical forest, a volcano, a desert, and so on. And with those locations comes a cast of characters all heavily inspired by other popular retro games. Nearly every NPC features some kind of joke our reference about another game, of course, the bulk of the jokes will not be understood by any sane video game fans, since they are almost all Dragon Quest related. Catching a reference or two when chatting with NPCs is always a little funny, but it also makes it extremely hard to differentiate between an NPC who simply exists to spew out jokes and an NPC who is giving the hero information about a sidequest; 3DDGH features a lot of sidequests. Ranging from grabbing an item for a hidden cave, to playing tower defense minigames, to running items back and forth between NPCs, and more, these little fetch quests usually give the hero a heart container or sword, and the best part is that many of them are time sensitive! While it is perfectly possible to beat the game without hunting down every little heart piece and bonus sword, players paranoid about finding everything will definitely need to use a guide.

While, unlike Metroid, Zelda-like games are known for exploration, 3DDGH really drops the ball when it comes time to adventure. The game is always eager to point the player in the right direction, and anytime the player must trek through the world to find a new dungeon, the game is nice enough to put a marker on the player’s map, right where the dungeon entrance is. A few of the dungeons end up being pretty far from towns, but there’s a massive lack of anything interesting between towns and dungeons. Players may find an item shop or fairy fountain along the way, but other than that, the game spends no time trying to entertain the adventurous. It is by no means a game breaker, but keeping the time sensitive sidequests in mind, players might beat themselves up as they scour every inch of the game, paranoid about missing any bit of extra content.

3DDGH still manages to be an enjoyable experience, especially for anyone who has been playing games since the early days of the NES. The dungeons and bosses are all very fun, and they all prove to be a pleasant challenge. The constant retro references always make chatting with NPCs worthwhile, and the whole sidequest issue will only bother perfectionists. Unlike the newer Zelda titles, 3DDGH uses a regular controller! So should one find themselves with broken arms after flailing through a session of Skyward Twilight Sword, 3DDGH is the perfect alternative!

Dark Souls' standard edition box art

Simply put, Dark Souls is an amazing game. As soon as the player steps out of the game’s tutorial area Dark Souls begins to pull itself away from Demon’s Souls, making Demon’s feel like an early demo version of Dark Souls. On a technical level, Dark Souls received a much needed balance to the status and magic systems of Demon’s Souls making the game as a whole much easier to play. The inclusion of Bonfires, Dark Souls’ fancy term for checkpoints, over the level selection area in Demon’s Souls, along with the open world format not only makes Dark Souls much easier to progress in, but it also leads to the game feeling more like a 3D Symphony of the Night rather than the spiritual sequel to The Game from Hell. Of course, the term “easier” is used lightly here; Dark Souls is still very difficult when it wants to be, and slowly weans players off of frequent checkpoints until entire levels lack any Bonfire at all. But even with its much better soundtrack, strangely engrossing story, improved graphics, and awesome assortment of magical treasures, Dark Souls has to have one major weak point; sadly, that weak point is its online play, which in some ways is actually worse than it was in Demon’s Souls’. Forget about online play, though! Someone with the determination to finish Demon’s Souls probably has no friends to play with, which is all the more reason for them to shut up and buy Dark Souls!

Demon’s Souls was not very friendly to dexterity-based characters or Red Mage-like hybrid characters, but thanks to some very boring work done on the numbers in Dark Souls, nearly every character type and play style becomes viable. Additionally, upgrades to weapons and stats make a noticeable difference in effectiveness. Simply upgrading a sword one level or increasing strength by a few points can knock down the difficulty of an area quite a bit. The ailment system, which previously featured three ailments that all did the same thing, now includes three very unique ailments that, unlike Demon’s Souls again, can actually be inflicted upon enemies. Bleed causes a massive burst of damage after a few quick attacks, poison does what poison always does, and the monster-only curse ability instantly kills the player and permanently halves their health. However, despite all of the effort put into balancing the numbers out, the elemental system still sucks; everything everywhere is weak to fire or non-elemental attacks, and the few enemies that have a major weakness to the other elements are just as weak to non-elemental damage.

The Bell Gargoyle is one of the first major bosses players will encounter.

Rather than sticking to the level-by-level progression of Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls features an open world, with dungeons and checkpoints scattered all over. The world of Dark Souls is absolutely amazing to explore. There are just the right amounts of shortcuts and treasures in each area to keep wandering throughout a dungeon extremely interesting the first time through, and nearly every area has an extremely strong mini-boss monster for players to hunt down and kill on a return visit. While the aim of Dark Souls is still killing the boss monsters, the areas are so amazing that they may drive players to slay a boss not to progress the story, but simply to continue the exploration. Much like Symphony of the Night, each area leads players to a boss fight or power up that progresses the story or strengthens the player.

Dark Souls is easier than Demon’s Souls, but that is not really saying much. Early on, checkpoints always seem to be right where they are needed, and time spent leveling up really makes a difference, but that does not mean Dark Souls is Baby’s First Action-RPG. Levels still remain a pleasant challenge, but no longer resort to shoving players down pits or pushing them face first into insanely strong enemies. Rather, the real difficulty comes from rationing out the limited healing items players get at each checkpoint, because it is very, very easy to spend up all of one’s potions before getting even remotely close to a boss fight. Checkpoints become less frequent as the player progresses through the game, and the final handful of levels have absolutely no checkpoints at all, just like good old Demon’s Souls.

Players get to see this message a lot!

The most disappointing aspect of Dark Souls, and the one it should have improved upon the most, is its multiplayer. It is basically the same as Demon’s Souls, players can summon other players into their world for help, or they can invade the world of others and wreak havok. But this time around, players need to be in human form for either, and reaching human form requires a very valuable and rare resource, aptly named “Humanity,” which has many other uses that are all much better than playing with strangers. Co-op play still requires players to throw down “sign” and wait for someone to decide they are worth playing with, meaning it is impossible to guarantee being summoned by a friend. Covenants, Dark Souls version of factions or guilds, exist that make cooperative and player-versus-player play easier, but there is no excuse, other than “it would make the game too easy!”, for players not being able to simply send PSN friends an invite for a quick boss fight or PvP match. If balance is an issue, simply reducing the rewards players receive if they chose to hand-pick partners from their friend list would be an easy fix.

From start to finish, Dark Souls is a great game, and can easily absorb fifty hours of one’s life. Rather than trying to make its players cry, Dark Souls gives players a wonderful fantasy world to explore, while keeping the difficulty at a reasonable level. If Castlevania plus Monster Hunter without the boring start-up quests of Monster Hunter sounds appealing, go pick up Dark Souls as soon as possible, but anyone expecting an MMO-like multiplayer experience should look elsewhere.

Payday features six missions, but each one boils down to one of two basic types, either break-ins or escorts. Break-ins require finding and using tools to reach the loot, and escorts, obviously, involve pushing a horribly slow and unarmed NPC through a long level. The break-in missions force players to wait around for a few minutes as the tools do their jobs, all while fighting off waves of police and SWAT members, who easily lose sight of the player and run away if players hide long enough. Escort missions involve a little more run-and-gun, but it is still best for players to totally ignore the invincible escort NPC and hide until the SWAT team grows bored and heads home. The law enforcers are not particularly dangerous, but ammo is so hard to come by that it is simply best to ignore the waves of cops and SWAT that seem to rush the players every five minutes. Gamers familiar with first-person shooters will easily be able to finish missions in around twenty minutes, and could easily clear them faster if the damned tools and escort NPCs did not take over five minutes to complete their tasks.

The upgrade tree, while supposedly full of abilities and guns, seems to hardly affect the game. Completing each of Payday’s missions once does not give the player enough EXP to unlock a new weapon, or even a power-up more useful than an ammo restoring gym bag. Every player starts with a lame SMG and pistol, and every player will be stuck with them for a long time. Luckily enough, the law enforcers are only slightly more varied in their weapons. Normal police officers have pistols, while SWAT members carry rifles, shotguns, riot shields, and the pathetically easy-to-avoid taser. For players that want to constantly grind through levels to get guns, there will be a lot of replay value here, but anyone not willing to invest multiple runs into every level will likely never see a new gun.

One of the more armored SWAT members.

As mentioned earlier, the law enforcers are so dumb that players can simply hide until they run off, and at times, cops will even shoot innocent civilians. Cops hardly pursue players, almost as if they were glued to their spawn points. While they are accurate enough to gun down a player out in the open, the cops’ health are so pathetically low compared to the player’s that it is possible for players to stand out in the open soaking up bullets as they gun down the police officers. Payday, surprisingly, does not feature health regeneration like many modern shooters, and there are absolutely no health packs throughout levels, which would actually make the game much harder were it not possible to rescue a dying teammate and instantly restore his health by a large amount, similar to Left 4 Dead’s bleed-out and revival system.

Payday at least deserves a round of applause for keeping itself somewhat mature. There is no undue violence or gore, players are encouraged to let the civilians live, and players will actually receive penalties for shooting innocents. The party of crooks players can control do use some strong language, but each crook is of a different nationality and keep themselves from falling into stereotypes.

Level up! Finally, a new gun!

Payday is definitely not able to stand up against other sixty dollar triple-A titles, and given that Team Fortress 2 is free-to-play, it is not even able to compare with other low-cost FPS titles. One could argue that Payday should not be compared to competitiv natured titles like Call of Duty or the amazing Team Fortress 2, since Payday is a cooperative shooter. However, Left4Dead and Borderlands are also cooperative FPS games, and are much cheaper and of a much higher quality. Of course, Payday is Overkill’s first foray into the gaming world, and definitely shows that they have a lot of room to grow, but hardcore FPS fans should not expect to find the next genre-defining experience in Payday.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes.

Sideway: New York Box Art

Before this review gets started, a few short things need to be said. First, let us all thank Fable Week for pushing this review back on my schedule, and next, seriously, thank Fable for pushing this review back. Until just recently, Sideway: New York had a very nasty save bug that would randomly wipe files completely or simply forget to activate the auto-save feature, but this issue seems to be resolved now. While the bug seems to be have been patched out, anyone playing an older version of the game for whatever reason, and possibly owners of the newest version may still experience this bug, so proceed with caution, and avoid any emotional attachment to Sideway‘s save data. Now then, on with the review.

Sideway: New York is a two-dimensional platformer that, as the title suggests, takes place in New York city. The three-dimensional city of New York serves as the backdrop for all of the levels, while the player, enemies, and other platforming elements are shown as flat graffiti art on building walls. Sideway also features an entirely original soundtrack full of nothing but rap tracks, which was likely included to add to the game’s ghetto atmosphere, but may not sit well with certain gamers. Sideway is not nearly as easy as, say, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, but it is no Super Meat Boy either; large portions of some levels are completely danger-free walks through the park, and when the game actually does decide to kill the player, it is the result of an instant death trap or a streak of bad luck on the player’s part. Sideway wont bring anything new or exciting to the hardcore platforming fans, but for casual platform fans or as an “every now and then” game, Sideway will definitely prove entertaining.

'Help! I don't want to go!'

The biggest problem with Sideway is its atmosphere. The game paints itself up to appeal to rap culture loving dude-bros, yet tries to play like a classic platformer. Anyone who does not actually like this kind of music will immediately run to the options to turn the game’s soundtrack down or completely off, yet the game can feel empty without any kind of soundtrack in the background, even if it is rap music that hardly compliments the gameplay. The graffiti enemies and cartoon-like 2D visuals all look very nice, but there is hardly any variation in the appearance of things; enemies and platforms in Chinatown look just like the enemies and platforms in the first few levels of the game, for example. The paint theme and cartoon visuals give off the impression that Sideway should be taking place in a much more lighthearted environment rather than the ghetto streets of gangster New York, but it is very easy to look beyond the run down streets of New York and its unending rap soundtrack in order to enjoy this game.

As for its gameplay, Sideway: New York puts a lot of stress on collecting all of the score tags, secret tags, and paint power-ups throughout the level rather than running fast, saving the princess, or jumping on turtles and mushrooms. The score tags are scattered throughout the level like coins in a Mario game or rings in Sonic, and are usually out in the open and players can very easily collect all of them on the first or second time through the level. The secret tags and various power-up abilities, however, are usually very well hidden; some hidden tags require the player to return to a level once a certain power-up ability is learned, while others are cleverly hidden behind 3D objects in New York or past very tricky platforming sections. It can be very difficult to hunt down all of the secret tags in a level, even after five or six runs, but players simply looking to reach the end of each level will not find things that difficult. Many of the spike pits and other traps can easily be avoided if the player simply ignores the score tags in that specific area, and many of the game’s enemies are laughably easy to defeat. It usually only takes a few punches to knock anything down, but some enemies are able to damage the player even while they flinch back from an attack, and later on in the game enemies begin to explode upon death. The game does feature boss fights every few levels, which may cause players to die a few times, but each boss has one weakness that becomes very easy to exploit once learned. Rather than punching players in the face or trying to drown us in Super Mario-inspired levels, Sideway provides rather easy levels in the hopes that players will replay old levels to unlock the various hidden tags.

Like all the cool new platformers, Sideway includes multiplayer, too!

Many gamers will not want to spend all day playing Sideway: New York, and will likely only play through a level or two when their more hardcore games, like Call of Battlefield: Pretzel War Zombie 3, grow tiring. This is not because Sideway is a bad game, but because it simply is not very engaging over long periods of time. The rap music is very repetitive, especially when one’s preferred genre of music is something other than rap-hop-hommie-yo, and the background and level elements change very little throughout the various areas, making every level seem just like the previous. For gamers who find themselves wishing more games were more about finding all the coins in a level rather than challenging combat, or find themselves saying “Gee, I really wish Kirby’s Epic Yarn actually had a death function!” Sideway will definitely fit the bill, but anyone looking for the next big Mario challenger should probably look elsewhere.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes.

Fable II

It only makes sense, given my previous review, for this review to be about Dark Souls, and it really should be, since Dark Souls is amazing. So, now, without further ado, prepare for another trip into the land of Hellish difficulty and demons, which is where this review would have been going, were this not the long awaited Fable Week! In many ways the Fable II is a lot like Dark Souls; it takes a very special kind of person to finish each game, each game is playable on the Xbox 360, they are both sequels, and they are action RPGs. However, one of the two is a good sequel, while the other is somewhat bad. Although it may be hard to believe, Fable II is the bad half of this sequel duo.

Fable II, the simply named sequel to Peter Molyneux’s Fable, and like Fable, it too claims to have an ever-changing world full of choices and repercussions. The game does have a character moral system, and NPCs will react to the choices the hero makes, that much is true, but Fable II is in no way ever-changing or full of choices. For example, with the typical NPC, the player can basically either talk to them or murder them, and that is the extent of the morality system. An evil character will scare off NPCs, while a good character will easily impress them, but neither have any effect on the story. Even if the player becomes so evil that they resemble Satan or so pure they have a halo, each player is still given the option between the “good,” “evil,” and “neutral” endings at the very end of the game, meaning it is possible for pure evil characters to receive the good ending and vice-versa. It is also worth noting that it is extremely easy to manipulate a character’s moral standing, provided players have enough money to pay beggars, or strength to kill the town guardsmen.

In many ways, Fable II is like “Baby’s First Action RPG.” The nice glowing trail that points players to their next quest destination removes any sense of or need for adventure, while instantly reviving upon death removes any difficulty the fights may have. It is also extremely easy to reach the max level with each of the games three skills, removing any customization in character building. Combat itself is very simple, with only one button for melee attacks, one for ranged, and one for magic, but despite the simplicity, cutting one’s way through a horde of enemies is still pretty fun. Of course, the simplistic system does lose the little bit of fun it has after a few hours of play, but luckily enough for Fable II, there are only a few hours of core gameplay in the game.

This is the appropriate reaction to Fable II.

Fable II is extremely short, and may be one of the shortest RPGs this console generation. The story is mediocre, and hardly ties into the original Fable at all. The final boss, which appears out of no where, is simply a fight between the hero and waves of regular enemies, and the final showdown between the hero and Lucien is over in one gun shot. Despite how disappointing the core story of Fable II is, though, the sidequests have that same simplistic fun to them. The bulk of the side content involves hunting down collectible items such as dog tricks or silver keys, but others have full fledged side stories, such as defending Fairfax Castle from bandits, or exploring the hero’s dream world.

Another great thing Fable II claims to include is multiplayer, which, yes, it does include, but, like many other mechanics, it absolutely botches it. Rather than joining a friend’s world and wandering about while they clear a quest, or possibly assisting them with their adventure, players must use a pre-made character and are forced to stay on the same screen as the game host. Not the same dungeon, not split-screen, but literally the same screen. The camera will only follow the host, and player two can not move beyond the screen borders, very similar to the way Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles handled single-screen multiplayer. Many other open-world RPGs such as the Elder Scrolls or Fallout series have yet to even touch multiplayer, so Fable II might deserve compliments for attempting to include it, but it being done in such a poor way, combined with the other horrible parts of the game, really just adds more garbage to the pile.

Fans of action RPGs should not play Fable II, they should play something like Dark Souls, or Fallout. Casual gamers or those who have never experienced an action RPG or adventure game before might enjoy the Fable series for the very little things, or for the simple freedom it gives players, but it is in no way the hardcore game it tries to bill itself as. Those of us unlucky enough to have stumbled upon this game have gained at least one thing from it, the right to say “I played a Fable game before Fable Week forced me to!”

Demon's Souls!

By now, most console gamers have heard tales of Demon’s Souls and its brutal difficulty, with its horror stories of ruthless player-killers and impossible levels. Some gamers took these horror stories as challenge to their abilities, giving them a desire to buy the game and prove that it was not actually that difficult. At the same time, however, other gamers were turned off by the difficulty. While it is no cakewalk, Demon’s Souls is never unfair in its difficulty; all monsters have one or two major weaknesses players can exploit, and all of the traps, enemies, and bosses in a level follow easy-to learn-patterns. Thankfully, there are not any overpowered or underpowered classes in the game, instead players are given complete control over character progression, with all spells and equipment being available to every starting class. Sadly, due to Demon’s Souls being two years old, the game’s multiplayer function is not widely used, and those who do use it will be a much higher level than players just starting out. With Dark Souls having just been released the day before this review post, any gamers on the fence about picking it up should definitely try Demon’s Souls out first, and any gamers lucky enough to enjoy Dark Souls on release day should not pass up the original if they are looking for more demon hunting frustration.

Demon’s Souls is hard, at least on the first time through. The enemies and traps within levels always start at the same position, and the enemies’ attack patterns are usually very easy to learn. The enemies in each level do not vary that much, and almost always include a weak poorly equipped monster, a lightly equipped variation of the weak monster, and a very strong or heavily armored monster. Thankfully, due to the small variation in enemies, all of the enemies in a level end up sharing the same weaknesses, and after a few minutes of trial and error in each area players can figure out which weapons to rely on. For example, every enemy in the first level is weak to fire, even the boss. Fans of older RPGs or action games will have no problem figuring out enemy weaknesses and attack patterns.

Believe it or not, that is just a normal enemy.

Not every gamer can memorize the frame-by-frame movement of an enemy, though, and for those of us that have a hard time with it, the RPG elements of the game save the day, while reflexes and memorization take the back seat. Rather than leveling up and following predetermined class progression routes, players are able to add points to their character’s ability scores one by one, making it is possible for one character to wield every weapon and spell without investing much time into level grinding. Along with ability upgrades, players can take each of the game’s weapons through various upgrade trees, creating weapons that poison, burn, or pull their strength from dexterity or intelligence, rather than strength. Most character builds the average player will dream up remain pretty balanced, thanks to the weapon system, and even with high ability scores and a fully upgraded weapon, players will still find the game challenging. Any player looking to break the game wide open for an easy playthrough, however, should consider using a character centered on magic.

The best part of Demon’s Souls is definitely the boss fight at the end of each level. Unlike the long and difficult level leading up to the fight, most boss battles are very easy. With the exception of two fights, the bosses are usually large and slow moving, giving patient players all the time they need to slowly learn the boss’s weakness and chip away at its health cautiously. Like a death anywhere else in the level, dying during a boss battle will send a player crying back to the start of the level, and unlike generic level monsters, bosses hit extremely hard, making defense and evasion an absolute must. Each boss fight is totally unique, ranging from slime blobs, Ifrit-like demons, and massive Gundam-like knights. Sadly, there is no way to re-fight bosses without using the game’s multiplayer functions or New Game+ options.

Let's see a TF2 hat match this!

While the difficulty might be a deal breaker for some gamers already, Demon’s Souls has a few other small flaws. The multiplayer system, while innovative, can make playing with friends a chore; rather than forming parties in a hub city, like most online RPGs, players in soul form can be summoned to the worlds of players in human form, something which requires rare consumable items or the death of a boss to reach. The story of Demon’s Souls is rather simplistic, with only a handful of introductory cut scenes and dialogue to get the player up to speed with the affairs of the Nexus, and while each level has some introductory text to provide back story, the game lacks any active narration for players, meaning players must rely purely on the desire to crush the next boss in order to push themselves through the harder parts of the game. Once a player learns the patterns of the common enemies, the game relies on its levels for the difficulty, which results in some massive labyrinthine levels that require a great deal of luck to finish quickly.

Fans of the Monster Hunter series will likely have the patience to enjoy Demon’s Souls to the very end, but others will definitely have to rely on friends or self-motivation to push themselves through the game. Due to the similarities between Dark and Demon’s Souls, anyone waiting for reviews or price drops before picking up Dark Souls should instead treat Demon’s Souls like a demo for Dark, and pick up a cheap used copy in order to form one’s own opinions on the series, or to hold oneself over until the eventual price cut. For any readers that now find themselves scoffing at the claims of difficulty, or shouting “Entire review is by baby!” in a Russian accent, know that Demon’s Souls scoffs back and will offer anyone with this mindset a challenging surprise.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us cling Together

Game genres, like most things, are subject to age and change, adopting new mechanics and concepts while using the failures of past games as stepping stones. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, a PSP remake of a SNES game, is one such stepping stone. After only a few battles, it is very easy to see the basic framework Square Enix used to make the Final Fantasy Tactics series. The story takes place in a low fantasy, magic light, world, similar to the original Tactic’s Ivalice, with the main focus on the island Valeria’s struggle for survival through civil wars and foreign invasions. While the similarities between Final Fantasy: Tactics and Tactics Ogre are extremely obvious, there is a notable gap in quality between the two games. But, surprisingly, Tactics Ogre manages to cram in enough post-game content to nearly rival Disgaea, along with multiple story paths and endings. Any RPG fans that can get through the lack-luster story and sub-par SRPG mechanics will be rewarded with a truly massive, relatively grind free, tactical RPG.

Tactics Ogre does not bring anything new to the SRPG core mechanics, and even excludes parts of staple elements, but due to the age of the original game, this is to be expected. Being a remake of an old game, however, does not give it an excuse to leave dated mechanics unimproved. Tactics Ogre has a huge amount of character classes, many of which are monster classes, but the majority of the human classes are simply unnecessary. The rune knight can learn a wide variety of magic, the berserker can hit very hard at the cost of accuracy, and the knight can support allies with healing magic, but all of these classes are inferior to the basic warrior. Many RPGs with class-changing mechanics allow players to mix and match abilities between multiple jobs, but not Tactics Ogre. Switching from class to class provides no benefit, as many skills and weapon proficiencies are available to all jobs, and the skills that are class-specific can only be used on their appropriate class, and nothing else.

While finding a perfect balance for one’s battle party is not hard, partly due to warriors and archers being the only viable choices, the battles in Tactics Ogre always prove to be a pleasant challenge. Unlike many other RPGs, both tactical and classic, Ogre scales the fights with the players highest party level should they over-level a character. Players are able to level around five to seven levels above a story battle before the level scaling kicks in, making it still possible for a player to grind a bit without growing too strong.

Sadly, this scaling system does not scale down, only up, and depending on a given player’s play style, being under-leveled is likely to happen at some point. Many of the early story battles require the player to kill only the enemy commander, which can easily be done with flying units and archers, but near the last portion of the game, the missions shift towards annihilating the entire enemy party. It is at this shift in objectives that many players will be subject to level grinding, since the simple boss killing method from earlier rewards very little experience. While it is no Disgaea, grinding in Tactics Ogre can grow very boring and time consuming. However, the game contains a surprisingly intelligent unit AI option, making it possible for players to enter random battles, switch on AI, and set their game down until the victory music plays.

Archers, the backbone of any good army.

At the time of its original release, Tactics Ogre likely had an amazing story, but it might be lost on someone who has not religiously followed the Ogre series. The game makes many nods to other nations, such as Lodis, and other organizations without much explanation, expecting the player to know exactly who these groups are and what they have done. From chapter to chapter, the story stumbles around without much direction until the ending comes out of left field. The ending is hardly surprising, with characters continuing their lives as most players would have assumed, but upon reading about other Ogre games, it seems that the key parts of the story are more about the position of magical swords, the Black Knights, and other secondary characters. It is very clear after playing that there is some kind of sequel, prequel, and in fact an entire series built around this game, and like a snobby elitist, Let Us Cling Together cares nothing for gamers who are not a part of the Ogre fan circle.

Many gamers might actually find it hard to believe Let Us Cling Together was originally a SNES game. The game has a massive amount of extra content to be enjoyed after the final boss is defeated, along with branching story paths and multiple endings. Upon beating the game, players are able to revisit parts in the story using the World Tarot function, replaying old battles or unlocking the story paths missed the first time, and, thanks to the level scaling, all of these old battles will remain somewhat challenging. The game easily has over one hundred bonus maps, with one dungeon containing one hundred floors. While there is no cross-class system, recruiting and equipping the perfect battle party to conquer these massive extra dungeons can be quite fun, and thanks to the AI grinding system, it is easy to build up this party while actually playing other games.

Ogres are hardly present in the story, actually.

Tactics Ogre very clearly is not Final Fantasy Tactics, but it manages to easily crush the game in terms of extra content and branching story paths. Ogre series fans no doubt love this game for the way it advanced the Ogre story-line, but anyone else looking for a new strategy RPG to play is better off ignoring the story and grinding through the required battles until the extra dungeons become available. Let Us Cling Together is the perfect example of quantity over quality, and will likely only impress RPG fans who praise mechanics and power gaming over storytelling.

From Dust Box Art

From screen shots and trailers, From Dust appears to be a unique strategy game where the player commands a tribal god who reshapes the very face of the Earth in order to preform life saving miracles for his ungrateful little servants. What those previews do not show the world is that Ubisoft’s ideas of being an all-powerful god are dreadfully boring, and that their main sources of inspiration likely come from playing a game of Lemmings while sitting in a hole on the beach during high tide. Another great part of playing a god is just how many restrictions the powers that be, Ubisoft, place on the player, calling it DRM, and justifying the Hell it gives players by claiming it wards off pirates. The fact that any company would expect someone to even want this game, legally or otherwise, is amazing. Yet surprisingly, From Dust has two things going in its favor: The game does look rather good, with nice fluid physics, and the post-game challenge mode does have some fun moments. But, neither of the two warrant the price tag or time wasted on completing the game.

If Lemmings removed every part of the gameplay except for bridge building, the resulting game would be From Dust. The player’s only goal in the game is to move a tribe of men from point A to point B, over and over again. The only enemy or hazard in the game is water. If one were to reenact the previously mentioned hole-in-the-beach scenario, their first course of action upon having their hole filled with water would be to build a dam out of sand, and when that fails, they would likely just move away from the tide’s reach. Not the lovable little From Dust Men; they actually move further towards the water, until the final levels are almost nothing but water.

Once all of the bridges have been built out of piles of sand, the player can tell their eager little tribesmen to move out to a new potential village location, this exciting key mechanic of the game, second only to playing a god, involves mousing over the predetermined village location, hitting a key, and then waiting. Of the five villagers it takes to build a new village, it is almost guaranteed that one of them will take the longest possible path through lava and water to reach the village, but assuming the moronic fifth villager does in fact follow the rest of the group to safety, the player is treated to even more waiting as the villagers slowly approach the village and slowly begin their village creation ritual, which is signaled by screams that sound exactly like the screams of a burning tribesman.

Man, water, and ground, the stars of From Dust.

While the Men are forced to survive in the increasingly wet new world without the ability to swim, the player must battle with another force, similar to the god he controls. The DRM randomly crashes the game, much like playing Russian Roulette. With an unstable internet connection, a player could be kicked from the game, losing progress, at any minute, while other gamers fond of minimizing out of games to multitask, or hosting long Skype calls could face similar disconnection issues, albeit less frequently. Many fervent gamers can usually rely on their internet connection in this day and age, but that does not remove the other technical difficulties. The game is prone to crashing at launch for no reason, players may even boot the game up to find the interface did not load at all, and during game play the Men can get stuck permanently during levels.

Surprisingly, From Dust does have a few good points about it, but none of them actually affect the gameplay. Any gamer unlucky enough to preorder the game was presented with a special From Dust themed mask for use in Team Fortress 2, which, admittedly, is not a very good looking hat, but at the very least can be used to help craft other hats and weapons. For a cheap casual game, the graphics are very pretty, and it appears that a lot of effort was put into making the Men similar to real-world African tribes. The water, lava, and sand move and flow like one would expect them to in the real world. The miracles players can perform are all very cool the first few times, but after parting water like Moses for the tenth time, it starts to lose its novelty.

From Dust's promotional TF2 hat

As the player progresses through the game, various challenge maps are unlocked. Despite being called “challenges,” the maps still are not very difficult, but require more clever usage of the matter moving mechanics. The challenge maps still involve the basic moving man from point A to point B followed by the waiting, but is a huge step above, say, staring idly at a blank computer screen.

At the time of this article’s posting, Ubisoft is planning to release a patch to fix the DRM issues, and Steam is offering refunds for those not wishing to wait for such a patch. But even considering this, fifteen dollars is far too expensive for the messy second-hand console scraps Ubisoft has given gamers in the PC port of From Dust. Anyone with massive interests in moving sand and water from place to place should definitely pick up a copy of From Dust, but for anyone else, it is hard to even call From Dust a game.

Radiant Historia's Cover Art

Atlus put its DS title Radiant Historia up against ridiculously high expectations the moment they billed it as a time-traveling RPG, pitting the game up against Chrono Trigger in many gamers’ minds. As such, it may not surprise anyone to hear that Radiant Historia hardly manages to escape Chrono Trigger‘s massive shadow. The battle system can prove interesting at times, and the story certainly sounds deep on paper, but both have their flaws. While the battle system looks original, it slowly degrades into the over-used turn-based system seen in every JRPG. The story feels as if it were written by three separate groups, with one group cutting corners on the story, and another group seeming to have no grasp of the original team’s intentions. Both of these flaws shape Historia up to be an average, mediocre JRPG> But, the poor usage of time travel proves to be the largest disappointment, dragging the rest of the game down with it, constantly missing opportunities to shine, and entirely falling out of the game near the last portion of the story.

Historia’s board-game like battle system is fun enough against bosses and more difficult enemies, but it makes even the weakest encounters a chore when not utilized correctly. Even monsters that are far below the party’s level will have a large amount of HP and a large number of turns in a row, which draws battles out as the party scrambles to line up enough turns to finish the battle without much wasted MP. Only in very rare cases can a battle be cleared using strictly normal attacks, and the items necessary to restore the large amounts of MP spent on special attacks are very expensive. Although, in short bursts this system still retains some of its novelty until the last quarter of the game, where enemies are either alone or immovable, which essentially reduces the grid system down to a simple turn based battle. Atlus would have been better off making Historia a strategy RPG; Stocke amasses a rather large party, and a large amount of the game’s battles are military operations, which feel a little strange with the small-scale turn-based encounter system.

As in most JRPGs, Historia‘s combat heavily relies on a plethora of special attacks, which quickly become anything but “special.” Many of the party members’ attacks have overlapping effects, such as nearly every character learning an attack which pushes enemies back on the grid, or half the party learning the exact same healing spell. It is almost as if the developers were trying to make a sliding puzzle out of the battle system, because the only purpose of the bulk of the abilities is to move enemies around while hardly doing any physical damage. After the party is done pretending the enemy party is some kind of Rubik’s Cube, each party member is left with only one viable attacking skill, even at the highest levels. Stocke uses his Power Slash ability he learns early on, Marco is entirely useless if he has no party member to heal, and Raynie switches from being a strong magic user to an unnecessary fifth wheel from battle to battle. Through the course of the game, two party members who focus on area of effect abilities join up with Stocke, but they also fall prey to having only one useful ability in battles, essentially becoming the same exact party members Stocke already has, but with new sprites.

In battle, the top screen displays turn order, and the lower screen shows the fight.

The magic elemental attacks are just as bland. There is hardly any variation in the world of Historia‘s magic; there are three elements, poison effects, and status affecting spells. The elements a caster uses in battle (fire, thunder, and ice) hardly ever matter, for against any enemy that does not visibly have a connection to an element each spell does just as much damage as the other. The poisoning effects can be useful against some bosses, provided it is one of the few bosses who is not entirely resistant to the status effect, but the ailment serves no purpose against the general monsters with much smaller health pools. The buffing and debuffing spells feel as if they have no effect; with an enhanced attack status, Stocke will only hit a few points higher on an enemy under a reduced defense effect. The only thing these types of spells can manage to reduce are the number of effective turns a player has, should they choose to waste such a valuable opportunity on a silly defense up spell.

Every character leans heavily towards either magic or physical attacks, as with most RPGs, but in nearly every case magic or non-magic are essentially the same. A Great Fire spell will be just as effective as a Power Slash ability, and a Great Heal from Stocke will be just like a Great Heal from Marco, and because all characters receive EXP equally, there is never really any reason to pick one party member over another. This lack of uniqueness in characters furthers the puzzle-like battle idea mentioned earlier; after the player figures out each character’s key skill, each battle becomes a simple matter of sliding the enemies around followed by unleashing each party member’s single amazing ability, over and over again.

Historia‘s storyline also finds itself mixed up in a lot of battles. As the game opens, the two major nations, Alistel and Granorg, are at war over some silly unexplained matter. Stocke finds himself traveling through two alternate versions of history, fighting on many different parts of the war front, sometimes even against his home nation of Alistel. The world of Historia appears rather large on the map, and is full of cliche RPG cities, but because of the constant time traveling, players will traverse some of the same locales many times, with only slight differences each time. Unlike Chrono Trigger’s massive thousand-year timespan, time travel in Radiant Historia is more like selecting a different stage in an action game to replay for treasure, since, for the most part, players are given no reason in the story to travel back in time. The sidequests require some clever use of the time traveling mechanic, but in the last half of the game the function vanishes entirely, and is never required to pass a roadblock.

Many in-game zones were inspired by Escher's works.

The two different timelines both attempt to have very serious and dark story lines, which try to make some kind of allegorical message, and like every other facet of this game, the result comes up a little short. In the Standard History, where Stocke is pitted against Granorg, the story attempts to show how corrupt governments and rulers can become, and how the people should rule themselves, but the story sends Stocke off on so many side-missions and pointless tasks that the player loses sight of the tyrannical rule in Granorg. In the Alternate History of Stocke fighting Alistel, the story boils down to the theocratic government turning to machinery instead of gods, creating false idols and the like in order to control the populace with religion in an attempt to begin a holy crusade. Both of these deeper messages are not even apparent until some of the game’s last scenes, and while an attempt at a deep story can be appreciated, the final results lack any kind of impact, and are anything but deep or meaningful.

As a mediocre JRPG, Radiant Historia might be near the top of the category, and will even offer a bit of enjoyment provided players keep the “mediocre” part in mind. With one’s mind and sense of nostalgia constantly drifting off to Chrono Trigger, however, it is very hard to appreciate this game. Given the rushed feeling of the final hours of the game, where time travel is forgotten about, and the two timelines merge into a messy conclusion, it seems like Atlus was forced to cram and cut corners for deadlines or memory constraints. Maybe one day a higher budget sequel or spiritual successor will appear from some alternate timeline, but until then, this average JRPG’s attempt at time travel works about as well as speeding a DeLorean up to 80 mph.

Breath of Death VII's scarcely used box art

It is a rare occurrence in today’s gaming scene to find someone who truly enjoys the ways of the old RPG simply for the gameplay aspects. It is rarer, still, to see an RPG released with the old characteristics of classic RPGs: level grinds, random battles, labyrinthine dungeons, and slow turn-based battle systems. Newer games in the genre have distanced themselves from the age of the classic Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, adding in real-time action based battle systems, scaling monsters to the player’s party level, or even holding the player’s hand throughout quests with a nice “to-do” list and compass pointing to quest objectives. With these standards in mind, Zeboyd Games’ Breath of Death VII: the Beginning will appear archaic to newer RPG fans.

At first glance, Breath of Death VII is almost indiscernible from the early entries in the Dragon Quest franchise. The 8-bit sprite party members are all displayed on-screen, all battles occur on black backgrounds in a first-person perspective, area tile sets and monster sprites are reused throughout the game, and actions in battle lack any kind of animation. While it definitely looks like an old-school RPG, the game does bring some interesting additions to the genre. Upon starting the game, the player is able to choose the difficulty they wish to play on, allowing novices and seasoned gamers alike to enjoy the game. Each area contains a limited number of random battles, and the battles themselves utilize a simple but interesting combo system to power up various attacks. Characters earn level-ups surprisingly fast, and each new level grants an opportunity to choose one of two upgrades for each character, ranging from new attacks to passive status enhancements.

Unlike old RPGs, Breath of Death VII does not throw wave after wave of random monsters at the player, expecting them to have a pouch full of potions and ethers to keep the party alive. Rather, after every battle, the party has their HP completely healed and their MP refilled based on the amount of turns spent in battle. Random battles can prove as difficult as an average RPG boss fight, requiring the player to use each character’s special techniques to their fullest ability. As another added difficulty, the enemy party is given a large boost to their strength after every round of attacks. Because of this, the automatic restoration of your party after every fight is crucial to the battle system; without it, the amount of restorative items needed during even the earliest of dungeons would be ridiculous, and would cause players to feel as if money and level grinding was required to clear the game.

Along with the constant after-battle heals, the party is given additional in-battle help in the form of combo and unity attacks. Unity attacks, similar to Chrono Trigger‘s cooperative techniques, require two or more party members in order to perform a powerful attack or cast beneficial magic. The combo system is a unique new addition to the classic turn-based battle system, where each hit landed by a player character increases the combo count, and the value of the combo count then increases the effectiveness of abilities with the “Combo Boost” trait. However, abilities with the “Combo Break” trait will reset the combo count. This system gives the player more options to juggle in battle, possibly causing them to favor a weak multiple-hit attack, or forego a Heal spell (which bears the “Combo Break” trait) in order to strengthen a “Combo Boost” attack.

The heavily used battle screen

Despite all of the assistance the party receives in battle, the genre’s necessary evil, monster grinding, still manages to sneak itself into the game. But like the combat system, Zeboyd Games goes about random battles in an interesting way. Instead of endless random battles, each dungeon has a limit to the amount of enemies the party may encounter. This number usually ranges from twenty to forty battles, depending on the length of the dungeon, and the player may view the remaining battles at any time using the pause screen. In the event a player finds a dungeon too difficult to hack and slash their way through, they may instead sit at the dungeon entrance, or near an MP restoring save point, and repeatedly select the “Fight” command form the pause menu to force a random battle, and steadily reduce the amount of monsters in the area, saving and completely healing after every fight. While this is, at the most basic level, level grinding no different than any other RPG, once the dungeon is cleared of its monsters, the player may freely explore, without any interruption from random encounters. If the player decides to skip this simple method of depopulating a dungeon, the battles encountered through normal dungeon crawling will be only slightly less than the amount needed to clear the dungeon of monsters, making this a faster, but more dangerous method to reach the boss.

Level-ups occur frequently, and it is not uncommon to earn three to four levels from a single boss fight. Unlike most games which use conventional leveling systems, when a character reaches a new level, the player does not have a list of status increases shoved in their face, instead, they must choose between “LVL-UP A” or “LVL-UP B.” These serve as upgrades for characters, and include new combat abilities, enhancement to old abilities, and simple status increases. The set of choices at each level always remain distinctly different, but each option may appear equally useful. For example, one party member is given the the option of removing the “Combo Break” characteristic from the Heal spell in lieu of giving Heal the ability to affect the entire party at once. The bulk of the ability upgrades are usually split between techniques useful against single targets, like bosses, and techniques useful against large parties of monsters. The status upgrades are split in a similar fashion between increases in magic-based parameters and physical-based parameters.

No relation to Navi

A single play through of Breath of Death takes around four hours, excluding time spent repeating sections due to game overs, but the short time spent on the game is highly enjoyable. The story, from the very first line of the opening cinematic, is a massive parody of the RPG genre as a whole, featuring references from a slew of different popular games, mockeries of party relationship and love systems, and references to the “RPG making code.” Talking to NPCs upon reaching a new town not only helps the player figure out the location of the next dungeon, but also brings in a new wave of jokes; the party members even remark about the short length of the game, complaining that the price tag of three dollars is too high for the little content the game has. Thankfully, none of these jokes ever go into the realm of the internet memes. There are no lolcats, no cakes, nothing over nine-thousand, and no one in the world of Breath of Death takes part in “The Game.”

The bulk of the fun gameplay lies in the boss fights, which at times can prove to be more of a matter of luck than strategy, but provides a sense of accomplishment all the same. The increase in difficulty of the random battles from area to area can make prolonged play an absolute chore, especially if players employ the area clearing strategy discussed earlier in this review. The level up system does make hunting for experience points a little more fun, but some upgrades feel absolutely useless, and it is entirely possible for a player to screw themselves over with a few bad upgrade choices. These flaws are easily forgiven when the price tag is taken into consideration, though; Breath of Death costs only $2.99, and for that price includes Zeboyd Games’ very similar title, Cthulhu Saves the World.

Lusipurr.com

Hello, greetings, and whatever other introductions you feel are necessary! I may know some of you already, many of you have probably never heard of me, and I am sure a handful of you could care less who I am. For those who already know me, yes, Enrei does have a real, legal, and unchanging name! For those of you who have no idea who I am, hold your questions for later, and just know now that I, the guy in that little picture in the upper right hand corner, will be joining the review staff; consider yourself lucky, not many people get a free ticket to hear me talk about games! Really!

I have been playing games since the day I could pick up my father’s bulky GameGear. I do not remember beating the games he owned, but I easily remember the hours I spent with the neighborhood kids crowded around me watching to see if I could reach a new level in my newest Sonic the Hedgehog game. After a few years of Sonic and Mario, and even fewer years in school, I moved on to the PlayStation and Game Boy. With my new found ability to read, I started enjoying games set in fantastic worlds, with stories and goals I could never have imagined in my days of running, jumping, and coin collecting. A major facet of my early reading based gaming was a little game series called Pokemon, and we all know how that series ended up.

Some of my favorite games from that era were Mega Man Legends, Guardian’s Crusade, Chocobo’s Dungeon, and Klonoa. While the gameplay was hardly unique, each game’s aesthetics and story really impressed me when I was younger, and had an impact on my preferences over all these years. With the exception of the side-scrolling platformer, Klonoa, these games served as my starting point for their respective genres and series. The Mega Man series as a whole caused me to want harder and harder games to play, even if it meant I may never beat them. By this time, both Mega Man and Final Fantasy had a pretty large series library, which gave me plenty of old games to hunt down and try while the rest of the average gaming world was moving onward to their fancy graphics and FPS games.

The amount of attention I could devote to one game’s story really began to dwindle in the GameCube era, where it seemed like every RPG was being released two discs at a time, with hours upon hours of story. I did suffer through a few titles like that, but I spent a majority of my GameCube days exploring the world of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, creating a new character in Phantasy Star Online, or beginning a new year in Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. I started to want a very free, hands-off, sort of system in every game I played, I could care less if I saved that thing from the evil guy, I just wanted to see what was on the other side of that mountain, or what treasure might lie in that ruined keep.

Now, though, I would like to think I keep a good balance between my long attention draining games and my exploration crazy adventures. That is not to say that I have an easy time playing long games for hours on end, rather, if I am gaming anywhere near my computer I feel compelled to constantly flip through all my social platforms, which does lead to my play time increasing, even if I hardly make it out of one battle.

You can look forward to my first real article soon, hopefully I can avoid stepping on any toes with my reviews! Feel free to add me on whichever social thing floats your boat, too!