Final Destination — the final destination for our tournament.

The summer has arrived–and, with it, the annual Lusipurr.com Donation Drive!

Flash back to the summer of 2009: Lusipurr.com launches the first site-wide, participatory feature, a playthrough of Final Fantasy IX. Now, flash forward to the summer of 2016: Lusipurr.com launches another site-wide feature, this time for a Smash Bros. Tournament. Now flash back again to the Summer of 2011: Lusipurr.com launches a Summer Fundraiser drive. Now flash forward again to the summer of 2016 as Lusipurr.com refines the Summer Fundraiser once again in an attempt to give readers even more participation than ever before (as evaluated on a sliding, relative-scale evaluative matrix). For the present, hold temporal position as the preceding series of flash backs and flash forwards momentarily pauses.

Overview: Time to flash forward to the second paragraph of this featured post: Lusipurr.com begins an explanation of the fundraiser rules, terms, and conditions for the benefit of would-be participants. At the beginning of June, a Smash Bros. for Wii U Tournament will be held without any human players. Instead, the tournament will use Amiibo figure players, fully levelled but without customisation. Each Amiibo will represent a donation in the Summer Fundraiser. All events will be broadcast live on Twitch, with commentary from Lusipurr and other staff members as available. Flash forward to a list of prizes.

Now you have the chance to be physically represented by a plastic trinket!

Prizes
First Place: A Lusipurr-completed playthrough and featured review (at least 1,000 words) of the selected game (exclusions apply as below).
Second and Third Place: A Lusipurr weekly livestream episode of at least one hour playing the selected game (handheld games excluded), with associated commentary. Other staff members may be included to commentate as available.
Fourth Place: A hardcover copy of The Once and Future King signed by Lusipurr, and inscribed with a personalised message for the winner.
All Participants: Entry into the end-of-the-year drawing to win a new game on Amazon or Steam valued at up to $60 US.
Shipping Note: Physical prizes require the provision of a mailing address.

How to Participate
1. Each $5 donated will allow for the selection of an Amiibo from the display below. Unclaimed Amiibos are transparent in the image. The image is updated daily.
2. Entrants will select the available Amiibo of their choice, and will post their selection in the comments thread below. Once an Amiibo has been claimed, it may not be claimed by any other entrant. (Note that if the Cloud, Bayonetta, and Corrin Amiibos are not available in early June, max-level CPU players will be used instead).
3. Entrants will also select a game of their choice, subject to the exclusions below. Once a game has been selected, it may not be selected again for any other entry.
4. Instead of participating in the tournament directly, entrants may make a $5 donation to select one of the eighteen, non-final stages that will be used in the tournament, excluding the final destination stage. The Final Destination stage may not be selected. Once a stage is selected it may not be selected again for any other entry. Entrants may choose whether to have items on (default frequency/loadout) or items off on their chosen stage, but no other customisation is permitted. Entrants may also designate the specific non-Final round that will utilise their chosen stage. Note that not all stages are available for 8-player battles: click here for a complete list of stages.
5. At the end of the donation drive, any unselected stages will be chosen randomly from those available with default item frequency and loadout. The final round will be played on Final Destination with no items.
6. Donations will be accepted until midnight (US Eastern), 1 June, 2016. A tournament bracket will be created through random draws and posted online, with a daily broadcast schedule at a variety of times.
7. Multiple entries are permitted. Staff members may participate as well.

The tournament format has been based upon competitive Smash Bros. Tournaments, with a few default-oriented modifications.

Tournament Format
• Battles will be set to three stock with a fifteen minute timer (used to enforce a result).
• In the event of a tie, the winner will be determined by coin toss.
• In the qualifying and knock-out rounds, eight characters compete in a single battle with the top four characters proceeding.
• In the quarter-final and semi-final rounds, four characters compete in a single battle with the top two characters proceeding.
• For non-Final rounds, stages and item activation can be selected by donators, as given above. In cases where no stage was designated by a donator, the stage will be chosen randomly from those available, and played with default item loadout and frequency.
• The Final round takes place between four characters in a single battle, competing for first through fourth place.
• The Final round will be played on Final Destination with no items.

Game Selection
Platforms: Available for play on Nintendo consoles or handhelds (excluding Virtual Boy), Sony consoles or handhelds, Sega Genesis, or Steam for Mac OS X.
Region: Released in the North America region in English.
Publisher: Legitimately published full releases: no self-published, pre-release, knock-off, unofficial, browser, or otherwise incomplete titles.
Availability: In circumstances where availability is a problem (due to scarcity, cost, or compatibility), entrants will be offered the chance to select an alternative game or receive a refund.
Exclusions: No MMOs, no games requiring a subscription or monetary transactions, and no non-game ‘entertainment software’ (i.e. there must be valid victory/defeat conditions, rules, possibility of failure, etc.). Games with an online component may be rejected at Lusipurr’s discretion. In addition, several games have already received a full LusiReview and are excluded from selection: Deadly Towers, Eternal Sonata, Fable, Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Milon’s Secret Castle, and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Available Characters Remaining: 38

Characters and Games Selected: 20/58
Bayonetta: Tactics Ogre (Sebastian)
Cloud: Final Fantasy VII (Sebastian)
Corrin: Legend of Dragoon (Tim P.)
Fox: Streets of Rage (Corrine)
Ganondorf: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (Sebastian)
Greninja: Persona 4 (Tim P.)
Kirby: Trauma Center: New Blood (Deb)
Link: The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (Dancing Matt)
Lucina: Secret of Mana (Dancing Matt)
Luigi: Banjo-Kazooie (Corrine)
Mario: Suikoden (Imitanis)
Mega Man: Mega Man 2 (Dancing Matt)
Olimar: Mario Party (Corrine)
Peach: Hey You, Pikachu! (Corrine)
Pikachu: Pokemon Yellow (Imitanis)
Pit: The Secret of Monkey Island, Classic (Dancing Matt)
Ryu: Earthbound (Imitanis)
Samus: Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine (Corrine)
Shulk: Suikoden II (Cari)
Sonic: Final Fantasy VIII (Imitanis)

Stages Selected: 0/18
None

[Click to view the Tournament Bracket]

Chrono Cross (N.A. Box Art)

Released in Japan to unparalleled anticipation in November of 1999, Chrono Cross is the sequel to SquareSoft’s critically-acclaimed and much-beloved Chrono Trigger. Set in the years following the events of Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross charts the assembly, struggles, and efforts of a new group of adventurers. In the course of the game, they attempt save their world from a threat which extends beyond the scope of time and space into a different universe entirely.

The player takes control of Serge, a young boy from the village of Arni, located in the El Nido archipelago. His troubled past, and fateful dreams, prove prophetic for his destiny. As Serge is caught up in events beyond his control and imagination, he will gain the assistance of others who find their own stories entwined in Serge’s quest to understand himself, his past, and the part he has to play in the fate of his world. In especial, he must face down the threat posed by the mysterious Lynx.

Serge is not alone thanks to the sudden arrival of Kid, who has a score of her own to settle with Lynx. But just as he can count upon an ally who is dependable, so can Lynx: Harle, his mischievious and delightfully Gallic lieutenant, proves herself a formidable, if inscrutable, foe.

Kid is both perilous and inviting.

Use the comment thread below to discuss your approach to the game, challenges you have faced, tactics you are employing, and what you are getting out of your playthrough. Do you feel that the presentation of Chrono Cross has held up since its original release in 1999? Are there aspects of the game that you would change, or that you would hold up as an example for modern game developers to emulate? How have your experiences with Chrono Trigger, other JRPGs, and titles released after Chrono Cross changed your impressions of the game? Tell us all about it and join in our discussion below!

The aim in this playthrough is to complete the entirety of the game in three weeks. In the final week, the goal is to complete the last third of the game (through the end of the final battle). Feel free to join in, even if you are behind on the playthrough. Anyone and everyone is invited to participate, regardless of speed of play or familiarity with the series. Remember to comment, and please tell your friends!

Without further adieu, it is our very great pleasure to invite you now to join the Lusipurr.com staff members, guests, and readers as we travel to the El Nido Archipelago in Under Cerulean Skies: A Chrono Cross Playthrough!

Even unencumbered by armour, Arthur clunketh along with the surefooted grace of a drunken hippopotamus.

LATTERLY, Capcom, erstwhile titan of video game development, hath fallen intro strife. Its monuments lie in ruins, its heroes of design and creativity have made good their exit, and its triumphs are near forgot by those gamers who today hold in esteem titles more visually attractive. Spectacle and show o’ercome all other concerns so that the modern gamer doth, like unto a babboon, gape and gawk with mouth all agog at the flashing and blinking lewdnesses and vices on display, ripe for perusal and, indeed, for purchase.

But, whilom, ’twas not so. For Capcom hath fallen into these pressing circumstances from lofty heights formerly occupied with a surety. Deep is the abyss into which it hath sunk–and rightly withal. For, the crimes of Capcom are severe, and none moreso than the development of Ghosts ‘n Goblins published on nearly every platform imaginable since its release to arcades in September of 1985. From that time henceforward, this world hath suffered mightily from the affliction of Ghosts ‘n Goblins blighting first one console, then another, with the advent of Virtual Consoles only worsening the matter by making available again to unwary moderns the failures of the past. Today, the hapless gamer, playing Ghosts ‘n Goblins uninformed, doubteth whether any game of the past is like to bring happiness or joy.

In the third stage, Arthur leapeth over chasms to reach the Dragon boss.

For what manner of torturework hath Capcom deserv’d its terrible fall? To be sure, brethren, the work of Ghosts ‘n Goblins is an abomination in the sight of the mighty hand which worketh all causes to the Good. From the shrieking tones of the first bars of the soundtrack, the unhappy player knoweth well that what soon shall follow bringeth no gaity. The painful, screeching noise is compounded by the high-pitched squeal–not entirely unlike that sound attendant upon the slaughter of a well-voiced swine–which cometh solely from the use of Arthur’s weapon. To this further is added sound after sound, similar in intensity and disagreeableness, the which emaneteth from the small selection of monsters that populate the game. And indeed, they are few in number. The game reuseth monsters and bosses to such a degree that nearly everything can be witnessed in the first two stages alone.

With ears shattered by the shrieking soundtrack, enemies, and weapons alike, the player may be of a mind like to quit Ghosts ‘n Goblins ere it hath hardly begun. But then the player should miss that which cometh next: six stages, replete with enemies whose movements are devis’d with a randomness taken straight out of that other work of malice, Deadly Towers E’en equipped with save states, the unfortunate gamer will discover that, each time reloaded, the monsters and game doth behave differently: sometimes so as to make the game impossible, sometimes not.

Near the end of his quest, Arthur climbeth many vertical labyrinths, fighting winged demons that he might progress.

In story alone Ghosts ‘n Goblins doth stand ahead of the other vile works of the Enemy. For, in presenting a story so brief and simplistic that it can be compass’d in the opening cutscene alone–“a devil hath taken the princess; savest her, thou knight!”–it also hath managed thereby to provide a player with all he must know. All this is typical of stage-based platformers of the era: indeed, it surpasseth that found in near predecessors. Super Mario Bros., for example, presenteth no such story hook.

But, truly lamentable are the controls, which casteth into disarray and confusion any momentary pleasure deriv’d from the story. This reviewer, who hath no small experience with yon game, was confounded for some minutes by Arthur’s propensity to kneel and remain kneeling. After increasing irritation, this reviewer did switch the very controller, only to discover that ’twas the design of the game, not any fault of the peripheral. So, too, are Arthur’s jumps fiddly, the physics undependable, the collison detection faithless, and the engine itself unstable withal.

Arthur stutteringly climbeth a ladder, only to get stuck at the top trying to disembark. Monsters shoot down the ladders and hover atop the ladders, take ten hits to kill, and idle nearby whilst the clock counteth quickly the two minutes afforded. The experience is a concatenation of frustrations layered like an onion, and just as like to coax forth tears.

Arthur confronteth Astaroth, the final boss.

As the music screecheth, and the engine stuttereth, and Arthur stumbleth, and the array of monsters weareth out its welcome, and the player wearyeth from an experience too tiresome and painful readily to be devis’d in words, still doth Ghosts ‘n Goblins wear on, like an inebriate, Australian uncle, uninvited to the family reunion, but present nevertheless. Keen to partake of a beer, and another, and another, he drinketh until–shambolic and tight as an owl–he urinateth in the urn holding the ashes of great aunt Nora. Cast out from the gathering, his departure is met with sighs of relief: ’tis enough, and he is well gone. –Until it is found, some hours later, that he hath deposited a goodly quantity of his stools right atop the plum pudding meant for the familial dessert.

This is the end of Ghosts ‘n Goblins. The boss battles, randomised between easy and impossible do, once vanquished, give way to a boss fight that can be predictably beaten in a few seconds each and every time (controls notwithstanding). The final battle is followed by the worst aspect of all–far worse than anything heretofore related. A message, improperly rendered into English, asserteth thus: that the final chamber was an illusion and that, moreover, Arthur must again assaileth the keep of the enemy, and every stage and boss withal, that the true ending might thereby be achieved.

If, at such a time, following upon such travails, the player doth not become unhinged, doth not bestir himself to the destruction of the game cartridge, doth not betake himself thence to a place of debarkation, doth not arrive in Japan seeking the demise of those responsible for the offending title, doth not commit many savage acts of gruesome and deadly murder, and doth not find himself arrested for his violent and terrible actions–then such a player hath more patience and self-control than this reviewer who even now, of consequence attendant upon the actions latterly related, languisheth as prisoner gaoled in cell, where, awaiting his own Arthur, he prayeth that he might anon be rescued.

A view from without the castle…

Sometimes, it is easy to know where to begin with a review: what angle to take–what approach to consider. Sometimes, a game makes such a bold statement that it impresses itself firmly in the mind of the reviewer from square one and, when it comes time to pen the review, the fixtures of the mind are readily transferred to the page. Sometimes, this is the case. Sometimes–but not this time. For, as in its gameplay, Milon’s Secret Castle defies an easy review, throwing up unforeseen problems of scope and intent.

Following on the review of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, it is initially difficult to know what precisely to say about Milon’s Secret Castle. After all, the games share a number of similarities typical of average and below-average NES games of the mid-1980s. Like Deadly Towers, both games rely upon the instruction manual to deliver the balance of the storyline; both have a limited palette for music, graphics, and sounds; both games under-deliver in their conclusions. Broadly speaking, they are similarly poor. But a closer investigation reveals that Milon’s Secret Castle is not merely poor–it is in fact a catastrophic failure. More Deadly Towers than Adventure of Link, the truth is that decisions made in the development of Milon’s Secret Castle destroy any potential for fun that originally existed in the game.

Shop prices are exactly set for those who pick up every money block…

Milon’s Secret Castle presents itself to the player as another directionless wanderfest–a Deadly Towers-esque paean to being lost in a Norman Castle with an interior designed by a cracked-out M. C. Escher. Driven to the edge of sanity after huffing pots of Crayola paint, the famed designer of Mobius staircases smashed his face repeatedly against a 1980s-era Amstrad until the system, yielding in surrender, belched forth Hudson Soft’s exploration-platformer. In the vein of Metroid, the player must explore an open game world, collecting items and defeating bosses to advance. But, unlike Metroid, the platforming lacks any sense of finesse, the weapons are inexact and feeble, and the navigation of the game world is hampered by the deadly stupidity of Deadly Towers

As in the Broderbund-published scheissegamen, maze rooms once entered cannot be exited from their entry point. The doorways disappear, and the player must find the exit elsewhere in the level. Worse still, in a nod to Deadly Towers, the exits are invisible and must be found by shooting the main character’s bubblegun until the doorway is revealed. But the bubblegun is inexact, sometimes failing to caclulate hits on targets that are struck directly. And, as if this were not enough to be getting on with, the developers of Milon’s Secret Castle evidently believed that Deadly Towers was just too soft on gamers. Therefore, even if the exit to a room is found, players must find a key (also hidden) in order to use the doorway.

Enemies cannot be permanently defeated: they respawn continuously from the places in which they met their bubble-delivered ends. There is no way to block their projectile attacks (although a shield, granted by the Hudson bee, can mitigate some damage). Moreover, many enemies simply cannot be harmed. Fast moving, and hurling projectiles which travel through walls, they can only be avoided. And, should the player be struck, then damage is incurred constantly–there is no cooldown. Here, once again like Deadly Towers, being struck in the wrong place can result in an instant and frustratingly nigh-unavoidable death.

In the ‘secret’ stages, protective items are very important…

Boss design ranges from winged rabbits belching fireballs, to winged bird-dragons belching fireballs, to winged griffalizards belching fireballs. The pattern of the fireballs do not change; the movements of the bosses do not change; the tactics used to defeat the bosses do not change; the rewards for completing a boss fight do not change. In effect, one boss has been reused, with a slightly different appearance, for every boss fight in the game. In another game, this would be a downside. But, in Milon’s Secret Castle, it is a positive boon, allowing the player more rapidly to complete the game and terminate the experience of suffering through such a pile of dross.

The music is reminiscent of a town fair calliope as performed on a four-channel FM synth, if it were orchestrated by the people behind 21st-century comedy double act Bieber and Gaga. The steady waltz-tempo is like a sonic drill wielded by the nemesis of Music herself. Lady Dischord, sitting down to pen a soundtrack, could scarce have created a more violently antagonising collection of ditties. –For this is what they are: not musical compositions, but jingles fit for television screens, backing talking cartoon animals who purvey insurance, laxatives, and colourful synthetic snackfoods. If the purpose of the soundtrack were to summon up an image of a nauseating and vibrantly-coloured Capitalist dystopia, then it has succeeded marvelously.

The rewards for completion are scant…

Even the mere recollection of the music fills this reviewer with a desire to purchase gooey green globs of arteficially-flavoured gloop. The 3/4 lyrics rapidly may be imagined: You like goop? We like goop! Want some goop? Eat some goop! As for the sounds: what sounds? Were there sounds? This reviewer’s only memory is of the British voice in his head, no doubt a product of traumatic psychosis, which directed him from floor to floor using X,Y-style coordinates unsupported by the game itself–coordinates impossible to visualise based on the limited amount of the level shown on the screen and the lack of any sort of in-game map. “Begone, accursed interlocutor!” this valiant reviewer occasionally shouted at the voice, until it finally submitted, declaring vengefully, “Okay, Lusi. I won’t be around for the podcast this weekend, but maybe we can play some Borderlands on Tuesday.”

The difficulty of Milon’s Secret Castle is perhaps overstated. Deeply frustrating, it nevertheless includes the ability to freely continue–although the arcane means by which this is done (purchasing an item and then, after a game over, holding left whilst pressing Start on the title screen) is not explained in the game. That said, the game’s constantly-respawning enemies and unforgiving collision damage are harsh, even for the experienced gamers who are willing patiently to search every single block of each level, looking for keys, doors, and vitally important, life-increasing honeycombs.

There are worse games on the Nintendo Entertainment System than Milon’s Secret Castle, but although it is in many respects a stunningly inferior title, it has glaring flaws of design sufficient enough to render the experience more punishing than potentially-rewarding. As a creation of presumably rational men, it stings more of malice than mediocrity, with design choices that punish whilst adding nothing. Coupled with a soundtrack that may have sprung directly from the mind of a nightmarish clown, and with enemy encounters as uninspired as last week’s meatloaf, there is little enough to recommend Milon’s Secret Castle to any but the most curious and intrepid of gamers. In the end, the verdict is unequivocal: Milon’s Secret Castle should remain a secret.

Monsters appear if Link leaves the road.

In spite of what a certain, whimsically-named Australian may declare from deep within the entanglement of a sudsy, beer-afflicted worldview, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is a bad game. Moreover, it is one of the worst games ever misrepresented as a great game. Zelda fans may claim that it is misunderstood; they may claim that critique of it has to do with reading modern expectations onto a title released in 1987; they may claim that disappointment stems from it being different than the original The Legend of Zelda. In that latter point alone they can be accused of having hit upon the edge of a corner of a shard of the truth. For, there are obviously great differences between the two titles, and the greatest difference of all is that The Legend of Zelda is a good game.

When the game begins, Link finds himself standing before Zelda, who is asleep on a bed. Walking out into the world, directionless, he may wander hither and yon seeking some method of advancement or guidance in his quest to wake the sleeping princess. However, the restricted capacity of NPC text means that anyone Link encounters will provide, at best, only vague and cryptic advice. Many players, befuddled by the formless nature of Link’s quest, quit the the game at an early stage–oh, fortunate, happy players!–never progressing beyond the first palace.

But if one is burdened with the task of finishing the game at all costs, and if one is similarly burdened with a bevy of staff members bearing poorly-written FAQs from the internet, then excuses about a lack of direction simply will not do. And, consequently, my investigation of the game progressed apace for the first time in five years, when this reviewer last played and completed the title. Surprisingly, despite the entirely negative memory of that experience, this most recent playthrough of Zelda II managed to be even more aggravating, frustrating, and genuinely horrible.

Bosses range from (relatively easy) HorseKnights…

Zelda II may be a directionless wanderfest, but the actual difficulty of the game stems from the primitive RPG-style experience system combined with enemy encounters. Enemies, when first encountered, tend to be very difficult. Orange knights, for example, attack at two heights, and Link must be standing or ducking in order to parry the thrust properly. Red knights are the same, except faster, requiring white-knuckle, split-second reflexes in order to avoid taking significant damage. Finally, Blue Knights are not only faster and stronger, but their attacks are ranged, so they can hit Link at a great distance, making even advancing towards these foes incredibly irritating (the knights often endeavour to stand just out of the range of Link’s pathetic butter knife).

Spoon-throwing mumu-clad men hurl scarlet flatware at Link as he runs through caverns and palaces filled with Stalfos (skeletons) and Bots (slimes). Pursued still farther, he will encounter floating head enemies of the sort found in Mario and Castlevania games, and at the end of his adventure will additionally encounter–inexplicably–Bird Men, who tumble through the air with circus-like aplomb, hurling daggers whilst remaining infuriatingly impenetrable to the weary thrusts of the green-clad Hylian. Without the assistance of rapid-loading save states or a rewind feature, Zelda II would be an exercise in anger-management, with players of a choleric disposition likely surrounded by the wreckage of many controllers, shattered in a pique of rage.

In a stark contrast with the monsters found in the course of exploration, the boss encounters in Zelda II tend towards being very easy, with each fight having an exploitable mechanic. Carrock (Giant Wizzrobe) is the easiest of the lot, and can be defeated simply by kneeling in a corner and reflecting its attacks back at it until it dies. The most difficult fights are those which are most similar to difficult enemy encounters: the Knight on Horseback, for example, is very easy whilst mounted–but, when dismounted, becomes simply another annoying Blue Knight, which must be defeated with split second reflexes, and quite a bit of luck, to avoid damage. Consequently, the difficulty of the game pitches and yaws more than storm-tossed ship: this reviewer had to repeat a temple because the traversing thereof left insufficient life to complete the boss fight–but the boss fight itself was quite easy at full life. And, in a move reminiscent of Deadly Towers, Zelda II brings back the concept of reappearing enemies that can hit Link the moment he walks through a door.

You really are a hero for completing this game.

The graphics of Zelda II are roughly average for 1987. All areas of gameplay tend to be visually repetitive, but this was not uncommon in 1987 (although better had certainly been achieved on the NES by that point). A similar explanation will suffice for the music: the anthems employed are aurally interesting, but their repetition and a lack of diversity in the soundtrack means that even the best themes (the temple music) quickly overstay their welcome–especially given the amount of time that must be spent, occasionally, in a single area. This reviewer spent more than an hour in some of the temples–upwards of two hours in one–and the music, on repeat throughout, had the shine knocked right off of it.

The storyline–traditionally a focus of later Zelda games–suffers a lack of development: there is no story to carry the player through the experience. Like the original The Legend of Zelda, the sequel is a series of dungeons which must sustain the story delivered in a scrolling introduction on the title screen. This was understandable in the original game, which had no towns and few NPCs with whom to interact. But in the sequel, it makes less sense: there are numerous towns and scores of NPCs, and yet no one seems even remotely interested in the curse that afflicts their princess. Instead, Link dutifully performs the task cusorily assigned to him in the introduction, and this alone must carry the player though a long, difficult, and tiresome experience.

Many games from the NES era have not aged well. Zelda II disappointed players when it was originally released and, nearly thirty years later, little has changed: lacking the sophistication of design found in other Zelda series games, and with a style of gameplay that focuses attention upon the game’s shortcomings, rather than a style that would minimise those drawbacks, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link remains a bad game in design if not in execution. Diehard fans of the Zelda series may be content to heap praise upon Zelda II without ever actually having to shift their arses and play the game themselves, but the simple reality is that the experience is not only tiresome, but–no thanks to the game’s incredibly short ending sequence!–deeply unfulfilling as well. There are plenty of Zelda adventures worth experiencing, but The Adventure of Link is best left unexplored.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Konami’s Castlevania series of games has long been a crown jewel of the platformer genre of video games. The first title in the series, Akumajo Dracula (lit. Demon Castle Dracula) was ported to the NES and localised in North America as Castlevania. In the intervening years, the series has been the site of numerous innovative and genre-defining advances. As a result, Castlevania games have become known as much for their Gothic Horror setting and J-rock soundtracks as for their farsighted approach to the genre as a whole.

As a result of its genre-pushing development, the Castlevania series occasionally stumbled along the way. Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest attempted to incorporate an open world and RPG-style elements with indifferent success, and Castlevania 64 was a clubfooted attempt to unite the series with advancements in 3D game design. These games were failures not of vision but of realisation, and the principles they advanced were eventually brought successfully to fans in later titles. In 1997, the promise of Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest was at last realised in the Koji Igarashi-directed Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a game which was an immediate critical success in Japan. Despite the limited funding afforded its Western release, Symphony of the Night nevertheless garnered numerous awards. Even today, it routinely features in “Top Ten Games of All Time” lists.

Adrian Farenheit “Alucard” Tepes

As with all Castlevania games (and, as is typical of early platformer games), the plot set-up is relatively formulaic. The supernatural castle of Dracula, Castlevania, reappears approximately once every one hundred years. It is at this time that the descendants of the Belmont family must take up the holy whip of their ancestors and, armed with such vampire-slaying implements as they devise, travel deep into Castlevania to defeat Dracula and the minions who serve him. The first Castlevania titles all chart the experiences of the Belmonts–Simon, Trevor, and Richter–in their effort to defeat Count Dracula.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is a direct sequel to Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, which centred on Richter Belmont’s quest to stop the dark priest Shaft’s efforts to resurrect Dracula in 1792–and to save girls whom Shaft intended to sacrifice, including Richter’s girlfriend, Annette, and a little girl named Maria Renard. Five years after Richter’s successful defeat of Shaft and Dracula, Castlevania inexplicably reappears. Determined to uncover the mystery of Castlevania’s sudden manifestation, Richter enters into the castle; he does not return.

Now a teenager, Maria Renard also makes her way into Castlevania in search of the man to whom she owes her life. Without the presence of a Belmont to put an end to the evil taking place in Castlevania, Dracula’s son, Adrian (commonly known as Alucard), rises from the supernatural slumber which he had imposed upon himself after aiding Trevor Belmont in 1476. Alucard proceeds to his father’s demonic castle, there to uncover the mystery of Castlevania, and the fate of Richter Belmont.

Count Dracula

Use the comment thread below to discuss your approach to the game, challenges you have faced, tactics you are employing, and what you are getting out of your playthrough. Do you feel that the presentation of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has held up since its original release in 1997? Are there aspects of the game that you would change, or that you would hold up as an example for modern game developers to emulate? How have your experience with other platformers, adventure games, and IGAvania-style titles released after Castlevania: Symphony of the Night changed your impressions of the game? Tell us all about it and join in our discussion below!

The aim in this playthrough is to complete the entirety of the game in two weeks. In the first week, the goal is to complete the first half of the game (up to accessing the inverted castle). In the second week, the goal is to complete the second half of the game (after accessing to the inverted castle). Feel free to join in, even if you are behind on the playthrough. Anyone and everyone is invited to participate, regardless of speed of play or familiarity with the series. Tell your friends!

Without further adieu, it is our very great pleasure to invite you now to join the Lusipurr.com staff members, guests, and readers as we once again traverse the halls of the haunted castle, seeking to end Dracula’s reign once and for all in Nocturne in the Moonlight: A Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Playthrough!

No poem of mine was composed under circumstances more vexing for me to remember than this. I began it upon completing my Prospectus Examination, and concluded it just as I was entering the start of the Summer fundraiser, after a rest of less than a single day, with the site. Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached the fundraiser launch. It was published almost immediately after on the site of which so much is referenced in these verses.

Sabin, Lusipurr, and Riddles

FOUR years have past; four summers, with the length
Of four long winters! and again I hear
The readers, crawling from their basement-lairs
With a dark vengeful murmur. –Once again
Do I behold these vile and horrid games,
That on a blank unwritten page impress
Thoughts of more dire seclusion; and connect
The gameplay with the mis’ry of review.
The day is come when I again compose
Here, within this small library, and view
The list of worthless crap, these mismade ‘games’,
Which at this season, with their unique quirks,
Are placed in one great list, and ope themselves
To votes and comments. Once again I see
These art-works, hardly art-works, little spots
Of artless thought run wild: these aesthetic piles,
Rank to the very nose; and odour of crap
Sent up, verily, from among the lot!
With some noisome music, as might seem
Of a vagrant Motok roaming through a bin,
Or of yon Sabin’s wife, vociferous,
Rejecting our Zestria.

Summer 2011: Deadly Towers

                                        These unseemly forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din
Of far better games, I have owed to them
In hours of anxiousness, sensations sad,
Felt in the thumbs, and felt along the arms;
And passing even into my purer mind,
Impeding entertainment: –feelings too
Of unremembered ag’ny: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that worst portion of a game website,
The little, scoreless, unremembered, rant
Of hatred and of spite. Not less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another pain,
Of aspect more hateful; that wrathful mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all the unintelligible games
Are heightened: –that salty and bitchy mood,
In which the enmities harshly shove us on,–
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost a’boiling, we bang on keys
With force, and become a raving fiend:
While with an ear unhinged by the chaotic
Disharmony, and the grating sound effects,
We hear the gutt’ring rasp of death.

Summer 2011: Fable

                                                                 If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft–
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart–
How oft, in spirit, have I turned from thee,
O Deadly Tow’rs! thou pinnacle of the worst,
How often has my spirit turned from thee!
     And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I sit, not only with the sense
Of dawning unease, but with anxious thoughts
For future years. And so I rightly fear,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came unto this site; when like a child
I bounded from game to game, platformers,
shooters, and Japanese role-playing games,
Wherever fun was had: so unlike a man
Flying from something that he dreads; like one
Who sought the thing he loved. For gai’ty then
(The better pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all. –I cannot tell
What then I was. The eight-bit game soundtracks
Haunted me like a passion: pixel art,
The writing, and the great and heroic plot,
Their cliches and their tropes, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.

Summer 2014: Eternal Sonata

                                                  –That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. And for this
Faint I, now mourn, now murmur; other pains
Have followed; for such loss, I do believe
Are but scarce recompense. For I have learned
To look on games, not as in the hour
Of gamesome youth; but hearing oftentime
The still, sad music of orchestral scores,
Both harsh and grating, and of ample power
To irritate and annoy. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the pang
Of agitated thoughts; a sense perverse
Of something far more deeply disconnected,
Whose dwelling’s in the light of flaring lenses,
Procedural oceans and the fractal air,
And occluded sky, and in the mind of devs;
A motion and a design, that disturbs
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
In all new games. Therefore am I still
A lover of the pixels and chiptunes,
Simplicity; and the best that we behold
From our great past; of all the mighty scope
Of eye, and ear, –both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In games and the classics of the past,
The anchor of my good mem’ries, the nurse
The guide, the guardian of my youth, and joy,
Of all my gaming being.

Summer 2015: Ghosts ‘N Goblins (and more!)

                                             Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that gaming oft betrays
The heart that loves it; ’tis ‘privilege’
To expect, through years of life, that it will lead
From joy to joy; for now games can so deform
The mind that is within, so depress
With senselessness sanctimony, and so bore
With pontification, that neither good tongues,
Careful judgements, nor the comments of calm men,
Nor critique in which kindness is, nor all
The rational intercourse of reasonable life,
Shall e’er prevail against them, or disturb
Their mis’rable faith, that all which we behold
Is full of curses. Therefore let the classics
Shine on thee in thy solitary gaming;
And let the cartridges work freely
When you blow upon them: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If misogyny, or privilege, or racism, or patriarchy,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance–
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence–wilt thou then forget
That at this shelf of these wonderous games
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Gaming, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love–oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That even after many long complaints, many years
Of moaning, these round discs and dusty carts,
And this great gaming history, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

Information, Instructions, Rules
1. How It Works: Lusipurr will play, complete, and review whatever individual game is determined by total donations received at the close of the four-week-long drive (ending at midnight US EDT on 8 July). Lusipurr will stream his entire playthrough of the selected game on the Lusipurr.com Twitch.tv channel.

2. The List: The list has been personally chosen by Lusipurr and consists entirely of NES games (excluding the Ø-tier game). Lusipurr himself has ordered the games so that, for him, each tier is worse than the previous tier, with the first game being a bit worse than mediocre and the last game being catastrophically awful. All of the games are well-known (for various reasons), and have been selected so as to be very entertaining both for vewing and reviewing purposes.

3. Stretch Goals: For every $50 beyond the top donation tier ($300), Lusipurr will review one additional game from the list (excluding the Ø-tier game). Any and all additional games will be chosen at random from those available until all six games have been chosen (at $550). Donations beyond $550 will incur no reward except for continuous, red-faced, fist-shaking ire from Lusipurr at being made to review six awful games.

4. Timeframe: A review will follow within a week after the game is completed. If more than one game is selected, Lusipurr will complete and review at least one game per week until all of the games are completed and reviewed. Obviously, medical or other serious extremities may delay reviews.

The Original Box Art for Final Fantasy V

In late 1992, whispers reached the ears of North American JRPG fans, telling of the release in Japan of the latest installment of the popular Final Fantasy series of video games. Yet, in a surprise disappointment driven by Nintendo’s rampant greed and fear of competition, Final Fantasy fans were to be denied the chance to play SquareSoft’s follow up to the highly successful release of Final Fantasy IV. For nearly a decade, English-speaking American People would have to wait, biding their time.

Then, in September of 1999, as part of the Final Fantasy Anthology collection, the draft version of Final Fantasy V was at last released in North America, where it was met with a mixture of acclaim and bemusement. The script, quite excellent by the standards of 1992, seemed simplistic after the release of more complex PlayStation titles. Moreover, a lack of polish in areas beyond the core script–item, monster, and ability names, for example–was a source of exasperation. Confronted by “Karl Boss” and “Y Burns”, many gamers found the draft effort unprofessionally laughable. Yet, even the draft translation (performed by Ted Woolsey) was, by the standards of the day, of a reasonably high quality, and in some ways better than many titles of the later PlayStation and PlayStation 2 eras.

Despite the logo, Wind Drakes (read: Dragons) are hardly an essential plot device.

Charting a planet-spanning conflict, Final Fantasy V is the story of an ancient struggle, a fearful evil, and the two generations of warriors who strove against it. As the story opens, the wanderer Bartz and his loyal chocobo, Boco, find their camping interrupted by the arrival of a meteor. Hurrying to the scene, Bartz finds an amnesiac man and a young girl beset by monsters. Unwilling to abandon them to their fate, the courageous Bartz intervenes, for fate has ordained that their destinies lie intertwined. Together, Bartz, Reina, Galuf, and (soon thereafter) Faris will travel across vast distances in an effort to save their world from the dangerous foe who lies sealed within it. But, as they travel, they will also learn about themselves and their own connexion with the threat to their world.

Use the comment thread below to discuss your approach to the game, challenges you have faced, tactics you are employing, and what you are getting out of your playthrough. Do you feel that the presentation of Final Fantasy V has held up since its original release in 1992? Are there aspects of the game that you would change, or that you would hold up as an example for modern game developers to emulate? How has your experience with other RPGs released after Final Fantasy V changed your impressions of the game? Tell us all about it and join in our discussion below!

The aim in this playthrough is to complete the entirety of the game in three weeks. For the final week, the goal is to finish the third world of the game and the X-Zone. Feel free to join in, even if you are behind on the playthrough. Anyone and everyone is invited to participate, regardless of speed of play or familiarity with the series. Tell your friends!

Without further adieu, it is our very great pleasure to invite you now to join the Lusipurr.com staff members, guests, and readers as we embark on a journey to save the crystals in Dear Friends: A Final Fantasy V Playthrough!

Eternal Sonata

On 14 June, 2007, Kurt Waldheim, Austrian politician and former Secretary-General of the United Nations, died at the age of eighty-eight. In his youth, during the Second World War, Waldheim had served as an intelligence officer in the Wehrmacht. Despite this (or, perhaps, because of it), Waldheim was elected President of Austria, in which position he served from 1986 until 1992. Never once, in all that time, did he play Eternal Sonata–for Waldheim, fortunate man that he was, died on the very day that Eternal Sonata was released. He went to his grave blissfully unaware of the threat posed to humanity by tri-Crescendo and Namco Bandai. Today, we may consider that Waldheim was the last man able to die in a state of contentment about the future.

Several months later, on 16 September, 2007, in a small, isolated nation called The United States of America, another man lay dying. He had not heard that Eternal Sonata was to come out the very next day; the whispers of a terror from beyond the western sea had not yet reached his ears. As he breathed his last, his soul separated from his body. In that instant, all the hopes and fears of boyhood; all the dreams and aspirations of adolescence; all the successes and goals of manhood spun through the fading mind, and the soul, throughout mortality striving for reunion with its maker, fulfilled at last its divine purpose. The author Robert Jordan was fifty-eight years old, and left behind a significant and enduring literary output, absolutely none of which was about Frederic Chopin.

Frederic Chopin

According to the Lusipurr.com Internet Database, Frederic Francois Chopin, born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, who wrote primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading musicians of his era, whose “poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation.” Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw, and grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed many of his works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of twenty, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising.

At the age of twenty-one he settled in Paris. Thereafter, during the last eighteen years of his life, he gave only some thirty public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. He supported himself by selling his compositions and teaching piano, for which he was in high demand. Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann. In 1835 he obtained French citizenship. After a failed engagement to a Polish girl, from 1837 to 1847 he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer George Sand. A brief and unhappy visit to Majorca with Sand in 1838–39 was one of his most productive periods of composition. In his last years, he was financially supported by his admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. Through most of his life, Chopin suffered from poor health. He died in Paris in 1849, probably of tuberculosis.

Frederic Chopin, in Eternal Sonata

According to Eternal Sonata, Frederic Chopin is a dandy doppleganger for Isambard Kingdom Brunel. His beautiful sister commands so much sway in the artistic community that she has imported Samuel Langhorne Clemens–Mark Twain–to serve as her brother’s physician. George Sand, Chopin’s devoted love interest, is optimistically imagined as only relatively dowdy as she manages Chopin’s affairs (whilst he reclines, blissfully unconscious, on an ornate four-poster). In one of the many, interminable sololiquies rendered by this masque of idiots, Twain suggests that Chopin is not dreaming–and yet, in despite of this postulation, the game trundles on with all of the dexterity that one might expect of a chronically tubercular patient. Meanwhile, Twain lumbers about, exclaiming turgid drivvel possessing none of the verve found in his published works; Chopin’s sister sits primly on a settee, from which she emotionlessly ruminates on the nature of existence; and George Sand strides about hither and yon, speaking her mind with a freewheeling abandon whilst conveying absolutely nothing whatsoever. The great mystery is not whether Chopin is dreaming, but who will die first and how: will it be Chopin, in the bedroom, with the tuberculosis; or will it be the reader, in the front room, of boredom?

Within the world of dreams (if Chopin is, in fact, dreaming–but is he dreaming? Is a butterfly dreaming of him? Is he dreaming of a butterly? So deep! So profound! Existentialism through the mind of a fourteen-year-old booby!) a Nietzschean exercise in nihilism is taking place. Frederic asserts that he is dreaming–that all of the characters before him (and the player) are merely constructs of his mind. This the characters roundly dispute, and–if Chopin really is(!?) dreaming them into existence–the biggest mystery of all is why he does not choose to dream up something more imaginative or compelling than a bunch of identical anime-dolls straight off the tri-Cresendo assembly line, each packaged so as to declaim solipsistic babblings that would bring a blush to the cheeks of a first-week freshman in a 100-level philosophy course.

BUT *IS* HE DREAMING!?(!?(!(?)))

And there is the rub, for this is the game’s monumental conceit–greater than its absurd reimaginings of style and appearance; greater than its wrangling with history and established fact; greater even than its clumsy, thumbless groping at entry-level existentialism–no, the greatest conceit of all is that Chopin the musical prodigy, renowned in his time and at every moment since, author of some of the most delicate and inventive works ever composed for the piano: waltzes, mazurkas, scherzi, preludes, and sonatae, Chopin the undisputed creative genius can invent nothing better than a series of cookie-cutter mouthpieces for the bilious mouth-farting of low-rent Japanese anime producers. To be certain, experienced gamers and anime fans have seen and heard it all before–the laboured expostulations on the nature of existence, the ponderous, navel-gazing pseudo-philosophy–but Eternal Sonata is the indisputable ne plus ultra of the form.

Beat: “I’m really gonna teach you a lesson!”

But let us return to the dream world–if, indeed, we are not already dreaming–where we can find a cast of characters whose names are all drawn directly from musical terminology. One can almost imagine the self-satisfied sniggering of the developers, high on their own farts, as they drafted up plans for Polka, Beat, and Allegretto; for the lands of Baroque and Forte; for Prince Crescendo and Fort Fermata (the last particularly appropriate as its movement mechanic quickly overstays its welcome). All of them are uninspiringly voice-acted, with the usual in-battle shouting that gamers have come to loathe. “How pitiful! You soulless creatures!” Chopin shouts, again and again, without variation. “Sacred Signature!” The staggered player, agape on his couch, can only gawp at the needless lip-flapping. “Tuberculosis, hurry!” he shouts in rejoinder, hoping to encourage a faster end to the experience–but the game, uncaring, hears him not.

The battles themselves proceed in the usual sort of porridge-y tri-Crescendo way: there is a move timer, a combo meter, and light and dark areas of the battlefield, each of which result in a different finishing move for the playable characters. –And that is the whole of it, really. Bosses have a lot of hitpoints and most of the significant fights seem designed to wear down the player’s resolve rather than the characters’ life totals. These are often followed by lengthy cutscenes: in one memorable instance, this reviewer left the couch at the beginning of a cutscene. After loading laundry, making dinner, emptying the dishwasher, eating dinner, and loading the dishwasher again, this reviewer returned to the couch only to find that the cutscene was still progressing apace, with very many observances about whether anything unreal exists.

Count Waltz

As for the storyline, it may be dispensed with quickly: Floral Powder and Mineral Powder factor in significantly; the former is good, the latter bad, in the usual bifurcative way that the natural world is set against the artificial. The bad count (Waltz) and principality (Forte) push Mineral Powder, which turns people into monsters. The good prince (Crescendo) and kingdom (Baroque) prefer the eco-friendly Floral Powder, which pleases Polka (a flower seller) no end. The game’s descent into madness rolls along, gathering speed as the plot leaps dizzyingly from one absurd point to the next even more absurd point. After falling into the sea and escaping pirates (the party are woefully ill-fortuned), they at last confront Count Waltz who escapes through a magical portal. The party dutifully follows him to the (surprisingly accessible) underworld, “Elegy of the Moon” (haunted by the deceased victims of Mineral Powder), where he escapes again.

What follows next is unclear to this reviewer, despite the fact that he has now played through the final segment of the game twice–both on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. For the sake of brevity, the Lusipurr.com Internet Database says:

The party advances past Xylophone Tower and the Noise Dunes to Double Reed Tower, where Legato [Count Waltz’s henchman] made another portal. There, the party defeats them and finally fight [Frederic] Chopin as the final antagonist, for him to complete his destiny. Realizing that it is the only way to save the world, Polka jumps off a cliff and is reborn younger, but then becomes older again and embraces Allegretto. Finally, back in the real world, Chopin’s spirit rises out of his body and he plays his piano one last time, in a blooming sea of nocturnal flowers ‘Heaven’s Mirror’, composing a song that was inspired by Polka. [Emphasis added.]

This reviewer defies our readers to find something more staggeringly idiotic in a game made by a respected, experienced, practised developer. In addition, this reviewer submits that this is the only ending to a game which is worse than that found in the otherwise similarly lamentable Final Fantasy X.

So deep!

The music is an area where–all else failing–it would be reasonable to expect Eternal Sonata to deliver satisfaction. After all, it is a game centred (at least in principle) upon one of the most famous composers ever to have graced the Euterpean arts. And, indeed, when the game chooses to present the music of Chopin, it does this quite well: the recordings are of a very good if not outright exceptional quality, with all of the selections presented in 5.1 surround sound. Moreover, and most critically, the quality of Stanislav Bunin’s performance is exceptional in places and very good in others–the Etudes in particular demonstrate a profoundly developed lyrical technique on the part of the performer. But, aggravatingly, these very few moments in the game–easily and without contest the best part of the entire Eternal Sonata experience–are delivered as mere vignettes: they are moments not of gameplay, but of historical presentation, accompanied by brief

So profound!

snippets of Chopin history utterly disconnected from what has been taking place within the world of the game. Here is yet another opportunity squandered, for had the developers attended more carefully to the music, they could have created a game that would allow Chopin’s compositional genius to speak for him–to accent the action of the gameplay; to serve real, narrative purpose within the soundtrack of the game itself. But, alas, just as the game world of Eternal Sonata is nothing so much as a a farcical caricature of the real–the existentialist universe as seen in a carnival fun house mirror–so too is Motoi Sakuraba’s un-Chopin-like and forgettable soundtrack but the unsophsticated and juvenile imitation of real compositional brilliance–an inescapable inferiority shown all to the worse by its unfavourable juxtaposition alongside the works of a real master like Chopin, presented below:

The stirring and vivacious Polonaise in Ab, Op. 53 of Chopin is followed–in what must be the ultimate damp squib—by the enthusiastically dull strains of some saccharine, string-infused Sakuraba selection, served up for the savory delectation of the suitably tin-eared listener. Philistines rejoice! Sakuraba has turned out yet another drosswork–the perfect background music for a life of no consequence!

“It’s the stupidest tea party I ever was at in all my life!”

At the end of it all, Eternal Sonata is a very bad game. But it is not–it must now be asserted–the worst game ever made, nor could it ever realistically aspire to reach such lofty heights and occupy a position alongside games like Deadly Towers and Fable. As the work of nothing more nor less than a team of over-practised amateurs, Eternal Sonata can never rise above its own firmly-established mediocrity to be anything more than a footnote in the annals of game reception. Where Chopin was brilliant–where he caught the world by the ear and inscribed his name upon history through works of genius and beauty–the developers of Eternal Sonata have instead been mediocre, subpar, uninspired, and workaday. Sakuraba’s stringy, forgettable earbilge is, in many ways, the perfect audio accompaniment to the uninvested blathering of the Wednesdayish voice actors; to the unsophisticated pseudophilosophical musings of the giddy-with-their-own-brilliance writers; and to the uninventive battle system, the development of which is purely a tool by which the developers hoped to force the increasingly apathetic player to look ever-more-closely at the mind-numbing piffle playing out on the screen.

A work of stunning mediocrity, more than anything else Eternal Sonata is a missed opportunity. Had the developers hearkened to the oeuvre of their ostensible subject, they could have created a game which would have allowed Chopin’s genius to speak for him. Instead, the developers chose to let their writers speak for Chopin. The result is not an “Eternal Sonata”, but rather a passing, fleeting “Variation on a Theme of Disappointment”.

Box Art (N.A. Version)

In the last year of the twentieth century, a Japanese developer hight SquareSoft published a game which sought to improve upon the political world-building that had been on display in their acclaimed 1997 release, Final Fantasy Tactics. To all but the most optimistic of observers, such a goal seemed to verge upon the impossible: Tactics had seen the creation of an world entire: not only a mythos, but social, political, cultural, and religious systems had all been constructed along historical lines, displaying divergences, developments, and shifts in cultural memory. The result was a game that not only provided a deep and compelling fantasy world full of knowledge to be uncovered and revealed, but also a setting which seemed to exist in a human reality: where history, and our conceptions of it, are shaped by long dureé structural forces in which we necessarily participate, and through which we are unknowingly shaped.

Nevertheless, in the year 2000, SquareSoft had the confidence to try and improve upon their recently-displayed mastery of realistic political fantasy world-building. Vagrant Story is the result: a game which, for all intents and purposes, plunges even more quickly and more deeply into a world of political factionalism and double-crossing machination, beneath and behind which a far darker menace lies. For, when the malevolence of man is combined with a fearsome power, it threatens the the world itself.

Battle System

Released to critical acclaim both in Japan and abroad, the consensus is that Vagrant Story is one of the most finely polished exercises in world-building and game design which the industry has yet seen. With a translation by Alexander O. Smith described, at the time, as “unprecedented”, the story is delivered with a literary polish that would still be impressive today, let alone during the PlayStation era. In addition, the soundtrack by Hitoshi Sakimoto (a Final Fantasy Tactics veteran) establishes an atmosphere which is unnervingly chilling. And, the artwork of Hiroshi Minagawa and Akihiko Yoshida also follows on from Final Fantasy Tactics, firmly establishing a mode of artistic representation that would become a staple of SquareSoft–and later, SquareEnix–fantasy productions, seen in Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy XIV.

Now available on the PlayStation Network as a PSOne Classic, Vagrant Story is an affordable title which every role-playing game enthusiast should experience. We hope that you will join with us in our playthrough over the next four weeks, using this post to discuss and share experiences, frustrations, and observations about your place in the game: whether you have time to complete it, or only play a little, share your thoughts with us. A selection of the best comments from each week will be included in our Podcast.

We look forward to playing, and discussing, Vagrant Story with you!

The Desk of a Powerful Man

The year is 2014, and somewhere in the mystical land of Michigan an amateur dictator sits at his desk listening to the incomparable compositions of Alan Hovhaness. As his computer notifies him of another incoming e-mail, the bespectacled autocrat glances up from his copy of The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. With an irritated sigh, he observes another donation intended for the Lusipurr.com coffers.

“Now I must devise still more stretch goals,” Lusipurr grumbles to himself–for our glorious leader Lusipurr it is whose desk and time at leisure are here described. With a hasty rat-a-tat-tat upon the keyboard, the onerous chore is completed, and the inestimable supremo is once again free to indulge in aesthetic delights beyond the appreciation of the plebian masses. Alas!–in his haste, he has set the bar too low. A mere hundred dollars and twenty-four hours are all that are needed from a vicious fanbase which has time-and-again demonstrated that money is but little object when it comes to inflicting suffering upon he who is responsible for so much joy.

Is it Checkmate for Lusipurr!?

Soon, the folly of Lusipurr’s irritated haste is revealed, as a bevy of donators push the Lusipurr.com balance sheets into the black for the first time in years. Adding insult to injury, each donation is attended by an e-mail notification which disrupts Lusipurr’s listening and reading experience. “How the deuce am I supposed to enjoy Hovhaness’ ‘Upon Enchanted Ground’ with this d—ed racket!?” the frustrated curmudgeon finally exclaims, driven to distraction. An annoyed series of clicks suffices to bring El Presidente up to speed. “They’ve done it,” he mouths soundlessly. “The bastards.”

A quick glance across the library suffices to reassure Lusipurr that his game collection still contains a whole host of thoroughly unpalatable titles, to say nothing of the scourge-like options available via emulation on the NES, SNES, Genesis, and Game Boy systems. Bony fingers quickly tap away at an iPhone in alarm. The wait for a response from Blitzmage, Business Manager Extraordinaire seems to take forever in the coming:

“No, you can’t give the money back.”

The wisdom of the ages resides in these very tomes…

After a ramble through the library and some perusal of the great histories, the feline führer finds himself in front of the computer once more. With a series of keystrokes, a secure channel is open to the redoubtable News Director, SiliconNooB. “G’day!” comes the nasal-yet-jolly tones of the befuddled inebriate. And, after an hour’s discussion, with much repetition for the benefit of a spirits-addled mind, the Wonder from Down Under is forced graciously to concur with his esteemed colleague:

“Shoefag haddit right,” he manages, with scarcely a belch along the way. “Yer gonna have t’play wha’e’er they want. Drink time now, g’day!” After which curt termination the channel is closed before Lusipurr has even the chance to reply.

“This is intolerable!” Lusipurr exclaims in tones meant for the benefit of the ever-attentive National Security Agency. “How am I supposed to get out of slaving away at another lamentable game development abortion?” But, with each passing moment, his dread grows, for the answer seems increasingly inescapable: there is no way out.

No Saving Throw vs. the Vox Populi!

With the number-crunchers, the law, and the readers all marshalled against him in force, even this most autocratic and arbritrary of dictators begins to reflect upon what happened to the Caesars when they too often transgressed beyond what the citizenry of Rome would tolerate. The people must feel that they are being heard (if only on occasion)–bread and circuses must be dispensed–else who knows what mischief the masses might make?

So it was that, imagining the dread sound of jangling pitchforks clattering in his ears, Lusipurr grimly opened the site backend.

“Very well, as it seems to me that I have but little choice, I shall throw myself upon God and Fate, in the hope that the outcome is endurable. Mayhap Final Fantasy VII will be the choice of the masses.”

Mayhap, indeed.

Note: Nominations and voting are concluded. Please consult the results below.

Final Fantasy X Original Box Art

When Final Fantasy X was released on the PlayStation 2, angels wept. Satan, seated on his throne of pain, cracked his knuckles whilst laughing with ghoulish glee. This, he knew, was an auspicious day. Unsuspecting Final Fantasy fans would soon suffer through more than forty hours of unpalatable bilge. This gave the Lord of Darkness reason for celebration. Yet, even he did not know the fullness of Final Fantasy X‘s terrible nature. Now, years later, we seek to relive those painful experiences as expiation for our sins. So, join us, readers, as we undergo the horrendous, grinding, awful, merciless purgatory that is Final Fantasy X.

In this, the final, we will be focusing on completing the game. Post your comments on the ridiculous storyline, the dated graphics, the lacklustre soundtrack, the solid battle system, and the utterly abysmal voice acting. Is the script totally crap? (Yes.) Is the internal coherence wholly absent? (Yes.) Is the game a fetid waste of time–a miserable excuse for a budget expenditure which never should have been? (Yes.) You be the judge–as long as your judgement complies with our own unbiased, objective view of this rank turd of a game.

Four weeks of unskippable cutscenes. Four weeks of a spastic main character who has a combination of Tourette’s, Alzheimer’s, and Schizophrenia. Four weeks of stilted voice acting. Four weeks of stiffly-moving models with soulless eyes wildly gesticulating. Four weeks of long, theatrical pauses punctuated by frequent, jarring, bizzarely-located, hyperactive camera angle changes. Four weeks of nonsensical plot. Four weeks of pseudo-philosophical, pseudo-emotional, pseudo-important piffle. Four weeks of Final Fantasy X.

Pokemon X

We begin with a description of the scene: a young boy or girl is summoned to appear before the local academic–a worthy who goes by the nickname of ‘the Pokemon professor’. This sylvan-surnamed individual dispenses a pet–aligned generally with water, fire, or grass–to the excited child. In the process, a whole world of opportunity is made available, for now, with the power of Pokemon to aid him, the youth can set out into the wild. There, he will do battle with countless other Pokemon, enlisting a few in his party, and becoming stronger through chasing the rest away in combat. But Pokemon are not the only concern with which our intrepid hero must contend: adults, motivated by greed and malice, seek to destabilise the security and peace of the world. The hero will find himself caught up in that struggle, forced to face down two parallel sets of goals: his own effort to prove himself in the Pokemon League, and the necessary task of defeating those who would endanger or oppress others for the sake of private gain. Along the way, he will have the support of family, friends, and allies–for the hero will encounter many people in the course of his journey. By proving himself, he can depend upon their support later on. Friendship is key: between a trainer, his Pokemon, and his friends.

Pokemon X & Y Starter Evolutions

Since the release of the original Pokemon in 1998, the story formula related above has remained more or less unchanged. New Pokemon have been added, along with new modes of gameplay, new mini-games, new side-stories, and new anime episodes which expand upon the world. Yet, with each release in the franchise, Pokemon has remained steadfastly true to the original story: a tale of self-discovery, burgeoning friendship, and the realisation of the value of cooperation. Pokemon neatly straddles the line between the concepts of individual exceptionalism and the power of collaborative accomplishment. Additionally–most recently in Pokemon Black and White–Pokemon has tried to address issues of complex morality regarding its own subsumed premises: is it just, after all, for the world to be so dependent upon Pokemon? Or are we as critical players exercising our own form of cultural imperialism by attempting to judge the fictional culture of the world of Pokemon by the standards of our own culture’s morality? Is it even possible for us to evaluate Pokemon by its own standards?

Beautiful 3D!

Now, fifteen years on from the original release in North America of Pokemon Red and Blue, the Nintendo 3DS has received its first entry in the franchise: Pokemon X and Y. In addition, these most recent games in the series are the first ‘main series’ Pokemon games to be presented in 3D. Other games in the franchise have used 3D environments in some way or another, but never to the same level as in Pokemon X and Y.

With these innovations have come challenges unique in the history of the franchise: have the programmers and developers properly anticipated those challenges? Have they incoporated these innovations in a way which is beneficial to the presentation of the game? Or, do the new features and gameplay mechanics actually detract from the simplistic and basic premise of the Pokemon style?

Use the comment thread below to discuss your approach to the game, challenges you have faced, tactics you are employing, and what you are getting out of your playthrough. Do you feel that the presentation of Pokemon X and Y has changed for the better relative to the preceding games in the series? Are there aspects of the game that you would change still further, or that you would hold up as an example of what need not be changed? How has your experience with other Pokemon games shaped your impressions of the most recent release? Do you have any stories about your first Pokemon experiences? Tell us in the comments!

The aim in this playthrough is to complete the entirety of the game in four weeks. For our first week, we invite users to wrest control of the first three gym badges from their holders. However, feel free to join in, even if you are behind on the playthrough. Anyone and everyone is invited to participate, regardless of game format, speed of play, or familiarity with the series. Tell your friends!

Without further adieu, it is our very great pleasure to invite you now to join the Lusipurr.com staff members, guests, and readers as we select a starter, meet with a Pokemon professor, and indulge in 3D Pokemon battles in The Age of Revolution: A Pokemon X/Y Playthrough!

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The semi-brutal puzzle/adventure game by The Legendary Zoltan

Original Composition: A Wizard Has Died
Featured In: The Hegg

This is my final contribution to Lusipurr.com. It was created with far less realistic-sounding orchestra samples than my previous works for the site. This is appropriate because it was composed for a video game that utilizes cute RPG Maker VX Ace sprites. It is a somewhat brutal puzzle/adventure game that I created, myself, called The Hegg. This music was inspired by Shadow of the Colossus and Super Castlevania IV. I am quite happy with the sound I was able to create using such old samples. I think this is the kind of music that is appropriate for this website and I hope that everyone enjoys this final piece.

I really enjoyed working at Lusipurr.com. I just want to emphasize to the readership that, if you have ever considered working at this site, you should definitely apply. The benefits far outweigh the workload. One really ought to be satisfied with just learning about what exactly is involved in running a site like this and the experience of working in the field of gaming journalism. However, there is so much more value to be gleaned if one is able to notice it and is open-minded to it. I believe that the exceptionally well-educated opinions of people like Lusipurr and SiliconNoob are a rarity in the world today, and I am just grateful to have been able to experience the kind of community that Lusipurr is striving to create here. I think the people who worked here for just one week and left missed a great opportunity. I plan to continue being a regular visitor of Lusipurr.com. I thank the staff for putting up with me and I thank the readers for listening to my music. See you in the comments section!

Celes on the beach at Solitary Island

Remix: My Friends May All Be Dead
Source: Final Fantasy VI: Searching for Friends
Original Composer: Nobuo Uematsu

Celes has just spent days hand-feeding a bed-ridden Cid fish after fish that she caught, herself, from the beach just outside their small shelter. However, despite her desperate efforts to nurse him back to health, Cid has passed away. Celes now sits on the beach, staring at the waves, contemplating whether or not to climb up to the top of the cliff that looms over her and jump to her death. She is stranded on a small island with no way off of it, no source of fresh water, and no human companions. Celes stands up, still facing the waves, and before she can turn around she hears the sound of footsteps in the sand. Celes quickly looks behind her to see a man wearing a bandana. It is Locke! And he is holding a guitar. He begins playing it, sending Celes’s spirits soaring. After a verse and a hug, Edgar shows up and he has a guitar, too! Locke’s lonely melody becomes a duet that celebrates their unlikely reunion. Celes listens and looks on in tears of joy. No sooner do Locke and Edgar finish their tune than the rest of the party shows up in an airship! Everyone is reunited and they all celebrate with music. Locke and Edgar play guitars. Shadow has an electric bass guitar connected to an amplifier that Terra has hooked up to a suit of MagiTek Armor. Setzer plays a single hi-hat cymbal while he waits for his drum techs, Sabin and Umaro, to bring out the rest of the kit. Mog and Gogo become the dancers. Gau and Cyan are working the bar on the airship and Relm is bringing everyone their drinks on the beach. Everyone is back together again and ready to restore balance to their ruined world. Except Strago because he sucks.

Selphie Tilmitt, Lyricist and Composer

Original Composition: Take Us Away
Inspiration: Final Fantasy VIII
Lyrics: Selphie Tilmitt
Vocals: J. Lawrence Kenny
Bass: Florian Heil

Hail, Lusicrooners. It is time for The Legendary Zoltan’s monthly music post. Today I bring you a song that is much more Lusipurr-friendly than the previous work. It is an original song inspired by a scene in Final Fantasy VIII where the party is aboard one of the transcontinental trains. In that scene Selphie is staring out the window and singing a song about trains. Do you remember it? That is the song I wrote! This was an excellent task given to me by our fearless leader, Lusipurr. This song needed to be written. In Final Fantasy VIII, Selphie Tilmitt sings,

Train, train, take us away.
Take us away, far away.
To the future we will go.
Where it leads no one knows.

If you think those are the most boring lyrics in the world, you are correct. That is how most pop music is though. Most pop music is also very repetitive: something that I am adamantly against. However, since I wanted the song to sound like it could be an actual pop song that exists in the world of Final Fantasy VIII, I held back all of my crazy prog-metal inclinations and made something that is totally believable. Now, I do not want you all to think that I made a bad song. I have not. I just made a pop song.

My approach actually started out the same as when I compose a metal song. I just picked up my seven-string guitar and started messing around. Not really knowing anything about jazz, I surprised myself when I was able to create a nice jazzy chord progression. To be honest, this chord progression sounds familiar to me and I may have heard something similar to it somewhere before. I can not imagine where though, because I do not listen to jazz. Until I can remember, I will just junction this Guardian Force over here. After laying down a smooth chord progression, I layered on some drums with brushes instead of drum sticks. Your welcome, Lusipurr. I wrote the melody for the vocals on my guitar. I did everything I could to keep it as chill as possible. It never gets busy, so each word comes out nice and relaxed. I sent that melody to a vocalist from the Overclocked ReMix community. I also completely outsourced the bass line. Once I had the bass and vocals integrated, the song was basically complete. I touched it up with a piano solo at the end and some additional percussion.

Overall, this song was a bit of a challenge because it was not my usual genre. It was definitely a good experience exploring jazzy piano and guitar phrases. I am really pleased with how the piece turned out and I really do believe that this song is a convincing train-inspired pop song that could actually exist. Readers, what do you think? Is this how you imagined Selphie’s train song would sound? Do you think this song fits the Final Fantasy VIII setting? Do you even know what a train is? Post your sparkling comments below.

Ovelia and Delita eventually sort out their differences.

Inspiration: Final Fantasy Tactics – Battle on the Bridge
Original Composer:: Hitoshi Sakimoto & Masaharu Iwata
New Composition: Blame Yourself or God

Hello, Lusipress-on nails users! Today the nicest staff member will show you something most aggressive. I am talking about a new volume in the Lusipurr Music Library. This time around I bring you Final Fantasy Tactics turned death metal. This song started out as a remix but quickly turned into its own thing. The opening guitar parts are quite similar to the opening string parts from Battle on the Bridge from Final Fantasy Tactics. The directly after that has similarities to its Tactics counterpart as well but after that it is nothing but Zoltan. It was not actually Battle on the Bridge alone that inspired me to write this song. If you leave Final Fantasy Tactics on the title screen without pressing any buttons for a while, a demo that explains the two sides of The Lion War starts playing. When you come back to the title screen, if you leave it alone again, there will be another demo which looks like a commercial for a Final Fantasy Tactics movie. That commercial uses the opening melody of this song and shows a lot of swords being thrusted into a lot of people. It had a big impact on me when I first saw it and I just had to make a song based on it. This is the first song on an entire album of game-inspired death metal that I am releasing very soon. The lyrics are posted below. Enjoy.

Blame Yourself or God
Last Dance! Chakra! Scream from the heart the last song!
Murder and theft are commonplace throughout the streets of Ivalice.
Squires assemble here to face the heathens but will it result in peace?

Honor be damned. It’s gotten out of hand. I’ll sacrifice my name before I sacrifice my friend.
Holy spell we calculate. Excaliburs will keep us safe.
I wish for no more bloodshed. Let’s both put down our swords and end 500 years of war.

Chrono Trigger North American Box Art

In March of 1995, Japanese gamers were treated to the release of a new franchise from Square. Developed by a dream team including greats like Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Akira Toriyama, Chrono Trigger hit the ground running, winning plaudits and praise from every corner of the Japanese game industry. The first two million copies of the game were delivered to Japanese retailers in the first two months–at the time, a practically unheard-of sale rate for a JRPG. Across the seas in furthest America, people took notice. The swift localisation and August 1995 release of Chrono Trigger in North America was met with enormous success. Subsequent re-releases on the PlayStation and Nintendo DS were also very well received, posting chart-topping sales figures each in their turn. The PlayStation release of Chrono Trigger remains a best-selling PlayStation Network ‘Classic’ title more than a decade after its initial disc-based release, and several years into its digital availability.

The Currents of Time are dangerous.

In 2013, the success of Chrono Trigger is on par with other Super Nintendo-era greats such as Final Fantasy VI. Routinely featuring in historical “top ten” and “best of” lists, it came in second place (against Final Fantasy VII) in the first-ever GameFAQs “video game battle”, and it was last year named by GamesRadar as the greatest JRPG of all time. Re-released and ported to a variety of systems, it has continued to sell well despite its wide availability on the internet, having surpassed three and a half million copies sold. The DS version was one of the most well-received titles for that system–a remake which is still held up as an example of precisely how to correctly re-release classic 16-bit JRPGs.

The game opens with the titular protagonist, Chrono, waking up in his hometown in the Kingdom of Guardia. The year is A.D. 1000 and a Millennial Fair is about to take place. Chrono’s friend Lucca–an inventor–has built a matter transporter with the assistance of her father, Taban. It is this device which sets events into motion. Chrono’s fortuitous meeting with a young woman named Marle is the catalyst for an adventure which will span not merely the breadth of the world, but the very length of time itself.

Chrono Trigger Cosplay, by DeviantArt user Risachantag

All areas of Chrono Triggers‘s presentation have been praised since its release nearly a score of years ago. The music is widely considered to be one of the greatest soundtracks ever written for a video game. The graphics represent the pinnacle of sprite-based design; the DS version especially is renowned for its beautiful presentation, including the anime cut scenes from the PlayStation version, and an updated interface which makes use of the second DS screen for menus, freeing the top screen to display an unfettered view of Chrono Trigger’s colourful and detailed environments.

Use the comment thread below to discuss your approach to the game, challenges you have faced, tactics you are employing, and what you are getting out of your playthrough. Do you feel that the presentation of Chrono Trigger has held up since its release in 1995? Are there aspects of the game that you would change, or that you would hold up as an example for modern game developers to emulate? How has your experience with other RPGs released after Chrono Trigger changed your impressions of the game? Do you have any stories about your first experience? Tell us in the comments!

The aim in this playthrough is to complete the entirety of the game in four weeks. For our fourth and final week, we invite users to finish the game. However, feel free to join in, even if you are behind on the playthrough. Anyone and everyone is invited to participate, regardless of game format, speed of play, or familiarity with the series. Tell your friends!

Without further adieu, it is our very great pleasure to invite you now to join the Lusipurr.com staff members, guests, and readers as we return to the sunny days of the Guardia Millennial Fair in Peaceful Days: A Chrono Trigger Playthrough!

Congratulations!

Worst Company:
EA

EA has had an interesting journey from being entirely hated to appearing to be on the road to redemption to being more hated than ever. This category was the most unanimous in the voting. But why listen to me when we have Julian?

“EA earns the dubious honour of being the worst company of the year for managing to be comprehensively awful on multiple fronts, any one of which would be sufficient to earn them worst company of the year in isolation from any other. Origin malware, online passes, the destruction of previously good developers (Bioware), and the race to the bottom with respect to grey-brown shooters; they are just an utterly repugnant company.”
– SiliconNooB

Julian was not the only person with poignant things to say. Our own Red Menace also stated that EA won because “it’s EA and they kill everything that is good.” Well spoke.

Worst Console Game
Fable Horsey Game

There were a lot of hated console games in 2012, it appears. In fact, every staff member voted for a different game except for my and Julian’s vote for the eventual winner. Once again, I will let Julian handle this one.

“The worst console game is the Fable Kinect Horsey game for the fact that it is a Fable game, a Kinect game, and an on-rails shooter game. That’s three kinds of shit.”
– SiliconNooB

I honestly could not have said it better myself.

Worst PC Game

The PC has so much shit shoveled onto it that it is quite difficult to determine the worst software for it. Therefore this category garnered two winners.

Winner 1: Train Simulator 2013

How does this series continue to output software? If one is insane enough, one could spend literally thousands of dollars on train DLC. The gameplay is nothing but driving trains. For those of you who do not know, TRAINS ARE ON RAILS. That is one pricey screensaver. Even Flower has more gameplay. This trailer is for last year’s version, but it is still required viewing. It is almost bad enough to be too good for this award. But then again, it takes itself seriously. So it deserves this award.

Winner 2: Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (EA Origin version)

Take it away, Julian.

“The worst PC game is Operation Raccoon City on EA’s Origin platform for the simple fact that it is the worst game that I could find on Origin, which makes it twice damned.”
-SiliconNooB

Yup.

Congratulations!

Worst Handheld Game
Angry Birds Trilogy

This was another well-divided category, but it was Kenjujuu’s argument that tipped the tie-breaker.

“…because the constant sale of converted flash-based awfulness to handhelds is killing all innovation in this kind of gaming. Keep it on the iPhone.”
– Kenjujuu

Yeah! Fuck off, Angry Birds!

Worst RPG
Final Fantasy Dimensions

I did not play this game or even know it existed. Thank God for Julian Taylor.

“The pricing structure was completely unacceptable, but I still may have paid for it if I were able to eke out a small measure of enjoyment from the game itself but couldn’t because the controls were too poor.”
– SiliconNooB

Sounds fun!

Worst Hardware
Nintendo Wii U

Now we return to categories in which the winners claimed victory in a landslide. Julian’s arguments are augmented by his genuine desire for the Wii U hardware to be good because of the surprisingly strong concept behind it. But as you will soon read, he cannot in good conscious spend his hard-earned cash on the system.

“…not because it is underpowered, which in all honesty is par for the course for Nintendo, but rather because the hardware is far too unstable for such a technically unambitious console. The Wii U should have been as reliable as a rock, and handily capable of extended play-sessions; instead consoles are shipping dead out of the box, dying during firmware updates, and are unable to be played for more than three hours at a time due to the pathetic battery that Nintendo selected for the Gamepad. — I wanted to buy a Wii U this Christmas, but cannot because it is such a wretched piece of shit at present.”
– SiliconNooB

Congratulations!

Worst Peripheral
Nintendo Wii U

Another landslide. Another on-point comment from Julian.

“[The Wii U wins] for the simple and beautiful fact that Nintendo’s chosen audience actually think that it is a peripheral for the Wii. If that is an invalid selection then I would choose the Wii U gamepad for having less battery power than the 3DS XL, but I honestly think that my reasoning for the system as a whole is pretty defensible.”
– SiliconNooB

Worst Soundtrack
Devil May Cry Demo

Considering the full game did not come out until this year, it is even more impressive that this demo is taking home our dubious award for 2012. But I guess it makes sense because according to Julian, “the game is in a field all of its own in terms of sonic awfulness”. Get it together, Devil May Cry demo.

Worst Voice Acting
Silent Hill Collection

Ho-boy, I think Julian’s getting extra mad. His Foster’s is boiling.

“[Silent Hill Collection wins] not only due to the fact that the new VA is actually worse than the old VA, but also because of the fact that there is a minute and a half of extra voice performance THAT SHOULD NOT BE IN THE GAME. This comes in the form of whimpers and grunts and sobs and pants and sighs – the modern crop of voice actors seem deathly afraid of allowing a single moment’s silence, and as a result they sound like the insipid anime hacks that they no doubt are. Very, very poor voice acting. Very, very poor judgement. They are thus twice fucked!”
– SiliconNoob

Worst Game Overall

Here it is. A game so bad that it beat out all other horrible games. A game that only needed to be the same as it was before, but made extra effort to be worse. Far worse. Ladies and gentlemen: a quote from Julian and a poster from Kenjujuu:

“The Silent Hill HD Collection is the worst overall because it manages to achieve the impossible – turning an excellent duo of games into wretched pieces of shit.”
– SiliconNooB

James Pagel, during one of his frequent alcohol-induced episodes.

Another year has come and gone, and so it is only fitting that–in keeping with our tradition of choosing games and companies of the year–Lusipurr.com would now like to call attention to the 2012 Reader of the Year: Mr. James Pagel!

Born in 1999, James Pagel’s hard-fighting, hard-drinking life has led to premature ageing and three liver transplants to counter the effects of persistent cirrhosis. Yet, in spite of his lack of restraint, James Pagel has nevertheless at last found a healthful outlet for the manifestations of his obsessive personality disorder: Lusipurr.com. With nearly a post each day to ‘like’ on Facebook, James Pagel has found solace in endlessly checking and rechecking the site’s RSS converter, his eyes aglow with anticipation as he waits for Facebook to catch up to the site proper. And when it does, James Pagel’s shaking fingers hurriedly click the mouse, adding the first ‘like’ to the Facebook post–no doubt the first of many.

James Pagel, here photographed during an abortive suicide attempt.

Life now may be excellent–bodacious, even–but before Lusipurr.com, James Pagel was a shell of a man. Saddled with nearly a hundred thousand dollars in consumer debt, he was an unemployed university drop-out, bereft of friend and family. To be sure, James Pagel lived an altogether Motokian existence, worthy of scorn or pity–or perhaps both, administered in turns: the hand extended to offer charity then turned to strike hapless James Pagel on the cheek, rebuffing the begging of alms made with doleful plea. With scarcely a bean to his name, he wandered the streets looking for something–anything–which could sate his obsessions. Alcohol he found, more often than not, and the blissful forgetfulness it imposed upon him allowed him–if only for a moment–to escape the tumultuous, tedious hell that was his daily life.

Twelve-step programs, detoxification clinics, shock treatment, forced hospitalisation, and government reeducation camps were all tried, repeatedly, to no avail. Long did James Pagel wander in the wilderness, feeding primarily on grubs, berries, and certain edible herbs discovered through trial-and-error. Finally, stumbling into a library in the rural southwest, enmired in a psychogenic haze caused by excessive consumption of peyote, James Pagel crashed into a computer terminal and numbly tried to look up the best way to sell his soul to devil in exchange for something approaching sanity. Instead, he happened upon Lusipurr.com and, his brain reeling with shock as he observed pictures of swasdickas (a genuine Lusipurr.com invention now become most popular on the Call of Duty servers) and large-breasted anime girls. Certain that he had found Satan’s Own Website, he memorised the address and swore to return the following day.

Here, James Pagel is seen with his therapist after one of their successful, post-Lusipurr.com appointments.

And return he did–the following day, and every day thereafter. Once James Pagel realised he had not sold his soul to the devil, and that Lusipurr.com was not a portal to the Infernal Regions, but rather The Internet’s Premiere Video Game and Cricket News Website ©, hope swiftly returned, having been only latent. James Pagel began attending group, individual, sexual, couples, and behavioural therapy. And soon, Lusipurr.com became not a crutch, but a part of the solution. James Pagel’s therapists were in awe, and the director of his behavioural therapy program was hopelessly attracted by the sheer willpower she saw on display. Lusipurr.com had not only cured James Pagel, it had made him a stronger, better man than he could ever have been before. Soon thereafter, James Pagel and his therapist married in the world’s first Lusipurr-themed wedding, complete with an Oliver Motok pinata and a karaoke singer dressed as Ethan Pipher. A Nate Liles cosplayer jumped out of their cake, and their barkeeper–a mustachioed Australian–spent the night serving up a special mixed drink of Foster’s, methylated alcohol, and Kangaroo urine, billed as the “SiliconNooB Special”.

And so, for his constant ‘likes’ on Facebook–for his devotion to the official Lusipurr.com World of Warcraft guild–for his themed wedding, his lifestyle turnaround, his attendance in the comments, his participation in features, and his promising beginning to what will certainly be a richly successful and erudite life, Lusipurr.com is pleased to award James Pagel the 2012 Reader of the Year award. May this award be the first of many that he will receive! And may his therapist wife keep a close eye on him, lest he spend his meagre winnings on the temptations of DRINK.

Congratulations, James Pagel!

Final Fantasy VI

In the Autumn of 1994, gamers across North America eagerly awaited the latest installment of the Final Fantasy series. With the surprise disappointment that was the non-release of Final Fantasy V, English-speaking JRPG fans had been waiting three years for a follow up to the 1991 release of Final Fantasy IV. Amongst the many people eagerly awaiting their copy was young(!) Lusipurr.

When, on October 11, 1994, Final Fantasy VI was released, it was met with critical and universal acclaim. Shortages of SNES games were unusual–but shortages of JRPGs were even more so. Yet copies of Final Fantasy VI were hard to find, with many retailers finding themselves in the then-curious position of needing to fulfill demand for a video game that did not feature Mario. Backorders stretched well into the following year thanks to a spirited holiday season. The game made the evening news. It was perhaps the first time in history that a JRPG gained the attention of the North American mainstream press.

Terra Branford

Eighteen years later, in 2012, the success of Final Fantasy VI has become the renown of Final Fantasy VI. Routinely featuring in historical “top ten” and “best of” lists, it was this year named by IGN as the number one RPG of all time. Re-released and ported to a variety of systems, it has continued to sell well despite its wide availability on the internet, having surpassed three and a half million copies sold. An announced DS remake was one of the most widely anticipated titles for that system, and when the project was placed on hold, questions were immediately asked about the 3DS instead. To this day, Final Fantasy VI continues to generate headlines. It is simply one of the most beloved games ever made.

Charting the history of a war which will reshape the face of the globe, Final Fantasy VI is ostensibly the story of Terra Branford, the daughter of a human and an esper, whose natural gift for magic attracts the undesireable attention of Gestahl, the emperor of a militarised and technologically-advanced kingdom. Gestahl’s lead researcher, Cid, has devised a means of extracting magical power from espers. This power is used to create magical machines and to give magical power to human beings. With magic at their control, and the military in the command of fearless and valiant generals, the empire of Gestahl seems unstoppable. One by one, the kingdoms and city-states of the world fall against its undaunted might.

Kefka Palazzo

As the story opens, a mind-controlled Terra and two soldiers are approaching the colliery town of Narshe where yet another esper has been found. But, the empire’s desire for the esper’s power backfires when the creature, frozen in a block of ice, dispatches the soldiers and breaks the mind-control, freeing Terra from the enslavement of Kefka Palazzo, one of Gestahl’s closest advisors. Her flight is aided by members of the Returners, a resistance organisation which seeks to enlist the assistance of espers in their fight against the empire. Kefka and the entire empire of Gestahl follows in pursuit, intent on regaining their magic-using secret weapon before she turns her power–and vengeance–upon her former captors.

The story follows Terra and her friends as they seek to overthrow the power of Gestahl, Kefka, and those who would seek to use might to enslave the people of the world. Along their way they will be joined by knights, generals, artists, gamblers, and TREASURE HUNTERS, all of whom have their own reasons for resisting the empire’s hegemony. Together, they will face down not only a militarised, magically-armed force, but also a power beyond their comprehension–a power which seeks to rule the entire world as a God enthroned, dispensing death from above without cause or remorse.

Only by uniting and together bravely resisting evil can Terra hope to find salvation for the world and peace for her own, torn soul. Embodying the hopes and prayers of humans and espers alike, the heroes must overcome their own personal struggles before, united, they can defeat the seemingly omnipotent powers which oppose them.

Character Ensemble

All areas of Final Fantasy VI‘s presentation have been praised since its release nearly a score of years ago. The music (composed by Nobuo Uematsu) is widely considered to be one of the greatest soundtracks ever written for a video game. Its orchestral arrangement–Final Fantasy VI Grand Finale–is still routinely used as an example of the finest in gaming music. The graphics, highly sophisticated for a JRPG of the time, employed numerous cutting-edge technologies: Mode 7 scaling, sampled effects, and highly-detailed environments, some of which are digital renderings of hand-drawn artwork.

Use the comment thread below to discuss your approach to the game, challenges you have faced, tactics you are employing, and what you are getting out of your playthrough. Do you feel that the presentation of Final Fantasy VI has held up since its release in 1994? Are there aspects of the game that you would change, or that you would hold up as an example for modern game developers to emulate? How has your experience with other RPGs released after Final Fantasy VI changed your impressions of the game? Do you have any stories about your first experience? Tell us all about it and join in our discussion below!

The aim in this playthrough is to complete the entirety of the game in four weeks. For the fourth and final week, the goal is to finish the game. Feel free to join in, even if you are behind on the playthrough. Anyone and everyone is invited to participate, regardless of game format, speed of play, or familiarity with the series. Tell your friends!

Without further adieu, it is our very great pleasure to invite you now to join the Lusipurr.com staff members, guests, and readers as we return to the snowy, northern plains in Christmas in Narshe: A Final Fantasy VI Playthrough!

Lusipurr.com: Home of the Punchbeginner©

As readers and listeners are aware, Lusipurr has begun work on the research that will eventually make up his dissertation. Unfortunately, the scholarly edition of Lusipurr’s primary text has been out of print for twenty-two years and, in point of fact, only one copy exists for sale on the internet. Priced at £200 ($320), it is beyond Lusipurr’s means at the moment, despite the fact that it was needed at the beginning of the month. This is where you, dear, dear reader, come in.

At a staff meeting on 6 October, Staff-Writer-cum-Secretary-cum-Accountant-cum-Giant-Robot-Designer Pierson ‘Blitzmage’ Stone suggested the idea of a Kickstarter. However, this was a terrible idea, and Lusipurr told Blitzmage what a terrible idea it was. Lusipurr opposes Kickstarter and, when the revolution comes, the Kickstarter people will be right up against it. But what about a Kickstarter free of all the Kickstarter terribleness–a Kickstarter without the Kick or the Start? And that is when Lusipurr hit upon a thoroughly original (and, now, copyrighted) idea: The Punchbeginner! And, to demonstrate metaphorically how he had hit upon this original idea, he hit Blitzmage.

The idea of a Punchbeginner is simple. Unlike a Kickstarter, the Punchbeginner is used by people who actually do not have another way to raise the money to do the things they are Punchbeginning–and also unlike a Kickstarter, the things Punchbeginners are used for are substantially smaller and have rewards which can always be dispensed to donators. Instead of promising a copy of a game which will never be made, how about promising donators a personal tete-a-tete? A meeting is the sort of thing that can always be delivered upon, whereas the money for the game can all-too-quickly be spent on exotic women and imported substances of a controlled nature; and then, no game–ever.

Definitely not subliminal messaging.

How it works: utilising the DONATE link on the right side of the site, simply donate to Lusipurr.com and leave a comment in this post saying that you have done so. The money received so far will be tallied at the bottom, along with the list of donators and their tiers. Every donation–whatever the amount–earns a reward. Larger donations earn larger rewards. And, if you want to donate twice, that’s all right, too–your total contribution will determine your reward tier.

What about those reward tiers? Well, here they are:

ALL donators will receive thanks, by name, in Lusipurr’s subsequent dissertation. This will be a published academic work. All donators will also be thanked personally on The Starlight Megaphone podcast.

$5 and up donators will be entered into the yearly Lusipurr.com game giveaway, held in the first week of January. The winner in the drawing will receive a free new game of their choice valued at up to $60US on either Amazon.com or Steam.

$25 and up donators will be invited to a guest-spot on The Starlight Megaphone, to participate in a special Gaming Moment section of the podcast, in which they will be asked to talk about their most significant gaming moment, and then wrap up the podcast with the other panelists.

$50 and up donators will be invited as a full guest panelist on The Starlight Megaphone, given news stories to report on, and otherwise treated exactly like a staff member for a day. In addition, the panelist will be invited to write the podcast summary and choose the pictures (within the bounds of the Lusipurr.com acceptable use guidelines).

And finally, $100 and up donators will be invited to personally interview Lusipurr live on The Starlight Megaphone in a specially-billed feature episode that will be pinned to the site. The interview can last up to fifteen minutes, and may include any questions on any topics whatsoever, excepting those restricted due to privacy or confidentiality reasons (i.e. addresses, phone numbers, etc). For his part, Lusipurr promises to answer all questions honestly (at least insofar as he is capable of honesty).

Note: A microphone and access to Skype is required for all TSM participation.

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I think you’ll agree that our Punchbeginner© donation tiers are certainly exciting. After all, some of them are not even permitted to our own staff: Lusipurr has never allowed anyone else to write up the podcast or select the pictures, and no one–not even his closest advisors–has ever been given carte blanche to ask him anything they like with a guarantee of an honest answer. Contribute today, and be the first ever to ask Lusipurr just what is his favourite pie (Rhubarb. Take that! Now you have to ask a different question. HA!).

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AMOUNT RAISED: $145 of $320
Ends 21 October

1¢-$5 tier (podcast mention)
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$5-25 tier (free game drawing)
The Legendary Zoltan
James Pagel

$25-50 tier (TSM gaming moment guest)
Matt Dance

$50-100 tier (TSM guest panelist)
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$100+ tier (TSM featured guest and interview)
Julian ‘SiliconNooB’ Taylor (on behalf of Nate ‘Bup’ Liles)

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Final Fantasy XII US Box Art

Lusipurr.com is pleased to present The Summer of XII: A Final Fantasy XII Playthrough.

Released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan in March of 2006 and in North America the following October, Final Fantasy XII served as both a return to Ivalice and as an entry into the Ivalice Alliance meta-series of games. The game met with considerable success by allowing players to explore a vast and open world, and through the use of a battle system which combined M.M.O. mechanics with classic, menu-driven, A.T.B. combat.

Initially set in the Kingdom of Dalmasca, the storyline of Final Fantasy XII is characterised by its grand scale and impressive writing. The Archadean Empire is slowly crushing neutral powers caught between it and its enemy, The Rozarrian Empire. It in the aftermath of these brutal power struggles–The Battle of Nalbina Fortress–that the player’s involvement begins, as Reks. It is Reks who must assist Captain Basch fon Rosenburg in attempting to halt an Archadean plot set to take place during the signing of a peace treaty.

This is the final week of our four-week playthrough, in which we will aim to have completed the main storyline and final battle sequence of the game. Use the comments thread to discuss your final evaluations and opinions about how things have changed, improved, or entirely shifted in Final Fantasy games, JRPGs, and large-scale console RPGs in general since the original release six years ago. What do you think of the music, the graphics, the controls, and the translation? Have the voice acting, the writing, and the storyline held up? Or, have the ravages of time made the experience of XII‘s Ivalice an occasion for disappointment?

We now invite you to join Lusipurr.com as we return to Ivalice in Final Fantasy XII!

A light-weight streaming version can be viewed using the plugin below; or a high-quality high-definition version can be viewed by clicking right here.

Dirge of Cerberus US Box Art

Lusipurr.com is pleased to present a Spring 2012 feature: Springtime for Cerberus: A Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII Playthrough.

Released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan in January of 2006 and in North America the following August, Dirge of Cerberus received mixed reviews. The second release in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII metaseries, Dirge was SquareEnix’s first attempt at the shooter genre. With roleplaying elements and real-time action inspired by Devil May Cry and Resident Evil, many JRPG fans viewed the title with understandable confusion.

Set three years after the culmination of Final Fantasy VII, Dirge follows the story of the mysterious ex-Turk Vincent Valentine. Targetted by an organisation which seeks to unleash a massively destructive force, Vincent must leap into battle, guns blazing, to once again save the planet from the forces which threaten it. Along the way, he is assisted by his former comrades who, once again, unite for the preservation of their world.

This is the last week of our two-week playthrough, in which we will aim to complete the second half of the game (roughly after the fifth or sixth hour). Use the comments thread to discuss where you are, strategies for battles, and your opinions about how things have changed, improved, or entirely shifted in action, roleplaying, and first-person console games since the original release six years ago. What do you think of the music, the graphics, the controls, and the translation? Has Dirge held up, or is it merely an antiquated relic which shows the growing pains of SquareEnix? Were the reviews justified–is it as bad as some say, or are there hidden depths?

You can also join the official Lusipurr.com Skype chat for our playthrough, where you can converse live with other participants. Simply add the user ‘Lusipurr’ on Skype, and send a message to be invited to the Dirge of Cerberus chat.

So, we now invite you to join Lusipurr.com as we return to the world of Final Fantasy VII in Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII!