Page 37 – Burning the midnight oil at noon

Nonograms for Days

I’ve been playing two picross games lately. Well, I guess that’s a lie because Pixel Puzzle Collection is still a thing.

I’ve been playing two picross games on my Switch lately. One, PICROSS: LORD OF THE NAZARICK is by nonogram verterans Jupiter, and is based on an obscure anime. An obscure anime that they never once name in this game. The other is Murder by Numbers, which is by Mediatonic, a video games company that I’ve never heard of. This one blends puzzle solving with story about solving murders and robot amnesia.

Both of these games have one major trait in common: they both mash a whole lot of text boxes into a puzzle game, which is the last place where a whole lot of text boxes should be. And maybe you can tell by my glib descriptions in the paragraph above, but only one manages to do so with any measure of success.

Picross: Lord of the Nazarick (I refuse to bend to the all-caps nonsense) is one of very few video games in which I’ve mashed past most of the text on my first playthrough. I tried to be courteous and listen to the story that they wanted to tell, but it was complete gibberish to me. And while it’s true that this particular edition of Picross was not intended for me, I still think that Jupiter failed utterly, because they should have made it somewhat accessible to non-fans. The first problem here is that, as I mentioned above, they never once use the name of the anime that this game is based on. It’s Overlord, by the way. I shouldn’t have had to do research to know that.

The other big problem is that it just assumes that you, the player, have a strong working knowledge of the plot and characters of Overlord. There are no introductions of any sort, and I found myself completely lost at every turn. It was baffling, and do nothing to make me want to learn more about this franchise. I never came to care about any of the characters, what their motivations were or what trials they’d been through, despite the fact that Jupiter so obviously wanted me to. Lastly, I’m working on an assumption that the story scenes in Picross: LotN are structured to sort of recap some highlights of Overlord’s story. Like a clip show, but told entirely through text. Which is a terrible way to do a clip show. ‘Nuff said.

So Picross: Lord of the Nazarick flops completely for someone like me, who has absolutely zero knowledge about its theme. Which is really too bad, because it’s another solid Jupiter-made Picross game, and they do the best nonograms in town. I just got so lost in the anime nonsense that I gave up on even trying to understand what all the text boxes wanted to tell me, and took it entirely as a puzzle game with a bunch of weird fantasy goobers and anime characters as puzzle solutions. And you know what, that’s exactly how one should play Picross. Intrusive text boxes have no place here. At least, that’s what I thought until I played Murder By Numbers…

Now this – this is how you make a puzzle game besieged by text boxes. Assuming you think that such a thing is necessary. Murder By Numbers splits the difference between visual novel and nonogram puzzles, and the two are interwoven in a way that creates a fun, unique product. This is the story of a young lady and her robot pal solving murders with the power of picross. How could it lose?

That is not to say that Murder By Numbers necessarily excels at either of its component genres. The nonogram puzzles, at least for an addict like me, are far too easy and lack any sort of alternate modes. It’s all stock-standard puzzles, and it’s exceedingly rare that they reach past 15×15 grids. The story part is actually really engaging, and I thought that most, if not all of the characters were really well-developed. However, the mystery part isn’t all that mysterious, as I had figured the killer within the first five minutes of three of the four cases. There is another big issue, but this one may be more on me…

See, when I saw the promotional material for Murder By Numbers, I got the impression that you’d get to do some actual sleuthing as you try to solve these crimes. People kept presumptively calling it “Ace Attorney meets Picross.” But no, it’s not like that at all. It’s just a straight visual novel and you have exactly zero input on how it unfolds. You don’t really get to search for clues, there are no red herrings, and there are certainly no courtroom scenes. The few decisions you do get to make are just window dressing, and will just say “nah, try another option” if you don’t choose correctly. While being completely removed from the plot was a bit of a bummer, I got over it because again, it’s a really good story! Of course it ends with a sequel hook, and I can’t wait to see the further adventures of this wacky crew.

And, you know, the picross was still fun. Even if it could have used a little more challenge or variety.

I suppose the lesson here is that you shouldn’t just ham-fistedly try to mash plot into a game where it doesn’t belong. If you’re going to try to shake up a genre, make sure that you’re designing the game from the ground up to make the best use of all the components. At least get them to a place where they harmonize with each other well enough to make the final product greater than the sum of its parts.

Serious Time

Okay, so it’s not really this blog’s place to talk about Real Issues, it’s a place to talk about fun things. But I think that for posterity, I should take a few moments to discuss my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic. Best case scenario, it’ll be fun for Future Me to look back on how terribly misinformed I was. Worst case… I’m dead and it’ll be fun for you to look back on how terribly misinformed I was.

COVID-19, as I’ve learned, is a totally new virus that the world was understandably unprepared for. To a degree, I guess. While obviously it’s going to take time to study, understand, and come up with a vaccine, a few news articles/tweets I’ve read have suggested that the infrastructure to get out ahead of something like this just doesn’t exist. Or we reacted too late? I really don’t know. I’m not going to claim to be an expert. It just seems to me that maaaybe this is a good opportunity for governments the world over to be more ready for this kind of catastrohpe.

And I don’t think that catastrophe is hyperbole. While a huge percentage of people who contract the virus do recover, it’s still killed thousands, and those numbers are just going to keep going up. Schools are shutting down, offices are issuing work-from-home mandates, major sports leagues have suspended their seasons, the stock market is crumbling to pieces. The entire country of Italy is closed for business. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like the backstory to a dystopian movie or something. I’m actually a little frightened of how much worse it’s going to get, and what that’s going to mean for human society.

And that’s my main fear. I’ve made it no secret that I’m not terribly fond of the human race, but that doesn’t mean I want to see it suffer like this. And maybe it really won’t be all that bad. Maybe everything I know is just a product of the overreacting that the internet is no fond of. Entirely possible! After all, I’ve only been keeping up with the goings-on from news reports and Twitter. Only one of those is even semi-credible.

But the other thing I worry about is that someone I care about will be afflicted. Myself? Not so much. I’m young(ish), I’m in the best shape of my adult life, and I have no existing medical issues. I’m near the bottom of COVID-19’s hit list. I beat pneumonia as a weak little 9-year-old, I can beat a beefed-up version of it now. (Of course now that I say that, I’m as good as doomed.) But I have a lot of family members who are up in that 65+ range, many with existing health issues. And I genuinely worry for them. I’m hoping for the best, and am ready to help out in any way that I can, but I’m still deeply concerned about all of this.

Anyway, it sounds like this is really all just getting started. Like, it’s going to keep seriously affecting the world for months to come. I’ll admit that I didn’t take it very seriously at first, thinking it would pass fairly quickly and that it was just media blowing something out of proportion. But now “experts” (I put experts in scare quotes because I haven’t investigated the source of these claims) are projecting a death toll of over a million in the United States alone, so… yeah. Maybe it’s time to stop joking about people hoarding toilet paper, and start being one of the people hoarding toilet paper.

Legendary Update: Volume 1

As I continue to slowly plod my way through Mega Man Legends 2, I find myself wondering more and more “Do I genuinely enjoy the first game, or is it just nostalgia?” Because MML2 really isn’t doing much for me, and I can’t pinpoint exactly why.

I touched on this before in regards to the plot, but I think the bigger world also hurts the gameplay, in a sense. In MML2, the story has you go through a handful of elemental-themed dungeons to collect the four sacred macguffins. This makes it feel a lot like Zelda, which should be a good thing, but I don’t want Mega Man Legends to be Zelda. The original game had a collection of underground tunnels and ruins that seem segregated at first, but as you collect various weapons and power-ups, you slowly discover that most of them are actually smaller sections of one gigantic interconnected maze. It was amazing! Now that I think about it, MML might have been the first 3D metroidvania. MML2 has no such reveal, as each dungeon is located on a separate island.

Plus, the conceit for exploring the ruins in MML is “maybe this one will have the legendary treasure!”, which is significantly less video game tropey, and just more fun in my opinion. I’m way more excited to keep adventuring when I don’t know what’s at the end of the next ruins. Knowing that the goal is just to check another goober off the list isn’t nearly as compelling. (Though the compulsive part of my brain begs to differ.)

At this point, I’m probably about three-fifths of the way through the game, and I’m desperately hoping that the worst is behind me. See, the second dungeon is the Water Temple equivalent, which allows you to flood or drain each level as required. Only you need each floor to be flooded at pretty much all times to get anywhere, so it’s basically 90% underwater. And Mega Man moves SO SLOW underwater. Easily half-speed, and it is so impossibly tedious. I think I spent two hours in this dungeon, and I’d bet that I could have shaved off at least half of that if I’d been able to move at a reasonable speed. Maybe it’s my fault and I missed the Gravity Suit upgrade, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think that it’s just a really poor design decision.

Now let’s talk about a greasy anime trope that made me sigh in contempt. MML has a scene where you walk in on Roll while she’s changing, which is like… ugh, really? But it’s a very quick scene and I think it’s even optional. You’ll miss it completely unless you go into the wrong door at the wrong time. MML2 has a similar scene, where you walk in on Roll in the bathtub. It’s not long either, but this one is forced. You literally cannot move the story forward without seeing it. I suppose that the bathtub scene does get replaced with a “depressed Roll” scene if you treat her like garbage, but why would you do that? Who would do that to Roll? So yeah, the bathtub thing is completely unavoidable.

MML2 doubles down on this, though. About halfway through the game, you’re pitted against Tron in a boss battle. Once you win, the robot she’ piloting explodes, and the camera switches to a blushing Mega Man. A couple of Tron’s servbot cronies then sheepishly explain to her that her clothes were burned off in the explosion, and that she is now buck naked. In what other medium besides anime do characters completely fail to notice that their clothes are no longer present? It’s ridiculous in the worst way, and it just sits on this reaction shot of Mega Man for what seems like ages as Tron admonishes him for staring and being a big ol’ pervert. Yikes.

So that’s that for this update on my Mega Man Legends 2 playthrough. It’s possible that the rest of the game could really turn it all around and amaze me, but I’m thinking that’s probably not going to happen. I think what’s going to happen is that I’m going to get to the end, finally beat it, and then never play it again. I’m having a hard time coming to grips with this concept, but I think that I might legitimately dislike Mega Man Legends 2. Is that kind of thing even possible?

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: February 2020

Turok (Switch) – A real bait-and-switch, since I grew up knowing the N64 subtitle “Dinosaur Hunter”, but really you’re mostly killing people and the occasional velociraptor. Aside from that, I really liked this game. It’s a lot like DOOM, but in 3D and has lots of platforming. The biggest failing is that the first boss (and only the first boss) is almost impossibly difficult. I burned through seven of my nine lives in that fight.

Timesplitters 2 (GC) – Co-oped the story mode, and it was a wonderful nostalgia trip. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like big studios don’t really make shooters like this any more. Specifically, ones with big maze-like levels, varied objectives, and a willingness to be unapologetically weird. And it’s the last one that matters the most to me. I’m less turned off by murdering hundreds of people when they’re over-the-top cartoons.

Turtles all the way down

I’ve been listening to the soundtracks from TMNT III: The Manhattan Project and TMNT IV: Turtles in Time all week. If you’re not overly familiar with theses games (why are you here?), many of the songs are remixes of the theme song from the 1987 TV series. If they don’t feature the full theme in some way, they absolutely take pains to include the “heroes in a half shell” and/or “Turtle power!” beats.

Taking it another level down, I’ve also been playing lot of remixes of these songs. Many through OC Remix, others from random YouTubers. But the point remains that in many cases, we’re looking at remixes of remixes here, and the idea of that is making my head spin. At this point, I’m kind of hoping to stumble upon a remix of a remix of a remix, because I think that will probably be the key to finding the meaning of life.

If you really stop to think about it though, this isn’t a terribly strange phenomenon, especially at this point in time. There are probably a lot of franchise-based games that have the same kind of thing going on. Many modern entries in long-lived video game franchises (Mario, Kirby, etc) use official remixes of tunes from older games. I don’t have an example on-hand, but I’m sure those remixes are being remixed by unofficial musicians all the time.

So yeah, it’s not really an unusual thing. I’ve just never stopped to think about it before, and I decided it would be an interesting thought to share.

Not impressed? Fine. Listen to this. It’s fun.

Chasing a Legend

I replay Mega Man Legends fairly often. Probably every other year, at least. I could likely even squeeze in more replays, as it’s a pretty short game. It’s an all-time favourite of mine, even as its age becomes more and more apparent with each subsequent run.

Despite this, I’ve only ever played the sequel once, and I didn’t even finish it, at that. The final boss was just too tough for me, and I guess I must have been distracted by some other shiny thing before I could work up the skill to finally conquer it. I’ve been in a very PS1 kind of headspace lately, so I decided last weekend that it’s time to right this long-standing wrong.

Mega Man Legends 2 just isn’t landing with me the same way the first game does. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the same nostalgia for it that I do for the original. I don’t know. It’s certainly a better game, in technical terms. The graphics are considerably better, the controls are less terrible, the world is bigger, the dungeons are more impressive, the voice acting is even wackier. I could go on.

What bothers me are just a few little things. Most of all, that the lock-on feature is a friggin’ idiot, quite commonly locking onto the enemy farthest from Mega Man, sometimes refusing to switch to closer threats. A lot of the time, it shows a strong preference to lock on to enemies that are around corners, which is never helpful. The solution, of course, would be to not bother using the lock-on, but it’s way too hard to aim manually at anything that isn’t stationary. So that’s a bit of a frustration.

I’m also not super crazy about the bigger scope of the story. Yes, of course it was going to build up to that, and it’s not that the plot really suffers for it. I just have a personal preference for the story of the first game, which focused on a single island and its many mysteries. In MML2, you’re hopping between all these islands, and the fate of the world is at stake, so on and so forth. That’s all fine, but Kattleox island had so much personality, whereas the smaller locales in MML2 haven’t been developed enough to have that same level of charm.

Lastly, the first dungeon boss was just insanely annoying. This stupid frog boss took me four tries to beat, mostly because the room is constantly flooded with things trying to kill you. For one, there are spike traps zipping around the perimeter of the room, and these little tadpole guys flopping about in the center, between the raised platforms that the boss jumps around on. The boss itself is constantly spewing out bubbles that track you until they hit a wall or you shoot them, and there’s a respawning dragonfly flitting around above the arena that exists solely to screw up your lock-on. You might have to see it to get a good idea of how badly this fight is stacked against you, but trust me. It’s rough.

But I’m only like a quarter of the way though as of this writing, so who knows? Maybe it’ll really start to click with me once I get a little farther in. I hope so. I feel giddy every time I play the original game, and it would be awfully nice if I found even half as much enjoyment in the sequel.

A dream, that I am living

Last fall, I was presented with an opportunity to live out a life-long dream of mine: to dress up in a mascot suit and do mascot things. For the sake of preserving said mascot’s secret identity, I won’t say exactly which organization I have been mascotting for, but I will hint that it would surprise literally nobody.

Since that time, I’ve continued to don the costume for numerous different events: sports matches, fundraisers, meet & greets, etc. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve learned from observing other mascots that I’ve got a lot of room for improvement. Even behind the mask, I’ve had a somewhat reserved personality. I wave and pose and sometimes even dance a bit, but I don’t think that’s really enough. There are antics to be had! Being animated and outgoing is the core purpose of mascot!

Another thing I’ve learned is that I’m woefully out of touch with today’s youth. This is no surprise, but still makes me a little sad. This mostly comes in the form of me not knowing any Fortnite dances, thus disappointing many teenagers who shout indecipherable requests at me. I like the little kids who run up to give me hugs and high-fives, though. One kid even told me that he sees me in commercials all the time, which made me happy, because I knew that at least one kid out there actually watches TV instead of just YouTube.

I’ve also been doing this pro-bono, giving up my precious, precious time for no material or financial gain. I was given a gift card once, but I certainly wasn’t expecting it and have never asked about being compensated. I like being able to consider this as volunteering. It’s not really a “for the good of the community” kind of volunteering, so I’m not sure if it would make a good bullet point on a resume, but it’s still something I can be proud of myself for doing.

I guess there isn’t too much else to say on the subject. Even everything I’ve typed up so far doesn’t really need to be said, but I figure it’s an interesting little footnote to my life. And, I’ve got this blog… so I might as well make use of it. If nothing else, it may help to bore any would-be cyber-stalkers away.

Not the JackBest

When I purchased Whipseey and the Lost Atlas a couple weeks ago, I bought JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword at the same time. They were the same price, and both on sale with the same discount applied. I probably should have clued in that they’re by the same developer/publisher.

Indeed, Blowfish Studios is not making the best name for themselves in my book. While I’m somewhat ambivalent about Whipseey (it’s too colourful to be mad at), I can say confidently that I did not especially like JackQuest.

Unlike Whipseey, JackQuest has a little meat to it. But not much, mind you. It took me about an hour and a half to finish. That includes a lot of time being stuck and going in circles because the entire game is one samey-looking dungeon with no direction and one false wall that you must find to move on. That said, JackQuest is a wee little metroidvania, and it does have power-ups, keys, switches, save points, etc, etc. All the Video Game Things you expect, as opposed to Whipseey’s very minimalist design.

While I am mildly annoyed at JackQuest’s whole “here’s a maze, figure it out” design, it’s not technically a flaw. You can roughly navigate by landmarks, and while it takes about half the game to earn it, there is a rudimentary map available. It’s old-school design. I played games like this for years and didn’t knock them because they lacked features that would lead me directly to each point of interest. In a game that was more fun, I might even appreciate the invitation to draw up my own map.

The real problem with JackQuest is that the controls are loosey-goosey, and the physics don’t feel like they make sense. Jack has a really weird gravity to his jumps, and wall-jumping in particular feels imprecise and more difficult than it should be. I think if the developer has spent just a little more time tightening up how Jack moves, it could have increased my enjoyment of this game by a significant margin. Alas.

So what else is left to say? I don’t know… To be honest, JackQuest is largely unmemorable. I’ve forgotten most of the fine details already, and have been left with little more than a foggy memory of being unimpressed. I think the boss fights were alright? There are about four bosses, and they do present a halfway decent challenge. Or at least the spider boss did, as I remember needing to retry it a few times before I defeated it. The rest are part of that foggy blur.

Of course, I would not recommend JackQuest. I spent four dollars on it, so sure, I got my money’s worth in gameplay. But it wasn’t an enjoyable experience. Just a middling plod through tropes, with nothing really special or unique to share. It isn’t a bad game, but with so many similar options available there’s really no reason to bother with JackQuest. Just pony up a few more dollars for Hollow Knight instead. It costs only slightly more and is a vastly better video game.

Let’s Laugh At Americans

I’ve never really been a fan of King of the Hill. I would sometimes watch it (or have it on in the background while playing video games) on Sunday nights when it was on between all the other shows I wanted to watch. But it was never something I would have said I liked.

Which makes one wonder why I’ve recently decided to dive in and see how far into the series I can get before getting tired of it. There are thirteen seasons! I would have guessed ten at most.

To the point, I’ve finished the first season, and it’s been… okay. I like the idea of exploring how ignorant Americans are, but it isn’t terribly funny. Mostly just groan-worthy and/or uncomfortable. That said, it seems like there’s one exceptionally funny punchline in each episode. The best example, and easily my favourite moment in the series so far is this line:

Maybe it’s just me, but I cracked up hard at that. I hurt myself laughing. It’s not the funniest line, but the whole scene really made it work. Something about the perfectly flat delivery and how unexpected it was. Peggy immediately leaving without saying a word was the perfect response.

Will season two have a similar moment? Will it have more than one? I don’t know, but I’m ~~sure as heck~~ probably going to find out ~~soon~~ eventually.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: January 2020

Remember back in the day when I used to write a little blurb for each of these? I don’t think it’s going to be a regular thing again, but… Man, I played a large variety of video games in January. Considering that AGDQ sapped up a lot of my free time and school is eating away the rest of it… You start to realize that most of these games are either very short, or carried over from last month.

~ Game Over ~

Mega Man X (SNES) – The opening video game of the year, as per usual. Short writeup here.

Mega Man Legends (PS1) – I really do adore this game. Sadly, every time I go back to replay it, the… unfortunate control scheme gets harder and harder to re-acclimatize to. And the stupid racing game is impossible but I want the Shining Laser. Wah wah wah gamer tears.

Army Men Air Attack (PS1) – I kind of wish I’d played this back when it was new, as I think I would have really enjoyed it then. Looking at it now, it’s an amusing little curio almost certainly lost to time. What I found most odd about it is that there’s a massive difficulty spike right in the middle of the game. If you can tough it through missions six to nine, it’s smooth sailing to the end. Also the co-pilot voice clips are super repetitive and annoying.