Page 35 – Burning the midnight oil at noon

The Coffee Fountain and the Damp Sleeve

Gather ’round, children. It’s time for Old Man Ryan to tell you a story.

Ryan was on his way to work like any other day. He had gotten off the bus a little bit earlier than expected, because of the decrease in traffic and bus ridership caused by the coronavirus pandemic. With that extra time, he decided to go into the Tim Horton’s at the bus stop and purchase a coffee.

Having made the transaction, and now the proud owner of an excessively large cup of coffee, Ryan continued on his pilgrimage towards his workplace. The cup was leaking ever so slightly, as Tim Horton’s cups always do, so he was constantly adjusting his grip on it to avoid having the droplets get all over his hand.

But then, about halfway through his journey, the coffee spontaneously exploded. Without warning, the structural integrity of the cup gave way, causing the lid to jet off into the sky, followed by a glorious shower of scalding-hot, brown liquid. Fortunately, Ryan’s reflexes were sharp enough that he was able to dodge the worst of the eruption and save himself from being drenched in coffee. His hands were covered and one of his sleeves was mildly sprayed, but the situation could have unfolded much more unfavourably.

Quickening his steps to get into work and begin cleaning himself off, Ryan mused on what a happy coincidence it was that he’d chosen to wear his brown sweater that day. He was also relieved that the coffee was hot enough to be uncomfortable, but not so much that I would actually cause any damage to his now coffee-drenched hands.

Ryan later recounted his tale to his boss, and boss made him feel less inept by saying that he himself had had this happen before, and it had most likely been caused by the lid having not been affixed properly. Ryan still kind of liked the idea that he didn’t know his own grip strength, but he was happy to accept this version of reality where he was not at fault.

And that’s the tale of why Ryan never went to Tim Horton’s ever again.

Trials of Mana: The most faithful remake of April 2020

Last night I began playing the remake of Trials of Mana. With that other big remake that came out last month, I can’t help but feel like Square-Enix just kind of sent this one out to die. Because, man, Trials was definitely given to the B team.

I should probably set the stage before I get into this, though. Trials of Mana is generally better known as Seiken Densetsu 3. It’s the sequel to divisive SNES classic Secret of Mana that had never been released outside of Japan, until last year when an official translation was included in the Collection of Mana. It’s really too bad that it took so long, because it improves on Secret of Mana in pretty much every way. I spent a lot of time playing a fan-translated ROM of SD3 back in the day, but never finished it despite liking it quite a lot. To say that I was hype for this remake would be to put it mildly.

So now the remake is here, and if my memory can be trusted, it’s shockingly faithful to the original. Which is a nice contract to Final Fantasy VII Remake and Resident Evil 3, which diverge significantly from their source materials. I actually prefer when developers use a remake as an opportunity to do something new with an established game, but there’s also a certain charm in seeing a beloved game from your past being brought up to modern standards.

Or, modern standards of the early 2000’s, where Trials of Mana is concerned. The fact of the matter is that it feels a heck of a lot like a Wii or PS2 game. It runs really smoothly, but it just feels off. Character animations are a little clumsy (at best) and the controls are stiff. If only one game I’ve played recently could qualify to be called “janky”, Trials of Mana is a strong front runner.

But despite the jank, the hour or so that I’ve played has been fun. Combat is a little stiff, yes, but it still works very well and it’s satisfying. It’s actually not too far removed from FF7Remake, just with less polish. The character models are lovingly rendered and the environments look pretty darn good too. Again, I also really appreciate the care taken to recreate the original game, but in a 3D space. The voice acting has been mostly good, though it seems like some characters may have been voiced by localization staff when the budget for professional voice actors ran dry. And last but not least, the remixed soundtrack has been an absolute delight so far. Even if it wasn’t, there’s an option to switch to the classic (and fantastic) original SNES soundtrack. Everyone wins!

One really strange thing I’ve noticed while I explore the opening areas is that I’m getting a really strong Xenoblade Chronicles vibe. It’s hard to pinpoint why, exactly, because the two games aren’t especially similar. It may just be the general vibe; the combination of exploring a pretty world while pretty music plays in the background.

Obviously these are just my very early impressions, so I don’t know how it’s all going to roll out. I haven’t even really begun to dip into the character customization options. But I’m having fun so far! If you’re looking for a AAA-style game, you might want to mosey past this one, but I’m thinking that there’s still plenty to appreciate about Trials of Mana.

Oh man, and despite the lack of care put into almost all the other animations, the shopkeeper dance in Trials is epic.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: April 2020

~ Game Over ~

Mega Man Zero 2 (GBA) – I played it again, this time using cyber elves to blow through the game like it weren’t nothing. Also I finished getting all the styles, except the one for collecting all the cyber elves. Because… I just don’t care enough.

Resident Evil 3 (PS4) – Fantastic remake. I never really got into the original RE3, but this one is just made for me. Yeah, it’s a little linear, and yeah, it’s a little more action-oriented, but those are things I like! At least, they make for less of a headache when you’re trying to route out your S-rank runs. Anyway, my first run was far from S-rank, and I died a spectacular number of times because this game is ROUGH.

How Can One Be Bored?

Over the last month and change, people all over the world have been self-isolating and/or forced to stay in their homes to stem the tide of the coronavirus. Along with that came torrents of social media post proclaiming how bored people were now that they were confined to their homes.

To that I say… how?

I genuinely don’t understand. Last week I was on vacation, and like most, I spent almost all of that free time at home. However, I had so much going on to keep me busy that I didn’t even make time to write up any blog posts. There are dozens of other things on my to-do list that remain undone, because even when you aren’t losing a third of your day to work, there just isn’t enough time.

Closure of the Wild

It’s become something of a tradition for me, that when March rolls around, I get absorbed into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for a while. As sort of a way to celebrate the Switch’s birthday, you see. And because Breath of the Wild is just super fun to play and I’ll take any excuse to dive back in.

In the year 2020, three years after release, I’ve finally “finished” the game, so to speak. Oh, I beat it back in 2017, but there was so much left undone, and DLC released in the interim that I purchased but barely explored. Breath of the Wild is a massive, massive game, and even now that I’ve seen everything that I wanted to, there’s still much more in there to discover in future playthroughs.

Legendary Finale

When I first started playing Mega Man Legends 2, I was shocked by how long the opening cutscene was, and then impressed by the first couple hours of gameplay. It was clearly focusing on building up a more epic plot than the first game, and it seemed pretty solid for a while.

Then things turned around, and I started to find myself less engrossed in the game. Namely due to some tedious gameplay elements and a world that felt fractured and less fun to explore. Also some other little things here and there. But the fact remains that I was spending more time feeling frustrated by MML2 than I was having fun with it. And that only got worse before it got better.

In the first Mega Man Legends, you gain better “digger licenses” as you progress through the story, allowing you to access new dungeons and explore more of the gigantic maze below Kattleox Island. MML2 has a similar feature, except it’s only used to access optional dungeons. And also all of the enemies in the game “level up” in a way, making them tougher, but also increasing how much money they drop. This is all fine. I’m on board. Also, instead of just getting them at certain points, you must take a test for each. It’s nice, because you can take all the tests right away to max out the difficulty and your earnings right at the start of the game.

The problem is that the S-Class test (the last one) is unbelievably hard. You need to make it through a half-dozen rooms and defeat every enemy in each in under 5 minutes. You’re also restricted to the default equipment set, so no buster power-ups or special weapons can be used. This makes it hard because every enemy is an unforgiving bullet sponge, and some of them can inflict a status effect that prevents you from shooting. Needles to say, if you get hit by that it’s essentially a forced retry. I could go into further detail, but the point is that I absolutely could not pass this test. I tried at least 25 times, and that’s a conservative estimate. It depends too much on perfect execution, and MML2’s control just aren’t tight enough for that. So I gave up, and whatever was in that final optional dungeon, I’ll never know.

Also, losing out on that last money boost hurt a lot. It seems like everything in Mega Man Legends 2 costs about twice what it should, with many of the later weapon upgrades coming in at a million zenny. For reference, the most any single enemy can drop at A-Class is 7,000 zenny. So that’s a lot of grinding if you’re a completionist. I, fortunately, am not. I focused most of my cash into powering up one of the cheaper weapons (which was still damn effective), but still needed to grind a whole bunch to afford some of the other upgrades. There’s also a whole sub-quest about buying furniture and junk for the Flutter to make Roll happy, but as much as I want Roll to be happy, it costs so much and just wasn’t worth the time.

To catch up from where I left off last time, the fourth dungeon was ice-themed, and you know how that goes. I was very upset that there was no boot upgrade that stopped Mega Man from slipping on the ice. Though maybe there is and it was just lost in the S-Class dungeon for all time.

The final dungeon was where it all turned around, though. It’s a pretty sweet space-station with a gravity-manipulating gimmick. There are also multiple areas, and there are some really cool visual shifts throughout. It ends in a boss rush, as is Mega Man tradition. I’m normally not overly excited for endgame boss rushes, but it was really satisfying to get a rematch with that damned frog boss now that I was sufficiently powered-up and was able to curb stomp it. Very theraputic.

Now, back in the day when I played MML2 for the very first time, the final boss completely stymied me and rendered me unable to finish the game. So I was a little apprehensive about the final showdown once I made it there. And my fears were vindicated! Her attack patterns are very difficult to dodge, she does a buttload of damage, and there aren’t a lot of openings to shoot back. But after only a couple tries, I was able to finally eke out a victory, with only a sliver of life left.

Then she transformed and I got wrecked. Because of course there’s a second phase.

So I went back down to Earth to upgrade my health canteen, which is the Legends stand-in for E-tanks. And this is where MML2 finally gives the player an advantage: it seems like you can just keep upgrading that health canteen as long as you can afford it. I got mine up to 40 units (4 full heals) and I could have kept going if I’d had the cash. I don’t know how far it goes, but that’s already more than enough to cheese your way past basically anything the game will throw at you.

And so it was, that I battled that final boss again, and won. I used up every drop in the health canteen to do it and still just scraped by, but I won. It was finally over. The shadow that had been looming over me for the last twenty years was finally dispelled, and I am free to move on with my life. Given the text above and published previously, I don’t think I’ll ever play Mega Man Legends 2 again. It’s just so… I want to use a softer word, but I think it might be bad. There’s a solid base there, but there are too many parts that are designed in such a way that they’re just frustrating to overcome. If the controls were tightened up and the money requirements eased up? I think that would go a long way. But it’s just not that much fun as-is.

Fortunately, the first game is still perfectly good, and I will happily go back to that one time and time again. The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, a mini-game focused spin-off, was also a lot of fun, so there are ways to get my MML fix. Just not this one. With the benefit of this hindsight, maybe it’s a good thing that Mega Man Legends 3 got canned before it ever really got off the ground. But I guess that’s something we’ll just never know.

Report on the RE3

It’s common knowledge that I’m really friggin’ into the Resident Evil series, right? Okay, good. What might be less obvious is that Resident Evil 3: Nemesis never really clicked with me. I’ve played it through, but only like once, ages and ages ago. All that said, I am having an absolute blast with the remake that released just a week ago.

Released a week ago, and I’ve already finished it four times. It’s basically all I’ve been doing between work and sleep. If not actually playing the game, then watching speedruns to try to learn some sweet strats. Of course, I’ve been absorbing as much of RE3 as I can this week because it’s sure to be forgotten whenever my copy of Final Fantasy VII Remake arrives.

Having not been a big fan of the original game, I guess I can’t really weigh in on whether the changes made to RE3 are for better or for worse. All I can really say is that there are a lot of them. For as close as Resident Evil 2‘s remake tried to stick to the source material, RE3’s remake goes way off the rails. It’s kind of nice to not have the anchor that is nostalgia weighing me down, so that I can purely appreciate this product for what it is.

I mean, I’d try to do that anyway. I take pride in not being the kind of nerd that gets all butthurt when a remake doesn’t adhere strictly to the original.

Something that I’d heard reviewers complain about before release is that RE3 is too linear. And you know what, they’re correct in that it is pretty linear. You do get to run around freely and explore each area, but there’s definitely a visible track that you should be following, and there are lots of “hallway”-style segments between the larger areas. I actually kind of like this design, though, since I have to spend less time finding keys and then remembering which doors each one opens. I think that kind of design is great – but only on the first run. It’s more of a hassle on replays. the more linear style that RE3 adopts is perfect for replays, because it keeps the momentum going and allows you to focus on execution, which is a lot more more fun to me than zig-zagging through a giant maze of locked doors.

I’m also a really big fan of the shop system in this game. There are so many bonus items to unlock, and you can use them all without any penalty to your rank. I’ve heard at least one speedrunner grouse that this is bad design, but most people don’t play that obsessively and develop that kind of skill. Allowing players to use shop items to help them through the game just makes RE3 accessible to more people, which is a very good thing. This is already a game that doesn’t pull any punches and you have to beat the game once to unlock the shop in the first place, so it’s nice that Capcom put in a feature that gives the 99% a fighting chance.

So yes, I’m really into the new Resident Evil 3. I think it’s a super fun game to play, and I like to imagine that I’ll be going back to it fairly regularly. After all, a successful run takes under two hours. That’s shorter than most movies. There’s really no reason not to try to squeeze in a quick replay here and there.

Report on the ‘Rona

I wrote a couple weeks ago that I was someone worried about the state of the world, due to the looming threat of the novel coronavirus. That threat is no longer looming, but rather is completely wrecking human society. With over 14.million people infected and 80 thousand dead (that have been reported), it’s not been a good time. That and life as we know it has been so radically altered by the need for social distancing. I can’t help but be concerned about what the fallout is going to look like.

But there’s no way to control how any of this madness is going to play out, and the only thing you can do is try not to get too upset about it, and keep on dealing with each day as it comes. Also, trying to look on the bright side helps a little, so today I’m going to make a short list of all the ways my life has improved thanks to COVID-19.

Gas is now ridiculously cheap. Kind of moot, because I don’t really have anywhere to go, but it’s nice to be able to have a consistently full tank without feeling a financial sting.
My workplace is locked down, meaning no outsiders can enter, and I’m stuck on my floor. So I can’t get away from my desk for lunch, but that’s offset by every day being casual day! Being able to dress comfortably makes going to work every day that much easier, and I don’t have to worry about making sure all my stupid dress clothes are clean and wrinkle-free.
So many people are working from home (or unemployed) now, the busses are basically empty. It’s not a huge save for the ride to work, but the ride home was often standing room only. Now I’m one of maybe six or seven people on the bus, and it is glorious. Roads are also significantly less busy, but like I said before, I’m not driving anywhere anyway.
I’ve finally started to warm up to the idea of pre-ordering fast food via apps. I would still prefer to go in and order my food from a person, but I can’t deny that mobile ordering is darned convenient. Definitely not something I should be getting used to.

And, well, that’s about it for now. I’m sure I’ll start cursing COVID-19 as soon as people I know start getting sick or losing their jobs, but for now I’m just going to make the most of it. Life isn’t going to go back to the way it was for a long, long time, so you’ve really gotta appreciate those little things that much more.

Wherein I can stream, live

Did you know that you can stream gameplay from your PS4 to your YouTube or Twitch? I did, but I had never bothered to try it until now. And, it was a bit of a rough start, since getting the audio from the game and microphone to mix properly is unnecessarily complicated. But I got it sorted out finally, and now you can watch me play the middle of Resident Evil 4, one chapter at a time!

Here’s the first video where I’m actually audible. The Chapter 4-1 follow-up is also decent. The four videos that came before are rife with growing pains, and I’m mostly impossible to hear because the game drowns me out. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I’ll leave to you, dear reader/viewer.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: March 2020

~ Game Over ~

Murder by Numbers (Switch) – I was sold on this as a mash up of detectivin’ and picrossin’. It only really delivered on the nonograms, and all the detective work was done by the story. That said, the story was charming and the dialogue was generally very well-written. I still think I’d rather just have the puzzles without all the text boxes in-between.

Mega Man Zero (GBA) – Via the Zero/ZX Legacy Collection. Still adore it all these years later. Played the vanilla mode because I like it rough. Busted my butt to get an A rank on every mission, even though it means nothing, just makes me feel like a big man. Not the biggest man, because S ranks are a thing, but they’re basically impossible for an old fart like me to achieve. Besides, I already did a perfect S run back in high school when I was stubborn enough to do something like that.