Skyward Sword Replay: Week 4

Week 3 was a little quiet, but week 4 was pretty huge, since I was on vacation and had plenty of time to play. On the other hand, I spent most of it playing Fallout 4 instead. Still! Much progress was made.

To pick up where my last session left off (and they quite often seem to end as I’m entering a dungeon), I had just stepped into the third dungeon, the Lanayru Mining Facility. While it’s another tight, single-floor affair (I’m beginning to think that none of Skyward Sword’s dungeons have multiple floors), it felt about twice as long as the previous two and was much more enjoyable to solve. Felt a lot more puzzley, like a Zelda dungeon should be. I actually got lost at one point, and it took me a while to figure out that the key to progress was a lesson that I had previously learned while exploring the desert.

Continue reading Skyward Sword Replay: Week 4

Mighty Number Meh

Mighty No. 9 finally came out this Tuesday. I spent a bunch of time yesterday playing through it, and while I don’t have the will to write a big long thing about it (it’s not worth the effort), there was one thing that really stood out to me.

The entire game is difficult. Like, “I don’t know why they felt the need to add a hard mode” difficult. And the final boss is literally impossible for someone of my ability. What? You think I’m supposed to be good at games? Think again, my friend. Anyway, I banged my head against that boss fight for nearly two hours and still could not win. The words “Game Over” came up and I turned the system off and walked away.

I was super frustrated. The game had betrayed me right at the very end. I went straight to the internet to make a post on a forum about how upset I was that I couldn’t beat this boss. But then I realized that I wasn’t angry. Usually, getting stuck in a game like this will drive me mad. It wasn’t two years ago that I ripped the Donkey Kong 64 cartridge out of the N64 and chucked it across the room after losing my mind to the Beaver Bother mini-game. Yesterday, I simply powered down the system, turned off the TV, and moved on to something else. No shouting, no fuming with rage.

Guys, I am proud to announce, that I think I may finally have grown up.

Will I return to Mighty No. 9? Probably. I need to finish this fight, but I’ll give it a few days. After that… I’ll likely never touch it again. I liked it, but there are enough bad things about it that I feel no need to relive the pain. I never replay Mega Man just for fun, because It’s pretty bad too. Only when I’m doing a series replay will I give that one a go. And since I don’t fancy Mighty No 9’s chances of getting a sequel, I think it’ll probably just be one of those games that get lost to time.

Skyward Sword Replay: Week 3

I had fun revisiting the mining area of Lanayru Province last week, but when I moved into the actual desert area, it got significantly more annoying. The desert is huge and open, but on your first time through, you’re more or less restricted to a very linear path. Faron Woods and Eldin Volcano are the same, really, but the woods allow you to run around freely and the volcano’s map make it obvious that it’s a linear path. There are hookshot targets everywhere in the desert, and of course, you won’t have the hookshot (or whatever variation is in this game) until much later on, so the freedom to truly explore the desert is hours and hours away.

This isn’t totally new for Zelda, as every game has obstacles that you can only clear if you come back later with the appropriate tool. None, however, are so clearly built around one specific item, to the point where you are like “Oh well I guess this is going to be an important place later.” I suppose this also runs into the complains that many people have about how hookshot targets have changed from normal objects like trees and roofs and treasure boxes to big, bright bullseyes. But that’s a whole different rant in itself.

On the other hand, this is where you get the first Beetle upgrade, which allows the Beetle to pick up bombs (or other small objects) and fly around with them. I don’t know how other people feel about this, but I think it’s super fun. Picking up bombs and dropping them on unsuspecting foes is a riot, and I’m sure there’s a million other uses that people smarter than me have come up with. I did manage to use it to make a particularly annoying “puzzle” a little more bearable.

I guess I haven’t really touched on the flying aspect of Skyward Sword yet, have I? Well, there’s good reason for that: flying is pretty boring. An coming from someone who usually plays the apologist for questionable Zelda features, that means a lot. Fortunately, it’s not like you need to do a ton of it, and the sky is considerably smaller than Wind Waker‘s Great Sea. You basically just fly between Skyloft and the different portals that lead to the surface. There are a couple of other things in the sky, but overall it’s really empty and blah.

And I guess that’s really about it for last week. I just opened the next dungeon and that was about it. Mostly I was focusing on Kirby: Planet Robobot when I had any downtime (of which there was very little).

Breath of the HYYYYYPE

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild looks awesome.

I… I don’t think that I can wait until next March to play this. At the very best, I’ll be tided over the Skyward Sword replay, and then I’ll go mad with anticipation.

I don’t know what I like more about it. The massive open world? Being able to play dress-up with Link? The ability to scale (seemingly) any surface? The ducks? It’s all so good! I could write up an analysis, but… meh. Just watch the trailer and be awed with me.

Actually, the real best part is that they made it so that I could create a half-assed Monster Hunter reference. Thanks, Nintendo!

Skyward Sword Replay: Week 2

I picked up this week in the middle of running around Skyloft looking for Gratitude Crystals. What are they? A reward for doing little sidequests for people around the world, which you can turn into a monster named Batreaux in exchange for prizes. It’s not unlike the Goddess Cubes in how it’s just inserting another step between you and your reward. At least Batreaux (“Uncle Bats”) is a fun character.

I didn’t get around to mentioning it last week, but there’s a “bar” in the sky called The Lumpy Pumpkin. Inside, there’s a chandelier with a heart piece resting on top of it. There are also signs warning not to roll into the walls, as you may knock down the (very expensive, custom ordered) chandelier. Of course, you will do this anyway, because you want the piece of heart. And when you do, you get chewed out by the barkeep and have to run errands for him to make up the cost of a new chandelier. The bar patrons will also question what the heck is wrong with you if you talk to them. It’s a fun little “actions have consequenses” sequence that pokes fun at video game conventions, like the penalties for shoplifting in Link’s Awakening.

Can you get the heart piece without breaking the chandelier? I don’t know. I broke it right away. I wanted the piece of heart! Doing jobs for the barkeep gives you the opportunity to learn a little more about some of the Skyloft residents, so it’s worth the effort. Plus you can just ignore him and leave if you really want to be a dick.

Continue reading Skyward Sword Replay: Week 2

Skyward Sword Replay: Week 1

Having finished up with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, and being totally obsessed with Zelda because of Hyrule Warriors Legends, I have decided to finally begin a replay of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Will I see it through to the end? Oh yeah, most likely. Unlike RPGs, more action-oriented games generally hold my attention all the way through on a replay.

I have also decided that I will take some time out to reflect on the game each week, as despite being one of my most anticipated games ever and having enjoyed it quite a lot, Skyward Sword really didn’t leave a very lasting impression on me. I could tell you every plot beat and plenty of pointless trivia from nearly every other Zelda game, but my memories of Skyward Sword are mostly blurry and full of holes.

To call this “Week 1” might be a bit of a misnomer, as it’s really just “Day 1” if I’m going for full disclosure. It was a very full day though! I played for like six hours!

Continue reading Skyward Sword Replay: Week 1

Wherein I go on and on about Ninja Turtles

You all remember the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon from the late 80’s, yeah? Of course you do. Everyone does. Though a few years ago it seemed like it was very en vogue to hate on it because… they used 80’s slang? Man, that’s such a lame complaint, and completely wrong, to boot. The only character who uses excessive slang is Michaelangeo, and it’s surfer slang specifically, because he was characterized as a surfer.

In conclusion, people are stupid.

Anyway, I’ve been watching through each season of classic TMNT lately. Of course, by watching, I mean I have it on in the background while I play Picross or Hyrule Warriors. It’s become something of a pre-bedtime ritual, in fact. My night feels incomplete without an episode or two. While slang isn’t one of them, the show definitely does have its share of problems and other general weirdness. And because I don’t have any more interesting things to write about, here is a list of things that have stood out to me.

  • Starting off with a fairly well-known one, there seem to be a lot of situations where one or more of the voice actors are temporarily replaced. And almost never well. This seems to be most prominent in season three (which has roughly seventeen million episodes), but it does still happen on occasion. I don’t know what the show’s production was like, but I suppose that James Avery (Shredder) and Rob Paulsen (Raphael) were probably in pretty high demand back in the day, and I can understand that maybe they had scheduling conflicts here and there that left them unable to fulfil their TMNT duties in favour of something more lucrative. But were Barry Gordon (Donatello) and Pat Fraley (Krang) really that busy? Even I had to Google them to remember their names.
  • Michaelangelo may be known mostly for his surfer talk, but that’s never bothered me. What does sort of bug me though, is the way he always puts so much emphasis on the word “pizza.” And the way he enunciates both syllables so strongly. It’s not “PEET-ZAH,” it’s “pizza.” It may be a small thing to pick at, but when every second punch line out of Mikey’s mouth relates to pizza, it starts to grate pretty quickly.
  • What is the deal with the Turtles just being “buds” and Splinter nothing more than their sensei? I am not really up on how the relationships were handled in the Mirage comics, but I’ve always appreciated that in subsequent incarnations, Splinter and the Turtles were straight up father and sons, and that their familial bonds were an important part of their characters. It feels so very wrong whenever Splinter calls them “my students” instead of “my sons.”
  • Speaking of Splinter, he is… not so great in this show. In all other TMNT continuities, Splinter is basically the ultimate badass, capable of defeating any and all opponents. Here, I suppose he does still carry a bit of martial arts clout, but he comes off as a lot more old and feeble, and I just don’t care about him as much as I do the more modern Splinters. Even crazy extendo-tail Splinter from the current movie franchise.
  • April’s scream (which I believe they recorded exactly once and then just used forever) is very annoying.
  • Since it’s a current hot topic: the show is definitely on a misogyny see-saw, but leans more on the side of male dominance. April is independent, ambitious, and hard-working. A female character that young girls could really look up to. However, she is constantly getting captured and is basically helpless whenever a villain is around. Irma is exactly the opposite of a good female role model. Kala the Neutrino is probably a fairly capable lady, what with being a rebel fighting against Krang’s forces, but she shows up so seldom (and never on her own) that we don’t know a lot about her other than that she is a hip teenager. That’s basically it for female characters. Very rarely is there is a one-off girl mutant/villain, and usually they are easily manipulated by the men that surround them.
  • The show is very clearly set in New York City, yet no character ever utters the name. It’s always “the city” this and “the city” that. We know that the show is supposed to exist in the real world, as other real locations are mentioned by name, and there are a number of jabs at New Jersey. So it really stands out as strange that they refuse to acknowledge the city’s name.
  • I blame the 80’s entirely for this one, but any music that is not the main theme or a variant of the main theme is so bad. And there is a pool of maybe five or six themes, so you’re constantly hearing the same awful music. Plus one or two commercial break stings that they use in every single episode.
  • Lastly, I found it more than a little grating that every single episode of season 2 and 3 focused on Krang and Shredder trying to find a power source to get the Technodrome out of Dimension X/the Earth’s core. All of them. Many episodes of later seasons use that scheme as well, but they also move away from it to give some screen time to other villains or monsters of the week. Quite frankly, the lack of variety in plots just makes season 3 feel that much longer, and it’s a welcome change when we start going for entire episodes without a Shredder in sight.
  • Actually, it was also annoying that every second episode of season 4 on started with one of the Turtles complaining that “life is so boring without Krang and Shredder around.” Alright, maybe not quite every second episode, but my point stands that they lean on that setup far too often.
  • Shellbacks! Wretched reptiles! Shellbacks! Wretched reptiles! Shellbacks! Wretched reptiles! Shellbacks! Wretched reptiles! Shellbacks! Wretched reptiles! Shellbacks! Wretched reptiles! Shellbacks! Wretched reptiles!
  • Seriously, bad guys… get some new pejoratives.

And that’s about it. To be fair, I’m only just starting season 6, so maybe things will get mixed up a little as we go? Probably not. All I know for sure is that there is a major shift in seasons 8 to 10, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what those are all about. I’m sure I’d seen episodes here and there as a kid, and I know there’s a new main villain, but I honestly don’t remember anything else about late TMNT. It’s gonna be exciting!

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – May 2016

I’ve been trying real hard to focus on one game per system at a time over the last few months, but I’m failing at every turn. It seems like I’m constantly getting distracted by something else, be it new or half-complete. Anyway, May was a huge step in the right direction, with a greater number of finished games than “in progress” games for this first time since… maybe it’s just the first time ever? Of course, I had to throw some (admittedly hefty) demos in there to make the grade, so maybe it’s moot.

~ Game Over ~

Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (WiiU) – It feels wrong to say it for some reason, but I think Twilight Princess is one of my favourite Zeldas. I think the only thing that I truly dislike about it is the stupid canoe minigame. The forced-wolf sections in the first half of the game do feel a bit like unnecessary padding, but even those don’t really bother me all that much. I even like the “acres and acres of nothing” Hyrule Field.

WiiU_screenshot_TV_019E5

Bravely Default (3DS) – I decided, now that the sequel is out, that I’ve been putting this off for too long. So I beat it. Then I wrote too many words about it. What I didn’t write there is that the final boss seemed rally cheap and annoying on my first try, but then once I knew his tricks, I stomped him into the ground with very little trouble.

Bravely Second: The Ballad of the Three Cavaliers (3DS) – Officially, it’s just the demo for Bravely Second, but it’s got a unique scenario and took me about seven hours to beat. I thought that I was burned out on Bravely, but this demo really hooked me and I just may splurge on Second in the near future.

The Park (PC) – I bought this immediately after someone suggested to me that it was a Five Night’s at Freddy’s clone. That is not the case at all. It’s a still a spooky game, but it is a walking simulator instead of a security guard simulator and there are zero killer animatronics. I was still pleased, because the story was pretty good. Unfortunately, my PC could just barely run it, so the choppiness kind of ruined the mood.

Resident Evil Revelations 2 – Episode 3 (PC) – Surprisingly, this game has one of the least terrible sewer levels ever. Well, design-wise. Technically, the water was too fancy, which made the computer so unhappy and slowed everything down to a crawl, and made the game very difficult to play. Otherwise, it had a cool factory explosion and a great boss fight.

Resident Evil Revelations 2 – Episode 4 (PC) – A surprisingly brief chapter for Claire and Moira, then the longest chapter in the game for Barry and Natalia. It was really great, though, and had a pretty decent final boss. I can tell you right now that I will be replaying this one many times.

Pocket Card Jockey Demo (3DS) – A game about horse racing, in which you race horses by playing a variation of solitaire that I am not familiar with. It’s a lot of fun, but truth be told, I don’t think I’m going to buy it. It’s deceptively deep, and that’s not really what I’m looking for.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade (360) – Decided to play it a bit because I have been jonesing for some old-school TMNT action for months now. I didn’t actually finish it, but I was at the second-last stage and I would have finished it if I’d had more time. But I did get the fix that I needed. Close enough.

~ Now Playing ~

Monster Hunter Explore (iOS) – Do you remember Monster Hunter: Dynamic Hunting? I thought it was a passable way to get a MonHun fix in a pinch, but Explore is so much better. Its plays much more like normal Monster Hunter, just pared down for the mobile audience. It’s still not completely fulfilling, but it’s certainly a good deal of fun.

Hyrule Warriors Legends (3DS) -I took a long break from this to finish off Bravely Default and the Bravely Second demo, and now I’m neck deep in Zelda Musou again. I’ve finally finished the Great Sea adventure map to 100% completion, at least.

Final Fantasy VII (PC) – Yep, this happened. For whatever reason, this time around I feel like I’m seeing a lot of things that remind me of Super Mario RPG. Also whenever anything silly or funny happens I think about how joyless the remake will be and it makes me sad.

Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge (WiiU) – I wrote enough words about this already.

Lost Reavers (WiiU) – A free, online loot-’em-up of sorts. It’s not especially good, but I’ve put in several hours because… well, I’m not sure why I kept it up. I guess it’s fairly fun, despite feeling like a C-tier game from a couple generations ago. Probably because it’s a multiplayer game that is 100% cooperative. That’s a big draw for me.

Dark Souls (360) – Yeah I’m playing this again. New Game+ is, well, hard. Which is the opposite of what I normally expect from NG+. Oh, Dark Souls. Played up to the point of defeating Quelaag, not sure how far I’m ultimately going to take this run.

Contrasts

I have purchased two albums this month, and they could not be more opposite of each other.

First, an album by The Builders and The Butchers: Salvation is a Deep Dark Well. This is folk rock, so it’s obviously got a much stronger country bent than you would expect from me, but it’s much deeper and way less stupid than country. A fun mix of banjo, violin, an mandolin make this album really stand out from the bulk of my collection, and the punchy, upbeat tunes are nicely juxtaposed against bleak and macabre lyrics.

Next, Endless Fantasy from Anamanaguchi. This is a modern techno-pop album that features the use of a Game Boy as an instrument. It’s effects-heavy instrumentals and chiptunes which are influenced by j-pop and video games. One song is called “Meow” and, unsurprisingly, leans on synthetic mewling as a substitute for actual vocals. Another song does have human vocals, but they are nonsense in the style of a Japanese person with a very loose grasp on English writing English lyrics because English is hip.

So don’t you ever suggest that my taste in music isn’t broad.