I think that the worst feeling in the world, is that feeling when you get in the shower and turn on the tap, only to realize that you forgot to turn off the showerhead the previous day.
That split-second of dread, and realizing what’s about to happen is probably even worse than the impending blast of ice-cold water that arrives soon afterward. It’s just enough time to look up and say “aw, fudge” dramatically, but not quite enough time to leap out of the way.
I’d like to take a moment here to expand on just how into Five Night’s at Freddy’s I am. I only own the first two games, as I cannot actually bear to play them (though I did buy two versions of FNAF1), and I have read the novel. This much is the obvious stuff.
On the crazier side, I have watched all of the Game Theory videos about the plot and lore of the franchise, and I typically don’t really enjoy MatPat’s work. On top of all that, I actually sat through a nearly-two-hours stream of him and a bunch of other YouTube nuts discussing their theories and whatnot. I have embedded to recording of said stream below, so that you may get a first-hand glimpse at the madness into which I have descended.
Five Nights at Freddy’s. If you’ve been on the internet at all over the last year (and then some), you at least have half an idea what this is. I mean, you should. It’s been a straight-up phenomenon. You’d have to have a pretty empty Twitter feed to not even have heard of the franchise. Seriously. Get with it already.
Ugh. Fine. If I have to spell it out for you, Five Nights at Freddy’s is a video game. It’s about animatronic animals that wander around a pizza parlour (think Showbiz Pizza) at night and brutally murder you if you don’t close the doors at the right time. Also those doors require power to stay closed for some reason. I don’t know why, and this isn’t an in-depth analysis of pizza parlour technology, so we’re not going there. The game made a huge splash on YouTube and took over the internet. Three sequels, each changing up the gameplay to some degree, were released within a year’s time. Warner Bros announced that a FNAF movie is in the works, and there’s even an official novel. I have read said novel, and despite it seeming like a terrible idea, I quite enjoyed it.
If I may be excused for a moment, I feel like I ought to mention before we go any farther that I am a huge FNAF fan. I can’t play the games because I can’t handle the tension, but I love the world-building, the lore, and the characters.
Alright then. Moving on.
Do you like listicles? Because apparently I do. I promise that I won’t do as many of these stupid things this year. Cross my heart.
Okay so remember a couple years ago when I did lists of the top albums and artists that I’d listened to the year before? Well I’m doing it again. Only just with albums this time because it’s so redundant to do both. It works like so:
I pull up my Last.fm page and check the top albums for the last 365 days. Keep in mind that this is only considering tracks that were actually scrobbled. So anything I listened to via the Scrobbler app on my phone or Winamp on my PC. CDs obviously don’t count (not that use those too often), and neither do tracks that were played with Media Player Classic, because I don’t have the Last.fm plugin for that, if there even is one.
So no, the list isn’t entirely accurate, but it’s the best metric that we have. Enjoy.
Another year, another pile of Steam games that I will never play. thanks, Humble Bundle!
Tengami (Wii U) – I guess it’s what the kids call a “walking simulator” because that’s most of the game. Also you sometimes solve puzzles. They’re mostly pretty easy, but still satisfying. What really makes it special is the beautiful pop-up book aesthetic and pretty music. It only lasts for about an hour, but it’s a nice hour.
Goosebumps (PC) – I wouldn’t have bought this if it hadn’t been in a bundle for $2. And the Ryan in that timeline lived a lesser life, because Goosebumps is quite an enjoyable little point-and-click adventure. Some minor annoyances, like a “puzzle” that literally just makes you wait and lawn gnome jumpscares, but otherwise a perfect example of how to do this kind of game correctly.
Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (3DS) – Soloed most of the game on my lunch hours because I don’t make time for 3DS at home. It’s actually not horrible to play alone, and it’s almost encouraged by the awful players I usually meet online. I’ve beaten the game, but I’m going to go back and do all the extra challenges to get the true ending… eventually.
Minecraft: Story Mode – The Order of the Stone (WiiU) – Boy, that’s a mouthful. Anyway, it’s Telltale’s adventure series based in Minecraft. The last time I played a Telltale game was Sam & Max Season 1, and this is markedly different than that. Story Mode is a lot less interactive; it’s more like a film where you make a choice once in a while. But it’s still entertaining, so who am I to complain?
FNAF World (PC) – I was so happy that finally a FNAF game was made that I would actually be able to play. Even if it is an overly cutesy RPG with a hyperactive battle system. There’s a little more to it going on under the hood, being a FNaF game and all, and I’m eager to start reading all the crazy internet theories about the game’s mysteries. Except there may not be because the game was pulled from Steam for being half-baked. Oops! I still played it and made my way to the “bad” ending. Probably will play it again.
Pokémon Picross (3DS) – If you pay for it, it’s the best picross game. If you try to get by on the Free-to-Play model… you’re gonna have a bad time. Anyway, it has certainly slaked my thirst for themed picross, which is really all that I needed. I’m slowly working though the Alt-World mode, in which every puzzle is presented in the Mega Picross format.
Xenoblade Chronicles X (WiiU) – Still plugging away at this giant beast. It’s such a wonderful world, I don’t really want it to end. Then again, I suppose it won’t, because it’s like 500 hours worth of content. I’ve done up to Chapter 11 in the main story.
Fallout 4 (PC) – Trying to build and furnish a house in this game is kind of a nightmare. But, you know, it’s Fallout, so at least the rest of the game is good. Having no level cap is great. I love not having to worry that I put my points in the wrong skills.
FAST Racing NEO (WiiU) – They really aren’t kidding. This gam is fast with a capital everything. It’s one of those wonderful and rare arcade racers that I actually enjoy, even though I’m not really very good. Even the novice championship is giving me troubles. I’ve gotten gold trophies on the first two circuits, bronze on the third, and didn’t even place on the fourth.
Dragon Warrior Monsters (GBC) – I was assessing the Game Boys I own (not that many, really) and plugged this in to see if my Game Boy Color was working. It was, and now I’m stuck falling down this rabbit hole again. Only up to Rank F in the arena so far.
The Deadly Tower of Monsters (PC) – Framed as the DVD of a old mid-twentieth century sci-fi movie, with director’s commentary and cheesy special effects to match. I’m fairly certain that it was made specifically for me. I’m about halfway up the tower, but I have no idea what that means in terms of actual game progression.
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (3DS) – I was toying with the idea of not buying this, at least not right away. Who did I think I was kidding? At least it’s been really good so far. Fusing the M&L and Paper Mario worlds was a great idea, and cutting out most of the forced tutorials was the best idea. At current, I’m in the desert area.
Shovel Knight (WiiU) – Got the Shovel Knight amiibo this month, which changes the way you play the game a fair bit. Also it allows for two-player mode, so that’s pretty ballin’. Any excuse to play more Shovel Knight is a good one.
For someone who spent most of his late teens rallying viciously against JRPGs, I really, really adore Dragon Quest. I came back around to enjoying the genre at large many years ago, but Dragon Quest always had a place in my heart, even though it was built almost entirely on the things I claimed to dislike about these games. I think it all comes back to Dragon Warrior Monsters.
Long ago, before Enix was able to claim the Dragon Quest’s rightful title overseas, there was a game called Pokémon. It was a game about collecting and battling monsters, and it was a massive hit. A worldwide phenomenon that continues to be a force to reckon with to this day. Of course, back then, imitators immediately sprang out of woodwork from every angle. Many were new franchises, and plenty just shoehorned monster collection/battles into existing franchises. Not a single one of them ever grabbed hold of me like Dragon Warrior Monsters did.
Unlike Pokémon and the vast majority of its knockoffs, DWM did not come in two separate versions that were largely the same, but with a handful of unique monsters. You could experience everything that the game had to offer on a single cartridge, all by your lonesome. This was already a point in its favour. Back in the day, I had no shortage of peers to trade creatures with, so it wasn’t a real problem. I just think it’s more ethical to let players access 100% of the product that they paid for without additional costs or catches (though these days, that line has long since been crossed and forgotten).
What really sets DWM apart from almost all of its kind is that it incorporates random dungeons into its gameplay. This is nothing new for the Dragon Quest series, as Torneko: The Last Hope was a true Mystery Dungeon game and came a good five years prior to DWM. So what does this really mean? It means that the floorplan for nearly every dungeon floor is randomly generated each time you enter. Items are scattered about, and finding the warp hole to the next floor is always your goal. Sometimes there are shops to find, or travelling folks who may challenge you to a monster battle. Typically the only things set in stone are the types of monsters that you will find and the boss floor.
The plot of DWM wasn’t terribly different from Pokémon. Your goal in both games is to collect monsters, train them up, and win battle competitions to be the strongest trainer in the world. Though that was about it for Pokémon. Winning for the sake of winning. In DWM, it’s a little more fleshed-out, as winning the Starry Night Tournament will grant you a wish, likely to be used to rescue your recently kidnapped sister. Also I think there’s some jazz about saving the kingdom, but I don’t remember much about it and I’m not far enough in my current playthrough for that to be a thing yet.
While I can’t say with any certainty (and I’m not going to be doing any research), Enix was one giant leap ahead of Pokémon in one regard: monster breeding. Breeding was not a feature in the original Pokémon games, and while it did make its debut in the sequels, they came two years after DWM. Breeding in DWM is also a central mechanic, and very much necessary for creating strong monsters and to find certain rare species. In Pokémon, you can easily get through the game without even knowing that breeding is a thing that exists; it’s really more there for the hardcore players. The downside to DWM breeding is that it’s really more like monster fusion, as the parents will both disappear after the deed is done. In both games though, monster breeding is a tricky business with many nuances and invisible values that you need a guide to decipher. That or you can just have your monsters bang and hope for the best.
DWM absolutely beats Pokémon when it comes to hatching your monster eggs though. In Pokémon, there’s a counter that ticks down for every in-game step you take. These are usually in the tens of thousands, so breeding Pokémon is tedious as all heck. In DWM though, you just pay a small fee in gold and presto: a freshly hatched monster! (Let’s just forget that you have to spend a lot of time levelling up your monsters to get decent offspring.)
As a kid, I never beat Dragon Warrior Monsters. Why? Probably because it’s a tough game, and crafting yourself a strong team of monsters is either going to require a guide or a whole lotta grinding. Like any other Dragon Quest game, bosses in DWM are big, strong, and filled to the brim with HPs. You’re probably not going to be getting past a boss on your first trip through a dungeon, unless you luck into recruiting a few tough new monsters along the way. Most likely you’re going to have to battle your way to the end, take a lumping from the boss, and then trudge back through the dungeon with a little insight and a couple more levels to your name. Combine that with the fact that newborn monsters always start at level 1, and you’re looking at a bit of a grind. That’s kind of what Dragon Quest is known for though, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the franchise.
If you play your cards right, though, you’ll catch a few decent monsters, fuse them into even better monsters, and then be able to tear through those dungeons without a hitch. Bosses will fall at your feet, and the world will be your oyster. But then there’s the arena. Dungeons are really just a distraction from the story and a place to grow your team; the arena is the focus of the lion’s share of the plot, and also where most of the game’s true challenge lies.
Each arena battle is three fights in a row against rival monster masters. Which, you know, doesn’t seem as bad as trekking through floor after floor of dungeons just to face a powerful boss. The catch here is that you’re not allowed to heal your team between rounds, and you can’t issue direct commands to your monsters. You can still tell them to go all out or to fight more cautiously, but their actions will be dictated entirely by their training and nature. I’ve only made it through the first arena match (which is almost tutorial-easy) in my current game, but I can remember being stymied by these fights over and over back in the day. At the very least, when you’ve assembled a team that can last all three rounds, it gives off a great deal of satisfaction.
Of course, as much as I like the gameplay on offer here, one of the greatest appeals of DWM is its heritage. This game draws from all of the Dragon Quests that came before it, bringing a rich pool of your favourite legacy monsters, even going so far as to let you breed the final bosses from the first six games. It also reuses many familiar themes from previous games, though to tell the truth, I’m not terribly familiar with DQ tunes outside of those from the first game. Writing is rarely a highlight of Game Boy games, but DWM has a fairly charming script, and all the better since it came before the time where Dragon Quest characters started being written with accents.
A lot of what I really love about the game is the sense of nostalgia that washes over me as I play it. I can remember booting it up for the first time in McDonald’s. I remember staying at a friend’s cottage one summer, and when we weren’t busy exploring or swimming, we’d be grinding like heck through DWM. It makes me think back on the Game Boy Color and how it blew my tiny mind. It reminds me of being dragged around with my parents as they did their shopping and whatnot. Basically, it strongly reminds me of a simpler, easier part of my life. And with all the stresses of adult life and the junk I’m dealing with these days, I often need those happy memories to put me at ease at the end of the day.
You can look at Dragon Warrior Monsters as a cash-in on the Pokémon craze of the late nineties, and you wouldn’t be wrong to do so. But it’s a very different game that works hard and succeeds at making itself stand out in a sea of also-rans. It introduced me to a handful of new and exciting video game concepts that seem expected and sometimes overused these days. I probably won’t ever be able to really get into the fancy new 3D sequels, but I can say for sure that I will always keep a copy of the original Dragon Warrior Monsters on hand, even if I only go back to it once every decade.
December… the month of getting free money and then blowing it all on digital video games.
Because there are excellent sales after Xmas, you see. Not… not because I’m irresponsible or anything like that. Perish the thought.
A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda (PC) – An action platformer wherein you are a robot who shoots up other robots and then gains a new weapon after defeating a boss. Yeah that sounds like something I’d like. It’s only five stages long, and the controls are just a little bit off, but I had fun. Maybe even enough to buy the expansion…
Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U) – Basically the last game I would ever need if I still had anything resembling an attention span. The single-player component is massive beyond belief, and then there’s an online multiplayer mode that could theoretically make it last forever (or at least until Nintendo scuttles the servers). On Chapter 9.
Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (3DS) – Honestly, I had no real intention of ever getting this game, even though the demo was a hoot. But then Santa brought it for me and I’ve been having a grand old time with online multiplayer Zelda. Never thought I’d write that sentence. Haven’t gotten too far yet though, only up to the second world.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3D (3DS) – Since I can’t play X on my lunch break or on the bus, I’ve decided to go back to the “next best” thing. You know, because I sunk 20 hours into it and then totally blew it off for something more shiny. It’s also a really good game, though bittersweet, as it reminds me of when I moved into my house. Reached Alcamoth.
Pokémon Picross (3DS) – It would be the ultimate picross game, if it weren’t bogged down with the meanest F2P systems ever. But I just gave in and bought it out, so I don’t really have to deal with that. There are a metric buttload of puzzles, but only about half of the current Pokémon are present, so I’m already frothing for a sequel. Completed all normal puzzles, now working on the Alt-World mega puzzles.
Splatoon (Wii U) – There were two Splatfests this month, but I didn’t participate in the first because I was far to enthralled with XCX. I did spend some non-Splatfest time with it as well, trying out new guns (I had grown very attached to my N-Zap ’89) and clearing the third “world” of the single-player mode.
X-COM: Enemy Within (PC) – Going back to this masterpiece to see what the expansion added was a little jarring at first, because I opted to play on Normal instead of Easy. But then I gained the ability to turn my guys into mech-riding cyborgs, and all was good. Except for the enemies that turn invisible. Nuts to those guys.
Super Smash Bros 4 (WiiU/3DS) – Hadn’t played much of it recently, and then Cloud (yes, that Cloud) happened. Also I am so pumped for Februrary, as I really can’t wait for Corrin and Bayonetta to join the fight. Corrin in particular looks like she could be my new main.
Bravely Default (3DS) – It just goes on and on forever. I hit a pretty solid wall (superboss) near the end of Chapter 6, and then Xenoblade and Picross took over my life.
Fallout 4 (PC) – I only got but a brief taste of this one, but it left a lingering desire on my tongue. I love how the world is made of all these bright pastel colours instead of the usual drab greys and browns. The live-action intro is wonderful. However, the overall voice acting quality seems to have taken a hit since New Vegas.
If you value audio quality, don’t buy earbuds at the dollar store.
They are Not Good.
I’ve been listening to the Trailer Park Boys Podcast pretty obsessively over the last couple weeks. Burning through the backlog, in fact, listening to as many as three a day. There are only 20 episodes so far, so I’ll probably be caught up by Xmas.
The podcast is usually just the boys sitting around a table, bickering and ripping on each other, occasionally talking about various headlines or random fun facts. A few episodes feature special guests, including but not limited to: Snoop Dogg, Jay Baruchel, and Esa Tikkanen. Also, Randy shows up every once in a while. So far, it’s been pretty darn hilarious.
The first two episodes are a bit slow, both of them leaning heavily on Ricky’s inability to grasp what a podcast is. The joke wears itself out quickly, but things get considerably better by the third episode. By the time they’re doing episodes while on tour in Europe, it goes from ‘great’ to ‘amazing’ and there’s really no longer any competition for the top spot on my Favourite Podcasts list.
One thing that I realized while listening to these, is that the show is at its very best when it’s just Ricky and Bubbles. Julian is a crucial character to the show, and there’s plenty to like about him there, but on the podcast he mostly just complains about how the other two aren’t doing a good enough job. When Ricky and Bubbles are let loose to basically just talk and joke with each other, it’s simply magic. Wonderful listening. I’m not saying that cutting Julian from the show entirely would make it better, but it’s nice to just let the other two go unfiltered once in a while.
I would be remiss to omit that iTunes has ranked the TPB Podcast as one of the best of 2015, so you know that it’s not just me singing its praises. I whole-heartedly recommend checking this one out. You can listen to it on iTunes or Libsyn, and they even film each episode so that you can watch the madness unfold on Swearnet. You’ve gotta be a subscriber to watch it, but hey, you should probably subscribe to Swearnet anyway.
