Category: Video Games

The Sub-Games of Kirby: Triple Deluxe

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The new Kirby game came out last Friday. It’s called Kirby: Triple Deluxe. When the title was first announced, I thought that maybe that meant it would be a sequel to Kirby Super Star, as that game was called Kirby Super Deluxe in Japan. Upon further contemplation, I realized that it’s just a hackneyed way of calling it Kirby 3D without actually calling it Kirby 3D. Bravo, Nintendo.

While it’s not a Super Star sequel, Kirby 3D is still pretty much exactly what one would want from a Kirby game. It’s adorable, the powers are a lot of fun to play with, and the bosses are elaborate and interesting. Much to my surprise, the soundtrack is terrific. I don’t know why I was so surprised by that though. Maybe because of the depressingly disappointing soundtrack in Yoshi’s New Island.

Anyway, It’s Kirby through and through. If you’ve played a [regular] Kirby game, you’ve played this. It’s a fun romp through a bunch of levels where you get to eat guys and wear fun hats. The new Hypernova ability is a lot of fun, but that’s not what really got to me. For the first time ever, I’ve been totally won over by the included mini-games. Or, as the Kirby series likes to call them, sub-games. And really, that is a better moniker, because these extra games are anything but mini.

The first, and the most immediately attractive, is Kirby Fighters. It’s multiplayer, and up to four players can choose a permanent Kirby ability, then duke it out. It’s a little bit like a tiny version of Smash Bros, but it still plays like Kirby. If that’s not immediately clear, what I mean is that the Kirbys move just like they do in the main game. There aren’t any special fighting game physics or nuances added for this mode. I stress this point because for some reason my mind expects Kirby to control the way he does in Smash Bros, but he doesn’t, and it’s a little weird at first. But still, it’s plenty of fun, and the abilities seem to be fairly balanced.

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I haven’t actually played Kirby Fighters with another person yet, but I imagine that it’s got to be a good time, because the single-player mode is a lot of fun. If you play alone, there’s a fun little arcade mode where you play a sequence of seven fights against CPU players. There’s a training mode where you can set up a custom match and pound on CPU Kirbys, which is pretty much the equivalent of the multiplayer experience. With four difficulty levels and nice set of arenas that draw from past Kirby games, there’s a lot here to like.

The only thing that makes me sad about Kirby Fighters is that you only get to choose from ten abilities: Sword, Hammer, Cutter, Parasol, Archer, Ninja, Beam, Whip, Fighter, and Bomb. There are 25 abilities in the main game, and while some are cut for obvious reasons (Crash, Mike, Sleep), I cannot fathom why others (Bell, Leaf, and Spear) aren’t included. Or Wing! My beloved Wing ability got cut and I demand to know why! Heck, the new Circus power is perfectly suited for this sub-game, but it’s curiously absent, too.

What would be nice is if in the next Kirby game, there was a bigger, fuller version of Kirby Fighters. Let all of the abilities have their chance to shine, whether they’re viable contenders or not. I’m sure someone out there would be pleased as punch to try to eke out a victory with Wheel or Stone. They should even put in the cooler powers that were only in one or two games, like Mirror and Animal. I would absolutely go to town in a Kirby Fighters where I could rock an upgraded version of Kirby: Squeak Squad‘s Magic ability.

The other sub-game in Kirby 3D is Dedede’s Drum Dash, which is a fun mix of platformer and rhythm game. The idea of the game is to bounce along with Dedede to the end of the stage, only the platforms that line the way are drums. You’ll jump from drum to drum, avoiding enemies and collecting coins along the way. It’s a fairly easy game if you’re just going from start to finish, but it’s incredibly difficult if you want to get you a good score.

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Dedede automatically bounces off each drum, to about the top of the bottom screen. Pressing A when you hit the drum will propel him higher, up to the top screen, and sequential jumps will go even higher, up to the very top. You have to time your bounces properly to follow the trail of coins and avoid the baddies, but it’s a lot more difficult than it looks, as you’re also trying to aim for the next drum. If you muck it up, Dedede will stumble, losing his jump power, and you’ll lose sync with the song.

You also have to press A to bang a drum along with the backbeat at the height of each jump. Not only does this bump up your score, but it also keeps you aloft for a little longer, letting you pass over large enemies and clear wide gaps. This is where I have the most trouble, because my mind cannot fathom the idea of backbeat. I was stuck forever and gave up on Rhythm Heaven because as much as I tried, I could not pass the Lockstep game, which has you alternate tapping along to the beat and backbeat. It’s not quite so bad in Dedede’s Drum Dash though, because you have a visual cue (the apex of Dedede’s jump) to go along with the musical one.

Getting it all together is tough, and takes a lot of practice, but I can already see the fruits of my labour growing. At first, my performance was atrocious, but now I’m doing okay. Earned a silver medal in the first stage, I did. Each level gives out two kinds of medals, too. The overall performance medal, from bronze through platinum, and then four special medals four each course. These special ones are for completing certain objectives, like clearing a stage quickly or collecting all the coins. Sadly, Dedede’s Drum Dash only has four stages, but mastering them will keep you busy for a very long time to come. It really helps that the game is incredibly fun and borders on addictive.

It doesn’t seem like Nintendo has any plans for it, but these sub-games could benefit greatly from DLC add-ons. Since each stage is based around a song, Dedede’s Drum Dash seems like an obvious candidate for DLC stages. Some more beginner-level stages would be nice, too, as the current offering goes from “tough” to “maddening” pretty quickly. Extra DLC abilities would be the way to go for Kirby Fighters. Hell, maybe even a few new arenas or options like an item switch.

I would readily pay a buck for an extra Dedede level or a couple new Fighters abilities. That’s an important point though: make it a buck. Plants Vs. Zombies 2 ensured that I’ll never buy any of it’s DLC by pricing it way too high. $3 for one plant? No way in Hell. Nuts to you, EA.

At the end of the day, Kirby: Triple Deluxe is a wonderful package, made all the better by a couple of sub-games that are actually interesting. Both of them are fun and deep enough that they could be their own game. I mean, just look at how much I wrote about them alone! This was supposed to be a medium-length blog post, but it ended up being a whole article. And I hardly even did any senseless rambling! funny how things work out like that.

Dark Souls: Creepshow

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan ran away from Anor Londo because it as too hard, and met a giant snake monster that told her about her destiny.

I meandered around the Firelink Shrine graveyard, busting skeletons to pieces as they came, until I was fairly sure that I’d found any noteworthy bits of equipment and items that I’d missed during my previous expedition here. The skeletons were still fearsome foes, but my skills with a sword -as well as the sword itself- had improved since last time.

Unfortunately, my sword wasn’t going to be of much use where I was going. I needed the Divine Battle Axe that I’d had forged so long a go. A little birdie told me that divine weapons could put down the regenerating skeletons in the Catacombs for good, so I was going to have to learn how to use something other than my beloved Drake Sword.

The axe was unwieldy, but powerful. It was slow to swing, but a strong hit could temporarily shatter the top half of a skeleton to bits, leaving its lower half defenseless and open to attack for a few seconds. It took a bit of practice with the weapon before I felt confident taking it down with me into the depths of the Catacombs, but I had to press forward, and the only other option I knew of at the time was Anor Londo.

I was not going back to Anor Londo.

Creeping down the shadowy staircase, I kept my guard up, knowing that a skeleton and the screeching explody things were waiting in the darkness ahead. The first skeleton came at me, as if out of nowhere. I parried its attack and countered with a mighty blow from my shimmering axe. The divine weapon sent bones flying in every direction. I waited, keeping my shield at the ready. The bones didn’t move. I waited a little longer, nothing happened, and I moved on.

Inside the entrance to the Catacombs, I saw the faint lights floating around above the bottomless hole. They seemed a bit father than usual, which was a boon because they didn’t appear to notice me from that distance. I was curious to find out exactly what they were, but decided not to risk it. I continued down around the edge of the pit and busted up the skeleton that was waiting to ambush me at the bottom.

When I had come down here the first time, I was beset by immortal skeletons and inexplicable explosions, so I didn’t really have time to notice that the cliff at the end of the path did not lead to yet another bottomless pit. No, there was a floor below, maybe a ten-foot drop down. It was hard to see in the darkness, no wonder I’d missed it before.

I hopped down and was immediately attacked by a troop of skeletons, commanded by an undead man who confidently whipped fireballs at me from afar while his minions engaged me in close combat. I rolled away from the skeletons, and went after the necromancer. He ran, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. I struck him down, hoping his death would extinguish the force animating his bony buddies, but they continued to charge me.

I came out of the darkness of the crypt into a valley bathed in sunlight and prowling with skeletons and necromancers. The Catacombs were a massive, winding mess of tunnels, shafts, and catwalks. It was also full of statues, some of which would fire out spikes if someone stepped too close. Finding a bonfire in this place was a welcome reprieve, and getting to the bottom wasn’t nearly as difficult as surviving at the bottom was.

At the end of the main path was a long, narrow mausoleum build into the side of the valley. Waiting at the far end of this mausoleum was another titanite demon. This fight was much tougher than the first one, as the narrow hall made it difficult to get around to the back of the demon where it was relatively save. The big guy softened me up with a few blows of his staff, and then skewered me with a diving strike. You Died.

I worked my way back to the titanite demon, this time attempting to defeat it with a mix of fireballs and arrows. The strategy seemed airtight, until he reminded me that he could fling lightning bolts at me from his staff. Also, he has a pretty amazing range on that jumping attack. You Died.

A flat-out assault didn’t really work either. You Died.

Annoyed, my next plan for dealing with the titanite demon was to simply run past him. It worked like a charm, except that behind him was just a dead end. Oh sure, I found a few Eyes of Death back there, but those were absolutely useless to me. The demon wasn’t too happy about me taking its baubles, so it killed me again. You Died.

A couple attempts later, I was running away from an encounter with the demon that went bad very quickly, and as I dove to avoid a lightning bolt, I discovered another path off to the side, well out of the demon’s initial field of vision. I stopped to lament how stupid I’d been for not noticing it earlier, and that was just enough time for the demon to catch up with me. You Died.

Tune in next week for Part 23: Spooky

An errant wrench

The Year of Nintendo 64 is going well, and I’m staying rather interested in it, much to my surprise. So far, I’ve finished at least one N64 game a month, with good times and bad times along the way. It’s been fun, and also a learning experience.

Recently, I learned a very troubling thing.

I booted up Quest 64, my chosen game for May, and was surprised to see a notice immediately pop up that informed me that I’d need a controller pak (N64’s equivalent to a memory card) to save my game. No problem, I had a few of those back in the day. At least one had to be kicking around in my big gaming chest.

I found a controller pak, conveniently inserted into another controller, so I yanked it out and slapped it into the controller I was using. Another notice came on-screen, telling me that the data was corrupt and that I’d need to initialize the card before I could use it. Whatever. I don’t recall ever owning a game that saved to the controller pak, so all I’d be losing was corrupt data from rented games.

I formatted the card and started up the game. After about half an hour, it dawned on me that I should probably save and reset the game before I got too far, to see if the controller pak was still capable of saving data. I saved, reset, and loaded my game without fault. Good, so the formatting worked. I played for another couple hours and made substantial progress, getting at least a third of the way through the game.

I decided to play a little more a couple nights later, and was devastated (but not totally surprised) when the “Your data is corrupt. Please initialize the controller pak.” screen came up. All that time wasted. A quick search in the back of my third N64 controller came up empty. I haven’t done a thorough search for another pak yet, but I fear that the dead one might be the only one I own.

If I don’t possess a working controller pak, I’m still split on whether I want to go out and try to purchase one, or if it’s a better idea to just try to power through the game in a single sitting. Like I said, I made it pretty far in only a couple hours, and I think I could manage it. I’m not necessarily looking forward to such an endeavour, but I like Quest 64 enough that I don’t want to write it off, either.

The good news is that Quest 64 is (apparently) one of only two games that save to the controller pak exclusively, and I don’t own the other one, so this won’t shouldn’t be an issue in the future. I’ve got my fingers crossed. This has been quite the unexpected wrinkle in my grand scheme.

Dark Souls: A Different Approach

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan tried to break into Anor Londo castle, but got mercilessly killed over and over agin for her efforts.

The silver archers were starting to drain my enthusiasm. No. The gauntlet that led up to my inevitable death at the hands of the archers is what was really bugging me. Spinning that tower over and over again was such a chore. It was at this point that I decided to go back to the terrace bonfire and make that one my respawn point instead. It was a longer walk back across the bridge, but still took less time than waiting for the tower to do two spins after each death.

I’d lost count of how many times the archers had killed me, but I was still trying to find a way past them. There wasn’t one, though. There was only one way into the castle, and it was past these jerks.

Giving it yet another go, I steeled myself after disposing of the winged demons and started running up the buttress. I made it! But now was not the time for rejoicing! The ledge that led around the castle was very narrow, and a snigle misstep would send me to my death. Again. Also I still had those knights to deal with. Luckily, a stray wall was between me and one of them, so I only had to face off against the other to progress.

Gripping my shiled tightly as each massive arrow deflected off of it, I slowly edged towards my silver-plated foe. He stood unwavering in his position, loosing arrow after arrow even as I came within  striking distance. The knight then exchanged his bow for a sword and shield, apparently intending to engage me in a swordfight on the precarious ledge. We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, and I began to worry. I had never faced such a patient foe before, and this knight had been just as agressive as the rest until just now.

Then I felt the arrow burrow into my back. The force of the impact slammed me into the wall and I bounced off of it, and down into the dark unknown. That stupid knight had just been stalling until his buddy was in a position to shoot me from behind. What a couple of dicks. You Died.

My spirit was broken. I was never going to get into the castle. So I headed back up the trail to the landing where I’d first set foot in Anor Londo, head hung low, and had the winged demons carry me back over the mountainside to Sen’s Fortress.

I trudged back to Firelink Shrine and rested at the bonfire, weary and not sure of what I was supposed to do. Then I noticed a strange clacking sound coming from behind me.

I turned around, and past a few crumbling walls, where there had used to be an empty area that resembled a pool, was a massive, horrifying head sticking out from a pit of inky blackness. The creature rhythmically clacked his teeth together as I approached it, and it seemed almost happy to see me, which was somewhat alarming in this hostile world.

The creature, who introduced himself as the primordial serpent, Kingseeker Frampt, was in fact delighted that I had shown up. Seems he’d been looking for the chosen one or some junk. I wasn’t overly interested in his story, but he did say that an object of great power, the Lordvessel, was hidden away in Anor Londo castle, and that he thought that I’d be the one who could obtain it.

Guess he hadn’t heard about my adventures in Anor Londo.

At least I knew what I was supposed to be doing. I had an objective now. But I decided to head off in the opposite direction and fight some skeletons in the graveyard instead. It had been a while since I’d been over that way. Also I owed them a little payback for all those times that they killed me when I first arrived in Firelink.

Tune in next week for Part 22: Creepshow

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: April 2014

In March I tried to focus on fewer games, getting my count of beaten games up, and cleaving away a small portion of my backlog. But then April came along and I have just been all over the place with my gaming; playing on every platform, new games, old games, half-beaten games. I guess it’s like that rubber-band effect that happens to people who try to lose weight the wrong way.

This month’s list is huge, but at least I beat a lot of the games on it. Lately it seems like I’ve been favoring a system of working on one or two long games, while supplementing that with a bunch of smaller games that can be beaten over a couple evenings or a single afternoon. It’s a good system, and I wish I’d thought of it years ago. Maybe then my backlog wouldn’t be so enormous.

~ Now Playing ~

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate HD (360) – Unlike many, I quite liked the first Lords of Shadow game, but the 3DS sequel seemed so tepid that I skipped it. Luckily, Mercurysteam saw fit to release an HD version for $15 only a few months later, which then went on sale, and that sounded good enough to me. And, yeah, it’s pretty much as mediocre as the reviews make it out to be. Oh well.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: April 2014

Not-quite-double vision

I know almost nothing about Phineas and Ferb or Disney Infinity, but a big ol’ wave of déja vu rolled over me when I saw this pre-order card at Best Buy a couple weeks ago.

For whatever reason, this figurine (which I later confirmed is in fact Phineas) reminds me very strongly of the official Ness figurine.

When you sit the two next to each other, they aren’t really all that similar, but they do share a bunch of traits. The striped shirt, blue jeans, and green base. Big heads topped with something red (Phineas’ hair and Ness’ baseball cap). You can see how at a glance, I could have been mistaken and had one of those “Bluh?” moments.

That’s all. Just a funny observation today.

Year of N64 – April: Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

I have two vivid memories in relation to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

The first is the Easter that came after I got the game. I don’t remember the circumstances under which I received the game proper (it was likely a Christmas gift), but I do remember that on that Easter, I got the Official Nintendo Player’s Guide for it as a gift. We also went to the Royal Fork Buffet for Easter dinner that year, and I brought the guide along with me so that I could study the game and how to earn the gold medals and unlockable ships. It was also the last time I can recall enjoying the Royal Fork Buffet. Maybe the food there used to be better, maybe I just didn’t know better becaue I was a child. We may never know the truth. Also we got the PC versions of Rayman and Earthworm Jim, but I was much less interested in those.

I want to say I chose to play Rogue Squadron in April because it and Easter have a permanent link in my mind, but really I’m not that clever. It’s April’s game of the month because that’s just how things rolled out. Pure coincidence.

Continue reading Year of N64 – April: Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

Dark Souls: Boot Stamping on a Hollow Face – Forever

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan fought a bunch of giant statue-men with varying degrees of success, and broke a really expensive-looking chandelier.

Flipping the massive lever at the base of the spinny tower again, I stood and waited until it had rumbled into position, completing the bridge from the terrace at the entrance of Anor Londo to the massive castle on the opposite side. I scaled the spiral staircase up to the bridge and was ambushed by another gargoyle, which I dispatched quickly.

Things were going swimmingly, and my head was beginning to swell with confidence.

On the other end of the bridge was a massive staircase leading up to the castle entrance. The castle, of course, was locked up tight, and there was a sentinel standing on either side of the enormous door. Being so excited to have reached the castle, I accidentally alerted them both at the same time, and, well, things happen. You Died.

To get back to the castle from the lower bonfire, I had to spin the tower twice. It was a little annoying.

The doorway sentinels were a huge pain, as it was very hard to get their attention one at a time, and then I was forced to fight them on the staircase. The uneven ground made a difficult enemy even harder, until I learned that I could use the lower ground to make evading some att acks easier. It wasn’t that’s much easier though. You Died.

Spin once to bring the tower down, spin it again to make it go back up.

It took me a few more tries to defeat both sentinels, and I always started with the one on the left. For no specific reason; it just felt natural. It was truly disheartening to learn that all that was behind that guy was a locked door. To make progress, I really only had to fight the one on the right. Even then, if I was able to just sneak past him, the gate I needed to go through was much too small for him, so I could have avoided all those fights and deaths entirely if I’d simply been more observant.

Taunting the sentinel from the other side of the gate was not a good idea though, as he was still able to spear me with his weapon through it. You Died.

Spin once to bring the tower down, spin it again to make it go back up.

Little did I know that the sentinels were really the least of my problems. On the other side of the gate was a balcony where a bunch of winged demons were hanging out. They were the same kind of demons that had flown me into Anor Londo, but these ones were much less benevolent. They each carried a spear that coursed with the power of lightning, which cost me a bit of health even when I blocked their strikes. The only saving grace here was that it was easy to bait the demons over to me one at a time. Fighting them all at once would have been suicidal.

From that balcony, I had to cross over another buttress to a small tower. I didn’t see anything at the other end, so I let my guard down and dashed across without hesitation. As soon as I stepped onto the tower though, two winged demons jumped out at me and started stabbing at me with their lightning spears. I turned tail and tried to run back across the buttress, but then they started throwing lightning spears at me, and a person can only take so many lightning spear to the back before they expire. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons.

The demons on the small tower had a weakness: they could not cross the buttress back up to the balcony because the railings on either side made the path too narrow for them. I could simply stay slighty out of their range on the buttress, and quickly go in for an attack  It felt like I was really getting away with something, but then I discovered that the spaces between the railings were not too narrow fro me to slip through if I wasn’t careful. And off into the blackness I fell… You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons.

The process of getting back to the stupid buttress was beginning to weigh on me. But this time, I killed those stupid winged demons, and I triumphantly began crossing yet another buttress that lead up to the wall of the castle. Then I heard a strange thwip noise, and another right after it. Then a massive javelin pierced my torso, knocking me onto the ground. The second javelin ran through me and everything went black. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons. Kill the tower demons.

I hid behind a corner of the tower and took a look to see where those javelins had come from. Off in the distance, I could see a pair of silver knights standing on either side of the ledge lining the castle wall that I was aiming to get to. I crept around the corner to better assess the situation when I saw them both draw their huge bows. I tucked back behind the wall as they loosed their “arrows” and I heard the crash of steel piercing stone as the arrows hit the other side of the wall.

But the archers did not stop just because I was behind cover. I heard pair after pair of arrows collide with the wall, and decided that I’d have to just run for it. Probably shoudl have waited a bit longer though, as I only made it halfway across the buttress before one of the giant arrows hit me and the force of the impact sent me flailing into the abyss. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons. Kill the tower demons.

I tried to cross over to the castle wall again, hoping that if I began my run before the archers noticed me, the head start would be the edge I needed to make it across. I did almost make it, but took an arrow to the thigh and went plummeting to my doom again. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons. Kill the tower demons. Get killed by the archers. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons. Kill the tower demons. Get killed by the archers. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons. Kill the tower demons. Get killed by the archers. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons. Kill the tower demons. Get killed by the archers. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons. Kill the tower demons. Get killed by the archers. You Died.

*Sigh*

Tune in next week for Part 21: A Different Approach

The Easter Candy Parade 2014

Let’s not shilly-shally around today. I like doing three-paragraph intros to my articles, but this one is the shallowest, most originality-free thing I’ve written in forever, so it doesn’t deserve an intro like that. Today, we’re talking about Easter.

Specifically, the absolute truckload of Easter-type goodies that my parents and in-laws gave us. Being creaky, old, mortgage-paying adults, we’re not really the kind of people you’d think would get so many Easter goodies, but our parents spoil the crap out of us and I’m thankful for that every day. Hooray!

You know, now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure that the last two Easters, when I’ve been moved out of my parents’ house, have been the most lucrative Easters since I turned 18. I can’t recall the Easters between then and marriage at all, so they must have been pretty tame.

See? Two bags full of chocolate and candy. We (and by “we” I mean “I” because I’m a big fatty) don’t need this many sweets at all, but we certainly won’t turn away a bunch of free candy. That would be stupid. If properly rationed, this could last us halfway through summer. It likely won’t, but it could.

Continue reading The Easter Candy Parade 2014