Rather, it’s Steam’s fault as to why I haven’t been posting here lately. They had a sale on Tropico 3 that I couldn’t pass up, so I bit on that, and also finally picked up Plants vs. Zombies, and ended up being hooked on them both. Oh, and if those two weren’t enough, on the same day I bought them, Kirby Super Star came out on Virtual Console! It’s been a long time since I purchased three games in one day, and I think three downloadable titles all at once is a personal first.

You said it, Crazy Dave.

Plants vs. Zombies was the first of the three I dove into, playing all the way through to the end of Adventure mode and then some, until all the minigames and other extra game modes were cleared. Tropico 3, being a management sim, was a much lengthier time-sink, moreso when taken into consideration the fact that a fair number of the campaign’s missions simply require you to stay in power for a set amount of time, rather than just amass a certain amount of resources or some such. Both games had their share of quirks and annoyances—the latter moreso than the former—but I’ll get into those later, really. I also have to beat Dragon Quest V, but one reason I’ve been putting that off, besides the PC game distractions, is that I don’t want it to end…

Have to play more of Kirby Super Star as well. Did clear the first two platforming games in this most unusual collection of little Kirbies—neither of which did much for me—awhile ago, but recently I went back to it and made some more progress in “The Great Cave Offensive”, a treasure-hunting platformer which is pretty decent. I’m still dreading additional attempts at the racing/eating game against King Dedede, which gets especially tricky on the third course (no pun intended); they’re the types of races where memorization will doubtless play a big role in beating the damned things.

Also, been going back to Pokemon Platinum every once in awhile. I’m currently somewhere in the third gym. Party-wise, Bronzor’s kicking ass and Combee is the cutest thing to happen since Piplup. One thing that’s annoying about only playing Pokemon occasionally is that all the berries that I had planted die out. Oh well. However, I’ll be going away on a trip at the end of the month, which will, hopefully, give me ample opportunity to rebuild my berry hoard.

Finally, I made an attempt at Cave Story‘s Sacred Grounds (aka “Hell”) a few weeks ago. This required playing through the entire game again in order to unlock the place, and although the WiiWare version’s “easy” mode made this a snap, I messed up one of the requirements more than halfway through and had to start all over again. The second time around, I got the secret, “hardcore” version of the Last Cave and, after the endgame, was able to descend into the even more intimidating Sacred Grounds itself. I managed to make it all the way to the first form of Hell’s final boss before dying, and this, remember, was on easy. There’s no way I would’ve made it that far in normal mode. Anyway, after giving up, I looked up a speed run on YouTube (spoilers, of course). Braggadocious, of course, but more importantly, insane.

Coming soon, some reviews! That is, if I’m not sucked into more PC games this week…

I finally got around to beating Halo last night. Real-life things, plus the absorbing magic of Dragon Quest V, had kept me away from it for awhile. There were also the Windows issues: that I had to boot into Windows to play it (I’m a Boot Camper), and that my desk is near some very sunny real windows, which in the latter case meant that play sessions were largely restricted to evenings.

Anyway, I enjoyed it. Continuing to be led by sidekick/moral center Jiminy Cortana, I got through a tough spot I had been stuck on, the last of the overly samey bits, and even spotted a Marathon reference in a cutscene. It was all quite entertaining, and I’d like to play more in the series, but there’s the problem of most of it being console-exclusive with no mouse and keyboard support. What would be the point of me playing Halo 2 PC if I can’t play Halo 3 PC? Still pondering my options here. Part of me’s thinking that since I had no problems that one time I played GoldenEye 007 on the N64 back in the day, I should have no real issues using a controller. On the other hand, I really do prefer mouse and keyboard control for first-person games (Wii Remote and Nunchuck are good, too, but that won’t happen for Halo 3, and something tells me Natal wouldn’t be comparable). Anyway, I think I’ll be playing FPSes more often again in general. Metroid Prime Trilogy‘s already in my backlog, and there’s several PC ones that Cyrus and I’ve got sitting around as well.

Now, on to Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride. I can’t say enough good things about this game. It is the best Dragon Quest I’ve played thus far, and is one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played, period. The world, dungeons, fighting, music, and so on is all typical highly-polished DQ goodness, but the story is where DQV really shines. Without giving away too much, the tale is about how a boy becomes a man, and the hardships and joys that he faces along the way. The game’s centerpiece, as hinted at by the subtitle, is the hero’s wedding. The events leading up to it and the eventual choosing of the bride (probably the only part in the game where the player’s actions have any real impact on the plot—keep in mind this is a JRPG!) are a little predictable, but an absolute pleasure to take in. This is a real gem of a game, and as such, it’s a little disappointing that it’s a remake, and thus a reminder that they don’t quite make ‘em like this anymore.

In the midst of all this, I got a beta code for StarCraft II! It came from Amazon, not long after word got out that some retailers would be including codes as preorder bonuses. My preorder for the Wings of Liberty Collector’s Edition was already in by that point, so I was good to go; the code was certainly a nice surprise to find in my inbox that morning.

I haven’t played all that much SCII Beta though. Well, I’ve played enough to check out some of the new units, especially the Protoss ones. However, I don’t like playing online much to begin with, so even just my feelings going in were mixed. Might mess around with it some more—but with a stronger focus on Terran and Zerg—before the beta ends, but it’s not a huge priority.

Finally, soundtracks! I’ve been on an OST buying spree, and with the number I’ve bought (and the amount I’ve spent), I think I’ll be set for awhile. Here’s what I’ve picked up:

• Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter Original Soundtrack – This was pretty much what started this binge. The music was really good, and when I saw Hitoshi Sakimoto‘s name in the credits, well, then I knew why. I simply had to have this OST. Ordered from YesAsia, but they couldn’t get it, so I ended up buying it from Otaku.com instead.
• Radiata Stories Original Soundtrack – Another so-so JRPG whose soundtrack I enjoyed semi-recently. Figured I might as well get this one, too, so I also ordered it from YesAsia. Had better luck, and currently it’s the only OST still en route.
• Klonoa of the Wind 2 ~Something Forgotten Wished by the Wind~ Original Soundtrack – A long-time want. Ordered and arrived from Play-Asia.
• Tales of Legendia Original Soundtrack – See note for Klonoa of the Wind 2, though the former was a higher priority.
• Halo Original Soundtrack – I was familiar with some of the music already, but while playing the game, the whole OST impressed. Picked up at Amazon.com.
• Devil May Cry 4 Original Soundtrack – Also bought via Amazon, but it’s not the Japanese release. Like the Halo OST, it’s published by Sumthing Else.
• Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack – If you’ll remember, I recommended picking this up in lieu of the game itself. Listening to it right now; it’s damn good. Otaku.com only ships via EMS, which is expensive, so I tacked on a couple of other OSTs when I got the BoFV one from them. This was one of them.
• Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~ Original Soundtrack – …and this is the other. Both are ones I had had my eye on anyway. This is also the only OST I’ve ordered that I haven’t heard anything from; however, I like the composer and love the series, so I don’t think I’ll be disappointed.

I also made a set of trades over at VGMdb recently: a couple of spare DDR demo disks for copies of the Grandia 2 bonus disk (which I already had a copy of, but one that was damaged to hell) and a DDR SuperNOVA/Ultramix demo disk (which is wholly new to my collection). It was my first trade conducted through the site and went swimmingly.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Don’t know what I’m going to do today, gaming-wise; I’m exhausted, so I’m kind of iffy about putting more time into Dragon Quest V. I (finally) checked out the Plants vs. Zombies demo last weekend and really enjoyed it, so maybe I’ll get that and do some lawn defense.

I’ve been playing a lot these past few weeks. First off, there was the WiiWare version of Cave Story, which I started the day it came out, and beat the week after PAX East. Save for the uneven “new” soundtrack and sound mix, it’s much the same as the freeware version, which is to say fantastic. I did a straight playthrough of the game, pretty much identical to my first one, save that this time I went after the Spur, a crazy awesome weapon. I want to replay it again sometime soon for certain secrets that I missed, mainly the ones that will unlock “Hell”.

Another game I’ve beaten recently, albeit one that I’ve been playing for much longer, was Rune Factory Frontier, the first and only non-handheld entry in the Rune Factory series, and also one devoid of any Harvest Moon branding, at least in its English-translated form (doubtless because the publisher on this one is Marvelous/XSEED instead of Natsume). Frontier is a direct continuation of the original Rune Factory, and is as deep, engrossing, and flawed as its DS predecessors.

Here's some of my Runey notes. Really.

The major flaws this time around come courtesy of the Runey system. Unlike previous games, where runes can be collected to replenish action points both on the farm and in dungeons, said runes are dungeon-only. On the main character’s homestead—and in the surrounding town—live Runeys, color-coded creatures whose presence determines how fast and well your crops grow. Redistributing Runeys from area to area for good results is a finicky bit of business. First off, although Runeys have a set food chain, and certain types like certain areas more than others, it’s difficult to figure out how it all works; from day to day, some Runeys will decline or die off for no apparent reason, while others multiply. Secondly, there are only two ways to check the Runey level for the entire town, one of which is by talking to a specific person, and the other is by looking at a certain device in a fixed location. It would’ve been much more convenient to have an item in order to look up Runey levels whenever I wanted to, but such is not the case. That being said, I wound up keeping a pen and paper close by whenever I checked on Runeys, which was roughly every few (in-game) days at times.

Runeys—and constant loading screens—notwithstanding, this is the best Rune Factory yet. It feels like it moves at a slightly slower pace even though the actual in-game clock is the same (where one minute is equal to one real-life second), probably because it can be tough to figure out how to trigger the next round of story events, but these sorts of games were never meant to be rushed through. The farming, dungeon crawling, crafting, cooking, and so on are extremely well balanced, and can be challenging without being frustrating. The localization gets the job done, though I could’ve sworn I saw a bit of kanji slip through at one point, and the voice acting is good. The graphics are some of the most lush that I’ve ever seen on the Wii. The simplicity and charm that defines the series is in ample supply. In short, if I had to recommend a Rune Factory to someone, it would be Frontier.

I’ve also been playing a little more Pokemon Platinum, which, if you recall, I started on the way to PAX East. There’s not much to say here other than it’s a Pokemon game, though I am very much enjoying the aesthetic upgrades from Ruby, which I played last year (and speaking of Ruby, I’m still debating whether or not to import my Pokemon from that game). It’s very samey, though, but I kind of expected that. The current plan is to mostly play the game whenever I need to kill time, such as while doing laundry. As such, I expect to wrap up with the main quest several months from now.

After beating Rune Factory Frontier, I took a break for a little while, then started Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. Rather, I tried to start it. The difficulty caught me off-guard, as well as the system where some of your experience and whatnot can be carried over to a new game, and after a couple of tries, I quit. This after an aborted attempt to start the game some months ago. Well, the good news is that the fourth time was the charm, and I am now over ten hours in. The battle system is different, but very awesome, with its SRPG-esque character movement tactics making for some really interesting fights. Dragon Quarter has other quirks, too, though they don’t fit so much in the “awesome” column as the “it is what it is” one—from the character design to the fact that the game ends when a certain slowly and constantly upticking meter gets to 100.00%. Very strange game, but I’m having fun.

Finally: the backlog update! Since my January 3rd post, I have beaten five of the pictured games, started (but have not yet finished) two of them, bought and beat two, borrowed one (which I’m still playing), added one to the backlog (Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard), and currently have one on preorder (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Collector’s Edition).

Counting Metroid Prime: Trilogy as “one”, January’s photo showed 22 games, and now, on the shelf above me, there are 16 of them (not counting the preorder). I’m making progress!

Beat Devil May Cry 4 last week. Not the best game in the series, but certainly had its high points. All the hallmarks were there: bishies, hot chicks, gothic interiors, death metal songs that play during battles, and occasional violations of the 180° rule when moving from place to place. Unlike the others, Dante is not playable for much of the game. Instead, the player takes the role of Nero, a young man with similar fashion sense and slightly less campiness than Mr. Sparda. He also has a glowing arm, which can be used to grab far-off enemies and unleash brutal attacks on them. These attacks vary depending on the enemy, reminding me of Quick Time Events, though not in the traditional sense. As such, Nero is a fun character to play. Dante controls much the same as always, and is also tougher to control compared to Nero, due to the lack of Glowing Hand.

Although Rune Factory Frontier is mad addictive, this is what I'll be playing today!

As for Rune Factory Frontier, I’m still plugging away at it, and passed the 100-hour mark this weekend. All that has been ever said about JRPGs and linearity doesn’t quite apply to the Rune Factory series. Yes, there is a single storyline and a set progression in terms of unlockable areas, and no, you can’t fully customize your hero character, but everything else is wide open. There’s tons of things to do—farming, fishing, crafting, cooking, and much more—and like any good Harvest Moon, there’s also a wide range of girls to hit on, and eventually, marry. It’s rich and immersive in a way that JRPGs traditionally aren’t, and despite the glaring flaws, I’m as hooked on Frontier as I was with its DS brethren. Can’t wait for Rune Factory 3‘s localization (please let this happen!).

Apart from games themselves, I’m getting a little weary of CAG’s forums again and am ready to take another hiatus from them, largely due to the fact that there’s hardly any humor in them. This seems to be a problem with many gaming forums, where games are Serious Business and there’s little to no room for levity. Perhaps this also explains why Shimrra won Best CAG Blog in this year’s Cheapy Awards, even though his regular Daily HaHa posts are mainly just images ganked from the likes of 4chan. Humor is in very short supply amongst gamers, it seems.

Anyway, looking forward to PAX East at the end of this week, and have been going over my options for what to see and do. Meanwhile, I will be playing Cave Story. On my Wii.

Best gaming week ever? It’s looking that way.

Special Stage: Cracked‘s gaming articles are funny, but also tend to contain nuggets of truth. Thanks to my husband for linking me to “5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted”, which is one of the latest, and chock-full of said nuggets.

I started Devil May Cry 4 last night. One of the main things that stuck out at me during the opening cutscenes was not the camera work, nor the music, though those were nice. Rather, it was the fact that here we were, in a vaguely Old World European setting—set in the current day, sure, but there were monks and such everywhere, and not a single bit of modern architecture in sight—and one of the main characters, Nero, walks in, wearing not just the requisite long coat with zippers and red and black trimmings, but headphones.

Headphones. Big stereo headphones, too.

They just seemed out of place to me, though pretty run of the mill for the DMC universe.

Nero, what's with your hand? And where's your headphones?!

They also reminded me of this illustration book, which I saw late last year in NYC’s Kinokuniya. It’s sort of a collection of headphones moe, if you define moe as having to do with idealization, or a particular fetish. The other major definition of moe is more specific, and refers to a certain type of feminine innocence.

As such, there isn’t much discussion of “male moe”, though it exists. Certainly, there are characteristics among bishonen that pop up again and again in Japanese comics, animation, and video games. Nero and his DMC4 co-star (oh, that’s gotta hurt) Dante have such “moe points” in spades, from the aforementioned coats, to their huge (*cough*) swords, to the stylings and very color of their hair.

White and grey-haired males have long been popular among gamer girls, especially villains. Yet another Devil May Cry character, Dante’s twin brother Vergil, is a fine example, as is FFVII’s Sephiroth, not to mention the star of the other Capcom game I started yesterday, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. Though not the only pale-haired prosecutor in the series, Edgeworth—defense lawyer Phoenix Wright’s friend and rival—has been a particular favorite amongst Ace Attorney fans since the first installment. This new game, in which he is the main character, has been long awaited by many of us. Given Edgeworth’s role in the series, it is also different from the other games in that it focuses on the investigations and avoids court scenes altogether. I’m currently in the midst of the game’s second episode; although the writing isn’t as good as it could be at times, I’m enjoying my time with Edgey. The Ace Attorney flavor is there, and that’s what’s important.

As for Devil May Cry 4, I haven’t gotten far enough into it to form a strong opinion yet, but I will say that it seems a little clunky and old-fashioned in the way that it does things, albeit with shiny graphics. We’ll see how the game shapes up once things really get rolling.

Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer was my first “real” roguelike, and it was fantastic, but also nerve-wracking. I almost didn’t want to beat the game. It wasn’t because I was enjoying it too much, though there was some of that, too. Rather, I was afraid of the consequences I would face should I fail. Already I had died numerous times, and after every instance, I was whisked back to the starting town of Canyon Hamlet with all experience and stat boosts vanished into the aether, and all of the items and money on my person gone as well. To have this happen to me once I passed the point of no return, and with some excellent customized equipment to boot, would’ve been devastating. Such are the risks in Shiren, but it made the joy and sense of accomplishment that much sweeter once I reached my final destination.

Shiren is a DS port of a 1995 Super Famicom game, and a spinoff of a Dragon Quest spinoff. This latter bit is important, since the music in a certain dungeon struck me as very Koichi Sugiyama, and lo and behold, it turned out that the DQ series composer was responsible for Shiren‘s excellent soundtrack. While I was playing, it was pointed out to me that the lack of absolute permanence in death separates it from the oldest adherents to the roguelike genre, including Rogue itself. In fact, not only is death impermanent though inconvenient (for the reasons I stated in the first paragraph), but starting over again and again is encouraged. There’s not much to the main story, but to take full advantage of the game’s features and build Shiren up into a warrior worthy of taking on Table Mountain’s heights means completing various sidequests, most all of which require several cycles of restarts from Canyon Hamlet for maximum effect. These sidequests typically involve helping other people in the area, and the results can be anything from a new party member to a free stat boost.

This is a game that, much like life itself, rewards perseverance, patience, and effort. Though it’s not for everyone, for fans of tough-as-nails dungeon crawlers, I can’t recommend it enough. A Wii sequel, simply released in the US as Shiren the Wanderer and said to be more forgiving than the Shiren of old (a la Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon), came out earlier this week and has been getting good reviews so far. I definitely plan to pick it up sometime, but not right away, because, you know, RPG-heavy backlog and all.

Since wrapping up Shiren, I’ve moved on to another of my Must Plays for 2010, namely, Chrono Cross. Even before starting this game, my feelings on it were mixed. This was due to a blend of my strong affection toward its immediate predecessor, Chrono Trigger; the varied opinions on the game floating about on the internet; and the overexposure I had to Yasunori Mitsuda’s soundtrack, thanks to places like the now-defunct Gaming FM. Still, I wanted to keep an open mind, and went into the game knowing as little about it as possible.

I’m currently about twelve hours in, and am finding it to be… interesting. It has appropriated some of Chrono Trigger‘s better ideas, the most noticeable one being the lack of enemies on the overworld, and has thrown in a few cute tiny references to said previous game, from familiar lines and names to certain musical themes. There’s other throwbacks as well, but what’s most striking about Chrono Cross is what is different. Instead of time travel, the theme this time around is parallel dimensions and alternate histories, which is intriguing on its own, but I can’t help feeling that more could’ve been done with it. Maybe more will be, but something tells me that the Cross world won’t approach the depth and variety of Trigger‘s.

Another thing that’s substantially different is the battle system. A great amount of emphasis is placed on physical attacks, which are separated into three tiers, based on accuracy and power, and each one costing a certain number of turn points. The successful execution of these attacks tie into the use of Elements, which serve as both magic and healing items in this game. On top of that, Elements come in six colors, and their usage affects the overall field of battle, as well as the effectiveness of summoning, which I haven’t had a chance to mess around with yet. It’s a complex-looking system, but easy to grasp the basics of after a few hours. Unfortunately, it’s also rather dull, due largely to the physical attack emphasis I mentioned at the beginning. The generally low difficulty curve doesn’t help either.

The writing in Cross leaves much to be desired. Main character Serge is a silent hero, like Crono was before him, and I don’t have much of a problem with that. Other characters, however, are too vague about their motivations, fickle in their treatment of me, and/or generally don’t provide enough of a reason for me to care about the fate of this alternate world that I’ve found myself in. Kid in particular seems to have been designed as Cross‘ answer to Trigger‘s Marle, but she’s neither as interesting nor as fun as her predecessor. There’s also the matter of pacing, and when and how certain scenes are triggered. For example, I could explore an entire town and listen to various people discuss how to get into a certain place for no apparent reason, then go into an area I bypassed early on, only to have a cutscene happens where Kid goes, “Hey, let’s try to get into (certain place)!” Now you wouldn’t think this would be a problem, but going by the dialogue and the town’s layout, I got the impression that I was supposed to go to this specific area first, and then find out the details on how to get into the place that Kid mentioned by exploring the town.

Anyway, I’m sticking with Chrono Cross, just to see where it all winds up, and also to see if my experience will improve any.

Special Stage: First up, some sad news: P.S. Triple’s run on 1UP officially ended last week. No new strip, just a goodbye message, and a reminder that the iPhone apps are there if anybody wants ‘em. I’ll miss the adventures of Triple and the others, especially X-Locks and most especially Saygah, who I’ve since made my avatar on CAG. I’ve also been working on a piece of Triple fanart, but it’s not done yet; knowing me, it might be awhile. Anyway, thanks for the fifty strips you did bring us, Micro Magazine and Mission One!

Gus Mastrapa’s piece “21st-Century Shooters Are No Country for Old Men” is a lamentation of being a thirtysomething FPS gamer in a landscape dominated by youngsters. I haven’t touched an online multiplayer FPS in at least five years, but I can totally see where Gus came from in his article. The most remarkable part of this piece was the comments section. On GameLife, whenever there’s this many comments on a piece, it usually means there’s a good old fashioned flamewar going on. However, the comments here are from other adult gamers, like Gus, who have encountered teenagers and college students on virtual battlefields, and all the frustrations that can ensue. They shared their own stories and gave tips for how to enjoy oneself as an older FPS player. Great stuff all around. If you don’t want to wade through it all, there’s a follow-up piece here, highlighting some of the best comments and emails Gus got.