It’s StarCraft 2 Day! Actually, the UPS man won’t get here with my copy of the Collector’s Edition until later, so I won’t be starting the Southerners in Space Wings of Liberty campaign until this evening at the earliest. I have much to do in the meantime, anyway. Such as brushing up on StarCraft canon, for starters; I remember the original (“vanilla”) game’s plot pretty clearly, but need to rewatch much of Brood War’s cutscenes. On the non-StarCraft front, I’ve taken up DDR again, and want to sink more time into Dragon Quest IX.

Ah, DQIX. Originally, the plan was to beat the game before today, but as time went on, I realized that this would be an impossibility. I’m currently some forty hours in and (by my own rough estimate) a bit of a ways from the end—not because of any steep difficulty or lengthy story, but due to the fact that there’s so much to do in between main quests.

The central story revolves around the player hero character, this time an angel—sorry, Celestrian—who gathers the thanks of earthly mortals to feed the Yggdrasil Tree. Something bad happens, and the quest starts in earnest. The bare-bones plot moves forward by means of smaller, compact stories that occur in each new town the hero visits. Naturally, this bite-size approach to questing is ideal for lots of side-questing and other distractions. One of these is the Alchemy Pot, a modern-day Dragon Quest mainstay which is used to fuse multiple items into new ones that are stronger, rarer, or just all around better than what they were before. New to the series is a job/class system, reminiscent of—but not entirely comparable to—the ones in certain Final Fantasy games.

The job system is only one indicator of how different this Dragon Quest is from its predecessors. The look of the hero is entirely customizable. There’s also the other party members, none of which have the distinct names and personalities of the past, and can either be randomly generated or created from scratch. In terms of the world, the Goddess has been replaced with a male Almighty, and the abstract religious symbols typically seen in the series are different in most places. All enemies are visible when walking across the field, and in dungeons. Certain things have been tweaked easier, though the overall difficulty feels about the same as ever. Much has already been written about the ad-hoc multiplayer features and the platform that its on (it’s worth noting that nearly the entire game can be controlled with the touchscreen, which, incidentally, is how I’ve been playing it). It’s no wonder that, in Jamin Smith’s review at VideoGamer.com, he felt the game was more like a spinoff than a true main-series entry.

However, despite all of change DQIX has brought with it, two hallmarks of the series shine throughout: its aesthetics, and its quality. There is no mistaking this as anything but a mainline Dragon Quest, with all its Koichi Sugiyama musical stylings Akira Toriyama visuals, and much more care and polish than any of the (still great) spinoffs get. The controls are intuitive and, though the menu arrows could be a little larger for those of us using the stylus, sensible. The graphics and sound are among the very best on the DS. The game itself is diverse, easy to play on-the-go, and addictive. On top of all that, all of the new stuff (at least that which I’ve dealt with so far) is well done, and much of it enhances the overall experience; the visible enemies is one feature I would love to see in all future entries. This is a Dragon Quest for today, a JRPG for those who doubt the viability of the genre in a time when WRPGs have stormed consoles like FPSes did before them. It makes me want to play more, and also to wonder what a Dragon Quest MMO would be like.

It’s going to be really hard to juggle this and StarCraft 2.

I’ve been back for awhile now, but have been either too lazy, busy, or tired to update this place. I did, however, post at my CAG blog; there, I shared a whole set of photos from the Dragon Quest IX launch event that took place a little over a week ago at Manhattan’s Nintendo World Store. There were lots of people, demo stations, freebies, and frozen treats from a Dragon Quest-themed Mister Softee truck.

Funnily enough, although I got DQIX a day early, I didn’t actually start playing the damned thing until the following Monday. I’ve played quite a bit of it since then, though. It’s an unusual game for the franchise, in terms of how it breaks with tradition, though I don’t have anything bad to say about it so far. I do wish the dungeon designs were more puzzle-intensive, along the lines of certain ones in earlier Dragon Quest games, but that sort of thing doesn’t seem to be Level-5’s strong suit. This game also seems to have eased the difficulty in certain subtle ways, which I feel ambivalent about. On the other hand, a feature that I really like reminds me of one of Earthbound’s best: enemies—which are all now visible on the field—are likely to run away from your party if you’re too strong.

I’ve also made a lot of progress in Pokemon Platinum. Actually, that was the only game I played on the trip, which means Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes has been relegated to the backlog for the time being. Later, I put Platinum down upon starting DQIX, then picked it up again this weekend. I’m currently up to five gym badges and am beefing up my team before taking on Pokemon Gym #6 (not its real name).

Along with the DS RPGs, I’ve been plugging away at Kirby Super Star, but I don’t know when I’ll beat it, though I’m very close to being done with everything, save the minigames, which I’ve mostly ignored. And then there’s StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, which will arrive here in less than ten days in all its Collector’s Edition glory. Right now the plan is to beat DQIX before SC2 gets here, which will leave my August free for a super-long, and super-shiny, Terran campaign, plus some possible multiplayer and/or modding.

Oh, and my birthday happened. One of the presents I received was an Amazon gift card, which was spent in part on a used copy of Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, an Atlus-published roguelike I’ve had my eye on. It’s now in the backlog pile, along with Clash of Heroes. Plus, I preordered Etrian Odyssey III, which is due out in September, since I had to have that artbook.

Every year, gamers complain about the “drought” that happens in the summer. Pssh. Even without Dragon Quest IX and StarCraft 2, I would be overwhelmed; there’s just so much in my backlog, and so much more I haven’t even picked up yet, like late-winter and spring releases Bayonetta, Nier, and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Come the fall, while my husband is consumed by Civilization V and World of WarCraft: Cataclysm, there will be the aforementioned Etrian Odyssey III, along with Rune Factory 3 and, if it turns out to be any good, Front Mission Evolved. Then there’s the “epic” games that I will not get right away but will likely pick up sometime, namely Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Disney Epic Mickey.

I want more “drought” time, dammit!

As I did with Earthbound last year, I’m compelled to go in-depth with my Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride review, so I’m splitting this into two sections. The first will discuss the game overall, spoiler-free. The second will go heavily into spoiler territory and talk about things I both liked and didn’t like with how the game progressed. Spoilers will be under a cut and clearly marked (at least, better marked than they were in the Earthbound review, cut notwithstanding). So, here we go.

Dragon Quest V is wonderful. There isn’t really much more to say about it than that. It takes the refined formula that characterizes the series and stitches to it a story that outshines and outclasses most other JRPG tales, along with a handful of unique features and engaging diversions. The Dragon Quest formula, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is a certain style of first-person turn-based fighting, combined with interesting dungeons, lively towns and castles, casino minigames, and a reasonable amount of grinding, all presented in a brightly-colored Akira Toriyama world set to a serene Koichi Sugiyama soundtrack. It’s a world with blue slimes with round eyes and goofy smiles, lamps that can turn day into night, and mini-medals sought after by an eccentric king. If you’re at all familiar with Dragon Quest, then you know what I’m talking about and should feel right at home.

One of the major features specific to Dragon Quest V is the ability to recruit monsters as party members. This isn’t as clear-cut as it sounds. Unlike in monster-collecting RPGs like Pokemon, the player doesn’t have any control over the recruiting process; there’s no special spells or items that can be used to convince them to join your side. Rather, at the end of battles, a monster might randomly show up and ask to join your party. This happens pretty rarely and, as one learns after obtaining the Big Book of Beasts, not all monsters are recruitable, and some are harder to enlist than others. All told, I don’t think I recruited much more than a dozen monsters, but that was okay, as I wound up with a pretty solid all-monster backup team by the time the final dungeon came around, including a Slime Knight that had been with me for a good majority of the game.

Another way in which Dragon Quest V differentiates itself is with its diversions. The usual casino games (slots, roulette, etc.) are present, as is the sidequest wherein mini-medals, which are scattered all over the world, can be exchanged for rare goodies, but there are some new things to do as well. One of my favorites is Treasures and Trapdoors, or T’n'T for short. T’n'T is a giant, life-size board game played with a die and a set number of turns; the spaces along the board contain anything from an additional turn or three to a random battle, a treasure chest to an inn, a dungeon entrance to a stat boost. It’s sort of like playing a scaled-down version of Dragon Quest within Dragon Quest. The prizes for winning a round of T’n'T are good, and later on, playing certain boards can be a great way to amass a lot of cash without having to dungeon-crawl in the traditional sense. Another I liked is the Knick-Knackatory, a museum where the “knick-knacks” that the hero collects on his journey can be displayed. I never did get all of the knickknacks, but I came pretty close, and it was neat to see the museum slowly fill up over time, both with exhibits and with visitors.

As for Dragon Quest V’s story, like I said, I really do believe it is one of the best ever in a JRPG, and in large part, this is due to its structure and approach. For instance, while there is backstory, and a fair amount of it—this being the second part of the Zenithian Trilogy, the events of Dragon Quest IV are very vaguely alluded to, but there are other bits of history, specific to DQV, that factor in as well—there is no need for flashbacks on the part of the hero, as we see every important thing that happens in his life right then and there, in whatever the present happens to be at the time. From hereon in, I’ll call the “hero” Kiyoshi, as that’s what I named mine; like all Dragon Quest heroes, he is nameless until the player intervenes.

The game starts with Kiyoshi’s birth, and quickly jumps forward six years when he is wandering the world with his father, Pankraz. Who Pankraz and Kiyoshi are and what the former’s quest is are major plot points in the game, and ones that follow our hero through the years. We follow the six year-old on his adventures, and after another timeskip, see him again as a teenager, growing into a young man. He has more adventures, learns more about himself, and chooses a bride. The quest he embarks with his wife continues on from there, and his life, as all our lives do, grows larger and larger.

Major spoilers from this point on.

(more…)

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.

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.

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!