The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker

So, that's it, the last game in the Zelda series has been completed!

And honestly, this IS one of the best ones. This game is widely criticized for having a LOT of water and a lot of pointless sailing in it, or in the words of the critically acclaimed Drs. Summerhouse "It's kinda fun, until you hit the waters", but then, what the Hell does he know, the idiot!

There is no doubt that this game has a lot of sea in it, and that you have to spend some time traversing the waters and just staring at the screen without anything happening. Sometimes you can easily put down the controller and just go away for awhile until Link's reached his destination, and just do something more useful, like making tea, doing your homework, or throwing flowerpots at passers-by.
Boredom does lead to interesting conversations like this:

"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with....S!"
"Uh...Is it blue?"
"Yep!"
"Sea?"
"No, SKY, you moron. Geez!"

So when I started playing I was ready to start flaming this game, with the bad after-taste of Majora's Mask still in my mouth, but in all honesty, I wasn't nearly as bothered by it as I thought, or as seems to be hip on the Internet.
To be fair, there's a warping system to get you around quickly, and every patch of ocean has something to do. There's always an island nearby that has something nice hidden inside it somewhere, making exploration and taking the long route worth your while. It is clear that there is just a little bit too much water than seems strictly necessary, but I never found it becomeing actually annoying.

To compensate for the large stretches of ocean though, there is very little in terms of pointless item-fetching and wild goose-chases which is what plagued the Gameboy versions. The dungeons, once again, are great, and they retain the real Zelda feel. Boss fights never become as interesting as in Ocarina of Time though.
Still, the dungeons are definitely what make this game worth playing, even though there's only a measly 6 of them around this time. This also means you get only 6 heart containers, making a total of 9 you'll get guaranteed. So you have to get the other 11 hearts (=44 (!) pieces of heart) all by yourself, and they're very well hidden again. Majora's mask had this exact same problem. A serious lack of dungeons means a serious lack of health, so you are forced to look around a lot.

Once you have finished all the dungeons though, that's when the game throw a really stupid twist at you. You have to find 8 Triforce Pieces, which are scattered all over the ocean. First you have to find the maps of their whereabouts, then have the maps translated for 398 rupees a piece (that's a total of 3184 rupees!) and then you have to find them and fish them out of the water. This seems like a really cheesy way of making the game longer, and it's not very interesting or entertaining at all.
This way you are also FORCED to explore, and what made the older Zelda games so great was that exploring was always something that you could do on the side if you wanted, to perhaps make the game easier, earning rupees, hearts and finding secret weapons, but it was never actually required to do it.

I still love this game though. Everything about it screams quality. It still looks absolutely marvellous. It is without a doubt some of the best cell-shading ever used in a game, even though it may not be as stylish as Killer 7, it's still gobsmackingly beautiful. I for one am not bothered by the cartoony look, no matter how different it is from the darker look of Ocarina of Time.

I do recommend this game, cos it's good, classic Zelda fun, but I understand that not everyone will have the patience to sail across a huge ocean back and forth all the time. I enjoyed it greatly though. A 9.3.

posted by Ingen! @ 8:04 PM 3 comments

There and Back Again.

Man, I'm bushed.

Getting up early is something my body was not built to do (I was born at 00.30 AM, which is when I normally wake up) so getting up at 07.00 AM and having to spend 8 AND A FRIGGING HALF HOURS at the Japanese Embassy is not exactly exhilirating either.

So, today was the big day and I am absolutely no more or less certain about getting this scholarship than I was before. There were actually a lot more people than I had expected. 11 to be exact, including myself, from all over the country with the most diverse backgrounds. I was the only Japanologist there, but I already knew that, and this definitely works in my advantage, cos it means I scored the absolute best at all the tests.
Basically, everyone, except for one die hard girl who had some self-taught Japanese skills (she became second at this year's Speech Contest actually) left the room after 5 minutes for each test, so I'm a shoe in as far as that was concerned.
The girl in question was very nice, although a bit flaky. She kinda reminded me of Phoebe from Friends in that she seemed kinda absent when talking to you, and I think she was only 19 or something, and when she started talking to me she said 'you'!

Wait, that doesn't really make sense in English does it? Is English the only language on earth then, that doesn't have a polite form of the second person?
What I mean is, she used the polite Dutch "U", like German "Sie", French "Vous" and Swahili "Ngambtombi". Silly Negroes!
That made me feel really really OLD, I've been called that by young kids etcetera, but never by a young adult I think. So I had to slap her. Don't worry, I washed my hands afterwards.

During the interviews the Jury (TWO PEOPLE!!! And no professors) was quick to point out that my test results (I was amazed they had checked them so fast) were, and I quote: "prominent and impressive". Lovely Ms. Ikeno of the Japanese embassy explained that test results ARE very important in this case, since any selectee will have to study Japanese classes in Japan, amongst Japanese, which makes me a VERY good candidate.
On the other hand, one's Research Project, motivation and whatnot are of importance as well, and this is where I feared I might not be totally able to convince the Powers that Be. So a lot of it was to come down to the Interviews at the end, and I'm not too sure how well I did there.

Funnily enough, before the interviews started we were talking a bit about what kind of stupid questions they could ask us, and we were jokingly throwing the most predictable questions around like "Why do you want to go to Japan?" "Why that field of study?" and worst of all "Where do you see yourself in XX Years?".
And sure enough the girl before me got the first two questions, and the female committee member asked me "Where do you see yourself in 4 or 5 years?", one of the most hated questions of all time. For students at least.
So I told her "IN YOUR PANTS!!", and I think that went down well.

Secondly she asked me "what do you hope to prove/achieve with your research?", another golden oldie, that. So I gave some vague, non-committal answers (I'm good at that) about linguistics and communicative science etc. and then she asked "And who would be interested in that?" and I was like "Well, shit, LINGUISTS!? WHAT DO YOU THINK!? Janitors? Shoe-salesmen? YOUR MOM!?". So I'm pretty much good for gold, here.

Anyway, I'm not too sure how I handled the interviews. On the positive side, they seemed satisfied with my answers because I made my points of view clear (they never said if they agreed with them though), and they didn't pursue any of my answers with "Yes, but WHY!?", which was something that did happen to a guy before me I think.

So, I'm still kinda in the middle here, like I was before. I know I aced the language tests, and I know that's definitely important, but I'm still not sure what they think of my project, so I'm not really sure where to stand. I'm cautiously optimistic though, and I definitely consider myself to have a good change, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high. Only time will tell, I guess.
In two or three weeks I should get a letter telling me whether or not I passed the FIRST selection criteria, and then there's round two, where we get to see if I can actually go or not. Apparently this will take several months, so things can still go wrong, but let's not be gloomy.

Ingen go sleepy now.

posted by Ingen! @ 8:37 PM 1 comments

Le Jour du Judgment

Just a quick in-betweener here. As you all know, sometimes I just like to look at this blog, that is largely intended for Gaming purposes, as a kind of diary as well, where I write about all the zany stuff that fails to happen in my life, so I have to make things up most of the time.

This bit's true though, which would explain why it's not interesting for anyone but myself. Tomorrow I will get to spend my entire frigging day at the Japanese Embassy here in The Netherlands. I have applied for a 2-year scholarship to "do research" (Tee Hee) at Osaka Foreign Language University and tomorrow is the selection day. Contrary to popular belief, they don't actually give these away for free with a packet of margarine, so this basically means I have to be there at 9 o'clock in the morning (normally I go to bed around this time) and do 4 consecutive tests of my mad English and Japanese skillZORZ.
Also, the Embassy likes to take an EXTREMELY long lunch break from 12.30 to 14.00 or something (I wonder how these people get ANY work done), then some more tests and an interview where I get to fuck up royally and ruin any chance I ever had of becoming Garbage Collector (also known as Anime Otaku) in Japan.

So basically, my entire future depends on my ability to flirt with old Japanese men (don't underestimate that!) and a bottle of cheap wine.
I have no idea when I will get the results, I don't even know how many people will be there, but I'm kinda hoping I'm the only one. At least, if my insiders at the Dutch Postal Office have intercepted all letters to and from the Embassy.
*waves at Niels and Patrick*

So, in other words, I'm totally screwed and I'll have to spend the rest of my life selling that new morning-after pill for men I invented. It'll be a HIT I tellz ya!

So if anyone wants to make my life more miserable, be sure to call me at the most inappropriate times, I know some of you have a knack for that. I personally would NEVER do something like that, like calling someone who's trying to cross a busy street or something. Cos that would be dangerous. *hides behind table*

Now, where did I put my bribe money?

posted by Ingen! @ 8:00 PM 5 comments

Legend of Zelda: Jikuu no Shou

Or Oracle of Ages.

This time it is up to Link to stop the Evil Time Priest Veran, who has taken over the body of the Queen of Lavenne, and has started to build a Tower of Darkness to reach up to the Heavens.

The element of time is cleverly woven into gameplay by allowing Link to travel back and forth between the past and present. In the beginning you can only warp back and forth on set warp points, but later you will learn to play instruments and you'll be able to warp on the spot. So in other words, gameplay borrows heavily from Link to the Past, which would indeed be a good thing, if it didn't make me feel like, "whatever, it's been done" most of the time. Most puzzles are of the Link to the Past sort, which were great at the time, but do we really need another game in exactly the same vein?
What's more, LttP had oodles of atmosphere, a great soundtrack, an epic story and great boss battles. Oracle of Ages has none of this and really seems to be thriving on its parent's success. This game was made for Gameboy Color but was released only shortly before the release of the Gameboy Advance, maybe even shortly after, I'm not sure, so I think most people played this on their GBA. Knowing that, I see absolutely no reason why anyone would want to choose this over the rerelease of LttP, unless you've already played it, in which case this game has little new to offer.

It also borrows a lot of elements of Ocarina of Time, in terms of setting and characters, which is even less convincing and kinda like someone offering you a dollar after winning the lottery.

Also, what is it with logic in these games!? THERE IS NONE! I mean, I know the Zelda series has a healthy history of not taking itself too seriously, resulting in a very unique and charming wit that has made the series so enjoyable. Well, it's not here anymore (I love Capcom, but humor is not their strongest side) and it's been replaced by simple illogic.
Imagine this scene, right. There's this old library, and they have this very valuable artifact, only, the room it's in has somehow lost its flooring and noone can get to it anymore. The only things they know is that there's an old book somewhere that describes how to get it, so you travel back in time to the old library and you'll find the book there which the nice librarian will hand out to you immediately when you tell him you want to find out what it's for, cos he doesn't know.
Nice librarian attitude there, I'm surprised you still have any books left. But that's not the only problem! You take the book back to the present, use it to get to the rare artifact (Pixie Dust!), and the people will be so happy they finally got it back THAT THEY GIVE IT TO YOU FOR FREE as a token of their appreciation.
Yeah, that makes sense. "Oh we're so happy you have retrieved our long-lost treasure! Here, Take it!"

Whatever.

As I was not saying, this game is definitely the hardest of the two. The open-endedness of the time-travel system, some tedious and obscure fetch subquests in between and the general fact that hints seem to be just a little bit thinner on the ground make this a game where you are likely to spend some pointless running around figuring out what to do next. I never had this problem with Oracle of Seasons, but I had it several times with this one.
Also, towards the end I'd just had enough. I'm going to give this game the benefit of the doubt, cos there's the possibility that I just had enough because I've been playing it in rapid succession and after OoS as well, so it might just be an overdose. Because, on the other hand, the last couple of dungeons are some of the most original in the game. They can be hell to negotiate through though.

In all I would say that this is for more Die Hard Zelda fans, it's not quite as easily accessible as Seasons, and the fact that Ages uses a gimmick very much like LttP also gives Seasons the advantage of originality. I'd definitely say this is the least playable of the two, and if you're only going to do one (although the games are better when paired with the Password System) I say play Seasons, especially if you're already familiar with Link to the Past. An 8.8

Next up, the last instalment in the series: The Wind Waker!

posted by Ingen! @ 8:35 PM 0 comments

Legend of Zelda: Daichi no Shou

Or "Oracle of Seasons" as it is known in the West.
This game was released simultaneously with Jikuu no Shou (Oracle of Ages), which I will tell you all about in a couple of days, and was the first Zelda game to be developed by Capcom, strangely.
I don't know what the deal was here exactly, but Capcom is pretty much behind both games, although I think the technical aspects were handled by Nintendo themselves.
The opening screen indicates that it is developed by Capcom and produced by Nintendo, whatever the heck that means.
I suppose they used Nintendo's handiwork, cos the games look and sound exactly like Link's Awakening, which was previously released on Gameboy. Capcom just added their own flavor probably, which is most notable during the final boss battle, which is not very Zelda-esque at all.

The point with this game is that the world of Holodrum has been upset by the Evil Gorgon, who has messed up the Seasons, causing random autumns in summertime etc. I have a strong feeling that this is exactly what is happening in the Netherlands, so if you see me running around in green tights one of these days, just throw some rupees at my head.

Actually, the game has a password system that allows you to transfer some data and unlock some secrets in the OTHER game, and if you play both in succession, you will unlock the REAL end-boss, who should be familiar to anyone who's ever played ANY Zelda game. Um. Except for Link's Awakening.

In essence though, this game is very similar to Link's Awakening. Same engine, a lot of the same sprites, same flow of the game. Still, there's 8 new dungeons to explore and they're fun as ever. The Seasons System adds a nice new element of strategy to the exploration, where spring allow jump flowers to bloom, summer dries up lakes, autumn makes mushroom ready for the plucking, and winter freezes up the water.
Basically, every screen you get to has 4 different versions, depending on the weather, and it often pays to visit every screen under different circumstances to find hidden items or open up hidden paths. It's a nice feature, but it doesn't pose much of a challenge, since the solution is usually pretty obvious, once you know which season does what.

Still, there is no doubt that this is a highly entertaining game, with a LOT of references to the very first Zelda game, unfortunately at times also recalling some of its ancestors frustration. There's no doubt this is a game that you should definitely check out if you have a Gameboy Color, or even if you have a GBA, cos it's good ole' Zelda goodness, but it kinda sticks around the entertainment value of Link's awakening.
This is surprising in this case, since a lot of Zelda games already precede it. Remember, these two games were released AFTER Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, so one could wonder if there's still a lot of merit to this. It's also odd that in some ways it's such an obvious step DOWN from its predecessors. Things that worked perfectly in Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time are now shoddy or not present at all.

This game still deserves a 9.1, cos there's an undeniable quality in there, but it's not quite up to par with its elders. Slightly better than Link's awakening, but not very much.

posted by Ingen! @ 8:43 PM 0 comments

In Between III

Almost finished with Oracle of Seasons, so expect the review later today or tomorrow.

Just wanted to say I love getting parcels with Internet-ordered Shizz-nat.
Today I recieved the order I made only a week ago, even though I was told it would take until september 1st or something.
There's a lot of things wrong with the Netherlands, but a great postal system we do have.

So from today I can all myself the proud owner, not only of the Sin City DVD (Movie of the year as far as I'm concerned), but also of Season 6 of the finest Comedy ever made, The Simpsons! And of course it's the Collector's Edition which is EXTREMELY LIMITED, I think they're going to fill the hole in the ozon layer with it.

Go buy it NOW!

That is all.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:43 AM 4 comments

Legend of Zelda: Mujura no Kamen

Being a more or less direct sequel to Ocarina of Time, only not so much.
That is, it takes place a couple of months after beating Ganon in OoT, and returning to the era of young Link. Young Link is just on his way to wherever when he is brutally robbed of his stuff by Stalkid, who consequently turns him into a Deku Shrub. Not content with his new form, Link winds up in Telmina at Clocktown where a festival is soon to be held, in search for Stalkid.
When he finds him however, it turns out Stalkid, who is under the influence of a suspicious mask is trying to bring the moon down to earth for a face to face meeting that will probably not leave a lot of things standing.

Before the moon hits however, Link is able to warp back 3 days in time, and now it is his task to prevent the moon from crashing into the planet by summoning 4 Giants to hold it back.

So as you can tell, the story is actually kinda original and cool this time around, and that is definitely the strong point of this game. The concept is totally original, but, as often happens with really original ideas, also has a lot of problems and could probably have been worked out a bit better.

Through your Ocarina you get the possibility of travelling back to the first of the three days leading to the big climax as many times as you want. This is also the ONLY way to save your game, BUT, most annoyingly, it kinda erases all your progress.
That's right, you SAVE and yet you DELETE your progress.
That is, you get to keep any new songs you've learned (and songs are always important triggers for major events) and any non-consumable items. So you get to keep all your weapons and equipment and stuff, but you loose bombs, arrows and money. You don't lose the ability to use them though, fortunately, so the most important things, that are necessary to continue your interrupted adventure are still there.

But, the whole world is returned to normal, so any events you have witnessed, or dungeons you have cleared are reset. Clear a dungeon though, and you get the mask of the boss at the end, allowing you to warp to the Boss Room immediately, defeat him and reap the rewards, which lead into newly accessible areas etc.

The advantage of the 3-day world is that everyday is different. Townsfolk have their own behavioral patterns that differ per day, and they'll be freely moving about the place in Shenmue fashion. In the early stages of the game you receive an Agenda where you can keep score of requests and subquests that involve the many people of Clocktown and that will often reward you with nice items. The agenda shows at what time certain events can be witnessed, only not where, so that's up to you to find out. This is a really fun and clever idea that works well if you have the energy and will to actually bother with it.

As it is, there's only 4 dungeons in the entire game, meaning you only get 4 heart containers in the course of the game. You start with 3, + 4 = 7, and ever since Link to the Past it has been customary for Link to have a total of 20 (!) hearts, so that means you have to find 13 heart containers, all split into four, as usual, so 52 (!!) pieces of heart. That's over twice as many as in LttP.
And that SUCKS, cos you'll be completely dependent on your skill to find and earn these things if you want to have a chance of survival. The game really forces you into exploring, even though you don't really get the time for it. And, geez, only 4 dungeons!? Come on!

Still, the whole idea is terribly original and all, but the fact that you often have to redo stuff is extremely annoying. You are under constant time pressure (who's idea of fun is that anyway?) because you only have 3 days, which go by pretty quickly. There IS a cheat to slow down time considerably, which is really essential to survival, but to my knowledge it cannot be found in the game, you have to know it in advance, or you're in trouble. Mind you, I don't have the booklet for this game, so it might be in there, although I highly doubt it.

Also, the game is really cheap as a sequel. On the one hand it has great new environments which look really pretty. The game requires the N64 expansion pack, and it really shows, cos it's just that bit more colorful and detailed than Ocarina of Time, but SO many elements of OoT are repeated that it's not funny anymore.
I mean, of course it has the same combat system and everything, that stands to reason, but there are so many similar subgames and subquests, it seems as if Nintendo had this one great idea for a new game, but not enough new ideas to actually make it play a lot differently.

What is more annoying is that you have to replay these things, which you already experienced in Ocarina of Time (and they were more fun there) in this game OVER and OVER again, because of the nature of the story, really squeezing out every ounce of patience you have. Replay value for this game is essentially 0, since you'll be replaying it a LOT just to finish it once.

So I really have a Love-Hate relationship with this game. The dungeons, few as they are, are really fun as always, and it is obvious why they are the gist of any Zelda game. Expect some really inventive and clever level designs again here.
Boss fights are rather dull though. Most are a simple hack and slash affair, doing away with the clever gimmicks and use of alternative weaponry that made OoT so great.
There's also a bunch of REALLY annoying subquests that HAVE to be done to complete the game, one of which involves a sub-dungeong where you have to try to put Zombies to rest by giving them the items they want, which often requires travelling back and forth to shops to go and get them.
Fortunately, you get a good warp system, through the use of owl statues that you can activate and that serve as landmarks.

And that is typical of this game, and indeed most Nintendo games, it might have some really stupid and frustrating ideas at times, but there's ALWAYS something to make it just that little bit easier and more user-friendly for you.
You might argue, why throw in the bad ideas in the first place, but, well, I don't know the answer to that either. Also, the whole mask thing, with Link changeing into Gorons, and Zora's and whatnot, doesn't really seem to belong in a Zelda game, it feels kinda weird.

But, as with any Zelda game, you will be amazed at some points. There are plenty of memorable moments and some stuff is REALLY worth hanging around for, in some cases it shines as brightly as its predecessor, but those moments are, alas, few and far between.

This game deserves about an 8.

So, up next is LoZ: Oracle of Seasons. Not ages, since I'm playing the Japanese game, which is called 'daichi no shou', as opposed to Ages, which is called 'jikuu no shou'. D comes before J!

posted by Ingen! @ 11:33 AM 3 comments

Backlog: Castlevania Circle of the Moon

I was thinking what to write about, since Majora's Mask is costing me more time than is dear to me, and then it occurred to me that I still have this huge backlog I haven't told you about. So today, I would like to talk about the first in a very short line of Castlevania games. I decided to play these in order of Alphabet too, not in order of appearance, since there's not much to connect the games storywise anyway. I will rate it according to standards at that time, and I can tell you already, it doesn't look good.

This was the first in a line of 3 Castlevania games for Gameboy Advance and it is inarguably the worst. You play as another Belmont, I think, I forget his first name, and you have to vanquish the evil Count Vlad Tepes Dracula AGAIN, despite the fact that he's shown to be remarkably immortal, even for a Vampire.
So cue another Castle-exploring adventure, in the vein of Symphony of the Night, only not quite as big, and not even near as much fun.

If there's one thing that's hindered this new line of Castlevania games, it's that they can be very repetitive on short distances. Ofttimes, you will find yourself in a LONG hallway, running into the same enemies over and over again until you reach the end. It is painfully obvious that these hallways were only construed to make the castle a whole, but it's a shame they just didn't put more effort into creating more rooms and more variety.

However, Castlevania games are not merely about exploration, there's also an RPG-esque experience system and always a nice ability system to make things more interesting. Well, let me start off by saying the equipment system is a lot more constricted than in Symphony of the Night. You can only wear three items, which makes item management a bit less of a bother, since everything is arranged in its own category per slot, but it also offers less variety, and no added extra's for combining specific armor. Also, there are no shops.

The ability system is done by way of cards this time. You have a range of attack cards and a range of element cards, which can be combined for a variety of attacks with special functions. Problem is, these cards only appear at random, and you never really know what monster you can get them from, so it is very well possible to get through the entire game, without ever finding a single card, which sucks.

But what struck me most about this game, is how incredibly frustrating it is. Being Hard is one thing, but being totally unfair is another. Most enemies will do insane damage, even if you're at a high level with good armor, and status ailments are plentiful, whereas healing items are not. It is extremely rare that you will find a Save/Restore room in the vicinity of a Boss, meaning you'll already be beaten up pretty good when you reach a big confrontation. And the Bosses themselves are of course no walk in the park either.
Save rooms are too few and far between, and the same goes for the essential warp rooms. It seems every time you want to/have to retrace your steps, you have to walk the maximum possible distance to get anywhere which is terribly annoying.

And that is indeed the gist of this game. Annoyance to a very unpleasant level.
It is unlikely that anyone who is not a GREAT Castlevania fan will get any enjoyment out of this. The screen is at all times very dark as well, no bright or colorfull rooms at all, which is not so bad in itself, but please remember you're playing this on a GBA, and you'll understand what the problem is here.
Combine that with boring room designs, sluggish controls, and unforgiving difficulty and you have a quite worthless game in your hands. A 5.5 for this one, only barely sufficient. One for the die hard fans, this, and even then you might not like it.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:40 AM 0 comments

Disclaimer

Alright, I'm putting a stop to this, cos it is getting out of hand.
This is not what my site is supposed to be about, and what's worse, I think through all the hubbub, everyone is overlooking my FANTASTIC Ocarina of Time review, which may possibly be even more shocking and insulting. Or not.
No, I'd best save my most harmful comments for Majora's Mask. Oh man, do I have a lot of those.

To those who have witnessed the events of the past 24 hours, you can boast about the fact that you saw something exclusive that has now been deleted for peace purposes, and because I think that kind of arguments have no place here. My site is about bashing games and companies, not real people (except Bush, but he's not really people), so the flame war ends here. Sorry Bort.
Penny Arcade does this a lot, and now I have a small scandal too! Yay!

Incidentally, my N64 is miraculously working again. A Sign of God! (Or perhaps more accurately, Satan) so no trouble there anymore. I'm still going to take you up on that offer though, Bort ;)

posted by Ingen! @ 12:15 AM 1 comments

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Imagine a game in a legendary series. Imagine a game that takes this series into the 3rd Dimension. Imagine a rather poorly selling console that desperately needs a smash-hit to rake in the punters. Imagine the company behind this series so desperate to make this thing work that they took AEONS to complete this game and they stalled and stalled and stalled. And then they procrastinated.

What you have then, is Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on Nintendo 64, one of THE most anticipated games of all time. In THIS game you play Link who has to rescue Princess Zelda (Gasp!) from the clutches of the Evil Ganondorf the thief.
Yes, the story is as boring as ever, but man the game sure delivers.

But instead of singing the many songs of praise that can be sung and HAVE been sung about this game already, I'd like to give my opinion on one of the most frequently asked questions amongst Zelda fans and Videogames freaks alike: Which one is better, Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time? Other entries in the series do not need apply, since it is obvious that these two ARE the very best, and it is with little doubt, after playing both of them in continuation, that I say I prefer.........



Link to the Past. Yes.
Now in the past years the answer to this question varied. To be honest, when I first played Ocarina of Time when it was just released, I already thought it was not quite as great as LttP, but my opinion has been known to change in the ensuing years, but once again I'm back to my old self, and I do really prefer the SNES game over this one.
Don't get me wrong, OoT, as it is lovingly called, is a fantastically awesome game that puts 99% of the entire video game industry to complete shame, but it has its faults. And as I already previously stated about LttP, the SNES game is virtually perfect. Not a single moment of boredom or annoyance was experienced. I was in complete awe and extasy throughout the whole ordeal, even after all these years, which is an amazing feat. And I am sad to say that, although boredom is nowhere to be found in Ocarina of Time, annoyance may occur at regular intervals.

First of all, the triggering system, brilliant and most appropriate as though it is, is not the most accurate. The most annoying thing about it is that you can only target enemies and objects that the camera is aimed at. You have this bitchy fairy flying about you like a pesky mosquitoe who functions as a kind of cursor, and she will only notice enemies that are more or less in the middle of the screen. It doesn't really matter fortunately if Link is facing the right direction or not, but the problem is that if an enemy is directly behind you, or to the side of you, just off the screen and YOU know it's there, you still won't be able to target it, until you've adjusted the camera, at which point it's already to late.
This stands in shrill contrast with the system in Kingdom Hearts (which was of course created later, so it's not really fair to compare), where a single press of the lock-on button will target the closest object no matter where it is, which makes for very speedy and fun battling. If you're attacked by multiple enemies in OoT, especially if they're coming from all sides, you're more or less screwed.

Secondly, the game has some of those little pesky additions that you just know are in there simply to annoy you. I'm thinking mainly of the small sub-dungeon at the bottom of the well in Kakariko Town. It is filled with INVISIBLE pot holes that you won't be able to spot until you find the hidden Magic Eye somewhere in that dungeon.
I have played games like this before, where the creators seem to think: "hey, let's have a dungeon/bit in the game where the player can fall all the fucking way down so they have to backtrack up again! They'll love it!". NO!
Super Metroid has this, Brave Fucker Musashiden has this, loads of games have this and it's FUCKING frustrating every single time. Why the HELL do game companies keep throwing stuff like this into their games? Does ANYONE enjoy anything like this?

Many was the time I fell all the way down to the basement completely by surprise, to be greeted by the OTHER annoying factor of this game: Zombies.
"What!? Zombies rule!" I hear you cry, and you are right, generally speaking. Not in this game though. Here, zombies let out an excruciating high-pitched scream that will MOMENTARILY FREEZE YOU, which is one of THE most annoying things in video game history, since they can target you from a distance.

Thirdly, there's horseback-riding. I don't like it. That is, roaming Hyrule fields on the back of your trusty steed, bow and arrow in hand, is a wonderful feeling, but it is interspersed with little annoying tidbits, like hopping over obstacle, which never really seems to work. You have to approach fences and the like at EXACT right angles, or Epona, your cunty little bitch-horse (I love her), will come to an immediate standstill, whinny, stand on her rear legs, get on all fours again, and start walking slowly backwards so you can try again. AND THERE'S NO WAY TO STOP THIS.

So in other words, this game, revolutionary as it is, has some minor points that could have been improved if just a little bit more though had been put into it. Also, the 7 years later system is not really used to the fullest. You get to play as Link as a young boy, and later on, as a strappy handsome adolescent 7 years later.
The interaction between these two worlds, which can be traversed back and forth, is kept to an extreme minimum, which seems like a wasted effort, especially considering the BRILLIANT Nobel-prize worthy Light and Dark world system in Link to the Past, where the system was actually put to great and inventive use.

These are all minor gripes though, it kinda sounds like I'm really negative about this game, but these are just minor specks of dust on an otherwise flawless 3 piece suit. Kinda like a couple of dead pixels in your new fancy portable gaming system/media center. *waves at Sony*

Because, make no mistake, what this game perhaps lacks in tidiness, it more than makes up for in sheer magnitude, atmosphere, originality, epicness, brilliance and inventiveness. The dungeons are nothing short of Shakespeare in 3D, the Boss Battles are, without a single exception, the BEST boss fights EVER in the history of video games, believe you me, you will see and experience things NEVER seen before, or after for that matter. The fight against Ganon's Ghost is still one of coolest I've ever seen. The scene where you fight Dark Link (which, adversely, is one of the most annoying battles in the series) still to this day makes me wonder how the HELL they pulled it off. I'm not talking about the battle itself, but about the weird room and the way it kinda....dissolves when the fight is over. It looks absolutey STUNNING. Oh, and then there's those weird corkscrew halls in the Forest Temple. I mean, you just have to see this with your own eyes to believe it.

Every battle is staged and executed brilliantly, in great threatening atmosphere, and with beautiful special effects. The last fight with Ganondorf, and the ensuing awe-inspiring clash with his demonized form Ganon are as Epic as anything could ever possibly be, and they make me cry with joy of having become a gamer instead of getting a social life. Let it be known, this game is SO MUCH BETTER than social interaction, and it has horsies!

So in all honesty, when this game shines, it shines so much brighter than it's predecessor, but it's not as consistent in all-round fun as LttP. You will be slightly irked at times, but it is more than forgiveable considering what you get back. I would not go as far as calling it frustrating, because it never reaches that level of annoyance, but there are some small touches that should have been polished off. A very royal 9.9, simply to show LttP is slightly better, because perfect.

posted by Ingen! @ 12:35 PM 0 comments

Shit.

Well it had to happen sometime in a stupid project like this, but I have finally stumbled upon some unfortunate malfunctions. It seems my N64 has given the ghost, as the phrase would have it, and it won't fire up anymore.
It might be that there's something wrong with the wiring, in which case I will have to find a new power adaptor somewhere.
I have a Japanese N64, but the advantage of Nintendo's Power Adaptor's is that the output is always the same, so even if I get a European adaptor, it should still work without any trouble on my Japanese N64.

On the other hand, something might be wrong with the adaptor socket at the back of the machine, which would mean I'm a lot further from home, and probably in a hopeless situation.
Fortunately I have Ocarina of Time on Gamecube as well, so at the moment there's still no problem, but if I want to be able to play Majora's Mask, and I actually do, believe it or not, I'm going to have to solve this problem somehow.

Man, I never thought that if one of my consoles would give up on me, that it would be a Nintendo console, the most sturdy of all. I was already writing obituaries for my Playstations, and then this happens. Damn.

Alternatively I might try finding a European N64, that shouldn't be too hard, with a converter so I can play my Japanese games on it. Finding a converter is going to be very hard I'm afraid though. But the advantage would be that I'd finally be able to play European games, cos I haven't been able to do that up til now.

So I'll probably be walking in and out of gamestores a lot the coming weeks. Yay!

posted by Ingen! @ 1:33 PM 8 comments

Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

Being the first Legend of Zelda game on GameBoy.
In case you haven't noticed, in accordance with the rules as set by the wonderful me, when I play through an entire series with the same general name, I will play in order of appearance, not alphabetical subtitles.

So this game was actually more or less a real sequel to Link to the Past if I'm not mistaken. Even though the story has nothing to do with it, I think it was described in the booklet as something that happened to Link on his many travels after defeating Ganon in the prequel. Whatever.
In story it is nothing like it's predecessor, but in gameplay it very much is.
I mean, I know that fans come to expect certain things from their favorite series, but this game copies a little bit too much from it's ancestry to still be unique.
The story is that Link is washed up on Koholint Island, and in order for him to get off and go home, he needs to wake the Wind Fish (remember, in name only, for it is neither!), and a terribly unexciting plot ensues.

The theme of epic battle between good and evil is sorely missed here, you're really wondering why the heck you're doing this.
As I said, the game borrows a lot from the previous instalments so it might be a tad predictable for those who are familiar with the series. Also, and this is a problem, it borrows a lot from itself and repetition it seems can not be avoided.
You'll often run into the same mid-bosses over and over again, sometimes they even become regular enemies so they respawn. Nice.
Dungeons lack the originality, atmosphere and excitement of Link to the Past, but they're still good. There's still that lovely all-pervasive Zelda wit and self-parody that makes the games so enjoyable to play, but in comparison with it's father it just falls short.

That does not mean it's bad. I mean, Link to the Past was an insanely good game, and you can't expect people to keep churning out games of that kind of quality at a consistent rate. As it is, Link's Awakening is a great game, and definitely worth owning if you have a GameBoy or are even remotely interested in Action RPG's.
I was slightly annoyed by the pointless fetch-quests that seem to be there only to fill up the time between dungeons, though.

I'll give this a 9.0
And next, ladies and gents, is Ocarina of Time, so good luck trying to get a hold of me for the next couple of days. It's hikikomori time!

posted by Ingen! @ 10:49 AM 0 comments

Another In Between

Because I love all you people so much, I looked around for some way to host files for free and for public access, and I stumbled upon www.yousendit.com.
Any idiot can upload a file here to send to someone else's E-mail address, up to 1 GB, and it will be available for a maximum of 7 days.

So you don't need bittorrent anymore, just WinRAR to unzip it, and you're done.
You can thank me in Euro's.

Tour de Japon in Mp3

Courtesy of the brilliant me.

posted by Ingen! @ 1:52 PM 4 comments

Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past

No, that is not a pun I made up myself, that is the actual subtitle.

You know what? I'm not going to write a very long review of this, cos my entire opinion can be summed up in any of these sentences:

This is one of the best games ever created.

This game is pure perfection.

I have absolutely NOTHING to bitch about. Try as I might, I cannot find a single fault with this game. It's as solid as rock. One of the most balanced, well-thought out, varied, exciting, brilliant, intuitive, ingenious, clever, epic, deep, rewarding games of all time.

You know what sucks? That they made two terrible prequels before arriving at this point. It's like they finally started thinking:"wait! why are we making sucky games again? Let's try a good one this time!" And then they made this.
Never played this? Go out and buy a SuperNintendo with this game right NOW.
Okay, maybe it'll be easier to get a GBA with the rerelease of this game, but then at least buy a Gamecube with a GBA player so you can play it on the big screen.

EVERYTHING about this game makes sense. Fantastic dungeons with cool boss fights, cleverly varied puzzles, TWO huge gaming worlds, and lots of secrets and hidden stuff. What on earth would you want more? THERE IS NOTHING MORE. Play this or die like the sad lonely loser that you are.

In short: you are Link, and you have to save Princess Zelda as usual. Zelda is being held captive though, in the Dark World, created by the evil Ganon when he got his hands on the Triforce. Link however, lives in the Light World, so he's going to need to do some travelling back and forth to complete his quest succesfully, which immediately constitutes one of the finest points of this game.
There have been other games in the course of history that use some kind of alternative world system, be it a real parallel world like Chrono Cross, or the same world at another point in time like Ocarina of Time, or in fact Chrono Trigger.
Contrary to the first two though, this game offers on the fly warping back and forth. You don't have to go to some central point to warp from one world to the other, no, when you're in the Dark World you can go to the Light one at any time and any place you wish. Every single point has its direct and immediate equivalent in the Light World, which leads to some interesting puzzles and loads of secrets.

Never EVER has a system like this worked so brilliantly. Later games offer us no such freedom in travelling, they only restrict us, but this is true parallel world....ism...uh....stuff.
I'm amazed this idea has not been copied a million times, like most of Nintendo's ideas, probably because noone has been able to pull it off so magnificently.

So I'm not going to talk about this anymore, since I'm wasting YOUR valuable time. You should be playing this right now. GO, DAMN YOU!

Needless to say, this game gets full score: a 10, magna cum laude.
A landmark in Gaming History.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:53 AM 0 comments

In between

LOL

It seems the Internet's Big Search Engines are slowly starting to become aware of the existence of my site, judging by the increasing amount of people who stumble upon this site with the most insane queries.
The most amusing of which, I do not want to keep from you:

That would be me, yes.

On a related note, the wonderful people over at Slightly Dark have put up a torrent containing the...uh....contents of the Tour de Japon DVD, which is a DVD registration of a Final Fantasy Concert held in Japan awhile ago.
There are several tracks on here that have been done before, but they sound slightly different, what with it being a different orchestra and all, but it also has a couple of never-before arrangements, like FFVII's Bombing Mission, FFX's At Zanalkand (finally done for orchestra and not piano only!), FFXI's Ronfaure and FFIX's You're not Alone. The quality is really really good so I wanted to share this with you.

I won't link to the torrent-file directly, but I'll show you were you can get to it:

Kudo's to Carl Larsson

If you haven't got bittorrent just go and get it now, you idiot.
I have already made Mp3's of every track at 216 kbps (I edited out the applause too, cos I don't like that) but unfortunately this blog doesn't support Mp3 hosting.
If anyone's interested in hosting these mp3's feel free to post a message here, or just mail me.

posted by Ingen! @ 6:58 PM 1 comments

Legend of Zelda, The.

And thus a long line of Legend of Zelda games began.
This is the first in a line of 8 (!) Zelda games, which should be increasing in length I think. So without further ado I present you the review of Legend of Zelda, since I already finished it.
It took me a little under 6 hours, which was surprisingly long, but I'll get to that.

Now, if you have a weak stomach or are sensitive to subjects like blasphemy and sacrilege, or are generally offended by course language, I advise you to turn away right now.

Because:

I FUCKING HATE THIS FUCKING GAME.

There, I've said it.

Am I insane? Yes, but only after playing this. It drove me to drink and cheat on my imaginary wife. with an imaginary mistress. That's how much this game has left scars all over my brain.
It is the fun-factor equivalent of putting a cactus down the front of your pants and asking a professional soccer player to kick you in the nuts.

"Oh, come on! How can you hate Zelda?" I hear you shout, waving pitchforks and torches. Try this game. Really. Have you ever played the first Zelda or are you just assuming it's great cos the rest of the series is so damn good? Try it, and look at it as a game. Ignore the great legacy it has spawned. Ignore the fact that this game may have been ahead of its time. Ignore the fact that it pretty much set the standards for Action/Puzzle RPGs.
Then tell me with a straight face that you actually really enjoyed this game. You're lying.

And I'm not saying this cos I'm used to better games now. No. Even by old standards this game is frustrating and annoying as hell. I distinctly remember that back in the day, when I played this game for the first time, when it was still relatively new, I hated it too. In fact, this is exemplary of the extreme frustration Nintendo games displayed in the very early days. Super Mario Bros 1 and 2 (the Japanese one, otherwise known as 'the lost levels', Legend of Zelda 1 and 2, the original Metroid, THEY WILL SUCK YOUR BLOOD.
Sure they were innovative and boundary-breaking, but they were still extremely annoying.

But let me get to the point and show you why this game sucks.

First of all, it is too open-ended. I know some people love this, but to me it just indicates a big Fuck You from the creators to the Player, since the game lacks any kind of structure or build up. You are haphazardly thrown into a strange world, and you get NO information whatsoever, no hints no clues, just a HUGE environment and NO map. There's a stupid grid at the top left of the screen, but it only shows you your relative position in the world, no real details. Just a green dot in a grey rectangle.
You have no idea where the next dungeon is, you'll have to look around the entire planet until you find something, by accident, and then there's a big chance you're getting ahead of yourself. Not until the last 4 dungeons or so, do you actually need items acquired in previous dungeons, and you won't know where to find them either.
You do get a decent map in dungeons, but the overworld sadly lacks one, which makes traversing the many plains a real pain.

Secondly, the game is too sparing in its relinquishing of items. Or in more normal words, you hardly get anything when you kill a monster. Later on in the game there will be a huge emphasis on bombing walls to advance in dungeons, or killing dodongo's which take 2 bombs a piece, and they usually appear in groups of 3. Did I mention you can only carry 8 bombs at maximum? At least, until you find the hidden old man who sells you a bigger bomb bag for 100 rupees in the before last dungeon?
More often than not you'll end up in a situation where you're fresh out of a specific item, meaning you have to go out of the dungeon and find a shop, if you can remember where you saw one in the first place, buy what you need (if you have enough rupees) and go back, if you can find the dungeon again. Joy.
But the most painful aspect is that this happens with health items as well. When you die, and die you will, you are thrown back to the very starting point of the adventure, no matter where on the map you were. If you were in a dungeon you get to start at the beginning of it, thankfully, but you'll only be replenished with 3 hearts, which is NOTHING. You'll instantly be killed again, and you hardly EVER get any hearts. You'd need the patience to keep killing and killing until you finally get something after 10000 monsters, IF you were to survive that many battles with only 3 hearts, which you won't. Besides, enemies generally don't respawn, unless you die or leave the dungeon, so it's all moot anyway.
You can buy health potions, but then you're faced with the rupee shortage and finding a shop that sells potions problem again. This makes dungeons a REAL pain in the ass, which sucks, because Zelda games have always been about dungeons in the first place. It's not even as if the dungeons are that much fun anyway, since every room either relies on:

1. Killing all baddies
2. Push a certain block (after killing all baddies)
3. Bomb a specific wall. What, no bombs? Well, then you'll just have to roam around to find some again, and come back.

Enemies become a real pain in the ass later, especially the wizards, which Nintendo starts throwing at you in great groups in almost every room near the end of the game. VERY powerful and they can take a lot of hits. Bosses, on the other hand, are complete pushovers and only take a couple of hits before they go down. Stupid.
Even Gannon is amazingly weak.
It's not like there's any reward for finishing this game either. The ending sucks and, including the amazingly stupid credit sequence (S. Miyahon? Konchan?) only takes about half a minute. And what do you get then? The Master Quest mode, where you can do all 9 dungeons again, only newly arranged. Thanks but no thanks.

THIRDLY, you can't save when you want to. I understand this was the first cartridge game to use a save function, but geez, it doesn't take a lot of thought to realise people will want to save when they want to quit the game, right? Instead, you have to DIE if you want to save, there's no other way, except plugging in the second controller, pressing Up and A in the menu screen to conjure up the continue screen and save, which has the same effect as dying anyway. There's no 'Save and Continue', just 'Save and DIE, BITCH'. Idiots.

I will give this a 6.0, and I'm only rating it this HIGH because I do realise the significance of this game, and how trendsetting it has been. It sucks majorly though, as any intelligent objective gamer will tell you. In fact, I was talking about this game to a good friend of mine just a couple of weeks ago, and he had coincidentally been playing this too, for old time's sake, and he confided in me how much he hated this game too. Funny how age can jade your memory, since the game so clearly sucks, despite the amount of praise it is still getting. Thank you, Patrick.

SO, all in all, stay clear of this one, since it will most likely be your grave, and it is definitely not a good game to start the series with. You know, it's like the original Street Fighter. Sure it was the forefather of a fantastic norm-setting series, but that started with Street Fighter II. This doesn't mean the original SF was also great. No. It sucked Holy Balls.
See also Alone in the Dark as the first Survival Horror, whilst also the worst.
The original Mega Man is as frustrating and suicide-inducing as watching a Seinfeld/Will & Grace Marathon as well, and this is coming from a Gigantic Mega Man fan. It's still heaven compared to Legend of Zelda though.

Start with the SNES Zelda: a Link to the Past, and you'll be perfectly allright.

posted by Ingen! @ 2:19 PM 0 comments

Pink Fluff

Heheh. I'm in easy street now.

Last night I already went and cleared Kirby's Adventure on NES. A nice in-betweener this one. I can see where the cute little guy (is he a guy? does he even have any discerning organs?) gets all his fans, cos it's cute, colorful and non-offensive. I'm sure Jack Thompson could find something wrong with it though.
"Kirby is a hallucinogenic! Just look at all those colors! That can't be healthy! Screw the Hot Coffee affair, I'm sueing Nintendo for selling hallucinatory Drugs!"

Well, Jack, Kirby does look an awful lot like a titty with feet, I'll grant you that.

Kirby's Adventure is just a carefree game, that starts with the Evil King DeDeDe (that is NOT a typo) stealing the Dream Rod (man, I'm making this really easy for Jack, no?) causing people to have nightmares and whatnot. Be ready for a MAJOR plottwist though, cos nothing is as it seems and we all know Nintendo for their FANTASTIC stories.

Now let me clarify what Kirby does. He sucks. And I do mean, he SUCKS. He can SUCK up his enemies and then BLOW them out as a STAR to KILL other baddies. It is however much more kick-ASS to just SWALLOW your enemies wHOLE and steal their abilities, which you can then use OVER and OVER again; and, yes, I am determined to make this kiddy game seem like the raunchiest porn ever.

The cool thing is, every ability has its own merits, and some of them can be used to unlock bonus areas and the like. Every world has, like, 6 levels or something, and usually one or two of those have a big hidden switch that opens up a new bonus game on the world map. These switches are surprisingly well hidden and will require some effort to find. The game keeps a percentage score of how much you found in the Save Game screen, and I crossed the finish-line at 78%, which isn't really that much.

It's kind of a pity that all you can unlock is simple bonus games, and that there are no extra levels to be found, but it's nice all the same. It is a really enjoyable game although it takes cutesyness and non-offensiveness to an entirely new level which might not be to everyone's taste. The look of the game as well as the animation are very comical though, and you just can't hate something like Kirby, because he would come and suck up your entire family.
I'm sure your daddy could use that by now.

In the end though, I felt it was slightly too long, and got a teensy-weensy bit repetitive. The Final Boss fight was cool though, totally not what I expected, but the ending was nothing special. It's not as great as Nintendo's other big Platform games, but it's amusing all the same. An 8.3.

posted by Ingen! @ 5:19 PM 0 comments

Heart of Darkness

Yay! Just finished Kingdom Hearts!

SHIT, I love this game. Every molecule in my body wants to give it a 10, but I won't, cos I'm well aware there are some flaws in here that prevent it from attaining true perfection.

Actually there are quite a few.

First of all, the Camera sucks, like it does in so many many 3D games.
I dunno why, for all the graphical prowess videogame companies can squeeze out of consoles nowadays, only a staggering minority seems to be able to pull of some decent camera work. In that respect it seems unfair to criticise Kingdom Hearts for lacking in a department that virtually no game seems to be able to get right.
The camera is adjustable fortunately, set it to manual immediately, don't let the computer do it automatically or you'll get severe motion sickness.

Secondly, and this is a bit worse, Sora, the main character, is not a very good jumper. At least, not until he learns High-jump and Glide later in the game. Negotiating platforms can be a bit of a bother in the early stages of the game, not because Sora's jumps lack height, because they don't, but because the timing seems to be slightly off, resulting in falling off the platform you wanted to jump off and a fair amount of frustration. Later on though, you'll get better jumps, and there isn't that much platfrom hopping in any case.

Thirdly, the worlds you roam around in can be very confusing. You don't get a map of any kind, and most stages are so maze-like, with lots of pathways intertwining and going all over the place that it is easy to loose track of where you're going. Add to this the fact that ofttimes it's not even clear where you need to go in the first place, and again, frustration may ensue.

Fourthly (nope, not there yet) is the stupid Gumi game. To get from one world to the other you need to travel by Gumi ship, and you get a shooting stage à la Starfox, only not nearly as insanely good, and it is totally not in line with the rest of the game. You're playing a frantic action packed RPG, and then they have you play some lame wannabe shooter stages, probably to take your mind off things. The graphics are hideous in these bits, very blocky, no textures, actually, again, a lot like Starfox on SNES, only without the ruling VFX chip and Mode 7.
You do get to create and customize your ships though, which is nice. I never got into this in the original KH, but in Final Mix they give you lots of missions and stuff to make it more interesting, and encourage you to tune your ship. In the original this was totally pointless, which made it extremely frustrating everytime you go out of your way to find a treasure chest, only to be rewarded with some kind of stupid new Gumi Block. That royally SUCKED!
It's not as bad in Final Mix though, I actually mildly enjoyed it once I got into it.

And last but not least is the story. I blame Disney meddling into affairs, cos it's sappy, soppy AND sucky to a degree that is unbelievable for anyone with a realistic sense of the world and for anyone who can keep things in perspective.
The premise is nice enough, you have this species of monster that preys on darkness, and goes looking for dark sides of the soul, and preying on the dark bits in people's hearts. So, cue lots of Disney-like blahdeefuckingblah about friendship and warmheartedness and compassion and HWARF!
I swear, it gets really corny and annoying towards the end, when every conversation goes a little like this:

Sora: My heart is strong!
Ansem: Darkness rules! I am Darkness! Darkness! DARKNESS! (nice one there, Billy Zane)
Sora: HEART! FRIENDS!
Ansem: DARKNESS is the DARKNESS of the DARK DARKNESS of DARK!
Sora: Friends! Heart! Gumi! Sequel?

FUCK. YOU. DISNEY.

I refuse to believe that Square was solely responsible for this tripe. I've talked to some really stupid Japanese people in my life, but none of them have ever said 'Heart' or 'Darkness' this much. This HAS to be some American's influence.

Now, onto the good:

The Localisation is really really good. Having played the Japanese and the English version, I can safely say the English version is far superior (even with all the blah). Maybe it's because I have trouble accepting Disney characters speaking Japanese, but it just makes sense to hear them speaking the language they were born with. You get to hear all their trademark catchphrases and everything, and the voice acting is generally a lot better. A lot of the Disney characters have their original, or at least official, voice actors, which really shows.
On the other hand, without any exception, all the Square characters sound a lot better in Japanese, probably because of the same reason.

Secondly, the combat system RULES. It's just pure all-out ACTION, with a good amount of button-mashing, yes, but never mindlessly. You always need to stay on your toes and perform evasive maneuvers, or you won't pull through. Especially towards the end, Boss Battles can become really really HARD, but there always really really COOL too. You'll be fighting a lot of familiar foes, lots of them even too big to fit onto the screen. The Final Boss is motherfucking HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE, and consists of like 394 THOUSAND phases or something.
And that's what makes me love this game so much. Towards the end it becomes really truly Epic. I've rarely played a game with such a tremendously well worked out build-up and a truly phenomenal climax. This is pure epic action on a fantastically grand scale, and I loved every second of it.
I haven't played an action game this frantic, action-packed and adrenaline-rushing since, there it is again, Starfox 64. And THIS is ultimately why I love this game so much. It has made me feel hyper in a way that hardly any game has managed to pull off. There are so many great battles in here, and so many grandiose clashes that at the end you'll feel really good. This is one of those few games where, whilst you're watching the credits, you'll really feel you came a long way and you accomplished something.

In the beginnin battles might be a little bit samish, but soon you'll learn new skills and you can customize your character with all kinds of new moves and support abilities. Earning a new weapon also feels great, since you have to go through a lot of trouble to get one usually.
For the Final Mix a whole slew of new items, monsters, and extra boss battles have been added, such as the showdown with Sephiroth, the face-off against two of the Titans from Hercules, and this really EXTREMELY hard fight against some mysterious dude in a cloak. And this guy is HARD, make no mistake.
The great thing is though, you get this Memo booklet that keeps track of all the enemies you meet, and all the story elements etc., and once it is completely filled, and every entry has a Mickey Mouse Mark behind it (and there are not enough words to describe how insanely hard this is) you get a really cool extra ending movie.
Now to me, extended/alternate endings are the best reward you can get for exerting yourself, and this game sure delivers.

Not that the ending needed a lot of extra's, mind you. This game has one of the best endings ever, this side of Final Fantasy VIII, clearly made by the same team.
So in other words, the game may get off to a slightly slow start, and you might not be immediately hooked for the first couple of worlds or so, but it gets so epic later on that I really advise you to keep playing till the end, you won't be disappointed.
Despite its many shortcomings I'm going to give this a 9.5, because when it shines, it truly truly shines and this game has managed to excite me in ways that only very few can (hohoho. very funny).

Adversely though, I'd give the original Japanese version a 9.0, since it makes less sense, and has a lot less for you to do.

Bring on the sequel!

Oh, and some samples of course:

Dive into the Heart

Night of Fate

Hollow Bastion

posted by Ingen! @ 9:25 PM 0 comments

Lightning Update

I bought a new (second-hand) game yesterday! On sunday even!
It is called Megaman X Command Mission, and it is for a machine called a "Gamecube" or something or other. I highly suspect there will be robots involved in this game, and I also have the faint impression a Gamecube is flat and rectangular.

So that makes 232!

posted by Ingen! @ 3:13 PM 0 comments

I suck

In between good solid bouts of Kingdom Hearts and constantly forgetting my umbrella everywhere I go, I've kinda lost the time and will to play Gran Turismo 3 anymore.

I knew that I wouldn't get very far, but I thought at least winning a championship on Beginner Level to get to see the credits would still be feasible, but alas, no cube-shaped gambling instruments.

I know that my skills at racing games that require actual driving behavior are not nearly as good as, say, my skills at racing games that require Red Shells to be tossed at an opponent, but man, difficulty is steep in this game.
And this is beginner level. I thought the game got really hard really fast and it really forces you to upgrade your car(s) and improve your skills as soon as possible or you stand no chance at all.

And this is immediately my major gripe with this game, it is extremely inaccessible for novices, laymen, beginners and losers like me. You get a couple of driver's license tests and when you finish them you're more or less expected to drive like a pro. But more often than not, the problem is not so much your driving skill as it is the fact that your car is just underperforming when compared to the competition.
So you need to earn lots of credits to tune your car into a racing monster, and then, once you win a car that has better capabilities, you need to do it ALL over again and make it as strong as possible, win that cup that was previously out of reach, win yet another new car, and start from scratch again.

It is EXTREMELY High Maintenance, I'm talking Paris Hilton level here, only without the saucy videos. You do get better quality graphics though.
Upgrading your car costs a LOT of money, which is not simply gathered by winning a tournament once and moving onto the next. No. You need to do the same races, over and over and over and over and OVER. And then one or two more times.

Whether you are up to this task is completely up to you, and it all depends on how much you are into games like this. There is not a single fraction of doubt that this is one of the finest Racing Games ever made, a fact proved by how I, as a total racing ignoramus, incredibly enjoyed myself for as long as my patience lasted.
I never got angry or frustrated with this game, only with my own lack of skill (there's a lesson to be learned here, mr. Bush!) and I simply could not muster the strength or willpower to keep on trying and racing to get ahead.

There's not much negative that I can fairly say about this game, other than that it really is a LOT of work. It totally excells at what it does and you'd be hard pressed to find any other game that pulls it off with as much grandeur and finesse as Gran Turismo 3, it's just not quite beginner-friendly enough to make it fun for the entire family.
Speaking of which, my mom can totally kick my ass at this.

Oh, no, wait! You know what? The soundtrack is HORRIBLE. It'll make you want to kill yourself. I've been told there's a huge difference between the Western version and the Japanese one, but the Japanese one has a really terrible terrible choice of music. I tell you, the music is so bad that even if the American version is a huge steaming pile of dung, it's STILL a huge difference with the Japanese version.
Think about that. No, THINK about that, damn you.

It's all licensed and it's all total and utter crap. The short jazzy jingles and intro's that were created especially for the game are pure Mozart compared to the drivel that drones out of the boxes during racing. Fortunately, you can turn the BGM off, and even when you don't it'll be largely drowned out by the roaring of the engines, so it's almost as if the makers knew that they were providing a shitty soundtrack.

That's only the music though. Otherwise it's all good. I've been told by people who have their driver's license that it's not exactly the most accurate depiction of racing, not as much as the game claims it to be in any case, so I guess you'll still have to play Wipeout if you want pure realism.

If you ARE good at racing games and are a fanatic, there's so much this game has to offer, and you can while away those little hours deep into the night playing this and nothing but this and still not get bored.
I'm going to give this a 9.4.

Now release a Helpless Moron Version already!

posted by Ingen! @ 9:46 PM 0 comments

Backlog: Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 Pro

Speaking of Cross-overs, Capcom has never been afraid of trying to earn as much money as possible by having their popular characters fall in with the wrong crowds.
They started with X-men vs. Street Fighter, then came Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, and then Marvel vs. Capcom, which got a similarly named sequel.

Amazingly these games worked really really well, because they introduced a whole new fighting system, with extremely over the top moves and a very easy comboing mechanism, and Capcom were just very clever to rake in a bunch of internationally popular characters from the Marvel Universe. And it's just cool to be able to pitch Ryu and his buddies against Wolverine and those other freaks.

Soon though, Capcom seemed to have worn the Marvel Galaxy to its extent, possibly because, due to the popularity of the movies, the characters were being increasingly abused for atrocious video games, so Capcom decided to move away from Marvel, and into the hands of an even less likely entity, their rival company SNK.

For years SNK and Capcom have been brawling it out in the Arcades to get dominion over the Japanese Populace and rule the 2D Fighting Game World, but now Capcom decided they were going to have to join forces. SNK obviously could not refuse because they've never been able to get a decent foot on the ground overseas, and their Neo Geo sold like the crap that it is, despite the fact that new games are STILL being released for it today, as I speak.

Thus, Capcom vs. SNK was born, although Street Fighter vs. SNK would be more accurate, since there's only one character from another Capcom series in there, but now we can finally decide who can kick whose ass, or more accurately, you can now finally shut up your SNK loving friends (why do you even like them in the first place?) by kicking Terry's butt with, geez, even Blanka would do.

To reinforce how Gay SNK characters are, the artwork for both series has been interchanged, and Street Fighter characters have never looked crappier. I used to think people with eye-patches were cool (pirates!) but Sagat looks like he's about to Uppercut his fist into your rectum. TIGER!

The game works using the Ratio system, where every character has a certain amount of Ratio points, which determine how strong he is. When you choose your character you get to use 4 Ratio points, meaning you can choose 4 characters with one point, 2 with 2, 1 with 4 etc. The amount of Ratio is predetermined per character, so Evil Ryu has 4 points, meaning you can only choose him and noone else, whereas Dhalsim, Cammy, Blanka and others have only 1 point, meaning you can put 4 of them in your party.

By contrast, 4 point characters are very strong and have high defense, whilst 1 point characters are weak pussies (Cammy! MUHAHAHAHAHA!), but at least you can choose 4. This system work really well and allows for some variety and strategy in chosing your characters.

However, the game sucks. The controls are horrid. There's only 4 action buttons, despite the fact that there ARE 3 punches and 3 kicks. But get this, you can only choose of 4 different punches and kicks too! There's only LP, HP, LK and HK. The Light Kick gets its own button, but whether you actually do a Medium Kick or a Hard Kick depends on HOW YOU HOLD YOUR JOYSTICK (hohoho) or how you keep the directional pad pressed. Forward is Hard, backward is Medium. This SUCKS, especially if you like to keep the D-pad pressed backwards for emergency blocks.
Also, the fact that this game was only released on Dreamcast, which has THE worst controller EVER, at least for 2D fighting games, and this is in a long line of beautiful ancestry like the Master System (Square D-pads anyone?) and Megadrive Joypad (It comes back when you throw it away!) and you realise why exactly Sega has gone bankrupt. The day they announced they weren't going to make Hardware anymore was the day my hands actually cried with joy.

So what you have here is a game that is decent enough of its own accord, but is totally ruined by lousy controls. I give it a 7.2.

After this there were rumors that Capcom was going to team up with Sammy to make a Capcom vs. Guilty Gear cross-over, but I think that was canned, which is a real shame. So I've thought of some other cool cross-over ideas for Capcom:

- Resident Evil vs. Silent Hill: Shoot a Zombie's head off, only to see him laugh at you and shout "Hah! I'm not real anyway!". Or just throw your flashlight at him.

- Mega Man vs. Metroid: Find out who has the girliest voice!

- Breath of Fire vs. Final Fantasy: Sephiroth has Blue hair now! Customize your own hair color for added replay value. And I mean your OWN hair color!

- Coffee vs. Beer: Get drunk AND Hyperactive at the same time!

Actually, the first two don't even sound that bad.....

posted by Ingen! @ 8:38 PM 2 comments

Kingdom Hearts

Cross-overs rule.

I mean, what could be better than seeing your favorite characters from two entirely different worlds together in one movie/comic/video game? You know what's better? actually getting to control them.
That's not what you're getting with this game though, oh no, but let's not get ahead of things, since this is only the preliminary review, or preview as some would have it.

Kingdom Hearts was released in 2002, when it was hyped beyond belief, not only because of the fact that the theme song is sung by Utada Hikaru, but mostly because the game combined the worlds of Squaresoft, meaning Final Fantasy solely (I'd like to see some other Square references in the sequel), and Disney, an unlikely combination, unless you look at it from the obvious fact that they're both Money-grabbing Companies that like to squeeze every last penny out of their devoted fans with merchandise, goods and crap.

So they spawned this game. You play Sora, another meteorological phenomenon that seems to turn up everytime Tetsuya Nomura designs someone, and you are an original character not affiliated with either the Final Fantasy or Disney Universe and are therefore very much the property of Square and not to be abused by Disney.
Sora has two friends, Riku and Kairi. Their greatest wish is to travel to other worlds and see what is outside of their very confined living space, and when a mysterious Dark Portal appears, Riku doesn't think twice to get inside and he disappears. Kairi also vanishes, and soon Sora finds himself to be The Chosen One (how many of those have we seen already?) and he has to rescue his friends and make sure every separate world STAYS separate and doesn't mingle with others, by the actions of the Evil Heartless.

The bad guys are all Disney Villains, some of them actually voiced by their original and official voice actors. James Woods is here to voice Hades for one, which is great, and one of the advantages of having an actual license like this.
At their head is Malificent, the Evil Godmother from the Snowwhite movie, who commands the Heartless (or so she thinks) and generally muck things up.

So you set forth as Sora, with your nifty Keyblade (it's a Key AND a Sword! I can't think how many times I've needed one of those, and there's NEVER one around!) and are soon joined by Donald and Goofy as well as miscalleneous Disney Characters to beat the shit out of evil demons and stuff.

I have both the original Japanese version as well as the LIMITED EDITION Final Mix that was released in Japan a year after, and features the English Voice cast, with Haley Joel Osment (Sixth Sense) as Sora, and Billy Zane (Titanic) as Ansem, whose role I will not spoil because he is behind everything. And THAT would be a spoiler!
I will be playing the Final Mix version, because it's bigger and better and I'll be damned if I'm going to play them both. I'll probably give separate scores at the end though.

Are there any trademark Disney quotes I can finish this post on?
Don't think so.
Too bad.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:33 AM 0 comments

Ageing Universe

Man, I feel old.

WHAT is the deal with birthdays anyway? I mean think about it, what the Hell are we celebrating? That we've grown one year older? What the heck is that?
Have you ever stopped to think about what a year really is? It's 365 days. 365 days and 8 hours to be a little bit more accurate.
You're celebrating the fact that you've grown 365 days and 8 hours older. HOW STUPID IS THAT? No, look at it from the other point of view; you're celebrating that the Earth has revolved around the sun exactly once since last time. Yeah, that's A LOT better.

And therefore I propose we start dividing these things up in logical, well-measured units to make REAL birthdays. If there's one thing that annoys me about English speaking countries in this world, it's that they use a completely moronic measurement system. I mean, what the hell is an 'inch' anyway, and why the FUCK does it take 12 inches to make a foot?
3 feet to a yard.
5.5 (THINK about that, you idiots) yards to a ROD (these people disgust me)
And 320 rods to a mile.

Jesus, that's retarded, how do they get any calculating done over there?
No, instead, let us look at the precisely divided Metric System. It's BRILLIANT, and it totally PWNS anything else in this world.
I don't know who ever decided how long a meter was going to be, but at least he divided it up logically and simply. 10 decimeters, 100 centimeters, 1000 millimeters etc. And 10 meters to a decameter, 100 to a hectometer and 1000 to a kilometer.
IT WORKS, PEOPLE!!!!

So that's why I'm going to lobby to get my new Metric Years through.
We start at one day. 10 days is a week, 100 is a month, 1000 is a year, and THAT'S when we can celebrate our birthday, damn you. Think of it! We'll all be so much younger! Mortality rates will plummet, and women will be 18 for much MUCH LONGER! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!

Yes. That'll work.

Back to business, I finished Jak and Daxter yesterday, without any trouble.

The game is really rather easy; your bog-standard "scout levels and find stuff" kind of affair, which we've already seen many many times before. Although Mario 64 was the first game to introduce gameplay like this, Jak and Daxter more than once reminds of Banjo Kazooie, only with a more American sense of humor. It's not bad though.

Technically speaking, the game is very impressive, luscious colorful environments, great animation, which has taken more than a passive look at Disney if you ask me, and most impressive of all, One Huge Gaming Environment.
There are NO loading delays in the entire game, hell, there aren't even any fade-outs. Every level is directly connected to the next, and you can even see bits from other levels when you stand on a high point in a totally different level.

The music SUCKS though, in extreme measures. It's like they thought at the last moment "oh shit, we have to throw in some music too" and then forced their illegal Zimbabwian immigrant Nabutu, who does all the cleaning, to take out his bongos and just randomly hammer away.
Man, sometimes I wonder if American companies care about Game Music AT ALL. Most American games have cheap licensed music, which sucks, and if they don't they have some terribly untalented idiot ramming away at a crappy synthesizer. Junk.

The rest of the sound is good though, good SFX, funny voice-acting, so that's okay.

Oh, and the Camera SUCKS, like it does in most 3D Action/Adventure Games.

You won't find anything in this game that'll surprise you though. You get a lava level, a snow level, the obligatory SpeedBike level, nothing special. You can tell the whole game runs on automatic 3D Platform Mode, and it was probably more about impressing graphically than anything else.

It's not bad by any means, but it's nothing out of the ordinary either. An 8.0.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:36 AM 0 comments