Monday, June 15, 2009

Gargoyle's Quest II - Finished the Game

Time: Monday 2:43am
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom, Persona 3, Textropolis, 1 vs 100, Gargoyles Quest II
Drinks Consumed: 2 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 2 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 3 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster, 1 Guayaki Yerba Mate Nonsweetened Mate, 1 Nantucket Nectars Lemonade, 1 Lo-Carb Monster Energy



The next level is some sort of Egyption-themed dungeon. You can't tell from the picture, but all that sand is moving which looks pretty impressive. Also, I realized that I hadn't taken a picture of any of the bosses yet. So I decided to take a picture of the next one and this boss is probably the most boring one there is. The rest are much more interesting, I promise!


The game has kind of a fun mechanic where vials you collect throughout the levels can be used as currency to buy extra lives. Because there are points in the overworld where you can fight a few enemies for vials, you can always grind them until you have a ton of lives and power through every level. Sort of a way to circumvent the difficulty. Oh, extra lives are called "The Power of the Maelstrom"


I like how "The Password" is sort of a mystical power in this land that can revive the fallen. Clever, Capcom.


This is a more interesting boss, but he's incredibly frustrating because once he moves near you, it's nearly impossible to avoid his projectiles. In general, that was my problem with this game. The level designs were, for the most part really well done and presented fun platforming challenges. And then you reach bosses that are tedious and frustrating because you have very little margin for error.


The big guy above is "Rushifell" who was probably meant to be Lucifer, but thanks to a rather awesome mistranslation of Japanese ended up with the r and l switched. I mean, he even looks like him. ("Rushifell" also appeared in the first Gargoyle's Quest).

Tragically, I lost many of the pictures I took, due to them coming out as blurry messes. But after an incredibly frustrating final boss fight (not only do you have to move in perfect precision, but there are instant death spikes below you and the moving platform in the final bosses room often throws you down toward them due to poor programming), I beat the game.


Yeah, I totally am. The other minion in the throne room here says, "You did very well." Just very well? I save the freakin' world!


The credits sequence is pretty cool as it shows you each of the bosses again and names them and then deisplays credits while the bosses do their thing. A nice touch.


"Capcom Presents: Thank you for playing"
This is almost as good as Ninja Gaiden's ending: "See you next Tecmo"

Overall, Gargoyle's Quest II was disappointing as it felt like a mediocre experience. I really think Capcom hastily slapped this together. The world design shows flashes of brilliance, but overall comes off as empty. The original game wasn't long, but everything felt tight and cohesive while in this game, it feels like there's something missing. Heck, there's a section where it talks about a guy named Dagon in the desert and getting his claw (supposed to be 'Dragon', perhaps?). I looked for him, but never found him and went I went on to the next section, I couldn't even return to look for them again. I think the level designer did a pretty good job, although I seem to remember that in the original, much better use was made of the special attacks you got that could also affect the environment (breaking walls, creating hold on spikes, etc.) So, this was mildly fun, but not as good as it could have been. Now I just want to play the original game again.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Gargoyle's Quest II - Obtained Candle of Darkness

Time: Sunday 11:32pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom, Persona 3, Textropolis, 1 vs 100, Gargoyles Quest II
Drinks Consumed: 2 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 2 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 2 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster, 1 Guayaki Yerba Mate Nonsweetened Mate, 1 Nantucket Nectars Lemonade, 1 Lo-Carb Monster Energy

So the original Gargoyles Quest is one of my favorite games for the original Black and White Game Boy. It was the first game to really show the system was capable of full, engrossing games on its own and not just puzzle games and ports of NES games.


Upon starting the game, I am immediately struck by the difference in music between the Game Boy game and its NES sequel. While similar, and probably meant to be the same theme, the difference in sound chips of the two systems clearly changes the exactly quality of sound both can do. So far, I think I prefer the Game Boy versions of the songs.



I still can't get over the fact that this is in color! Whoo!



Ah, the days of 16 digit (or more!) passwords. At least this game uses all numbers so you're not stuck wondering whether something is an O or a 0 or a 1 or l or any other the other countless mistakes I made as a kid until I learned to quadruple check my passwords (and then I still would something not be able to tell if I wrote a 1 or an l...



There are a lot of empty houses and otherwise empty areas in the game. It really feels like they were originally going to fill the world with lots of things, but ran out of time and so there are a lot of structures (and outside map areas) with absolutely nothing in them. Weird.



Such scintillating dialog! Actually, the localization in this game is pretty bad. The translation is almost completely literal making the story a bit hard to follow and I've noticed some spelling and grammar mistake. I wonder if Lucifer is once again mistranslated as Rushifell?



This came out way more blurry than I had intended because I was originally going to comment on how beautiful this level was. Definitely has the graphical fidelity of a late-era NES game. This level is also the first time the game gets hard. Took me three tries to make it through.

And the winner is...

Time: Sunday 7:32pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom, Persona 3, Textropolis, 1 vs 100
Drinks Consumed: 2 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 2 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 2 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster, 1 Guayaki Yerba Mate Nonsweetened Mate, 1 Nantucket Nectars Lemonade, 1 Lo-Carb Monster Energy

While a bit disappointed in the turnout, there was a clear winner in this vote. Out of the eight votes cast, five of them went to Gargoyles Quest II. That makes some sense because it is probably the best game on the list (Take that, Sonic fans!). Amazing Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin did get two votes. I wonder if it had gotten more if I'd have mentioned just how horrific the animations are before and after the levels and how cheesy the early 90s rock song composed for the game was. Super Punch-Out!! got 3 votes, but there is some dispute as to how many of those votes were cast by canines.

Sorry Snake's Revenge, no one else likes you.

I will be delayed in playing this due to being a bit more social this evening than I thought. But fear not, I shall get through it!

Audience Participation - What should my last game be?

Time: Sunday 4:15pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom, Persona 3, Textropolis, 1 vs 100
Drinks Consumed: 2 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 2 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 2 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster, 1 Guayaki Yerba Mate Nonsweetened Mate

Okay, so I've gone through all the planned games for this weekend (apart from some Rock Band later) and need to pick out one last game to play to end tonight. I will present to you, dear readers, a list of games I am considering (and why) and you tell which you think I should play.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis) - Can I finally make it all the way through the game without getting bored?

The Amazing Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin (Sega CD) - This game took the linear Genesis Spider-Man game and attempted to make it more of an open world game. It failed pretty spectacularly, but it's still does a decent job of capturing Spider-Man's web slinging.

Super Punch-Out (SNES) - I have never managed to beat the first of the Bruiser brothers. I'd probably just start all over to help myself get back into it.

Snake's Revenge (NES) - The non-canonical sequel to the NES Metal Gear, this one isn't that bad as long as you're not in one of the awful side-scrolling sections. Otherwise, it gets the overhead sneaking parts pretty well done.

Gargoyle's Quest II (NES) - Recent Game Boy retrospectives have reminded me just how awesome the original Game Boy game of Gargoyle's Quest was. I've never managed to get very far in the NES sequel which seems to be largely the same (awesome) game but with color!

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES - Finished the game

Time: Sunday 3:14pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom, Persona 3, Textropolis, 1 vs 100
Drinks Consumed: 2 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 2 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster, 1 Guayaki Yerba Mate Nonsweetened Mate

Ugh, I ended up staying up way too late to see all that this game has to offer.

I got to January 30th (the day before last) with my Yukari S-Link at level 9 with it telling me that my relationship could get stronger soon. Man, I really wanted to maximize that S-Link! So I reloaded a save from December 30th and just focused on nothing but doing that. It was worth the effort as it was pretty funny. Ah, sexing the ladies...

I also went ahead and saw what happened when you chose to kill Ryoji on December 30th. Interesting, but probably not worth it.

And then I finally got around to finishing the game. The final boss battle took forever, but I was pretty over-prepared as I was in no real danger of losing. Which is good, because having to redo a battle that took about a half hour would have totally sucked.

My favorite part of the ending was how it used all the people whose social links you had maximized. For me that was Yuko, Chihiro, Kazushi, Hidetoshi, Mamoru, Nozomi, Dying Man, The Monk, and Tanaka. I especially liked being able to explore the school after winning and see what everyone was up to.

Overall, I'm glad I finally finished the game. It was a good game. Not absolutely amazing as some would say, but it was unique and innovative and quite entertaining. Its flaws can definitely be overlooked given the experience it gave me.

Of course, I ended up staying up way to late to experience all of this and so it's only now at almost 3:30 that I am ready for a relatively open and free day today. More on that later!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

1 vs 100 - First Experience

Time: 10:04pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom, Persona 3, Textropolis, 1 vs 100
Drinks Consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster, 1 Guayaki Yerba Mate Nonsweetened Mate

So I took a break from Persona 3 to play the live beta of 1 vs 100 on Xbox Live.

I love trivia. I play it every night at a bar here with a group of friends. And this was fun too. Several of my Xbox live friends were on and it was great to see how idiotic the actual players were. I also learned that the lyrics to the LL Cool J song are "Mama said knock you up" and the lyrics to the Bon Jovi song are "Whoa, oh, sitting on a chair."

It was pretty fun, though I would have been much more bored if I wasn't chatting with Xbox live buddies. I imagine the chance to actually be part of the real mob (if not the one) was pretty miniscule.

Back to Persona 3. I'm on 1/25!

Textropolis - More Word Games

Another break for dinner and dog walking and it gave me some time to play another recent iPhone obsession of mine - Textropolis. It's a pretty simple game where it gives you a city name and you have to form as many words of four or more letters as you can out of it. For each word you make, you get points (the population of the city increases) and at certain intervals, your city gets an additional star. Getting two stars unlocks the next city. It's a very simple game, but it's word games and I love 'em. Now to get a little more Persona 3 in.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES - 1/23

Time: 5:23pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom, Persona 3
Drinks Consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster

So... an hour and a half later and I've progressed one day. But I think I've got all the fighting and fusing out of my System for now so hopefully this week should go quickly.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES - 1/22

Time: Saturday 3:40pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom, Persona 3
Drinks Consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster

Ah, the Velvet Room music. I have heard this so many times, I'm surprised it hasn't driven me crazy. At least the Persona battle music stops and starts in between wandering around Tartarus. But the Velvet Room music just keeps going as I spend forever trying to figure out who to fuse with whom and to get just the right skills. I know my former roommates can still hum it from memory.

Anyway, my big push here is to get this game finished. January 31st is the final day (I think) and so I only have a little over a week in game time. I've already made it as far as I can go in Tartarus and have even opened up the doorway to the other realm by defeating death. So I don't really need to defeat any more monsters.

Of course, that's the first thing I did when I started up the game again just to re-familiarize myself with the game. And now I'll probably spend half an hour in the Velvet Room fusing more personae. But after that... all macking on girls until the end of the game!

Fathom - Finished the Game

Time: Saturday 1:45pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom
Drinks Consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster

Each weekend, the folks at Talking Time pick a free game out there and play and discuss it. This week was Fathom - an indy game with an art vibe (meaning that it is trying to convey some sort of message).

I got to a certain point in this game and then couldn't figure out what the hell to do. I had collected a ton of fish and done several other things but it just seemed that I couldn't continue at all. I asked for help, didn't get any, and was getting incredibly frustrated. I was about to give up, but then tried the game in a different browser. Turns out I must have hit upon a bug, because playing it in that browser everything happened as I expected and I was able to finish the game.



Despite my frustrations, I enjoyed it overall. The music is great, the aesthetics are nice and I really like how it subverts the tropes of video games. The game is mostly divided into two parts and the first part is well done, if not particularly creative. The second part is much more creative and sets a good mood even if playing it gets a little frustrating after awhile.

There's a larger discussion to be had here about whether games can really have a message. Can they express something through pure gameplay? Are they beholden having to be "fun to play" or can they use limitations on play control to express things? I think you can have "art games" much like "art films", though it's much harder to pull off a pure message game than say, a movie or book or painting.

But whatever. On to another game!

Quordy - Waking up the brain

Time: 11:27am
Games played: Quordy, Klonoa
Drinks consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint

Amazing my dog let me sleep in until 11am today. I guess I must have kept him up late with all my cursing at the final levels of Klonoa. It's a bit later than I wanted, but I awake refreshed and ready to take on a new day.

It's still pretty nice (though hot) today, so I took him to the park in the morning and while he was running around, I woke up my brain with a nice game of Quordy. It's a good way to get myself going in the morning. Now I just need to grab a "breakfast" sandwich and then I'll be ready to go.

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile - Finished the game

Time: Saturday 3:56am
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa
Drinks consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint


Man, Klonoa is supposed to be a dream or all a dream world or whatever, but some of that stuff will give me nightmares. There's some weird fever dream stuff in there.

I am a bad enough dude to rescue the president.

The game really is incredibly well defined, being a significant challenge by the last level. It may be my fatigue but the last level and then the last boss (and all his forms) had me cursing up a storm. There was also one puzzle that my brain just couldn't work out at this time in the morning that I had to resort to looking up (and felt like an idiot when I saw what the solution was). But I more or less loved this game. Pretty sure it will go on my (imaginary) list of best platformers.

I think the ending was a bit too built up for me. I'd heard it was bittersweet. And yeah, it isn't totally happy, but it still maintains the general feel of a children's story. Nice, but not really impressive.

I like this explanation of why the other characters in the game don't actually help you save the world.

So yeah, one game down.

I guess I can replay the levels now to get the characters I missed out on. And I unlock new things. I'll see how I feel in the morning because boy howdy do I need some rest. The drinks have failed me.

And what the hell does "for your phantomile..." mean? Oh this game!

Friday, June 12, 2009

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile - Vision 4-2

Time: 11:53pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa
Drinks Consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull

I still can't get over how fun the levels in this game are to play. I think I've just been playing a lot of more mediocre 2D platformers recently, but I love the subtle puzzle aspects in figuring out how to progress further and get the secret items.

I also want to point out how well Klonoa's character is done. In visual design, he somewhat resembles one of the many "attitude" mascot platform characters of the 16-bit generation. But his behavior in the game is of a more down-to-earth earnest character who was just out for a care free stroll when this whole adventure was thrust upon him. And the cute gibberish voices used for the character are a nice counterpoint to his "cool dude" design making him a much more deep and likable character than, say, Bubsy.

Also, Klonoa has a Pac Man on his hat. How cool is that?


The story has been pretty lighthearted so far. It has made me smile and once chuckle when I encountered a guard who talked like Yoda. I wish I'd gotten a picture of that.

After finishing the most recent level, things have become a bit more heavy. Klonoa's grandfather dies in his arms and reveals that saving the world is Klonoa's destiny. It doesn't quite work with the presentation that has come before it, but I'm willing to give it a pass to see how things develop.


I just took my dog for a walk and probably got scammed by some guy who was looking for money to buy drugs. But he seemed honest, had a complicated but believable story, and an effeminate lisp so I'm hoping he really is a hairdresser and I get a free haircut out of it.

Also, it is hot and late so my pants are now off. Just thought you should know.

Socialization Break #1

Time: Friday 9:34pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa
Drinks consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine

Man cannot live by video games alone. And besides these friends missed my recent 30th birthday festivities and were taking me out for drinks, so how could I say no? It was really great catching up with them as I hadn't talked to them in probably about six months. And it got me looking even more forward to playing some games.

On my way back to my place, I stopped by my local supermarket and two bodegas. I completely struck out in finding any of the recommended energy drinks. The supermarket was all out of anything Rockstar, and the bodegas seemed to only carry Red Bull of energy as energy drinks. Since the local MLS team is the Red Bulls and I had just been talking about them with my friends, I grabbed one of them so that I wouldn't have to break into the Yerba Mates too early.

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile - Vision 2-1

Time: Friday 6:05pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa
Drinks Consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar

When I moved in December, my component cable for my PS2 finally bit the dust. It had never been quite right since moving to New York and it finally gave up the ghost. Because I am cheap, I waited until I had a significant amount of things I wanted from monoprice before I ordered a replacement. I finally got it on Monday. Because I am a graphics whore and wouldn't deign to play my PS2 without the best possible graphics, I hadn't played any PlayStation games since I moved (except to test them on an, ugh, composite cable). Klonoa is thus re-breaking in my PS2.

Klonoa was a recent fun club over at Talking Time. It also recently got a re-release for Wii. And it's truly great. Only having played through three levels so far, I can see what makes it so good: the level design.

Klonoa is, at heart, a 2D platformer. You play as some non-descript rodent-like animal that can jump and shoot. Though the game is basically 2D, it is rendered in a 3D engine with levels that rotate and turn as you move through them. Additionally, things come from the foreground and background and you occasionally interact with them.

I'm playing the PlayStation version and am really impressed at the graphics. 3D on the original PlayStation sometimes looks quite ugly, but this game is a treat. Extremely colorful without to many harsh angles or muddied textures. And detailed where necessary.

But it's the level design that really makes this game. There are basically only four things you can do (jump, shoot, throw enemies, and double-jump when you have an enemy) and each level portion is designed best to show how you need to use these to get past. So far it hasn't been too easy, but the penalties for failure also haven't been very extreme so it's almost like puzzling your way on how to advance in each situation. Through in bonus items that take even more to collect and background elements that spring you or blow you upwards and navigating the game is a treat.

Quordy - I rock

Time: Friday 4:09pm
Games played: Quordy
Drinks Consumed: None

I decide to begin my game-playing extravaganza with a nice warm-up: Quordy for my iPhone. Quordy is basically Boggle, but renamed to avoid trademark infringement. It is also awesome (and better than the other high profile Boggle game for iPhone, Wurdle). It has a great interface and allows challenging friends and playing against them online. Until I started writing for The Tilt, I didn't bother putting any more games on my iPhone because Quordy was all I needed.

I also rock at it. I have an opponent who I play regularly, but my record against him is 84-34 so yeah. I'm pretty good at word games.

The weekend begins!

As of now (well, technically 4:09) my weekend on pure video games has begun. I plan to devote as much time this weekend to playing games as possible. I'll break for food, bathroom, dog walking, and maybe a little socializing. We'll see. But here, dear reader, I plan to document everything that has gone on.

To keep me fueled for this weekend, I planned to pick up several energy drinks. My friend Paul is an expert on those and so I consulted him are what are the best varieties. According to him, Sobe Energy Drink (low carb) and Rockstar Energy Drink (low carb) are the two best with Rockstar providing more of a jolt. Of course, in the three drug stores/corner markets I visited between last night and now, I could find none of them. I grabbed a sugar-free Rockstar to get me started, but I'll have to make a stop at the nearby supermarket tonight.

Anyway, I plan to periodically blog about my experiences this weekend. Here goes!