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!

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!

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter - Finished the game

I like games that do things differently and as I've mentioned before, Dragon Quarter is quite different from your standard Japanese RPG. I mentioned the similarities to survival horror that the game has, but I don't think I mentioned that there are no inns or ways to heal yourself for free. Let that sink in. It means that every time you make it to a shop, you first have to spend the money to buy healing items just to restore your health. This makes the game incredibly tense. You can never really relax because you've just beaten a big boss since healing yourself afterwards will not be cheap. Resource management is key to the game.

As it turns out, I was really good at the resource management. Despite the fact that the game expects you to do at least one SOL Restart through the course of playing it, I never had to do that. I did get a game over about a half dozen times while playing it, but two of those were right in the beginning before even getting the dragon powers and all the rest were boss fights where I just handled the strategy wrong and had no problem with it the next time. It seems I stocked my inventory well as I always had just enough healing items to make it from shop to shop. My D-Counter was only at about 35% when I reached the final gauntlet of boss fights and so I was able to D-Dive each of the last three bosses.

Even though I D-Dived those bosses, I got the feeling that I could have beaten them with shrewd tactics with just regular attacks. That was a much better feeling than the one time I D-Dived before where I felt it was absolutely impossible to win without doing that.

This game did some things really well. The character customization system with weapons that have slots you can fill with different skills was great. The combat system was generally excellent, with strategic movement and combination attacks. The music is also a strong point of the game.

There are some rough edges too. Though combat is generally great because you always need to use strategy against even regular enemies and can't just mash on attack, it can become very tedious to employ whatever specific strategy you need to defeat each enemy. Tedium is generally the problem, as navigating the interface (all the menus to equip items and skills and especially manage the fairy colony) can take awhile. Reaching the shop again requires a significant break in the game while you buy the items to heal your characters, identify all unknown stuff and then decided what to keep and what to sell.

Overall, though it was a very enjoyable game and I'm glad I experienced it.

I'm actually tempted to play through it again. Whenever you do an SOL Restart (which can also be done after finishing the game), you may lower your D-Ratio which will unlock additional cut scenes during the playthrough. The story in the game is very minimal and I think that's appropriate for the playthrough, but I like the idea of filling in background information on a subsequent playthrough. Of course, I know the reality is that I have so many good games I haven't played yet, I probably won't play through it again. But maybe I'll at least do the beginning part.

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter - Defeated Modified Bosch

I had to D-Dive for the first time in this battle. D-Diving is basically turning into your dragon form where you are a super bad-ass. The downside, of course, is that doing this raises your D-Counter. Once that reaches 100, it's game over. You lose your humanity or become some evil dragon or something like that (the game isn't exactly clear on that issue) and you're done.

I find the tension of whether to use your super ability delicious. In some games, not using a limited resource has no real consequence. It may make the game a little harder or be a little more frustrating, but it doesn't seriously change the game. In Dragon Quarter, it's at the heart of the game. The requirement to use limited resources is also present in the fact that there is never any automatic healing. The only way to heal is to use healing items and aside from the few you can find in the course of your adventure, you'll have to buy them at shops. The creates another tension in whether to use your money to upgrade your weapons and armor or use it to stock up on healing items.

All that said, I was a little disappointed because it seemed I had to D-Dive in order to win this battle. The boss regenerated a massive amount of health each turn and the amount of damage I could do it wasn't consistently high enough each turn to lower his health beyond what he would regenerate. I do feel a bit cheated in that respect, but since this is my first playthrough of the game, I suspect that I'm underpowered from what I could be and that if this were a later playthrough I could actually beat him without becoming a dragon.

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter - Reached the Industrial Area

This game is difficult - at least when compared to modern RPGs. Generally, there's a bit of hand-holding and tutorial in the beginning to get you into them. In Dragon's Quarter, I just flat-out died in the first dungeon my first two times playing it.

My third time playing the game, I finally "got it". Everything about that combat system and how to correctly deal with monsters just clicked and I found myself really getting into this off-kilter RPG.



Breath of Fire has had four previous games in the series. I haven't looked into them, because they aren't supposed to be that different from their contemporary Japanese RPGs. Dragon Quarter is.

The main hook is that you aren't really expected to get through the game in one playthrough. It is certainly possible, but the game is designed in such a way that at a certain point you will realize that it isn't possible for you to get any further since you don't have any health restoring items and your character is about to die. At this point, the game gives you the option of doing a "Scenario Overlay" when you restart which basically means when you start over, you have all the skills your character previously had, along with any money you've put in the bank, progress you've made on the colony, and party xp (bonus experience you earn which can be given to the characters).

The other aspect that contributes to the need to restart is your D-Counter. Early on, you learn that your character can turn into a dragon - which is awesome! You become incredibly powerful and can quickly decimate foes. Each time you become a dragon and each time you use its abilities, your D-Counter number goes up. When it hits 100 you presumably lose control of yourself and lose your humanity - which is less awesome. That's another game over there. So, if you've had to use dragon abilities to get yourself out of some scrapes you may find it nearing 100% and have to restart.

In a strange coincidence, this game is pretty much a combination of the last two games I've been playing. The connection with Shiren is pretty obvious - they're both RPGs with turn-based tactical combat. They both expect you to die and restart, having learned something of the game from your previous run, but also allowing you to carry some things over from your previous run. Breath of Fire isn't nearly as unforgiving as Shiren since it does let you restore saved games as many times as you want. But... real save points are spaced far apart so a lot of your saving will be of the same "suspend" save variety that Shiren had - you can save your game anywhere, but when you come back to it, your save is immediately erased.

The saving aspect brings in one of the big connections the game has to Resident Evil - they are limited. If you want to save your game at one of the save points scattered throughout the game, you need a save token, much like Resident Evil required you to have ink ribbons to save at the typewriters. Save tokens are precious - you only find a few and can't buy more or store them so you have to be careful about using them up. The connection to survival horror becomes more apparent when you notice how little money and healing items the game gives you. The player must make the best use of their resources or they'll find themselves in an unwinnable situation and have to restart. I'm not the first to call this a Surival RPG, but I wholeheartedly support that appellation.

Having never played a Breath of Fire game before, I have no clue how innovative the combat in this one is, but I think it's incredibly well done. First of all, you can see enemies before battle and they take place right on the exploration screen, much like my favorite of games, Chrono Trigger. That you can see the enemies and know where you'll be fighting them is great. Additionally, the combat is very tactical. Characters have a certain number of action points, when it is their turn they can move and attack in almost any combination to use those. Maneuvering for position or to get just in range of an enemy is key - especially because several attacks can hit enemies in a line, rea, or cone. There is a wide variety of attacks for each character (and different weapons that you can specialize in different ways). Also, one character can place magical traps on the battle field and its a lot of fun to hold enemies off with these or coax them into them. The game also adds a bit of complexity in that there's a lot you can do pre-battle like set traps and hit the monster first to get a first strike turn, but I don't think those are as well implemented or interesting. Still, it's a pretty great system.

Finally, this game has the best cut scene system ever. Not only are they skippable (as it's a sin in this day and age to not have them be), but they are pauseable as well. Finally, I can go pee during some exposition and come back and not have missed it!

Zone of the Enders - Destroying the EPS generator

My first impression of this game was that it was kind of a tech demo/experiment/half-formed game created by Hideo Kojima that largely served as a vehicle for the demo of Metal Gear Solid 2. I recently learned that there's a bit more to it than that. Yes, the game doesn't quite feel fully realized, but apparently it's a pretty good giant robot simulator that was improved upon and made truly good in its sequel.

Several nights ago, I couldn't sleep, felt like playing a game to settle myself down, and decided that I would start with this.

It really does a good job of making you feel like you are controlling a huge, mechanical, man-shaped robot. The two analog sticks allow you a good sense of movement in three-dimensions and the ability to lock on enemies ensures that you will always stay in the action. There are a wide variety of attacks, including both long range and melee attacks and there are also a variety of weapons and other upgrades you can get for your mech.

All that said, the game taxes your fingers on the controller as you often have to hold down three or four buttons or sticks in order to do what you want. For those who have played Metal Gear Solid 3, this will seem par for the course of any Kojima game. I'm not really sure how it could be improved, but it definitely takes awhile to get use to all the controls and what they do.

I'm also wondering about the strategy of the game. I can't remember whether I'm playing it on normal or hard mode, but so far pretty much all of the enemies can be defeated by using the same technique. While I know the game is short, I am very curious as to whether I will ever have to seriously adjust my tactics. Then again, given I stopped playing after some normal (but level 4) enemies were totally kicking my ass, I think I may have found the answer to that question.

Guitar Hero - Complete all songs on hard difficulty

Last weekend, I visited my nephew who is newly obsessed with Guitar Hero, having had the game for the week. He was still playing on medium difficulty, so to make it fair, I played against him on hard even though I hadn't fully gotten through hard mode on any version of the game. Despite that, I still managed to beat him about half the time. This inspired me to think that I was pretty good at the game and want to play more of it when I got back.

While I initially thought I would go through Guitar Hero II first because there were improvement to the play (easier hammer-ons and pull-offs) and the ability to practice specific sections of songs. But I have also heard than, in general, the songs in the first Guitar Hero are easier than those in the second. So I decided I'll try to get through this one first.

I started not having done any songs on hard mode and got through the first four tiers with little trouble. I think it was the fourth tier where I first failed to get five stars on a song. In the fifth tier, I got a three star or two and may have actually failed a song once. By the fifth tier, songs were kicking my ass. I think I got three stars on most of them. Cowboys from Hell and Bark at the Moon owned me for several times and I was only able to pass the both with judicious use of star power.

It is my eventual goal to five star every song on every level. I can't imagine ever getting five stars on the songs at the highest tier. It isn't like when I wondered whether I would ever be able to make the transition from medium to hard. There, I felt that with practice I could five star the medium songs, but I wondered if I would ever get decent enough at hard mode to regularly pass songs. Here, I think I can probably pass all the songs on expert difficulty, but I still don't have any faith I can get good enough to five star all the songs on hard (let alone expert). I seriously am not able to strum fast enough to hit all the notes in rhythm and when I try to do up and down strumming it just doesn't seem to be registering it correctly. I'll be curious to look back on this if I ever manage to master the songs well enough to five star them.

Guitar Hero - Completed all songs of medium difficulty at 5 stars

I bought this game at full price - mistakenly since I thought I was getting an amazing deal on the Guitar Hero bundle. I meant to return it, but put it off too long and it was too late so I held onto it, thinking I might sell or trade it once I found a great deal on the original Guitar Hero bundle. I finally ended up getting a good deal on a plain controller so now this game once again had merit.

What prompted me to play it was talk of doing a video game party at some point and Guitar Hero is a great party game. But... at least in Guitar Hero II, you need to unlock some songs before they are available so I figured I should do that for the first game. I have now gotten as far in this game as I have in Guitar Hero II so I have some interested impressions on the differences between the two.

Guitar Hero II is definitely more of a polished game. The biggest issue is the control difference. The first Guitar Hero feels a bit more mushy in the controls. It's hard to explain - maybe just slightly less responsive or not handling the transitions between chords or strums as well? It definitely doesn't handle hammer-ons and pull-offs as well. There are little things too. Llike the way you progress between song tears and the fact that you get encores. Guitar Hero is still very fun, but I think they really got the formula right with the second game.

Some people (that I remember, those who do the Player One Podcast) have remarked that the song list in Guitar Hero is better than the one in Guitar Hero II. I'm just not seeing it, unless you are really into heavy metal. To me, they both have the about the same appeal in terms of songs. Each tier of songs has one song I really like, another song I think is good, one or two more that I have heard before, and one or two that I have never heard (or only heard in passing). This holds across both games. Guitar Hero II get some props because, though I am unfamiliar with the independent band bonus songs on each game, I do know the Trogdor song.

Because of its lack of practice mode and more difficult hammer-ons and pull-offs, this Guitar Hero seems like the more difficult one. Since I am just learning how to do hard mode in both games, I think it might be to my benefit to go through Guitar Hero II first before coming back to this one. We'll see.

Odin Sphere - Gwendolyn, Chapter 4

This is definitely a game I probably would not have picked up if not for actively reading various game-related forums. I mean, I would have been aware of it, but would not have made an effort to pick it up the day it came out. While it is pretty readily available through online retailers right now, it definitely seems like this will be a game that is destined to become hard to find and command high eBay prices.

Even if not, this game is special because it is one of the very few games made for a home console that is done entirely in two-dimensions. I'm not even talking about a cel-shaded 2D look or 3D-rendered graphics on a 2D plane. This games features two-dimensional sprites that move on a two-dimensional plane, just like the way things were back before Bill Clinton was president.

And the two-dimensional graphics are gorgeous. It is obvious that a lot of time and effort was put into drawing them. They are large, colorful, and contain many moving parts. Apparently this game was something like ten years in development and I can believe it for all of the detail in the graphics. It actually took me awhile to get used to the way the graphics flow in the game. I am used to either modern 3D games that have many frames of movement animation for each character, or modern 2D games on portable sytems where the small size and lack of detail makes the fewer frames of animation less noticable. When I first started playing, it was a little jarring to see the character move, oftentimes without looking different every time. I've gotten used to it, and I can certainly understand that it wasn't worth the effort to draw fifteen separate sprites for every character's movement, but it is so different (and such a throwback) that it rattled me.

The gameplay is almost that of a 2D one plane, beat 'em up. You move left or right, enemies appear, and then you whack them in various combos with your sword. Everything happens on the same plane and there is no real platforming. There are enough varieties of attacks and responses to enemies that there is a good learning curve for each foe. Only the easiest ones can just be repeated whacked with your weapon. And even then, your character tires, so if you do nothing but pound on the square button without occasionally retreating, your character will stop to rest and you will get hit. I'm enjoying this, but I wonder how deep it really is. Will I be tired of the possible attacks by the end of the game?

The game has what most people would describe as "RPG elements" so I'll throw it in the action/RPG genre. Unlike most RPGs, you don't get experience and level up by defeating enemies. Your magic almost levels up in this way. When you defeat enemies, they release phozons. By absorbing these, you not only fill up any depleted magic points, but you also earn magic experience, and so when you have absorbed enough, your magic level rises. Your health is similar leveled up by eating food. So food both restores HP and earns food experience which will eventually increase your maximum. It is certainly novel.

My basic impression of the game is positive. I am enjoying it quite a bit right now. The graphics are outstanding. The music and sound is clever (and the English voice acting is above average as well). The gameplay is currently satisfying, but I have a nagging suspicion that it might get old before I've finished the game. We'll see.

Shadow of the Colossus - Finished the game

I must say, I'm a bit disappointed with Shadow of the Colossus after finishing it, but that may be just because I didn't want it to end.

The final colossus battle was epic. A huge tower that shot bolts of electricity at you, forcing you to duck and run from cover to cover until you finally got near it. Then the climb up this huge creation took place. Once you finally reached some unprotected body parts, you had to stab and swing and jump, making the creature move in various ways so you could continue your climb up to the top of it.

The ending was also well done. It showed the sacrifice you had made in order to attempt to bring your female companion back to life. It also let you control your character during parts of it, making it feel like you were truly a part of the scene. Finally, it also connected this game to Ico to the delight of people who had played through both games.

That said, the experience didn't get me in the same way that Ico did. Ico was a truly immersive experience. I could almost forget that I was playing a video game and really imagine myself as a boy attempting to navigate through a vast castle. That said, the gameplay experience of Ico had something missing that I can't quite put my finger on. I mean, I enjoyed it, but while I loved the experience of Ico, I can point out many better games that I've played.

Shadow of the Colossus was the opposite. The gameplay was great. Forgoing any sort of random foes to kill in lieu of making the colossus battles the experience was absolutely the right decision. Figuring out each colossus worked very well and I loved the fights. Still, I didn't get as involved with this game as I did with Ico. Partly, the minimalist story in Shadow of the Colossus wasn't as well done as the minimalist story in Ico. Ico had two protagonists and thus could do much better at creating a subtle relationship between them. While I could see what Wander (the protagonist of Shadow of the Colossus) was going through and feel somewhat melancholy at having to slay the magnificent beasts, it didn't work as well. The experience also wasn't nearly as immersive. Riding around to discover new areas where the colossi were generally worked quite well. The biggest problem is that this game required much more fighting with the camera in order to get the view you needed. And sometimes the colossus behavior was just frustrating and you felt that only by luck did you manage to get where you need to go.

I had always assumed that I would give this game a very high score. And I think I would probably still recommend it to anyone with a PlayStation 2. But... I don't know. I'll have to ruminate on my feelings for a bit.

Shadow of the Colossus - Defeated the fifteenth colossus

I actually managed this feat on Tuesday night, but was tired and have been too busy to blog about it.

This is one of those games that gives you so much enjoyment that you can totally overlook its few flaws. I encountered one of them while fighting the fifteenth (and so second-to-last) colossus. I figured out how to defeat him long before I could actually pull it off.

Defeating each colossus, when properly done, is like a combination of action and puzzle solving. You have to figure out what you need to do to get to its week spot (or to even get it to reveal its weak spot). Once you have that figured out, you have to perform the correct actions needed to do this. Usually, it is not that difficult to perform to actions. It requires skill and reflex, but if you mess up, you can usually get it the next time. Some collosi are more action-oriented, but that has generally worked well; the sandworm colossus was largely about getting the timing of shooting him right while running away fast enough and that worked extremely well.

The fifteenth colossus had a decent puzzle solving aspect of figuring out how to get high enough so that you could jump onto him and be able to hold on. And it had a nice twist of having a second weak spot you had to find and hit to finish him. The problem is that getting to that second weak spot was so tedious. You needed to seemingly jump and move at the right time, but it wasn't at all obvious what the right time was. And then once you finally made it close enough, being able to grab on to stab the weak spot was frustrating because you could just jump and grab on. If you made any mistake while doing this, you feel to the ground and had to climb all the way up to the top of the building again.

Oh well, two (or maybe three) negative experiences out of fifteen so far isn't a bad ratio. Next time: The final colossus and the end of the game.

Shadow of the Colossus - Defeated the twelfth colossus

One thing I have yet to mention about this game is the music. It is wonderful orchestral stuff that plays appropriately depending on what is going on. Ambient nature sounds play as you explore. Subtle exploratory music plays as you near the colossus. Fast, action music plays as you encounter the colossus. Urgent music plays when you are on the colossus, furiously hanging on by a thread as it attempts to shake you off. It is very well done and very appropriate. Occasionally, it is a bit unsettling as the music suddenly shifts from one theme to another when it doesn't expect to, say, get off the colossus.

I think the bull colossus (the eleventh) was the weakest one I had fought so far in terms of interest in the battle. There was little sense of urgency because he did very little damage when he hit me. Running into various corners to avoid him played hell with the camera - at times I was fighting more with the camera than the colossus. The conceit of getting the flaming torch and then scaring off the colossus with it just didn't make much sense to me. Especially because I could never actually leap onto its back right after it fell. Instead, I leaped onto it after it was chasing me around in the nature area, making the whole process seem totally unnecessary.

The twelfth colossus (beast with a turret on its head in the water) took me the longest time to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do. It was the first time I got the second hint from the omniscient voice - I didn't even know there was a second hint before this fight. I had actually figured out that you had to fight the colossus from a different place, but I kept trying to reach the bridge overhead. Once I knew what to do, it didn't take long at all.

Shadow of the Colossus - Defeated the ninth Colossus

As I moved into the later colossi, the challenge level is ratcheting up. For the first time, while fighting the eighth colossus, I died. But I knew what to do so I tried again and was successful. The ninth colossus though, just kicked my butt many times. From projectiles that were near impossible to totally dodge to ground shaking footsteps that damaged me, I required many tries to overcome it. Heck, even once I'd figure out what I had to do in order to even get on the damn thing, doing so proved difficult. Getting to its weak point even more so. I wonder if I can expect taking multiple tries to defeat colossi from now on.

Shadow of the Colossus - Defeated the fifth Colossus

I think I already mentioned that the battles in this game are epic. It bears repeating. While the first colossus is a bit bigger than you and the second is more of the same with a slightly different strategy, by the third colossus, you truly feel miniscule in relation to them - heck, you run up its club after it swings at you so you can even get near its arm. The fifth colossus battle was truly amazing. It is a bird and you must leap on its back and hold on tight as it soars through the air. The designer's did a great job of making you feel like you were on a flying beast as it dips and turns and the air rushes past you.

I'm wondering when more of the story will come into the game. After the expository opening, that you brought the girl here to revive her and that the strange voices in the temple tell you that with your special sword, you can bring her soul back by defeating all sixteen colossi, I've gotten nothing. Don't get me wrong, I like the subtlety of the spirits of the dead colossi that surround you after you defeat one and that after the fourth one was killed, your horse went up to the girl and sniffed at her. I also get the emotional weight that goes with felling these beasts. They seem not evil, but more like forces of nature and you are destroying them. It is more like felling an ancient tree than beating a bad guy. But I've read a bit more of the story and I wonder when I'll find out the circumstances of why the girl was killed.

Shadow of the Colossus - Defeated the first Colossus

When the debate over whether games are art comes up, this game, along with its predecessor Ico are always tossed around as examples on the "pro" side. I have played Ico. It was extremely well put together. Everything in its world was crafted to make sense that it was there. It was immersive. It completely drew you in and made you feel like you were a little boy attempting to navigate through the castle and bring the girl with you. It was beautfiul. All that said, it was only above average as a game. As enthralled as I was by the world, I only had a decent time playing through it. The bottom line is that I think it was extremely important that the game was made because it challenged many perceptions of what a game is or should be.

Shadow of the Colossus is the game the lead designer and director Fumito Ueda made after Ico. And it feels more like a game. So far, more of the story seems to be told in cut scenes than in Ico. There is more of a heads up display (for your health, grip, and current weapon). I'm only a sixteenth through the game, but so far it seems less immersive than Ico.

That isn't to say that I'm not enjoying it. The game is a little more lonely, since it is you and your horse instead of you and a mute girl. It is still painstakingly designed, with all the scenery seeming absolutely appropriate. And the battles with the Collosi are, appropriately epic. These things are huge - at least five times as tall as your character. The lumber around and attempt to swat your character like the fly that he is to them. You need to climb him and find his weak point, all why he is attempting to shake you off.

It is interesting that, as far as I know, the Colossi are the only enemies in the game. It is rare that a game consists of nothing but boss battles, but I think that can work very well. I know Treasure made a game based on the concept of nothing but boss battles, but it never made it here to the US. Certainly the fact that there aren't random faceless enemies that you slay on your way to these things contributes to the world building.

I had already played the demo of the game previously, so I had actually already defeated this colossus. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next ones hold.

Guitar Hero II - Completed all songs on medium difficulty

I know I am late to the party, but this game is freaking awesome. You can truly feel like you are shredding through some hot rock and metal songs.

In college, I decided to learn the guitar. I had a few lessons the summer before I left and then pretty much tried to teach myself during my freshman year. I learned to play chords and can do that pretty well, but plucking and playing individual notes was always a bit beyond me. I'm sure if I had really dedicated myself to it, I could have done a bit better. I took piano lessons for 10 years and eventually got decent at that. Given all the other distractions at college, I never progressed beyond chords and frankly was fairly happy with that as I could sing along.

Still, I always envied my freshman year roommate who had more guitar skills than me. I dreamed of being able to recreate Slash's guitar skills in Sweet Child O' Mine (okay, this was largely prompted by a girl I was into once proclaiming how sexy that was). Now, thanks to Guitar Hero, I can pretend I'm jamming with the best guitarists.

The game is more-or-less set up like Dance Dance Revolution, having to strum the right fret when it hits the bottom of the screen. This means that two skills really help with this: hand-eye coordination and rhythm. Fortunately, I have both to some degree so Easy mode was genuinely easy for me. Medium mode is requiring much more skill and getting 5-star ratings on all those songs seems like it may take awhile, but I will remain diligent just because I want to rock.

I read an editorial worrying about whether games like these would discourage people from experimenting in actual music. For me, at least, that is poppycock. Playing this game has only made me want to pick up my actual guitar and hone my skills a bit. As much fun as it is pretending that I'm jamming some great songs, I know it would be much more impressive if I could actually do those things. Until then, I'll have to pretend it really is me shredding up Freebird.

Indigo Prophecy - Review

Indigo Prophecy is in some sense a difficult game to review. It starts out seeming like an adventure game with action elements doing story scenes and ends up pretty exclusively as an interactive movie. It also starts out with an awesome and intriguing story and ends up completing falling all over itself in the end, losing its focus on the characters to try to make the plot world-encompassing.

The story "stars" Lucas Kane who regains consciousness in a restroom after having stabbed a man to death and carving strange symbols on his hands. He has no clue why he did this and has to cover his tracks and escape quickly before he is found out. I put "stars" in quotes there because right after this scene, you take control of police officers Carla Valenti and Tyler Mills who are investigating the murder that Lucas committed and attempting to find who might have done it. Seeing the story of the game from both sides works very well and really makes you feel for each character, even sometimes having to play against yourself. You want Lucas to succeed and find out what happened to him and what made him murder that man, but you also want the officers to solve the case and put the murderer away. The storytelling really works. It is just too bad that the story takes a rapid turn toward the end of the game from a well-told horror story into something bizarre that just tries too hard.

The gameplay consists of adventure sequences and action sequences, sometimes mixed in with each other. In the adventure sequences, you control one of the main characters. You can walk around and when you come upon an item you can do something with, icons appear at the top of the screen along with a diagram showing which direction to move the right analog stick in order to perform that action. For example, in the first part of the game you need to hide the evidence of your murder so that includes hiding the murder weapon and the body and cleaning up yourself and the floor. The adventure sequences are generally never too tough. Many times just wandering around until you find all the icons and apply them all (except ones that are obviously counterproductive) is enough. There are slightly more involved puzzles as well, but I'm generally not very good at traditional adventure games and I never had to consult an FAQ. Even if you don't solve every puzzle or find everything that generally doesn't stop your game, but may deplete your health (described below).

The action sequences are where the game plays like an interactive movie. Theses are pre-rendered sequences where you don't actually control your character, but instead must press buttons in a certain pattern. Sometimes, you may have to rapidly alternate between pressing the L1 and R1 buttons, much like the old Track and Field game. At other times, two circles appear on the screen superimposed on the action. These circles have their top, bottom, left and right quarters colored differently. As the sequence proceeds, the quarters will light up and you must quickly press the corresponding analog stick in that direction. It is all very similar to the toy Simon. Sometimes the action sequences are do or die - failing them ends the game and you must continue. At other times, failing them only decreases your health.

So there is health in the game, but it is actually conceived as mental health, not physical. The few physically threatening situations you are in are generally action sequences that result in your death if you fail. Your mental health, though, fluctuates throughout the game. At the highest level you are calm. You can fall to stressed, depressed, and devastated. Losing all mental health ends the game, either by going crazy in Lucas' case, or having to quite your job in the case of either of the police officers. Actions you take can have positive or negative mental health consequences. Getting yelled at by your boss or fighting with your girlfriend will lower your mental health. Sleeping, showering, eating, or having sex will generally raise it.

The game itself doesn't take very long to get through. No one part is incredibly hard and shouldn't take too long to complete. There are a couple "stealth" sequences and the first one anyway can be very annoying. Not only does it distract from the story, but it is also frustrating as it can be hard to tell exactly why you failed sometimes. Since the game is often a movie and a story, any additional gameplay would probably just feel like dragging it out. It is paced well. It is a shame that, while there are three endings to the game, only one is good and it is quite easy to choose between them right at the end of the game as opposed to earlier actions having lasting consequences.

The graphics are fair. I imagine they would look much better in the X-Box version of the game, but on the PS2 they look a little muddy and blocky. The characters animate pretty well, and usually there is no problem, but on occasion the lack of detail in the graphics actually detracted from the story. The voice acting is extremely well done and a pleasure to listen to. The music is another high point. It is appropriately moody and varied and spooky. The sound completely helps to put you into the story of the game.

Indigo Prophecy definitely has its flaws, perhaps the biggest being that if you bought it at full price, you wouldn't be getting a lot for your money. Ultimately, it is an interactive movie and movies can only last so long. Still, it is quite enjoyable while you are experiencing it. You really feel like you are moving the story along through the things you do and not just going through the motions. Indigo Prophecy is really more of a pleasant experience than a game. If you enjoy stories and ways of storytelling, it is quite fascinating for that.

Rating: 7 / 10

Indigo Prophecy - Beat the Game

So, if I'd known there were about 5 more minutes left in the game where I last left off, I would have kept playing.

Besides the plot just becoming wacky at the end, the game also devolves into almost pure interactive movie. I like the controller sequences in the middle of action in most of the game, but by the end I was done with them. Yeah, so this game totally peters out by the time it ends.

Still pretty good. I'd be pretty happy if there were more games based on this concept.

Indigo Prophecy - Heading to Wishita Base

Every review I read described Indigo Prophecy as an adventure game (or as "the next evolution of adventure games" or something similarly absurdly profound). It definitely has many adventure elements. Having to find items and use them correctly is a key adventure mainstay and there are many sections of the game that play like that. Still, there are also several sections of the game that play more like an interactive movie. There are basically prescripted sequences and while they are unfolding, you must press the analog sticks in the same directions that the colored lights show you. Or maybe quickly alternate between pressing L1 and R1. These sequences owe much more to Dragon's Lair than, say, King's Quest. I won't be changing the genre I put this game into, but if indeed this does represent the evolution of adventure games, it is an intriguing direction.

Also, just about every I talked to who had played the game said that the story is really good until the end. Being at pretty much the end, I can concur. It starts out as a mystery that takes on a horror bent. All that seems fine. The fact that I am heading to this military base in order to save the world? Yeah, not so much.

Oh, I guess I just gave a minor spoiler. Yeah, the reason I subtitle each entry is so you can see where I am in the game. I consider anything I have experienced up to that point in the game to be fair game for these entries.