Wizorb review

Note: the following review was copy-pasted from my Steam review.

You should try Wizorb if you've ever played Breakout/Arkanoid/clones and thought, "Yeah, this is okay, but I'd rather play something else." And if you would PREFER to play those over other games, buy this right now. Even if it's not on sale. I mean, c'mon, it's three bucks!

For me, a lot of Breakout games become frustrating or dull, primarily because of choke points in level designs. This game has some of those, but it also gives you *permanent* tools for dealing with them, instead of forcing you to pray for a power-up. True, you have a usage meter that restricts how much/often you can use them, but refills come often enough (at least early on) that it's not too aggravating. You can shoot out bricks, bring in some wind, make the ball plow through breakable bricks (as opposed to the normal bouncing), and straight-up move the ball to where you want. Each technique consumes more of your magic meter, but you otherwise have total control over when you want to activate them.

Plus, there are shops in some levels (which are often locked, but you can unlock them by touching the door with the ball while you possess a key; or just hit a switch) and bonus areas in others. Each offer potions to refill your magic meter, extra lives, stuff like that. Also, at the starting village, you can donate money to the citizens to help them rebuild from a monster raid, which I'm guessing will result in rewards and shops later on.

The levels sets can drag on a bit, but you're given continues for if you run out of lives (you simply restart the current level if you need to use one), and you can save and quit in the middle of a set. Each set ends with a boss fight, and I like how these play out! The first one, at least, has no bricks - just two basic monsters and one large monster with a simple attack pattern. Although I won with ease, it was an engaging first fight, and it leaves me eager to see what's in store.

The game has keyboard controls, but the paddle moves too slowly to catch the ball once it speeds up enough (the ball gets faster the longer it's in play). I strongly recommend a mouse - or a TrackPoint (pointing stick), if you have a laptop with one. (Touchpad players need not apply.)

I really like the visual design. The sprites are fluidly animated, yet the color pallete is reminiscent of 8-bit game machines (I think of the NES, but YMMV). The frame rate is pretty smooth on my 2009 ThinkPad, never stuttering in my 45-minute first play. However, I don't care much for the music (part of that is surely just my tastes, but there are plenty of 8-bittish chiptunes that I've enjoyed over the years; this game's just aren't among them), so I guess this is a good game to utilize Steam's music player with if you find yourself agreeing with me. (You can adjust the game's music and sound effect volumes separately.)

Also, cross-platform support (especially for Linux!) is a big plus in my book. And like I said, the game's cheap. Give it a shot!

Wizorb on Steam

Man, Fire Emblem is hard

Full disclosure: I mostly wanted to get my previous post ("Frustrated with the world") off the top of my blog without deleting it. But I have been trying to play Fire Emblem games since then, so hey.

Before I start, I want to link to Easy Mode Players Are the Real Gamers, because it's a fascinating train of thought and I really like it; I will allude to it later.

When a friend gifted me a copy of Fire Emblem: Echoes, I dove into it on Hard mode, figuring that I was seasoned enough that the "Normal" would no longer be a challenge. I've gotten comfortable enough with Awakening to zip through it on Normal with little resistance, right? At least, that's how I remembered it.

I think I remembered wrong.

I was able to manage Acts 1 and 2 of Echoes without feeling frustrated, but even with Casual Mode enabled (i.e., no units actually die), I still had several Game Overs on the ship maps in Act 2 and generally had to learn many, many times from my mistakes, even with a reasonably firm hand on the mechanics, stats (and what they're for), and basic strategies. I had to struggle with Act 3, a lot, but I persisted, because I was still able to achieve victory by adjusting my strategy; I never went out of my way to level grind and raise either army's stats.

Act 4 put a swift end to that. No more than three maps in for either army, I've hit a roadblock so insurmountable that even several hours of grinding has not enabled me to clear it. My units drop like flies as soon as the enemy is upon them, and all I can do is squirm until they finish off the leader. Occasionally I'll have the presence of mind to retreat before an actual Game Over, but by then I've wasted over an hour and most of my team has accrued hardly any experience for their trouble.

That's a lot of Necrodragons.

It's at this point that I'd like to just drop the difficulty to Normal-Casual and get on with it, because I want to see the rest of the story and try out some different maps. But I can't - not without starting a new save file and repeating all three Acts, which would take me about 30 hours of playing time.

(I've looked around in some places online, and found that many Fire Emblem fans claimed that Echoes was "easy", even on Hard-Classic mode. It's salt in the wound, I have to say.)

As I type, I'm level grinding again (thank goodness for the auto-battle feature), but I'm debating restarting anyway; I haven't made any progress in the game's story in several months. Guess we'll see.

(Other Fire Emblem titles that I started, got stuck on, and quit playing: The Sacred Stones (can't even clear the first map without a death), Radiant Dawn (somewhere in part 2, I think).)

Nintendo Switch thoughts!

Man, the reveal of the NX - hereafter, the Nintendo Switch - was incredible. My mind is already racing with all the fun possibilities and I really hope that we get some more details soon!

But I have several thoughts I'd like to go ahead and write out. First, though: if you haven't watched the First Look video, do so now!

Done? Good.

Sooooo I'm hoping that the base will have a number of features that the tablets cannot, such as an optical drive (for backwards compatibility with Wii U software) and an included HDD (not just flash storage this time, please, Nintendo!), while keeping a respectable amount of flash storage on the tablet to hold a few downloaded titles (in addition to the cartridge, of course). Hopefully save files are always kept on the tablet, and/or automatically synced over the Internet.

I'm also hoping that there will be some sort of "starter box set" that includes the Switch as shown in the First Look, and standalone tablets (with a controller set) to accommodate additional family members. It'd also be great if the dock would allow any docked Switch tablet to use the software in the dock; maybe we could even "rent" downloadable titles from the dock?

I also really hope, if the Switch is designed to replace the Wii U and the 3DS family, that Nintendo makes a "mini" version of the tablet with the button controls built in (e.g., non-removable), so that we still have a pocketable portable system. If not, I guess we'll have to start hauling around our Switches in a tablet sleeve or book-sized carrying case once the 3DS family is phased out.

Speaking of which, I hope the battery life on the tablet is better than the 3DS family's - the OG 3DS in particular is painfully short in practice, even if you don't game that much. With my DS Lite, I can play in small bites and potentially not have to recharge the thing for over a week. (I wonder if the plane ride in the First Look is subtly addressing that question.)

I hope they keep - or even expand - the StreetPass and SpotPass features, too.

With all that said - I'm excited for this thing. I feel like my favorite feature (besides the natural benefits that come from the home and portable console being the same machine) is the fact that each "half" of the controller can be handed to a player for some simple, yet fun two-player (or even four, it seems) action! I'll be looking forward to having impromptu Mario Kart and Smash matches.

Have any of you thought of other wants/hopes for the Switch? By all means drop a comment below!

Short Thoughts on Fire Emblem: Awakening vs. Fates and emotional manipulation

I listened to some music from the soundtracks of Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fire Emblem: Fates a little while ago, and it occurred to me that while I look back (not that far, admittedly) on Awakening very fondly, I tend to feel a bit ... bitter when I think about Fates. The sentiment that usually comes to mind is based around a comment I saw on a gaming website: "'Fire Emblem: Pay For the Canon Ending'".

This got me thinking. For all the improvements we saw in Fates' gameplay features over Awakening, like the revised (read: less broken) Pair Up system and the multiplayer-friendly features like My Castle and actual PvP combat, the story (and some gimmicks related to it) feels like a step backwards.

Awakening, in my opinion, for the most part has a very generic-feeling story, but makes up for it with great characters (which the Support conversation scenes flesh out well) and decent pacing overall, save for the lull in the middle of the game. Meanwhile, Fates, in my opinion, tries too hard to make you feel for the characters, to get you invested in them and their struggle regardless of how naturally inclined you might be to do so.

I would go so far as to say that Fire Emblem: Fates is deliberately emotionally manipulative.

I mean, yeah, a lot of stories are to some degree, depending on your point of view. I don't think it's uncommon for a writer to stick in some sad lines or disastrous events to kick in the reader's empathy. But Fates hits the player hard and fast - most people will get to Chapter 5 within an hour or two, and we're treated to a fully-animated cutscene where a character very close to the protagonist - the player's Avatar - is killed by a sudden and brutal attack, courtesy of the Avatar's surrogate father, and the Avatar is filled with so much grief and rage that they transform into a dragon, right before kicking off Chapter 5's battle.

Awakening waits until Chapter 9 to pull its big death stunt (barring the opening cutscene, which carries different connotations because of the circumstances), which (as I remember) takes around 6-9 hours to arrive at, depending on difficulty. It gives you a lot more time to get emotionally invested in the characters and their plights. Plus, not every emotional moment is directly related to you, as the Avatar; the Avatar's role is more of a deuteragonist in this game (though it does shift a lot in the third act).

In contrast, every big scene in Fates is supposed to be tied to you (the Avatar) somehow. Your family from the house you sided against brand you a traitor. Your father of Nohr turned evil. Your mother dies. Your eldest siblings face you off near the climax.

On top of this, while Awakening gives what many consider to be a very satisfying ending, Fates leaves the player hanging if they play Birthright or Conquest.

All of this leads me to believe that Fates was written specifically to manipulate the player into feeling invested in the characters, so as to want a better resolution and pay for the other story paths. Indeed, the aforementioned "canon ending", Revelation, cannot be played through without also buying Birthright and/or Conquest. You must spend $60 to $80 instead of the baseline $40, to get either a downloadable copy of Revelation's data or a physical cartridge with all three paths.

I don't know why Intelligent Systems went with this pricing path. Maybe they thought it was honestly clever. Maybe they knew they needed a way to give newcomers and old hands appropriate ways to enjoy the same world and wrote Revelation because they couldn't fit the necessary plot threads into the separate versions. I don't know. But what it feels like is that they tried out a different scheme to make some extra money that turned out to be just a little too transparent, and I'm less inclined to buy the next Fire Emblem as a result.

On the merging of phone and gaming device

I'm a gadget addict. I like having multiple pieces of technology on me, at nearly all times. For the past eight years, I've carried around three staple devices on most days: a phone, a music player, and a gaming handheld. (Naturally, I wear a lot of cargo pants/shorts.)

That may sound ridiculous, but one of the things I love about relying on multiple gadgets is the "division of labor" - by not trying to force one device to do everything, I can conserve battery life on all of them and juggle multiple activities (to the extent that my brain can keep up).

Most of you have guessed where I'm going with this: the modern "smartphone" - pocket computers that happen to be telecommunications devices - has taken over nearly every "gadget" functionality for a huge chunk of the population. MP3 players and standalone PDAs have basically died out, while compact digital cameras are almost never seen outside of a retail store shelf. Even portable gaming devices are on the decline; many have asserted that the 3DS and the Vita (especially the Vita) have all but lost to the age of the smartphone, as the latter packs more convenience and computational power than the former, and most games for phones are much cheaper or outright "free".

I'm not here to go into an argument about the quality or merit of the games on one platform or the other. I love my gaming handhelds, but I've found plenty of games for Android devices that I'll sing praises about. What I do want to talk about is a problem I keep running into that indirectly affects every portable game out there - the consolidation effect (yes, I just made that name up. Don't snicker).

The thing about folding "handheld gaming" into a smartphone is that it's an enormous drain on a device that's already being asked to do so much. Think about it: with our phones, we: make phone calls; communicate with text messages and similar OTI services; browse the web and research things; take photos and videos; edit photos; listen to music; navigate and find places to navigate to; pay for things; check our email; check on documents; check our schedule; check the news; take and utilize notes; watch videos; control TV accessories; and so. Much. More. It's almost no wonder that, despite nearly two decades and counting of smartphone development and growth, we're all still struggling to make most phones get through a full day of use without needing a recharge.

And we seriously want to add video games, one of the most resource-intensive tasks a personal computer can do in this day and age, to that list of daily tasks with nothing to siphon it off to?

I'm excited for Nintendo's plans for mobile games (I'm really hoping their Fire Emblem title will be worthwhile). I've joined the Pokémon GO craze. I've found games that I really enjoy playing on my phone, from Super Hexagon (a port) to Space Grunts (an original title; and a pretty fun rougelike) to Monument Valley (an original puzzle game). But no matter how good, or how deep, or how fun those games are, I always find myself keeping play sessions short - much shorter than I do when I'm playing a game on my DS, my Wii, or my desktop PC.

Primarily, that's because my phone gets hot (which forces the phone to reduce performance and which hurts the battery's lifespan), and the battery drains fast. I have a Droid Turbo, mind - a phone that was touted by Motorola and Verizon as being capable of getting through 48 hours without needing a charger. Not once has it quite lived up to that claim in practice - and since I started playing Pokémon GO, it's become hard to even get through sixteen hours without reaching for extra juice (granted, that game is an extreme example). Unlike my DS, I have to make sure my phone still has power to actually be used as a phone - I certainly don't want someone to call me at 3 PM only for me to realize I have 10% left on the battery gauge. (Which is exactly what can happen to someone playing a lot of Pokémon GO in the middle of the day, with no outlet nearby.)

Secondarily, there's the issue of activity focus, yet another thing we as a society have been doubtlessly struggling with thanks to "smart" devices. While you're playing a game on a phone, a notification may appear; a phone call may come in; a text message may arrive; or something else may come up that forces you to switch apps. Besides breaking your focus, responding to these interruptions put extra work on the phone and may even push the game out of working memory - forcing the software to reload when you switch back to it. This, of course, contributes to the primary issue of battery life and phone heat. If this happens while you're gaming on a DS? Pause and/or close the lid, optionally pocketing/setting down the console. It's little things like that that make the experience much less annoying, in my opinion.

My point is, Sony's probably not making another handheld, and after whatever rumored portable segment of Nintendo's "NX" comes to light, who knows if there will be a handheld successor? If the answer is "none", then the future of portable gaming will left entirely in the hands of our cell phones.

I just don't think our batteries are ready for that.

A Breath of the Wild, Fresh Air

Open-world games and I kind of have a rocky relationship. I ignore them, and they ignore me. I have avoided, among other franchises, Fable and The Elder Scrolls (I tried Skyrim once, on an Xbox 360, and I simply failed to stay interested), largely because the open-world nature of those games leaves me in a sort of choice-paralysis.

Even with The Legend of Zelda, one of my favorite franchises, there are games I have not completed because of how little they hold your hand. I have a copy of the original game for the NES, as a real cartridge, and on my 3DS as a Virtual Console title. The former, I've never actually played, and the latter, I've owned for over a year and a half, and I still have three dungeons left to do. Every time I pick up that game, I get frustrated with something and leave it alone again before I can accomplish anything. Everything I have accomplished was done with the aid of a detailed map and a textual walkthrough; the latter was used to find some items to reduce frustration (White Ring, more Hearts, etc.), and the former was used to give me a sense of direction. Without both at hand, I don't feel free - I feel lost. The freedom to aimlessly wander without being told about a specific, immediate goal almost always leaves me feeling like I'm wandering around without purpose, wasting time, when I could be getting something done in the game. Even in Zelda games I otherwise love, there are occasionally parts where, if I don't have them memorized, I become frustrated so easily from a lack of direction that I turn to a walkthrough (big example: the Triforce Shard quest in Wind Waker; also, the mandatory trading subquest in Link's Awakening). It's weird, because if I know what my goal is, and how to do it, then I don't mind taking a little detour from time to time (example: hunting for Maiamais in A Link Between Worlds between dungeons), because I know what I have to do and I'm free to break off my distraction to go do it and move on.

And yet, somehow, I am incredibly excited for Breath of the Wild.

I don't know what it is.

I know that I got excited watching much of the footage during E3. It looked like great fun to wander upon a bunch of Bokoblins with naught but a stick, and come out victorious with a club and a bow. The whole way the weapon breakage worked, combined with the system for switching weapons, got me a bit giddy at the challenge it should offer. Just the prospect of exploring the world, and the footage showing off some of that, yet still having at least a few people point me in the direction the player should go for answers, special items, and the like - giving purpose to the wandering beyond resource gathering, one the player is free to follow at their leisure.

So many open-world games have done these things already, and yet I've not wanted to give them a chance. Why is this Zelda game different to me? Why is it different for anyone?

I don't know. Maybe it's just that Nintendo touch.

Reasons I Love Pokémon Black and White

[It's been a while since my last post, hasn't it ... ?

This is just a small list I wrote about a year ago; I kept it tucked away in my Google Drive and never posted it anywhere. Today, while reorganizing my Drive, I stumbled upon it, and decided it might be fun to share.]

Beware of unmarked spoilers. [EDIT: December 12, 2015: Now with some TV Tropes links.]

• This is the only game (pair) in the franchise where your motivation for challenging the Elite Four is, at any point, not the comparatively self-centered goal of becoming the Champion for glory or ranking. Instead, you challenge them because it's the only option you have to reach and confront N, who at this point has issued a challenge where failure to win - and presumably, refusing to meet the challenge - means separation of Pokémon and humans the world over.
• Related to the above:
• The climax of the game's "Team X" storyline doesn't end before the 7th or 8th Gym badge, as it did in pretty much every other generation - instead, it's the final bosses, just after the Elite Four. This time, prior to the 8th badge is when the player learns of N's ultimate intention, and suddenly the heat is on to chase him to the Pokémon League, making the pursuit of the 8th badge much more purposeful.
• The game's experience system - which is only used in this generation - makes it harder to overlevel a team without seriously going out of one's way to level grind. As a result, many players arrive at the Elite Four with a team roughly equal in levels to the opponents'. This, I think, makes the final bosses much more exciting and challenging, with an increased reliance on good tactics even for veterans. (That Hydregion though.)
• The flow of events after defeating the Elite Four and marching forth to face N has a more-traditional JRPG feel, in my opinion. There's a lot of buildup, and it meets expectations instead of being an underwhelming letdown that's resolved in five minutes.
• Just after the "Pokémon League Under Siege" cutscene comes one of my favorite tracks in the game, "Carrying Out A Mission". It's right up there with "For the Savior" from Lufia 2 as far as heroic "we gotta do this" songs go - but unless you stand around for a bit, you only hear the first ten seconds, and it never plays again.
• The final boss feels like a final boss; that's not to say the Champions were never climactic or challenging or anything, but see my first bullet point - it was all friendly competition, and there was no danger or menace in those fights (with the possible slight exception of your Rival in Gen 1). This time, you're fighting a madman, and as far as you can tell, he's angry enough to kill you (he doesn't exactly try, but still).
• The ending cutscene is somewhat emotionally charged and has a beautiful track to go with it. You don't get the usual Hall of Fame bit, which may leave veterans feeling like they have unfinished business ...
• The game sets up a good ol' Checkov's Plot Trinket, which isn't made terribly obvious unless you play both versions of the game. I'm pretty sure this is the first time in the series that such a thing is done so early in the story, and without a huge neon sign that says "SUPER IMPORTANT THING HERE".
• Bianca, Cheren, Bianca's father, and N all get noticeable character development. This is well below (above? it's a negative thing after all, and in golf you score low ...) par for the course for most stories in general, but for a Pokémon game it's pretty nice, and it's done fairly well. Two of the related cutscenes even get pretty emotional pieces (and there are even more for N, delivered as flashbacks, in B2W2).
• The whole plot related to Team Plasma's purported goal legitimately calls into question the "slave or friend" debate on Pokémon, something that has been on the minds of many fans and Moral Guardians since the series' debut. It's not often that a kid-friendly game examines itself in this manner, and it provides plenty of food for thought. (N's possible backstory does too, though more in the form of Fridge Horror.)
• Despite the first bullet point, you can return to the Pokémon League after the credits and rematch the Elite Four - then properly challenge the Champion. He doesn't quite get the awesome battle theme other Champions have, but he makes up for it by having a pretty tough team at high levels (though keep in mind that, in story, N stomped this team flat), hot on the heels of Red's team. It takes a lot of level grinding to stand a chance if you didn't import a battle-hardened team from Gen 4, so it's a pretty meaningful battle for a lot of players.

What do you like about the Gen 5 games? Please tell me in the comments!

Thoughts on Mewtwo

I was one of the many people who got to play as Mewtwo in Smash 4 on the 15th. Having only vague memories of trying him in Melee and sucking in the ensuing matches, I was cautiously hopeful that I'd find him more acessible this time around.

Suffice to say that I look forward to using him on my next Smash Tuesday. :)

I don't really remember enough about Melee Mewtwo to discuss the differences (and I am NOT going through the playtime needed to unlock him on my own save file), so I'll just go over some of his moves and what I liked. Hopefully this will tide over any folks who are waiting to purchase him on April 28th.

As one would expect, Mewtwo's all about psychic-based attacks and movement, but his standard attacks mix in physical strikes, focusing on his tail. On the ground, his neutral standard, a quick psychic "punch", does 4% of damage, while his side standard is a swipe of his tail, doing anywhere from 9% to 15%. Mewtwo varies his physical and psychic attacks a fair bit while in the air. Smash attacks are more psychic-based, and they hit pretty hard, with great launching power.

Mewtwo's specials include Teleport (up), Confusion (side), Disable (down), and Shadow Ball (neutral). Teleport is familiar to many Smash players who use the likes of, say, Palutena, but Mewtwo's executes quickly, and he floats for a second if his warp destination is in the air. It's handy for sudden changes of target or tactics. Confusion flips around the target a bit, but it's very short range. Disable will stun an opponent - the more damage, the longer it lasts - but it only works while making eye contact. It's perfect for setting up a battered opponent for a KO. Shadow Ball is a charge move that doesn't auto-fire when fully charged; at any point while charging, you can hit the shield button to store the charge and resume later.

He isn't without drawbacks, of course - Mewtwo has a light body and is quite easy to launch. He's a high-risk yet high-reward character, as a result, so make sure you're skilled with shielding and rolling!

I'm having a blast experimenting with Mewtwo, and although I can't defeat high-level CPUs yet, I don't think it will take long.



Additional thoughts:

I'm willing to bet that players can fight with/against Mewtwo online regardless of purchase status. The download for Mewtwo himself, according to the eShop, is 58 KB on the Wii U and 16 KB (two blocks) on the 3DS. That's impossibly small - and leads me to believe that Mewtwo's data is actually in the 1.0.6 update, ensuring that everyone playing online has Mewtwo's code on their system.

I wonder if Nintendo will use this method for future DLC (meaning game updates when new characters come out), or if it's just for Mewtwo. Unlike Mario Kart 8's DLC tracks, characters probably don't use much disk space, so it's not that unreasonable to push DLC data onto everyone's console. (The biggest caveat, in my opinion, is that each update could break replays, meaning that replays you made the day of Mewtwo's release could be unplayable in two months when Lucas comes out. But then again, that really should only happen when the game balance is tweaked ...)


Anyway, hope to see you fellow Mewtwo fans online!

Review: Sonic CD (XBLA version): A Blast From The Past, Present, and Future

Sonic CD is one of those games that can’t be brought up without half the room going, “… Sonic what?” Released on the expensive, ill-fated Sega CD (a Genesis/Megadrive accessory that was plagued by horrible, FMV-based “games”), only the more dedicated fans will have heard of it, let alone beaten it, and it’s not an easy game to show to fans who are more accustomed to Sonic’s … modern achievements. But underneath its obscurity, Sonic CD is a real treasure, and Sega was smart enough to make sure that treasure feels as beautiful now as it was then, using Sonic fanChristian “Taxman” Whitehead’s “Retro Engine” for all the ports.

For starters, the game now runs at 60 frames per second in all situations, and features true widescreen support. Sprites can be smoothed out to make them seem better to bystanders, but I’m perfectly happy to play with their old, unfiltered selves (granted, I have an old CRT TV). The USA and Japanese soundtracks are included (defaults to JP); while the JP soundtrack is considered to be vastly superior by many, the USA one has its merits. (My two cents: play as Sonic with the one you like most, and then play, with the other soundtrack, as …) Tails shows up in this port as well, as an unlockable character, awarded by beating the game once as Sonic. He features his flying and swimming abilities from Sonic 3, and a few new sprites for situations he’s previously never been in (the Special Stages come to mind). Tails is great for leisurely exploring the levels to learn paths you may have been timid or too much in a hurry to go down as Sonic (that 10 minute limit can be haunting!). Finally, the game saves after each Zone (Act, as it’s called in later games), instead of only after you defeat a boss, and you get four save slots.

Sonic, of course, is where the action all is, and he’s a joy to control here. I found myself able to peel through stages like they were nothing in Time Attack mode, while able to elegantly explore the stages in the main game, scouring the land for time posts and rings. Sonic accelerates and stops smoothly (contrast: Sonic 4 Ep. 1), and you’re given the option of using the original Spindash (that is, the one in the original Sonic CD) or the Sonic 2-style spindash (the good one, in seemingly everyone’s opinion). Sometimes I really didn’t care if I was moving towards the goal or away; it was just funto move Sonic around, especially on the obstacle-course sections of the Zones.

Sonic CD’s Special Stages – accessed by finishing a Zone with at least 50 rings - have been perfectly preserved as well – maybe a little too well. The pseudo-3D design can be jarring for audiences that didn’t grow up in the Mode 7-esque days, and even old-school fans will have to adjust to the now incredibly-smooth framerate (60 FPS vs. 30 FPS in the original), as jumping timing is a little different. I found it fairly easy to get used to, and before I knew it I had three Time Stones. (Good luck, of course, on getting the other four!) The objective, for those wondering, is to run around the 3D stage and destroy multiple UFOs floating in the air by jumping into them – with a 99 second time limit that drops by ten seconds if you walk into water. Succeed, and you win a Time Stone.

Players of modern Sonic who are used to holding right and jumping from time to time won’t find much of that here. The stage designs are dense, packed with obstacles that ensure that Sonic will rarely reach top speed. There are multiple possible reasons, all benign. It becomes all that more joyous when you can move Sonic at top speed for those precious seconds. Time travel becomes a challenge as you struggle to maintain good speed to start the warp (and it becomes harder to do it by accident). Time trials are more challenging as you struggle to find a fast route (if you find it, you canblaze through most Zones). The slower pace lets you take in the scenery better. Maybe the level designers just got giddy about the extra storage space. Whatever the reason, Sonic CD’s levels can seem convoluted and intimidating at first, but with time they become elegant, beautiful paths that can be tackled without breaking a sweat.

The game does have a few nits, like the score tally at the end of each Zone occuring after the music has played (and feeling like an arbitrary delay if you happen to be playing your own music), but the game offers plenty of redeeming qualities that all the negatives can be brushed aside with ease. And to top it off, this thing is $5 (at least on Xbox Live Arcade). It’s practically an impulse buy. What more could you ask for from Sega, who, at long last, has given a formerly forgotten title its welcome return.

First Impressions: 4.5/5 OHMAGOD SONIC CD IS BACK AND SEGA DIDN’T SCREW IT UP

Gameplay: 4.5/5. The Sonic 2-style Spindash is a welcome improvement. Sonic is fun to control.

Visuals: 3.5/5. They didn’t remake the sprites, just added a smoothing filter. Special Stage looks dated as a result.

Sound: 4.5/5. Is it 18-year-old music? Yes. Is it lossless? I don’t know. Does it sound fresh and exciting? OH YES

Controls: 5/5. Back to basics. You could play this with an Atari VCS joystick. Again, Sonic moves great.

Difficulty: 4/5. I’m not really sure how hard this would be for a newcomer. I’ve technically played this game before (on the 1995 PC version), so I know the game fairly well.

Storyline: 2/5. This was back in a time when Sonic wasn’t about story, so just ignore this number and go play the darn game.

Overall: 5/5.

Sonic and all affiliated characters and elements are © Sega, Sonic Team. Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade are © Microsoft Corporation.

This review was originally published on Tumblr in December 2011. View the original post.
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Review: Frogger 3D (1997)

    Frogger, as a game in general, hardly needs introduction to most gamers around today. Konami developed the arcade hit in the early 80s, and Sega (then its publisher) granted the rights to port it to various companies, including Parker Brothers and Sierra. Seemingly every video game and computing platform of the era soon received official ports, most notably the Atari home consoles. Unquestionably a hit, the game made a lasting impression throughout the decade, and was granted a sequel (ThreeeDeep!) for several home consoles in 1984. Time passed, and Frogger largely fell out of the public eye for the majority of the 90s, occasionally being granted a reference in assorted media, and even a brief animated series - until, suddenly, Frogger started showing up in a whole slew of video games in the early 2000s. Showing up on the then-current home consoles and the Game Boy Advance, Frogger underwent a huge revamp of sorts, seemingly out of nowhere, and rode into the millenium on various expansions, ports, and the like. But, in truth, the revival started a little before Y2K came about - with a 3D game, in 1997.

    Branded as Frogger: He's Back!, the 1997 Frogger was a 3D remake of the arcade game for the PlayStation and the PC, developed by SCE Cambridge and published by Hasbro Interactive. It was an instant success, selling nearly a million copies in the first four months. It didn't gather the warmest of critical reception, but the game made a decent fanbase for itself and is generally remembered fondly by its players.

    At least, at first.

    Frogger '97 starts off pretty well. It has a number of interesting levels (which are divided into nine Zones; more on that later), has a pretty catchy soundtrack, and gives Frogger three neat powerups that spice up the gameplay. The visuals, while a bit simplistic for their time, are colorful and kind of charming, and they get the job done. The controls respond pretty well (although the camera rotation takes some getting used to), and the level design at times incorporates a feel of exploration, keeping the experience from growing stale as you progress through the game and hunt for the baby frogs.

    But that's where some of the problems start to come in.

    What belies Frogger's cheery presentation and simple starting difficulty level is a brutal, merciless game. The level timer is the first component - although it gives reasonable time limits in the PC version, the PlayStation version's timer stalks the player like a crocodile eyeing his next helping of frog's legs. While the game does offer powerups that grant extra time, over half of the later levels give you naught but a few seconds' leeway to nab your next baby frog; a few even start you off with less than the barest minimum necessary to grab the farthest frog, forcing you to eat time flies every time you set out for the next baby.

    Similarly, the design of some of the levels tends to pile on the stress when it comes to racing against the clock. Frogger Goes Skiing is egregious in particular, thanks to its atypical sliding mechanic - the directional buttons merely steer and adjust Frogger’s speed. Touching any enemy, or any side of a jump ramp, kills the poor frog. Falling down a hole or off the side kills him. All the while, the timer is counting down, and the overhead light is constantly diminishing - a gimmick of the Zone in which the level resides - so swift completion is mandatory. Other levels rely on obstacles like mazes (Web Caverns and - in a sense - Lava Crush) or astoundingly tricky enemy patterns (Big Boulder Alley, for instance) to stall for time and kill the player from all sides. Without any mode for free play or exploration, it may take dozens of tries to learn any given level’s layout or patterns, swiftly leading to frustration. The only show of mercy that the game offers is that this kind of difficulty is almost exclusively saved for the later levels of the second half of Zones; while earlier levels are tricky, they are beatable with a little practice.

    One of the game’s gimmicks is that, in one level of each Zone, there’s a Golden Frog hidden somewhere. A few are out in the open, requiring minimal effort to locate and reach; while others are cleverly tucked away in spots one might have to go out of their way to search for - that is, if they weren’t already doing so to complete the level, thanks to some of the placements of the baby frogs. Thankfully, once a Golden Frog is found, it stays that way - even if the player Game Overs on the level. Each Golden Frog appears on the side of its Zone’s block on the level select screen; they also unlock new Zones, one per frog. Finding all nine of them grant the player a bonus ending when they clear the final level - but it boils down to a short, rather uninteresting video clip whose content is almost a non-sequitur. It's a task best suited to a player that enjoys the hunt, rather than the reward.

    But rest assured, it will be an interesting hunt. Frogger has a handful of new moves and power-ups to navigate the Zones: a powerful Croak to help locate the babies, Marco Polo style (it also triggers a burst of light in the cave levels); a long-reaching tongue, used to pick up items such as Auto-Hop and Time Flies; and a Superhop, used to leap over obstacles, climb the terrain, and maintain some hangtime when jumping off a moving platform. The Zones themselves come in a variety of settings to test these abilities - including the classic “retro” stages, a riverside highway, a beehive and some deep woods, a lava-coated factory (in which Frogger will sometimes wipe his brow), dank caves, the sky, a desert, grime-infested sewers, and a jungle.

Items are present, too, in the form of edibles - namely, fies. Most flies give points, but there are flies that add time to the timer; flies that extend the reach of Frogger’s tongue; flies that let him auto-hop at top speed; flies that increase his hopping speed; and flies that outright grant an extra life.

The game has a decent soundtrack, with two level themes for each Zone. the Retro Level themes have a timeless feel with a positive vibe; the Lily Islands themes are light and a bit jazzy; and Lava Crush’s theme is a punchy romp through the factory, to mention a few. The end credits feature a nice melody that combines tracks from all the Zones, and it feels particularly nostalgic.

    Overall, Frogger 3D is a nifty package, and it can keep dedicated gamers busy for several weeks as they clear the courses and aim for higher scores. It’s tricky, and requires a lot of practice to clear the later levels, but in my opinion the feeling when one finally beats a tough stage is worth it. If you can find a copy, give it a shot!

This review was originally fermenting as an article planned for Hardcore Gaming 101, but I decided to tweak it a bit and post it here.

Review: Fire Emblem: Awakening

No matter how much I try to avoid it, my focus on new games keeps drifting back to old(er) favorites. Sometimes this means firing up a Virtual Console title or bringing my SNES out of a shoebox, but at other times it simply means dusting off a two-year-old cartridge case and popping the game in my 3DS. After a while, I decide it's been fun and put the game away to focus on the newest stuff (or, you know, real life), but some games get a good hold of me and I keep playing them for days or even weeks, simply because I enjoy them that much, even if it means putting off playing that shiny new game I bought the other day. Fire Emblem: Awakening is one of those games.

For the uninitiated, Awakening is a tactical RPG, the thirteenth in the Fire Emblem franchise, and a savior for the nearly-cancelled series, selling over 400,000 copies in North America alone. It is widely regarded by players as the best 3DS game to reach the continent during 2013, a notion I've echoed to many friends. The game tells the story of Prince Chrom and his band of Shepards, a group of warriors who aim to protect the peace in their haildom of Ylisse; the game also explores the background of the player-created character (known as Robin or the Avatar by default), who is found by the Shepards, uninformed and amnesiac.

The game employs the usual grid-based Super Fancy Extreme Ultra Chess 9001 & Knuckles system, with assorted characters and classes, weapons and tomes, staves and skills, and anyone who's played Final Fantasy Tactics or a previous Fire Emblem will feel right at home; anyone who hasn't will be pleased to know that the tutorial is informative and unintimidating – which is good, because those unaccustomed to strategy will likely want to spend their brainpower experimenting and avoiding any casualties on their side, as fallen units in this game are lost forever. Intelligent Systems was generous enough to add a Casual Mode, which renders defeated units simply incapacitated for the battle instead of totally, irreversibly dead – but some will prefer to avoid this handicap, as it takes the sting out of a loss and drops something that is uniquely Fire Emblem. I can attest that the enemies in the game will jump right to picking off the weak units if they get the chance, and your party will become weak if you don't flex some strategic muscle and let them cower in a corner every battle. All of this adds weight to every decision, and watching how the enemy responds to your movements can be tension-filled and – if you survive – rewarding.

As in life, though, there's more to this game than meets the eye. The game's Support system allows each of the characters you encounter to form bonds by fighting side-by-side in combat, and at certain points, you can watch them interact – for a certain degree of “watch” - and eventually make them close friends or even marriage partners. The dialog in the Support scenes is nothing short of charming, adding depth to all of the characters and providing numerous heartwarming and hilarious moments. Even better, the Avatar can support with every character, giving him or her lots of marriage options and perhaps some wish-fulfillment to the player. All of this ties back to combat, as characters with strong bonds will take better care of each other on the battlefield, making the feature worthwhile even for players who somehow find the whole thing a bit sappy for their tastes (every cutscene and bout of dialog in the game can be skipped, incidentally).

The presentation can be a bit of a mixed bag, though, depending on one's tastes. The game features a healthy mix of polygons and obvious sprites, though the latter is limited mainly to characters on the maps and item icons in menus; almost everything else is polygonal. Sometimes this results in uniquely distracting effects, such as a rocking ship in one chapter which is overlaid by unmoving sprites on the battle grid; but for some this adds to the charm of the visuals, as Fire Emblem has long been presented with only sprites. On the other hand, the coloring of the environments leave a bit to be desired, as the landscapes quickly prove to be little more than shades of brown and green. Battle scenes, despite impressive character animations, soon start to blend into each other or feel a bit dull, especially when compared to the menus, which at least show lots of colorful character portraits and tomes to mix it up a bit.

The music is consistently wonderful. Often moderately-paced, battle themes run at a smooth tempo that's perfect for thinking about your next move, and it seamlessly ups in scale when combat begins. Cutscenes get some great tunes as well, and the entire soundtrack has a few recurring riffs – leitmotifs – to give it consistent themes. It makes it all the more enjoyable to actively listen to, even when not playing the game (and if you can't shell out for a set of CDs, worry not - the game lets you freely play its music in the Unit Gallery after you beat the game once).

When the game is done, it has a lot of extras to offer – there are several side-stories and plenty of paid downloadable chapters to check out if you end up bitten by the strategy bug. Even if strategy's not really your thing, it's worth downloading the demo or borrowing a copy to see if you might adapt. Failing that, however, as long as you own a 3DS, I can say without a shred of uncertainty that Fire Emblem: Awakening is worth your time.

This review originally appeared on Review A Great Game Day 2015. You can view it here.