Silent Reflections

Finish Him!

2020-04-09T19:57:00.002-07:00

Mortal Kombat was one of the first game franchise I fell in love with. Although Street Fighter 2 was very popular at the time, I wasn't a big enough fan of the genre to completely enjoy it. I think the all-time great games converts non-genre fans into fans. Games like Resident Evil for example turned countless gamers into survival horror fans. Mortal Kombat was the game that made me get into beat-em-up games even though I sucked at playing them. There were several reasons why Mortal Kombat resonates with me so much as a young gamer.

1. The comic book influence

I was a comic book nerd before becoming video games so comic books influenced a lot of my collecting habits. Stuff like variant covers that permeates into the DVD and video game market all stems from the comic book market I believe. Mortal Kombat co-creator John Tobias was an inspiring comic book artist who created rich backstory for each Mortal Kombat combatants. It was fascinating to learn about Scorpion and Sub-Zero origins through the comic book panels included with the game. It draws you into the characters and the world before you even pick up the controller to play.

2. The Van Damme factor

The 80s action movie genre was all about beefcakes, namely Schwarzenegger and Stallone. Then you have the lower tier action stars like Chuck Norris, Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme (JCVD). Somehow me and a bunch of friends always gravitated towards JCVD more than any of these action stars. Van Damme was leaner and more agile than his peers, he could actually do splits and flying kicks. JCVD later bridges the gap between Hollywood and Hong Kong movies which led to an entire new obsession for me. But also I think we were just a bunch of horny teenagers and JCVD movies always had sex scenes compared with other action movies lol. Anyway, Mortal Kombat famously have a JCVD type of character in Johnny Cage, arguably still one of the face of the MK franchise.

3. The Hong Kong movie influence

HK movies influenced a lot of the design on the original Mortal Kombat. The plot was more or less Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon and the background music on Select Your Fighter is distinctly oriental. You could say the series began to lost its appeal once it started to stray from its eastern influence in MK3. I was just getting into the HK cinema obsession when Mortal Kombat appeared. It was like a weird fusion of all my favourite things in one.

So imagine as a young boy my only option of playing Mortal Kombat was on the Gameboy. The monochrome version lacking the Johnny Cage character in the roster! I remember buying this game at the video shop next to my tuition center on the street behind the arcades that I frequented to play SF2. The Gameboy version of Mortal Kombat played like it was on molasses. It's always a love hate relationship when it comes to handheld gaming for me and MK is a prime example of that.

How I Got the SNES

2020-02-29T23:00:00.001-08:00

I remember thinking I had no chance of ever owning a Super Nintendo. After all, as a kid living with your parents and playing it without them finding out is practically impossible. But somehow I managed it when the opportunity simply just presented itself.

During Form Two, one of my classmate had a Super Nintendo system which he bought in the Netherlands when his father was stationed there briefly. This was a PAL system of course when most of the system you could buy locally here were either Japanese or American system. He only had one game that came bundled with the system which was the legendary Super Mario World, quite possibly the best bundled game even till today. So without the means of online shopping back in 1995, owning a Super Nintendo with just one game isn't very entertaining after awhile. He was desperate to sell the whole thing and in this lukewarm market I gladly took it off his hands for $12 if my memory is correct. I remember packing the Super Nintendo into my schoolbag and happily carrying it home that day without my parents noticing.

I'm not sure if everyone would agree with the rationale of paying $12 for a console which you simply have no feasible means of buying games for at that time. But the way I saw it I was plucking $12 down just to play Super Mario World, anything else afterwards would be a bonus. I was definitely not disappointed and managed to finished it numerous times with nothing else left to play. If you were wondering how I did it, I moved an unused television set into my room and waited for my parents to go to bed before playing it late at night.

Many years later, I re-discovered this SNES along with 5 games which I gathered over the course of time. When opening the box which I kept everything, I certainly was surprised because I must have bought these games much later and only played most of them sparingly.

Against the Odds

2020-01-15T05:12:00.000-08:00

Where do I begin with the Super Nintendo (SNES) ?

I supposed I can't talk about the SNES without talking about my first ever system, the Gameboy. You could say the Gameboy is my first handheld and the SNES is my first console although my experience with both systems are remarkably different. So much so that I practically forgotten I had the system tucked under my window all these years!

I can't remember when exactly I got the SNES but it must be sometime after 1994. Why 1994? Because that's when Nintendo introduced the SNES peripheral called the Super Gameboy. It was a device that allows you to play Gameboy games on the SNES using this cartridge adaptor. I was immediately smitten by the idea of such a device, the ability to play handheld games on the television screen was pretty revolutionary back in 1994. Even more so when Nintendo released Donkey Kong 94 for the Gameboy as a showcase for what the Super Gameboy can really do.

The only problem was my strict parents would never entertain the idea of having a home console seeing how bad my grades were. In fact if you take away the SNES, the Gameboy was my only game system throughout my childhood until I graduated from university.

Sad but I suppose that's what makes this a great story - how I got a home console and keep it a secret despite strict parenting

Kept You Waiting Huh?

2019-12-31T06:12:00.001-08:00

Time flies, I haven't had much to muse about in terms of games and 2 years passed since my last entry. Yikes

I loved writing and also reading my own blog, all these blogging are really meant for myself which some might find odd or ashamed to admit such. So while reading back some of my past entries recently, I stumbled upon a lie. Well not a lie actually but not the true for sure.

I do and still have a Super Nintendo.

Somehow when writing about Iwata passing in 2015, I have seemingly forgotten this and said I have always longed for a Super Nintendo. The Super Nintendo was not mentioned before unlike my early childhood years of playing the Nintendo Gameboy. Earlier this year while spring cleaning I stumbled upon my Super Nintendo. It was a great feeling especially when powering it up again, like finding a lost Christmas gift after all these years.

Sometimes certain memories just get buried away in some dark corner of the mind.

So now I have something to write about again.

Fad Gimmick

2017-09-30T06:53:00.000-07:00

Nintendo is no stranger when it comes to the business of selling gaming peripherals such as the Wii Motion Plus. The wii motion plus accessory was introduced late in the Wii system life cycle. It was designed to provide accuracy to motion controls and simply breathe life into motion gaming which was quickly becoming a fad gimmick. Nintendo released a Wii Sports Resort game to compliment and showcase the new Wii Motion Plus accessory while third party publishers Ubisoft also made Red Steel 2 to be exclusive to Wii Motion Plus control.

But the one game that would forever be remembered and associated with Motion Plus is the Legend of Zelda : Skyward Sword. Releasing a high-profile AAA-game supporting the new hardware is always a sound strategy to move more hardware and software. It certainly worked with me as I bought the new Wii Motion Plus controller way before the Zelda game was released. There were only a handful of games that supported the device at the time and I owned none of them. Maybe I expected more Wii games to eventually support the new controller and I certainly never thought I would put it to use for only one game.

The Wii popularity was quickly fading at the time and even the new Zelda failed to extend the life cycle of the system. Nintendo quickly released their next console system the Wii U the following year and we all know how that story ends. Looking back at the history of Wii Motion Plus, the accessory was released for two full years before the Zelda game came out and yet only 6 Wii games absolutely required it.

This is a classic example of Nintendo coming up with a idea and never fully embracing it for whatever reasons. And they are still doing this in recent years, like the 3D screen of the 3DS system and I suspect the HD motion control of the Switch will be next. Playing Skyward Sword made me reflect back on the MotionPlus controller and the novelty of the concept. As I have yet to finish the game, I realised it would be difficult to talk about it without referring to the Motionplus because of its deep connections to it.

Of course, the Wii system was eventually sold with the Motionplus bundled inside but early adopters like myself who bought the controller separately really felt the pinch because of how poorly it was supported by publishers.

Open World Generation

2017-03-29T06:20:00.001-07:00

After two generations of open-world games, there is little left in the genre that hasn't been explored. That's why it's pretty remarkable that Nintendo is able to come into the open world genre with something as refreshing as Breath of the Wild. And to do that with an established IP like the Legend of Zelda is certainly no small feat here. There are conventions and standards to honor, and I can say that all expectations of the legendary series are met.

The magic of Nintendo games has always been the simplicity by design. The result of this simplistic design is a game that is easy to pick up and appeals to gamers and non-gamers alike. The less is more philosophy is not very popular in modern games but Nintendo is an expert at applying this to their games and the sheer elegance of its simplicity is really the envy of the game industry.

Much of the game world is populated only by wildlife and nature and while this may feel like barren, it actually creates a better sense of depth and exploration. Many other game will try and stuff as much events and things to do until the point where you need to stop and chat every 5 minutes. I can't tell you how many open world games I played where I'm not appreciating the details of the game world because my eyes are too focused on the mini-map to get to the next location.

Breath of the Wild doesn't have a mini-map on-screen or even a map screen on the Wii U gamepad. While I initially loathe the idea of scrapping the Wii U Gamepad second screen for console parity with the switch version, I soon come to realise it made the game better and more immersive. In fact, I even made my Witcher 3 session more Zelda-like by removing the mini-map now and relying on my own sense of direction instead. It sounds like a crazy idea especially after relying on the mini-map for over 60 hours on The Witcher 3 but part of me realised I wasn't focusing on the game world as much as I should be even before playing Breath of the Wild. BOTW was just the final nudge that made me realised it and now this is how I would probably play all open-world game from here on.

Another simplistic design element of this game is the musical score or lack of. There are no grand musical score except for the major cutscenes so for the most part, the game feels very lonely. I have seen divided opinions on the game musical score and so far, I don't really mind having less music in the game. It's certainly much better than hearing the battle score of Fallout 4 over and over again every time I play that game. I was a bit disappointed how little voice-overs are used in the game, there was simply too much text reading like the old Zelda games.

The world of Breath of the Wild is pretty vast, I remember going from point A to point B without backtracking or fast-travel and it was days before I finally felt the need to go back to a village. If it's not about the destination it's the journey then that saying certainly rings true here. I always find that fast-travel detracts you from the open world immersion and would like to avoid using them as much as possible. What Rockstar did with GTA V when you switch characters is pretty cool where you don't see any loading screen, I only wished more open world games would do that.

I could go on and on about the Breath of the Wild, I find the game so addictive without able to pinpoint what exactly it is that keeps me coming back. The intangible element that makes a game great, not the story or the characters, I guess you can say it's the heart. While I still don't believe any one game alone can justify the purchase of a system, Breath of the Wild make a pretty darn good case for that.

Never On Time

2017-02-12T22:48:00.000-08:00

A new Zelda game don't come around very often, that's why it's a pretty big event for the game industry and more specifically zelda fans.

I remembered the last few Zelda games launch very vividly, I remember the hype just as much as the games themselves.

I remember A Link Between Worlds getting released with a highly-sought after gold-plated 3DS. The timing of the release around Black Friday made it impossible to get one of those of gold 3DS locally without paying an arm and leg. I wanted both the system and the game as I have yet to own a Nintendo 3DS that time. I didn't managed to get the gold 3DS after all but I did managed to win a copy of the game, A Link Between Worlds shortly after buying a 3DS system. I finally played the game late last year and it was very bit as good as you would expect.

I remember the last Zelda console game the Skyward Sword was such a long wait coming that I actually bought a Wiimote Motionplus in advance. I didn't expect Nintendo to put out a rather affordable bundle of the game and gold-plated wii-mote that would quickly sold out. Once again, I missed out on another fan coveted Zelda piece.

Since the Wii was my first Nintendo home console, I had the grand ambitions of finishing both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess before the Skyward Sword came out. Somehow I could never decide when and which version of Twilight Princess to play and I felt no sense in playing Skyward Sword before TP. So eventually I ended up missing Skyward Sword at launch but the hype was very real and still vivid to this day.

I finally got around to playing Twilight Princess Wii version a few years ago when I already have Wii U system. I think I was also re-playing the HD version of the Wind Waker. Though long overdue, Twilight Princess didn't feel aged to me as the scope and scale of the game was far more than I was expecting.

This year the hype is back as the new Zelda game is coming out in less than a months' time. I finally have a copy of Skyward Sword now and I'm just starting the adventure despite knowing I wouldn't finish it in time for Breath of the Wild. I have already pre-ordered the regular (and only) version of the game for the Wii U system. No more fancy bundle or special editions, not that there are any available for me to buy on the Wii U system. I just want to play the game and have a copy on my shelf as part of my Zelda game collection.

This time, I will be on time for the hero of time.

Prep Me Up For More

2017-01-14T00:35:00.000-08:00

I was expecting ZombiU to be mediocre and at best, a generic zombie game . The one thing I didn't expect was how addictive the game is.

ZombiU creates tension by obscuring your view in first person mode and giving you a third person view of your character and surrounding in key moments. This creates a sense of dread as you are unable to pause the action whenever you are stationary.

It's as close as you will get to feeling like you are in a zombie movie. It's never an easy choice between running away or staying to fight. Using a melee weapon or using a firearm. You are constantly making split second decision and living or dying by your choice.

When you finally fall victim to a fatal zombie attack, you will think about what went wrong and can't wait to get back to where you died (in normal mode). You see you will get one try with your survivor, die and you either re-spawn in your safe house as the next survivor or worse, come to a complete end if you are playing the merciless Survival mode. That's the world of Zombi U where no one is truly safe except the guy speaking to you over the radio.

It's a testament to the developer's craft that the game is able to sustain its level of tension throughout the duration. You never get the feeling of being too powerful even when you get better firearms. This game is truly underrated because it was released exclusively on an under-performing platform.

Often times in this generation, exclusive games tend to feel short and unfulfilling because of how expensive it is to make games solely for one system. Zombi U doesn't give the impression of any cut corners and remarkably looks really good for a launch game. It's a shame that even when released on other systems, it continues to fly under the radar as opposed to more recognizable zombie games like (yep you guessed it) Resident Evil 7.

Running Out of Time

2016-10-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

Having waited 6 years to finally play Alan Wake, I knew I didn't want to repeat the same with Quantum Break. After all, life is just too short to wait around.

I didn't think Quantum Break would get a wider release on Steam let alone a fancy retail edition. When the timeless edition was announced, I knew I just had to get it despite costing more than double the Steam price. After all, the previous Remedy games distributed by Nordic were all stellar and well worth the money. I even pre-ordered it on Amazon when I couldn't get a confirmation from any local dealers whether they would stock this. Luckily for me, the amazon order got delayed in time for me to cancel it when I found a copy at the local store during the first week of release.

Somehow the events leading to getting the game is more interesting than the game itself. The game is still good but it isn't a timeless classic like the original Max Payne. I have loved Remedy games since the first Max Payne as we shared the same love for Hong Kong cinema. Selling off the Max Payne IP wasn't a total disaster when the property is in capable hands like Rockstar studio. It could have easily ended up like the Fallout series in Bethesda studios hands.

Quantum Break was the first time I felt Remedy games was trying to capture the old Max Payne magic again. Alan Wake was a great bold departure for the studio and although it wasn't as innovative as Max Payne, it was still one of the better horror games I have seen. The only problem I had with Alan Wake was I felt that the story was getting in the way of the game at times. Quantum Break has similar issues, in fact far worse considering this is science fiction and not a horror/supernatural story. The logic of time traveling is simply not explained or logical enough to lend the story credibility.

I remember reading in the Max Payne manual that Max has the ability to slow down time in bullet time but don't ask how, just go along with it. Sure it's the easy way out but it works and in the end, nobody was really asking why bullet time exists. It felt like Remedy was trying to come up with a logic for how bullet time exists with Quantum Break. The game is fun when you get to play it in between the horrible TV show that was made in conjunction with the time. But I didn't fully understand the story because Remedy never took the time to lay down the rules of time-traveling in this story. It has choices that greatly affect how the story unravels so I'm definitely going to play it again soon.

But finishing QB for the first time left me a little disappointed. It felt like it spent too long in development hell and ideas were never fully realised, the game is surprisingly short when you discount the TV show running time. I certainly won't mind having more levels of gun fights in this game but it's pretty clear than Remedy ran out of time and money making this game.

Let's Be Frank Here

2016-09-27T19:58:00.001-07:00

One sure way to know if I played a great game is that I can't stopped thinking about it even after I finished. The game lingers on and I feel satisfied enough not to play another game yet.That happened with Alan Wake, I proceeded to watch the bonus material and subsequently finished the DLC episodes.

Unfortunately the same didn't happened with Dead Rising 3. Something was missing, that intangible factor that makes a game great.The game felt long and repetitive. Of course the same was said of Alan Wake but I certainly didn't felt that way.

This new Dead Rising game removed the loading time in the previous games, providing a truly new experience for the series. Unfortunately, the city Los Perdidos that you are trapped in feels lacking in character. For sandbox games, the real star is always the city. If the city isn't interesting then your game isn't going to be very memorable.

The formula of finding other survivors and psychos is beginning to feel very routine now. Each survivor will always have a quirky request before joining your crew but it always boils down to a lame fetch quest. The psychos are just as predictable as well. This series is in dire need of a new creative change of direction.

Times change, people change

2016-08-04T23:38:00.000-07:00

Since playing on the PC, I have been experimenting with different genres that I simply couldn't on consoles as the games were too expensive. Even during PS2 heydays of piracy, I rarely explore outside my favorite genre and publishers because there were more than enough for me to play. Well, times changed and people changed - so true, these words uttered to me not too long ago.

That's why it was so refreshing to play the Tomb Raider reboot after all these different genres. The cinematic action adventure games are always fun to play because it doesn't have the grand scale of the RPG genre. You play one action set-piece then watch a cool cutscene before proceeding to the next. No boring conversation with NPC that last up to 40 minutes of just two people talking. Or spending 30 minutes looting every inch of each item in the room.

A lot of time is spent squeezing Lara through tight gaps. This gives you a nice view of her, well you know.

This Tomb Raider reboot borrows elements from other games in the genre but still manages to stand as something different. I love how the platforming is not so straightforward anymore as each area is big enough that the path forward isn't obvious. The gun fights feels borrowed from the Uncharted games but without the bad melee sequences included.

There are new ideas that are never fully developed as the game progresses. Early on you are taught how to hunt wild animals to feed Lara but once the fire fight started, there is no more emphasis on this part anymore. Suddenly Lara doesn't need to feed anymore in order to heal, she just needs to stay out of the bullets way.

Other times are spent rappelling Lara around like Spider-Man on impossible lengths that should have broke her arms off

Another thing is each area introduces a different relic to hunt. First you could be sniping old charms hanging from the tree then in another area, you are burning scrolls off the wall. How is one supposed to keep track especially it never made clear when you reached a new area.

These nitpicks aside, this is still one of the best games I played this year. I finished Dead Rising 3 before this and I have yet to blog about that one. It's hard to write about a game that didn't leave a lasting impression on me. It's certainly not outside the genre that I'm accustomed to so it was a surprise that I didn't like it. Perhaps my expectations and standards are higher after experimenting with new genres.

The Tomb Raider reboot reminded me that there are no substitute for my favorite genres after all. I guess you could say, the more things changed the more they remained the same. This is what I believed, maybe more so than how people changed over time.

Horror Drag

2016-07-25T23:30:00.000-07:00

Alien Isolation is a game that will interest fans of the horror genre or the Alien franchise. I happened to be fan of both so this was another game I wanted to play on my PC. The only thing I wasn't keen on was the first person view but upon finishing it, the first person view felt like the right choice.

I feel like having no weapons in a horror game like just an easy and obvious design choice in a horror game. It doesn't work most of the time like how Shattered Memories have proven. Alien Isolation thankfully didn't adopt this approach but for most of the time, you didn't have an effective weapon against the Alien. The problem is once you get the flamethrower late in the game, you feel invincible as you can stop the Alien from attacking you.

There are obvious pacing issues with this game, it drags far too long and ruined some of its goodwill and credibility earned with a bad ending. Some of its climactic moments occurred in the middle of the game making the end parts of the game a bit boring by comparisons. While RE4 was also a bit too long for its own good, the end parts were never boring thanks to Mikami's sense of pacing. In Alien Isolation, I thought the game was ending in several different instances before the actual end of the game.

Aside from the bad ending, there are no bonus content upon finishing the game. Well there are survivor mode and maps but those are not related to the story mode. Thankfully the pre-order bonus included 2 DLC episodes based on iconic moments from the original Alien movie. I recommend playing the movie DLC after finishing the game but I can imagine there are fans only played these episode without bothering with the main game.

The Superior One

2016-07-14T01:06:00.001-07:00

War. War never changes.

Except he wasn't talking about the console war which changed quite a bit over the generations.

I remember during the PSOne/PS2 era, I didn't have a PSOne yet and most of the RE games and MGS took more than a year to reach the PC platform. I was never really a PC gamer by choice, more like a PC user by circumstances but let's not get into that here. Eventually when they do get ported, these games didn't looked any better on PC than on the 32-bit systems. That was when it ran like it supposed to if it's a "good port". There were no DLC back then so you weren't getting additional DLC for free like you normally would for late PC ports these days.

Then you have the infamously bad PC ports like RE4 and DMC3. These PC ports were ported long after its console release so it wasn't like there wasn't enough time to make a decent port. I never experienced these ports myself but heard enough to know they weren't good PC ports by any means. It certainly was a good time to own a console game if you liked console games and certainly hard not to feel like the superior one.

Then the tide started to change sometime during the PS3 generation. PC ports no longer run and looked like it's console siblings. Most of the time, the PC ports looked superior and is released on the same day for all major systems. The most notable game being Tomb Raider 2013 which didn't have the luxury of releasing on the PS4 system yet. So the old generation console version and the PC port looked worlds apart from what I read. I was lucky enough to avoid the old console version and managed to pick up the PC version on the cheap during the recent Steam sale.

This generation is by far the worse, the PS4 is finally getting definitive/upgraded version of games PC users have long enjoyed since the day of release. But PS4 users are not getting these upgrades for free, you have to re-purchase these games again and start over. Even then, the definitive versions may not run as well as expected like the recent RE5 on the PS4. On the other hand, PC users get these upgrades for free most of the time. Not to mention the games themselves are already cheaper if you don't mind going full-digital via digital distribution service.

So war has changed quite a bit, at least in terms of system wars. Sigh, I just want to play the best (or better yet, only) version of a game, is that too much to ask for?

Wake is Over

2016-06-12T09:03:00.001-07:00

Alan Wake is a game that I have always been interested to play ever since I knew about it. Years passed and I'm constantly reminded when I see the game at the flea market or when Remedy's new game Quantum Break came out. I remember when a master race acquaintance played the PC version of Wake and told me it was nothing special but my interest never wavered.

I just didn't know how I was going to play Alan Wake eventually. While I always admire the Xbox, I didn't like the idea that the exclusive games are usually shared with the PC platform. And I didn't exactly want to get a new PC either unless I absolutely have to. Finally when the absolutely became a reality, Alan Wake was the first game I actively hunt down.

I didn't want Wake to be the first game I played as it's a few years old now so I ended up playing Dark Dreams Don't Die first. D4 is interesting precursor but it's not exactly a complete game as it only contained two episodes in season one.

Alan Wake is my first PC game in what felt like a really long time. It's not as great as I imagined it to be, but I liked it as much as I thought I would. Alan Wake isn't actually a horror game much like how The Last of Us isn't really a zombie game. It feels like it was inspired by RE4 but it reinvents the survival horror genre much more that RE5 ever did. Wake delivers on some of RE5 promises from the early trailer like the dodge mechanics and the light/dark contrast. But saying Wake is a RE copycat would be doing it a disservice though.

The game is pretty hard as you are constantly out in the open woods. Therefore you can never use the "'Back behind the wall strategy'' to fight as you are exposed from all angles. This makes the combat harder than any horror games. A lot of the game's memorable moment loses it's impact because I can never get it done without a retry. This is just Normal mode and there are another two more difficulty modes to go (Hard, Nightmare).

Getting this game and finishing it was a dream come true. I'm still getting used to playing on the PC again but this has been a good start so far.

Extremely Expected

2016-06-04T08:21:00.000-07:00

Kiwami was the one of my fastest purchase for the RGG series. While not exactly day one, I got it early enough that the DLC was still coming out for the game.

Why the rush to get this game? I wasn't that eager to play it and yet somehow I ended buying the game faster than most of the rest. I guess it was the sentimental value, being a faithful remake of the game that kickstarted the series that is now 10 years old.

I find the decision to remake this game faithfully very odd but it also enforces the notion that there was nothing wrong with the original game anyway. The original game aged better than most so this was just a quick cash-in by Sega to fill the gap before Yakuza 6. There wasn't a fan demand to remake this game though I understand that many got into the series when it made the leap to PS3 generation. This remake lacks the wow factor as we have seen the graphics from the same engine used in RGG0.

The new story elements revolves around Nishiki's transformation during the time Kiryu was in prison. This started out pretty well showing the importance of the ring Kiryu gifted to Yumi. However, it ended pretty badly and I'm not fully convinced how abruptly wimpy Nishiki turned into a stone cold gangster. Anyway seeing how Nishiki transformation played out made me glad RGG0 never actually tackle Kiryu or Majima's origins. The new cutscenes are inserted at the start of each chapter which can be very confusing for newcomers that never played the original. It's actually a clever gimmick to keep long time fans interested playing what is essentially the same game again.

After the success of RGG0, it was difficult to imagine how SEGA would top that. They didn't actually tried to and in a sense, mailed it in by churning out Kiwami. It's not a major disappointment as I make it out to be but in retrospect you learn to appreciate how special RGG0 truly was.

Bad Memories

2016-05-15T21:09:00.000-07:00

Another Code R is the sequel to the first Trace Memory game on the Nintendo DS. Being a console game, you naturally expect full voice-overs and real-time environment. Not quite but you really got to give CING a ton of props because they always come up with inventive ways of moving in 3D environment (see Hotel Dusk).

Your character Ashley in lodged in the center in the 3D space and you can only turned her in fixed 90 degrees angle around the room. You can only move left and right like a 2D scroller and sometimes the occasion up and down. (it's 3D, remember?). It's so bizarre and weird that I wasn't expecting to see this scheme again when it popped up in Swery's D4. But that's a story for another time.

Another Code R is one of the hardest game to finish, it really have all the fundamental flaws of an adventure game. Solving puzzles tends to make or break an adventure game and here, I find the puzzle solving to be very broken. You explore the environment and pick up clues and items to helped solve puzzles. But you can only pick up items according to how the game is designed. So unless you find the clue or puzzle to trigger it, you can never pick up the item even though you will eventually use it later on. That means a lot of wandering around aimlessly and going back and forth over the same things again.

I was more than relieved to finally see the end credits of this game. I actually went through a lot of trouble to find this game as it was never localized for the US region. At one point I didn't think I will get to play this at all but I never expected to feel this lukewarm after finishing.

The Ninja Dog

2016-04-29T01:55:00.001-07:00

Before playing the Ninja Gaiden reboot, my experience with Ninja games were a bare minimum. I never got to play the original Ninja Gaiden NES trilogy and by the 3D era, ninja games have sort of been pigeon-holed to the stealth genre.

Recently I looked at my backlog of games on the PS3 and vowed to finish as many as possible before it becomes unmanageable. Right at the top of the list was Ninja Gaiden Sigma which is easily the oldest game I haven't finished. I have tried to play this game several times before but can never managed to adapt to the poor 3D camera and brutal difficulty.

This game is truly awesome once you get the hang of things and accept the shame of lowering the difficulty. Just imagine playing Metal Gear Solid but instead of Solid Snake, you play as Cyborg Ninja. The action is way too fast at times to the point I feel like I'm button-mashing rather than skillful beating these guys.

The game really shows age when you realised you can't change your weapons without going to the pause menu. The loading time is also freqeuent and sometimes right in the middle of the action with no benefit of installing game data to the HDD. This is probably due to the original coding of the game on the Xbox as it didn't have a HDD.

These issues aside, the game can be very fun and perfectly caprtures the essence of being a bad-ass ninja. I have thought of selling this game since it looks ugly in the red GH case and I wasn't playing it at all. Upon finishing the game, I liked it enough to keep in my collection and even added the third game to my Wii U.

Walking Tall Among Giants

2016-04-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

A while back I talked about how I never really played much RPG up until the last generation or so. Even then I tend to stick mostly to tactical SRPG as it suits my style of play.

Xenoblade is one of the few RPG I'm currently playing that isn't a SRPG. I also played a good ten hours of The Last Story but ultimately decided to focus on Xenoblade first. This game shows me what I'm missing from the RPG genre that I simply don't get on SRPG games : the sense of adventure.

SPRG gameplay and map are always plotted out on a grid. In a way, it makes things easier to learn for a novice of the genre like me. At the same time, it's also restrictive because you can never wander off the grid.

Xenoblade gives you the freedom to explore the world like a good RPG should. The sense of adventure in this game is truly epic to the point I cannot fathom how it plays on the N3DS port. The N3DS port will definitlely lose some of its epicness feel no matter how close it matches the Wii game's visual.

The world of Xenoblade is truly beautiful with real-time weather and daylight change. It's inhabited by a complete ecosystem that Monolith designed for this world. Playing on the TV screen gives you a nice vibe of adventure a bit like Red Dead Redemption except this isn't a barren wastelands. It's a beautiful world that will sometimes make you stop and appreciate the landscape. You can travel to anywhere you see in a distance and all that walking always feels rewarding rather than tedious.

Monster Hunter Tri is a good example of how good this game looks on the Wii but without the annoying loading screen thaat plagues each MH game. You can say I'm biased against handheld system but Nintendo should have remaster Xenoblade for a home console instead of the 3DS system. This game definitely deserves to be played on a big TV screen.

Pad to the Basics

2016-04-18T00:55:00.005-07:00

Fatal Frame Maiden of Black Water marks a return to the numbered series for the Fatal Frame franchise after a long period of soul-searching. Since the last numbered Fatal Frame game (FF3), the series has gone exclusive to Nintendo systems, put out a Remake of it's most popular game and even did a joint collaboration with Grasshopper Manufacture.

FF Maiden of Black Water feels like a follow-up to FF3 because it uses a safe house hub that you frequently go back to. It also features returning character Miu from the very first Fatal Frame game. FF3 is widely considered to be the weakest game of the series so it's pretty gutsy that KT decided to follow up on that game's premise. While I don't remember much of FF3, I find Maiden of Black Maiden to be a worthy entry to the FF series.

One of the new elements introduced in this game is the Fatal Glance where you have a limited time to reach out to the defeated ghost to "touch" them. Doing so will reveal their past life and how they came to their demise in a flashback video sequence. This is a very good extension of the ghost photos that are hidden in the previous games. In the past when you successfuly capture a candid ghost photo of a random ghost, you usually get a description of that ghost and their backstory. I was a bit disappointed to learnt that not every ghost have a backstory even when you managed to Fatal Glance.

The gamepad is put to good use in this game and isn't a complete nightmare experience. You can use a combination of the analog stick and gyrosensor to expertly position the camera. Having the camera view on the gamepad helps you keep track of the character position in the game. One of the problems with Fatal Frame games is it's easy to lost track of the character position when you moved into camera view. Here it is less of an issue because you still have a view of the area on the TV when you go to camera view.

It's really a shame that Nintendo doomed this game to the digital market and many have refused to buy it as a result. The sales expectations were never enough to justify Nintendo's faith on a retail release so it's a chicken or egg situation when this game fails commercially. Fortunately Nintendo probably got quite a few of fans to pick up the system already before finally pouring cold water with a digital release.

RE Anniversary

2016-03-22T20:51:00.000-07:00

Normally anniversary puts me in a good mood and today is RE's 20th anniversary. I dusted off my old dioramas and games for the occasion but somehow this 20th anniversary feels especially hallow for me.

That means Capcom has not made a good RE game for more than 10 years. It's been more than 10 years since RE's best creative minds left the series after RE4. All Capcom does these days is basked in the old glory days and put out remasters of the RE classics.

The last RE game, Revelations 2 looked like junk compared with today's modern games. It scored pretty decent reviews but I honestly thought maybe RE6 is actually better. Revelation 2 was good enough to be heralded as the best RE game since RE4. Problem is we are still waiting for something better than RE4 that would set a new benchmark for the series.

That would never happen I fear. At least not in Capcom's offices.

Cold Feet, Wet Decision

2016-03-18T00:34:00.002-07:00

I finally put my money where my mouth is and bought Fatal Frame V on the Wii U last month. The truth is I have always allocated the money for the full game in my Eshop wallet but get cold feet whenever I'm about to purchase it.

$50 is an awful lot for a digital game especially when you consider RE0 HD costs $20 and that is already a tough sell for some people. This is the story of how I ended up buying the game roughly four months after its release on Eshop.

I realised that all of the Wii U games I owned never came with a printed manual. It's just a box with a shiny disc inside. What's the point of insisting on a retail copy anymore when all you get is a shallow box with a disc inside? Of course, the main reason why most gamers prefer retail is they intend to sell the game back which is also the same reason publishers are pushing for a digital future. These issues are of little concern to me as I never intend to sell off any of my games.

The other thing was I still have plenty of unfinished Wii U games when Fatal Frame V came out last October. Sure I could drop everything on a dime and play FFV but finishing those games and waiting for a potential price drop felt like a better idea. I ended up spending the month of December and January finishing those games. By February, there was still no sign of any discount forthcoming for FFV and my Wii U was starting to gather dust.

I'm a big believer of timing these days, if I have the time and money to play these games now I should make the most of it. After all, what's the point of getting a game cheap like peanuts but you have better and newer games to play by then? Now FFV has my undivided attention and I was fully comfortable with paying the full price for it. A review of this game will follow shortly, or maybe I will start rambling next about how I came to buying Kiwami.

The Next Level

2016-03-06T22:06:00.000-08:00

When I think of Level 5 I don't think of Professor Layton or Ni No Kuni like most do. I think of Jeanne D'Arc, the game that got me started on the world of tactical RPG.

I played some RPG prior to Jeanne but always have a lukewarm feeling about the genre. What is it that gamers like so much about RPG? The sappy storyline or fantasy setting were always a big bore for me.

I credit Jeanne D'Arc for starting me on this genre and showing me there are other RPG that interests me. This game and the PSP system basically turned me into a RPG gamer. It paved the way for me to indulge in other RPG series like Fire Emblem and Valkyria Chronicles.

Sometimes, a special game is good enough to get a gamer started on a new genre. The first Resident Evil was one of those games that introduced many gamers to the survival horror genre. Jeanne D'Arc introduced me to the RPG genre as well as the Level-5 company.

Since competing Jeanne D'Arc, I have feverishly searched for the next Level 5 game that would give me the same feeling. There was one that came close (Rogue Galaxy) while the other is nothing like this (Attack of the Friday Monsters). But I reckon Jeanne D'Arc will always have a special place in my collection.

Local Fuss

2016-03-01T23:23:00.002-08:00

Most of any recent Nintendo game localization has had some controvesy one way or another. The big recent fuss is Fire Emblem Fates that came out last month. Now Fire Emblem is this big Nintendo RPG franchise that suddenly found an audience because it has dating sim elements. The game has this petting feature where you can use the touch screen to pet your potential partner when you are alone. Yes it's as creepy as it sounds and Nintendo decided to removed it somewhat for the English version.

Now removing it is one thing but someone from the localisation team had the nerve to say content change is all part of the localization process. I couldn't disagree more with that statement.

While I don't expect everything in the original Japanese version to be translated word-for word, I do expect the content to remain the same. Unfortunately in most cases, content change usually means content removed. Paying for a game that is late to be localized is not ideal but paying for a game that is localized late with content removed is a double-whammy. Thankfully only Yakuza 3 comes to mind when speaking of such.

Unfortunatelty this is the price to pay for playing foreign-made games.

Fatal Frame V removed the risque bonus costumes for the English version as expected but Nintendo/Tecmo made up for it by replacing them with new costumes. It's a fair trade as Nintendo could have simply remove the costume without any new addition like what happened for Crimson Butterfly Remake.

All You Can Carry

2016-02-16T23:18:00.000-08:00

Resident Evil mini-games are usually a hit or miss.

For every the 4th Survivor, there is uhm, what is that Code Veronica mini-game called again?

RE Zero has its own mini-game called the Leech Hunter. I never gave this mini-game much of a fair shake until now.

It follows the first Mercenaries reward system. You want infinite ammo in the story mode? You got to finish Leech Hunter first and do it well. There are no countdown timer in this, your only challenge here is the inventory slot. You are tasked with collecting 50 leeches each for Billy and Rebecca within the training facility. You can't drop the leeches once you picked them up and each item slot can only carry up to 10 leeches. Obviously as you reached closer to 50 leeches, the game gets progreesively harder because your inventory gets tighter.

It's pretty challenging, never has inventory management in a RE game became so critical. Some players came up with the loophole of wiping all the enemies in the facility before picking up any leeches since there is no timer. Sure that could work but the danger is if you die in the middle of combat then all the hard work is wasted. Your leech count at time of death would be very little if you used this strategy.

This mini-game is carefully thought out, you can only pick up the right color leech for each character. This prevents using Billy as the attacker and leaving Rebecca as the supply mule. You need to use both character as according to how the leeches are scattered and there are 3 random arrangements for the leech and weapons each time you play.

This is one of the better mini-games in the RE series. The RE0 game itself isn't all that great but bear in mind that REHD or any other RE game during this era never had any mini-games.

Portable Warfare

2016-02-15T19:02:00.002-08:00

Valkyria Chronicles is one of the best IP to come out from last generation. It has everything I loved in a video game : cel-shaded graphics, strategy RPG gameplay and women with big guns. While I have yet to finish the first game on the PS3, it's only because I have too many PS3 games to clear. The recent HDD woes on my PS3 system certainly didn't helped matters.

VC3 was a great experience and to be honest, I enjoyed this type of game more on a portable than a console. Since my PSP has been sitting idle for a while, I decided to play VC2 in the mean time. Now I'm really playing the series in reverse order and hopefully that won't be an issue as the 3 games are loosely connected. It does mess up the timeline quite a bit though.

Valkyria Chronicles on the PS3 is like the big-budget brother to the PSP siblings. In VC1, every dialogue was voiced and the character models were used even in the non-animated cutscenes. VC3 made some small compromises but the strong character design and artwork made up for the loss.

VC2 seems to be using a different art director compared with VC1 and VC3. The new style of character design is hard to get into after being so used to the original artist. The new characters pale in comparisons to the cast of VC1 and VC3. To top it off, their personality isn't great either. The lead character is supposed to be some underdog slacker but it's pretty hard to root for him.

As for the gameplay, in VC1 and VC3 you get to view your enemy's action as it unfolds during their turn. It may be boring for some players but I tend to use the time to put down the controller and take a quick break. It's always a nice surprise if you come back to find half your squad wiped off because of some poor decisions (lol). In VC2, you don't get to see your opponent turn at all as everything is simulated on the battle map (it doesn't zoom in on the characters). This speeds things up considerably but it's hard to improve and learn from mistakes when you don't get to see how the AI plays.

It's clear even from this point that VC2 isn't the best in the series. In fact it could have very well torpedo the series potential if it wasn't for VC3 righting the ship.