Valkyria Chronicles II - Review
(Originally published by Crispy Gamer.)
Giving an underrated game a sequel on different system would normally be a death sentence but Sega has handled the transition from console to portable superbly with Valkyria Chronicles II, proving that bringing the series to a mobile platform was a great choice. The World War-style third-person shooter/SRPG battles work well on the PSP because of the simple fact that the system can be put to sleep and taken with you - a big plus for a game that can range between 30 and 100+ hours.
The first Valkyria Chronicles game graced the PS3 with beautiful animated watercolor cutscenes, an interesting war storyline, and one hell of a battle system. Its sequel continues the tradition of the first game with some tweaks, both good and bad.
The story starts off light but eventually intermingles more serious politics and war plots with the zany classroom interactions of your battalion of students. Two years after the first game’s defeat of the Imperial Army, the Gallian Revolutionary Army begins a civil war and ethnic cleansing campaign against the dark-haired Darcsen race. Their demands are for the nation’s leader, who revealed herself to be of Darcsen decent and not of the hailed-as-gods Valkyrur race, to step down, though she refuses and violence ensues. At the same time, 17-year-old Avan joins the Lanseal Military Academy in order to uncover the classified reason for his enlisted brother’s death, and ends up leading the horrendous misfit of a class called Squad G. Be warned, however, though this plot sounds mature this is actually a Japanese classroom-based RPG, and that fact alone may be a deal-breaker for many.
Story points and character development are revealed between battles, as you point around a campus map to activate scenes that play out as static character illustrations and dialog boxes. The art sometimes moves around the screen to imply a character’s actions; for example, Avan’s illustration box moves next to another character’s if he’s supposed to be shoving the person, adding bits of personality to these barely animated scenes. What will annoy you, however, is that each time a character’s dialog comes up they spew a canned voiced one-liner that often has nothing to do with what they’re saying. You’ll want to mute your PSP if you watch several scenes in a row, especially when Avan does his goofy laugh over and over again and then exclaims, “I’ll do it!” even if it’s not appropriate. Thankfully, the plot-based dialog scenes are fully voiced and the actors did a great job of making it sound natural. Occasionally you’ll see a fully animated cutscene, and these are absolutely gorgeous.
What most shines in Valkyria Chronicles II is the battle system. Like its predecessor, you begin by choosing which characters to deploy within your allocated number of slots and control each unit by moving them around in third person until their endurance runs out. The player and the enemy teams are given Command Points (CP) which indicate how many moves they can make within each turn. Each foot soldier can move and take one attack action per CP, while tanks use two, and though enemy units in range will automatically attack as you run by, your aiming takes place in a turn-based mode that pauses their fire.
While building on an already great battle system, Valkyria Chronicles II includes some well-implemented additions. Your squad leader and main protagonist of the game, Avan, can be any class he chooses, changing from battle to battle if you so desire. All units can upgrade their class, provided they personally have attained certain items in battle, through a tiered system that increases the character’s class stats and varying the character’s weapons. These items are given as post-battle rewards to the two units who performed the most admirably. Class upgrades include a “veteran” and “elite” version of the class as well as new sub-classes; shocktroopers can become gunners with a wide spread of heavy fire, while scouts can become snipers and lancers can become mortarers. A new class has been added to this sequel as well. The technician class uses a heavy-hitting melee weapon and a powerful shield. They move slowly and have little endurance, but pack a punch and can take a lot of punishment. They’ve also taken the ability to disarm mines, which were the job of the engineer in the previous game. Engineers are now mainly used for vehicle repairs and as a high-level medic.
Another addition is the ability to level your classes up to 25 instead of the previous game’s 15. Of course, as you gain experience you will also need to upgrade your weapons. Instead of stocking a gun for each character who needs it, once a weapon is purchased all units within a class can equip it at the same time. Better yet, prices drop at the Research & Development (R&D) department as you progress through the game,making it easier to become more powerful.
Missions are the meat of the game, and they range from capturing enemy bases to eliminating a specific unit, to defending your camp for a predetermined amount of turns - and there are many, many missions. Aside from the required ones there are “free missions” which don’t advance the story, missions that can be purchased with in-game money, and DLC missions. This is a game you can choose to rush through with minimal character interaction and side missions or spend months on during your first playthrough doing everything.
Most missions will involve your tank or the newly added Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), which you have the option of switching between. The APC has the advantage of being able to travel farther and transport soldiers, though if destroyed anyone still inside will be killed. Some missions will have you escort an APC to a destination. For night levels, the battle may be made easier by a purchasable lamp accessory for the tank. Other tank upgrades include boosts to your Gatling gun, mortar, or anti-tank canon, a flamethrower, stickers that give stat boosts, vehicle paint that affects the enemy (like night camo to lower the enemy’s accuracy), and even a bridge arm, which lets you repair a broken bridge and create a shortcut.
A new multi-map system has also been implemented, and it works pretty well. Its inclusion means having multiple areas for your troops to deploy, oftentimes being split up from each other. Bases now take more thought to capture because of new “gateway camps” - camps at the end of an area that lead to the next map. You’ll have to make your way to the enemy’s gateway camp and capture it before moving on to the next area, where your mission’s goal usually lies. This is even more useful when playing ad-hoc co-op, as you can have 2-3 of your friends deploy in other areas and flank the enemy.
Valkyria Chronicles II is a great game with movement that feels natural on the PSP, though sneaking up on someone can be tricky the analog stick allows no way to walk more softly. But despite the classroom antics, repetitive voice clips, and too few animated cutscenes and fully voiced dialog, the game’s battle system makes it a must-buy for both players who are new to the series and fans. The game stands on its own, with a mostly self-contained story and light references to events from the first game that are often explained. With satisfying strategic battles, a multitude of characters each with their own personalities, and constant challenges, Valkyria Chronicles II will give you plenty of enjoyable gameplay for your buck, and keep your eyes glued to the screen as you win the war.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep - Review
(Originally published by Crispy Gamer.)
After a mysterious prologue involving Ventus and the infamous Xehanort on Destiny Islands, we meet the trio in the game’s present day. You are told to run through the training center with Ventus, and this quick tutorial leads you to a sparring ring where you can switch between each character and try them out before deciding whose path you’d like to follow. And that’s it. Fifteen minutes or less of a tutorial and you’re ready to move on to the main game, instead of the playable two-hour introduction tutorials of the two console games in the series.
The three main characters, Terra, Ventus, and Aqua, are Keyblade wielders in training in the Land of Departure. Terra and Aqua take the test to become Keyblade Masters, unfortunately only Aqua is chosen; Terra lets some of the darkness within him slip out during a one-on-one battle with Aqua and Ventus is too young to compete in this test. Not long after they receive word of dark entities called the Unversed attacking other worlds, and on top of that, Master Xehanort goes missing.
Fighting is classic Kingdom Hearts action-RPG style. You’ll mash the attack button for combos and use special keyblade attacks and magic that is equipped to a D-Pad-controlled menu. New to the battle system are D-Links and finishes. Finishes are exactly what they sound like - devastating ends to combos that can be activated when a meter atop your command menu fills up, increasing as you fight. D-Links (dimension links) allow your character to connect to someone they’ve met and draw on their abilities for battle. Who you can D-Link with changes from character to character; Ventus may form a link with someone like Cinderella, but Terra will form links with villains like Maleficent, and can then use spells that cater to her personality, like Thundara. If Terra links to Ventus he can use lots of jumping slashes and keyblade-specific moves, though linked abilities temporarily take the place of your equipped ones. Your D-Link with each character can level up twice, as well, each time gaining an automatic ability like haste or auto-remedy, for example.
What’s interesting about having three storylines is that we get to see each character grow as they learn life lessons from characters on other worlds. Terra parallels a more grounded Riku and Ventus parallels Sora. Aqua has more of a Kairi sensibility, but with the maturity of age and discipline. You can see traces of the main characters of the series but at the same time they retain their own personalities. But with three characters to choose from, Birth By Sleep essentially becomes three games. Each character moves and attacks differently, gains abilities in a different order, and meets different people. My playthroughs ranged from 8 to 15 hours, time which will vary depending on how much level grinding, ability grinding, and mini-game playing you do, and what difficulty you choose. There are some battles that are nearly impossible on Proud mode (only the second hardest difficulty). In fact, after literally 40 or more tries I still cannot beat the final boss in Terra’s storyline. I’m all for a challenging fight, but this one was absolutely ridiculous to the point in which I was willing to turn to YouTube for Terra’s ending.
You’ll have new interactions with Disney characters along the way and each character will explore portions of the Disney worlds that the other characters may not have seen. Mickey, Cinderella, Prince Phillip, Sleeping Beauty, Pete, Chip ‘n Dale, Jaq, Hercules, Stitch, and more are all there, though Zack is the only Final Fantasy character present in this iteration of the series. This is possibly due to the fact that no worlds have been destroyed yet, so the Final Fantasy characters would not have been scattered to the Disney worlds at this point in the timeline.
I only wish the game gave us a more powerful demonstration of the keyblade’s unique abilities. When Sora first gained his keyblade, he used it to lock entire worlds so the darkness wouldn’t get in. In the second game he unlocked passageways between the worlds. Terra, Aqua, and Ventus open chests and sometimes locked doors, but they mainly only use it as a weapon that can fight dark entities until the end of the game. You’ll often forget you’re not using a regular sword. Birth By Sleep is also a bit light on the emotional component throughout a majority of the story. The Sora/Kairi longing was well done in Kingdom Hearts, and by the end of the second game it had a good amount of impact - their relationship was important to the player. Unfortunately, because of the nature of playing three characters that are split up from the beginning, we never truly feel the amazing friendship the characters are trying so hard to protect, not only because you hardly see them together but also because you hardly know the actual characters involved until you’ve played most or all of the storylines.
Birth By Sleep is a game every PSP owner and Kingdom Hearts fan should play. It will keep you engaged for hours at a time and includes three perspectives of the events of the game without the plot becoming stale. You’ll see the beginnings of Xehanort’s attempt to open a path to the world of Kingdom Hearts, hear his philosophies, and see what causes the split into the Heartless “Ansem” and the Nobody “Xemnas” we see in the other games of the series. It’s largely a Xehanort origin story and in no way a tale of the keyblade’s beginning, but it satisfies with interesting characters and new interactions with Disney worlds that were losing their charm by Kingdom Hearts II. There’s also an arena world where you can do single-player trials (i.e. Hercules’ stadium in past games) or compete in ad hoc multiplayer, and a board game mini-game that levels up your abilities. Play it, love it, and play it two more times to finish Terra, Aqua, and Ventus’ stories and unlock the secret ending. You’ll have a great time.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep Impressions
The PSP-only Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep is actually three games in one, each weighing in between 10 and 15 hours depending on how much you level/ability grind. There is a short Prologue that shows us a curious relationship between Ventus, who looks remarkably like Kingdom Hearts II’s Roxas, and the infamous Xehanort on the familiar-looking setting of Destiny Islands. We flash to the present, where the young Ventus, the strong Terra, and the mage Aqua are honing their keyblade skills on the Land of Departure. You control Ventus (call him “Ven”, mainly because he tells everyone he meets that that’s what everyone calls him) as you chase Terra and Aqua through an obstacle course on the way to the sparring grounds. This is Square-Enix and Disney’s improved tutorial system that takes 15 minutes instead of the two-hour intro/tutorial grounds of past games that were spliced with plot cinematics before the game’s logo even appeared on the screen. It was a big relief to find that I could jump right into the game, and after completing a character’s storyline you can skip this entire sequence for the next playthrough.
After the sparring match, I chose to start my game with Ven. It seemed logical, as he was a major part of the Prologue and he was the one you controlled most during the tutorial. I was curious to see how his backstory played out, though after completing his story and beginning again as Terra, I found Terra’s story provided many more answers about the game’s world and would have been a far better starting story.
Ven controls like Sora or Roxas did. He is agile, quick, and balanced between strength and magic. His story begins when Terra takes off after taking the test to become Keyblade Master. Ven is visited in his room by a masked boy who looks straight out of Xenogears, who nudges him to follow Terra, saying Terra will not return as the person Ven knows. Ven becomes concerned for his friend, and chases after him in a story that will talk strongly of themes of friendship, light, darkness, and sinister plans to unlock the world of Kingdom Hearts. This path has a similar tone to Sora’s adventures, as it is mostly light-hearted protecting of Disney characters with thoughts of his two best friends pushing him through. His story unfortunately does not include much information about the game’s random enemies, the Unversed, until the very end, and as little about Xehanort’s true plan until the same point. This information is given early on in Terra’s story, though. For much of my 15-hour playthrough with Ven I was wondering what the things I was fighting were (since they were not Heartless), and in this respect Ven’s story is better left for the second playthrough.
You’ll have new interactions with Disney characters along the way and explore portions of Disney worlds that have not been seen in other Kingdom Hearts games. The beauty of the three storylines is that each one feels like a separate game within the story. You get different cut scenes, explore different parts of each world, and visit each world in a different order depending on who you choose to play as.
So far I’m enjoying Birth By Sleep, but even having completed one of three stories, I still feel like there’s a lot more for me to discover, even within the main plot.
PSP’s Half-Minute Hero To Get A Sequel
According to a Famitsu report, last year’s briefest, 8-bitiest PSP game, Half-Minute Hero, will be getting a sequel. The new iteration of the game is said to continue to place heavy emphasis on fast adventuring and plowing quickly through battle, though time will freeze while traversing the overworld map.
The original game featured four modes. In Hero 30, you are given 30 seconds to save the Princess from the Evil Lord, where random battles consist of the hero and enemy running at each other until one of them dies. Time can be extended by offering money to the time goddess, though it costs more each visit. Princess 30 puts you in charge of the Princess who must leave the castle to find an item that will save her dying father, however due to danger the queen will only keep the door open for 30 seconds. Evil Lord 30 puts you into a real-time strategy game in which the Evil Lord must gather troops and take down the opposing force - you guessed it, in 30 seconds. Lastly, Knight 30 flips the stage. The knight must hold off oncoming attacks while a sage takes 30 seconds to cast a spell ridding the area of monsters.
The sequel will include four new modes as well as a four-player co-op mode, a quest creation tool, and a neverending battle mode in which the player will go up against the game’s bosses in succession.
Currently translated as “Hero 30 Second”, the game is expected to be released in Japan on November 4.
[Originally posted on Crispy Gamer]
Rob’s SRPG Month
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| Gallian Militia’s Rosie blasts away at a lowly Imperial scout in Valkyria Chronicles. |
After finally finishing Red Dead Redemption I started Valkyria Chronicles for a change of pace. About halfway through the game I received a gift card and decided to pick up Jeanne d’Arc (since the card didn’t cover the cost of Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker), not realizing I was now playing two strategy RPGs at once, each with lengthy stories.
There are major differences between the games, so playing both at once is not a chore. Valkyria Chronicles is an fantasy alternative World War I-like setting told through cutscenes and dialogue boxes. Aside from outfitting your characters through menus, the only actual gameplay is the battles themselves. This works, however, because the cutscenes are so short and the battles can run up to an hour (at least by the halfway mark). You choose to watch stories within each chapter of the chronicle, a book that houses the game’s story. By choosing the next image in the book a story-driven cutscene is played - cutscenes which always lead to at least one battle per chapter. These fights play out as militia vs. army, as you deploy a maximum number of your soldiers (whom have different ranks and abilities) in a turn-based RPG/third person shooter mix. You choose a character, run around the field freely until their stamina runs out, and then aim and attack at your own pace. What’s new to a system like this is that as a soldier runs, nearby opposition will attack without cost to their bullet count or anything like that, and most soldiers will counter attack as well.
Halfway through the game I’ve finally discovered what a Valkyria actually is, and the game has been taken into a new direction (though I probably would have expected it should I have read the back of the box). The game was fun before, with long, epic battles, but it’s picking up even moreso now. I highly recommend it to RPG fans.
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| A magical armlet attaches to Joan of Arc, allowing the French to better stand against the English. |
Jeanne d’Arc is also a fantasy alternative history game, though with a stronger basis in actual history. The plot takes the story of Joan of Arc of France - a young peasant girl who claimed the voice of God told her to reclaim French land from the English, and she went on to lead several important victories in the Hundred Years’ War. The game itself adds a fantasy spin on this historic tale. The English monarchy had summoned a demon of which several knights had sealed away years before using magical armlets. This demon possesses a child Henry VI and together Henry and his uncle (the summoner) use demon soldiers to attack France. Jeanne comes across a fallen soldier outside her village of Domrémy, and from a pouch he was carrying a magical armlet attaches to Jeanne giving her expert sword fighting knowledge. The armlet also allows her to transform and gain epic armor when powered up. She begins to hear a voice when the armlet attaches to her, and she claims this is the voice of God telling her to take back her land.
Jeanne parties up with others along the way, fighting off the English officers and their demon soldiers. The story is well told using sprites and fully voiced anime cutscenes. I was compelled to play from the moment I chose “new game”.
The battles play out almost exactly like Final Fantasy: Tactics. You select a unit, move them within the range they can travel, and attack, use skills, or use items from there. The difference is that you equip skills, not learn them, and you can choose to use any soldier in any order as long as it’s your team’s turn.
***
Two retro war games, two interesting stories. I have a long month ahead of me.
What I’m Still Playing: Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Every time I look at Dissidia: Final Fantasy’s graphics/art design I feel proud to own a PSP. The game marries Final Fantasy X-level graphics with the main characters from each Final Fantasy game from I through X, and seeing each character so well put-together makes me want to play or replay each of their original titles. In this way, Dissidia has succeeded in being the ultimate marketing tool: it is a game that can run a person up to 100 hours (should they try to level up each character) while advertising ten Final Fantasy games across multiple systems (eleven, if what I hear about a hidden character is correct) and also selling the PSP on its graphical capabilities. In fact, I went so far as to buy Final Fantasy III and IV on DS because playing Dissidia on PSP made me want play through the Onion Knight and Cecil’s storylines.
Dissidia is a lengthy game. I’ve stretched 25 or so hours over many months by playing in bursts, but I could easily continue to play for three times as long. Each “light” character from the first ten of the series has a five-level single player story complete with cut scenes. That’s 50 levels just to start. Then there’re the four or five levels that unlock for you to complete the story, Arcade Mode, which is a series of random matches without rest or items, and Quick Battle/Mutiplayer, which give you experience toward leveling up. Now, imagine trying to max out the levels on ten good guys and ten bad guys? And then going up against opponents online? You can easily play this game for the rest of your PSP’s lifespan.
I have 14 or 15 levels to go: Bartz’ and Zidane’s stories plus the final story levels (in which you choose who to play through as). Due to Final Fantasy V’s job system, Bartz was given the Mimic job class in Dissidia, so he has special moves from many of the other titles’ main characters. That’s who I’m playing through as now. I’m saving Zidane for last, then I may play through the last few levels as Squall.
And again, the graphics really take hold of you, especially when using special moves with fancy bursts of light and energy. I really hope there will be a Final Fantasy VI remake using Dissidia’s graphics engine — Terra looks absolutely perfect — though Square will probably continue their plan to put it out on the 3DS instead. It’s too bad, they really have something here. Though Dissidia’s marketing power is so great it may just make me buy a 3DS for Final Fantasy V and VI should they come out on the platform.
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| * Ah, Cloud - always the romantic. * |
Currently gaming: God of War 3, Final Fantasy 3 (DS remake), Dissidia: Final Fantasy, LittleBigPlanet, The Conduit, Wario Land: Shake It!, and thinking of exploring more in Fallout 3. Think I’m overdoing it? I really wanna leave work and play.
What I’m Gaming, 04.19.10
The Legend of Zelda: The Spirit Tracks (DS)
I loved Windwaker on GameCube, so when The Phantom Hourglass came out on DS as a direct sequel I was very excited. That is, until I was maliciously forced to return to one dungeon over and over again, replaying the parts I had last completed just to get to the next part. This level mechanic could only be described as broken, as it sucked all the enjoyment out of the game and forced you to avoid enemies you could not stand up to in a fight despite having improved your weaponry before each return trip. Everyone knew this system was terrible, and when The Spirit Tracks was announced the developers stated they had fixed the problem that dungeon had by using the same revisit-the-same-place-over-and-over system but with stairs to unexplored levels instead of traveling through the completed ones!
It sounded fine, and I love the Zelda series so I had faith in this one. Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing creative about this iteration. There are the standard elemental temples Link must visit - which is fine - but there’s nothing aside from that, really, and you have to travel by train tracks. The train system takes any and all exploration out of the game leaving you only with a chance to find and capture rabbits in the wild. I hated the train system. Your train is not nearly fast enough. There are warp gates, but you have to drive at the slow pace to get to them. You can upgrade your train, but collecting items to trade for the parts requires you to go out and find them, so unless you set out to upgrade your train you most likely won’t before the end of the game.
The lack of creativity shows as the game progresses. The weapons you find are the standard Zelda game weapons, in a very similar order of previous games. Other Zelda games have thrown in variations here and there - a double hookshot, a grappling hook, empty bottles, the Lens of Truth, etc., and though we do get a sand-based item later on (similar to a Link to the Past item) the only other surprise is a whip that functions exactly like the grappling hook. Very anti-climactic. This would be acceptable if the dungeon puzzles utilized the weapons in clever ways - a way other Zelda games excel - and in some places it does. However, aside from some interesting uses of sand and using the boomerang for lighting torches in specific orders, you spend most of your dungeon time controlling armored knights instead of Link. This adds complexity to the dungeons, but eventually becomes another repeated gameplay device.
Princess Zelda’s body is stolen and only her spirit remains with Link, allowing her to possess the dark knights that appeared in The Phantom Hourglass. Different types of knights have different abilities (warping, rolling, flame sword) used for various puzzles, and it’s fun at first, unfortunately you end up spending more time as the possessed knight than you do doing cool things as Link himself. However, each temple has an epic-looking boss that takes up both screens in height which Link must slay - another thing that seems awesome at first, until you realize every boss’ behavior is similar in the same type of room and takes the same amount of hits to take down.
I missed catching poes, bottling fairies and spring water, collecting heart pieces, sailing the open seas and galloping along on Epona. I missed the Zora and Gannondorf, and - come on - the frakking Triforce. The Spirit Tracks feels so stripped down and simplified.
One last gripe, and this one goes more toward DS games in general: Who thought it was a good idea to build a blow-into-the-mic mechanic into a portable game? The Spirit Tracks became impossible to play on the train because of the need to blow into the mic to use the whirlwind weapon or play a song on Link’s pan flute. That’s not something I want to do, let alone in public. Also, the subtle breeze from the train car’s air conditioning kept screwing with the blowing system so even when I sucked it up and decided to blow into the damn pan flute like an idiot the air conditioning screwed up my duet with the spirit guardians! Bah! One more temple and I’m finished, and I’m glad I’ll be. I’m done.
LocoRoco 2 (PSP)
I needed something simple, short, and to the point to hold me over. The game’s very cutesy, which does amuse me despite my maleness, but the music is maddening. It’s like little girls performing a French/Japanese fusion pop chant. The premise is some evil things are messing with the good, nature-loving things, and you - a yellow blob - must roll and bounce your way to driving the evil things away (while collecting things, of course).
If you collect red flowers you grow fatter, allowing you to gain more momentum but blocking you out of c spaces. However, you can split into multiple blobs to fit through and then reform into a large blob again, should the situation require it. The control scheme consists of tilting the screen using L or R, and jumping by pressing both together. Very simple, but very effective. The flat, cartoon graphics and the bright colors make LocoRoco 2 enjoyable to look at, and the game is surprisingly addictive because of its physical twists and turns. Fun for the collector gamer and the completionist. It’s the kind of game you have to see in action to appreciate
.
LocoRoco 2 is a fun game to play if you only have ten or so minutes at a time, or just want something you don’t have to think much about. I’m enjoying it.
I loved Windwaker on GameCube, so when The Phantom Hourglass came out on DS as a direct sequel I was very excited. That is, until I was maliciously forced to return to one dungeon over and over again, replaying the parts I had last completed just to get to the next part. This level mechanic could only be described as broken, as it sucked all the enjoyment out of the game and forced you to avoid enemies you could not stand up to in a fight despite having improved your weaponry before each return trip. Everyone knew this system was terrible, and when The Spirit Tracks was announced the developers stated they had fixed the problem that dungeon had by using the same revisit-the-same-place-over-and-over system but with stairs to unexplored levels instead of traveling through the completed ones!
It sounded fine, and I love the Zelda series so I had faith in this one. Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing creative about this iteration. There are the standard elemental temples Link must visit - which is fine - but there’s nothing aside from that, really, and you have to travel by train tracks. The train system takes any and all exploration out of the game leaving you only with a chance to find and capture rabbits in the wild. I hated the train system. Your train is not nearly fast enough. There are warp gates, but you have to drive at the slow pace to get to them. You can upgrade your train, but collecting items to trade for the parts requires you to go out and find them, so unless you set out to upgrade your train you most likely won’t before the end of the game.
The lack of creativity shows as the game progresses. The weapons you find are the standard Zelda game weapons, in a very similar order of previous games. Other Zelda games have thrown in variations here and there - a double hookshot, a grappling hook, empty bottles, the Lens of Truth, etc., and though we do get a sand-based item later on (similar to a Link to the Past item) the only other surprise is a whip that functions exactly like the grappling hook. Very anti-climactic. This would be acceptable if the dungeon puzzles utilized the weapons in clever ways - a way other Zelda games excel - and in some places it does. However, aside from some interesting uses of sand and using the boomerang for lighting torches in specific orders, you spend most of your dungeon time controlling armored knights instead of Link. This adds complexity to the dungeons, but eventually becomes another repeated gameplay device.
Princess Zelda’s body is stolen and only her spirit remains with Link, allowing her to possess the dark knights that appeared in The Phantom Hourglass. Different types of knights have different abilities (warping, rolling, flame sword) used for various puzzles, and it’s fun at first, unfortunately you end up spending more time as the possessed knight than you do doing cool things as Link himself. However, each temple has an epic-looking boss that takes up both screens in height which Link must slay - another thing that seems awesome at first, until you realize every boss’ behavior is similar in the same type of room and takes the same amount of hits to take down.
I missed catching poes, bottling fairies and spring water, collecting heart pieces, sailing the open seas and galloping along on Epona. I missed the Zora and Gannondorf, and - come on - the frakking Triforce. The Spirit Tracks feels so stripped down and simplified.
One last gripe, and this one goes more toward DS games in general: Who thought it was a good idea to build a blow-into-the-mic mechanic into a portable game? The Spirit Tracks became impossible to play on the train because of the need to blow into the mic to use the whirlwind weapon or play a song on Link’s pan flute. That’s not something I want to do, let alone in public. Also, the subtle breeze from the train car’s air conditioning kept screwing with the blowing system so even when I sucked it up and decided to blow into the damn pan flute like an idiot the air conditioning screwed up my duet with the spirit guardians! Bah! One more temple and I’m finished, and I’m glad I’ll be. I’m done.
LocoRoco 2 (PSP)
I needed something simple, short, and to the point to hold me over. The game’s very cutesy, which does amuse me despite my maleness, but the music is maddening. It’s like little girls performing a French/Japanese fusion pop chant. The premise is some evil things are messing with the good, nature-loving things, and you - a yellow blob - must roll and bounce your way to driving the evil things away (while collecting things, of course).
If you collect red flowers you grow fatter, allowing you to gain more momentum but blocking you out of c spaces. However, you can split into multiple blobs to fit through and then reform into a large blob again, should the situation require it. The control scheme consists of tilting the screen using L or R, and jumping by pressing both together. Very simple, but very effective. The flat, cartoon graphics and the bright colors make LocoRoco 2 enjoyable to look at, and the game is surprisingly addictive because of its physical twists and turns. Fun for the collector gamer and the completionist. It’s the kind of game you have to see in action to appreciate
.
LocoRoco 2 is a fun game to play if you only have ten or so minutes at a time, or just want something you don’t have to think much about. I’m enjoying it.
My Holiday Gaming Wishlist
Note: Not all games I want are on here, as I plan to borrow several from friends.
PS3
LittleBigPlanet: Game of the Year Edition
God Of War Collection
Dragon Age
Demon’s Souls
Prince of Persia
PS3 Dual Shock 3 Controller w/vibration
EDIT: I forgot to add Brutal Legend
PSP
Final Fantasy Dissidia
LittleBigPlanet Portable
GTA: The Chinatown Wars
Half-Minute Hero
Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines
Wii
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles
MadWorld
Dead Space: Extraction
Muramasa: The Demon Blade
XBOX 360
GTA IV: Episodes from Liberty City
Halo 3: ODST
Halo Wars
The Last Remnant
Infinite Undiscovery
Magna Carta 2
XBOX 360 Controller
PSN, Wii, or XBOX Live Gift Cards
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