Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

THE QUEST FOR A JRPG! PART 2!!!

In my search for a turn based game I turned to Sonic the Hedgehog!

.....

My this barrel has a lovely bottom!

I don't understand this one at ALL. I mean at ALL. Sonic is a game series based ENTIRELY on speed. So why in the name of our lord Jesus make a turn based RPG!!

Oh but it gets better. This was a partner production between Sega, and BioWare of all people. I'm not going to say I HATE BioWare, but I certainly LIKE them a lot less because of certain Mass Effect 3 endings that came in three fabulous fruit flavors.

So I am already filled with fear on the logo screen, but I pressed on, thinking hey Sonic is Sega's MASCOT for God sake. They wouldn't put him in anything that was absolute irredeemable crap!

Then I realized that that is ALL that has been happening since 2006.

And then I began to weep.

But still I started a new game and wiped the tears off my 3DS. It starts with a comic book esque cutscene. Sonic flies and fights Dr. Eggman on a big spaceship. Our pointy blue friend is defeated and crashes down to the Green Hill Zone.

This is where the farce masquerading as gameplay begins. First of all it is controlled entirely with the touch screen. It is my personal belief that any designer who makes that decision should have their hands cut off and replaced with styluses.

Also Sonic is not alone in this romp! Oh no, ALL of Sega's technicolor woodland creatures appear in this game! So unfortunately they TALK to each other!
So you have to control the conversations! Why? Because BioWare can't help themselves! Decide! Decide even though you don't give two craps about being said! We wrote a script for this bullshit! Decisions! Whoopee!!!

Oh GOD, the dialogue is INSUFFERABLY boring. You don't care. You don't care about what the hell Sonic and Amy want with the Chaos Doodad, or why they want to keep it away from the Brotherhood of Who Gives A Rat's Ass. However you can't skip it! If you do you run the risk of pissing the little bastards off. If you do they may keep items from you! Game over! Way to go asshole!

So after that fiery pain in the ass I managed to get to combat. After some GOD DAMN TUTORIALS.

Ok. That isn't quite fair. Unlike last post's pixelated hellish nightmare, Heroes of Mana these tutorials actually TELL you things! Mostly because the combat system is so unnecessarily complicated it would flummox Rubik! Still! Useful information! At least they think I'm more intelligent than to drool on my 3DS!

The combat is UNGODLY, but at least it's turn based! There's the normal point at enemy, press attack, hurt enemy business, but doing that won't get you very far. Instead you must make heavy use of "Special Moves." You know, special! Like Andy! The one who wears the helmet!

These damn things require touch screen actions. Actions that are harder to decipher than an Ambien dream. Curve up the stylus while tapping and keeping it on the touch screen! Banana monkey fish shoes! Kafloobity boingo!

So I got tired and pressed the Flee button. And.....

And everything just got WAY to intense.

This is how this is supposed to work. In a JRPG there is supposed to be a button, ON THE CONSOLE, that you hold down to bail from a fight. This game..… What in hell I'm I looking at?

It's a mini game. You have this little meter on the side. Your party is running away. Obstacles are flying at them. Jump over them with the timing of CHRIST and you escape.

Important notice: THE REASON THAT WE ARE RUNNING AWAY IS BECAUSE WE ARE TOO TIRED TO KEEP PLAYING. ADDING A MINIGAME TO STOP PLAYING IS JUST IRRITATING AND UNNECESSARY.

Don't waste the money. Don't waste the time. Don't give Sega more money for Sonic the Hedgehog titles until they stop sucking.

Next time, I try a turn based from someone who HASN'T released a bad game in my memory. It'll be the first time I tangle with the mustachioed bastard....

Heroes of Mana

THE QUEST FOR A JRPG! PART 1

First an addendum to the last review. It turns out you CAN jump up and down on skyscrapers until they no longer exist in Rampage, making it perhaps the best game in the history of the world.

However it was about the time that I was stuffing Twinkies into my face, using a giant chicken to jump on Dallas because they've had it coming for far too long that I began to think, "What am I doing with my time?"

"Look at you," said my Subconscious the pompous ass that he is "You're the kid who spent FIVE HOURS arguing with his mother about weather or not BioShock is true art, which it is, and now you're playing a game that requires less intelligence than watching PUNK'D."

He had a point. I'm one of the biggest Games are Art snobs you will find. Yet the games I'm GOOD at are things like Rampage and Just Cause, and the biggest artistic message THOSE games are trying to get across is "DIE, DIE IN FIRE!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

So I tried to think of a game genre more intelligent and that I'm actually proficient at.

"A turn based Japanese Role Playing Game!" I said with a note of triumph.

"Really?" said Lord Superego peering over his monocle "More intelligent?"

Again he had a point. If games are art then JRPGs are those weird abstract sculptures with names like "Hatred" or "Destiny." The exhibit that makes everyone argue over what it represents and why. Completely blind to the fact that it's probably just a heap of scrap metal in a funny shape.

Though they are entertaining, and they make the raving lunatic hobo living outside the Game Art Museum East ranting about the "Gub'ment Cheese" that is my imagination FEEL intelligent so what the hell.

So I went to see if I could get my hands on a copy of Final Fantasy IV and the answer was..... Not until next week. So I went through the house looking for decent candidates for a review while I waited. The search brought up three possibilities. Mario and Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and today's virgin sacrifice to Monotonous, Greek God of Boredom, Square Enix's Heroes of Mana.

The game started of with an opening crawl explaining the plot. Apparently the Humans of the Land of mana are engaged with the Beastmen, because they were arguing over who was better, Chuck Norris, or Bruce Lee. Councils were called, committees were formed, DVD copies of Day of the Dragon were thrown at people's heads! The rest was simply bloodshed....

At least that's what I WANT to be happening because I lost interest around the FOURTH PARAGRAPH OF NOTHING BEING SAID.

I started tapping the skip button like I had Parkinson's.

"Skipping the exposition!" complained His Lordship from the Chaise Longue "How uncouth!"

"Bite me Your Grace, I'm wasting life!"

So I finally made it to the dialogue and they began to talk about *thud* ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

"Rabble Rabble, Most unorthodox, Rabble"

So again, frantic skipping.

Once I actually GOT to the game play it turned out it WASN'T a turn-based game at all. It was Real Time Strategy.

Real Time Strategy (or RTS) is a form of RPG where you sit atop an ivory tower and order an army, that you create, and send it to kill every thing that isn't wearing your uniform.

Well I was very good at StarCraft in my younger days. StarCraft was also VERY fun.

So I kept playing with hope in my heart that was crushed around the third tutorial!

There is a tutorial for selection. A tutorial for moving. A tutorial for building. A tutorial for making units. A tutorial for gathering resources. A tutorial for gathering a DIFFERENT KIND of resources while doing the SAME THING. A tutorial telling you how to hang yourself from the highest tree because it's been two hours of playtime with no combat.

Finally a Beastman DID arrive on the Battle field and I sent my units across to attack. This is when I realized that all the units move at a pace one normally associates with the DEAD. It took ten minutes, TEN MINUTES, for my soldiers to shamble over to the enemy. That is inexcusable.

Once I GOT over to the enemy, he immediately dispatched of my entire army and I lost the mission.

I took out the Game Card and threw it across the room.

"You haven't even gotten past the first ENEMY. What kind of unwashed savage are you?" Lord Superego scoffed.

So I whipped around and shot His Grace in the shin.

This is the worst game I have ever had the pain to play. It's boring, repetitive, tedious, annoying, and it obviously thinks that the player is either incredibly thick, or has only heard of video games from the hermit crab who shares the space under the boulder with him.

This game is so bad I spent half this review talking to myself.

I want all of my readers, (that's right both of you) to find a copy, shoplift it so no one makes money of this garbage, take it out of the store, and BURN it so it can't hurt anyone anymore.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to play sonic and nurse my shin.

Rampage: Total Destruction

After the SIXTH TIME I tried to write a Metroid Other M review only to have my blogspot eat the post making me play it all over again to remind me exactly why it pissed me off, I need a game that is FAR less cerebral.

So immediately I look on amazon and lo and behold! Rampage: Total Destruction was on my recommendations for dirt cheap, as if in answer to my prayer.

This is the very definition of a game where you do not have to think. You are King Kong (George the Ape, same difference) or one of his 39 friends. Destroy one of many iconic American cities (Currently I'm The Lizard that Stepped on Las Vegas)

There is, in fact, a plot (though I'm not sure WHY). Scum Laboratories is going to test a new soft drink called ScumSoda. They start a taste test. George ( at this point a college student) takes a drink, loves the soda, and immediately transforms into a giant gorilla.

No you did not turn over two pages at once.

Yeah! Turns out making soda near chemical waste was a TERRIBLE idea! And thus all forty members of the test group are transformed into giant Godzilla-type monsters.

Scum Laboratories immediately cryogenically freezes the test group and hides them across America. However five monsters escape and go on, well, a Rampage.

You can, of course, unlock the all the other monsters giving access to all forty.

First let me say this. It's HILARIOUS. It's the kind of funny that you only get from someone who DESPISES the human race, like Invader Zim. They do their best to remove any guilt about eating people, by making them the most HATEFUL PEOPLE ON EARTH. Every time you pick someone up to make them breakfast, they NEVER scream, or beg, or cry. They boss you around.

"That's it George! I'm taking you in!" says the cop that George has been carrying around in his two fingers for the better part of an hour.

"Good luck with that." *GULP*

The gameplay is..... on the better side of okay. It's pretty basic for this kind of game. I think it's a little limited. I want to jump up and down on a skyscraper until it's a parking lot, but I'm perfectly happy with pounding on the side of it and eating the residents.

None of the limitations stopped the FUN. I could easily play this game for HOURS if I had the time. Not only is this worth the $16 I paid for the game, it's worth the $250 I paid for my Nintendo Wii. A definite five star recommendation.

Now, if you will excuse me, John P. Witherschmitt of Chicago IL. I'm coming to destroy your apartment complex.

Kid Icarus: Uprising

I think it's time nintendo got a new hero. The mainstream nintendo title factory just makes more of the big five nowadays. Zelda, Mario, Star Fox, Donkey Kong, Metroid. Over and over, and two of those titled have kissed a Succubus who drains the GOOD out of game series until only lame remains (I. E. Star Fox: Command, and Metroid Other M)

But two years ago one of the factory workers took a break near a dumpster for a smoke, and IN the dumpster he found a hideous 8 bit nightmare called Kid Icarus. In a process similar to Reaper Indoctrination he became convinced that the horrible gelatinous tentacle thing deserved a sequel.

And apparently I'VE been spending too much time near Object Rho because I think the sequel is quite good.

Now before we go on let me say that any one who claims that the original Kid Icarus was GOOD is going to hell for lying. It was awful. It is the only game I have ever seen that routinely FORGETS ABOUT PREVIOUSLY EXISTING FLOOR.

Taking a lesson from this Uprising has little to no platforming. Instead there are two sections to each level. Air battle, a rail shooter-esque experience. And land battle, which takes the form of a third person shooter.

The premise is good too. You are Pit. An angel in service of Palutena, goddess of light. You are sent to investigate when Medusa, queen of the underworld and the villain from the 1987 game, is inexplicably resurrected from the square beating you gave her last time. I'll get to the rest when I get to the negatives. I would strap in..

Controls are solid, if a bit odd. You move with the circle pad, (have I also mentioned that the sky is blue? Or that Newt Gingrich is old?) you aim with the touch screen, and in a stroke of unironic GENIUS, fire with the left shoulder button. I love this. It means I can switch targets without being murdered.

The characters are VERY funny. I like how Pit is the only nintendo all-star who is (let's be fair) a galloping idiot. Palutena is lovably insane, and never takes anything to seriously. None of the characters do. It's all so delightfully meta, it distracts from the game's major flaw.

The flaw being that the games plot goes paintchip banana sandwich by chapter eleven

Lets take this step by step shall we? (spoilers):

Chapters 1-8: Medusa is back. Pit goes to take out her commanders and get the right gear to fight her.

Okay pretty straight forward....

Chapter 9: Face off with Medusa. During the bout, she says she doesn't KNOW what brought her back. At the END of the battle, the ACTUAL main villain reveals himself. Hades, god of evil.

Ooh. Plot twist! Fun!

Chapter 10: Hades says that he is after the wish seed. It doesn't grant wishes, but humans THINK it does, and with it's disappearance will cause war, which is good for Underworld business.

Clever! INGENIUS!

Chapter 11: Upset by war, Mother Nature takes out a city with a giant nuclear mango.

INSPIRE-- Wait, What?

Chapters 12-15: Take out Mother Nature's generals, and exploding mango tree.

O... Kaaaaay.

Chapter 16: All factions must put aside there differences and temporarily unite against aliens from outer space.

..............

Chapters 17-20: Defeat the aliens.

And then? Go on. Get weirder.

Chapter 21: Pit awakens from a three year coma with his soul in a ring. He puts his soul into a little girl, a dog, and Hugh Jackman. He also discovers Palutena has been brainwashed by a death dragonfly.

THERE WE GO!!

Chapters 22-23: Save Palutena.

Naturally.

Chapters 24-25: Defeat Hades....

THE PLOT! How we have missed you!

Chapter 26: With your giant robot.

OF COURSE!!

It's very obvious that the creator had SEVERAL ideas for sequels and he attempted to pile them ALL into this one game.

Despite all of that. It is WELL worth purchase price. It's probably one of the best games this year. If you like being INCREDIBLY confused..... What is wrong with you?

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

There is a song by Three Day's Grace that goes as follows:

"I hate everything about you!
Why do I love you?"

YEP! That's Zelda in a nutshell.

Let me explain. I am a HUGE fan of the Legend of Zelda. Probably because Link's Awakening was the first video game I was EVER allowed to touch (due to it being the first game we owned with multiple save files).

Now let me be CLEAR . The Legend of Zelda is also one of the BITCHIEST game series on the market today. There is a portion in Link's Awakening where if you do not complete things in a VERY specific order, you cannot complete the game.

All other game in the series are just a huge pile of to much going on at once. How many times have you Zelda fans said this to yourselves:

"Okay if I go to the RIGHT I should be able to hop ACROSS the lava, beat the lizardman, hit the two switches in the time limit, and free the villager, I should wait to the LEFT until GAH MOTHERF#%$IN BATS!!"

A similar situation has happened in EVERY Zelda game. And it gets VERY irritating.

But again I do love this series and Skyward Sword is certainly no exception.

It is said that this game was made to shake the series up, because the series had slipped into the formula of all titles being similar to Ocarina of Time. This made me nervous. This was the same "it ain't broke, let's fix it!" attitude that produced Coke 2. But again this is a VERY competently made Zelda title. So imagine if Coke 2 was delicious but every time you opened the bottle it throttled you and took your wallet.

The story starts out as ALL Zelda stories do: You play as Link. The next in a long LINE of unlucky bastards. Excuse me, "Heroes of Time."

You live in a peaceful town. Training to work in a medial ( yet well paying) job, then settle down with the girl you've spent your life crushing on. Then live in humble and peaceful harmony.

Obviously this cannot stand!

An evil force rips the girl from your side and Link soon realizes that the fate of his country, nay, THE WORLD. Is now his problem. So, with a heart filled with pure exasperation. Link goes reluctantly forth.

That right there is one thing that's always gotten me about Zelda. The Link family line has no damn luck at all.

Ocarina of Time: You must do this to save us! You FOOL, by doing so you've killed us all!

Majora's Mask: Just get my trinket back from the mischievous boy who stole it, that's all. By the way, the trinket is INCREDIBLY evil, and the moon is going to collide with earth. Bye!

Link to the Past: As your father, my dying wish is that you uphold the destiny I happened to trip over

Skyward Sword: DEKU BABAS!!!

Now is as good a time as any to talk about the controls right? This game is the only actual reason why you would want a Wii Remote Plus. You swing your sword by swinging the wiimote about, but you should by no means be shy. You need very rapid and wide strokes to get much more then a stab going (at least I did anyway), so the SLIGHT chance you had of breaking a window if you weren't wearing the wrist strap, has turned into a 100% chance so put the strap on.

This ALSO means that by flailing your arms in the air you can turn link into a ball of pointy death.

I cannot describe the joy this brings me.

This approach works for most enemies but some of them require more precise cuts. Which brings me to the goddam Deku Babas.

Remember them? From Ocarina of Time? The things that took two SECONDS to kill and at the end you get a free Deku Stick? Not in this one! They require precise vertical or horizontal cuts

And this is also the time Link comes down with a crippling ailment wherein he can only slash diagonally.

Don't get me wrong EVENTUALLY you'll do it, but by then your almost dead, so it's best just to run.

Zelda is also known for epic looking (If underpowered) boss monsters. I am disappointed to find that the first boss is a reedy weak looking girly man. I mean seriously how tough could this "Demon Lord" POSSIBLY b- HOLY CRAPBALLS HE JUST TOOK MY SWORD!

What in HELL nintendo? Thats a bond of trust you just do NOT break. Link's sword has been the only thing he can actually TRUST for 25 years! You can't have a boss be able to TAKE it! All the odds are already stacked so high against the player your sniffing Mars but THIS?!?

Regardless I do love Skyward Sword. It is an immersive experience, and I'm sure Legend of Zelda fans will like it to.

We've put up with all other kinds of abuse before..... Frickin' Babas

Kingdom Hearts 365/2 Days

As we desperate lonely virgin fanboys of this series wait the brain-crushingly long and irritating time for the third main installment we must instead endure the never-ending tide of midquels and spinoffs that OVERTAKE video game shelves.

I think all of us have battered women syndrome when it comes to this series. I know it's been upwards of five years since two, but three is coming! He said so! I know he beats me in the face with mediocre in-betweeners! But it's coming! And then he and I can go and start our new life in Kansas in a little house with our dog and four kids.......

Kingdom hearts, for those unaware is a JRPG crossover between Final Fantasy and Disney and I will give you a moment to push your brain back into your ear. Yes it's an odd concept to be sure but it's worked for a good nine years. Mostly by placating to a very strange fan base.

The story follows (normally) Sora. A young boy who knows that in the great tradition of anime heroes must wear more zippers than there exist in the world. The Island of Sickening Wholesomeness where he lives is swallowed by black shadowy death, along with his best friend and the girl he's crushing on.

He is then given a magic sword shaped like a key, and joins with Donald Duck and Goofy to save the multiverse from darkness!

.........

If that last line didn't split your mind in twain I can't help you.

Yeah. This review I'm going to skip the story aspect and focus on game play. This one's both a midquel AND a spinoff so it would require a lover approximately the length of the divine comedy.

Combat's pretty straight forward. Traditional Kingdom hearts hacky-slashy button mashy heartless deathy fun. The difficulty curve however was designed by someone who couldn't get off the difficulty trampoline.

One mission can get you so angry that you wake up in Tijuana three days later in nothing but purple boxers learning in horror about the wake of destruction you have left in your path while the next you can 100% while DEAD.

Then there is of course there are the "panels". You see in anything other than a main series title, the creators of KH have a terrible phobia of games without needless busy work.

We can't make items and magic selectable from a MENU! That will tell the Bee People to steal my children! We have to make it so that the player has to have put in more hours on tetris than there were in 1992 to understand the inventory!

All being said I wouldn't waste the money on it at this point, just wait for the new one coming this December. Where I'm sure we equip weapons by answering the riddle of the SPHINX.

Introduction

Let me first get a few things out of the way. I will not be reviewing the latest games. I will be reviewing what I can get my hands on. If I get a sponsor that may change but for now just bear with me. No one should be upset by this.... Certainly not the bear with me.

Second, I will MOSTLY review nintendo titles. I may review other things as I come across them. But nintendo is very close to my heart. The first game that ever belonged to ME (and not my older brother) was the original Super Smash Bros. And I have personally owned every single model of nintendo handheld system (3DS included)

Third and most important. I have bad taste. At least people tell me so. I am one of the few breathing humans who DON'T fill with angry fan rage at The Phantom Menace. In fact I don't remember it being that poorly received when it came out (though I was only FIVE but still..). Attack of the Clones however.... Ugh. Keep in mind my introduction to the dark knight WAS in fact Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin. I was Four. I have since seen that movie for what it is (A PILE OF SLIMY CRAP).

Thank you for reading this post! I hope you will check out the blog where games that fail are immediately de-rezzed!
WELCOME TO THE GAME GRID!

(Seriously can someone get this bear?)