This month has been tiring and busy with productivity. A few weeks ago, one of our favorite pet Chickens died from choking on her medicine. Waffle hasn't been well the past weeks prior to the incident with her excrement being white, her lack of appetite, and being less energetic than usual. She hasn't laid an egg for over a year and she had problems as a baby chick. So when she was being fed some medicine to help her expunge whatever was in her system, she choked on it and died. It was sad to see and it hurt my father the most since he loved her the most out of all our pet chickens. It was a tense and uncomfortable few weeks following that incident. When Fuzzy died back when I was still in UC Irvine, my dad was upset back then too and bought 11 baby chicks soon after. I was shocked and wasn't sure if this was okay. My dad said this was the last time he'd raise anymore chickens. But after losing Waffle, he ended up buying two more baby chicks a few days later. Unfortunately, one of the baby chicks immediately had the same problems that Waffle did when she was brought home and my dad found out that it's a common disease that affects chickens. Like with Waffle, my parents fed the new baby chick medicine and now it seems to be okay, but the disease doesn't really go away. I knew losing Hattie or Waffle would be hard for the family, but it turned out a lot more dire in my father's situation than I thought it would. I really hope he'll be okay.
I've been in overdrive mode again this month and feel really proud of myself for being able to stay focused. I've started the Ultima Remix album I had planned since back in Jr. College and am making it a reality right now. I met up with one of my cousins, who I haven't seen in a very long time, for lunch and we were talking about games when he mentioned "Ultima Exodus" for the NES. I love that game as it was the game that made me very interested in RPGs. I remember watching my father play the game and loved the music which has stuck with me even now. Back in Jr. College, I had planned to make simple guitar arrangements for them and I had done so with the town theme. But my friends were always busy and we ended up not playing that song together. But when my cousin mentioned the game, I realized that I have the ability to remix and re-imagine the songs the way I want it now. I felt inspired by the idea of revisiting an old project and making it a reality, and so I've pushed aside all other projects to create the remix album. I've finished two of them so far and already have the others planned out. I'm very excited to finishing this project.
I actually watched animé recently! My friends have been telling me to watch Sword Art Online for over a year now, but I never found the time to watch it. I started watching it during breakfast and lunch time and I got really into it. I had finished my 2nd remix on Thursday, so Friday was pretty much free to me and so I spent the whole day watching episodes 11-25 and finished the series. I loved it! It had action, romance, drama, humor, and meaning and executed it really well. That is, the first half of the series was like that. The premise of the story is that in the future, virtual gaming gets to a point where a player's mind can dive into a system and play online games with 1:1 motion within the mind. This is similar to old Animés like .Hack Sign. The whole plot revolves around a Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG) called "Sword Art Online" where thousands of players bought and played it on the first day of release. The game was fun and exciting for the players until they find out that they couldn't log out and return to the real world. All the players were pulled into the main beginning town and was then told that they were stuck in the game and weren't allowed to get out until they completed the game. The big catch is that if they died in the game, the helmet on their heads in real-life that dives their mind into the game would fry their brain and kill them. Furthermore, all the players custom looks were taken away and their true faces from the real world were suddenly shown in the game. No one could hide or escape. If someone in the real world tried to take of the helmet, it would instantly kill the one wearing it. The rest of the animé focuses on the character, Kirito, in his quest to finish the game and free everyone from the death game that they were trapped in. Throughout the story, he grows as a person, affects those around them, and faces difficulties he didn't think he'd have to go through in a game. It wasn't a game anymore, it was a fight for survival. And that's how the whole story gets interesting. All the psychological and sociological inclinations of the players are shown and reflected to those found in real-life. The interactions between the characters are deep and meaningful. Aside from that, the graphics style is clean and modern. But the animations is what really distinguishes itself from other animé shows where motion, effects, and especially character expressions are done so effectively. I've been watching so many slice of life and comedy animé that it felt a bit weird to watch something so serious around the premise of a game. Everything felt so grave and meaningful in the story, and that's where everything seems to fall apart in the 2nd half of the series. I hope I'm not spoiling anything by saying that the remaining players alive escape from Sword Art Online, but some did not and was stuck in another game. When Kirito returns to the real world, one of the players he became very close to did not come back to reality and was still in the virtual world. He goes into that game to save that person, but everything was treated as a game there. People killed wouldn't die in real-life. There were a lot less characters for Kirito to interact with. And the whole story was kind of a stereotypical videogame story of saving the princess at the end of the game sort of deal. The main villain was also very stereotypical and incredibly disgusting. I still had fun watching it, but the 2nd half didn't feel nearly as exciting, involving or meaningful as the first half. And then there's the movie which recaps the entire series with little snippets of their life after the incident with one final adventure within the new game before the movie ends. Supposedly there's a 3rd arch to the story that will release sometime later this year. By the way, if you do watch Sword Art Online, be prepared to cry a few times.
With Sword Art Online finished, I am a bit lost of what to watch next. I'm thinking of watching Senran Kagura next because I just finished the game 2 nights ago. I definitely need to talk about that.
I've completed 7 games so far this month with most of them being First-Person Shooters and games I recently bought. First-Person Shooters are generally short but they take up a lot of hard drive space. I'm running really low and decided to play through all my installed Shooters and delete them after completing them. With this month, I played through Transformers: War for Cybertron. It's actually a 3rd-person shooter and had some interesting moments. The game was a bit entertaining and managed to stay pretty consistent with itself. It never got better or worse, but there were times I thought "wow, this is pretty cool!" Being able to fly around, switch into car mode and drive really fast and shooting all sorts of weapons kept me interested throughout the playthrough.
Alien Rage, unfortunately was a different case. I actually really liked the presentation of the game. The graphics were beautiful, the guns and mechanics with aiming, shooting and moving around "felt" really good, and I liked the story that was told through the audio logs by a character that's never seen and only heard. Sadly, the actual character was boring and the stereotypical, bald, space-marine. The game was fun for the first few levels, then it starts suffering from a case of self-identity. The game boasts itself for being a fast-paced, old-school shooter. Unfortunately, rushing forward generally got you killed really fast. In those cases, it seems like it wants the player to play more tactically and carefully. The problem is that cover is sparse and don't provide very good protection. Grenade launchers can easily kill the player in one hit, and it can splash beyond cover. Having to hide behind cover and run back where you came to be in safety really broke the flow of the game and it didn't seem worth it. A lot of bosses can kill you in one hit, so you have to be consistently moving; however, other enemies and sometimes the boss itself can also shoot bullets and rockets while you're running around and most of the cover are actually explosive and can kill the player in one hit as well. In simple terms, the game couldn't find a good balance between fast-paced action and slower-paced tactics. The game ended up irritating me more than entertaining me. I didn't even get to try multiplayer side since not a single-player was online to play it. I didn't want to believe it was a bad game, and I don't think it is perse. I saw what the developers wanted to achieve in having the player experience, but don't feel that it was executed very well.
Painkiller: Hell & Damnation was pretty much a stripped down version of the first Painkiller with better graphics. There were less levels and the last boss was long and tedious. It was mildly entertaining, but mostly boring.
Rise of the Triad was a huge disappointment. Much like Alien Rage, the game was advertised as being a fast-paced shooter with old-school charm. It started off okay and quickly became disgusting gameplay. Rather than shooting enemies, the game is filled with traps, poorly designed jump puzzles, and everything that hit you later on causes a really big cloudy explosion that fills the entire screen. The whole game felt very gimmicky because of all these puzzles and traps and I got no satisfaction from it. The last boss was so ridiculous that I had to use a cheat code to beat it (essentially, you're surround by lava that hurt you, tiny enemies that dive and blind you constantly, and a boss with an abnormal amount of health and damage that could kill you in two hits. The whole game just felt so messy and unorganized. I constantly felt lost as to where to go next as well because of how the levels were designed. I was more than ready to delete the game after completing it.
I didn't play all bad games this month though. I saw a game for about $3 that had just released called "One Way Heroics". I was rather reluctant on getting it because the graphics looked underwhelming and it was considered a "Rogue-like", a word that is thrown around a little too often in the indie game industry nowadays that it seems to have lost its meaning. Thankfully, the game turned out to be incredibly entertaining. The game is indeed a rogue-like with randomly generated levels, item spawn, and events for every playthrough. Unlike Elona, the game is significantly easier to learn how to play, takes a shorter amount of time to play, and still has enough content to keep it interesting. Essentially, the player chooses a class to play and keeps walking to the right as the dark shroud from the left of the screen consumes everything it comes in contact with while fighting off enemies, grabbing better equipment and getting stronger to fight the demon lord to stop the dark shroud from going any further. The game can still be unforgiving with enemies that can kill you in one hit, but there is the ability to save between towns and continue from there if killed. I've already beaten the game about 5 times on easy mode and can still find something to play out of it.
Vanguard Princess finally reach Steam and it was super cheap upon release! I've played this fighting game for the past 2 years or so already in Japanese and have been waiting for the English version to reach Steam for a while now ever since it was announced that it was put up on Steam Greenlight. It was really nice to be able to read the text and understand the story, even though there isn't that much depth to it. Sadly, my fight-stick doesn't work with the game and so I'm forced to use my Logitech Controller which seems to work perfectly fine with it. I had a lot of fun playing the game and can definitely play it once in a while if I want to play a fighting game really quick. The combo system is a little too technical which makes it hard to pull off long chains, but the simple combos are really short and are still very effective. It's amazing that this game was made by one guy (essentially).
Lastly, I want to talk about Senran Kagura Burst. I wouldn't have imagined that I'd enjoy the game so much and poured so many hours into it. Senran Kagura Burst is a Beat-em-Up for the 3DS and was heavily advertised in Japan for having incredibly busty female ninjas that lose pieces of their clothing as they fight. I don't mind fan-service as much anymore after being exposed to it so often in Animé and other Japanese games, but it always puts me on alert when it's used so heavily in a game making me think that the gameplay might not be enough to make the game worth it. I had changed my mind about Senran Kagura Burst and found interest in it when I saw a footage of the combo system. I couldn't keep away from it when it released here despite being digitally sold only (I despise getting games digitally on anything other than PC or tablets). I also didn't like the fact that it was $30 for a digital copy. Still, I was craving for a good beat-em-Up as I did enjoy Code of Princess but wasn't satisfied. Well, I got a lot more than I had hoped from Senran Kagura Burst because all I wanted was a decent Beat-em-up I could play for about 7 hours. I already have 39 hours on it and I still have a lot of extras to play! For one thing, I didn't expect the game to have a real story or one that was decent, yet a large portion of the game was reading the story for each mission and who the characters were, who they fight, how they've grown, and what their world was about. This, in turn, made me really like the characters. Sure, there are a few I don't like as much, but grew rather fond of them. The game looks so silly and upbeat that I didn't think it would venture into serious topics like death, good and evil, and the meaning of being a shinobi. I really liked that it did that, because the characters felt more believable. The whole world around them feels more real and has more meaning to who they are and why they fight when the story is taken a bit more seriously. Graphics is a bit on and off. I like the character designs a lot, though I don't think gigantic boobs is really necessary to make than any more attractive or likable. Seriously, the interactions they have with each other, their back stories, and their personalities shine through and made me care about them more than I thought I would. Their 3D models are really nice during conversations and special attacks. But the ones made for walking around in the room is very weird. Some of them have super thin arms and have odd walking animations when walking in the preparation room. The graphics in combat is sadly not entirely in 3D in turn to prevent frame skipping or slow-down (a serious problem in Code of Princess), but Specials are still in 3D which looks pretty cool. The graphics for combat aren't incredibly impressive, but the animation and how the game feels has a slick and flashy flow to the combat which I feel is very important to a beat-em-up. The AI isn't incredibly smart, but the way they're set-up sometimes is quite devious which is where the game feels challenging. Just button-mashing can get you so far until certain enemies that don't get fazed or attack from a range interrupts your attacks and deals massive damage. The game is comparable to Dynasty Warriors in that a lot of enemies are presented to you. Although a singular enemy may not be a threat, multiple enemies can cause problems if you don't position yourself and perform the correct attack chains to prevent getting flanked or stunned. I also didn't expect the music to be so good either. One of the first tracks that really caught my attention and made me appreciate the whole atmosphere it created within the game is Mirai's Theme "To the Worthless!"
The two composers that worked on the soundtrack for the game uses various styles and genres to really capture each characters personality and environment in a unique way. Mirai is the tiny, gothic lolita character in the back and is described as small but hates being ignored and wants to be treated as a true shinobi. This song comes across as being somewhat cute with the melodic piano, but also emphasizes how serious and strong Mirai is with a heavy techno beat and guitar riffs. I loved the song, but hated the character during the first half of the game (Hanzo story side). But when I played her story and learned more about her in the Hebijo side of the story, she became my favorite character for that side. That's what the writing of the story did for these characters coupled with the amazing songs for each of them. Another character I didn't really like but did later is Yomi who has an incredibly catchy theme:
And so I finished the game 2 nights ago with completing the main story. I felt so satisfied with the game. I can't say the story is epic or incredible, but the whole journey and learning about the characters and the progression of the story all felt very cohesive and felt so good when put togther: The story, the characters, the graphics, the music, the combat, and the challenge; they're all pretty good but not mind-blowing, yet they all work so well together that I felt it achieved in delivering the experience that the developer sought out to put out. It's similar to the same satisfaction and happiness I felt when I finish Fortune Summoners, it's just not the same exact kind since Fortune Summoners did drive me up the wall quite a few times. With all that said, I honestly hope that they bring over Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus and Senran Kagura 2 because Senran Kagura Burst has turned me into a fan of the series. I'm just sad that the developers feel like the game won't sell unless it's overly sexy when everything else in the game has worked so well for a fun game. Look at this ridiculous trailer for their new Cooking Rhythm spinoff they're making:
Like I said, I don't mind fan-service; however, fan-service to this degree makes it infinitely harder for publishers to bring it over. That and it's not even necessary for a fun or even attractive game. Trying to look past all this, I'd still get all these games if it has the same quality (if not better) in the level of story, characters, game mechanics, music, and graphics that I experienced in Senran Kagura Burst. I certainly enjoyed it after playing games like Alien Rage, Painkiller, and Rise of the Triad where I felt irritation, boredom and disappointment.
Besides that, I'm still working on Final Fantasy XIII. But that's a story for another time.
No comments:
Post a Comment