Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy is one earworm of a 3DS game

In case you’re not up to snuff with your urban dictionary terms, an earworm is “a song that sticks in your mind, and will not leave no matter how much you try.” This can be either a good or bad thing, depending on who you are. For me and for Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy, it’s a delightful problem to have right now. To hammer home this point, let me inform you that I haven’t missed a single daily Rhythmia bonus–extra points alloted to those that play every consecutive day–since I bought it on release day, way back on July 3, 2012. Mm-hmm.

But what is Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy? It’s a good question, and one nobody should be afraid to ask. The answer is both simple and strange: it is a music rhythm game à la Elite Beat Agents, as well as a “thank you” to fans of the Final Fantasy series.

For the rhythm part, you tap the touchscreen via three different on-screen prompts to the beat of a song: a single tap, a tap and hold, or a directional swipe. Sequences vary in difficulty, and you play them across three different types of scenarios. The most enjoyable for me are Field Music Scenarios (FMS), which has the leader of your party of four strolling across the screen from right to left while you handle all the prompts. The other two are Battle Music Scenarios (BMS) and Event Music Scenarios (EMS), both of which are enjoyable, but can be distracting due to too much happening outside of the button prompts. For the EMS, you’re basically tapping over a movie playing, and it can be hard to not focus on Zidane chasing after Garnet, especially for a fanboy like myself.

Speaking of that, the other half of Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy is all about the fans. Whether you think Final Fantasy IV is the best or still can’t get over your nostalgia and claim that nothing beats Final Fantasy VII or are somehow head over heels with the latest hall-walker Final Fantasy XIII…all the mainstay games from the series are represented here. Each game seems to get three songs (with each song getting three different difficulty ranks), and for your party of four, you can pick some recognizable people, all with their own skill sets. And this is where rhythm game and RPG fuse, letting your team level up, earn items, and unlock spells to cast during events. My team of four–all now around level 50 or so–has been like so since the get-go: Zidane (leader), Squall, Vaan, and Terra.

At first, the game seems to be limited on things to do, but after just a bit you’ll have opened up new levels of difficulty, as well as Dark Notes and CollectaCards and music not tied to a specific game. And those Dark Notes…oh man. They are basically randomly generated levels, each containing a FMS and a BMS, but you won’t know which ones until you try it out. Often, they are extremely tough and really challenge your response time, but clearing them successfully is an exhilarating feeling. When you beat one, you unlock another, which is always a higher difficulty. However, there is plenty of reason to replay Dark Notes as you fight one of three potential bosses, and they all have a chance to drop rare items or colored shards, which you use to unlock new characters. Right now, I’m working my way towards getting Vivi on my team–see ya, Squall! I know, you’re surprised.

So, it’s a surprising game, and might not be for everyone, but I’m enjoying it a lot. Not enough to consider buying DLC at $1.00 a song though, as I think there’s plenty of tunes here for my enjoyment, but yeah. For those curious, my favorite songs to play are “Mambo de Chocobo”, “Terra’s Theme”, and “Over the Hills”. What’s your favorite Final Fantasy song? You are not allowed to answer with “One-Winged Angel” by the way.

All right, back to it. The music, it’s a-calling…

Achievements of the Week – The Professional Third and 30 Kill Screen Edition

I missed out on doing Achievements of the Week last week as I was away on business. Actually, I was in New York City to sell comics with my wife and friends at MoCCA Festival 2012, which is technically a business venture of our own, one intermingled with pleasure as comics sure are dang fun. It just always sounds so much more professional to say “on business” versus “selling comic books,” and I strive to come across professional, day in, day out. Hmm…okay, that’s not true. I just wanted some harmony to exist between these words I type and an Achievement I unlocked in Trials Evolution, which you’ll see in a sec. The things I do for syncrisis…

So, this is another grab at playing catch up. Four games get covered, with two of them limelighting the Achievements you get for completing the games. Mmm. I really do like completing games. It’s a good goal to currently have as I have a huge backlog of stuff unfinished or even untouched and not a lot of exciting titles coming out in the near future. Yeah, I’m not counting Game of Thrones: The Game as exciting. But that sense of satisfaction and seeing something all the way through is rewarding on its own.

Right, let’s go.

From Fez…

Warp zone (15G): Like folding a sheet of paper.

Kill screen (25G): Visited the Visitors.

Yeah, I beat the game. I saw its ending. I sat there confused and smiled at a certain part. I started New Game+. I still don’t really understand everything though I do think about cubes and shapes and what they ultimately mean in life a lot more these days.

From Trials Evolution…

The Professional (30G): Successfully complete the single player career.

Extreme Prejudice (20G): Complete any Extreme track.

Don’t ask me how I got this. Honestly, I don’t remember. I must have completed one of the extreme tracks in a wild fever, eyes unblinking, hands moving with speed and skill, the track falling apart as I vroom vroomed forward, a monster making its way to victory.

From The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim…

Hero of Skyrim (30G): Capture Solitude or Windhelm

The realm is nearly all mine. Also, I talked about the Achievement for obtaining 100,000 gold over here.

From Saints Row: The Third…

Third and 30 (40G): Played SR3 for 30+ hours, why stop now!?

Got this during my lunchbreak today. More specifically, I got this after I left the game on in the background and went and did the dishes and drank some iced tea. Talk about skills.

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So, how have the last two weeks been for you and your ol’ Xbox 360? Tell me about an Achievement you’ve gotten recently. If not, I might not get out bed tomorrow from lack of love–and yeah, that’d be your fault. So, please, be kind. Share with the world your victories. I’ve already done my part.

Achievements of the Week – The Who Loves the American Dream Edition

Due to some recent traveling, I was unable to do an Achievements of the Week post two times in a row. Which is fine, actually, as during those car- and con-laden days I was most definitely not gaming on my Xbox 360, but rather standing behind a table and selling copies of my bad comics to curious onlookers. With that said, today’s entry is going to be a little lean on variety as all I’ve really played on the ol’ Xbox 360 over the past twenty-one days is Saints Row: The Third–and in short spurts at that. Usually while waiting for water to boil for tea or Ramen. Sure, I’ve dabbled in a lot of Steam games as of late, but I don’t think I am going to include those ones much in these weekly roundups.

Okay, here we go with the purple pics then.

From Saints Row: The Third…

The American Dream (10G): Pimped out 10 vehicles.

Who Loves Ya Baby (10G): Killed 50 brutes, they just wanted hugs you jerk!

Hanging With Mr. Pierce (25G): Took control of the entire Downtown district for the Saints.

There’s a couple more, but that’s good enough for now. Besides, I kinda already covered them right over here.

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This weekend is all about comics and scripting and getting my car registered in Pennsylvania, but I am sure I will sneak away for some gaming time. I mean, I’m about an hour and a half away from the Achievement that you get for playing Saints Row: The Third for at least thirty hours. Oh boy. I can do it.

What are your Achievement goals this week? Trying to finish up Mass Effect 2 in preparation for Mass Effect 3? If so, I’m jealous. I will probably finish my Mass Effect 2 playthrough by early 2056 at this rate. Well, let me know.

Resident Evil: Revelations is portable horror and so not for me

I’m attracted to horror games from a distance. Truly, I am. I just don’t enjoy playing them, and this is pretty evident with the fact that Silent Hill 2 still remains unfinished despite Tara keeping me company through all the fog and static-laden radio noises and creepy monsters that want to spray me with their evil juices. I love the atmosphere and story and crazy enemy designs in horror games, but I just can’t handle the packed-in stress, the long stretches that build between scare A and scare B, the way tiny sounds like turning a doorknob are deafening and that general feeling of utter helplessness.

Also, a quick gander at my backlog confirms a solid lack of horror videogames. Yes, there’s BioShock, which I played and completed, but struggled with for awhile, often just standing still for long periods of time thanks to a “turn invisible when not moving” Plasmid and listening to my surroundings. I’ve dipped my toes into the terrifying pools called Penumbra: Overture and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but have no desire to go swimming. And in my younger years, yes, I played a few Resident Evil games, but those were social affairs, adventures that my best friend and I would go on together, with chips and drinks and puppy dogs at our sides to make the real world as safe as possible in lieu of the dangerous digital version; the vivid memory of a licker bursting threw a one-sided mirror still makes me tense up.

That said, after a busy day of drawing journal comics every hour on the hour, I downloaded the demo for Resident Evil: Revelations on my 3DS–yes, the system now supports demos; praise be to the Maker, it must be the year 2012–and give it a whirl. To clarify, the last Resident Evil game I played with passion and purpose was probably Resident Evil 2 though I did try a demo for Resident Evil 5, which was lame.

Firstly, this is a gorgeous-looking game. The graphics definitely show off what the 3DS can handle, and the 3D slider flicked slightly up creates a fantastic look, really drawing me in, as if I’m walking right behind Jill as she badly shoots zombies on a haunted cruiser ship. Well, no. Not zombies. Scary, mutated monsters. Secondly, without that crazy Circle Pro Pad attachment, this game controls horribly, especially during the moments when quick, precise turning is needed. You know, like when a monster is trying to eat your face off. See, without a second circle analog pad, you both move Jill and move the camera at the same time with the one circle pad you got. It’s horrible; I’d switch over to first-person shooting mode to pop a monster in the middle of its temple only to have my aim swirling around out of control. Thirdly–and lastly–this game can manage scares just fine. You’d think, being on a brightly teal-colored handheld device, which has a number of lights on at any given time, it wouldn’t be able to create such an atmosphere, but it does. One monster jumped down from the ceiling, and I emitted a sound. I will not describe it.

And then I ran out of ammo. And then I died in a foggy room filled with scary things. I exited out of the demo and saw that I now have 29 more chances to get scared. No thanks. But I can see why many would like Resident Evil: Revelations: high production values, quality scares, beautiful graphics, and an actual story to follow. Alas, this type of game is still not for me even when playing safely under the blankets with warmth, cats, and a wife to keep me safe. Oh well. Good thing for demos.

Back to blogging and videogame snogging

I did not plan to take two weeks off from blogging about videogames and giving Grinding Down love five days a week. Not one bit.

See, first things first, I was in a car accident. I was coming home from a work-hosted Christmas party, thinking about what gifts I still needed to buy for various family members when, without warning, a car slammed into my vehicle from behind at such a force that I screamed a sound I never knew existed within my being and bounced forward down the highway. I was doing around 65 mph; this person, who, with not much else to go on, I believe was drunk, had to be doing around 80 or 85 mph. They then drove off, leaving me on the side of Route 80, scared and uncertain. So I had to spend a few days dealing with that, as I was actually in a rental car at the time of impact and had to go to a police station, get an accident report, pick up my true car Bullet, and so on, so on, so on.

Then came the holidays themselves. This is the year I learned that, well, I’m not going to love the holidays as much after losing my mother to cancer last December. Makes sense, really, and so my depression surfaced to a magically new high. I played a lot of videogames, as I’m wont to do when down in that ditch, but I couldn’t get myself to write about them. I just hid in them and used them for quick hugs and abused them for ways to avoid all things real, all things scary. But I’m back now. I think. Yeah, hopefully. Gotta make the best out of this manic phase before I swing back low, right?

So, the year of 2011 has come and gone, and it’s that time for those Game of the Year roundups. I offered my picks over at The First Hour, naming…L.A. Noire as my Game of the Year! Yeah, woo. Play that game, y’all, if you haven’t yet. I also call out Bastion, Fallout: New Vegas, and Monster Tale as pretty great experiences, which should be obvious to anyone that follows this little blog here. I write about those games lots. Go check it out, even if Greg still doesn’t love exploring the Mojave Wasteland.

Throughout all this quiet time, I’ve played many, many games. Seriously, dear readers. A ton of ’em. Here’s just a few to whet your collective whistles: Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, Saints Row: The Third, Rage, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Pushmo, and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. Again, to name a few. There’s more. And I have a lot of blog posts bouncing around my rabbity head, so stay tuned. Cause I’m back at this. I hope.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Living the LEGO life of a pirate

The demo for LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game begins with a young Elizabeth Swan punching a parrot in its face. It’s pure zaniness, but that’s what these LEGO games have always been about–retellings with a special touch. If you’re not laughing, you’re not having fun.

I started to play this demo by myself, but when Tara saw what I was doing, she quickly grabbed another controller and joined in on the fun. We’ve always enjoyed playing the LEGO games together, especially LEGO Harry Potter, Years 1-4, which was very close to us in terms of interests. Here’s a comic I did many moons ago about our time with LEGO Batman (the weakest of all the LEGO titles actually):

Much of the demo for LEGO Pirates (I’m shortening the title from now on) is actually cutscenes, setting the story up and giving Tara and I many reasons to giggle. The entire game will cover all four movies. We’re playing the first level of the Curse of the Black Pearl, which has Jack Sparrow arriving in town and getting locked up, Elizabeth accidentally summoning those cursed pirates and getting herself kidnapped, and Will Turner slowly becoming allies with a wanted criminal.

The first playable part of the demo is inside Will Turner’s workshop. One player controls Will, and the other controls, um, some guy I can’t remember the name of. His partner? Together, we broke items, collected studs, fed a carrot to a donkey, and repaired a machine, which revealed where Jack Sparrow was hiding. Then it was time for a sword-fight high up in the rafters, and even though I was just mashing the attack button, the swords clinked and clanked and swung wildly, giving the impression of a real duel to the death.

The next area has us controlling Will and Jack, trying to break our way out of jail. This involves using a dog and sniffing out keys. Once we’re done this area, we’re outside in the shiny, bright sunshine, attempting to get to the docks to steal a ship. Tara takes control of Jack and the laughs hit a high when he hops on top of a barrel and begins rolling around with it. We get to do some combat with some soldiers, and then we’re over by a ship, trying to figure out how to commandeer it. Staying in the water too long gets you eaten by a shark. After solving the rather simple puzzles and zip-lining over onto the ship, the demo ends, leaving us wanting more.

However, after playing the main part of the demo, you can go back and do “free play” on the first level, which just gave us an excuse to try out some other fun characters and explore a few locked areas. Tara ran me over several times with a donkey, and then we were officially done for the night.

So, the gameplay is exactly what we’ve all come to expect. For some, that might seem like a downer. However, it’s still the sort of gameplay I like, as it is not too intense for co-op play, and just enough of a collectathon for my OCD. Granted, there are not as many memorable characters to unlock in LEGO Pirates as there were in LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Harry Potter, but I think it’ll still be a blast to control Bootstrap Bill.

The full retail version releases tomorrow, and I’m gonna get that booty faster than you can say, “Oh, barnacles!”