Kram Keep is a tiny yet towering take on Metroidvania

In a different life, one where maybe I didn’t try to have a career or binge-watch TV shows via Netflix or sleep or, heavens no, make a name for myself through art and writing, I’d be covering every Ludum Dare that happened, deeply examining all the themed creations, whether they got voted highly or not. Alas, that is not me. Instead, I kind of stumble across a Ludum Dare jam game months or even years after it was born. Well, with the topic du jour, I’m not terribly late, seeing that Ludum Dare 31 went down back in early December 2014, its jam theme being “Entire Game on One Screen.”

Kram Keep certainly meets that requirement. It’s the age-old classic tale of a blue-haired vampire hunter, a massively large castle full of traps and projectile-shooting enemies, and an evil master at its top, awaiting your blood. It’s a Metroidvania-style game, stuck on a single screen, meaning you can press the Shift key at any time to zoom out the map all the way and see everywhere you’ll eventually be going; I liked this, as it proved useful in guiding me to the next area, as well as keeping me informed about what was to come and the locations of vital power-ups. If anything, this seems sides more with the vania part than Metroid, but it is hard to say. As you go, you can collect hearts to increase your life bar, but you really want those special abilities–wall jump, double jump, and spread projectiles–if you are going to make any significant progress. Little crosses act as both checkpoints and health refills.

There were perhaps two or three tricky spots in Kram Keep that involved precise wall jump timing, and using the letter X and the arrow directions on the keyboard complicated things. As always, I prefer my platformers with a controller in hand, but sometimes you aren’t allotted such a benefit. In truth, where I needed a controller the most, was against the final boss. He has a pattern, so it eventually comes down to memorization and quick reflexes, but I still managed to put him six feet under with only a sliver of health left. Once you kill him, spoilers, much like with the end of Super Metroid, you have a limited amount of time to escape the castle, which means reversing the way you came in, though some routes are now closed off; I failed it the first time, but by hitting continue on the main menu, you can give it another go, and from what I can tell, it only changes a small part of the credits. Overall, the experience is tough, but fun, something I’d definitely recommend platforming fans to check out.

Since I love statistics and games that spit them out at the end of your run, here are my final, less-than-impressive tallies for Kram Keep:

• Time played: 0:42:51
• Deaths: 52
• Enemies killed: 160
• Crystal Hearts: 5/8
• Difficulty: Normal

Ludum Dare 32 is coming up in the middle of April, though there’s no listed theme just yet. Until then, I think I’ll snoop around a bit more in Ludum Dare 31‘s entries, as I’m almost positive there are a bunch more innovative takes on the “single screen only” theme. Hopefully I can find a few other titles to highlight like Kram Keep, that do a lot with very little.

Big Boss will carry on the fight after Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

I’m not sure why I was so worried that Drew and Dan over at Giant Bomb would get ahead of me in this sneakathon to experience all the Metal Gear games, to fully absorb their cool and zany and ridiculousness, one after the other. Well, I’m aiming to play ’em all, but I believe they’ll be skipping Peace Walker, and already bypassed the original MSX2 titles and, thankfully, the lackluster VR Missions.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater goes the distance in terms of providing a realistic setting where sneaking, where hiding in grass and tiptoeing around booby traps, makes much more sense than an isolated oil rig or even an Alaskan nuclear weapons disposal facility. The trick to super-sleuthing through a Cold War jungle is to no longer rely on your old tricks, such as a radar and pressing against a wall before peaking out from behind it to pop a guard in the noggin with a tranquilizer dart. I spent the majority of my time as Naked Snake laying flat on his stomach, crawling through tall grass and closely monitoring my camouflage meter. My trek from screen to screen wasn’t a perfect, spotless run, as my stats at the bottom of this post will reveal, but when I got through a scenario relatively unnoticed, with only snoring bodies left behind, it sure felt awesome and super spy cool.

I’ve already talked a bit about some of the game mechanics, as well as my love for healing radio frequencies. For this post, I’d like to quickly examine that classic Metal Gear Solid juxtaposition of realistic and bonkers, of military-driven jargon and a man that shoots bullet bees from his mouth. You could compare it to a James Bond film–for me, I’m thinking of Roger Moore’s Moonraker–where the action is certainly outrageous, but believable in some slant of light. Perhaps if you squint. The weapons are traditional and accurate for the time period, but a number of items, such as porn, toss-able venomous snakes, and the crocodile cap, can lead to rather amusing moments. The game even goes so far as to comment on its James Bond-like elements, with Naked Snake refusing to be put next to such a goofy master spy.

Also, more so than the previous games, one of which had you staring closely at Meryl’s butt, there’s a high amount of sexuality here, starting naturally with EVA and her zipped down bikini outfit, kiss of death lipstick, and press LB to stare at her chest sequences. Later on, there’s breast and crouch grabbing, as well as nods to Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin’s bisexuality. Some of it is handled better than others, and yes, scene where EVA removes the tracker from Naked Snake’s nether region, I’m looking directly at you.

Lastly, other than the lengthy cat-and-mouse chase with The End and emotional, time-restricted last go against The Boss, the rest of the boss fights are a major disappointment. Yup, I’m even including the Shagohod. Gone are the gray characters you are battling with, replaced with cartoonish, black-and-white named goons that mostly only say their codename and then explode when you defeat them. I don’t think I could tell you much about The Pain, The Fear, or The Fury, as the game barely reveals anything about them. Remember how you got to know Metal Gear Solid‘s Psycho Mantis and Sniper Wolf intimately after defeating them? That kind of stuff doesn’t happen here. These COBRA unit members are merely roadblocks, and they don’t take too much work to bypass; once you do, you’ll never think of them again.

As per tradition, I took a snapshot of my end game stats screen:

I think that 22 hours and 45 minutes logged play time is a bit bloated; a few times, I left the game on the “pause” menu or sitting at the end of a codec call if I needed to do something else or got a phone call. I killed 142 people, but I swear the majority of those were after the fight with The Sorrow. Leading up to that legendary encounter, I was pretty conservative with lethal rounds. Other than that, I’m not sure what to make of the crocodile title rating…is that good? So-so? For beating the game on Normal difficulty, I got a bunch of special items, like a tuxedo and The Boss’ Patriot gun, but I’m not going back into the jungle just yet. Though I did miss the Trophies to poison a guard and blow up an ammunition shed. Hmm.

For some reason, I always thought that Peace Walker came out next in the series. Nope. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is up next, and I know very little about it, save for something about a funny install process and that Snake–as in Solid Snake–is old and coughing up blood. I’ll get to it soon. That is so long as another sneaking mission doesn’t occupy my attention first.

An endless supply of handsome princes to Little Briar Rose’s rescue

The original version of Sleeping Beauty by the Brothers Grimm, meaning the non-Disney take or even the more recent stab via Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent, tackles such hot topics like adultery, bigamy, murder, rape, suicide, and even cannibalism. Yes, this is how fairy tales went back then. Thankfully, Little Briar Rose from Elf Games is not quite as dark as its source material, both in look and narrative, though we never do see what happens once the prince makes it to the castle, leaving that ending to either your Disney-slanted imagination or something more horrifying, the kind of twist that George R.R. Martin would appreciate.

But what is Little Briar Rose, other than a different name for a complicated tale of a comatose princess? It’s a point-and-click adventure game using a stunningly gorgeous stained glass art style, revolving around this plot: a princess has fallen under a curse that puts both her and her whole kingdom to sleep, with thick briar bushes blocking the way inside her kingdom, and the only way to break the curse is for a prince to awaken her with a true love’s kiss on the lips. However, in order to clear away much of the thick briar bushes and open up a path forward, the prince must first help the magical denizens of the forest. There are wishes to be granted still. Some are basic fetch quests, some involve a wee bit of puzzle solving, some are multiple choice-driven, and they all require a lot of backtracking.

Overall, Little Briar Rose isn’t a very long adventure. I think there are a total of five or six screens to explore, with plenty of revisiting between them all to solve every last puzzle and clear away those thorny vines. One puzzle asks you to construct a house based on a crude drawing, another requires you to gather specific information and relay it correctly, and the remainder involves finding items and giving them to the right non-playable character. Here’s the main deal: you’ll need to talk to everyone you’ve met, multiple times depending on the situation, to be set on the right track. If you feel stuck or unsure how to push the puzzle forward, go and talk to every merman, fairy, and gnome you see. Even that crow atop those mushrooms. Talk, talk, talk. Some of the dialogue is a little tedious to sift through, but it is well-paced and amusing for the most part. Obviously, the game’s art style is a delight to behold–and I wanted more screens to gawk at more colorful images–though the limited soundtrack grows tiresome quickly.

Interestingly, you can fail at several of the puzzle scenarios in Little Briar Rose, resulting in the death of your prince. No worries though as a new one quickly shows up to carry on the previous one’s torch and try again. This prince will have a new name and differently-colored hair and clothes, but otherwise, it’s just another empty husk to move around the game’s world and do your bidding. Adventure games like Gemini Rue and Beneath a Steel Sky have implemented death before, but they actually abide by the laws of death; here, it doesn’t make sense or even feel necessary. All it does is kill a few more minutes, making you backtrack to whatever puzzle you were at, as well as redo the steps you previously took to begin solving it if you forgot to save beforehand. I’d rather have seen some kind of “lolz you so wrong, prince, try again!” message rather than this, and trust me, I saw enough new princes spawn to earn an Achievement notification. Seeing as that was the only Achievement to pop up during my time in Princess Aurora’s land and that there’s no way to even view them, it came across as a waste.

I don’t want to come across too negative, as it was an enjoyable and certainly unique adventure gaming experience. At least there was no cannibalism. You can grab a copy for zero dollars for either Windows or Mac OS X at Elf Games’ website. I also scrolled through the developers’ blog, and it seems like Little Briar Rose is going through some revamping, with new art to come. I might give it another go down the line, curious to see what else changes.

Healing radio frequencies are Naked Snake’s escape

I’m actively not looking up every secret or Easter egg for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, but a scan through its Trophy list revealed something I never even knew existed back when I played the game in 2004 slash 2005, on the good ol’ PlayStation 2 in my bedroom at my parents’ house while home from college. I’m specifically talking about healing radio frequencies, seeing as I already knew how to make Snake throw up after spinning him in circles via the surgery screen.

In short, there are special frequencies you can tap into to hear a song play and get your health healed at the same time. Music really is magical. There are eight in total, and once you dial in to them, they stay in your menu of codec options for future use, such as when you run out of life medicine, so long as you don’t mind kicking back and digesting a tune or two. Trust me–I don’t mind, not when the songs are this good.

For those that wanna try ’em out yourselves, drop to one knee and switch to any of these following frequencies, though they might be different for other difficulty settings than Normal:

• 141.85 – “Don’t Be Afraid” by Rika Muranaka
• 142.09 – “Sea Breeze” by Sergei Mantis
• 143.32 – “Sailor” by Starry K.
• 144.86 – “Jumpin’ Johnny” by Chunk Raspberry
• 145.83 – “Salty Catfish” by 66 Boys
• 146.65 – “Rock Me Baby” by 66 Boys
• 148.39 – “Surfing Guitar” by 66 Boys
• 148.96 – “Pillow Talk” by Starry K.

Before I go and confirm anything, I have to wonder if any of these groups are real. I’m no Matt Pinfield from 120 Minutes, but I’m pretty up and up on music, especially fascinating with stuff from the 1940s through the 1960s. Clearly, Chunk Raspberry is a punny play on Chuck Berry, but that still could be someone imitating the legendary pioneer of rock and roll music.  Is the name Sergei Mantis a nod at Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid? Was he originally a lead guitar player in a sultry jazz band before becoming the kind of man that reads your memory card data and tells everyone how much you love the Suikoden series? Not that I mind that, of course.

Okay, I did a little digging. As it turns out, all of the healing radio tracks were actually written by Norihiko Hibino, who selected song titles and artist names as a parody of music in the 1960s. I’m not sure if Hibino played all the instruments as well, but regardless of that…yowza. Pretty cool. I’m a big fan of Starry K already and would totally buy a t-shirt after one of their fictitious concerts. Since discovering these frequencies, I listened to all eight of them in a row to get a Trophy, but have popped one or two, not while injured, but when just chilling in some heavy brush or atop a cliff, enjoying the view. No one tells Big Boss how to his music; I know the years don’t match up, but it would’ve been great to have a Bruce Springsteen track in there as well.

I’m not 100% thorough when it comes to calling everyone on the codec, in every new situation or desperate moment, but I can’t recall these radio frequencies ever being brought up. By Major Zero, by Para-Medic, by Sigint, by EVA. I imagine people just stumbled on to them by accident at first. Either way, I think they are one of my favorite Easter eggs ever; it would’ve been one thing to just include a Chuck Berry song in there, but to go to the effort to write a song to mimick Chuck Berry and the times…that’s some Hideo Kojima-esque level of dedication.

Also: one of the healing radio frequencies should’ve played Snake Eater‘s main theme, which fully recovered Naked Snake’s health and stamina, as well as made him invincible for a short period of time. You know it’s a good idea.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater takes on a 1960s Soviet jungle setting

I’ve only played through Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater once in my life, and I remember very little, save for the obvious much-written about boss fight with The End. And a few other details. Borrowing the game from a friend kept the pressure on me to burn through Naked Snake’s map-less operation as quickly as possible and return it to its rightful owner. This is ultimately why I no longer borrow things; something goes wonky in my brain, and all I can concentrate on it how I’m holding captive someone else’s possession, as if they are just standing behind me, tapping their foot in impatience, demanding it all back.

All that said, I was hoping to not start playing Snake Eater this soon, especially considering I just started Final Fantasy IX up. Timing is everything though, and Metal Gear Scanlon is back in action, which means I need to stay a bit ahead of them to both enjoy my second replay and experience Drew’s first dip into Hideo Kojima’s Cold War antics. For me, it’s more enjoyably knowing what’s coming up and watching someone’s reaction as they get there. Granted, I don’t need to see everything first, but knowing that a young revolver-less Ocelot meows to summon extra back-up is the sort of ridiculousness that I like to be aware of as I watch Giant Bomb play.

It’s only been a few months since I took down twenty-five Metal Gear Rays in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, but whatever skills I refined then are now completely gone. In the few hours I’ve spent running through a Soviet Union rainforest, I’ve lead Naked Snake to his death more than at least twenty times already, and this was me just trying to get a handle on movement, shooting, and CQC-ing, all of which are still as clunky as ever. I was totally spoiled by radar and vision cones in the last game, now struggling with even being able to tell what’s around me when flat on my stomach in some thick, dark grass. There’s also a ton more meters to pay attention to–health, stamina, camouflage, battery life, the cure menu, your backpack–as well as your surroundings, such as enemies, wildlife, hidden mines, and so on. As a general rule, I go into these games trying to be stealthy and unseen, but I’m not afraid to pop an unconscious soldier in the head if he’s giving me grief; yes, I know what repercussions this will wrought.

Progress-wise, I burned through the Virtuous Mission, showed The Pain, The Fear, and The End what real pain, fear, and end is, respectively, during Operation Snake Eater, if you catch my drift. If I’m being honest, I died once during the ravine-split encounter versus young Ocelot before those named gobbers, but didn’t die at all during the named boss fights. Which I find odd. I’m playing on Normal, but so far, I feel like these fights were…fairly easy. Certainly much more forgiving than the boss fights in Metal Gear Solid. Amusingly, I have more trouble getting through an area of four or five guards, or one loaded with booby-traps.

Everyone plays Metal Gear Solid differently. That’s just a way of life. I’d love to be sneaky all the time, but when the going gets rough, I do enjoy using CQC to knock dudes unconscious. Or the occasional shotgun blast to see their bodies cartoonishly zip backwards. Right now, there’s a lot of…let’s call it heated criticism over how Drew is playing in Metal Gear Scanlon 3, but I think he’s solving problems as he see fits. Personally, I’d like to see Dan be less of a backseat driver and let his friend experience the game in his own manner, his own pace. Sure, we as viewers might miss some content or silly codec calls or episodes could go on for pretty long, but if it means Drew takes his time (or doesn’t) and clears a room of soldiers (or doesn’t) without being seen (or is), then that’s more rewarding and still entertaining.

With that, I just saved before the ladder sequence. You know what I speak of. I’m thinking I’m now past the halfway mark, with a goal of finishing Snake Eater up soon so I can get back to learning equipped abilities in Final Fantasy IX.

It takes a princess to save a knight in The Tale of Kelda

Don’t you hate it when, in the middle of spinning and swirling and dancing with your one true love in some fantasy-quality grassy field, a ferocious monster snatches away your significant only, leaving you standing there, burning for justice and revenge? I know I do. And so does Kelda, the star of The Tale of Kelda, which was another high-up-on-the-list entry, in terms of votes, for the GameBoy Jam 3 from last year–yes, I’m still nibbling away at it–of which I’ve also tried out two other strong contenders in the names of Roguelight and Meowgical Tower.

The Tale of Kelda, from Sinextra Game Studio and which obviously has no obvious connection with The Legend of Zelda (obviously), is an action platformer, starring the princess herself, which would make Anita Sarkeesian quite proud. It kind of reminds me of when Jade, a journalist, was sent to rescue Double H, an armored soldier, who was kidnapped by the evildoers in Beyond Good & Evil. If only we can get a true take on this notion from Nintendo with the Mario series, and no, sorry, Super Princess Peach was not the best effort, given that most of her power-ups rely on emotions, like joy and rage. Y’know, because all women are emotional.

Moving right along, Kelda deals in simple actions: moving left and right, jumping, double jumping, slashing with her sword, and charging up a magic projectile. That’s it. You’ll use all of these skills to complete each level, with the level’s end identified by a road sign and an arrow to follow. You have five hearts, and a set number of magic spell uses, though killing enemies and breaking pots will reveal extra pick-ups to refill those meters. All in all, it’s a straightforward experience, with little challenge, though there is something extremely satisfying about slashing a skeleton archer to death before it can loose an arrow your way. The platforming is rudimentary and never really tasks with you anything too challenging, but it gets the job done.

A few quibbles, of course. Kelda occasionally would land on the edge of a platform, and she’d sort of get stuck in-between the geometry. I never felt truly confident leaping to another ledge and slashing at an enemy awaiting me there. Lastly, I was able to cheese the final boss by standing in one spot and perfectly timing four or five magic projectiles in a row. Oh wells. This is a jam game, after all, and still a solid stab at the theme and all its limitations.

I have a few more entries from GameBoy Jam 3 downloaded to look at, though I will never experience all 239 creations. Certainly not at my pace, at least. Regardless, stay tuned for more retro-themed adventures and my avant-garde thoughts on ’em. Long live princesses.

Don’t worry, everyone, for I found all 10 yellow cupcakes

I have a bunch of Grinding Down posts in the work, all in different shapes of completion and on pretty diversified topics, such as marbles, sneaking around and stabbing tourists, and battling monsters that grow stronger ever turn, but I’m not really feeling motivated to write about any of them at the moment. Here’s my rule–don’t force your writing. Write when you are inspired or when you just can’t stop typing, when the ideas in your head are bouncing around, gasping for air. When it is fun and not a hassle. So, instead of churning out words and phrases I feel no connection to at the given moment, I’ll wax on a bit about a little Flash distraction I stumbled across recently called Find 10 Yellow Cupcakes, playable in your browser over here.

In Find 10 Yellow Cupcakes, you must do just that. It follows the same logic behind Escape the Barn. It’s an “escape the room” style point-and-click adventure game, with the twist being that, in order to escape this rather calm, if barely furnished home of yours, you must first gather up ten yellow cupcakes. For who, you surely ask? I don’t know. Let’s say it is either aliens or really picky friends, as they will not stoop low enough to eat green cupcakes. Anyways, eight of these cupcakes are hidden throughout the house, and there’s some item-driven puzzling involved to get the last two into your collection, but you’ll find these cupcakes by clicking on things, opening drawers and doors, and entering in passcodes to breach security locks.

You might think finding ten yellow cupcakes is…a piece of cake. ::rimshot:: I’m here to tell you otherwise. Allow me to share with y’all some cupcake-unearthing tips. Remember to interact with everything that looks interactive, like light switches or curtains or even the drain in the sink. Also, in order to use an item, click on it in your inventory and then click on the “About Item” button to see if up close and use other items on it. Lastly, don’t forget, you only care about yellow cupcakes; if you come into possession of a cupcake of a different color, munch away.

Find 10 Yellow Cupcakes is a short, tasty bit of pointing and clicking and deducing, with a minimalistic look and sound design. That’s fine. I wasn’t looking for much here, but once I began gathering cupcakes, the tug to collect them all pulled me along, even when I got stuck over the last two cupcakes. Granted, I knew what I needed to do, but struggled with the game’s interface to get the job done. You also don’t get much feedback or resolution once you find all ten yellow cupcakes and hightail it outside, other than a “hey, congrats, d00d” image. Still, much like a cupcake is all you need when you’re hungering for something sweet, but not too much, MayMay’s latest game satisfied me until dinner. That said, I don’t consider this big enough of an experience to add it to my games I completed in 2015 list.

Awakener has young adventurer Fadi performing a number of tasks

Evidently, I still have a bunch of Ben Chandler’s earlier point-and-click adventure games downloaded on my laptop, waiting patiently. Ready to be played, like good little patients. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. That is, only if I use my mouse cursor to click on them and hit “run.” That might not sound like a tricky puzzle, but some days, some cold, tired, lonely nights, it can be a true struggle to do anything other than crawl under the heated blanket with a cat and burn the dark hours with a continuous stream of Netflix. That said, I decided to check out Awakener over the weekend and was surprised to discover it was both a short and straightforward experience, peppered with wall-breaking humor and flashy animations, like when Fadi finds the dagger.

Here’s the deal. A nine-year-old boy called Fadi thirsts for adventure much in the same way a drowning man thirsts for air. Er, no. That’s probably too dramatic. So, when asked to retrieve a potion from the local store by his Aunt Sylvia, he sees this straightforward challenge as much more, as a not so simple task. With point-and-click adventure games, it never really is anyways. In order to retrieve this potion, this Spirit of Hartshorn, which should be potent enough to wake the sleeping man outside his aunt’s home, Fadi will have to jump through some non-literal hoops, supplying people he meets with just what they need to give up whatever item they have to help him progress. I mean, that statue isn’t going to dress itself.

As it turns out, Awakener takes place across a single screen, though it does scroll left and right, so you could argue that it is like three rooms connected with no loading. This is not a detriment, as some developers can do a lot with a little. I personally liked the bite-size environment to scour, as it never felt overwhelming, and the backtracking only took a few clicks. You’re in a sort of open market area, with a couple houses and a bar, though you can’t go inside anywhere; no worries, as everyone you need to converse with for puzzle actions is outside, getting some fresh fantasy-limned air. Just like Chandler’s other earlier works, such as Fragment and ~airwave~ – I Fought the Law, and the Law One, the characters and environments are brightly colored, zany, with some nontraditional takes on geometry.

Awakener‘s puzzles are all item-based, which means speaking with someone to figure out what item they need or how to get the item they already have. You’ll never hold too much in your inventory at one time, which keeps things pretty simple to figure out. The solutions are fairly obvious, like helping an assassin on her assassination quest, though I did get stuck for a minute or two on how to obtain the soldier’s pike, not realizing it was a timing issue. Also, if I recall–it’s been a few days now–all puzzles are solved using a single item on a second single thing, with very little item combining at play.

Ultimately, this is a short, early comedic stab from Ben Chandler, one still worth checking out if you have a few minutes to spare and like clicking on things. The dialogue is amusing, especially if you are a fan of adventure games and can take a few jokes at a genre you enjoy, though don’t expect much in the sound department. You can grab a free copy of the game over this a-way.

I wish to be kidnapped right away by Final Fantasy IX

Over the weekend, as we creep closer to finishing off the first two months of 2015–two absolutely frigid and skin-cracking cold months at that–I realized I needed to start doing something about my promise to finally play, with the intent to complete too, Final Fantasy IX, Radiant Historia, and Silent Hill 3. Now, I’m naturally not crazy enough to juggle all of those at once, and so I picked the one that called to me most, that has always called to me, fifteen years after its release in November 2000, and that’s how we’re here now, with a save entry in Final Fantasy IX around the six-hour mark. Six hours, ten minutes, and thirty-five seconds, with 3,181 Gil to spend if I’m to be exact.

I’m not going to wax nostalgia too much, but Final Fantasy IX, despite me only ever getting as far as the second disc (of four discs in total) made a big impression on me as a sixteen-year-old gamer kid. Much more than Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII ever did–sorry, Cloud and Squall, respectively. There are a number of elements here that I think about constantly, such as Active Time Events, Triple Triad, how the plot bounces between a Game of Thrones-esque cast of characters, the jaunty pacing, that orchestral soundtrack, kupos and the noises they make when receiving mail, and more. Truly, I’ve never understood why I haven’t completed it sooner, but I feel like a part of me always got distracted by something else, especially on disc two, when things slow down, but much like previous goals wherein I remained on the path to complete games like Chrono Cross and Metal Gear, I’m hopeful this is my chance.

Let me share with y’all Final Fantasy IX‘s concomitantly light and heavy plot, at least for the opening hours of the game. The adventure begins with Zidane and the Tantalus Theater Troupe kidnapping Princess Garnet during her sixteenth birthday celebration. As it turns out, Garnet actually wanted to be kidnapped, not knowing what to do over Queen Brahne’s increasingly erratic behavior. Along the way, Zidane and Garnet are joined by Vivi, a black mage who is troubled by the idea that soulless black mages are being sweatshop created for nefarious purposes, and Steiner, a soldier sworn to protect the princess. The group travels to Lindblum to speak with Regent Cid over what to do next. Things go from there, but I won’t go into every detail; just know that the group is being pursued, Mist is a problem, Garnet is discovering everyone is holding her back, and Zidane is not quite the ladies monkey he believes himself to be.

I suspect I’ll go into other elements in separate posts later, so for now I’ll write a bit about the combat and combat-related mechanics. Battles are active and turn-based, coined as Active Time Battles, meaning you get to select an action for whoever once their meter fills up, but the enemy’s turn meter is also filling up simultaneously. Depending on party members, your commands are pretty standard: attack, steal, black magic, skills, items, flee, and so on. After taking enough hits, characters can enter a “Trance” mode, which is activated for a short duration and not too far off from Final Fantasy VII‘s Limit Breaks used in Final Fantasy VII. Trance grants special attack commands; I’m actually not a huge fan as one often enters Trance during non-boss battles, making them anticlimactic and not very useful, unless you time your Trance meter “pop” just right.

Here’s one of my favorite things about Final Fantasy IX‘s relatively straightforward combat. Weapons and armor include special character abilities, which can be equipped so long as the ability matches their class. For instance, Vivi should focus on items that come packaged with spells. Anyways, through battles, ability points are applied to all items currently equipped by a character, and once each item has been maximized, the character no longer needs to wear that gear to use that ability. It is much clearer in the game than how I just wrote it, but basically, it makes grinding purposeful, as you are always working towards filling up an item’s ability meter. I’m so crazy about this stuff that, right now, Zidane is equipped with a less powerful dagger so that he can learn an ability to up his thieving skills, despite a stronger dagger sitting unused in my inventory.

Well, I’ll be back to write more. Currently, Zidane, Viva, and Freya–real quick side note, I decided to be an adult and leave all their original names as is when prompted–are working their way through Gizamaluke’s Grotto, in pursuit of a runaway Garnet. Unfortunately, remember when I mentioned earlier about always getting distracted by shinier things…well, it seems like Giant Bomb‘s Dan and Drew are heading back into Metal Gear Scanlon soon, and I like to be one step ahead of them before watching, so I might run into a snag where I have to juggle this and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Hmm.

Ascend towards an unknown destination in The Old Tree

According to Steam, I completed The Old Tree in twelve minutes. Thankfully, those were twelve really good minutes spent in a bizarre, surprising world, starring a microscopic octopus-like alien blob, as well as a couple other cartoonish characters, like that insect bellboy. It’s a short experience, but satisfying, and there’s obviously room for so much more.

From Red Dwarf Games, The Old Tree effectively mixes point-and-click adventuring with beautifully interactive art. Think more Samorost 2 than Botanicula, but both fit the vibe when it comes to imagination and creativity. Anyways, in this atmospheric free-to-play title, you help guide a tiny alien thing, which I’ve seen referred to as both Dumbo Octopus and Baby Cthulhu by fans, to an unknown destination. Basically, you’ll hit a number of progress-blocking puzzles, where you have to figure out what to click on in the environment–and in what order–to open up the path for our leading creepy, crawling turnip to keep moving. Despite some of the surroundings, the puzzles are mostly logical, such as how you can’t open a door as easily when it is submerged in water, meaning you need to empty the tank first. I really liked getting around the insect bellhop and his/her need to control the light switch.

Strangely, there’s quite a sinister air hanging over The Old Tree despite nothing terrible happening and–spoiler–a happy ending for the little alien dude. Maybe it has to do with the dark lighting or use of unnerving insects in human-like positions, and the quiet, haunting soundtrack probably doesn’t help much. Either way, I kind of dreaded every new scene, waiting for things to take a serious turn for the worse, but it never happened. I guess that is more on me than the game, but I might not recommend this as a bedtime story just yet. Maybe stick with Kirby’s Epic Yarn for the meantime if you are looking for a blob-driven narrative.

That said, I’ll definitely keep an eye out for Red Dwarf Games’ next project, which is called Tales of Cosmos, already on Steam Greenlight and aiming for a 2015 release. Similar to Lost Constellation and Night in the Woods, a freebie taste of what’s to come really helps rope me in for the long haul, and I hope it works on others, as there is something special here in the art direction, something worth exploring in a larger capacity.