Not eliminating the memories of loss in Eternally Us

Grief is natural; we’ve all experienced the emotional suffering one feels when something or someone truly cherished is taken away, and if for some reason you haven’t, bless your lucky, cold-as-steel soul. No, really. I hope you never have to feel the lingering twist of a broken heart, but I kind of doubt you’ll avoid it in one form or another. It’s dark subject matter, sure, but worth exploring just as much as any other adventure game plot based around escapism, making a name for yourself, and standing up against persecution.

Eternally Us is about grieving. I didn’t know this immediately going into it, but by the end, all is made explicitly clear. It’s self-described as a tale of love, life, and friendship. Created for the April 2010 MAGS competition by Infinite Grace Games, this somber story from Steven Poulton (writer, programmer, scorer) and Ben Chandler (designer, artist) starts innocently enough, with two young girls sitting on a park bench. Amber and Fio, short for Fionna, are feeding the pigeons, enjoying the nice weather as friends are wont to do. Alas, just as Fio is about to hit her childhood best friend with some very bad news, a magical door appears and opens, revealing some monstrous zombie-like being. And then, just like that…Fio is gone.

Amber now has to travel across five strikingly different locations in search of her stolen friend, solving puzzles and speaking her mind to any that will listen. The scenes are diverse, with one set in a dark, marshy swamp and another in the quiet snow and the final one in the middle of some tranquil, autumnal woods. Chandler’s colorful art makes each place highly expressive and detailed, with the supernatural mixing with the natural in a fairy tale way that had me immediately thinking of The Neverending Story. It’s amazing what adding glowing eyes can do to personalizing bark and branches, but it’s extremely effective here. There’s also a weather effect on top of the painted backgrounds in every scene, with my favorites being the rain and falling leaves. Small details, but they matter. They help you–and maybe even Amber too–forget that this place is not real, that you are traveling through portals and doorways, trapped in the otherworld, looking for someone you actually lost long ago.

Sound-wise, there’s falling rain and peaceful bird-chirping, as well as some surprisingly strong voice acting. Naturally, Amber is the one voice we hear the most, and her voice actress Miranda Gauvin does a fine job of playing someone that is unable to cope, that is begging for answers, but would also rather not hear them. The more inhuman characters dance the line between creepy and ridiculous, but again, I like them talkative trees. A soft, unobtrusive melody plays on a few of the scenes, too.

It’s a point-and-click game, and fairly limited in what you can actually do. The left mouse button lets Amber use items, and the right button examines things, which is the standard we’ve all come to know these days. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Two of a Kind. Found items immediately go to her inventory, which can be accessed by moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. Any items you find relate to that scene only and vanish when you move on to the next area, so if you get stuck, just keep trying every possible combination/tactic. I only ran into problems with the squirrel at the end, and that was more of technical issues than not understanding what I was supposed to do. I did not see a strong connection in some of the puzzles to what was happening in Amber’s mind, but maybe others will.

Eternally Us is ultimately a downer, but a fantastic way to fall. The puzzles are not terribly difficult and contained to a single scene to make things easier, but it’s the dialogue that you want to hear and the way Amber grows over the course of the short game. There’s also some cleverness afoot, such as how Amber “sinks” through the swamp to the depression area. Basically, you should play this short adventure game to put her and her friend at peace–and maybe find some solace yourself. It’s free and can be downloaded here.

Takes two to solve puzzles in Two of a Kind

Chances are high that I would probably enjoy being an archaeologist, digging deep and surveying, excavating, and analyzing collected data to learn more about the past. As a kid, I had more than just rocks in my rock collection, occasionally finding some broken piece of clay or a weirdly shaped hunk of metal, and a small part of me always believed I had stumbled upon greatness. Now, the true purpose of archaeology is to learn more about past societies and the development of the human race, but I think we can also apply the science to videogames. However, I’ll pass on all the constant danger that Indiana Jones finds nipping at his heels, like rolling boulders, pits of snakes, and Nazis.

Which leads us to Two of a Kind by Dave Gilbert, the man who has given us numerous adventure games over the years from his small, but growing Wadget Eye Games. If you’ve not been paying attention to the most recent activity on Grinding Down, I’ve been on a point-and-click kick as of late, finishing up Machinarium, Deponia, and a number of smaller, shorter adventure games. Plus some Ben Chandler joints that I’ve yet to talk about, but will be doing so next week. Truthfully, this is all in preparation for two forthcoming titles: The Blackwell Epiphany from Wadget Eye Games and Broken Age from Double Fine, which I both expect to have some tricky, dastardly puzzles, and I plan to play them as soon as they release, with no chance of an online walkthrough handy. Gotta brush up on my pixel-hunting and inventory management skills.

Anyways, Two of a Kind is a small adventure game released for free at Adventure Game Studio in November 2004. It’s about an unusual town called Bluff City, which is full of people with unusual abilities. For instance, Tim and Tiffany Walters, fraternal twins operating a struggling independent private investigation business. Tim has the power to float off the ground, and Tiffany can communicate with animals. Other townspeople you’ll bump into also have powers, and it’s kind of like X-Men, but without all the smoke and rubble and misshapen limbs. The Walters siblings are very close to each other after experiencing a traumatic childhood, which they no longer discuss. Bills have been tough to pay as of late, but a new case offers a great financial opportunity. A priceless crystal was stolen from the local museum, and it’s up to them to find out the who, the how, and the why before the press gets wind.

Now, in all my years of gaming, I’ve not actually played many old-school adventure titles, the kind controlled by means of text icons like “look,” “open,” “use,” and so on. Think LucasArts started this trend. When I played Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge back in 2011, it was an enhanced version, updated to be more convenient for a controller. Basically, I came into the genre really late, and so my experience in using these text-based commands is quite limited, rusty. This was more than evident when I struggled to have Tim leave his apartment building; first I tried using “use” on the door, but that did nothing. Turns out, I had to use “open/close” on the door, and then “use” to walk through it. Oi. Like I said before: archaeology. Playing a text command-heavy game in 2013 was a slow process for me, as I found myself trying everything on everything. Can’t “use” that trash can? Well, let’s try “talking” to it and “opening” it and “giving” it to Tiffany. Been coddled for too long with just a right and left mouse button clicks.

After getting used to have to do things the archaic way, puzzles in Two of a Kind are fairly easy to deduce, especially if you’ve played some of the Blackwell games. Because just like in those, you control both Tim and Tiffany independently, just like Rosangela and Joey had their own things to do. I got stuck in a few spots, but only because I missed picking up an item earlier, and there is actually a walkthrough out there still for the game. Otherwise, so long as you keep trying items and different combinations, the solutions will come. Every item gets used; yes, even the ones Tiffany holds in her pockets from the very beginning of the game. Ironically enough, I was not aware that the final puzzle was being timed, and actually got a GAME OVER screen after failing to solve fast enough.

There’s no voice acting, which is all right, as there is a lot of text to digest, and I just can’t imagine anyone reading for the part of Tiffany doing it any kind of bearable justice. She’s a teenager that acts like a child–probably because of that previously mentioned traumatic childhood–and is constantly talking in kiddy gibberish to animals and being overexcited about literally everything. At one point, inside a mansion, I had her examine the most mundane items like a toaster or sink, and she responded to each with genuine excitement, a being of pure innocence. That aside, Gilbert’s writing is fun and personable, and his characters do come alive from it, especially the quiet bartender, the soaps-loving Oracle, and the drunk bum with the funny hat. The plot, which revolves around open sleuthing and chatting with animals and using magical powers, moves forward at a reasonably logical pace, but kind of jumps the (acid water) gun at the very end and fizzles out with a Candy-Land joke. I was hoping for more resolution, maybe a trip back to the museum to see Tim and Tiffany explain all the crazy antics to the concerned curator.

Overall, I think Two of the Kind is still a solid experience some nine years later, definitely worth playing for the solid writing and killer soundtrack, and I think Wadget Eye Games should re-release it like they did recently with The Shivah and get Ben Chandler to do all new art for it. C’mon, think about it. I know you’re reading this.

Grand Theft Auto V, crass comedy in a crazy world

Grand Theft Auto V is the first game in Rockstar’s entire hooker-killing franchise that I’ve actually completed, and by that I mean I successfully played all of its main story missions, picked my A, B, or C choice for the finale, and watched the lengthy end credits–over thirty-five minutes long–scroll by as I pondered my collective time and experience as three unsavory souls stuck in Los Santos. And…exhale. Considering I still can’t even get past the second mission in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, this is a real, genuine accomplishment, a feat worth featuring.

To be honest, I don’t think much overall about GTA V. Now, please be sure to read that sentence a second time before you blow a blood vessel; I did not say “I don’t think much overall of GTA V,” but rather about. It’s kind of everything I expected it to be based on past experiences with the franchise, and I feel like it went through all the motions, and I went with it, a mute player. If you must know, I enjoyed what I played of Grand Theft Auto III, really dug Vice City for its vibe and tunes, and never got too far in San Andreas. Also, Chinatown Wars is a surprisingly good time, but quite a different beast from its bigger siblings. Truthfully, Saints Row: The Third is more my kind of freedom.

The story in GTA V revolves around three men: former bank robber Michael Townley, repo man Franklin Clinton, and uncontrollable psychopath Trevor Philips. They have their own personal stories to see unfold, but they also eventually all get mixed up in the same nefarious business, which involves running a bunch of heists and making some serious moolah. It’s clearly a videogame story, as things happen so that the player can take part in extravagant setups and scenarios and leap from tall buildings and blow up important locations and all that. A few missions feel like they just came up with some third part to play, spur of the moment, so all three protagonists could be there, even if there was absolutely no need to bring the greenhorn Franklin along. Of the three main characters, I was most disappointed in Franklin’s overall journey, as it seemed like the whole “other guy got the girl” subplot fizzled within the game’s first hour. Michael has heavy family stuff that gets resolved, but not in a way that fills me with confidence. And Trevor…well, he’s pure crazy, a lot of fun to watch, but just walking insanity, and GTA V would actually be a lesser game without him to keep everyone on their toes.

The open-world gameplay in GTA V is everything you’d come to expect from the company that certainly had a big hand in creating the genre. When you’re not accepting main story missions as either of the three gruff dudes, you can drive around the sprawling city and its outskirts, play a round of golf or tennis, do some yoga, get a haircut, shop for new clothes, invest in buildings, visit the strip club, surf the Internet, watch TV or a movie, take the dog for a walk, and so on and so on. There’s quite a lot of miscellaneous, nontrivial time-wasters for those wanting just a bite of action, as well as larger side missions in the forms of Strangers and Freaks. Random events like “Stop that purse snatcher!” occur from time to time, and you can also just stand still and watch the world go by or sit in your car listening to your favorite station. I found a lot of the side stuff more interesting than the main missions, as they are clearly trying to be big and bombastic, and there’s always an excuse for a gunfight, no matter what the scenario. Thankfully, thanks to a rather easy auto-aim feature, shooting down gang member after gang member is no big thing, and probably the biggest aid I had for completing this game next to Franklin’s bullet time mode when driving.

Let me talk briefly about the collectibles scattered around and outside of Los Santos, as I only stumbled across one during my entire criminal career. Which is very similar to my experience in finding those golden film reels in L.A. Noire. Either they are extremely well-hidden or I’m going blind, a likely case. According to the Internet, there’s a ton of things to find: Spaceship Parts, Stunt Jumps, Letter Scraps, Hidden Packages, and more. I found a single Letter Scrap, which ties into the Mystery of Leonora Johnson side quest–and that’s it. I started the missions that opened up the ability to find Spaceship Parts, but never came across them, and I felt like I did a lot of “off the path” exploring, mostly because I was trying to hide from cops, and changing elevation is a vital tactic.

A lot of material in GTA V is extremely off-putting, and for good reason. Rockstar’s treatment and regard of women is abysmal. If they aren’t there to either have sex with the main characters or sex with someone else to anger the main characters, then they are on their way. Take Michael’s family. He has a wife and a daughter. His wife is sleeping with her yoga instructor, and his daughter wants to get into porn. Take Trevor. Past the early intro scenes, you first truly meet him as he’s having sex with meth head Ashley, who never plays a further part in the game. Later, he kidnaps a man’s wife and begins to have a relationship with her. And lastly, take Franklin. He lives with his aunt, who self-describes herself as a “new age feminist,” and the two are constantly bickering. I don’t recall a single time that I returned home as Franklin that she wasn’t whining or complaining loudly from the other room. He has a childhood friend Tonya Wiggins, who is a crack addict. At first, it seems like he’s a man all about winning back his ex-girlfriend Tanisha Jackson, but that plot fizzles very quickly, so much that her sudden appearance near the game’s end was befuddling. Aside from these, there’s a few other women that stand out: Devin Weston’s lawyer Molly Schultz, the athletic MaryAnne Quinn, and celebrity-crazy old Mrs. Thornhill. In short, why couldn’t there have been a female gang leader or a woman working closely with Michael to keep his identity better hidden? Or some role more involved. Because to Rockstar, men do the ruling.

Early on, I actually watched some in-game TV, something I never even attempted before in Grand Theft Auto IV, despite a lot of people going gaga over the fact that such a large and completely skippable thing existed way back then. I ended up watching “Gordon Moorehead”, an animated detective drama radio show that looks innocent enough, that is until anyone starts speaking. I don’t recall the specifics of the episode’s story, just the constant degradation of Gordon Moorehead’s assistant Molly Malmstein, who Moorehead constantly treating her as a woman of little intelligence, often slapping her. I think the show is trying to to poke fun at sexism and misogyny, but actually just reinforces it all the way. It’s extremely disappointing; you literally can’t go anywhere in Los Santos without some knock against women.

I dunno. Looking back over this post, maybe I do think a lot about GTA V, just nothing too great. It’s got its problems, but it also felt very routine and predictable and crass for no good reason. The use of crude language, especially. I played a single post-credits mission, but haven’t really gone back to do any further exploring or money spending, and I just don’t really see myself getting back into the swing of things. I guess I’ve had my fill.

A mysterious hatch leads to trouble in BNKR

I’m attracted to games with strange names or, at the very least, strangely written names. For instance, ^_^, XIII, Viewtiful Joe, and Big Mutha Truckers 2: Truck Me Harder. Some quick complete transparency though: I’ve never played that last title, but just the sound of it alone, the way it rolls off your tongue and hangs in the air like some glowing, ethereal angel, has me curious. But yeah, if your game’s title is non-traditional and a bit bizarre, then you already have my attention, which is really helpful when sorting through game jam lists, too. And all that is just to slip into talking about BNKR, a point-and-click game by Piter Games not from Philip K. Dick and not from some recent jam, but just out there, waiting for you to devour.

Here’s the deal: the world was once populated by humans, but now only androids roam the bereft towns and buildings, constantly searching for fuel vital for survival. One day, a hatch opens, demanding whatever lies beneath it to be explored. You play as an unnamed–yet numbered–android with a digitalized male voice who goes down the ladder to see if there is anything worth salvaging.

Not counting the first hub area, which is a small, closed off town in the form of an overhead map with a few buildings to explore, most of BNKR is played from first person perspective. Er, I mean…first android perspective. Thank you, thank you. No, please, I’m happy to sign autographs. Anyways, you can click to move from scene to scene or interact with your surroundings and items in the inventory. A changing cursor alerts you if there’s something worth investigating. And that’s it gameplay-wise, which is fine, as it’s very short, though I’ll admit it took me much longer than probably others to complete it as I got stuck on two less-than-clear puzzles. Spoiler: you can find the third piece of mirror glass hidden between a desk’s drawers, as well as the other half of the broken key in a vent near the ceiling out in the main hallway. There, that should help greatly.

BNKR is a beautiful, desolate world. Also: very gray. You wouldn’t be wrong to immediately think of Machinarium or Primordia immediately, to compare in looks. There’s some light narration atop some striking artwork, and the voice of the robot you control is both human and not, which only helped draw me in more. It’s a strange combination of familiar and foreign, with the robot’s comments on things like levers and desks and photos of once-living humans little puzzles themselves. You can tell that the robot is a little sad, a little unsure. You can mildly interact with another android at the beginning of the game, but other than that, you’re searching solo; I think more droid-on-droid interaction would have been nice–hey now–as well as some dialogue trees to help fill in story gaps. Other than a couple of really well hidden items, the puzzles are pretty easy to figure out if you keep on clicking, and you can probably breeze through the game in about ten or fifteen minutes.

Alas, BNKR ends right as it just starts getting good plot-wise, and so I’ll have to keep looking for whatever comes from the people at Piter Games, as finding out what’s actually inside that opened hatch is just the tip of the post-apocalyptic iceberg.

Deponia’s English translation is the trickiest puzzle yet

It’s a bummer to have to be so hard on Deponia simply for its atrocious German to English translation work, as everything else is actually quite good–if a bit too straightforward for the point-and-click genre–but text is a large, vital part of many adventure games. They say every man carries a sword, and sometimes they need to fall on them to remain honorable, and so I say “On your knees!” to all that work/worked at Daedalic, not just the one wearing the “proofreader” badge. Your shoddy QA job cannot be ignored. But let’s get some of the other stuff out of the way first, like story and gameplay and pretty, pretty pictures.

In Deponia, you play as a rude little lay-about called Rufus. He’s a bit like Guybrush Threepwood, except completely unlikeable. He’s smarmy, arrogant, cruel, and inconsiderate, and I got all that from within the first few opening scenes of the game. I guess that’s fine since we now live in an age of many anti-heroes, such as Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones and Walter White in Breaking Bad. But man, he’s a bother. Anyways, Rufus is tired of living life on a literal junk pile of a planet and sets his eyes to the sky, specifically a place called Elysium, which one can assume is where the rich, clean folk spend their days drinking white wine and looking down from balconies. As he makes his way sky-ward, he accidentally bumps into a young girl named Goal being bullied by some men. Inadvertently, he knocks her down to Trash Town below and is tossed overboard after her. And thus begins the epic quest to get the girl and get going.

Gameplay in Deponia is traditional inventory management stuff. You talk to people, collect things, combines items, and use those items on people and other items to solve puzzles and move the story along. What’s really nice is that, at any time, you can press the space bar to highlight all the items Rufus can interact with, so there’s no pixel-hunting roadblocks. Occasionally, just like in Machinarium, there’s some other kinds of puzzles to play with, like fitting all the broken pieces of a glass mosaic back together or highlighting which spots to bomb in the mine via a map or flipping switches to get the tracks perfectly aligned so your vehicle can drive away to safety. Acts are divided up by brightly animated cutscenes, which only ask that you watch them.

Let it be known that the greatest reason to play Deponia is to look at it and get to the next scene and look at that. It is gorgeous, through and through, with a fantastic sense of imagination. Vibrant, colorful art makes up a lot of the screen, and the design of the trashy town areas are pretty original. The characters themselves range greatly in looks, though I guess you could say Goal and Rufus’s ex-girlfriend resemble each other somewhat. The inventory menu takes up your entire screen, though I never recall filling more than two or three rows with items, so it seems like wasted space, but nevertheless you can see everything you are carrying clearly thanks to the vivid artwork. And as I mentioned, the cutscenes are well-animated, though maybe some extra frames of animation are needed when Rufus interacts with certain items or mixes stuff together.

Alas, not all is whistles and whoops. Take, for instance, the treatment of women in Deponia. First of all, there’s not many to begin with. It’s a male-inhabited realm, with men being the forefront of everything: work, science, law, freedom, the upperclass. Obviously there’s Goal, the mumbling, brain-damaged goal of the game, who Rufus wants in the same way a kid on Christmas wants a new toy, and then the whole town tries to win her over through some strange lottery system with the mayor. Then there is Toni, Rufus’s ex-girlfriend, who exists to nag and bemoan the boy, and eventually ends up getting drugged. Oh boy. Subtlety. Lastly, there’s Lotti, who works at the mayor’s office and is constantly switching from her obviously deeper male voice to a fake, over-exaggerated high-pitch voice, time after time, because, y’know, repetition is funny.

Here we are, the real stick in the mud for this adventure game, which was clearly made overseas. Localization and copyediting. They are two different things, and both were not done adequately enough to ensure that Deponia was a quality product. Some German to English translations make no sense, as if some kind of app like Google Translate was used and nothing else, because I found myself scratching my head at some descriptions or clues. Then there’s the lack of consistency across the board, with some words capped and others not, as well as improper grammar. I spotted many wrongly used apostrophes, as well as several sentences ending in commas, not periods. Some might not notice stuff like, but I like to read along as I listen to the voice acting, mostly because I read faster than I listen and can skip ahead if I’m ready. I also ran into a couple of technical problems, such as dialogue choices appearing above the text box and the game not always responding to double-clicking to hop to the next scene instantly. Small stuff, those ones, but there nonetheless.

Deponia is an undoubtably pretty point-and-click adventure game hindered by a number of localization and technical problems. I didn’t have the worst time getting through it, nor did I find myself foaming at the mouth in general excitement over it unfolding, save for the next gorgeous piece of background art to gawk at. I simply played, looked up a puzzle solution when I got stuck several times, frowned, smiled, frowned some more, and finished it off. There are two sequels already out in the series, but I’m in no rush to see what happens next to Rufus and Goal. I’m still not over all the random capitalized “if”s in the middle of sentences.

Everybody loves Raymus, not Reemus

In The Ballads of Reemus: When the Bed Bites, one simple bug job leads to many bugs and bigger problems, and Reemus and his companion Liam, a purple bear that plays the lute, are all to blame. Naturally, it’s now up to them to save the town and do mundane tasks for people to get key items that will help them move forward with their exterminating business, as well as put them in the limelight, the perfect spot for the stars of a ballad or two. Unfortunately, everybody in Fredricus loves Raymus, Reemus’s more successful brother, and so the unlikely duo have a lot to prove.

When the Bed Bites has a certain familiarity to it, and I think I’m just digging deep into my point-and-click gaming history and recalling the fond time I had solving puzzles in Blazing Dragons, though the humor found there was ten times more British. Still, both games are extremely colorful and filled with zany, wacky characters and fun, Xanth-like ideas, such as the noserpillar, ice cream cactus, and the condiments forest, which shows that the people behind it aren’t afraid to open up their imagination for all to see. It definitely made getting to a new scene all that more exciting because, truly, anything could show up.

The game is divided into a number of scenes–maybe eight to twelve in total, and if I was a better game journalist I’d work harder to confirm the actual number, but meh, it’s almost time to take a holiday break–and each is its own contained mini-adventure, which I appreciate greatly. You’ll find all the items and puzzles that need those items for solving in one scene only, so you don’t find yourself still holding an unusable flyswatter by the end of the game. These tiny story arcs play a continuous part of the whole story–which is Reemus and Liam trying to right their wrongs and get people to listen to their ballads–but make for convenient gaming, as I played When the Bed Bites in three separate sittings, never feeling exhausted or lost.

Puzzles range from unbelievably easy to fairly difficult, though sometimes the fault was mine, and I just didn’t try clicking on every combination possible. In certain scenes, you can switch between Reemus and Liam to have each handle their own slice of puzzles before reuniting. Occasionally, I found it difficult to call out the interactive objects from the backgrounds, and I ended up stuck in the condiments forest for a good while until I realized that to get the metallic bark for cooking that sweet, savory bacon, you have to click near the bottom of it, as clicking towards the top only gets you an item description. Also, due to the developers doing a bang-up job of really hiding their hidden item: was unable to make the seagull’s headstone or finish the moth’s poster, both missing two pieces before I moved on. Thankfully, you can pause the game at any time and bring up a walkthrough from the options menu that doesn’t spoil story stuff, but guides you in the right direction for puzzle solutions to keep things moving. I will admit to using the walkthrough several times, though I kind of wish it didn’t open to a separate browser window and was contained within the game itself somewhere. Immersion must be kept.

Audio-wise, I found the game’s soundtrack to be pretty pleasing, save for one song near the end that was repetitive and slow to build, and even after it went somewhere, it was still the same notes over and over and over. It’s the kind of light, fantasy tunes you’d expect to hear at your local Renaissance fair. Liam and another bard early on sings some silly songs, and they are short and enjoyable. However, the voice acting throughout didn’t sit well with me on a constant rate. I found the leading man Reemus sounding a bit too Steve Blum, which did not match the art, and there are some Irish-sounding lovebirds that seem really out of place. And a lot of the female voices are overdramatic and absurd, almost as if men are trying to do a woman’s voice. Surprisingly, Liam the purple bear’s voice was perfectly acceptable and easy to listen to. Sound effects are minimal overall, though the squish sound for finding the hidden bug collectibles is pretty satisfying, even in a gross way.

For those that don’t like reading, you can watch me play some When the Bed Bites in this “Paul Plays…” vid, but be aware that you can’t really hear me too well when I foolishly attempt to talk over some of the game’s dialogue, which is very loud. Balance, balance, balance–it’s tough to get. Again, I’m still learning. But please take a look/listen nonetheless:

Everything old is new again in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

The first thing I did when I got my copy of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is make a silly Vine video. However, the second thing I did, once the game opened up enough to allow me the freedom to explore, was travel this way and that way and every way possible across the Hyrule map, seeing all my old stomping grounds. Because, in case it wasn’t clear from Grinding Down‘s never-changing header image, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is my absolute favorite game of all the times, of all time. It is only closely followed by Suikoden II. And I, more or less, know it by heart.

To be honest, when ALBW was first announced, I was put off. Very put off. How dare Nintendo create something that seems to exist solely to play with my childhood and early gaming experience nostalgia! HOW DARE THEY. And even as time went on, as previews and early impressions leaked out to the public and even final copy reviews, I refused to give in. No, I will not stand for this. I cannot. This game needed no direct sequel, and all they really had to do was put ALTTP on the 3DS eShop and watch the rupees flood in.

For one, I thought Nintendo’s newest take on Link and Zelda and the realm of Hyrule looked terrible, like some kind of knockoff, straight-to-DVD version called The Tale of Telba: Princess Panic that you’d find in the bargain bin and toss aside without a second glance. When you think about it, the newest game’s graphics are that way and not SNES era sprite-based because you are playing on the Nintendo 3DS, a system able to produce 3D effects sans glasses. However, by the time ALBW came out, Nintendo itself was over the gimmick–and rightly so–but it had been produced that way for a reason from the very start. Which is a shame. I’d rather have had what looked like ALTTP and no 3D than what we have now, even if it does look pretty nifty in a few cinematic spots.

I’ve only played about an hour or so of ALBW since Tara and I were playing catch-up with The Walking Dead, and it’s nice and bouncy and brimming with wonder, but I’m not sure if those warm, fuzzy feelings in my belly are because the game itself is fun or if it’s just reminding me very much of the same kind of fun I had in ALTTP. I guess that’s going to be the real question throughout is whether or not I enjoyed this very same dungeon more some twenty-two years ago or if the new twist on it is enough to warrant it some distinction.

ALBW opens innocently enough: Gulley, the blacksmith’s son, wakes Link up because he has a job to do, which is deliver a finished sword to the Captain at Hyrule Castle. Why Gulley himself couldn’t do this is beyond me. However, Link eventually finds the Captain stuck inside the Sanctuary by a mysterious man called Yuga–hey, that’s A GUY backwards–who turned the Sanctuary’s minister Seres into a painting before running off. Princess Zelda informs Link that he has to obtain the three Pendants of Power to gain the Master Sword, which can defeat Yuga, and yadda yadda yadda. You kinda know the drill by now. Oh, and thanks to some strange, purple rabbit squatting in your house, Link now also has the power to turn into a painting and move along walls and into cracks.

While I still stand by my negative reaction to how the game looks, thankfully it plays like a dream. Moving around with the circle pad instead of the d-pad makes for speedy trekking, and slashing at grass, firing arrows into trees, and bothering chickens is just as enjoyable as it once was. Navigating Hyrule is a joy thanks to the timeless, slightly remixed tunes, as well as the ability for fast travel via a witch’s broomstick. You can also now acquire all of the items before tackling a dungeon by renting them from that previously mentioned purple rabbit. This allows you to take on the dungeons in your order of choice, which sounds really awesome. Alas, so far, I’ve only done the first mandatory one at the Eastern Palace so I can’t speak to exactly how effective this works. There’s definitely a lot of new stuff here to do–that chicken-avoiding mini-game in Kakariko Village is silly fun–and collect, and a lot of other parts have been streamlined for playing portably, which is always appreciated.

I’ll definitely be eating up more ALBW over the upcoming holiday break, but don’t also be surprised to hear that I went through the trouble of dusting off and hooking up my SNES to play the realest, most amazing Hyrule adventure that Link ever played part in. You know that which I speak of. It’s the one that begins with, “Help me… Please help me… I am a prisoner in the dungeon
of the castle. My name is Zelda.”

Life in Phantasy Star II is peaceful until Biomonsters show up

How I came about playing Phantasy Star II recently probably says too much about my personality, but I’m going to explain my reasoning nonetheless. Because it is not often that I dip back into the Mega Drive/Genesis era of the early 1990s to play a 16-bit Japanese role-playing game that just about tells you nothing as you go from futuristic building to building, fight to fight. See, some time ago, somebody asked Giant Bomb‘s Jeff Gerstmann what his favorite JRPG was, and his response was a flat, non-emphasized Phantasy Star II. I’m forever always interested in people’s answers to this question and–despite that JRPGs are such a niche, often dismissed genre–preferences can surprisingly run the gamut.

First I had to see if I had a copy of Phantasy Star II somewhere in my collection. The name certainly sounded familiar, but maybe only because I’ve been hearing a lot of grumbling online about how Phantasy Star Online II–totally a different game–is probably not ever coming to U.S. shores. Evidently, Jeff’s favorite JRPG is available on a number of platforms, but it turns out it’s included in Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, a gathering of Genesis titles for the Xbox 360/PS3 that I played through some years back, eventually unlocking all the Achievements, too. At that time, I was embarrassingly more crazy about Achievements than I am now, and I only played the games included in the collection that were tied to a ping-able digital award, and Phantasy Star II was not part of that big bunch. Either way, it was fun to discover that I already had a copy ready to go, ready to be experienced blindly.

I have no idea what happened in the first Phantasy Star and if II is an actual narrative sequel or more like the Final Fantasy franchise where every story is separate and unique. Anyways, it begins with a nightmare. The embodiment of evil called Dark Force has returned to the peaceful Algo Star System. Mother Brain, a computer system built to control and maintain order, has began to malfunction, and the main character, a blue-haired boy named Rolf, has to figure out why.

And that’s all I know so far because I’ve basically spent my first two to three hours in Phantasy Star II grinding for essential experience points and Meseta, walking back and forth between the town of Paseo and the wild grasslands just outside its walls. Rolf’s commander has ordered him to visit the Biosystems Lab where Biomonsters are created and bring back a recorder, and I’ll get there soon enough, but it seems impossible to survive the trip unless Rolf–and his purple-haired, pointy-eared friend Nei–are both around level 5 or 6. Something I wasn’t prepared for when going into this JRPG was just how little it told you: I’ve had to learn the combat, what the items do, how the menus work, who can equip what weapon and armor, and so on all by my lonesome. It’s all about self-discovery, but for those struggling, there’s also this fantastic website: http://www.phantasy-star.net/psii/psii.html. A great example of this is that Nei has a technique called RES, which I stupidly assumed had something to do with raising a character’s resistance, but it actually restores health, a spell I should have been using from the first step into the wild.

I walked away early on in Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light because I found the hands-free combat frustrating, and I’m unfortunately seeing similar trends in Phantasy Star II‘s battle system. Combat is continuous, meaning you press a button to have your party members begin attacking/defending, and they’ll keep doing that until they defeat the enemies or you step in to change something up. If you want to change any character’s actions for the next round, all you have to do is press a button before the current round ends. Right now, Rolf is my main attacker, and Nei handles healing and being a tank, taking a lot of damage. Thanks to writing this post and doing some light research across the Interwebz, now I know that Nei can attack too if you equip her with Steel Bars. Will do that pronto, for sure.

So far, the music is devilishly catchy, worming its way into my brain and looping for hours. The two tracks I’m loving and hearing the most are, naturally, Paseo’s town theme and the jams for exploring the overworld map. The bass is bouncy warm, and the cheery town tune is so dang cheery that I don’t ever want to go into a shop and have it stop playing. First-world problems, I know. However, I’m not actually sold on the battle music, and considering you are not actively involved for most of the battles and are just sitting there listening, that’s a bummer. And according to Wikipedia, everyone’s favorite website to trust, snare drums are much louder in the Japanese version of the game.

I’m definitely going to keep playing Phantasy Star II because I don’t think I’m still seeing it. Whatever it is. I mean, in truth, I’ve barely started this sci-fi journey to save a realm from monster invasion. I just hope I neither find myself overleveling the characters or stuck grinding to make it safely ten steps across the map. I guess once more people join my party and I can better equip everyone, progress will be much smoother, but until then I have to take things slow because I have no clue what anything is, money is tight, the threats are real, and without coddling learning is a poky process.

Tower of Heaven is a tough, rule-stacking platformer

Much like with Persist, I am finding myself drawn to platformers that really mix the genre up so that it is no longer simply about jumping left to right, down to up. Those simplistic actions are totally fine, given that that’s where this genre really began with Super Mario Bros. and Alex Kidd in Miracle World, but eventually the premise wears thin, and there needs to be something else tossed into the machine to create a different style of play.

Again, in Persist, you lost abilities, like being unable to swim in water or even jump, which made traditional platforming problematic and demanded you figure out a way around regardless. In Fez, which is probably more puzzler than platformer, you could rotate the level to traverse to new areas, find hidden secrets, and see everything in a new light. Braid had you playing with time. Sonic the Hedgehog, which I’ve never been good at, placed more of an emphasis on speed than straightforward platforming, and 3D titles like Jumping Flash! took advantage of a rather unique and challenging perspective for platforming purposes, with the camera locked in first person mode, which made leaping to extreme heights both exhilarating and disorienting. And awesomely, I could list other examples, but I think that’s decent for now.

Well, in Askiisoft’s Tower of Heaven, our game of the moment, there’s a rule book you acquire early on, and if you don’t follow the rules, you die–plain as paper. Designed to look like a Game Boy romp of old, this challenging platformer looks more innocent than it really is. By the time you pick up the second or third rule, it’s just as difficult as the masochistic platformers of this past generation–I guess I can say that now since we’re moving on to the next one with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One finally exiting their respective dungeons–namely, Super Meat Boy and I Wanna Be the Guy. It’s difficult and leaves nearly no room for error, especially once you can’t go left, touch the side of blocks, and even touch other living beings. But I guess I’m getting ahead of myself.

The plot. Yup, there’s a plot. You are a lost soul, represented as a dark shadow of a human figure, and you are attempting to climb a…tower. Where does it go? Well, the game’s title should clue you in, but I couldn’t tell if that was meant to be taken literally or figuratively. A mysterious voice from above does not believe you can do it and begins to throw wrenches into your plans when it becomes clear you are unwilling to walk away from your heavenly goal. There’s some religious text at the very end that kind of confused me and felt like it was there to be “deep” and “thoughtful”, but really added little to the story. In each level, your goal is to reach the staircases and continue up. However, as you progress, the voice from above will place specific restrictions on you (such as you can no longer hit the left key or touch the side of walls), and these rules eventually stack on top of each other, meaning you have to constantly be aware of all the things you can’t do, as well as what you can. At one point, you weren’t even allowed to check the rules menu; if you hit the button to bring up the list, you exploded into pixels. It’s a fantastic gameplay idea, though it makes for tough towering.

All that said, here’s about nine minutes of me going through the motions for Tower of Heaven‘s first few levels. Warning: my mic audio is very high and airy, and I’m still tinkering with my settings to learn what works and what doesn’t for recording purposes. Again, if anyone has any tips, I’ll take ’em. Just throw them at my head; I’m using OBS now to record gameplay footage and a LogiTech headset.

I played more after the video ends and was able to beat Tower of Heaven after about twenty or twenty-five minutes on the final few levels. I came very close to giving up entirely though, that’s how challenging it got. When the rule states that you can no longer touch living beings like butterflies and grass, well…you begin to notice that stuff is all over the place. Anyways, the ending was simply okay, if a bit muddled in its own revelations and heavy religious tone, but I dug it nonetheless. Just like in VVVVVV, you get a stats screen at the end, and mine showed that I died a total of 154 times, which I am totally not ashamed of. If you’re into retro games with some challenge, this one is definitely worth checking out.

Learning the nature of Primal’s demon realms all over again

I made a grave error when beginning Primal, staying headstrong on this lofty goal of mine to beat five specific videogames in 2013. If I can see its credits roll, it’ll be the third title I can check off my digital list, which I’ll consider a fine achievement. However, that’s only if I don’t goof up again, like I did when choosing the lesser of my two PS2 memory cards to save the game’s data on. Could’ve really used some advice from Scree on that one.

If you’ll recall, I was able to snag a used PS2 memory card some years back, but there’s some corrupt data on it that I just can’t delete, no matter how many times I try; however, I’ve been able to save other game info on there just fine, like my vital progress in Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup and Secret Agent Clank. So it definitely isn’t completely broken. Just randomly, I guess. Alas, after playing for two hours of Primal and getting to just before the game’s first boss battle, my save data became corrupted and wouldn’t load. Eek. My heart turned to stone each and every time the “load error” message came up. So I had to switch over to my mainstay memory card and delete some info, such as Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 character save BS and whatever little progress I made in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit, and start all over again. At least this time around I knew puzzle solutions and could skip all the cutscenes immediately.

So yeah, I’ve played about four or so hours now of Primal–that’s the first two hours twice, and then a wee bit more once I got my saving stuff in order. It’s good. I mean, it’s always been good, but I think the game still holds up really well in 2013, mostly for its Buffy the Vampire Slayer-esque story, cheeky characters, and larger-than-realm scope. Seriously, the realm of Solum feels absolutely massive even if, technically, it’s not, and I have already found myself getting lost going from the forum to the hunting camp to the colosseum, though you could probably also blame that on the lack of an on-screen mini-map. Granted, I generally associate dark, snowy worlds with time standing still thanks to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and Solum comes across as a bitter, uninhabitable home full of strange people and customs.

Some of Primal‘s gameplay mechanics are not as awesome as I remember them, and now that I actually play it, controller cradled in hands, I’d prefer to have no combat at all, but that’s just a pipe dream. Like in Silent Hill 2, combat is an essential part of the game, even if it is clunky and obtrusive and strangely designed around the left and right triggers. Restoring and harvesting health from fallen foes is tedious, and the climbing, now spoiled by the likes of one-button speedfreak Assassin’s Creed, feels pretty cumbersome. But all of that can be dismissed simply to hear Scree and Jen talk, as their banter feels genuine, and you can really watch Jen grow closer to the little gargoyle in a natural way, which might sound odd, given that she’s technically dying in a hospital and has been taken to a realm between realms to do something heroic and find her stolen band boyfriend.

I’m approaching the part in Primal where I always stop and…walk away, much like I had in the previous two entries checked off my list–Chrono Cross and Silent Hill 2. I just need to power on and not be afraid to use a walkthrough when I get stuck because, surprisingly, this game doesn’t highlight interactive objects in a bright yellow glow or put a giant arrow over them like many gamers are coddled today. You have to be observant and aware and willing to think outside the castle wall box. However, sometimes the answer is not easy to deduce without any clues, and I’d rather have someone else tell me what it is then to give up on Primal yet again. I have to see this spunky goth girl, also a coffee bar waitress, discover her destiny. I have to.