30 Days of Gaming, #19 – Picture of a game setting you wish you lived in

Fable II was an okay game. It did not wow me, but it had a lot of pretty to it, and bumbling into a new location was always a joyous moment because it meant immersing myself in a place and seeing how everything clicked. Oh, okay. That’s where they get their food, that’s where they sell their wares, that’s where a talking gargoyle head insults my intelligence. Bowerstone is an impressive main city hub, very busy with lots of shops and shoppers, as well as being broken up into distinctive districts. Bloodstone is moody and dangerous. Westcliff is a dump though you do get the opportunity to change its tides.

For me, the place to be in Fable II is Oakfield, a small village of farmers and monks north of Rookridge. It’s serene and open, quiet and nice, a place to spend the day either tilling the land or walking the paths, with a single bar hot-spot, the Sandgoose, to go to at night where, more assuredly, everybody knows your name. Some other points of interest include the Temple of Light and Manure Manor.

And if you play to the good-natured side, when you return from the Tattered Spire, you’ll find Oakfield thriving, with new houses and an expanded Temple of Light. Plus, autumn will be in full swing, with gorgeous reds, oranges, and yellows to feast upon, and probably nothing else comes as close as to feeling like a true fantasy village than Oakfield. Evil people get to destroy the village, which only makes me want to never finish my evil second playthrough even more.

A lot of Fable II is spent running after the golden breadcrumb trail, your dog desperately trying to keep up. Considering the game’s tiresome loading screens and sluggish menus, running was a blessing. I ran just about everywhere. Except for Oakfield in the sunlight, where I’d stroll leisurely around, doing little expressions for its inhabitants and keeping the peace. It’s the sort of place I dream about, where I could leave behind the plastic and pointless, be one with my surroundings, spend every day soaking up the sounds and smells.

Runner-up:

That’d be Serenity Farm, also from Fable II. It’s the inside of Oakfield’s Demon Door, and it’s special in that no one but your family (wife/husband and kids) can follow you there. Meaning no enemies, truly a secret spot all to your own. That also sounds good to me. Either way, fantasy farms…I kind of like ’em.

Honest Hearts DLC for Fallout: New Vegas drops this month, honestly

It’s been some pretty quiet months since Fallout: New Vegas‘ first DLC Dead Money came out, and it seems like Bethesda is ready to open the so-called content floodgates. The next piece of DLC is called Honest Hearts, and will be released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on May 17, 2011. There’s also two other chunks of DLC–Old World Blues and Lonesome Road–primed for future V.A.T.S.ing headshots, coming over the next few months.

Here’s what Big B has to say about it all:

Honest Hearts™, Old World Blues™ and Lonesome Road™ will further expand upon Fallout: New Vegas. Fallout: New Vegas takes all the action, humor and post-apocalyptic grime and grit of this legendary series, and raises the stakes.

Available on May 17, Honest Hearts takes you on an expedition to the unspoiled wilderness of Utah’s Zion National Park. Things go horribly wrong when your caravan is ambushed by a tribal raiding band. As you try to find a way back to the Mojave, you become embroiled in a war between tribes and a conflict between a New Canaanite missionary and the mysterious Burned Man. The decisions you make will determine the fate of Zion.

In Old World Blues, releasing in June, you will discover how some of the Mojave’s mutated monsters came to be when you unwittingly become a lab rat in a science experiment gone awry. You’ll need to scour the Pre-War research centers of the Big Empty in search of technology to turn the tables on your kidnappers or join forces with them against an even greater threat.

Lonesome Road, available in July, brings the courier’s story full circle when you are contacted by the original Courier Six, a man by the name of Ulysses who refused to deliver the Platinum Chip at the start of New Vegas. In his transmission, Ulysses promises the answer as to why, but only if you take one last job –a job that leads you into the depths of the hurricane-swept canyons of the Divide, a landscape torn apart by earthquakes and violent storms. The road to the Divide is a long and treacherous one, and of the few to ever walk the road, none have ever returned.

Reviews of Fallout: New Vegas have called the game as “an utterly essential purchase” (MSN UK) and as “addictively, rambunctiously fun” (Entertainment Weekly). The Associated Press awarded it a 4 out of 4 stars and said “Bottom Line: It’s a Blast”, while GameSpy gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars and called Fallout: New Vegas “one of the best games of the year.”

Looks like each DLC will be priced at 800 Microsoft Points, too. So…May, June, and then July. Kind of an odd schedule, but I guess at this point, what with all the problems the vanilla game has been having, it’s better to give than hold back.

Looks like it’s also safe to download that new patch, too. Now I’ve got even more reason to work on my third playthrough character. I really didn’t have a good time with Dead Money, but Honest Hearts–and more importantly, Old World Blues with its focus on crazy mutated ghoulies–sound promising.

30 Days of Gaming, #13 – A game you’ve played more than five times

This is kind of a weirdly phrased topic. I mean, it seems like it wants to ask about a game you’ve beaten more than five times because honestly, I’m pretty sure I’ve played every videogame ever more than five times–as have you–save for Epic Mickey (cue sound effect). If that’s the case, I had a number of choices for today’s 30 Days of Gaming meme topic, most of them coming from the great house of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, and Suikoden to name a few.

However, I’m going with Super Metroid, a game I can’t pinpoint on the number of times I’ve completed, but it’s one that I return to consistently every few years and love revisiting. I’m so proud to still have this cartridge in my SNES collection; thank the stars above and below that I didn’t trade it in with all those other games I now regret living without.

Super Metroid thrives on exploration and discovery; without it, Samus would just be some ho-hum bounty hunter that hopped up and down platforms, shot enemies to pieces, and took down crazily unique bosses. Those aspects of Super Metroid are great and certainly nothing to sneeze at, but its everything else around them, the unknown padding if you will, that makes this truly a game worth coming back to again and again. It’s landing on Zebes in the rain and heading to the right to discover that, no, really, you need to be heading to the left. It’s making your way through Crateria, which, as a young boy, I always misread as Cafeteria, and getting chills from the dreary, silent mood thickening in the air above. It’s getting even more freaked out when Samus first arrives at the Wrecked Ship to drips and statue-still enemies. It’s that final boss fight, and the frantic rush thereafter; it’s going back to where it all started.

Every time I play through Super Metroid, I discover something new. Last time, it was reaching new areas with the Shinespark technique that I had previously thought were unreachable. Another time it was sinking through some quicksand to…not die, but end up in a hidden room. Long before that it was learning all the secret, chargeable special attacks. I can’t even imagine what other hidden goodies remain for my next romp through, but I’ll be sure to x-ray scan every wall possible and bomb whatever gets in the way.

Truth be told, I’d love a new version to pop up on the Nintendo 3DS, and considering there’s a 3D upgrade to a title like Excitebike…well, my dream isn’t too far-fetched. Until then, I’m just gonna roll up into a ball and wait.

Setting the new consoles loose

Looks like its Spring cleaning time for the videogames industry. Bizheads all over are tossing aside their aging children to make room for newer, shinier ones. Let’s take a look at what’s happened over just the past few days.

Nintendo announced their plans to release a brand new console in late 2012. The device will make its first public appearance at E3 2011, as well as be playable, which starts on June 7 in Los Angeles. Goodbye, Wii, and hello, Wii Wii (or Wii 2 or Wii Are Trying Again or Wii Do HD or whatever they end up calling this mysterious Project Cafe). Not that the company seemed to really care about the Wii for some time, and it looks like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will be the last hyped game for the system before its dumped into those bargain bins at Best Buy for kids many years late to the party to pick up for super cheap.

Nintendo seems to also be phasing out DS Lites, stating that once a retail store sells through its current stock…that’s it. No more after that. I guess this is to make more room for the 3DS and the–to some people–stronger upgrade of the DSi. That’s a shame, especially since I consider it my gaming system of choice; many stores and websites seem to still have plenty in stock though, and they are the most affordable version. If you’ve been waiting to pick up a DS, you might want to stop waiting sooner than later.

Sony is also stopping the production of their PSP models. I don’t know enough–or care enough–about that handheld to give you any kind of insight on the matter, but basically, another one bites the dust. More interestingly, Sony is releasing two tablets capable of playing original PlayStation games with updated touch controls. Um…what? Why would anyone want that? I mean, I guess they do more than that, but for some reason, somebody at Sony thought this was an excellent talking point. However, it is not. I barely want to play a lot of original PlayStation games now let alone have to repurchase them and learn new funky control schemes. The only genre I see faring well with this are RPGs because a lot of button-pressing isn’t based on timing or quick reflexes, especially turn-based combat.

I’m kind of glad that Microsoft hasn’t announced a new successor to the Xbox 360 just yet, but I’m sure it’s on its way. Personally, I don’t believe we need any kind of console upgrades just yet, and it’ll be either a hit or flop for this new Nintendo system, which looks like to be launching with zero to little competition. Unfortunately, Nintendo’s systems seem to place gimmicks above hardware, something many gamers are getting tired of, and there’s a lot of rumors circulating that it could have a touchscreen on its controller, but we’ll just have to wait until E3 to really take it all in.

I hope that, at some point, all the companies, developers, and publishers get together and create the Nintendo PlayBox 9000 and put down their weaponry to live, create, and game in utopian bliss.

P.S. All links go to GiantBomb because I’m too lazy to look around for multiple articles. Deal with it.

Games Completed in 2011, #10 – X-MEN Arcade

My mother absolutely loved Walt Disney World, and it seemed like no more than two to three years would pass in my youth before we’d drive down to sunny Florida from buggy New Jersey yet again to spend a week walking the parks, seeing the sights, and eating like royalty. We always stayed inside Walt Disney World, but rarely at the same resort, and for all intents and purposes of today’s post I’m going to be talking about the time we stayed at Disney’s Coronado Springs. I was definitely under ten years old then, but many details remain fuzzy. I do, however, remember there being an arcade at the resort, an arcade with air hockey and Pac-Man and, most importantly, an X-MEN Arcade cabinet. I think the game itself was just called X-MEN, but that can be rather misleading and generalizing so we’re tossing in arcade for good measure. So, this arcade…it used quarters, not tokens or playcards, truly a relic of the past. I never had to beg for change from my parents, and I have this sort of LOST-style flashback of myself running up to my mother on one of the bike paths, watching in boyish anticipation as she fished around in her vacation belly-bag, and pulled out a handful of quarters—all mine.

As a kid, I thought the X-Men were just the coolest. Nothing cooler than a team of crazy-looking superheroes fighting even crazier-looking supervillains, in fact. I had the comics, the collectible cards, the TV series recorded every Saturday morning. And if I had my way, I would totally have been born a Mutant. My power? A cross between Kitty Pryde and Colossus, which is funny if you know anything about their history together. I’d basically like to either phase through walls or simply bust through ’em. But yeah…videogames. The X-MEN Arcade cabinet always had a crowd thanks to its ability for six people to play at once. It was definitely the most popular cabinet at the resort’s arcade—at least in my eyes it was—but it was worth the wait.

X-MEN Arcade is the continuation of the plot from 1989’s Pryde of the X-Men, an animated film I watched so many times that the VHS tape eventually disintegrated, wherein the X-Men go after Magneto for kidnapping Professor Xavier and Shadowcat. Six characters are available to play as—Wolverine, Cyclops, Dazzler, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Colossus—and each plays pretty much the same save for their special moves. I usually selected Nightcrawler because his superpower could easily clear the screen of enemies. However, I never completed the game in the arcade—didn’t have enough quarters, didn’t have enough other players to help out, didn’t have the skills to beat the Blob without using up all my lives. Many, many reasons. And I never did find another X-MEN cabinet back home in New Jersey, and so that was that. Other X-Men games came out, but none quite like the arcade version.

Jump ahead in time like Bishop to 2011, and I’m playing X-Men Arcade again. This time, it’s very different. It’s silly, it’s easy even on the highest difficulty setting, and it’s unbelievably short. I beat it twice so far. When I played the game in the arcade, I never got farther than beating Wendigo, and I was surprised to see there was only a couple more levels to go. You have unlimited continues, which seems weird, and each level is more or less the same: walk left to right, beat up every enemy, continue on until you hit the level’s boss. It’s a perfunctory brawler and bland, but because it’s the X-Men, I’m okay with that.

Last October, my wife and I went on our honeymoon to Walt Disney World. Amazingly, we stayed at Coronado Springs, too. Here’s us waiting for the bus:

The arcade is no longer located in the resort’s main building. Instead, it’s been moved over to one of the pool areas, and we did see signs for the arcade, but we just never got over to see it. The hot tub was too soothing, too comforting. I’d like to imagine that the X-MEN Arcade cabinet is still there, still eating quarters.

The XBLA version is both a port and completely different take on the game. Go in for nostalgia’s sake, and you’ll have a good time. Otherwise, it’s nothing amazing these days. However, the experience of playing it again some twenty years later means a lot to me. I just wish I could tell my mom how much.

Zero StreetPass tags for me, and zero StreetPass tags for you

Like many others, I bought my Nintendo 3DS the day it launched. In hindsight, we all should have done something else that day–stayed inside the store to set up our systems and StreetPass one another. Because, alas, it’s most likely not going to happen on its own, unless we’re at PAX or plan meet-ups like a bunch of overaged weirdos.

You can read about my first day of walking around with my 3DS by clicking this very sentence. The next three days are very similar to it. A lot of checking, a lot of nothing to check. I’m trying to make a point of keeping my 3DS on in Sleep Mode at every instance because one never knows when I might tag another 3DS owner. In Quick Chek? Maybe. The gas station? Could be. In my bathroom? Time will certainly tell.

I’ve yet to get my first StreetPass tag notification. Stephen Totilo from Kotaku, who lives–mind you–in New York City, only just got his first recently, and from the most unlikeliest of places. It’s definitely something worth celebrating because they’re going to be few and far between as the days go on. I assumed that since stock in my small hometown sold out on Day One that I’d be in reach of someone else that had a 3DS, but it seems that I’ve been deceived.

If you own a 3DS, it is now your duty to carry it around in Sleep Mode, ready for tagging. Your duty as a gamer. And also because I’m sick of hiring cats with swords to try and save my kidnapped Mii and want your help.

I’ll be in NYC myself pretty soon, and if I come back with a completely empty Mii plaza, I’m going to give up on the function entirely. It sounds promising, but it still lacks integration and a wider net.

30 Days of Gaming, #6 – Most annoying character

Hmm…something about this feels familiar. Oh, right. That’s because last November, I wrote up a little post about my top five most annoying videogame sidekicks, focusing in on the sidekicky aspect of the business. I mean, adventuring into the unknown is one thing, but doing it with a chatty brat is another. Sure, any of those could easily get smashed into bits by today’s 30 Days of Gaming topic train, but I decided to think some more and found a few other contenders. And we’re going with Tom Nook, simply for his sheer audacity to never, ever change.

Tom Nook is a raccoon tanuki that runs a shop called Nook’s Cranny in your town in all versions of Animal Crossing. He starts out as a nice fella, giving you a home to live in. One small caveat though: you’ll have to pay him for it, and he’s okay with payments over time, so long as you eventually pay it off. Once you do, he’ll expand your house, opening up more rooms to decorate…so long as you keep paying him, too. That’s fine. That’s kind of how it works in real life, minus the talking raccoon, I think.

Where he gets truly annoying is in his shop. You enter Nook’s Cranny (clean thoughts, dear readers!), and he welcomes you, and gives you a list of options. You do your things, peruse his wares, and leave, but not before he can get the last word in: “Thank you! Do come again! I look forward to seeing you!” You can never just enter and leave uninhibited, like countless RPGs that let you waltz into that potions shop, knock over some bottles, and leave before anyone notices. No, not at Nook’s Cranny. Not in Nook’s book. He will greet you, he will part with you. He never breaks form. He’s like that Obama smile video. He’s like braindead. He’s like…overtly annoying.

And then he follows you around the store, like a used cars salesman, like a true furniture pusher, like an ex-lover with a vengeance. You can run rings around his desk of player tools, but he’ll catch up to you eventually. Unfortunately, the only way to determine what some of the wallpapers/carpets are is to ask him, and you have to then mash the buttons until you can get him to stop.

You want more? Evidently, after you’ve fully upgraded his shop to Nookington’s, Tom will randomly ask you some questions, and the wrong answers will result in him downgrading the store back to its original format. All that shopping…for nothing.

I’m pretty excited about all the possibilities that Animal Crossing 3DS could hit on the head, but if Tom Nook is around, well, I’m gonna be several hundred thousand bells short of excitement.

30 Days of Gaming, #1 – Your first videogame

 

This meme starts off with a doozy, and it’s a rather tricky doozy for me. See, while I’m going to talk about Super Mario World here as my first videogame, it most likely isn’t able to claim that title truthfully. Unfortunately, my gaming history from the early days is fairly foggy, and I know I played a lot of NES games over at the neighbors’, as well as bowling alley arcade machines and those weird solar-powered handheld things. I have very strong memories of a baseball one that traveled with me during long car rides. And I can’t quite place in the timeline when I got my GameBoy.

That said, Super Mario World–and the SNES is launched on–were truly my first, the very first console I ever opened on a Christmas morning, hugged, and called my own. It was the first videogame I could play, turn off, and turn back on an hour later, or the next morning, or whenever–because it was mine, and I was at home, not a friend’s place, and I could play it as much as I wanted. What we should also consider is that, having gotten no other games to play with the console for Christmas, I was extremely thankful the system came packaged with Super Mario World, which kept me busy for many snowy vacation days. And this trend of giving gamers a freebie is still somewhat followed by Nintendo (Wii Sports for the Nintendo Wii; those AR games for the Nintendo 3DS). It was a move that would ensure many would play it, burn it into their upbringing, never forget about it.

Two paragraphs in, and I’ve yet to really dig into Super Mario World. It’s that same ol’ story from previous Mario games, wherein the princess gets herself kidnapped by Bowser and it’s up to Mario Mario and Luigi Mario to save her. They’ll travel across themed lands to get her, too. However, a new savior joins the party, and it’s my personal fav…Yoshi the dinosaur. When ridden, Yoshi can eat enemies, spit fire, and allow Mario to reach new heights thanks to a higher jump. The saddest thing anyone can witness is when an enemy hits a ridden Yoshi; the dinosaur cries out in horror, tosses its rider off, and makes a bee-line run for the nearest deathpit. It’s sickening, I say.

As a youngling, getting to the next section was all that mattered. And this game taught me how to jump, to run, to move effectively from left to right more so than any other game. I remember barely squeezing by on extra lives when beating World 4: Forest of Illusion and skipping over to the dreaded World 5: Chocolate Island. As I got older and revisited the game, I discovered that it harbored a great number of secrets. Things like Warp Whistles and holding down for X number of seconds to hide in the level’s backgrounds, but these were mostly about alternate exits and unlocking colored blocks throughout the worlds. Such things as alternate exits blew my mind back then; stumbling upon one where I accidentally had Caped Mario fly too far over the end goal on to discover a second end goal was like–I can only assume here as I don’t eat such dredge–finding two toys in a box of cereal purporting only one plastic army guy.

Awesomely, the game still stands up on its own today. Sure, some of the levels feel very short, and large chunks can be skipped if you are able to fly high enough, but the challenge still sits around medium. Those chargin’ football players always give me trouble. The graphics are just as colorful, and the music invades your head in ways you’d never expect. Hearing the bwwwwoooo-oop at the end of the level as the screen circles in on Mario and then goes black is pure cocaine.

And if older games had Achievements, I’d have ’em all for Super Mario World. Yes, even the one for opening up the EXTRA mode, which changed the colors of the levels, as well as messed with in-game sprites. This was accomplished by completing Star Road, which is not the easiest of tasks. But I had much more free time then to devote to a game, and no secret sat unturned. It’s most definitely a legendary title, and the fact that I’m considering it my first makes it all the more special.

Anyways, here’s a moment in time. Me with my wife’s copy of Super Mario World, a game now 20 years old. Enjoy the nostalgia, dear readers:

Next up on 30 Days of Gaming…is my favorite character? Hmm. Spoiler: it’s not that jerkbag, Milich.

March 2011’s flotsam and jetsam

It seems like, at least a few times every year, I am a little overwhelmed with multiple games at once and little time to play ’em to their fullest. Such is March 2011 then, a month where I’m playing three to four new titles, as well as working on older games or miscellaneous purchases. Throw into the fight the fact that I’m also scrambling to get Supertown minicomics drawn and printed for MoCCA 2011, and well, yeah, there’s a lot to juggle. Here’s kind of a short rundown on what I’m currently playing:

Torchlight (XBLA)

Right. Diablo II on a console, but much more cartoony and fast. I’m digging it, and normally by now I’d have written up some early impressions of the title, but the truth is that I’m almost at the end, meaning all my big boy thoughts will have to wait for the final review. Still, I like a lot of it except for one big caveat–the tiny font size. And when a game stands on a mechanic such as loot, being able to read and compare magical spears is vital. I’m pretty sure I’ve sold a lot of excellent gear simply because I couldn’t read what it did or its requirements for wielding.

Pokémon White (Nintendo DS)

Only have two gym badges so far, but that’s okay. It’s not a race, no matter what my rivals say. I like finding a good team of ‘mon and then training them to be, roughly, around the same levels. Right now I’m rocking Victini, Snivy, Timburr, and Audino, and the other two spots haven’t been truly filled yet. I’m giving that trash bag Pokémon a chance though since many others probably won’t. Its Sludge move is pretty good. But man, oh man…it’s a trash bag?

Radiant Historia (Nintendo DS)

I was stuck for awhile in this one, unsure of which timeline node to jump back to, but Greg Noe steered me in the right direction. Now I’m working my way through the Closed Mine in hopes of learning a sword dancing move from somebody to help Stocke progress with a circus act in the alternate timeline. Yeah, it can be a bit confusing. Still, the combat is fantastic. Really do need to schedule more time with this one.

Fallout: New Vegas – Dead Money (Xbox 360)

Having now beaten this game twice, my second character, an evil woman named Zelda that loved hitting enemies with s-weapons only–sticks and shovels and sledges–was perfect for attempting the DLC add-on again. My first fly with Dead Money didn’t go very well. But it’s going much smoother now that I can handle the Ghost People more effectively, as well as heal better from radiated food. Just finished gathering Dog, Dean, and the mute. Now to get each of them where they need to be…

Penumbra Overture (Mac)

Started this on a whim, and have only played a wee bit of it, but I dig its mood and atmosphere and the way opening a drawer feels. Seriously. It feels good, true, like I’m actually doing it myself and not with a mouse. I would have loved to see this technique used more in games like Fallout, as it makes searching a room actually feel like searching. There’s a special kind of warmth that comes from opening countless empty drawers and then opening one to find batteries there, yours for the taking.

FlingSmash (Nintendo Wii)

Every week, usually Friday, sometimes Saturday night, Tara and I go visit her brother to play some videogames. We call it “games night,” and we focus mainly on all things Wii (but I swear to teach him Munchkin before too long). Wii Sports Resorts is so much fun with a good group, but two players had to share one remote, and I got tired of this after several weeks. So I purchased FlingSmash, which is basically a Wii MotionPlus controller ($40) with a game thrown in for good measure ($10). The game is just an excuse to shake the remote around, but I hope to examine it more closely soon.

::deep exhale::

Whew. Too many games. There’s the possibility that I’m not even writing about more.

Also, a friendly reminder that by the end of this month I’ll also be picking up Monster Tale and a Nintendo 3DS…so yeah, more to come. Woe is me? Naaaaaaaaaah.

Radiant Historia and history as it should be

According to the GameStop guy, I was the fourth person to pick up a copy of Radiant Historia yesterday. I should’ve asked him how many fratheads came in for their copy of Bulletstorm, but I forgot. Either way, it’s safe to say that this new RPG from Atlus is either going to sell slow, but steadily or fall victim to being too niche for the industry to pay attention to. I mean, my local GameStop didn’t even have boxes out for it yet under the NEW RELEASES section. Good thing I pre-ordered it.

Greg Noe wrote about the game’s first hour, and I’ve played all that and 30 minutes more at this point. Nations are at war, and the world is in clear danger of being turned into a desert. Two time- and space-bending figures, Teo and Lippti, attempt to try again to save it all by putting history’s chances on a soldier named Stocke. Last night, after saving an allied spy, Stocke had to make his first crucial decision, and I’m curious to see how it’ll play out. If it doesn’t go well, that’s okay. The great thing about wielding the White Chronicle is that Stocke has the ability to travel back in time to key events and try things differently.

The first sixty minutes of the game, the time that encompasses the Prologue, is very tutorial, which isn’t a horrible thing, but I am eager to get out there on my own and figure stuff out as I go. A good portion of Radiant Historia‘s beginning is spent talking and pondering, and thankfully the story and writing is strong. Heck, one of the villians even used the word cacophonous, warming the fire burning deeply in my heart. It is also quite refreshing to see a protagonist that is not silent, that is more like Mass Effect‘s Shepard, that is not a bumbling idiot led by his partymates, but rather a leader, a decision-maker.

However, not all is perfect. The sound of Stocke’s footsteps begins to grate, the overuse of cliche JRPG bubble emoticons, and for some reason I find Stocke getting stuck in the strangest of places when running around. Like against NPCs or behind a treasure chest. Something about the collision detection is off. Minor stuff, but irky stuff nonetheless.

Still, the story and battle system have their hooks in me already. I want to desperately know what happens when I side with character X over character Y, and even though the game’s opening only had a few fights to it I can clearly see them really becoming headscratchers. These are not fights one can simply auto-battle their way through. Turn order is vital. Planning and precision are also equally important. That’s like the total opposite of Dragon Quest IX (post-game currently) where all I do in that one is run around, spam the attack button, gain experience and coins, and do it all again–all while watching an episode of The Office or something.

I think I’m really going to love Radiant Historia. Thanks, Mom.