“400 Days” bridges the gap and teases you along the way

Here’s the straight dope: I bought “400 Days,” the latest episode of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, the day it dropped on July 5. However, I did not play it immediately, and there are a couple of reasons for this. One, I was reeling–and still am–over the loss of Ryan Davis a few days prior, and two, I knew in my heart of hearts that this was no new full season, brimming with story and content that would linger with me just like Lee and Clem and Kenny have ever since the first season ended. It was created to whet one’s appetite, not sate it.

Two months later, I started up “400 Days” and played through it in a single sitting. Tara watched, too, as well as made a key decision during Vince’s slice. More on that later. Anyways, it’s not very long, but it’s fairly enjoyable, with two of the five character storylines really exciting and engaging. In the end, it does feel like a big tease for what’s yet to come; however, even a carrot on a string from Telltale Games is better than nothing, and certainly more enjoyable than some games I’ve played this year (see Fable III and The Cave).

“400 Days” takes place around Gil’s Pitstop, a truck stop set against a Georgia highway. You play through the point of views of five different survivors, with each story set at a different time since the dead began to walk. Some are right there at the beginning of the outbreak, and others have been at this game of live or don’t live for some time now. There’s Vince, an arrested criminal; Shel, a young woman taking refuge at the truck stop with her younger sister; Bonnie, a coming-clean junkie; Wyatt, along with his druggie friend, are trying to escape a man in a truck; and Russell, a young boy hitchhiking down the road. You can please these stories in any order, but that’s how I did ’em: Vince, Shel, Bonnie, Wyatt, and Russell. After you play all the individual stories, there’s an epilogue to experience, which hints at what will be happening in the next season of The Walking Dead, and who from “400 Days” will be there to live the tale.

I urge anyone that hasn’t played “400 Days” yet to begin with Vince’s story. It packs the most punch and feels the most chaotic, with some hard and harsh decisions to make. I left one of those to Tara, and we both now have to live with that choice, while someone else has to live without a certain appendage. It’s mostly set in a bus on its way to prison. Next, I’d suggest Bonnie, which features some fun conversation bits and a nifty stealth sequence set in a cornfield. The others you can kind of do in any order and are much tamer in terms of action, though all are consistent with the quality writing and gray characterization previously found in characters like Lee and Kenny. I particularly found myself hating Nate in the same way that one hates a villain in Game of Thrones.

You’ll notice that I have not delved too deeply into the details about each of the survivors and their respective stories. It’s not that there isn’t much to share, but rather you should really experience it for yourself, in your own way. Though I wouldn’t blame you if you waited until the night before The Walking Dead‘s season two dropped to do it. Otherwise, you’ll be hungrier than some of the zombies you cross in this short, but sweet tease. And now I wait, stomach all a-grumble.

Stumbling around unhappily in Dead Rising 2

Over the weekend, some friends showed me a thing called Highschool of the Dead, which follows a group of high school students caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The anime, not the manga, mind you. It’s more or less your typical zombie survival story, but set in a Japanese school and frequently punctuated with gratuitous panty shots and boob bouncing, there to mix and mingle with the violent bloodshed and tense drama. I may or may not watch more of it in the future, but regardless, it got me thinking about zombies again, reminding me that I had two zombie-related videogames downloaded on my Xbox 360, just waiting for my warm hands: The Walking Dead’s “400 Days” and Dead Rising 2.

I decided to see what Dead Rising 2 was all about first. Having only played the demo for Dead Rising way back when, all I know about this franchise is that there are a ton of zombies to kill, and they often block your way from point A to point B. You can use a variety of weapons, some effective and others less than so, and you earn PP by creatively killing zombies, which helps you level up, gain more skills, and unlock new combo cards. That sounds okay to me, if a bit mindless (pun intended). Throw in some Capcom goofiness, and we’re good to go.

No, wait. Hold up, corpse-face. I did play Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, a prequel to Dead Rising 2. It was a four- to five-hour experience that…I don’t remember much about. Oops, my bad. In the end, I wrote that it was worth getting over a sandwich, which is like crazy talk. Dead Rising 2 picks up a couple of years after the events in Case Zero, with Chuck Greene and his daughter trying to survive in Fortune City, which is now swarmed by the undead. He’s been framed for a crime he did not commit, and as you go about trying to clear your name you will rescue survivors, build weapons, give Katey some Zombrex every 24 hours, and kill the walking dead (or just run past them).

To be honest, I’m not having as much fun as I did in Case Zero. In fact, I’m finding the main game to be extremely frustrating and a wee bit unfair. Or maybe I don’t know how to go to the bathroom often enough to save my progress, but I’ve already lost an hour or so of gameplay time after getting stuck in a swarm of zombies with no health left. There are no checkpoints or auto-saves happening, so it is all in your hands to keep on top of that. I either need to make better saving decisions or just not play Dead Rising 2.

When you’re not following the main story missions, you are free to explore Fortune City until something becomes available. Generally, you will be killing zombies in your way and helping others in peril. These, from what I’ve seen, are more or less escort missions, and they are absolutely the worst. Most of the survivors are horrible runners, often getting caught in a zombie’s arms, and they lose health fast. Also, if you swing at the zombie biting them and accidentally hit them in the process, they will die. Don’t ask me how I know this.

I’m still in Act 1 for Dead Rising 2, not having fun, but I’ll try playing some more and see if I can get anywhere. I think I just might no longer attempt to save anyone, as it is really more of a hassle than anything else. I know you get some extra PP bonus or whatever, but man. I just don’t know. If there was no time limit, I’d just like to run around the casinos, finding fun and silly ways to annoy zombies before knocking their heads off. If only…

The Half-hour Hitbox: August 2013

I realized the other morning that, over the last couple of weeks or so, I’ve dipped my hairy, Hobbit toes into several videogames that I’ve not yet brought up here on Grinding Down, and by that I mean I’ve played a half hour to an hour‘s amount of these games. Not really long enough to go too in-depth with my zany and oddly driven thoughts, but I want to still share some things with y’all nonetheless. Otherwise, given that I’ll be traveling and away for some upcoming comic conventions over the next several weeks, these could be lost to the void forever if I never return to them. And so, a new monthly feature has been born–the Half-hour Hitbox!

Battleloot Adventure

This is a game for my Windows 8 phone that I downloaded the day it released, because it was then free. I think it is a dollar or two now. Anyways, it’s a pretty straightforward turn-based RPG, with story and exploration completely stripped away. You control a small group of three characters and move from one combat to another. You can do things like tap a character to gain a better defense bonus when an enemy attacks though I have found it not consistently responsive. The cartoony look is very appealing and detailed, but otherwise it doesn’t stand out as anything I need to play right away. Battleloot Adventure might make for a good time-killer here and there, and nothing more.

Bit.Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien

The first Bit.Trip Runner was equal parts mesmorizing and frustrating. I eventually did beat the Odyssey level, but when I returned to the game recently, my progress was not saved (thanks, Steam!), so to continue on I’d have to reconquer the toughest level in World 1. Er, no thanks. Good thing Runner 2 came out when it did, and it has graciously made things easier. Not easy, just easier, with some checkpoints throughout the levels. The music is still amazing, and the level designs fun. I’ve gotten to the second world now, which is based around pirate ships and stuff. I love that you can have the main runner guy “dance” at any time, as well as using the cannon at the end of a perfect run for bonus points. A lot of fun, and I do plan to get back into this one real soon.

Crackdown

Crackdown was recently given out to Xbox 360 players for free as part of their “Game with Gold” thing, which is their attempt to race along PlayStation Plus. It’s nowhere near close to beating Sony’s program, but whatever–more free games for me to play or not play at all. I also have Assassin’s Creed II and Dead Rising II downloaded, but untouched. A new one drops in two days. Gulp. If there is one thing I really like about Crackdown so far, it’s that you are dropped into its open world nearly immediately, with freedom to go and do whatever you want. Which is mostly cause chaos and collect agility orbs. I’ve done both of those, but not much else so far.

Defense of the Ancients 2

Hmm, I started the tutorial–which you have to get through before you can actually begin playing real games of DOTA 2–but the tutorial is broken up into like 12 different parts because evidently it is a very complicated game, with a lot going on at one time. I did the first tutorial level, and that took like 35 minutes itself. Nothing in this hooked me, and I think I’d rather stick with Torchlight 2, even though it is not a MOBA, it has the same look and feel.

Sleeping Dogs

This is a strange open-world game. You can go off and practice your karaoke skills. Or you can hack security systems and arrest drug-dealers. Or you can hone your hand-to-hand martial art skills. You can also eat food and earn Face and smash bad guys’ faces horrifically into things like dumpsters or car windows. You play an undercover cop, so you dip your toes into multiple storylines, some seedier than others. I like the focus on melee combat in Sleeping Dogs over guns, but I’m not very far into things story-wise.

UNO and Friends

Another free game for my Windows 8 phone! I love UNO. The XBLA version was probably one of the first arcade games I got all the Achievements in and regularly played afterwards. This is a free-to-play version of UNO, so there are some annoying things like only being allowed to play so many matches based on how many bronze tokens you have, as well as the constant in-your-face ads to spend real money, but otherwise it works fine and is great fun. Tara loves watching me play UNO and gets really into it, too.

And I’m sure I’m missing a title or two here from my August gaming times. I play a lot of games, sometimes some for longer than others. We’ll see which ones pop up in the next edition of Half-hour Hitbox!

—

The Half-hour Hitbox is a new monthly feature for Grinding Down, covering a handful of videogames that I’ve only gotten to play for less than an hour so far. My hopes in doing this is to remind myself that I played a wee bit of these games at one time or another, and I should hop back into them, if I liked that first bite.

Getting lost in a digital Tokyo brimming with demons

If the Minotaur boss didn’t put you off on Shin Megami Tensei: IV, then getting to Tokyo for the first time surely will. I have to imagine it’s a stopping point for many. To be honest, I put the game down a couple weeks ago after first arriving in the largest metropolitan area in the world, unsure of where to go and with little desire to look up specific step-by-step directions. That’s not how I play. Unfortunately, the game does a very poor job of indicating where you are to go next while at the same time giving you dozens of doors to open and places to enter and explore and demons to fight to keep you busy for long enough that you don’t even realize you’re technically going nowhere.

Some soft story spoilers in this paragraph, folks. When you first arrive in Tokyo, you are hot pursuit of the Black Samurai, who everyone believes did some bad things back in the Kiccigiorgi Forest countryside. I am with everyone, though I bet there’s going to be a twist as to who the Black Samurai actually is. Previously, all overworld exploration was done via menu selection, such as Castle Entrance or Lake. You then explore the dungeons in a traditional third-person perspective. However, all of this changes with Tokyo, where you now explore using a zoomed-out overhead map; other sub-areas on the map, just like dungeons, are explored traditionally. On the overworld map, demons are represented as pixelated squares that still make a beeline for you when spotted, and you can interact with exclamation marks to enter buildings or other areas. Right away, you are given a lot more freedom to explore–and places to explore–than ever before, and that can be a bit daunting. Your first goal is the underground section below Ueno Station, which is your new hub for Tokyo, providing a shop, a bar, and lots of unclean people to chat up. From there, your next main quest is to find the military base, which I can’t seem to do by naturally stumbling across it.

So far, I’ve done a sidequest about killing a demon at Shinobazu Pond, as well as unlocked another fast travel terminal after another tough demon boss that can quickly wipe your entire team out in a single turn if you don’t pay attention to the Press Turn system. I’m mainly running around the Ueno District though, picking up respawning relics, selling them off for sweet, precious Macca, and leveling up my odd assortment demons. It’s progress, but a different kind. On occasion, I fuse, but that’s still a pretty scary process.

One neat thing I got to recently try out was the StreetPassing functionality for Shin Megami Tensei IV. Thanks to that new relay system that just went live and a few trips to Walmart, I’ve gotten a couple of StreetPasses from others playing this difficult JRPG. Anyways, you get a collectible card from other players and, if they choose, a free demon attack during a battle. I was able to call on three StreetPassers during the boss fight to free the fast travel terminal, and it helped a lot. Hope to pass more players this upcoming weekend at Tampa Bay Comic Con!

But I don’t know where to go next, Shin Megami Tensei IV. Wandering aimlessly is okay for a bit, but not forever. Please help.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is Biblical apocrypha in videogame form

Back in March 2013, there was a random sale on the Xbox Games on Demand marketplace section hub, and the cheapest deal among reduced prices was $2.50 for El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. I knew nothing about the game, but it had an intriguing–if long-winded–name, and a couple of screenshots told me that I was guaranteed to play something at least visually striking. So I pulled the trigger, promptly downloaded 6 GB of unknown stuff, and played the first two chapters, unsure of what to make of things. Several months later, I came back to the game and burned through the remaining chapters over a couple of nights, and I’m still unsure of what to think. I like a lot of El Shaddai, but some aspects are of the fun-ruining frustrating ilk.

The game’s plot is heavily inspired by the apocryphal Book of Enoch, which follows Enoch, a scribe searching for seven fallen angels in hopes of preventing a great flood from destroying mankind. He is helped in this epic quest by Lucifel, a guardian angel in charge of the protection of the world who exists outside of the flow of time, and four Archangels. However, there’s a modern spin here, as Lucifel, voiced by an unrecognizable Jason Isaacs, uses a cell phone to converse with God, and several levels are set in a futuristic, Tron-like cityscape. Basically, you are trying to climb a tower, defeating fallen angels on each level, until you get to the top, to defeat the fallenest of all angels and save the world from the wrath of…God? Satan? Y’know, to be honest, I don’t really know which is the opposing force in this game.

Gameplay is mostly hack-and-slash action in the same vein as Devil May Cry, with the ability to knock an enemy in the air and juggle them with sword swipes. Er, sorry–I mean arch swipes. Enoch gets three different weapon types as he progresses: an arch for quick slashes, a gale for ranged attacks, and a veil for slow, but devastatingly powerful punches capable of shattering weapons. You can pull off some combos, as well as steal an enemy’s weapon to replace your own and take them down a notch. I found fighting Gale-wielding enemies to be the most challenging, but you eventually learn all the patterns. For bosses, it’s all about patience and waiting for an opening to attack. If you do die, you can mash some of the buttons repeatedly to revive yourself, and on Normal difficulty, you could do this four or five times, which made getting through some unrelenting fights possible.

Visually, El Shaddai is a delight. Every chapter offers something completely different, and the best-looking stuff can be found in the interim platforming levels connecting two chapters. There’s one section early on that I found myself smiling through its entirety, despite the challenge being presented. There’s a lot of pinks and purples and watercolor-like washing for background skies, as well as strange geometry throughout. Enoch and Lucifel have a pretty stylized, hair-billowing anime look to them, though I found most of the fallen angels to be boring design-wise considering they all wear the same getup for most of their battles.

Two things really bothered me with El Shaddai, and they both have nothing to do with its religious slant. One: the platforming sucks. Like, no. It’s some of the worst. You can barely tell where Enoch is going to land when he jumps, and the controls are so twitchy that, oftentimes, you’d still fall off a platform after getting there in one piece. Considering that platforming is how you move from one event to another, it needed to be tighter. Two: there’s no indication on-screen of how much damage Enoch was able to take, and how hurt the bosses were. Most of the time, it was impossible to tell, and some weapons are ineffective against certain foes and armor, causing me to second guess my choices. Strangely, after you beat the game, you are given the ability to turn on health gauges for Enoch and bosses. Yeah, that’s a bit boggling.

I will not be going back to play El Shaddai on a higher difficulty, but there’s an Achievement or two left that seem feasible. Otherwise, a gorgeous game with a plot that’s hard to concentrate on, given that the screen is just one explosion of artistic beauty after another. Play it to see.

Friendly fire is not be tolerated in Battlefield 3, so they say

When it comes to war-based videogames, I’ve always kept my distance. This is a twofer: a severe disinterest in using a digital gun modeled after a real-life version and shooting a digital person modeled after a real-life counterpart, and stories that all seem to blend together, usually constructed around the ideas of straight-up terrorism and accented patriotism. It’s not that I don’t love the country I live in, it’s just that I don’t love it enough to want to blast open someone’s face with an M16A4 and then high-five my buddy and toss back a beer.

In all honesty, I can count the number of interactions I’ve had with war-based videogames on a single hand. First, I once dabbled in Battlefield 1942 back in my summers off during the college days, as a friend then constantly had it running at his house, and all you ever had to do was sit down in front of the computer and start playing. I was never any good, but we always had a laugh when trying to fly a plane only to end up crashing three seconds after takeoff. Think I also watched some friends play SOCOM. Then there was that time I tried out the demo for…um, it was a Call of Duty game on the Xbox 360, but I really don’t remember which one. There was snow and falling in snow and maybe infiltrating an airbase of some kind. Maybe Modern Warfare 2? And my third dip into the political warfare pool has been with Battlefield 3, given out for free the other month to PlayStation Plus members.

I found it to be a mindless, but educational experience. As well as reconfirming. Battlefield 3‘s single-player campaign is both traditional and not; the story it tells is generic “save the world from the bad guys” stuff, with you know who playing their respective roles, but its narrative structure will toss your mind overboard. You begin at the end, playing as Staff Sergeant Henry Blackburn in hot pursuit of a man behind some terrorist attacks. However, you then hop back to eight months before all this goes down, investigating a possible improvised explosive device in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan. Things happen from there, and eventually you end up playing as a couple other characters, some shadier than others: Sgt. Jonathan “Jono” Miller, a M1 Abrams tank operator deployed in Tehran; Lt. Jennifer “Wedge” Colby Hawkins, an F/A-18F Super Hornet Weapon Systems Officer; and Dimitri “Dima” Mayakovsky, a Russian GRU operative. These side stories all eventually form a bigger picture. Levels are varied in location and objective, but more or less, other than driving a tank or flying a Super Hornet, you are running down a corridor, shooting enemies until they fall down.

So, the biggest thing I learned from my short time with Battlefield 3, and probably all other realistic-looking first-person shooters, is that I would make a terrible soldier. Now, it is common knowledge that my eyesight is worsening every day, but I got new glasses last year, upping my ability to see things father away much clearer. However, in a game with super realistic graphics and lighting and a lot of shadows, I had a hard time deciphering friend from enemy, often shooting a team member thinking they were evil. When you shoot a friendly person, a message pops up: FRIENDLY FIRE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! This would alert me to my mistake, and I’d target somebody else. Further down in the mission, I’d get the message again. Rinse, shampoo, lather, whatever…and so on. Evidently, if you cause too much friendly fire damage, you’ll fail the mission, but I was never that consistent. To me, it felt like a warning that was never acted upon. That said, I’m glad I was allowed to get by with so many blind bullet mistakes because otherwise I might never have made it out of those darker levels.

Oh, and I’m not afraid to admit it: I played the game on Easy difficulty. That’s what it defaulted to, and so I kept it. Considering how fast you lose health and can frak a mission, I doubt I’d have gotten very far on a higher difficulty. I’ve not yet–and probably never will–touched the multiplayer aspect of Battlefield 3. Some wars just can’t be won.

It’s hard to stay alive in a horror-ridden basement

I love trading cards, and I mostly blame Magic: The Gathering for it, but this affection traces back further than that to when I was a wee lad, collecting Fleer baseball and Marvel cards with a vigor I’ve never since seen again. I still have much of my collection stashed away in boxes and binders, but have mostly fallen away from collecting cards due to the cost these days and the fact that, part of the fun, is trading X and Y for Z with other collectors. Alas, I can count the number of real-life friends I have on one blender-mangled hand, and none of them are down with this type of lifestyle.

That all said, Steam now has trading cards, and while I still don’t fully understand how the system works, I find it fascinating nonetheless. Also, with these being digital trading cards, I no longer have to worry about accidentally bending or nipping them, as well as how to store them safely amongst everything else crowding up my studio space. Basically, you play a specific game, and a new trading card is added to your inventory roughly every 30 minutes. However, you can only earn so many, say 5 out of 9 cards, and thus have to either trade with other players or sell/buy cards online. Once you complete a set, you can craft a badge which gets you some background art, new emoticons, discounts on other Steam games, and XP to level up. It’s an odd meta game that I have a hard time ignoring. Thankfully, I haven’t gone full tilt yet, selling only one duplicate for $0.27 and sitting on it while I figure out my plan of attack.

I was able to give Grinding Down long-standing compadre Greg Noe some of my extra cards from The Binding of Isaac, allowing him to craft his first badge. It was both exciting and not. Like when you’re seven, and you are watching your best friend opening his birthday gifts. I believe he has some Stacking cards for me, too, but last time we attempted to trade the system kept glitching out. Another time, me hopes. I’m also pretty close on completing all the cards for Super Meat Boy.

Anyways, even though I got all the cards that I possibly could to drop from The Binding of Isaac, I’ve been playing a lot of it lately. Like, first to relax and just mindlessly see how far I can go, and then immediately after try my hardest to actively reach the end. Unfortunately, I’ve still not gotten past the Depths, but I feel like I’m getting better with every run. However, getting far actually requires a ton of luck, in that certain items will be more beneficial than others. Noe mentioned that a friend of his beat it on his first run, to which I replied, “Fuck him.” Trust me. When I beat The Binding of Isaac on my 157th run, now that will sound impressive.

Bosses that I just can’t seem to grok:

• Widow
• Pin
• Chub

But it’s not actually the bosses that often slow me down or bring my flight of fancy to a grinding halt. Just your day-to-day room enemies are enough to give you grief if you don’t know how to handle them or can’t hit the keys fast enough, and I particularly hate entering a room to find it filled with charger maggots, hoppers, knights, keepers, and globins. On the other hand, I’m a pro at dealing with flies and piles of poo.

Hopefully, luck will be with me one day soon, giving me the best items from the get-go and opening a clear path to Mom. If I can just beat The Binding of Isaac once, I will feel a great wealth of accomplishment, because it really isn’t a simple task. I do have to wonder if I’d be any better at the game using a controller, but I don’t think, unlike Hotline Miami, another tough title requiring quick reflexes, that it offers gamepad support.

Level-5’s short story about an attack of tokusatsu shows

Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale is not really a game. It has a couple game-like elements to it, such as collecting glims to craft monster trading cards and battling with friends to gain power and superiority over them, but it’s more or less a short story about being a kid in a Tokyo suburb in the 1970s when tokusatsu shows were wildly popular. These are the type of television programming where giant monsters battle against larger-than-life heroes against a bustling city skyline. Think Kamen Rider and Power Rangers mixed with kaiju monster flicks like Gamera. I’m aware of them, but they’re not my kind of go-to entertainment choice…unless they are being poked and prodded by Joel and Crow via Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Anyways, after a total of three hours, I’m happy to have played Attack of the Friday Monsters!, but I wish it had been more. You control a young boy named Sohta living in a small town in the Tokyo suburbs. Your parents send you out on a simple delivery errand, with your Mom reminding you as you go that today is Friday, which means the monsters come out. She says it quite casually, and everyone in town is fine with the fact that this happens. As you explore the town, you meet some other kids and become friends with them. They teach Sohta how to play Monster Cards, which is based around Rock, Paper, Scissors, with some additional elements to it to determine ties. When you beat someone at Monster Cards, you become their master, now able to cast a silly spell on them to cause them to fall down dramatically. It’s pretty whimsical and innocent, reminding me a bit of my one time playing…you know, I no longer remember the name of the card game. Had something to do with spells and potions.

I played through Attack of the Friday Monsters! over two nights, but one could bang it out in a single setting. However, there is no reason to rush. Take your time and bask in the sereneness of the town, listen to the cicadas, watch the train chug on by. Setting is the star here. I found the story to be pretty light-hearted and teetering on nonsensical, but never offensive. There’s a couple of real cute moments, and keeping the Japanese voiceover work is always good. Also, that opening theme song is stellar. Quests overlap in the same style that mysteries opened and resolved in the Professor Layton series, and your reward for finishing up a task is always more glims. The monster cards are pretty cool looking in terms of art design, and you can combine multiple copies to increase the strength of one card, but other than that…the minigame is probably about 60% luck and 40% skill and never stressful or demanding that you grind for stronger cards. Just give it a go, and good luck.

The game’s titular attack was also a bit of a letdown, in how it ultimately played out. Visually, it’s a lot of fun. But honestly, I was expecting more giant monster stuff throughout, and there’s really only one instance of it, and you are basically a tiny part of the play. After the credits roll, you are placed back in town, free to run around and collect more glims, as well as battle your friends with Monster Cards. I did a quick tour of every place open once more to get what I could, but did not pick up any new quests to do, and so it seems like the only way now to get more glims is to win the card minigame over and over, which, if it was more like Tetra Master, I’d be into. Oh snap. But alas, it’s nothing to write home about.

So yeah, Attack of the Friday Monsters!, a really charming and peaceful tale about being a kid and creating your own world of fun–but just that. A tale.

Harle, wilt thou leave me thus?

RPG party members–they come, and they go. Quite frequently, actually. That’s just how some tales twist, after all. Very recently, I lost Harle in Chrono Cross (sorry, uh…spoilers?), and the whole happening was quietly handled in such an undermining manner that I couldn’t believe she was no longer selectable as a part of my team, despite being there only minutes before a cutscene occurred. But I checked, and she was magically replaced in my merry band by Viper, and no one even asked me if that was okay. Grrr.

Now, to be more specific on Harle’s vanishing act, about three-fourths through the game, she asks FauxLynx a Serious™ question. I thought I picked the answer that would most please her, but she said I was lying, and the next scene is her crying on Fargo’s S.S. Zelbess, watching as the gang sets off to fight some dragon-god bosses. Starky tries to figure out what’s wrong, but Harle won’t give up the details…and then, that’s it. She’s no longer there, no longer in your party, no longer accessible. And I’m the only one that notices. I am holding out hope that she reappears down the line–don’t tell me!–maybe before the final battle, but I really liked having her in my party as a potent healer and damage-disher. She was all about zee moons.

Harle’s suddenly vanishing act reminded me a bit of when Gremio bites the flesh-eating spores bullet in Suikoden, as well as when Sephiroth decided to poke Aerith a bit too hard in Final Fantasy VII. It kind of comes out of nowhere, and suddenly you are short one constant face and voice. Worst of all…you don’t get any of your stuff back. Whatever items, armor, and elements you had equipped goes buys the farm along with its bearer. So long, multiple counts of HellBound, Gravitonne, RecoverAll. You will be missed. Not that I can’t afford to buy more, as money in Chrono Cross is and never will be an issue, but it hurts seeing your hard-earned stuff taken away.

I’m now in the home stretch, but it is a little daunting. Basically, you have to go fight six element-themed dragons to get them on your side or gain a thingy from them. If I have this right, you can fight them in just about any order you want. Think the White Dragon has to be last though. Regardless: the world(s) are your oyster(s). I took on the Water Dragon first, beating it relatively easily, but now I don’t know where I want to go next. This type of openness can be a real danger to me, as without any guidance I could just wander around on the overworld map for all eternity, basking in the game’s beautiful soundtrack. I also don’t know who I am going to replace Harle with, as Viper is just okay. Maybe Zappa or Zoah? I don’t know.

Time marches on, and I creep closer to finally completing Chrono Cross. Can’t let these dragons and their “come at me, bro, in any order” mentality deter me. I will save the world(s). I will. For Harle.

SMT IV’s Minotaur boss is one loud wake up call

After dying four times during the tutorial section of Shin Megami Tensei IV, I’ve succumb to the blurry darkness a bunch more since then. Probably too many times to keep counting, actually. For a few of those deaths, I revived myself by paying Charon a hefty sum of Macca; other instances saw me just reload to an old save, losing a bit of progress, but keeping me out of downward spiral of debt. I now have the option to use Play Coins to return to the land of the living, but asking for nine is a bit too steep for my shoes, especially when I need to conserve them for Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Find Mii II. So yeah, life as a Samurai is hard, which I should have expected from my earlier time with Devil Summoner Overclocked, but I didn’t realize just how fast and cruel the Press Turn system can be, despite how enjoyable it is when it operates in my favor.

It all becomes clear when you reach the Minotaur boss fight, a few levels deep in Naraku. He’s weak to ice spells like Bufu, and you can get quite a few hits in before it is his turn to attack, but once he does…well, he wipes out my team in a single sweep thanks to the Press Turn system and smirking. I’m not sure exactly if I’m doing anything wrong specifically or chuck it up to bad luck, but it’s been a roadblock for sure. I’d say I’ve taken him on maybe five or six times now, just reloading an old save instead of going into debt with Charon. Boo and grrr and I’ll get you yet, you disturbing piece of Dali-esque artwork.

Until I’m strong enough or lucky enough to beat the Minotaur, I’m grinding and doing side stuff. Like collecting gryphon tails. And downloading free items from the store. No, wait. I’m actually downloading the quests that will allow me to gain these items, but they still require work/items, like 10 or so Life Stones. Every now and then I pop into the Cathedral of Shadows to see what I can do with fusion, but that place is scary and I’m always worried that I’m going to waste a good demon unit to create a subpar one. Right now, I’m rocking…you know, I can’t remember their names specifically and don’t have my 3DS open to check. Hmm, one is the weird connected horses beast. The other looks like a boar. I’m sorry, I just don’t have space in my brain to remember what these crazy critters are called, not when that information is fighting against Game of Thrones theory details and all 108 Stars of Destiny. Also trying to save up all my App points so I can buy the “recover MP while walking” one, quickly followed by “recover HP while walking” right after it–those seem like must-haves.

I’ll be back soon, Minotaur, to try again. If you have any handy tips on how to knock him out fast, please share. I don’t want this to be a permanent roadblock.