Stuck fast in the puzzle mire that is Paper Mario: Sticker Star

What is wrong with me? I’ve traded out one extremely challenging game for the time being–Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked–for another. Namely Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Though those two games differ quite dramatically in what makes them challenging: one demands a clearly strategic mindframe that needs precise execution to equal success, and the other asks you to know things you probably couldn’t ever know unless you looked them up in an online walkthrough. Like I did last night. To find the third Wiggler segment, so that I could keep playing. Whatever.

Originally, I purchased Sticker Star the same time I got Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, with Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion following shortly thereafter. That was both a great and troubling time for my Nintendo 3DS, as it meant I had to pick something to play and stick with it lest I fall down the rabbit hole of dabbling in everything, but getting nowhere. At this point, I’ve now completed Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask (yay!) and Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion (boo!), but that didn’t mean I jumped back into our paper-thin Mario’s latest adventure. No, instead, I journeyed through Pokemon White 2 and then made the, as readers know, futileness attempt to get further in Devil Summoner Overclocked. But since that last game has broken my spirit a bit, I’m now back to peeling stickers off walls and filling out the museum like an addict.

Despite my save slot showing that I have logged around eight or so hours, I am not very far in Sticker Star. I’ve opened up the forest world on the left and the desert world to the right, but only have one collected jeweled crown in my book. As well as one piece of “scrap” and three pages of random items, like a lighter, boom box, and giant fan. I’m unsure of how to progress further in the desert-themed levels, especially how to get to the alternate exit in one specific level, and so instead of just spinning my wheels there I popped over to the forest world to see what still needed to be done. Seems like that adorable Wiggler is still missing two segments to his body, and one of them is located in the Bafflewood level, which riffs heavily on Zelda‘s recurring Lost Woods; it’s a giant maze, one that is endless unless you know the right path to take, which you can highlight by place stickers next to specific path exits. I already beat this level, having marked the true path, but no matter how many times I went through it or tried a different way to move here or there, I could not locate the Wiggler’s body segment. For the previous two segments, you could always spy them hiding in the open. Boo, wah.

And so I was forced to look up an online walkthrough, which told me that to locate the Wiggler’s third body segment you have to first go right, then left, then right, and then right once more. Not sure how I was ever in the world to know that, unless a Toad said something I missed. If I did miss some key dialogue, then sure, my fault. I came back to a videogame I haven’t played in a few months and acted a fool. I also had the sound lowered as Tara was watching her new Netflix obsession Monarch of the Glen, which means I might have bypassed some audio clues. However, if not, that kind of puzzle solution is just obtuse. There are no clues, no nudges in that direction; the entire time you explore the Bafflewood, any exit that is not the true exit drops you back to the beginning, and so you are taught early on to follow a single path. This puzzle breaks that mentality, but doesn’t tell you. Just assumes you’ll do it eventually.

Anyways, after all that Wiggler-rebuilding (the fourth and final segment was easy enough to find and rescue), I was able to get up to the third world’s boss, which is a large, poison-filled squid with something like 300 HP, only to have Mario’s butt kicked swiftly and efficiently. The squid’s poison attack not only weakens Mario, but also obstructs the screen, kind of like it did in Mario Kart DS, to the point that it’s hard to tell how much HP Mario has left and whether or not using a Mushroom is needed this turn. Not sure what I did wrong attack-wise, but I suspect I need stronger, shinier stickers to really make the damage count early on. Will try again, and then I guess it’s back to the desert world unless a fourth world of levels opens up after taking down the squid boss. Until then…

An angelic army enslaves the world thanks to Overclocked’s early bad ending

Well, after battling both demons and angels for a little over forty-five minutes, after losing every single team save for P-san’s, after constant spamming of gun-run-heal tactics, I finally did it. Victory was mine, earned with sweat, devotion, new strategies, the use of the Drain skill, and various sacrifices. I beat that mission in Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked that has repeatedly kicked my ass these last few days, constructing a roadblock of sorts. With the angels and demons defeated, P-san and his friends Atsuro, Yuzu, and Midori escaped the lockdown, bringing Honda and his frantic buddies along with us for good measure. Y’all welcome.

However, immediately upon exiting, a strange lighting storm appears over the lockdown. The angels, who P-san was beginning to side with, declared that the lockdown was a failure and decided to kill everyone inside it with lightning. Pew pew pew. For those outside the lockdown–namely, P-san and friends and remaining family members–the angels have declared humanity to be in default of their responsibilities as children of God, and an angelic army appears to enslave the world. Anyone who is not immediately subservient is killed outright, and the remainder are stripped of their free will. This is all told via text on the screen, which is then promptly followed by the words “Mission Failed,” sending you back to the main menu to load from a previous save.

It’s heart-wrenching, and not necessarily from a storyline perspective, but the suddenness of a GAME OVER screen after all that story and choice and time spent battling monsters and trying to survive to live another half hour really does leave something to be desired. I mean, this whole time, we’re trying to escape the lockdown, and now you get the chance to, and if you do it YOU LOSE. The logic behind is severely flawed. Evidently, you are supposed to the fight demons and angels and then attack the humans to break their COMPs while also protecting them from the previously mentioned angels and demons who can, in one hit, take them out, and any civilian dying is a mission fail status. So the easiest option of kill everything and run for it results in death, despair, and dropping you back to the start screen.

Evidently, there are six endings in Devil Summoner Overclocked, and of them, one is literally called “the Early Bad Ending,” which is obtained by breaking through the barricades of the Lockdown on Day 6 and escaping after defeating both the angels and demons in your way. I had no idea about this as I played; I was just playing, making the choices that seemed right and logical, like escaping the demon-filled lockdown at first chance. For that, I felt like I should have been rewarded, but instead I was punished.

When the “Mission Failed” text came up, I literally started at it for over a minute, mouth agape and heart-rate increasing. I just couldn’t believe it. This game loves to waste your time and test your patience, and despite how patient I actually am, I’m over it. I took Devil Summoner Overclocked out of my 3DS and tossed it back into my cartridge bag; now, if I was truly over it, I would have put the cartridge back in its case and then on the shelf to sit untouched for the remainder of days. But there’s a sick part of me. It’s hungry and demanding and greedy and covered in dirt. There’s a sickness within me, and this side still wants to see how things are supposed to go down (or one of five possibilities) before deeming the experience over. I mean, after thirty-seven hours am I just suppose to accept an early bad ending as the final say in this story? Especially now that I know what I’m supposed to do to “beat” the mission correctly.

I’ll try again, I will. Devil Summoner Overclocked and I just need some space, the kind you build after everything breaks down. I’ll end this fail-driven blog post by quoting Nick Hornby’s fail-driven High Fidelity, which I think does a good job of summing up this Day 6 battle set on the fringe of the lockdown that literally tore me apart: “What went wrong? Nothing and everything.”

My latest strategy for Devil Summoner Overclocked is more grinding

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked is a game I’ve been playing off and on now since Hurricane Irene hit way back in August 2011. And yet, according to my save slot, I’ve only logged around thirty-five hours. I suspect that I’ve played maybe six to seven–heck, possibly eight–more hours than that, as the game naturally doesn’t count time lost when you struggle through a 45-minute battle only to wipe in the end because the upswing in difficulty took you by surprise yet again.

It’s a really frustrating game that I, at the same time, enjoy a lot about. The voice acting, not counting Midori or most of Yuzu’s lines about demons and the government, is really good and helps keep me engaged in the somewhat stretched plot. You also get to make choices, the kind that do effect the story, determining who stays in your party and who doesn’t. So far, I’ve lost a few peeps who I won’t mention for those that care about spoilers. And the demon fusion, which can be a brainteaser at times, allows you to customize the demons in your party and level them up through cosmic breeding rather than gaining experience points (which takes longer). The heavy, distortion-based electronica tunes, few that there are, really rock and stick with you as you battle or re-arrange your team.

It’s just that the combat can feel at times grossly overwhelming and unfair. But combat’s how you proceed, and so you have to learn. Which I think I have over my thirty-five-plus hours playing the game, but the latest fight I’m stuck at suddenly pulls the rug out from under you at its very end, pointing a gnarled finger between your eyes and berating you for not grinding enough. Let me explain.

I’m actually pretty close to the end of Devil Summoner Overclocked. Well, I think. The 3DS version supposedly gets a bonus eighth day of action. Currently, P-San and his friends are nearing the end of Day Six, which is supposed to culminate with another big battle against some Bel-named demon. Belial, perhaps. Anyways, it is 4:30 PM, and the only options are a single free battle location or to advance the story with a Honda-related battle. This is my current sinkhole, stuck point, unbreakable wall–what have you. Basically, Honda and some friends are trying to escape the lockdown, and you have to decide to whether to assist or stop them, as well as siding with the demons or angels there to get in the way–or none of the above. The win/lose factors can change dramatically based on your choice here.

I can handle Honda and the two civs trying to escape just fine; the problem is that when you kill a team of either demons or angels–who will fight each other at times, too–a second version appears. The angel ones aren’t anything crazy difficult though they love using Recairn to bring back fallen friends. It’s the demons that ruin all my tactics, and I’m specifically talking about this frakker right here:

That’s a Decarabia, the sixty-ninth spirit listed in the Goetia. Whatever that means. Regardless, this pentagram star is quite annoying, especially when the demon team consists of three of them. Why? Well, they love spamming the Shield All spell, which protects themselves from a single attack, and they seem to always do it right before my team gets to attack, thus wasting our entire turn. Secondly, they all have Fallen’s Mark, a racial skill that says if a Decarabia defeats an enemy, some HP and MP is restored to the entire team, based on the level of the defeated enemy. So, in short, they protect themselves from most damage I can do, and then when they off a supporting demon or main character, they restore a majority of their HP and MP. From what I can tell, the second spawnings of Decarabia are around level 48, and I’m able to take down them all save for the team made of three Decarabias. So, with P-San and fellow friends around 45/46 we have no choice but the grind. Unless there’s a strategy I’m missing.

I will beat Devil Summoner Overclocked. I will get P-San and his remaining friends out of the lockdown, for better or for worse. I will escape my own Decarabia-shaped lockdown, and then I too will be free.

Elite Four Shauntal and her Chandelure are a phantom pain

All right, Trainers everywhere. I’ve made some progress–and changes–since last I updated y’all on where I was with Pokemon White 2. Y’know, that post from three days ago.

Since then, I’ve learned that my Munna won’t evolve on her own by reaching a select level, and so I’ve given her a Moon Stone to hold in hopes that will help speed up the process. She recently gained a level, going from 62 to 63, but nothing happened otherwise. Not sure if it’s just a random happening. I also made some changes to my team overall, especially once I figured out how easy it is to transfer Pokemon over from my previous Pokemon White galavanting. This involved finding my Nintendo DS Lite, which was sadly at the bottom of a box, bereft and cold, an old thing forgotten in the midst of shinier toys. Sorry about that, my dear friend. Anyways, all I then had to do was go to a Poke Center in both games–Pokemon White 2 on my 3DS, and Pokemon White on m y DS–select to enter some weird chat room thing, and then trade with…myself. Yeah, that part was a little odd, having to switch back between menus that both mentioned a Pauly, but I figured it all out in due time. In the end, I gave away three really low level Pokemon that I never used (or planned to), and took back my three original main staples:

• Trashy, a Garbodor (poison)
• Snape, a Serperior (grass)
• Vick, a Victini (um, fire and maybe psychic)

Before attempting to take on the Elite Four for the very first time, I removed my Terrakion and did some light grinding, getting Trashy up to LV 59, Vick around LV 56, and Snape somewhere near 53. To be honest, I was glad to have them back with me after spending so much time with them last year, but I suspected I really wouldn’t need them, with my now LV 72 Genesect able to just destroy everything in its way by simply spamming Bug Buzz and keeping him healthy and healed. And that plan went swimmingly…until I met Shauntal and her army of Ghost-type Pokemon.

So, just using Genesect solely, I was able to defeat three of the four Elite Four members. With ease. Bing, bang, boom. Oh yeah. They were not exciting fights, but I’m okay with that, as I actually prefer exploring and capturing pocket monsters more than struggling through a back-and-forth type of battle and dealing with what one might call “strategy,” and you get to a ton more of that fun stuff once you “beat” the game, opening up the map and letting new types of Pokemon appear in the wild. Mmm yes. More of that please.

However, Shauntal’s Ghost Pokemon are super strong despite being the same levels as other Elite Four’s teams, especially her Chandelure, which is the second Pokemon out of the gate. I can’t get past it. The blasted thing one-shots my LV 72 Genesect, and my other critters barely get a hit in before fainting as well. Seems like I need a Dark or Ghost type Pokemon myself to deal sufficient enough damage back, and well…I don’t really have one of those at a decent level. Got a Jellicent around its early 40s, but it mostly has Water attacks. Please suggest something better, as I really don’t want to grind several more hours just to get one Pokemon up twenty levels to stand a chance. Is there a way I can turn one of my existing Pokemon Dark of Ghost-like?

Until we meet again, Shauntal.

Readying myself for the Elite Four in Pokemon White 2

If you’ll recall, I finally, after stuffing myself full for the time being from the daily puzzle buffet that is Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask‘s bonus features, removed the cartridge from my Nintendo 3DS and replaced it with…well, at the time, I wasn’t exactly sure. There were many choices. But I can now say I settled on Pokemon White 2, as I was fairly close to the “end” when I last left off, having finished the eight main gyms, but still doing story-related stuff before moving on to the Pokemon League and taking on those dastardly Elite Four.

Well, that story-related stuff, which involved rescuing Hugh’s stolen Purrloin  and and fighting the legendary White Kyurem from threatening the realm and some other points that I kind of glossed over because, well, this is a Pokemon videogame, not the latest and greatest China Miéville novel, is now done, and I’ve crawled through Victory Road, finding myself and my small team of pocket monsters on the Elite Four’s doorstep. However, I don’t believe I’m ready for them just yet. Truth be told, I don’t even remember how I was able to beat them in Pokemon HeartGold. I couldn’t get through them in the previous Pokemon White, where the only solution seems to be grinding, which I won’t do now that I’m on the sequel.

The problem is, as always, I have four very powerful Pokemon on team, one spot-filler, and then an empty spot altogether. Not the most balanced party. For the Elite Four, which you have to fight one after the other with the only chance to heal up and recover taken from items, I need all six Pokemon on my team to be in great shape. Here’s what I’m rocking currently:

Genesect (no nickname) – LV 70

Munna (nicknamed Mona) – LV 62

Terrakion (nicknamed Akion) – LV 53

Emboar (nicknamed Hamstring) – LV 55

And that’s it. I have a low-leveled bird Pokemon as a spot-filler who I dumped both Fly and Surf on to help get around the map faster, but it’s no fighter. Now, I was able to get Genesect so high at a much faster rate due to two tricks: one, since I got him as a special download from GameStop or whatever, he is considered “traded” and thus gains bonus EXP from each fight and two, I gave him the EXP Share item to hold so that he is constantly gaining the stuff. I’ll probably take that item away from him and put it on either Hamstring or Akion to help get them up into the high 50s or low 60s.

But now I’m not certain who I should get for the final two spots. I have the following types covered from my main four: Fire, Fighting, Rock, Psychic, Bug, and Steel. Some websites suggest a Ghost type, like Chandelure, or creating a special Eevee through evolution. I’m kind of looking for a faster solution, maybe a decently leveled wild Pokemon that I can capture via a Pokeball that can still be useful. If you happen to know of a good one, please let me know. I doubt I can take on the Pokemon League with just the above four, and it seems like you really only gain access to better Pokemon and legendary types once you beat the game, which helps me not.

Hmm…maybe I should look into how to transfer previously caught Pokemon in other games, like Pokemon White, as I’d love to get Garbodor (nicknamed Trashy) into the action, as well as Victini (nicknamed Snape) and Serperior (nicknamed Snape); so far, after thirty-some hours, I’ve only ever come across one or two Garbodor, and they were being used by Trainers so I couldn’t steal them away for myself. The nerve. I love me some trash monsters. Hopefully it’s not a complicated process, but I suspect it just might be. Will report back.

More like Professor Layton and the Unceasing Daily Download Puzzles

I think I’m nearly ready to take the cartridge for Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask out of my Nintendo 3DS. It’s been in there for…at least over a month, possibly a month and a half. I know that as soon as I finished off Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion I popped that piece of gunk out and dropped in the professor’s latest adventure, and that was some time early in December 2012.  So yeah, a month and a half going by the time of writing. The kicker is that I beat the main game just before the new year hit–so why have I not taken it out of my portable gaming system? Let me tell you, dear readers: daily download puzzles.

That’s right. More puzzles.

Every day since the game’s release, you can connect to WiFi and download a new puzzle. Simple as that. I believe the plan is to do this for one whole year, ending on October 28, 2013. There are twenty puzzle categories, and it seems like you’ll get multiple puzzles within each to ultimately hit a year’s worth. Here’s a list of all the puzzle types and my thoughts for each:

• The Alchemist’s Lair – Connect different colored flasks a specific number of times without overloading the system. Pretty fun, and the later variants get pretty tricky.
• Tile – Match four distinctly different tiles to clear the board. Gravity factors in, with tiles falling into place if you clear ones below them. Not terribly difficult.
• Ghouls and Guards – Similar to The Alchemist’s Lair puzzles, you have to connect light with guards to kill ghosts. Use mirrors to bounce the light around the area. Gets really overwhelming in later difficulty levels.
• Big Block Box – Have to fit a bunch of Tetris-like blocks into a single area, with special rules and limitations in place. A lot of fun though pretty easy to figure out.
• Pen Pals – Have to pen in a bunch of giraffes in a non-breaking fence by moving blocks around in different directions. Can easily solve these through constant trial and error.
• Food Chain – Guide a rabbit to collect all the carrots without getting eaten by the wolf behind it. These are pretty tricky. I used the “undo” button a whole bunch.
• Bewitching Night – Turn on the correct number of lights to guide the witch’s way. With the memo feature, this one is fairly easy to get through.
• Kingdoms – Section of a castle and its grounds from other neighboring castles. Simple and easy, but still enjoyable to solve.
• Vault of the Ancients – Connect one rune to another with a single line, as well as other runes to their respective matches. The larger puzzles are trickier to manage with so many lines everywhere, but one will eventually solve them.
• Perilous Voyage – Guide a boat from start to finish in one single path. Absolutely hate these puzzles, as the inclusion of “invisible” rocks means a lot of guesswork for guiding the boat around obstacles. Have not solved the last four yet.
• Whose Tile Is It Anyway – Place tiles on a board in a specific way to reveal the answer. A bit like Big Block Box, but with new rules to abide by.
• Sweet Truth – Rows and columns of candy must contain only one of each candy type, but no empty spaces next to each other. Nothing terribly mind-breaking to solve.
• A Dish Too Far – Unstack dishes with touching other stacks you’ve cleared out. Just managing space in the end.
• Little Lost Ducklings – Strangely, this puzzle type is nearly exactly like A Dish Too Far, only with ducks and obstacles added on the board.
• St Bronto’s – Lead baby dinosaurs back to mommy dinosaurs. Pretty easy so far, but I suspect later versions will become cluttered and harder to manage.
• Aerial View – Create a runway for the plane to use for takeoff by rotating tiles. Kind of like Pen Pals, but with a few new rules to mix things up.
• Trains and Train Spotters – Direct a train as well as a photographer around a map. Really dislike this as it is not explained very well, and I never much liked that train minigame from The Last Specter to begin with.
• Sun, Sand and Turtles – This one is weird. You have to place water between facing turtles and then also fill in the gaps so the entire board is covered. Not sure if I’m into it or not despite adorable turtles.
• The Barking Beat – Guide a cop along a single path to arrest…animals. It’s okay, but at this point I’ve only gotten to play one puzzle from this category.
• Pipework Patch-up – Connect pipe sections with the exact number of pipes to get the fountain working properly. It’s like The Alchemist’s Lair and Vault of the Ancients, but with water and numbers. Not bad.

Whew. I hope you can see why I’ve struggled with taking Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask out. The content–it just never ends. I don’t remember if there were additional downloadable puzzles in Professor Layton and the Last Specter, but the bonus mini-game London Life kept me more than busy. However, I remember there being additional puzzles for Layton’s first adventure in Professor Layton and the Curious Village, as well as some huff-and-puff over the fact that these puzzles were technically already on the cart and were only being “unlocked” by connecting to the Internet. Also, these were not daily puzzles, but rather one a week, and I got through a few of them, but they were not very exciting. Remember several matchsticks puzzles in there, and nothing more.

Alas, I don’t love every puzzle category, and the second set of categories from Whose Tile Is It Anyway to  Pipework Patch-up feel strangely similar. Most use a small nine-by-nine square grid as their play place, which is a bit boring one after the other. Really, the duck and plate puzzles are nearly identical, and maybe that’s showing that the developers have stretched themselves a little too thin and overshot with promises. And since these categories are the ones to get subsequent puzzles for the next few months, I think I can do without my daily fix and just download them all later on when we return to more enjoyable ones, like Kingdoms.

Now, a choice: what to put into my 3DS after Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask has been removed. I have a few candidates. Such as Pokemon White 2, which I’m pretty far along in, but haven’t played since I bought like three 3DS games all at once back in November 2012. Think I’m on my way to the sixth or seventh gym. Also, there’s Paper Mario: Sticker Star still to eat up, especially since I glanced at a walkthrough guide last time I was in GameStop and kind of have a better idea how to knock down those bowling pins. Lastly, there’s Radiant Historia, one of my five games I want to beat in 2013. Decisions, decisions, so stick around and see what game I’m blogging about next for my answer.

Roll dice to read text in Crimson Shroud

The obvious truth is I play a lot of games, but not all for an extensive time. I actually end up trying more games than you could probably guess, but only just that–for a dabble. An hour at most, or just seeing if it runs on my computer and messing around with it for a few minutes. I thought about maybe doing a roundup post, where I could talk a bit about each game I’ve dabbled in recently, but to constantly have a stream of content here on Grinding Down, I’ll just continue to give them a post each until I run out of things to say. For those curious, here are a few games I’ve played at varying lengths over the last couple weeks: Darksiders, Offspring Fling, Torchlight 2, Snapshot, Titan Quest, Vessel, and Wario Land 4. Sure there’s more, but can’t seem to remember any at the moment, a problem you get when you only try a game out briefly and then move on.

Now, I have been playing one game I bought back in late December a little more, and that lucky prize is called Crimson Shroud. It’s for the Nintendo 3DS and was the last part of the Guild 01 collection, a project from Level-5 that collected four very different games under one heading. I didn’t pick up the other titles, as they didn’t interest me, but bringing pen-and-paper dungeon-crawling to the portable system sounded like a fine idea. I mean, for one thing, I never have to worry about dice rolling off the table or doing any math to make sure I added them up correctly. That, my friends, is well worth the entry fee.

So, plot-wise, Crimson Shroud takes place in a realm where magic was discovered during the Dark Ages after war broke out, which changed lives dramatically. Giauque and his band of Chasers–people who hunt down gods and deities–are searching for a relic that will bestow upon them “The Original Gift”, which is said to be inside the Sun-Gilt Palace of the Rahab. Now, truth be told, I got all that from looking up a description online; I’m positive this is conveyed within the game’s text at some point(s), but it’s rather hard to see the forest for the trees. Text is presented in huge chunks over top of your characters on the top screen, as well as told in second person, much like a DM might do, with all the dramatic flair you would expect. That said, a lot of it is boring to read, and really bogs down the pacing. It also doesn’t help that the characters are literally game figurines, meaning they don’t move or emote in any way, other than you being told that they do. I rushed through most exposition, as it is more exciting to battle and explore the ruined castle than listen to someone describe how old those walls look or the screechy sounds heard on the other side.

To me, the plot is this: explore dungeon floors, kill goblins, gain loot, and move on. Which is enough. Like I said, it’s more fun battling than reading the somewhat unclear narrative, even if the battle system appears a bit basic at first. There are many ways you can customize your three characters–Giauque, Frea, and Lippi–with different gear or special abilities, and you can also add to attacks or effects by rolling combinations of 20-sided, 10-sided, 6-sided, 8-sided, and 4-sided die. It’s surprisingly more fun than it sounds, rolling die on your 3DS. You can attack with your weapon, use magic, use a special skill gained from gear, or use an item, and depending on how well you did, you gain some MP to spend next turn or continue saving up. In the end, you are given a list of gear to pick from, but you only have so many Barter Points to spend, so you have to select carefully. Characters don’t gain levels, so getting better gear is vital to surviving tougher fights.

Just finished off the Zombie Minotaur last night and looking forward to what the next floor holds. Not in terms of story, but rather encounters and lootable treasure chests. Frea needs some kind of offensive magic spell like woah.

Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion plunges into an ocean of thinner

For last year, there were two potentials vying for the Most Disappointing Game of 2012: Game of Thrones: The Game and Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion. I still don’t have the heart and/or energy to extensively rip apart Cyanide’s stab at trolling around in Westeros–though you can check out previous posts for some clues to how I feel overall–so let’s spend today talking about Mickey Mouse and his lackluster painting skills and strangely unwavering glee-driven mentality.

It started with gorgeous preview screenshots that showcased a love and attention to detail for all things retro and Disney-esque, and then came the news that DreamRift was working on the game. For those that don’t know, those are the folks behind Monster Tale—which I thoroughly enjoyed–as well as Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, which I’ve not gotten to try, but sounds stellar. This developer loves the DS/3DS scenario, building entire games around using both screens simultaneously and with purpose. And so, with confidence, I tried out the demo and found it to be an all right time, with what looked like the promise of a Suikoden-style castle that you’d be upgrading over time as you found lost cartoon characters and did mini-quests for them. Ultimately, that didn’t turn out to be exactly it, but whatever. The game had the look and sorta feel of those older Mickey Mouse games we all played in our younger days, and between the console version and the portable one, I knew which version I’d enjoy more. Or at least I thought I did.

There are many problems with Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, but let’s start with its pacing. It’s slow, bogged down by endless screens of exposition or contrived dialogue from Disney characters you’d expect more from. Mizrabel the Witch has stolen a bunch of cartoons, and it’s up to Mickey to rescue everyone. Simple enough, I guess, and the witch can take on the appearance of other Disney villains to keep you guessing for a long while. The opening of the game takes at least ten to fifteen minutes before you are even doing anything platformer-like, and basic abilities like “jumping” and “attacking” are doled out one by one to keep things moving at a glacier’s ramming speed.

The pace is further hampered by the game’s main touting point: painting. Mickey has the power to paint and/or erase objects in the world. To do this, you use the bottom screen to either trace the outline of an object or erase it fully. This takes a few seconds to do, and then a few seconds more to actually see your work realized. Now, a few seconds here and a few seconds there don’t seem like much, but you are literally pausing the action every few steps to paint or erase something, and it eventually becomes a bother, to the point that you no longer care about getting “Perfect” ratings with your tracing, scribbling around the outline as fast as possible just to get it over with. I ended up despising the painting aspect so much that I actively avoided it wherever I could; before each level, you can bring certain “sketches” with you, such as Goofy or a treasure chest, which, so long as you have the paint, you can use over and over again. I think I used the treasure chest once, and never bothered with any other sketches as, again, they just weren’t worth the effort and the time-sink.

Let’s talk about side quests, as they surprisingly make up a large chunk of Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion. They come in two forms: fetch quests or draw something. You are either fetching someone an item or straight up drawing it into existence for them. Oh wait, there’s a third category: go down the hall and talk to X, which should be self-evident. The fetch quests are probably the most annoying of the three, as they require you to hop back into levels you’ve already completed to find something that wasn’t there before. They aren’t difficult–well, depending on the level’s design–but they are a bit of a waste of time, especially since you can use a special currency to basically overwrite these quests and move on with your life. I did that a lot. There was no other reason to hoard these special star things, and so I cheated my way through many questlines. One of the more important quests is to get Uncle Scrooge back on his feet so that he can operate an upgrade store, which provides bonuses to melee damage, health, paint and thinner capacity, and so on; this is where you’ll spend all those Disney dollars you collect in every level.

Without a doubt, the breaking point for me was getting to the Castle South Wing, also known as the water levels. These are based around The Little Mermaid and someone’s love for Satan and masochism. To begin, Mickey’s jumping is floaty, and not in a good way. You spend the whole game getting used to it, only to then be in a water level that takes his floatiness to a whole new level. Now you have to deal with extra float, spikes on cavern ceilings, swimming enemies, and maneuvering around tiny platforms. Hands down, these were some of the worst water levels I’ve suffered through, and I’m the guy that actually enjoys them in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Donkey Kong Country. These are such pains in the butt that each one took multiple attempts and then, once discovering that new fetch quests opened up in all of them, I said “eff off” and never went back once. I suspect a lot of gamers might even just give up here. I nearly did.

The greatest thing Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion has going for it is its visuals, which never fail to wow. Seriously, every screen is colorful and layered, with hand-drawn and scrolling backgrounds that really make fantastic use of the system’s 3D tech. It looks, in my opinion, superior than its console counterpart(s), and the long stretches of exposition are made slightly more enjoyable thanks to great looking art. I don’t remember who said it exactly, but concept art for Disney Epic Mickey has always looked better than the final product. Here, that “concept art” is the game. So…that’s a win.

But that’s about it for Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, a disappointment in all meanings. Supposedly there was a fourth section of the castle to explore, but it was cut due to timely deadlines. Not sure if that would have saved the game or not, as surely it would’ve been more of the same, but with new things to look at it. Just goes to show that strenuous development cycle this adventure went through though. Even if you’re the biggest Disney fanatic, the magic won’t last long. Try Monster Tale or dig out your Sega Genesis and a dusty copy of Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse instead. Trust me.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #1 – Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

The wizard Kamek
Tries to steal babies, Yoshi
Endures lots of tears

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These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

The Top 10 Videogames I Didn’t Get to Play in 2012

Well, here we are again. Another year has come to a close, and I’ve not played every videogame that came out in the last twelve months. I know, how shocking. And here are some reasons: money, time, sanity. I do make a conscious attempt to balance my videogaming time with my time for creating all of those wonderfully “bad” comics no one really looks at, which can be quite a dance, especially during those months where it seemed like a desirable game came out every few days for weeks on end. Like this past October through November. It was dastardly. But yeah, videogames–I don’t play ’em all.

For those curious, here’s what I didn’t get to play last year and the year prior:

• The Top 10 Games I Didn’t Get to Play in 2011
• The Top 10 Games I Didn’t Get to Play in 2010

Get hooked by the sad puppy picture, stay for the maddening lists. All right, enough setup. Let’s get to this year’s misses pronto.

10. Red Dead Redemption // Batman: Arkham Asylum // Batman: Arkham City // Portal 2

Basically, for the number 10 spot, here’s just a bunch of games from previous years’ lists which I’ve still not gotten to experience. You could call this cheating, and I would agree with you, but I think they all still deserve some sort of mention. So let’s lump them together. I’m sure most of you are silently screaming at me from across the screen to play Portal 2 right now, a game which I bought for $5.00 from Steam’s latest Summer Sale, but have not even gotten around to installing yet on my laptop. Swing and a miss, I guess. My landlord continues to recommend Red Dead, too. One day. One day, people…

9. Dust: An Elysian Tail

A side-scrolling, action platformer with a really vibrant look and a tale of genocide. Seems like many dismissed this game simply because they fear the Furries, but it sounds like there’s a great, emotionally-driven story and even greater gameplay mechanics to enjoy here. Also, take into account that Dust: An Elysian Tail is the product of one man’s work. Yeah, I gotta get to this at some point. Selfishly, I’m waiting for a reduced price sale, and I think I just missed my chance to get it for half off the other day. Wah.

8. Crashmo

From what it sounds like, Crashmo is both a continuation from Pushmo and also an entirely different game. In this one, gravity takes priority, with blocks able to fall when moved off other rows and columns. And you can rotate the playing field á la Fez to get a better perspective on how to climb to the top and save that little kid yet again. That said, I’d like to get a wee bit further in Pushmo‘s later (and more straining) puzzles before moving on to new mechanics that literally change how one plays.

7. Dragon’s Dogma

An open world action-RPG developed by Capcom? Huh, okay. That’s an interesting start, but throw in the addition of creating a mini army of Pawns that you can customize and make your own. Bosses are climbable like in Shadow of the Colossus, Pawns can select between nine vocations and you can trade them among friends and strangers, and the realm is yours to explore. Seems like the story is paper-thin until the absolute very end, but maybe the story doesn’t matter all that much over taking down griffins and giant heart-eating dragons.

6. Faster Than Light

I did not back FTL on Kickstarter when its campaign was running and didn’t even really know it existed until it was released and quickly loved by many, many gamers. It’s been described succinctly as “Oregon Trail in space.” You run a spaceship and try to get as far as you can with it, surviving asteroids and pirate raids and general malfunctions. When you die, it’s done, and you have to start over. That sounds cruel and punishing, but this is the kind of game that you go back into smarter and more prepared, whether that helps you or not. Randomness is a factor for sure, but that’s the risk you take when piloting a spaceship.

5. LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes

I was not a huge fan of LEGO Batman; I mean, it was fine, and much better than LEGO Indiana Jones 2 for sure, but it’s not my favorite of the LEGO videogames. Maybe that’s because it didn’t have a film to follow, and it set out to tell its own story, without words. Which is pretty hard to do unless you already know what’s going on. Now, LEGO Batman 2 doesn’t have a film to follow again, but this is where the LEGO characters began to talk, which has to help in telling a story, I suspect, and you have a huge hub world of Gotham to explore. Plus all the familiar hooks. And there’s more than Batman characters here. Maybe once I’m done running around LEGO Middle-earth I’ll give this a spin, but that could be a while. Spoiler: I’m loving LEGO Middle-earth.

4. Dishonored

I got my stealth fix with Mark of the Ninja this year, but it sounds like Dishonored does some good things too, especially with the Blink ability, which allows you to quickly travel from point A to point B super fast. It’s got a New Weird/steampunk-like setting, and you can handle missions in a number of ways, just like the Deus Ex of yesteryear. I like variety and doing things my way. At some point, I’ll get to this.

3. Mass Effect 3

This year, I played Mass Effect 2. It went all right. I found it to be an okay space-based adventure across the galaxy, but nothing astounding. In fact, I think I enjoyed Mass Effect more, as there was more to explore there, to learn about the races and planets and technology. I got through the “suicide mission” just fine, but then Mass Effect 3 came out and it sounded like a whiff for various reasons. Not interested in online multiplayer, and it seems like you can only experience the game in its true form via numerous DLC packs, released later. Think I’ll wait for a “game of the year” version, which, if Mass Effect 2 is any proof, BioWare won’t ever put out.

2. Journey

No PlayStation 3, no play. Insert a thousand scarf-wearing sad faces. Journey, from what I’ve heard, sounds absolutely amazing. And every screenshot looks like a perfect desktop wallpaper. Take that as you will.

1. Assassin’s Creed III

Assassin’s Creed III came out right at a bad time for me, with little time to play and having already purchased a few Nintendo 3DS titles to hold me over. So I had the choice of getting this or a new winter coat, and I went with the latter. So far, it’s worked out pretty well, and even though most reviews for ACIII were less than positive, I’m still curious to see what it is like to be an assassin in colonial times, as well as all the wilderness exploration. Heard it doesn’t “end” things, which is a bummer, as I think this series needs closure and then to come back as something completely new.

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Originally, Telltale’s The Walking Dead was at the #1 spot, but thanks to the Microsoft’s Christmas spirit, the first episode “A New Day” is being given out for free on the Xbox 360 all week long, and so I downloaded, plopped myself on the couch next to Tara, and quickly devoured the entire thing in one sitting. It’s really good. I picked up the four other episodes for 200 MP a piece this morning and plan to see how things go for Lee and Clementine as soon as possible.

That said, naturally, there are even more games I haven’t gotten to play this year, some of which sound fantastic (Hotline Miami, The Unfinished Swan, Retro City Rampage), and some of which I just couldn’t find the energy to care about (Halo 4, XCOM: The Enemy Unknown). Maybe I’ll get to trying out a few of these in the upcoming 2013 stretch, but with a huge and growing backlog in Steam (thanks, all you indie bundles) and a New Year’s Resolution of completing some classics from my collection for the first time, I might not. We’ll see what ends up on next year’s list; one promise I can make is that I’ll be playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf the very first minute of the day it is released. I need that game like woah.

Anyways, what games did you miss out on this year? Speak up in the comments section below! And good luck in the year to come.