robos customized

it feels like a while since i’ve finished a gamecube game. i think i first became interested in custom robo (a.k.a. custom robo battle revolution) when i saw the custom robo trophies included in melee. my interest was further piqued by the inclusion of a custom robo as an assist trophy in smash bros. brawl, so despite the mediocre reviews it got i decided to check it out.

custom robo is more of a 3D fighter than anything else. the main gimmick of the game is that you get to customize your robotic fighter with various body, gun, bomb, pod (which are like bombs), and leg parts. most of the reviews are fairly accurate, but only up to a point. this is a classic case of low scores due to the fact most reviewers don’t have time to play through an entire game, and the bad ones don’t even bother to play more than half and thus miss out on getting to parts of the game that would completely change their opinion. (see my comments on drill dozer for another example). so for the first 8-9 hours or so of the game (i.e. the time it’ll take you to complete the game’s story mode) i pretty much agreed with most reviews, such as gamespot’s. all the reviews pan the game’s story mode (required for unlocking all the parts), which just serves as a framework for the game’s many battles, in the same way that the pokemon games are set up. the story is indeed weak, and the story mode’s visuals have a definite pokemon colosseum-like feel, but neither bothered me too much b/c who plays pokemon games for the story anyway?

the biggest complaint, though, is about the shallowness of the gameplay, due in large part to the lack of difficulty in the battles which are real-time and 3D. and here’s where the scores diverge radically: many reviews dismiss the game as a button-masher that requires little strategy or thought and thus give the game a low score. but anyone who’s played to the middle and end of the story mode and beyond will discover a much deeper experience than one would suspect, due in large part to the increased difficulty. and just by glancing through the reviews of the game on metacritic it’s striking how easy it is to tell who played the game past the story mode and who didn’t: the game easily gets scores in the 8’s from the reviewers who played far enough into it, and in the 6’s for those who didn’t. IGN’s review is a particularly egregious example of a reviewer who just didn’t play enough of the game to have an informed opinion.

so what is it about the later parts of the game that makes the game so much more fun? at the beginning of the game since the battles are so easy there’s not really much motivation to experiment with all the different robo parts you acquire. but with the increased difficulty you’re forced to strategize more and more, esp. in the second half of the game which consists of “tournaments”, each with its own rules (e.g. 2 against 1, tag team, no parts used in more than one round). in this mode each round you fight is scored based on time and health remaining, and you earn bronze, silver, or gold trophies based on your scores. winning a round isn’t too hard, but it takes a lot more timing, strategy, experimenting with parts, and familiarity with the wide variety of stages (most quite nicely designed) to win the 5 or 6-round tournaments with a high enough score to get all the trophies.

near the later parts of the game, when you have access to all the better parts, even winning the tournaments isn’t too hard. but at that point it’s more fun to set up challenges for yourself by using the random select function, which randomly puts together a robo for you, instead of just sticking with your early favorites. the majority of the robo parts are different enough that it’s fun just trying each of them out, and the graphics for all the weapons and body parts are nicely designed and look great in battle. there are clearly some parts that take some experience to use effectively, and there are some weapon parts that are much more effective with a certain body part than others. my main advice to anyone who picks up the game would be to start experimenting right away w/ the diff. parts during the easy battles of the story mode to keep things interesting and to get used to all their diff. attributes. the game still has some drawbacks, such as its unmemorable music and its fairly useless optional first person battle view, but even though this isn’t the deepest fighter out there it’s def. a great, underrated game with a surprising amount of variety and depth and one well worth playing.

customize your links!
- gamefaqs has a nice collection of info, inc. a great walkthrough at gamefaqs that inc. stats of all the robo parts, a weapon damage guide that includes exactly how much damage each part inflicts, and a list of unlockables
- despite the lackluster story, someone typed up the text of the game script
- instruction manual at nintendo.com
- entry at wikipedia

he really is a mega man

another NES classic bites the dust. i’d played and beaten mega man 2 back when i was a tyke, and i think it was one of the few times my mom let me rent a video game. i really didn’t remember anything about it, but after the announcement of the completely retro, completely 8-bit-styled upcoming release of mega man 9, a brand new mega man game, that sent fanboys worldwide into conniptions, it seems like everyone’s been arguing about what the best game in the series is. well, it’s less like an argument and more like a chorus with a few naysayers, as it seems most everyone favors the second installment.

i had a good time playing through the game (on normal mode, b/c i just wasn’t in the mood for anything too taxing). this is a classic mega man game, so it comes with all the fun of getting to choose what order to tackle the stages in, and the graphics, music, enemies, and bosses are all as great as you’d expect. the added password feature def. made me more inclined to play the game in the first place, although i found the levels in MM2 to be noticeably shorter than the original game. the original was a game that i did own and knew pretty much inside and out, so it was hard not to compare them. and although most people prefer MM2, they also acknowledge that the first game is the more difficult of the two, and i’d def. have to agree. the only difference between the two difficulty modes that i’ve seen so far in MM2 is that the enemies take more bullets to kill, but otherwise the environmental puzzles (e.g. disappearing blocks, moving platforms, etc.), which seem to be the same, were rarely challenging to me. maybe the original game made me a pro at them, or maybe i’m just remembering the original as being more difficult than it actually is some twenty years later. in any case, with mega man back in my life you can be sure that i’ll be revisiting both games as well as reminding myself of the other games that followed and checking out the ones i never got a chance to play. rock on, rock man, rock on.

tons of mega man love means mega mega man links:
- mega man forever is a nice fansite that has a nice page for MM2 w/ sprites for all the enemies and a great section with in-game and official artwork of all the boss robots in the whole series.
- the creatively-titled mega man homepage also has loads of great info and sprites including a completely complete game list and the answer to the question: “so how many mega man games are there?“. (the answer: a heckuva lot.)
- this ultimate mega man retrospective at gamesradar.com actually lives up to its name and recaps practically every game and boss in the series.
- someone made some totally alsome mega man hats
- IGN’s list of top 10 mega man robots of all time (and no, the much maligned wood man with his leaf shield power didn’t make the cut)
- interesting interview with inafune, the man behind the mega man at gamesradar
- a skewering of a feature from the olden days of nintendo power in which readers could submit ideas for mega man bosses, on i-mockery.com
- PDF of manual at replacementdocs.com
- a look at MM2’s infamous european artwork
- entry at mega man wiki
- entry at wikipedia

galaga’ed

i’ve been playing the original NES version of the 80’s arcade classic galaga for a while now. there doesn’t seem to be much info specifically on the NES port, but there are some interesting differences. one trivial difference is that the game was subtitled “demons of death” on the cartridge for no apparent reason other than to titillate would-be purchasers i suppose. aficionados will also notice that the graphics take a minor hit compared to the arcade version, and there’s also a notable difference in gameplay in that your ship is only allowed two bullets onscreen at any one time. this change, no doubt due to limitations of the hardware, makes the game a bit harder and will cause those used to the arcade version to have to adjust their strategy, but to compensate there’s an additional feature where if you press the A button you’ll automatically fire two bullets in quick succession. this really saves your thumb, and i found myself switching back and forth between the two-bullet fire and the regular one-bullet fire, depending on the situation. one other minor change is that the stage and # of ships remaining info has been moved from the bottom of the screen to the right side. this also takes a bit of adjusting since it’s harder to see exactly where the right edge of the playing field is, but i found i got used to it after a while. all in all even for die-hard fans of the original version this is still a very good port of the classic game we all know and love.

as for galaga in general, call me a retro gamer but to me this game truly stands as a monument to practically perfect classic gaming. the controls, graphics, and music/sound are all great; the pacing at which the difficulty increases is spot on; and the gameplay is simple but beautifully clean and elegant. there’s also a constant variety within these parameters that keeps you coming back for more. the most obvious are the challenge stages interspersed throughout, of which there are eight total, and most of which take some mastering to achieve perfect scores (i.e. 40 out of 40 enemies defeated). but there are also other variations as well. there are several different enemy entrance patterns, and if you do well (i.e. defeat a lot of the enemies as they enter) the main part of the stage in which you face off against the enemies you didn’t defeat is significantly easier. then there’s the main part of the stage in which you dodge the swooping enemies and their bullets, with the added event where one enemy morphs into three special enemies that give a sizable bonus if you defeat all three. the most eye-catching feature is the ability to win back a captured ship to double your firepower, although i ended up not using it that often and i doubt most hard-core galaga players do.

galaga seems to be one of those games that everyone’s played but it seems it hasn’t been given enough love lately. if anyone’s hesitating about getting the NES port on the virtual console i can recommend it wholeheartedly, and i hope it renews your love for this classic as much as it did for me. my goal this time around was just to break 200,000 (which seems to be fairly modest, since i’ve seen scores well over a million and as high as 3 million, according to sources such as nintendo power v. 13). my next goal is to make it to level 31, which is the last challenging stage before they start repeating. isn’t it nice to have goals in life?

galaga links attacking from outer space!
- great fan site that details strategies for all the challenge stages, complete with animated GIF’s
- some misc trivia at gamefaqs
- review of VC release at IGN
- list of galaga xbox360 achievements
- entry at wikipedia

wright objections

phoenix wright: ace attorney, the first in the series, is another one of those games i’d heard a lot about and was looking forward to trying out. the idea of a lawyer adventure had me intrigued, and the game seems to have acquired a large fanbase online. the DS and now the wii have both seen a resurgence in point-and-click games, and although the original PW games were originally released for the GBA in japan the transition to DS certainly has its advantages and, as you can imagine, the gameplay must have become smoother as a result.

despite the game being firmly rooted in GBA style and presentation, the over-the-top characters, settings, and music are colorful and have a nice anime feel. for the few people who haven’t played the game, gameplay is separated into two parts. the first is typical point-and-click “move around and talk to characters and examine scenes for evidence”-type gameplay, although more suited to a detective’s job than a lawyer’s. the second type consists of the courtroom scenes, which are easily the best parts of the game. although parts of these scenes do get tedious, the act of presenting evidence in court to highlight contradictions in the witnesses’ testimonies is nicely done and doesn’t get old. and if the game doesn’t include much actual law, it does a nice job of giving a good semblance of it by incorporating legal jargon in a natural way and devising situations that highlight particular courtroom procedures.

overall, though, i didn’t end up liking the game nearly as much as i wanted to. i enjoyed the characters, and the protagonist’s rivalry reached archetypal levels. but although i enjoyed the twists in the overall story arc i just didn’t find the individual mysteries to be that interesting. i got tired of how dragged-out the stories felt, and at times the amount of text just felt endless, not to mention having a significant number of typos. and although games of this type always seem to have some disconnect between real-life and in-game logic, at times the logic here seemed even more farfetched than usual. all in all the game felt shallower in characterization, style, presentation, and plot, than the other point-and-click DS game i played hotel dusk (which had outstanding characterization and presentation), even though dusk was a more straightforward point-and-click adventure. the other two games in the main phoenix wright trilogy seem to have gotten similar scores as the first, and i don’t imagine the gameplay has evolved very much, so although i’m looking forward to finding out what happens to all the characters (particularly the prickly but somehow endearing miles edgeworth) i’m not really all that eager to tackle them just yet. but of course i will eventually.

some not-too-objectionable links:
- court-records.net: a great fansite which has screenshots, animated GIF’s, official artwork, and more
- craig harris’s review at IGN
- entry at wikipedia
- a walkthrough at IGN
- funny little online app where you can create your own “OBJECTION!”’s
- site on classicgaming.gamespy.com: includes recaps of all the games, some mp3’s, and some comparisons of characters’ japanese vs. english names

wario’s virtual land

another gaming first, i finished my first virtual boy game: wario land. i’d gotten a virtual boy a while back b/c it’s just way too cool and b/c i’m a nintendo fanboy, even though there wasn’t much i was itching to play on it. but i’d played and enjoyed the first wario land game (on the game boy) last year, so i was interested in delving deeper into the series. although the VB wario land is the second game in the series, the “wario land 2″ moniker was actually given to the game that followed VB wario land, when the series returned to the game boy.

VB wario land is an enjoyable game, despite being extremely similar to the previous game and including virtually the exact same powerups. the game generally makes good use of the 3D perspective, and the treasures are hidden well enough that you’ll be scratching your head more than once as you search for them. another plus is that there’s a harder version of the game unlocked after you beat the game, which apparently includes more spikes and other hazards. and although i haven’t found anyone else that mentions it, the second quest also gives you different treasures, e.g. instead of a lucky cat statue as the treasure for the first level it’s a raccoon statue.

all in all this is a solid platformer, and despite some weak boss battles overall this one’s as entertaining as the first wario land game. prob. not worth going out of your way to get a VB to play this game unless you’re a hard-core nintendo fanboy like me, although it remains to be seen how far the next games in the series evolve.

wario’s virtual links:
- there are some great VB fan sites, including virtual-boy.org and www.vr32.de which has a nice page on wario land VB including scans of the instruction manual
- TV commercial and a video of some gameplay (no sound), on youtube
- entry at wikipedia
- IGN AU had a nice VB retrospective earlier this year, including mini-reviews of some of the best games
- a FAQ at gamefaqs and one from IGN
- endings FAQ for all the mario games, inc. the wario land games
- general VB FAQ