shake those wiimotes!

i was never really into sega growing up (nintendo fanboy that i am, even back then) and am only now slowly working my way through the backlog of great sega games. i’d been intrigued for a while by the wii-make of samba de amigo, which came out in the US last september (although it has yet to make an appearance in japan, oddly enough). usually i like to play earlier iterations of a game before later ones, but after spending a fair amount of time trying to find a pair of the original dreamcast maracas on ebay i gave up and decided to jump into the wii version, particularly since i’m planning on taking the game home to play with my family in a couple of weeks.

the game’s mechanics are immediately appealing, but i quickly ran into the problem that everyone complains about, which is the accuracy of the controls, particularly at the higher levels of difficulty. i was really curious if reviewers’ complaints were fair or not, and for a fair amount of time i was undecided. on easier levels the controls are pretty forgiving, but on harder levels i was definitely having a lot of trouble getting my movements to register. but i couldn’t believe that a powerhouse studio like sega would ship a product with broken controls, so instead of giving up and declaring the game faulty i tried a lot of different things.

eventually i figured out how to get the controls to work pretty much perfectly, and now the only thing that mystifies me is: 1) why so many reviewers (such as IGN’s; yet again, IGN proves to be a poor source of information and my interest in them continues to wane even further) didn’t bother spending the time figuring out how to make the controls work. granted, maybe these people were used to the dreamcast controllers, but it can’t be that hard to figure out the wii controls because, judging by the leaderboards, apparently tons of people other than i have independently figured out how to make them work; and 2) why sega didn’t include a tutorial on how to use the controls properly. because once you understand how the controls actually work, the game is an absolute blast.

in case you too need tips on how to use the controls, it’s really simple. there are three positions: high, medium, low. the game registers positions based on the tilt of the controllers, so for the high position hold the controllers straight up, and then to shake tilt them down (i.e. away from you). for the medium position, hold them flat in front of you and perpendicular to the floor, and to shake just tilt them down (towards the ground). and lastly, for the low position, hold the controllers straight down, and to shake just tilt them towards the wall behind you. to do crossovers (the remotes pointing in the same direction), your arms (and your wiimotes) should actually be crossed over for them to register correctly.

and that’s it! the controls work extremely well with this setup, although i’m really curious to see if others have come to the same conclusion. anyway, as i said, once i figured out the correct way to use the controls the game was (and continues to be) incredibly fun and addictive. as anyone who may have been reading this blog may have noticed, i don’t give out high praise that often, but this game is frickin’ awesome and is a great example of what the wii is all about. i’ve been getting really bored with guitar hero-style gameplay, so this was a real breath of fresh air. the wackiness of the design and the fact that you’re frickin’ shaking your wiimotes like maracas to spanish songs and random songs like “groove is in the heart” thrown in makes this classic, totally stupid fun. as a party game this is an absolute no-brainer, and the new “dance” moves added to this edition just add to the ridiculousness of it. and on my version of miyamoto’s “wife-o-meter” (i.e. the “bf-o-meter”) this was a definite win (and i have some embarassing photos to prove it!).

this is one time i’ve been tempted to buy a game’s downloadable content. at some point i probably will, but in the meantime i A-ranked about 1/3 of the songs on the hard level. but after playing the game day after day for hours on end my arms were getting frickin’ tired; this has got to be the biggest workout i’ve gotten from playing with my wii yet (hahaha). the one complaint i have about the game is that when you make one mistake you drop a rank, so getting an A rank is sometimes artificially hard since you pretty much have to get the last section perfect with no time to recover from even one mistake. but i suppose it’s all just part of the challenge. the fact that you can do crossovers on single notes to up your points adds even more depth to the game, but the game mechanics themselves are just fun, no matter what the level of difficulty. i’ve set the game aside for now, but this is one that i’m definitely looking forward to coming back to. samba!

shake to these samba links!
- entry at wikipedia including a table comparing the different songs in the different versions
- page at metacritic. it’s noteworthy that ye olde nintendo power gave the game the highest score (a 9 out of 10) and just goes to show that yet again NP and i are on the same wavelength.
- random blog post of someone who also came to the same conclusion that i did: “… the controls are great. Early reviewers were either: a) bad at the game, b) confused or c) lazy.” i’m voting for C on that one. he suggests experimenting with the calibration option, but i didn’t try messing around with that much.
- there’s an official site here. doesn’t have much, but includes some wallpapers, screenshots, and a video previewing the first download pack.

went! fought! ouendaned

elite beat agents was the game that tipped me over the edge and caused me to finally buy a DS, and i wasn’t disappointed: it quickly became one of my favorite games of all time, and ever since then i’ve been hankering to play the original japanese version, osu! tatakae! ouendan (i.e. go! fight! cheer) and its sequel.

ouendan is certainly an import-friendly game (and now that i think about it, i think it’s the first import game i’ve officially completed), and i thoroughly enjoyed getting to re-experience the series’ unique and totally awesome gameplay with completely different stories and songs. (i also enjoyed the character design, which is by the same artist as EBA, atsushi saito.) there are a number of other small differences between the two games, and in some ways it’s a bit surprising that i so preferred EBA to the original. part of it is no doubt due to the language barrier, but in general the situations and characters in ouendan seemed just less wacky and off the wall overall. the songs throw enough curves that even an EBA vet like myself will have to spend some time getting to the highest level of difficulty, and not knowing any of the songs except one added to the challenge (although i’d only known a bit more than half the songs in EBA). incidentally, if anyone’s wondering, the one song i did know in ouendan was “linda linda”, originally by the blue hearts, which is featured in a pretty rad japanese movie called linda linda linda. the one major drawback in ouendan compared to EBA is that at the hardest difficulty level the markers appear for what seems to be a shorter amount of time than in EBA, thus requiring much more memorization, which i find to be a fairly cheap way of adding “difficulty”. so all in all this doesn’t surpass EBA in my affections, but i’m still definitely looking forward to playing ouendan 2, and of course i’m still hoping for the day we get a US sequel to EBA.

cheer-ful links:
- crackedrabbitgaming.com has a great fansite including links to original versions of the songs, screenshot translations of the menus, and a page of trivia
- the official website is in japanese, but it includes some rad wallpapers and interviews with the developers that google translate might be able to help out with but isn’t working for me at the moment.
- gamefaqs has a few good FAQs including translations of almost all the game text and the japanese lyrics to all the songs and their english translations
- interview with iNiS co-founder and game designer keiichi yano
- entry at wikipedia

shadow of a fire emblem

anyone who’s taken even a cursory look through this blog has probably picked up on the fact that fire emblem is one of my favorite video game series, as evidenced by, among other things, the fact that i played through the heretofore latest installment in the series, the epically long fire emblem: radiant dawn, twice in a row. i’ve been totally psyched to play the newest entry in the series fire emblem: shadow dragon ever since it was announced: at long last fire emblem fans the world over can rejoice that the original fire emblem has finally been released outside of japan. well, not the original since shadow dragon is actually a remake, but in many ways we’re better off with a remake than the original, even aside from the fact it’s been translated.

first off, yes, this game features the same marth made famous to western audiences through his appearance in super smash bros. melee and who also made a second appearance in the more recent super smash bros. brawl. my initial reaction, like many other hardcore FE fans, was disappointment that so many of the features, even relatively basic ones, that were present in the recent games weren’t carried over to this iteration. in particular i was really disappointed that support conversations hadn’t been included, which are easily one of my favorite things about the games. support convos are sections of dialogue between pairs of characters that occur when they fight close to each other in battle, and they really give the game’s storyline much more depth and also give the game more replayability.

it’s no secret that nintendo was looking to make a more accessible version of what is a hardcore series in order to attract newcomers, and in fact in an interview the creators said that they were afraid the support conversations would make the storyline more confusing (which i completely disagree with, a classic case of a developer and a fan not seeing eye to eye). in terms of making the game friendly to newcomers there’s no doubt that intelligent systems succeeded in their goal, though (helped in no small part by the fact that marth is such a popular character in the smash bros. series), and some of the changes they’ve made are: the number of actions and stats each unit has are much more limited than in the other recent games; there’s a slew of powerful characters to use and replacement characters available if you happen to lose too many of the story characters; there’s a method of borrowing more powerful characters from a friend to get through a tough spot; there’s an online shop you can connect to in order to buy powerful weapons; and for the first time save points are included on the maps. the additions to make the game easier can mostly be ignored if you choose, but the save points are a welcome change, even to me, a long-time vet, and a nice compromise between radiant dawn’s ability to save anywhere at any time.

i don’t have a problem with nintendo making their games accessible so long as they satisfy the hardcore audience as well. so how does shadow dragon shape up? well, at first i was looking at the game from the point of view of the recent games, and in that respect there’s so much that wasn’t included that it’s impossible not to be disappointed. but when you look at the game from the point of view of the original famicom game and see what was added, it makes you feel like you’re getting a taste of what the original was like and makes you really appreciate for the first time the innovations that came later as the series progressed, particularly since entries #1-6 weren’t released outside of japan.

but aside from the historical context of the original game, the standard addictive FE core mechanics, and the chance to finally see marth in a starring role, there still were just enough new features that i was kept entertained. there were the DS-specific interface features which were great, wifi multiplayer for the first time (although not particularly well designed at all in terms of matching you with a player at a similar level), and two new classes that non-japanese audiences had never seen before that were fun to use (chameleon a.k.a. freelancer and the incredibly useful ballistician). but the main new feature is the brand new reclassing system. each unit has base stats and growths and class-specific stats and growths, and it’s quite a lot of geeky fun to study the stats and work out which units would benefit the most from being changed to a different class (e.g. changing an archer to a dark mage) in order to make up for their shortcomings or emphasize their strengths even more. the FE series has always had a strong component of nerdiness in determining which units are the best and the best way to maximize each character’s stats as efficiently as possible, and the reclassing feature definitely helps make up for some of the features that weren’t included. the reclassing system isn’t intended to be anything like the complex, central system of the final fantasy tactics games, though, and it fits into the aesthetic of the game in the sense that it doesn’t change the core gameplay at all and it can help make the game easier for a novice. the addition of six levels of difficulty isn’t much of a saving grace, although there’s no doubt that i’ll be playing through at least some of them in the future.

so all in all although i was a bit disappointed with the shallowness of the story and the simpler gameplay, it’s still a fire emblem game and i definitely enjoyed it. in this great interview for nintendo between sakurai of brawl fame and FE series producer narihiro, the latter mentions that the game was created to acknowledge the 25th year of fire emblem and the creation of the 10th game in the series (although shadow dragon is actually the 11th game). he also says the game was intended to be “an opportunity to once again introduce everyone to the fun and attractions that this series has to offer.” in that sense it’s much easier to forgive the game’s lack of more hardcore offerings. the handheld games have historically had less features than the console ones anyway, so as long as this is just a dip and the next game will be as jam-packed with content as before i won’t be complaining too much. in any case, i’m hoping the game sells well enough that the SNES sequel to the game (the original FE3) comes out before too long. like shadow dragon, it would be the next best thing to playing the original games in japanese.

oh, and if anyone’s wondering, my main team consisted of frey, abel, ogma, cord (dark mage), bord, beck, shiida (a.k.a. caeda), wrys, marth, darros, lena, merric, and gordin. the game has less balanced characters than other games, in that some characters are clearly superior to others. i happened to pick a lot of the uber units this time around, but in other playthroughs i’ll focus more on the less godly ones. and if anyone is wondering and doesn’t already know, cord makes a great dark mage: he’s one of the few non-magic units who has a relatively high base magic growth, so he’s clearly an ideal choice. yes, i know, i’m an FE geek. i gotta get a FE t-shirt or some figurines or something hahaha.

some fiery links!
- yet again serenesforest.net has the most awe-inspiringly complete shadow dragon site around, with all the essential info including characters’ base stats and growths, info on reclassing and the online shop, as well as the soundtrack and wallpapers.
- also worth mentioning is that serenesforest.net has loads of information on the original version of the game, including some entertaining in-game character artwork, official character artwork from the japanese-only trading card game, and scanlations (some in english) of the official manga of the original game.
- the reviews all seem to be basically in agreement. here are the reviews at 1up, IGN, and IGN UK.
- nice interview with the director of intelligent systems with the tantalizing comment, “As the basis of the series is supported by features of ‘Strategy RPGs’, we will continue to make new titles based upon them even in the future. But I think all of the Fire Emblem games do not have to be so…” yowza! i think i just wet my pants.
- the official site doesn’t have that much information, but it may be interesting to newbies and it has a nice section on the various character classes.
- hardcore gaming 101 has a nice run-down of the entire 11-game series, including shadow dragon
- for the european release nintendo UK put out a video on the history of the series (youtube version here).
- presumably in order to make the game even more accessible to newbies nintendo sent out an official release offering up hints and tips for the game, hahaha.

adventures of kirby

kirby games aren’t my favorite, mostly b/c they’re so easy, but since playing brawl i’ve wanted to see meta knight’s first appearance, which was in kirby’s adventure for the NES. kirby’s adventure is the second game in the series and the first to feature kirby’s now character-defining ability to copy enemies’ abilities by swallowing them (who knew that such ruthlessly carnivorous behavior could be so darn cute?).

although the second in the series, this was my third kirby game, and the game held very few surprises, particularly since i’d already played the game immediately following, kirby’s dream land 2. kirby’s adventure often gets good reviews, even today (e.g. lucas m. thompson’s review of the VC release on IGN), and a lot of people seem to count it among their favorite games ever. but my reaction to it and dream land 2 were similar: in my mind both suffer from painfully easy levels without enough variety in enemies or geography to keep the scenery somewhat interesting to compensate at least partially for the complete lack of interesting gameplay.

i actually don’t have much more to say about this game, other than that i enjoyed kirby’s adventure more than dream land 2. the game as a whole feels bigger, and it includes additional powerups, more sub-boss and boss battles, and a colorful ambience provided by the NES that the gray-scale game boy lacked. it was also nice to see the original appearance of characters i was introduced to when i played the puyo puyo spin-off kirby’s avalanche. but it seems supremely pointless to me that the game’s “extra” mode is just beating the whole game at 100% with no saves.

nintendo fanboy i may be, but the kirby series is still ranking pretty low on my list of favorite nintendo series. but i played through the first part of the next game in the series kirby super star, which appears on the SNES and was recently remade for the DS. and even though super star is still as easy as ever, it looks like kirby has a lot of new moves and that it’ll be more interesting overall.

it was recently announced that the starfy series would finally be coming to the US, and although i’m definitely excited to have more games that were previously exclusive to japan, i’m leery of the starfy series being even more mindless than the kirby series. but of course i’ll be keeping my eye on it anyway, and i haven’t completely given up on kirby. i’ll try to keep an open mind as i find out how the rest of the series pans out.

kirby’s adventurin’ links:
- as usual kirby’s rainbow resort has tons of great info on their kirby’s adventure sub-site, including official artwork and loads of screenshots, most of the instruction manual, and the soundtrack.
- youtube video of (almost) every ability
- here’s a FAQ (or two) if you’re missing the last few secrets to get 100%.
- 1up has a nice history of kirby, recapping all the main games as well as all the spin-offs
- screenshots of the ending at vgmuseum.com
- entry at wikipedia

rappin’ with parappa

i’ve played playstation games off and on since college, but in general i’m fairly bored by them. i really don’t remember how i first heard about parappa the rapper for the PS1, but it’s no wonder it caught my eye, with its bright, offbeat, very nintendo-like quirkiness. if you haven’t heard of it, it’s a rhythm game in a “simon says” type of format in which the “teacher” raps out a lyric that you then repeat by pushing the same buttons in time. a source cited on wikipedia says parappa, released in japan in december 1996, is “generally considered to be the first modern rhythm game”. i found this surprising at first, but i guess i’d never really stopped to think about the origins of rhythm games, which seem so ubiqitous nowadays.

parappa is structured similarly to the fantastic elite beat agents which i played last year, in that each song is bookended by a part of the story (although in parappa there’s only one continuous story). the story and characters, including the eponymous rapping dog parappa, are wonderfully quirky. parappa apparently means “paper-thin” in japanese, and the colorful visuals feature a similar gimmick to the paper mario series (although the first paper mario came out a few years later, in 2000). the songs, which range from a driving lesson (“check and turn the signal to the right”) to waiting in line to use the bathroom (“i need to go just as bad as you / what i had this morning i don’t even want to say to you”) are uniformly excellent with some purposely nonsensical lyrics thrown in for the heck of it, such as “my style is rich, dope, phat in which / we’ll make a cake that looks rich” from the cake baking song.

as for the gameplay, from a modern perspective the interface seemed notably awkward to me at first. nowadays we’re used to being scored on each note and on how many notes are hit in a row, which parappa doesn’t highlight at all. instead parappa has a simple interface in which your performance on a phrase (usually four beats) determines if you move up or down on a 4-point scale, ranging from “COOL” to “AWFUL”. i’m guessing that dance dance revolution, which debuted in 1998, was the origin of what has become the standard rhythm gameplay.

after i settled down to play through parappa i couldn’t believe how short the game was, which includes only 6 stages. there are some cheap moments, such as when the game changes meter without any warning (e.g. in the first song there’s a sudden shift from 3 beats per measure to 4 without any way to know it would change unless you’re already familiar with the song), and in the last song there’s a sudden section near the end where there’s no call and response and no way to predict what the first notes of the next phrase are going to be. despite these setbacks the main part of the game can be beaten fairly easily and so quickly that afterwards i couldn’t believe there wasn’t a harder difficulty mode. after looking in vain in the settings for one i checked online, and it turned out there is an additional mode where you have to beat each stage a second time, this time with a COOL rating.

and therein lies the game’s truly unique twist; calling it a “challenge” wouldn’t be quite accurate, though. to explain: in the game you can only go from GOOD to COOL in a song by improvising around the required button presses, and finding an improvisation that is acceptable is a really strange case of fairly blind trial and error. i’m quite curious about what the instruction manual says, although this FAQ at gamefaqs includes a section on suggestions on how to improvise that may have been taken from the manual. once you do find a pattern that lifts you to COOL the game takes an even more surreal twist and your rapping teacher suddenly leaves you center stage to rap by yourself. freestyling is a sudden shift in modes, and you can freely experiment with mixing the various samples together and using the left or right directional buttons to repeat a sample. your freestyling also has to be varied enough to maintain your COOL rating, which can also take a certain amount of blind trial and error.

this radically different mode was a great surprise, and although it was often more frustrating than not since it relies so much on trial and error, achieving the COOL ratings and freestyling really made the game much more interesting to me. in freestyling mode the game suddenly becomes much more of a “toy” than a “game”, which is particularly interesting to me given a somewhat recent comment from miyamoto in which he says wii music is a toy instead of a game (leading to a backlash from hardcore gamers who were already feeling abandoned after nintendo’s casual-game-centric showing at this year’s E3) and the general response to will wright’s new game spore, typified by such reviews as schiesel’s review for the new york times. i actually would have enjoyed a separate mode in parappa in which you could just freestyle as much as you wanted without the pressure of having to maintain your COOL rating, which makes me think that video games as toys might not be quite as unsavory an idea as i first thought. in any case, i’ll def. be checking out um jammer lammy (although with its focus on guitar sounds i’m sure i’ll miss parappa’s rapping) and the PS2 sequel parappa the rapper 2.

phew! that was a long post. kick! punch! time for some parappin’ links. hatatatacha!
- entry at wikipedia
- soundtrack on youtube
- this guy has some nice videos of getting COOL mode on all the levels
- the complete lyrics
- review of the soundtrack
- random page with a few parappa 2 wallpapers
- review at IGN
- FAQ at gamefaqs with patterns that will get you a COOL rating
- RMC from gonintendo posted his disappointed impressions of nana on-sha’s upcoming wii game, major minor’s majestic march, a marching band game. ripten.com and IGN have also posted information about it (IGN’s includes a short video).

mediocre mario landed

i took a break from a long game to play one of the few mario games i’ve never really touched, namely that game boy classic super mario land. the game is pretty noteworthy for being one of the first game boy titles, and in that light it’s def. worthy of respect. but from a modern-day perspective the game is really pretty average in almost every way.

the game makes decent use of the mario universe, with items including the power-up mushroom, starman, and fire flower (the latter providing a slightly diff. ability) making their appearance, along with variations on classic characters including goombas, koopas, and piranha plants. but aside from the mario trappings the gameplay is pretty uninspired all around, perhaps unsurprising given the fact that mario master miyamoto didn’t work on the title. there are no secret areas aside from underground coin rooms like the ones that appeared in the original mario bros., and the stages just don’t have anything we haven’t seen in hundreds of other platformers, with the exception of two fairly dull anomalous shooter-like stages in which mario pilots a submarine and an airplane. the gameplay is also hampered by the small sprites, which means landing on enemies often requires pixel-perfect accuracy. at the time of its release, though, it must have been great for players to get to revisit the classic original super mario bros. gameplay and esp. to take it on the go. the second playthrough, which features many more enemies, is much more entertaining, but it still doesn’t hide the fact that the game is easily among the least compelling of the entire series.

the one great contribution to the mario universe that the game did provide though is the introduction of princess daisy, who although virtually a visual twin of princess peach with colors swapped has much more personality and instead of being a maiden-in-distress is much more of a tomboy and provides a nice partner for luigi. she’s been a favorite in the various mario sports and party titles she’s appeared in, and it was nice to see her debut (albeit completely generic and characterless) in what was otherwise a fairly forgettable game.

reading back over my review it does seem unusually harsh, but i suppose this is in large part to the high standards the mario series maintains in general. fortunately the team did a much better job with the wholly enjoyable super mario land 2 (which i played and reviewed a while back). so with that one finished, i think this means i pretty much just have two more games in the main mario series to beat, which are the most recent two, new super mario bros. and mario galaxy. and i’m def. looking forward to spending more time with both.

mario land links:
- PDF of manual at replacementdocs.com
- music from the third world of mario land reworked for brawl
- a good walkthrough at gamefaqs.com
- maps at vgmaps.com
- entry at mariowiki.com
- entry at wikipedia

dracula’s moody melodies

i’ve still been listening to video game soundtracks, but i haven’t really been posting reviews since there’s not a whole lot say other than “i liked it” or “i didn’t like it”. but since i’m in the middle of a lot of games w/ none quite finished i thought i might as well post some comments on one of the more memorable ones. castlevania 64, with a soundtrack by masahiko kimura, motoaki furukawa, and mariko egawa, is a generally underrated game which i played through last year. in the game’s opening, which immediately sets the tone of the rest of the game’s soundtrack, we see the young boy malus play a haunting solo violin line which is then accompanied by an habanera (i.e. tango-esque) rhythm in the lower strings. the designers made the odd decision to keep the first stage devoid of music, but after that the soundtrack in general is a great mix of very classically-influenced music, dramatic and heavy on the strings, oftentimes driven by prominent percussion parts which, although anachronistic, work extremely well. there’s a fair number of “mood” pieces with much sparser arrangements, but they’re so effectively done with interesting instrumentation that they’re never boring. there’s also a refreshing lack of gothic organ music for the most part. given the limitations of the n64 audio, the CV64 team did a fantastic job of creating an ideal accompaniment to the company’s first foray into three dimensions, and it’s one of the best on the system or of the series i’ve heard thus far. so if you need another reason to check out the game, there you go.

sword sealed

since i’ve exhausted all the fire emblem games that have been released in the states, it was inevitable that i would turn my attention sooner or later to the ones that haven’t been officially translated into english. in this case, sooner, w/ the first GBA fire emblem game, FE6, subtitled “the sword of seals” (no, not the sea world variety). although learning japanese has steadily risen among the items on my master list of things to do in my lifetime, luckily i didn’t have to wait before tackling this game b/c online you can find a great fan translation of it.

sword of seals is notable for several reasons. for one, it was the first GBA fire emblem, so the vast majority of its engine (inc. game mechanics, menus, calculations, and graphics) was re-used for the two subsequent GBA releases, the blazing sword and the sacred stones. second, it features roy as the protagonist, who was featured in super smash bros. melee and who along with fire emblem icon marth, also featured in melee, first sparked the interest of most english-speakers in the fire emblem series and eventually led to the first fire emblem game released outside of japan (although the first to get an international release wasn’t this one, roy’s game, but the next one, blazing sword). third, unbeknownst to most english speakers at the time, the aforementioned game blazing sword, which followed sword of seals, was actually a prequel to that game, and features several of the same characters and more than a few cameo appearances.

so, being the first of the GBA fire emblem trio it’s perhaps not surprising that there are several ways that the game pales in comparison. the main one for me is that support conversations feel slightly less developed. according to wikipedia this was actually the first game in the series that had support conversations, and although the types of conversations are similar to the other games, the characters here just seem slightly less alive. this may be in part due to the fan translation as opposed to having an official one. also, the lack of a support reader showing supports that have been unlocked makes me slightly less motivated to play the game again. similarly, the ranking system tracking overall game performance feels slightly less polished here.

in terms of specifics, one complaint i had about the game is that thieves don’t promote, which was a surprise when i realized it, and somewhat of a disappointment as it screwed up my previous strategy. also, there are three extra chapters at the end that contain the “real” ending that you can only get if you fulfill certain conditions, several of which would be fairly easy to miss on your first or even your second playthrough. the other complaint i had is that the enemies’ overuse of berserk staffs seems fairly pointless and cheap. to my recollection the other two GBA games minimized this, what i feel is just a cheap tactic.

newcomers to the series would be unlikely to miss anything, though, and refraining from comparisons to the others the game on its own is quite enjoyable. the story is engaging, and like the other two games this one has a branching storyline for several chapters. there’s a huge cast of characters which adds to the replayability, and the gameplay, while permanently etched into my brain by now, is still fun and addictive. prequels and sequels are generally entertaining and this one’s no exception for those who have already played FE7. all in all this isn’t going to be the first fire emblem game i’d pick up to replay, but it’s definitely a game that i’m looking forward to playing again despite being so similar to the others. and, yes, even after this my 5th fire emblem game my flame for the series still burns. haha. but i think now may be the time for a longer hiatus, believe it or not. we’ll just have to see how that pans out.

some sealed sword links:
- great walkthrough at fireemblemworld.com
- english fire emblem documentary has some great stuff, inc. a a good character guide, the character endings, and the official artwork.
- serenes forest: indispensible for the other games, but for this one there are some things you’ll have to find elsewhere. also includes the soundtrack and maps.
- gamefaqs has a copy of the translation of the game script.
- text of all the support conversations at neoseeker.com
- coupla wallpapers at feplanet.net
- for the really nerdy (you know who you are), a listing of all the expected averages in all the stats at every level for all the characters in all the games.

superior metroid

one more game to round out the year. i had played through metroid fusion earlier this year, but having read so much praise for its predecessor, super metroid, i was interested in how that game would compare. since i had played the two games out of order and the upgrades are almost exactly the same i was somewhat worried that my experience would be marred, but i’m glad to report that super metroid was a completely memorable experience and distinctly superior and worthy of its place among “the greatest games of all time”. in my review of fusion i mentioned that the pacing in that game seemed rushed and that it wasn’t until near the end that i felt there was the real sense of the exploration that was at the core of the original, but throughout all of super metroid the pace is pretty much perfect, with upgrades and areas opening up in a much more satisfying way. it’s amazing to see the difference between the two games: even though they both have virtually all the same gameplay mechanics, because of the superior map and level designs super metroid is an almost entirely different, and clearly superior, experience. it’s pretty amazing that nintendo is able to repeatedly create such memorable experiences with its core franchises, and i’m def. looking forward to working my way through the rest of the series. and here’s hoping another 2D metroid comes out before too long.

super metroidian links!
- fantastic fansite w/ great map and screenshots of each item’s location
- good game site at mdb.classicgaming.gamespy.com w/ maps, the nintendo power comic, instruction booklet, and more
- some metal versions of super metroid songs at metroidmetal.com
- retrospective of the series at ign.com

ocarina played

[yikes. another long hiatus. guess why ... more to come shortly.]

well, i finished the legend of zelda: ocarina of time a while back, as i continue to work my way through the games that seem to get universal acclaim. ocarina comes with some high praise indeed, as it has been in the top 2 in 4 of IGN’s readers and editors’ top 100 greatest games of all time lists for the past 5 years, and only this year slipping to 4th place.

contrarian that i am (and not too wary of getting bombarded by hate mail), i have to say that ocarina is def. not near the top position of my list of favorite games of all time, or even ranking as my fav. zelda game. part of my opinion must surely be due to the changing times and the contemporary perspective, which coming almost a decade after it was released is significant. (but to counter that argument, i certainly didn’t feel that way about link’s awakening, which i played last year and loved.)

my main complaint about ocarina, and one that i also had when i played wind waker, is that there’s too much emphasis on tedious sidequests that involve collecting hundreds of useless objects. i think one of my least favorite things about RPG’s are boring fetch quests. admittedly, every RPG essentially boils down to a series of fetch quests, but in my opinion the good ones disguise the fact well. my other least favorite thing about RPG’s and games in general is when you get stuck and have no idea where you’re supposed to go next due to the game design. i’m fine with getting stuck in a dungeon room and not being able to progress without solving a puzzle, but when you have a whole world to consider it just becomes practically impossible, esp. when the solution turns out to be arbitrary or illogical or both. another part of the problem no doubt is that when i was a kid i would have had time to explore every nook and cranny of the game, but nowadays i prefer games that don’t require you to study every inch to uncover the major secrets. also, it seems like more and more people, myself included, are getting zelda fatigue in that the games reuse so many of the same elements. nintendo has alluded to some big changes for the series in the future, which if they pull through should be fascinating to see what they come up with.

but all of this whining is def. not to say that i didn’t like the game: in fact i’d place it among the top games i’ve played all year. on the plus side, i def. enjoyed the characters, which featured a whole slew of new races, a first for the zelda series. the ocarina mechanic was fun (and much better integrated than in wind waker), as was getting to ride a horse for the first time. i also enjoyed the dungeons (what does it say about me that i liked the water temple the best?), although they got a bit same-y after a while. out of curiosity i started majora’s mask immediately after i finished ocarina, and already i’m much more intrigued by it than i ever was with ocarina, so much so that i find myself wanting to continue it despite having just finished a zelda game. stay tuned.

link’s links:
- totally amazing and interactive guide at zelda.com including PDF maps of all the dungeons for both quests. zelda.com also includes a succinct text-only walkthrough.
- text dump at neoseeker.com
- some nice stuff at zs.ffshrine.org, including sheet music, official art, instruction manuals in various languages, and official wallpapers
- a very interesting analytical look at the game design of ocarina by an employee at zoonami, with a detailed look at the deku tree and the water temple.
- a couple of official wallpapers
- hyrule times: zelda help: a series on IGN where they answered common questions when the game first came out. it’s interesting to see people getting stuck in the same places. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5