Spin Cycle

To kick off the long holiday weekend, I spent Thursday afternoon playing kickball with several of my colleagues. Although the play was certainly "idyllic" and "pastoral," as we hoped, it also resulted in some very sore muscles and a wicked allergy attack, so I spent Friday at home, on the couch, with a family-sized box of Kleenex and my shiny new copy of Odin Sphere (one could say that I regressed to my "larval stage" for a day). Kickball notwithstanding, I am an adult, so I also devoted part of my day to doing laundry. That's in the interest of full disclosure.

After playing kickball, on Thursday night, I dropped in on my local Gamestop to see if they had any copies of Odin Sphere in stock. They did, just one (the gutted store copy). The clerk indicated to me that they weren't expecting this title to be a quick seller. However, when Penny Arcade calls something "an absolute must play" it's probably going to get a significant sales boost. For my part, the PA endorsement went a long way but in my household we're big fans of anything localized by Atlus USA (so many [hundreds of] hours sunk into Disgaea and Disgaea 2) so I probably would have picked it up in any case.

Odin Sphere employs a narrative framing device that sets all the action within a series of books being read by little girl in the attic of her home. The story of each of the main characters---Gwendolyn, Cornelius, Mercedes, Oswald, and Velvet---plays out in a separate book, but each story intertwines with all the others to produce the main narrative of Odin Sphere. A character who has tragically died in one book might appear again in another as the events of each book unfold before, during, and after the events of the others.

The sprites and animation are very beautiful and detailed. I think almost everyone knows by now that this is a two-dimensional, side-scrolling beat-em-up/RPG hybrid, but there's a twist. Each stage is a ring, so if you scroll in one direction long enough you'll eventually scroll back around to the starting point. Several of these rings are strung together in a non-linear group to form a level. Clearing the final boss stage clears the level, so you can proceed by a direct path to the boss or you can meander through all of the different stages to max out on experience for your weapon and your hit-point gauge.

The alchemy/gardening system adds several layers of depth and strategy. You can grow fruit and even animals from seeds and eat the proceeds to restore hit points and gain experience toward leveling them up. Later in the game, you can carry food items from the battlefield to the "Pooka village" restaurant to create gourmet dishes that will rapidly upgrade your hit points (if you can stomach the Pooka proprietess' terrible voice acting). You can also combine nearly any item in the game with a "Material" to create potions for healing or buffing yourself, potions to damage or debuff enemies, and other miscellaneous potions (for instance, Juggler magically transforms all of the items on the ground into different items at random---great for potentially turning your inventory trash into treasure).

The only other drawback (that is, other than the few instances of over-the-top acting in an otherwise excellent vocal track) is a ridiculous slowdown in the framerate in a few places. So far I've only noticed this on major boss stages that have a lot of action going on, but when this slowdown happens it's incredibly annoying. I'm thinking of playing through the first book again on my PS2 to determine if the slowdown is endemic or if it's a product of playing a PS2 game on a system it wasn't designed for (the PS3). Additionally, the PS3 occasionally reads the save data as corrupted, but the data is actually fine. Exiting to the XMB and then re-loading the game turns up a perfectly fine save.

Atlus USA is known for pressing limited quantities of their games, so if you plan to get this game (and I highly recommend that you do, if you like this sort of game), get it now before it goes all Valkyrie Profile. (Or "all MvC2," as Killa would say.)

Region of Gloom

Yes, the PS3 is a tempting piece of hardware, I'll give it that. I very much would like to go buy one, and pick up F.E.A.R., and then Heavenly Sword (whenever the hell that drops). Then come this Winter, I foresee marathon sessions of MGS4 Online isolating me from my typical human interaction. It could also play all the PS2 games that Keif's renegade unit won't play. I could even pick up Planet Earth on Blu Ray.

But I still won't be able to play the new Guilty Gear XX Accent Core on it.

The PS3 may not be subject to the last-gen drudgery of region encoding for its current media, but archaic PS2 DVD-Roms are still enslaved by the outmoded regulations of those technocrats who can't face the terrifying future of imminent glocalization. It seems the true complement to the Playstaion 3 may be the modded Playstation 2. With a little overseas transaction, a dash of Swap Magic, and the equitable procurement of Catarina's dusty PS2, I could make Force Breaking with Order Sol a reality.

But wait, the plot thickens. When a posting for Accent Core for Wii (!) first surfaced, speculation flared, but nothing reassuring could be trawled up from the depths of the inter-Zeinest. That is to say until this late-breaking blurb from a usually reliable source. Is this for real for real? Will it use the Classic Controller? How could it possibly not? Accent Core, really? So many questions, but why dizzy myself with this swarm of guesses? What are the odds of the Wii version even being localized, when the last two PS2 entries were not? Who am I kidding?

Likewise, I don't even have a Wii, only the generous use of Legoman's. In all likelihood, I may go ahead with my [Import + Modding = Crazy Propitious] plan at the end of May, and hope that a timely North American release of Accent Core doesn't come down the retail warp tube any time soon, much as Catarina fears a PSP redesign hot on the heels of her sprint shoes impending purchase.

On the plus side, having the Japanese version would be hardcore 1337 to the limit extreme. The next logical step I suppose would then be to summon all my translation bravery for an attempt at Namco x Capcom, the JPN-onry SRPG crossover I've coveted for the longest time. It just seems a shame that the upcoming game in which I am most vested, once again, is for the cheapest, oldest, and weakest console on the market.

Enough Is Never Enough

Ever since I got my PS3 in January, my PS2 has been collecting dust back behind the TV. (In all honesty, the PS3 is collecting dust too, because I don't dust as frequently as I should, but the PS3 is at least in use.) However, I primarily use the PS3 to play PS2 games and Blu-Ray movies. Not so much with the PS3 games just yet.

I guess I "officially" moved into the next gen when I picked up my Wii on November 19. The previous month I had purchased Okami (late) and Final Fantasy XII (at a midnight launch event). I figured these would be the swan song of the PS2 for me. I still have a PS2 backlog to work through, but my main focus was going to be on the exciting new world of HD graphics and motion controls.

Then I started to hear good things about Rogue Galaxy so I picked that up as well. One more RPG on the pile isn't going to make a difference anyway. When God of War II came out and topped the sales charts, I finally picked up the original God of War and played through some of it to get a feel for the title, seeing as it's one of the best-loved games of the previous gen. I haven't played God of War II yet, but I probably will eventually. I have also heard glad tidings that SquareEnix's Dawn of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 4) is coming to the PS2 in late May.

And now, skulking around Penny Arcade and its associated forums has turned up information about Odin Sphere, a sidescrolling, 2-D action RPG, and gRimgRiMoiRe (i.e., Grim Grimoire), a NIS real-time strategy game, both forthcoming for the PS2. Odin Sphere got a glowing review from Tycho that has helped push me into its party. It's not the sort of thing I'd be attracted to at a glance, but the more I look at it, the more I want to play it. It kind of reminds me of Altered Beast with the sidescrolling, power-upping game mechanics and 2-D sprites, although probably with fewer wise fwom your gwave hijinks. gRimgRiMoiRe, although its inexplicable internal caps pierce my heart like so many deadly, deadly lawn darts, is sure to be a big hit in my household, some members of which still wake up in a cold sweat in the dead of night, all these long years later, from nightmares of Prinny Baal to which they can not give voice.

I guess this should not surprise me. Seeing as the DreamCast had a new game come out this year, and this morning Kotaku even covered a new Super Famicon game, the PSDouble is a long way from defunct. I've also been fleshing out my GameCube holdings recently, as I now have a machiine capable of playing them. As excited as I am about the new generation of gaming (even about the Wii, with as much buzz as it's been getting), it seems like some of the juiciest new offerings around are still for ye grande ole system.

Ode on a console:

Tho' in power deficit,

Hark! She rumbles yet.

Disgaeappointment

Nobody could have been more excited than my husband and me when Disgaea II: Cursed Memories was announced for August of 2006. We preordered it, cleared our gaming calendar to make room for it, and dove right into it when it arrived. We haven't been playing it nonstop due to work, holidays, more work, and other games, but we've been playing at least a few times a week for the past several months, and we've finally beaten it. At least, inasmuch as a game of this type can be beaten. That is to say, we defeated the primary end boss and saw one ending to the game. It was a major let-down.

I realized straight off when we started playing that the plot wasn't going to be as engaging as that of the original. I soon came to realize that the characters weren't as deep as in the previous game, either. And the ending---at least the basic that we saw---was completely devoid of emotional impact and didn't bring any kind of closure to the game. We then sat through about ten minutes of credits, only to be treated to a little more "ending," which actually created more loose ends than it tied off.

There's still alot to love about this game. The main thing, I should stress, is the gameplay. One doesn't play a Disgaea game for the story, after all. All of the gameplay elements that we loved from Disgaea were present. The turn based, grid based battle, the two-dimensional character sprites, and the endless, unique Item World dungeons. The same basic leveling-up system for characters, skills, and items is still in place. And back for an encore is the colorful stable of completely customizable character classes making up our unique batallion of sprites including my personal faves Berrymelon, Emeril BAM!!!, Paris Hilton, and Optimus Badass.

I haven't really been able to decide how I feel about the changes to the gameplay. For example, the amount of leveling required to unlock the later iterations of the character classes has increased geometrically in this game. Where in DG1 you could level your Male Brawler to level 100 in order to unlock all of his later forms including his final form, the Eternal Fist, in DG2 you must level your Fighter to level 10 to unlock the Warrior; then you must reincarnate as a Warrior or start a new Warrior and level him to level 20 to unlock the Destroyer; and so on. This could be either a pro or a con, depending on how much time you want to devote to making the most powerful characters. The Majin class isn't even available on the first playthrough, which may be for the best since, once again, the Majin makes all other character types worthless.

Then again, to say that one has beaten Disgaea II is akin to saying that one has beaten Tetris. There's always more to do. And now that we have the pitiful plotline out of the way, maybe we'll eventually get around to playing through the hundreds of hours of additional/hidden content.

Gaming Resolutions 2007: Killa Edition

There is, of course, some overlap betwixt our lists, but please enjoy my current agenda of games. This sort of hindsight/foresight foray makes me feel somewhat like the Roman god of doorways, the two-faced Janus. Although, people today may be more familiar with his more recent incarnation, Phanto the two-tone mask from Super Mario Brothers 2. Regardless, you get the point.

Sidenote: This kind of makes me nostalgic for the reoccuring On the Horizon segment from the old blog.

Currently playing, need to finish

• Prince of Persia: Revelations (PSP)
• Final Fantasy XII (PS2) (With Catarina)
• Metal Gear Ghost Babel (GBC*)
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Wii) (With the J-Team)
• Ico (PS2)

Purchased, but not yet played

• Metal Gear Solid Porable Ops (PSP)
• Namco Museum Battle Collection (PSP) (A gift)
• Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (PS2) (Street Fighter Anniversary Collection)

Say Arr! to Piracy

• Snatcher (SegaCD*)
• Samurai Showdown Zero Special (NeoGeo*)

Want to play through again this year

• Final Fantasy VI (SNES)
• Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 (PS2)

Still need to buy

• Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus (PS2)
• Playstation 3 console
• Ridge Racer 7 (PS3)
• Mega Man ZX (DS)
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2)

Forthcoming titles of interest for 2007

• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patiots (PS3)
• Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• Heavenly Sword (PS3)
• Tekken 6 (PS3)
• White Knight Story (PS3)
• Assassin's Creed (PS3)
• Devil May Cry 4 (PS3)
• flOw (PS3)
• Prince of Persia: Rival Swords (PSP)
• Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core (PSP)
• Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii)

*Arr!

Happy Hour

I haven't had a chance to fire up either my Wii or my PS2 for the last couple of days, because November 27 marked my return to working life after a long absence (hubby and I had been enjoying the good life since November 16). Being back at work returns me to the presence of my coworkers who, as well as I get along with them and they with me, are mostly non-gamers. They have, however, shared in my joy at getting a Wii at 00:01 A.M on launch day---in fact, more than a few coworkers were surprised that I was able to get this coveted toy, and I may have earned some cool points by having the latest gadget in time for the X-Mas season.

Tonight, a former coworker was visiting the area, so my work gang gathered at our local DuClaw for a drink and some revelry. Three beers later found found me sitting at a table with my next-door-cubemate and our boss, explaining my lifelong fear of fish via an explanation of colossus number 7---codename Hydrus, the electric eel---from Shadow of the Colossus. I don't think they understood what I was getting at, but the experience brought me to an overwhelming question: How do you explain the appeal of a video game that good to the uninitiated?

It's no easy feat, obviously. Specifically, trying to explain a concept already as radical and groundbreaking as SotC to people who didn't even realize that Mario had gone 64-bit. I think in my inebriated state I managed to say "You play as this little guy---I mean this normal sized guy---who has to kill these giant [here I flailed my arms out wildly, possibly knocking over someone's drink] monsters by climbing up them and stabbing them [mimes stabbing motion with an imaginary sword, knocking over more drinks] in their glowing magical weakpoints. It's revolutionary. . . . Man!"

If I had the chance again---to explain SotC to an uninitiated but interested third party---what would I say?

It's the story of an ordinary boy, so consumed by guilt and love, that he has traveled to the ends of the earth to resurrect the object of his affection at any price. And the price is terrible. Sixteen majestic monsters---sky-scraper-sized on the screen---each a vastly complex puzzle in its own right, must be felled in order to return this girl from her undeserved grave. The game mechanics are revolutionary but that's not a point that my colleagues care about. They haven't seen a video game since their princess was in another castle.

The most magnificent aspect of Shadow of the Colossus is the ambiguous morality that it occupies. The hero, Wander, will stop at nothing to undo the wrongdoing that has caused Mono's untimely death (a death which, evidence indicates to me, probably occured at his own hand), and never stops to think whether what he is doing is right or wrong. The spirit Dormin warns Wander that the price will be great, but how great is it? At the end of the game, has Wander felled sixteen terrible creatures and undone a terrible wrong at the cost of his own life? Or has he slain sixteen innocent creatures that were set upon protecting the world from the release of a terrible evil with the power to reverse even death. . . .

This is the sort of moral quandary that I know would appeal to my colleagues if they could get past the circle-triangle-square-X mechanics of it. I'm afraid I botched it. . . . I see many gamer geek jokes in my future at work.

In closing, a short haiku on Shadow of the Colossus:

Sixteen stone giants.
A boy, a horse, a dead girl.
"Don't fall off, Fucktard."

And Then, There Were Twelve

These years of our lord 2006 and 2007 are proving to be a really great time for my favorite game franchises. I've talked Twilight Princess to death the last few days because it's really all I've been playing. In fact, my household is actually playing in shifts---id est, Gabe plays while I blog and I then play while he sleeps, ad infinitum. Even now, I can hear sword slashes and monkey howls wafting up the steps. The dog, somehow, remains nonchalant.

But that's not all the gaming goodness going on in our casa these days. As giddy as gamers get over Zelda, there are other hallmarks of gaming fame that get get our airship motors running---chief among them the macrocosmic Final Fantasy series, with its thirteen titular installments, two movies, countless spin-offs (including Tactics, Dirge of Cerberus, and Crystal Chronicles), and appearances in other games such as the fighter Ergheiz and the blockbuster Kingdom Hearts series. (In comparison, the Legend of Zelda series has thirteen titles, plus appearances in the Super Smash Brothers series, and an ill-fated cartoon that I think we'd all best forget.)

Most gamers---at least, any gamers who are even remotely familiar with the RPG genre---count the brutal and totally unexpected death of Aeris Gainsborough among the most definitive moments in gaming history (right up there with Samus Aran's gender-bending striptease back in 1987). And if you can think way back with me, back to 1990, maybe you can remember another defining moment in gaming: when you rescued Princess Sara of Corneria but instead of winning the game, the title screen rolled down to let you know that the game was actually just starting. For most of us, I think it's fair to say that installments VII and X (and, by association, X-2) have made an indelible impression on our collective gaming consciousness.

Final Fantasy XII is being billed as the best of the bunch, but it remains to be seen whether it can live up to the hype. If it's going to displace VII and X at the top of the list, it's going to have to be truly exceptional. So far (about 10 hours in) the plot and milieux are very immersive. It helps that the story takes place in the world of Ivalice, which has already been established in previous titles FF: Tactics, FF: Tactics Advance, and Vagrant Story. The graphics are about the best I've seen in any PS2 game (though I'm partial to the watercolor realism of Shadow of the Colossus) and feature an absolutely astonishing level of detail (see, e.g., Vaan's hair). But my favorite feature so far is the gameplay. Killa and I were divided on this at first, but I was glad to see the end of the random encounter engine.

In March 2006, Final Fantasy XII received a perfect 40/40 from Famitsu magazine, joining an elite group of only six titles (six including FFXII). This makes director Yasumi Matsuno only the second person ever to have two games (FFXII and Vagrant Story) in Famitsu's elite 40/40 club, after the venerable Shigeru Miyamoto (LoZ: The Ocarina of Time and LoZ: The Wind Waker).