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Post #021 - Wet

Wet for me is a reminder of what gaming was like in the late 2000s and early 2010s.  The 7th generation of gaming being an absolute mess that it was with glitches adds to the charm of the 7th generation.

The purpose of this blog is an apology letter to the gaming industry for all the times I’ve spoken poorly of a game just because I saw a review on YouTube.  Last year I gave Final Fantasy XIII a second playthrough and as much as I trashed that game when I initially played it.  Now it’s a game that I can’t recommend enough.

The same would have been true for Wet.  Wet is a glitch filled mess but those glitches are a sign of the times when it was released in the same way about 90% of the NES library is somewhat unplayable by today’s standards.  More on that in a later post.  Wet, with all it’s faults, provides an enjoyable gameplay mechanic where the game slows down to bullet time where Rubi is jumping through the air or sliding across the ground.  Of course with how the game designed, the Rubi is not on a set track while entering into bullet time, she���ll bump into walls if you’re close enough and are going into the direction of said walls when you enter into bullet time.

Two other mechanics exist in this game, there’s a “psycho” mode that starts off with a cutscene of an enemy rushing Rubi, and Rubi shoots him in the head and the blood splatters into her face causing her to go berserk.  The screen goes red, there’s a set path you’re supposed to go on, and nearly the entire portion is in bullet time.

The second and more aggravating game mechanic are these Matrix Reloaded car chase levels, where you’re jumping from car to car shooting enemies along the way.  There’s barely any health regeneration, as with the normal levels, which means you have to one shot the car chase levels until you hit the check points, if there are check points, and one shot to the end once you hit those check points.

It’s a big stupid game where you shoot stuff, it explodes, people’s heads get cut off, and there’s not reason for any of it.  My original plan was to play this through my vacation and then sell once I finished it.  But this game just blew my mind that I completely reversed course and I’m now keeping it.  I cannot suggest this game enough.  Find a copy, turn your brain off, and give it a play.

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Post #020 - 7th Gaming Generation

I want to talk about the 7th generation of video games now.  The 7th generation consists of the Wii, the original DS, PS3, PSP, and Xbox 360 and runs from 2005 to around 2012 when the 8th generation.  This generation took place during my early to mid 20s.  It was a time where I would buy nearly every Wii Virtual Console game every week as they were released.  The PS3 was this far advanced system that was way more expensive than it should have been.  And the 360 was this new frontier to me as I have only ever owned the Nintendo and Sony consoles.  In fact, the origin of the name “Y2A” is a reference to the wrestler Chris Jericho first appearing in the WWE when he spent the majority of his wrestling career in the WCW.

The graphical advancement from the 6th generation to the 7th generation was a big one when compared to the most recent one of the 8th to the 9th.  Game developers were now able to push the limits of these systems.  In Dead Rising, they were able to fill up the entire game map with literally thousands of zombies.  It seems that back then game developers were eager to find ways they could push gaming to its limits.  And speaking of Dead Rising, one of my first memories of this gaming generation was when I stepped out into the promenade at the Willamette Mall in Dead Rising and having “Gone Guru” blasting through my speakers.  The first introduction to these convicts may have been my first “what the fuck” moment in gaming.

I had a vacation earlier in September where I played a game that I skipped over at the time of it’s release.  My plan was to play a game from the 7th generation to recapture how I felt during my 20s.  I played Wet on the PS3 and I do not remember the last time I had as much fun playing Wet as any game in recent memory.  In my next post, I will go more in depth on Wet but let’s just say I was successful in recapturing my 20s while I was playing.

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Post #019: New Blog

I have a new Tumblr blog for non-video game related posts.

No posts yet but I’m working on one.

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Post #018: I got my tooth removed, and I kinda wanna talk about it... also Xenosaga trilogy.

I haven’t been posting here because my tooth was bothering me.  I got it removed the week before the 4th.  I’m better now.

Now in the interim after my previous post and before the tooth extraction, I played through the Xenosaga trilogy.  A trilogy I played in the years after I finished high school from 2004 to 2006.  At the time I found this series to be enjoyable then and I find it enjoyable now.  The series shows its age as it is a late PS2 era game, but it still scratches that RPG itch.

I did find it a bit ridiculous in the first game that I was not able to leave the dungeons to go to the one town in the game.  Once you enter a dungeon, you have to complete it in one run, and it is possible to soft lock yourself with low hp, low mp, and no items.  You can still return to the ship and rest there, but if you’re at a half way point in the dungeon at a save point, there’s no fast travel.  You have to go back 5 screens dodging enemies hoping you don’t run into an enemy with no way to escape from the battles.  Early on fights are a challenge because you only have two members in your party at a time; Shion/KOS-MOS or Ziggy/MOMO.  But then you get the 6characters and you’re able to mix and match your party how you want.  The game end game is broken when you get the Voltron Robot that does 9999 damage to everyone but you can only use it once per battle.

The second and third games were a bit weird with the inclusion of Shion’s brother, Jin.  The series was initially planned to be 6 games, but it was shortened to 3 so maybe over the course of 6 games Jin would have been admitted into the party.  Instead Jin just feels like he’s shoehorned in and we’re expected to accept him has one of the main party members.  The second and third games fixes most of the problems with the dungeons where it doesn’t feel like I was stranded in them with no hopes of survival.

I really would have liked to have seen this trilogy go the entire 6 games but much like its predecessor Xenogears, the story was cut short due to time and money constraints.  After completing the trilogy, I did the minimalist thing I talked about in previous posts and sold them because I acknowledge the fact that I won’t be giving this series a third playthrough.  Disappointing end to the series, disappointing end to the story, and it could have been and should have been treated better.

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Post #017: Super Mario Blunder

I’ve been trying to write this Super Mario Wonder post for a while now and every time my computer doesn’t save the file.  I haven’t been posting in a while since around the new year.  I think I’m ready to write a post on Super Mario Wonder.

There’s something about Super Mario Wonder that I can’t put my finger on.  I recompleted Super Mario World a couple weeks ago, and every level in that game feels like it was close to if not perfectly crafted.  I do not get this feeling in Super Mario Wonder.  The levels in Super Mario Wonder seem like they’re incomplete.

Mario levels in the past seem to follow a pattern.  Levels usually start with a new concept in a controlled environment so the player can understand the mechanics of the level without the fear of losing a life.  A basic application to the mechanic is presented that the player can easily overcome.  A more advanced application to the mechanic that may trip up younger players.  And finally, a grand finale to the level that could include a game mechanic from a previous level.

The problem I have with Super Mario Wonder is that the levels to me fall short of that grand finale or fail to include one.  The Wonder Seeds attempt to fill in this gap, and the concepts presented are done very well, but their conclusions fail to hit that crescendo.

I would say that even the levels “New Super Mario” games that were playable on the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS systems seem to accomplish fully fleshed out levels that Super Mario Wonder fail to present.  It’s still a Mario game but I’m not going to give it a 5/5.

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Post #016: Vindication

Shot: https://www.tumblr.com/they2aproblem/735032945440653312/post-014-rumors-speculation-and-hearsay?source=share

Chaser: https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-lays-off-1900-staff-from-its-video-game-workforce

I can't even say that I'm surprised by this decision. And it's not because I understand video games. I have a minor in economics. While it's not a major, I can still put my ear to the ground, listen to the hoof-beats, and make a plausible hypothesis on what is going to happen.

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Post #015: New Year's Update

It’s been a good break for the holidays but now I’m back with an update.  Since my last post, I made the decision to sell all my X-Box consoles and games.  Replace what games I had on the Microsoft family of consoles with PlayStation versions.  I haven’t replaced everything immediately, replacing these games is something that will take some time.

While I spent most of 2023 counting down to the release of the Super Mario RPG remaster, I beat it within 20 hours, as most of my yearly playthrough usually take less that time.  Super Mario RPG has some post-game content with more difficult versions of bosses which added to my playtime.  I am disappointed that I was able to playthrough the entire game so quickly.

I also got Super Mario Wonder in the between times.  I have an idea on what I think about it, but I want to make it a full post.  I’ll just say the ideas where there, but it felt like it came up short.

I watched the Game Awards for the first time in at least a decade to see if there were any upcoming games I would be interested in.  Another disappointment when there was no information on upcoming Switch games or news on the next Nintendo console, be it Switch 2 or otherwise.

Just before ringing in the new year, I completed Spider-Man 2.  While I understand the complaints about it not winning Game of the Year, I honestly don’t think it should have.  It was just the same game as the first one and Miles Morales.  Not much I can tell was implemented to change it from the previous 2 games.

I’m still as excited as ever to see not only what new releases will come out but what compilations I can get to replace the older games in my collection.  My wishlist of compilations for 2024 includes Tiny Toons, Power Rangers, Simpsons, the Tales series, and Xenosaga.  To reaffirm my earlier post from last year about minimalism, I WANT LESS THINGS!

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Post #014: Rumors, Speculation, and Hearsay

I want to start talking about two rumors that I have been hearing.  Everything I post about these rumors is just me speculating.  I am just pulling the information out of thin air (so someplace else).  Do not expect any of what I say in this post to actually happen.

Starting with Microsoft, I am hearing that they will be discontinuing the production of new console generations.  Honestly, this makes perfect sense for what they’ve been doing within their game divisions for the past 10 years.  Remembering what their original plan for the X-Box One, they tried to emphasize a more digital centric route.  Microsoft’s gaming department has been buying up various 3rd party studios for the last 18 months or so.  With the vast library of games, they will have a back catalogue of 1000s of games as well as all future releases.   It makes very little sense for them to just have those games to only be released on the X-Box family of consoles.  Not everyone has the new console, the Series S/X.  Not everyone has been buying previous iterations of the X-Box consoles.  Some people only buy the X-Box, and some people only buy the PlayStation.  Limiting their games only to be playable on one system but not the others will eat into their profits.  Therefore, I can see Microsoft discontinuing the production of new X-Box consoles and making their back catalogue of games available on all consoles through a subscription service to be provided on PlayStation, Switch, and PC.  This is entirely my speculation though on the recent business decisions made in recent years.

The second rumor that I have heard is regarding the Nintendo Switch 2.  There have been patents that have been discovered that Nintendo has filed that seem to imply that the Switch 2 is going to have 2 screens.  The idea being that the Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with the original Switch games as well as DS and 3DS games.  This actually excites because as I’ve said in a previous post, I want less games.  I want less things.  If the Switch 2 is fully backwards compatible with original switch games and the entire DS and 3DS library, that means I will be selling my original Switch and my 2DS XL and replacing them with the Switch 2.  There is absolutely no indication that this backwards compatibility to this extent is even planned by Nintendo.

So yeah, the rumors in this post are merely speculative I just wanted to get my thoughts down.  I would really like to see these rumors actually come to pass because it would help me free up some shelf space.

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Post #013: Grinds My Gears: Crafting

You know what really grinds my gears? Crafting weapons in RPGs. Ok so you play through the game normally, you need to buy health and magic potions but you don’t have any money. But you have 10 quartz diamonds that sell for 50,000 Gil each. So you sell them. You beat the game. And then you find out there’s a secret boss that can be defeated by crafting the ultimate weapon. And the way you craft the ultimate weapon requires 10 quartz diamonds. No big deal, you can always get more quartz diamonds. Except no you can’t. There’s a limited number of quartz diamonds and that limit is 10. So there it is, you just spent the last 60+ hours trying to 100% a game that you can’t 100% now because you sold 10 seemingly meaningless jewels that you could just as easily pick up at your local Sephora in the mall but in the game there’s only 10 because fuck you that’s why. And that’s what really grinds my gears.

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Post #012: Grinds My Gears: Mimics

*Originally Posted on January 27, 2017 on Facebook*

You know what really grinds my gears? Mimics. Not the concept mind you. An enemy shaped like a treasure chest? Awesome. What I hate is the fact that Mimics are always 5-10 levels above your party. Say you're level 10 and you're in a level 10 dungeon and you're fighting level 10 enemies then you see this treasure chest and surprise, it's not a treasure chest it's an enemy and surprise it's not a level 10 enemy like every enemy you've fought in this dungeon thus far. Turns out the enemy is level 18 and it knocks you down to 1/16th health on the first turn and you knock him down only to 15/16th health and the last time you saved was three hours ago. If the Mimic was level 10 like every other enemy in this dungeon I wouldn't have a problem but these RPG developers are all plotting against me and want to ruin my dungeon crawling by inputting an enemy whose level is higher than the dungeon level. And that's what really grinds my gears.

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Post #011: Super Mario RPG: Good Will Always Win Because Evil Is Dumb

I’m gonna do it.  I’m gonna rant about my favorite video game of all time.  I’m gonna rant about Super Mario RPG.  The Super Mario RPG remake is one month away from release and I’m gonna tear it a new one here.  This game was so influential on myself that it introduced me to the RPG genre.  It is a simplified and casualized version of what a more involved RPG would be.  As I said in my previous post, Final Fantasy 7 was a lot of gamer’s first RPG.  Contrasting this game with Final Fantasy 7, I noticed Mario has a more simplistic leveling approach where magic is learned as characters level up verses Final Fantasy 7 using orbs to equip magic to the party, some with limited use.  Similarly though, they had the final boss of both games until the end of their respective games, though Sephiroth is fleshed out more.  However I want to talk about how bafflingly stupid Smithy’s plan is on the whole.

Super Mario RPG on its own doesn’t have much of a backstory for its characters.  It’s Mario in an RPG setting with a few plot twists thrown in with old characters and some new characters to tie this unique experience together.  It is a by the numbers RPG that requires very little backstory if at all.  Part way through the game Mario teams up with Bowser to fight a bigger bad guy.  It is in essence the “Bigger Jaws” joke in Family Guy.  The game is especially lacking in the backstory of who or what the story’s “Bigger Jaws”, in this case Smithy was.  As far as the game tells us, he was a machine that created lessor machines to take over the Mario’s world.  When the party finally reaches Smithy to fight him for the final star, Smithy reveals his grand plan of “conquering Mario’s world and filling it with… WEAPONS!”  The destruction of the Star Road just seems to be a byproduct of Smithy’s existence in this game but not part of his overall goal.  But it is his desire of filling Mario’s world with weapons that was confusing to me at 12 and nearly 27 years later, it has me full on baffled.

Can we just stop and think about the mind-numbing stupidity and how counterproductive Smithy’s plan to take over the Mushroom Kingdom was?  Now I get it, the game’s story is designed for children.  Easily understandable to assume that weapons are scary.  However, Smithy’s plan has one major glaring flaw.  If he wanted to conquer Mario’s world and remain in power in his invading autocratic dictatorship, he wouldn’t make weapons so easily accessible.  What dictator desiring to remain in power would allow weapons to be made readily available to the public?  The citizenry would use these weapons against any would-be dictator.  Any aspiring dictator would simply deprive the nation they are trying to conquer of any means to defend themselves.  Smithy, you are quite possibly the dumbest final boss I have ever heard of.

It took an oversized glove, a frying pan, a pair of cymbals, an extend-o glove, and one party member yeeting another at Smithy to defeat him.  What chances does Smithy have against an army of toads kicking turtle shells at him?  If that one toad finds his bazooka, Smithy is toast.  Smithy’s forces are easily overthrown by a guerrilla faction of freedom fighting toads, and you are welcome for that mental image.

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Post #010: Final Fantasy 7: Old Man Yells At Cloud(Strife)

Ahh... he said it! He said the thing!!!

Let’s do the thing that the title of this blog is named for.  Let me be the old man yelling at Cloud Strife.  Final Fantasy 7 for a generation of gamers was their first RPG.  For me it was much different, my first RPG was Super Mario RPG.  It wasn’t until I was 20 when I first played this game in 2005 because of the hype surrounding this game.  This hype resulted in massive sales in physical, digital, and now the current remakes coming out as I type this.  I’m going to take a deeper look at this game to see if we’re looking at the best turn-based RPG in video game history or something else entirely.

Starting with the characters, can we say these characters are well written characters?  No.  But are they poorly written characters?  Also no.  What are they?  They are average.  Cloud Strife, while not a silent protagonist does remain silent throughout most of the game only speaking when necessary.  The main love interest, Tifa Lockhart.  Does she contribute to Cloud’s story arc?  Only if you pursue her in a completely optional town in the game.  Her only saving graces is her design, a brunette with large bazongas being held in place by a black sports bra and a white tank top.  Outside of that you could choose to pursue any of the other female party members(who stay in the party).  The supporting party members, while memorable, have very little connection to the story.  The party members in the following game in the series, Final Fantasy 8, are better connected to the events of the story.  Well maybe Sephiroth, the main villain, one of gaming history’s most memorable villains, has clear motives and provides a distinct hurdle for the party to overcome.  No, he’s just a test-tube baby who was genetically modified to be the perfect soldier, resents that fact, and wants revenge on the world by destroying it with a massive asteroid.  Outside of the supernatural aspect of changing the trajectory of an asteroid, the motives of Sephiroth are very common among villains throughout gaming, movie, and television history.  What sets Sephiroth from other villains is his theme, outside of that he is otherwise just an average villain.

That’s the problem I have with Final Fantasy 7, it’s that it’s just an average game.  As I stated earlier, when this game came out in the late 90s, it ended up being a lot of gamers’ first RPG.  If this ends up being many a gamer’s first RPG, then their expectations for all future RPGs will be affected by this game.  If a company that’s not Square tries to experiment with a different leveling system these newcomers to the RPG genre aren’t going to view this change positively.  Even Square itself tried doing something different and they did with Final Fantasy 9 where they went back to a more basic gameplay of the early NES Final Fantasy, and it ended up selling worse than Final Fantasy 8.  It is regretful that Final Fantasy 7 is everyone’s measuring stick for what makes for an RPG, not for its leveling mechanics but for its storyline.  A storyline that is by the numbers and offers no plot twist.  From the onset, we know who the villain is, and we know his motives.  Which leaves no room to shock the player for any major revelations.  Square is not consistent at all in this regard.  In other iterations of Final Fantasy, Square has a hit or miss record of providing a shocking storyline.  This unfortunately leaves Final Fantasy 7 to be an average, so average that it is an average game to a fault.

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Post #009: Grinds My Gears: Price Gouging Innkeepers

*Originally Posted on August 26, 2016 on Facebook*

You know what really grinds my gears? Inn keepers in JRPGs that say that their inn is a specific price per night and then they proceed to charge you four times the amount because the price is per party member. That's false advertising Mr Inn Keeper, I could sue you for that. I'm walking around with 100 gald, you say your inn is 20 gald a night, I check my inventory after staying at your inn and it shows that instead of having 80 gald, I now have 20 gald remaining. You Mr Inn Keeper are a lying crook. And that's what really grinds my gears.

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Post #008: Dick Tracy for the NES

My last two posts have been negative.  I don’t want to be just another person on the internet complaining about video games.  So now I’m going the contrarian route.  Dick Tracy for the NES is not a bad game.  The game has certain choke points as with other NES games that, to the uninitiated, will see as the game being unfairly hard.  Once you understand the game mechanic, Dick Tracy and to the extent other NES games become enjoyable experiences.

There are two mechanics that this game utilizes that make Dick Tracy “unfairly hard.”  The first that I am referring to are the rooftop snipers.  The rooftop snipers while a nuisance become a nonfactor once you kill them.  The only time the rooftop snipers respawn is if you fail a mission or you use a password to jump to a later mission.  When you are driving you are not able you can kill the snipers while on foot.  This is a time sync, killing the rooftop snipers takes time.  Time syncs in Dick Tracy and in other games should not be confused with difficulty.  The second game mechanic is not being allowed to shoot unarmed enemies.  This is a very understandable mechanic considering that Dick Tracy is a police detective.  Unarmed enemies must be eliminated with a punch attack.  Ammo is limited so the ability to identify enemy types and to eliminate them appropriately allows for more strategic gameplay.  Again, do not confuse this game mechanic with difficulty, this is resource management.

Outside of these two choke point game mechanics the rest of the game is enjoyable as well.  The game requires you to find 5 clues across the world map and then arrest and jailing the guilty party.  Dick Tracy with all its quirks is LA Noire 30 years before LA Noire was even a concept and it’s done well.

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Post #007: Grinds My Gears: Cheap Boss Battles

*Originally posted on April 5, 2016 on Facebook*

You know what really grinds my gears? RPG bosses who know that their death will save the world, who are fully compliant with the idea of their death in order to save the world, and they would even go so far to admit to wanting to die. BUT THEY STILL WANT TO FIGHT YOU AND THEY USE THE CHEAPEST BATTLE TACTICS DURING THE FIGHT! Seriously, you know you have to die, but why do you have to resort to using status ailments or a 1 on 1 battle? You do everything in your power to kick my ass knowing full well that doing so will result in the destruction in the world. You are one backwards ass NPC. You accept your death and your response is to kick me in the dick and leave me gasping for air. We both want to save the world, and we both know your death will result in saving the world, why do you have to make it difficult. And that people is what grinds my gears.

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Post #006: Coop Without The Coop

What year is this? Are we in the year 2008? I am trying so hard not to be that guy that hates on video games anymore. I was like this in the time of 2008 but now I want to post about good things about video games. I can't with this. Mythforce came out earlier this week and I bought the Switch version. I set up to play with a friend on Thursday. Later on in the session, a third friend wanted to come in. So we tried getting all three of us in a session together. We can't do that with the Switch version because Beamdog released an incomplete half-assed version of Mythforce on the Switch where online games can only consist of 2 players.

So I ask again, what year are we in where developers are making a lazy attempt at porting their games on the Nintendo console again? I remember Tony Hawk Proving Ground where it was advertised that the game would be getting a video editor mode. A mode that was a selling point for me. Unfortunately, due to Activision's laziness, the mode was left out on the Wii version, And don't get me started on the wrestling games that were released in the Wii's lifespan. I am not shocked at all by THQs eventual bankruptcy.

While the video editor mode was not a core component of Tony Hawk Proving Ground, Mythforce being advertised as a four player game is. The video editor was a feature that was added to make Proving Ground different from past iterations. Mythforce being a four player game is nothing short of the totality of what makes Mythforce what it is. The Switch version only allowing two players makes the game incomplete. Selling this incomplete, half-assed game at the full $30 price is downright criminal. They should not have released this game on the Switch if they weren't going to release a full version of it.

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Post #005: Final Fantasy X

It's still not good. I am about 12 hours into Final Fantasy X and it's still not good. Final Fantasy X is one of the numerous titles that I originally thought that I had dog-piled because I wanted to mirror the sentiment of the "angry video game reviewers." I wish I could say that this game is better than I remembered when I first played it 10 years ago. It's not that I'm young either, I just played this game 10 years after it's release. This game came out in 2002, during my sophomore year of high school and I'm certain that 16-17 year old me would enjoyed this game. Time has not been fair to this game. I was hoping that I would be able to view Final Fantasy X in a more favorable light this time around like I did with Final Fantasy XIII earlier this year.

The problem with the characters is that they're stupid. Every single one of them. Tidus is supposed to be the reluctant hero. He's thrown into a situation that is unfamiliar, he wants nothing to do with it. He's thrown 1000 years into the future because Auron sucks. Yeah, I hate Auron, Auron is an irredeemable tool. Everything has to be explained to Tidus as a vehicle to explain things to the player. We're supposed to feel some sort of connection to Tidus, we're supposed to view ourselves as Tidus. The problem with that is Tidus sucks. Wakka is dumb as a post. Lulu is there so players can look at her ginormous spheres. Kimari would make a better protagonist for the sole reason he has little to no dialogue. Yuna is equally as useless as Tidus but at least there's a reason for her existence. In fact, maybe Yuna should have been the main characters. She's been sheltered for most of her life, has no idea of the outside world, needs the other party members to explain what's going on. Yuna is far and away a better choice as a main character than the emotionally stunted soccer player, Tidus. I've left out Rikku because I haven't gotten far enough to the point where she becomes a PERMANENT party member. From what I remember, Rikku was trying to find an alternate solution to the story.

The battle system is nothing more than just putting the correct shaped peg into the correct shaped hole. Each character is responsible for fighting against the corresponding enemy type. Tidus fights regular enemies, Lulu fights the magic enemies, Wakka fights the flying enemies, and Auron fights the enemies with shields. There is no complexity here; it's square peg goes in square hole, circle peg goes into circle hole, triangle peg goes in triangle hole.

I can't like this game. I have tried once before and I'm trying again now. It's just not a well made game. The characters are bad, the "plot twist" if you can call it that, makes for a very basic story, and the battle system feels like something a toddler would enjoy. A lot of times, there are games that do well when they are the first of its kind. Final Fantasy X was the first RPG on PS2. Going from the 32 bit look of Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9 to a more cinematic look on the PS2 prompted this game to sell as well as it did. This game unfortunately punched above it's weight class and prompted Square to release a direct sequel. I am not looking forward to playing that game once I finish Final Fantasy X but I remember it being somehow worse. Final Fantasy X is just not worth the time.