Konnichi wa, minna-san!

These past couple of months has been a crazy spending season for me. I bought 8 new release games plus another 20+ games. Not to mention the 4 3DS's I bought. Yes, you did just read that. Fortunately my wallet can finally take a break since the slow months of gaming are upon us. The only thing I'm picking up between now and the middle of June is Pandora's Tower on Wii. Needless to say, I'm good for that period of time what with all the games I bought. Also, in the meantime, I'm going to watch some anime during this slow period, just like I did last year when I got into anime because of this slow period. Anyway here are some of the games I'm playing and will be playing:

Currently:

Fire Emblem: Awakening

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity

Hyperdimension Neptunia

Will Be Playing Soon:

Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 and Victory

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm

Mata ato de!

Konnichi wa, minna-san!

One of my most anticipated games this year, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, has finally been released. I've always been a Monster Hunter fan since the original on the PS2. Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii is my most played game on the system with over 550 hours clocked in. The next closest game is Super Smash Bros. Brawl at 235 hours. Since I loved the Wii version so much and this is its remake, I was really exciting to get hunting again. So now that I've had time to play on both Wii U and 3DS, I'm going to give my impressions.

I'm playing single-player on the 3DS. I haven't gotten very far since whenever I'm home I'm playing the game online on the Wii U. But from what I can tell, the game so far is exactly the same as it was on the Wii. I know they made some changes but I'll find them out later. One thing I can say for sure; I'm glad I have the Circle Pad Pro. While the demo version didn't let you use it, the actual game does. I am definetely using it from now on. Controlling the camera on the 3DS is awkward. While you can use the L-button to place the camera behind you, you mainly have to use the d-pad to control the camera. So if you want to look around and move at the same time, I look like I'm pinching my 3DS with the hand position I need to use. And DON'T even get me started on trying to control yourself underwater. I tried last night, and it was the worst. I couldn't maneuver properly at all. You can control the camera using the touchscreen but while it worked fine in Kid Icarus: Uprising, it doesn't work with this game. Since you have to use the face buttons to perform actions, using the touchscreen to control the camera is pointless. The Circle Pad Pro will let me use the second Circle Pad to control the camera. And since I'm playing the same game on the Wii U, it will prevent any control mix-ups.

The Wii U version is my online home for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate since the 3DS version doesn't have online features. My impressions of the online so far is a little disappointing. I hope it gets harder later because right now the online is a cakewalk. They rolled up Monster Hunter Tri's 1st and 2nd online rank into the first rank so right away you're facing some of Tri's eariler tougher monsters like the Barroth, Gobul and Rathian. I don't know what they did, but these monsters get killed way easier than before. In Tri, it would often take 30 - 40 minutes for fresh hunters to take down the Barroth. In Ultimate, we were done in under 15 mintues. I wasn't even using a damaging weapon either! I'm a support gunner so the fact that we're done with these monsters with me as a support hunter, I know these monsters are weak. It wouldn't surprise me if in the next rank, the monsters from Tri's 3rd and fourth ranks were rolled up into the 2nd rank. I know they introduced new monsters in Ultimate and I really hope they provide more of a challenge. The fact that you can face and harvest higher ranking monsters so early kind of takes away the reward factor. And for me, Monster Hunter's experience is all about the final reward.

So far I'm a little disappointed on both fronts; control-wise and online gameplay but I'm still holding out hope. After all there are monsters to hunt, weapons and armour to use and collect, and tons of gathering and mining to do. Plus I'm relying on this game to get me through the slow months of April and, for me, May.

Mata ato de!

Konnichi wa, minna-san!

I meant to put this blog post up on Valentine's Day to celebrate but GameSpot had a brain fart and the post didn't go through and I didn't save it. So here it is, a month late:

So, today I would like to talk about a rather unusual subject when it comes to games. Well, its unusual in almost every genre except for RPGs. Im going to talk about romance and marriage in video games. Im playing through Fire Emblem: Awakening right now and the game brought on this topic. But let me start from my first experience having this in a game.

The first game where I experienced building up a relationship and eventually marrying someone was in Harvest Moon on the GBA. At first it was my sisters game and after a while she asked for my help in doing something in the game. I figured out what needed to be done and gave it back to her. I watched her play for a while and I thought to myself: Man this game looks boring. You wouldnt catch me playing this! After a while she got bored of it since shes not really a gamer. Since I was limited on what I could play when I was a kid and the game wasnt being used I gave it a shot. What followed was 6 months of non-stop playing. I was completely enthralled by this simple game. I finally stopped after those 6 months but the game left a permanent impression on me. This was the first game I played where I could live out a virtual life and it felt rewarding. And as I mentioned, this is also the first game where I could have my main character marry someone. This concept was completely alien to me at the time. At first I didnt even know I was making the girl fall in love with me since I was dating every girl in the game since I thought I was just being a nice guy. When I finally reached the top level and she married me I was like... WHAT?! Then we moved in together and had a child and I was even more mystified. But because of that, it made me pay attention to the series and it soon spun-off into a great game series: Rune Factory. Rune Factory is basically the same game except with RPG elements and combat. Its my dream when it comes to a simulation game.

After my first experience playing Harvest Moon, and I started getting into this generation of games, I found myself playing more and more RPGs which was likely influenced by my many childhood years of playing Pokemon. In the RPGs I started playing (Dragon Age, Mass Effect) there were instances of romance and an intimate relationship. Eventually I started figuring out that RPGs have these kind of relationship building in them and I think this is when I started liking RPGs more and more until it became my favourite game genre. I mean, as humans, we rely upon the companionship of others. I was taught to appreciate the bonds of friendship between others when growing up and to see the good in everyone. While I cant always adhere to that, I understand the importance of it. The friends I made in high school are still my friends and we always find time to hang out when we dont have important things to do. So whenever I play RPGs or watch anime, I want to see bonds grow and foster between characters. If its not there, I wont like the game as much. I think I put characters before anything else now that I think about it.

Anyway, now to talk a bit more about marriage and the life afterwards. In most of these games, especially the Japanese ones, once you get married theres usually something that happens afterwards. Most of the time, it comes in the form of kids. I love this concept. Maybe simply because its my dream to one day get married, have kids and live a happy life. As I said, the first game where I saw this was in Harvest Moon and later Fable II. In those games I tried to be a good husband and father. Some might say Im getting into the game too much. Perhaps I am. But my only problem with those games is that the child never grew up past their childhood. Heck, in Harvest Moon, the child never became a child, it stayed a baby and thats when I knew I had gotten pretty much as far as I could in that game. Now, with Fire Emblem Awakening, the children the characters have in the game are playable after theyre born. Now thats what Im talking about! What makes this concept even better is the relationship that exists between parents and their children. The game does a great job of making you like or even love each character and the reason why is the feeling of family shared between each character. Whether they become friends, lovers, or a real family, the feeling is there. Very few games utilize this unfortunately. I do understand why though; I can tell a ton of effort went into Fire Emblem Awakening. The games production values are ridiculously high and the review scores speak for themselves. To have a game where any person can become another persons lover and to have dialogue accompanying it is a task by itself. To have those characters have kids, give them dialogue and to add in the models and all that extra stuff...It will be very expensive and time-consuming indeed. But I really do appreciate the effort and Ive already repaid Nintendo by buying two copies of their game plus the Fire Emblem bundle that comes with the 3DS. I may buy a third as well to spread the gospel. (Konata reference) Oh, and the DLC... I cant help it if Im in love with this game!

As long as RPGs continue to build bonds between their characters and include romance and marriage, chances are it will forever remain my favourite game genre. Relationships between characters and their interactions with each other remain an important part of a game for me. So that ends my long blog post about this kind of stuff.

Mata ato de!

Konnichi wa, minna-san!

So yesterday, the demo for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for Wii U and 3DS was released. Now, this game is one of the primary reasons I got a Wii U early. I wanted it for Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 as well but apparently those games aren't done yet... I should have known better than to trust Nintendo when it comes to ambiguous release dates. But anyway, back to the main topic.

To my dismay (believe it or not), the was no option to use the Wiimote/Nunchuck combination on Wii U. I had grown so accustomed to it over the past 2 years of playing Monster Hunter Tri that it was hard to go back to 'traditional' controls. The Wiimote/Nunchuck worked really well and I didn't have any issues with it at all. I had to re-learn all the controls again. Using the right analog stick to turn the camera is kind of awkward; I'm going to see if there's any way to change the controls. If I can't have my Wiimote/Nunchuck I can at least have the 'old' MH style of using the right analog stick to attack. Speaking of which, I'm not quite sure how to use different attacks outside of the basic combo yet. It's not like there's a tutorial or anything. I guess I'm going to have to either get used to these new controls or find a way to revert to the old controls. Anyway, so there's two monsters available to hunt in the demo. They're ranked easy and hard. I haven't tried the Plesioth (hard) yet since I need more time to get used to the controls. Plus, it's an underwater monster and those were fairly tough monsters in the Wii version (underwater parts are just hard in general). You do get two helpers when you hunt monsters: Cha-Cha and Kambayla. They're tiny little guys that can dance to give you buffs, help you recover from some status effects, and of course attack (although they don't exactly do a lot of damage). They're good for helping distract the monster from you in case you need to heal or sharpen your weapon (or reload if you're a bowman or gunner). The real fun of Monster Hunter comes from hunting with friends and strangers anyway so I'm looking forward to that.

The 3DS version is pretty much the same but the 3DS version can't go online. That's a real bummer for those who don't have a Wii U but apparently there will be some kind of way for 3DS owners to go online but you need to buy a seperate accessory. To my dismay (again), the 3DS version isn't compatible with the Circle Pad Pro. What the heck did I buy this thing for anyway...? So in order to turn the camera, you have to use the d-pad which is the reason why PSP owners weren't happy with the Monster Hunter games on PSP. You can center the camera using the L button (on both 3DS and Wii U) but that's the best you can do.

While it's a shame the controls are a little weird, I think I can make it through the game with it. This is one of my favourite gaming series after all. I'm just hoping the community for this game is a lot bigger on Wii U than it was on Wii. I'm looking forward to the hunt when the game comes out on March 19th!

Konnichi wa, minna-san!

So, for the first time in almost a year, I have done a game review. The game of course is Fire Emblem: Awakening, one of the best games I've played in years. I just finished it today so I figured I would write a review about it. If you want to know what I thought of the game in greater detail the review is right here:

http://www.gamespot.com/fire-emblem-awakening/user-reviews/807737/platform/3ds/

Mata ato de!

Konnichi wa, minna-san!

Today Nintendo hosted another Nintendo Direct, showing off games for both 3DS and Wii U. This didn't have all the blockbouster announcements like they did last time but I wasn't expecting it to. But they still announced some things though so let's get to it:

Iwata came out wearing a Luigi hat and cliamed that 2013 would be the year of Luigi. I guess Nintendo was like: if we survive the apocalypse let's make 2013 Luigi's year! :P Anyway so they showed off a few games to showcase Luigi's year. Obviously there was Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and they talked in-depth about the single-player features of the game and they also showed off a bit of gameplay for their multiplayer. Following this they revealed Mario and Luigi: Dream Team, another RPG in the Mario and Luigi franchise that will arrive in the summer. I like the Mario RPGs for their humour so hopefully this one is funny as well. They annonced another Mario sports game as well but unfortunately it was the Mario Golf series. I was kind of hoping for Mario Strikers or perhaps a hockey one since they haven't made one yet. But I still enjoy the Mario Golf games even if I don't actually like golf. To continue with their year of Luigi plan, they said they were going to release a whole new DLC pack for New Super Mario Bros. U titled New Super Luigi U. Iwata told us even to take note how they dropped Bros from the title. So is this supposed to be all single-player? It is be a huge waste of time and resources in my opinion. Keeping with their theme of green, thye announced they would be making a seperate community in Miiverse for The Legend of Zelda which spells great news for Zelda fans. Over half of the posts on Miiverse are about Zelda so it's nice to know they'll get their own community now. Not that I don't like the Zelda posts; on the contrary I really enjoy them. I'm likely to join myself since I just love looking at all the great drawings people do of the series.

Moving on to other things, Nintendo is set to release more DLC for Fire Emblem: Awakening. Given my complete obsession over the game, I'm likely to pick up the DLC as well. Although I wonder if the big Fire Emblem fans will be pleased with this DLC since it makes the game much easier. In one of them, the enemies will be loaded with money and in the other, you get an item that gives you stat boosts when you complete the stage. As c more casual fan, these DLC will work wonders for me. Next, big news for Animal Crossing fans! Animal Crossing: New Leaf was confirmed for release on June 9th! Now people don't have to worry about its release date anymore. The two Lego City games were shown next and the 3DS version finally gets a release date of April 18th. Nintendo announced more free DLC for Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge as well as their app Wii Street U now available as a free download. It's basically Google Maps but now you can get a viewpoint as if you were actually there hence the name Wii Street.

Next was the eShop games. Games like Harmo Knight: a rhythm-based game from Game Freak, the creators of Pokemon, Kersploosh, Mario and Donkey Kong: The Minis March, and Dillon's Rolling Western: The Last Ranger. Two new virtual console games were shown: Harvest Moon and... I forget the other one but it was also from Natsume. The Harvest Moon game is the old Game Boy one. To get people to buy a 3DS XL, they announced a couple of promotions. One will get you a free select game if you register a 3DS XL and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon or Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity at Club Nintendo. The other promotion was a sale on select eShop games. Some of them are pretty big games on the eShop; I might pick up a couple of them myself.

Third-party games were the next item and they blitzed through a bunch of them. I'm just going to name off the games and their release dates:

Wii U Zombi U Deluxe bundle (contains all contents of the Deluxe bundle + Zombi U, Zombi U artbook, and Wii U Pro Controller for $389.99, February 27)

Bit.Trip Saga I believe for Wii U (went by to fast for me to catch it)

Zen Pinball 2 (Wii U, coming very soon, free)

Toki Tori 2 (Wii U, March 19)

Castlevania Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate (3DS, March 5)

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Wii U and 3DS, March 19 [gotta remember to download the demo on Feb 21st!])

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (Wii U, didn't catch the release date)

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (Wii U, March 26)

Injustice: Gods Among Us (Wii U, April 16)

Disney Infinity (Wii U and 3DS, summer 2013)

Their big announcement at the end was Donkey Kong Country: Returns 3D, a remake of Donkey Kong Country: Returns on Wii. I really hope that wasn't Retro's project this whole time. That would be disappointing to say the least. Anyway so that was today's Nintendo Direct. Not nearly as big as last time I know but it can't always be big. I was honestly really surprised by the last one since they were all big games. I don't know if there will be another Nintendo Direct between now and E3 but I'm looking forward to seeing everything Nintendo has got at E3 this year.

Quick Edit: Another Nintendo Direct was just announced for next week with a focus on third-party 3DS games.

Mata ato de!

Konnichi wa, minna-san!

Nintendo has announced they will be hosting another Nintendo Direct tomorrow talking about both 3DS and Wii U games. I'm sure people will have high expectations especially after the last Nintendo Direct but I'll keep my expectations low. Since it's both 3DS and Wii U, there's a couple of things I would like them to talk about:

3DS:

Pokemon X/Y

Animal Crossing: New Leaf release date

more details on Project X Zone

release dates for some of the third-party games

I'm also hoping for them to say that Monster Hunter 4 will be localized here but I'm not holding my breath for that.

Wii U:

more details on some of the games they announced last time

at least the name of the new Yoshi game and Monolith Soft's game

a release date for The Wonderful 101, Pikmin 3

I'm pretty sure they won't do it but I want to at least have a hint about what Retro Studios' game is. Nintendo will most likely save that studio's game for E3 to blow us away. Retro Studios' reputation has become legendary among Nintendo fans (myself included).

I know I'm hoping for a lot of release dates and I know it probably won't happen but I can still hope. If they at least reveal the month that would work for me. But The Wonderful 101 is an exception. I want a definitive release date for that game since it was supposed to come out in the Wii U's launch window (console launch - end of March 2013). But that's it for now. I'm likely to report back again tomorrow after the Nintendo Direct is over.

Mata at ode!

Konnichi wa, minna-san!

So during work yesterday, my manager told me Fire Emblem was no longer street dated and could be sold upon receipt. This got me excited since I wasn't anticipating playing the game until next Monday when it was supposed to get released. Somehow, Canada was allowed to sell the game early. For once we Canadians actually didn't get the short end of the stick!

I've already played the demo so I know how the new support system works in this game. Remember in previous games, characters that had a specific relationship (sibling, childhood friends, lovers/spouses) got bonuses right? While that is still present here, now every character can support one another. In addition to stats, they now can also get in a second hit as well if the game feels fit to do it for you. If you place multiple characters together then you get additional bonuses. Oh, and speaking of spuses, you can get married in this game, and you can have kids you can fight alongside you! I really wish games would do this more often since I think it's a great concept.

Of course, it wouldn't be Fire Emblem if it wasn't hard. Most tactical RPGs are hard since the AI exploits your every mistake. This of course is where you really have to put your mind to work to figure out your moves, especially with the new support system. The reason why this is such a problem in the Fire Emblem series is because the series features permadeath. If your characters HP reaches zero, they're dead for good. Since there are items to obtain, relationships and plot to develop, and other things, the loss of a character can affect the rest of your experience. Fortunately in this game, for noobs like me, there is an option to turn off permadeath when you start the game. This way I can risk making a few mistakes without permanently losing characters. That said, the game is still tough going especially for those who aren't used to these type of games.

Now it looks like I have to split my time between school work, anime, Ni no Kuni and Fire Emblem. It's nice to be able to play a game before its official release date legally. It was either an error or Nintendo actually allowed it but either way, I'm not complaining about it! Here's to Japanese games leading strong at the beginning of the year! Next game on my list is another Japanese game: Metal Gear Rising.

Mata ato de!

Konnichi wa, minna-san!

Before I get to the meat of my blog today (which is the huge announcement of games Nintendo made today), I'm going to give a quick update on my progress through Ni no Kuni. I've finished the first area and the world has opened up. The initial area is fairly linear as it eases you into how the game works outside of combat. The game is geared towards kids and this initial area serves as kind of a huge tutorial. The thing is, WHO WAS IN CHARGE OF THE GAME DIFFICULTY? I go from one area where I can kick butt and then the very next area, I get MY butt kicked. There's no way a kid would be able to handle the difficulty of this game unless they are grinders or an RPG master. Thankfully, the game explains a lot to you to keep you in the know of what to do otherwise things would get pretty complicated. I'm still enjoying it though; I've gotten used to the battle system now and I've figured out how to best go about each fight.

All right, now to the subject of today: Nintendo's game announcements! It's plastered all over pretty much every gaming site and everyone's excited that Nintendo has finally broken out of their shell to let the public know what they've got. So let's get to the announcements!

First, Nintendo wisely went with the (somewhat) boring parts first: how Wii U has been doing up to this point. Miiverse has really taken off and Nintendo will continue to support Miiverse in future projects. Nintendo has addressed the Wii U's OS issues and will be releasing two system updates in the spring and summer that will fix the slow loading of games and the Wii U menu. Also coming after the first update is the much-anticipated Virtual Console. The Virtual Console will launch with NES, SNES and Game Boy games all with revamped controls for the Wii U. Also, to celebrate the NES (Famicom)'s 30th anniversary in Japan, Nintendo will sell 6 VC games over the course of these next six months. I could have heard this wrong but the price for all of them individually is 30 cents. That sounds odd, but I swear that's what I heard. The first game is Balloon Fight and it's available now. These VC games will also support Miiverse.

Now for the real big news. A new trailer for The Wonderful 101 was shown but again no news on its release outside of it's not coming out in February. A behind-the-scenes video of Bayonetta 2 was shown and it seems PlatinumGames really wants this game to succeed on the Wii U and they said they're pushing the Wii U to its limit. Nintendo also announced a new 3D Mario game and a new Mario Kart. They said that they will show them, and the next Super Smash Bros., at E3 this year. They announced another game in the (Wii) series and it seems to be a party game like Mario Party.

It seems the rumours about a Yoshi Wii U game was true and finally Yoshi is going to return to home consoles. I was actually unaware that the last Yoshi game on a home console was Yoshi's Story for the N64. That's a long wait for a new Yoshi home console game. The game is being developed by Good-Feel who was behind Kirby's Epic Yarn and it seems Yoshi will be going the same route of Kirby; tied by the same yarn. Looks like it will be Yoshi's Epic Yarn. That's just my guess :P Next game was a game I'm sure no one, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, was expecting: Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem. When they revealed the game I was just like "Wut". A lot of people agree with me. I'm sure the excitement will come later but right now, everyone is just too shocked to respond to that game.

They ended their video with a bang. They made two (or three if you didn't already think it was coming) big announcements. First, they are making a Zelda game for Wii U. If you follow Nintendo closely enough, you already knew that from the moment they showed that Zelda tech demo at E3 2011. But what they're doing with it is a whole 'nother story. Eiji Aonuma, the producer behind the Zelda series, said he would like to take the series in a different direction. He hinted at an open-world Zelda game (take on whichever dungeon who like first) and perhaps, even adding in multiplayer. Now for the real game announcement. Nintendo said that they are remaking Wind Waker for Wii U. I'm sure that wasn't the Zelda game everyone was thinking they were remaking. Even more surprising was the release date: fall of this year. The last game announcement that ended their conference was the next game from Monolith Soft. If you're a hardcore Nintendo fan, you'll already have known Monolith Soft was put in charge of a Wii U game after the release of Xenoblade Chronicles. From what I saw, this game looks like a mix of Monster Hunter and Xenoblade Chronicles. At the end of a trailer, only a red X was shown. It could be the sequel, another game in the Xeno series, or perhaps something else entirely.

THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN NINTENDO'S E3 CONFERENCE! All these game announcements has me excited. The return of Yoshi to home consoles, an unexpected partnership with Atlus, TWO Zelda game announcements, the hint of SSB at E3. If Nintendo had done this in public at E3, there would have been far more excitement over the Wii U. Sometimes I question Nintendo's methods of revealing things to the general public. Sure we hardcore Nintendo fans are always keeping tabs on the company but if Nintendo truly wants to break into the hardcore market again, they have to make game announcements like these were everyone can see them like at E3, Gamescom, or TGS. They're going to do a similar game announcement soon for 3DS as well so I'm looking forward to that and perhaps seeing anohter Pokemon X and Y trailer.

Well, that was a mouthful. Thankfully, during the whole time I was writing this the TV was occupied so I couldn't goof off and play Ni no Kuni even if I wanted to. I will soon return to the game and you will see me again in maybe a week. :P

Mata ato de!

Konnichi wa, minna-san!

After a long year and a half wait since its announcement for its release here in North America, Ni no Kuni has finally arrived! This game is the result of a collaboration between game developer Level-5 (Professor Layton, Dragon Quest IX), and the legendary Studio Ghibli who provides some of Japan's best animated movies. While Level-5 isn't as well known at least to me, Studio Ghibli has always, in my mind, been one of the best studios in Japan. Their movies combine great story-telling and characters, powerful musical scores, and of course their unique visual style.

While I've already gotten a feel for the game through the demo, I took my first steps into the game for real. This is the first game that had me on the verge of tears only 30 minutes in. I think if I already didn't know what happens at the beginning, I would have shed a few tears. So, the game is rather slow at the beginning but I expect this out of RPGs now anyway. They take the time to properly introduce the characters and explain exactly what's going on so there's no confusion. The cutscenes are done exactly like what you would see in a Studio Ghibli movie so it was easy for me to kick back and watch the scene unfold before me. Occasionally, it felt like I was watching a movie than playing a game. The one thing that's strange to me (and it's not just this game) is that they choose to mix voice-over and text. The characters will be talking one minute and the next they're silent, forcing you to read what they're saying instead. I guess it's to save on costs but it just feels weird.

That's my short little update. Now if you excuse me, I need to get back to the game. Oh, one more thing. Depending on how great the news is tomorrow, I'll share what Nintendo is offering with the Wii U after their Nintendo Direct. If it's nothing special, I won't bother posting and I'll just get back to Ni no Kuni.

Mata ato de!