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Toon_Link_Fan Blog

I was bored...

I decided to make the new version of a Dry Bones look like a Dark Bones from Paper Mario.
Dark Bones
Original from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

Dark Bones(My version)
My version of a new-looking Dark Bones

This actually took quite a while to edit in Gimp. I started out with a picture of Dry Bones. What I basically did is I took out the arms and legs, then I added the correct colors and textures to the place where I had taken out the arms. Then I recolored the rest and erased the tail. Bye and have a nice day.

*Sigh*

Well, it seems that my Outlier emblem has left me again... hopefully it will return one day. By the way, I know it's a "glitched" emblem(the ones that disappear randomly). Maybe it will come back soon though.

Whooo!

I got my Outlier emblem back :D. It has been gone for quite a few months so I'm kind of happy. In other news I've been playing with PS2 Gameshark codes on Kingdom Hearts II. These are the codes I use most: Play as Roxas, play as dual-wielded keyblade Roxas, Antiform in drive menu, infinite form time, infinite max-level drive gauge, level nine drive gauge(needed to use Antisora from the drive menu), and infinite jumps. Anyways, bye and have a nice day :).

*Insert a random blog title here*

Well, for those who haven't noticed I have a new icon and banner as well :). Also I'm more than halfway done with level 19 here on Gamespot so I'll soon move on to level 20. I've heard level 20 isn't very fun though :?. In other news I've been playing Kingdom Hearts II today because Yoshicon8's blog made me think about it. I actually might review it soon :). Also E3 is around the corner and I'm really hoping that Nintendo won't be as bad this year... I swear, if they reveal a Wii Music 2 then I don't know what I'll do. That's pretty much all I have to say. Thanks for reading this and have a nice day.

Five steps to picking a good game

There are times in every gamer's life when they get a game thinking it's going to be wonderful and it turns out horrible. This guide is to help people not get suckered into a bad game.

1. Don't judge a game by its cover

Game covers these days can have really great artwork, but that doesn't mean they are all good. Take Data Design Interactive for example: If I would have seen the cover of Ninjabread Man before I found out about how bad the game was I might have thought "Well this looks interesting. I suppose I might get a laugh out of the game." Data Design's game covers usually appeal to children though, so if your a teenager or an adult you probably won't get stuck with one of their games. Also a game isn't automatically good just because it has two or more famous characters like Mario and Sonic on it. This actually leads me into my next point.

2. A character doesn't make or break a game

It's depressing how many people will buy a game just because it has a character like Megaman, Master Chief, Link, Mario, Samus, Sonic, Ratchet, Jak, Crash, Spyro, etc. in it. If a game was made that had Master Chief playing against Mario in badminton people would still buy it. The logic people have in there mind when they buy a game for this reason dumbfounds me.

3. Be cautious of sequels

Unfortunately, after a good game is released it usually gets sequels. Generally, a sequel pales in comparison to the previous game. This is not the case for all sequels, but that's usually how it works. What probably happens is the game that starts a series had been created by a stroke of inspiration. When a sequel is made for that game the developers can't quite find that inspiration a second time, so the sequel doesn't meet the standards that the original set.

4. Do research


This step is broken into a few minor steps so it can be explained properly.

Minor step 1: Ask around

If you have friends that have the game then ask them about it. I mean good friends though, not friends that would tell you the wrong thing to trick you into buying a bad game. Your friends will most likely be more reliable than random people on the Internet so use your friends as resources before a forum.

Minor step 2: Know about the developer

If a developer has had a long list of horrible games, like Data Design Interactive, then their new games have a pretty good chance of being added to that list. That doesn't mean they couldn't make a good game; it's just that the odds are against them. If a developer has a long list of amazing games you should still be wary though. Just look at Nintendo, they used to make great games almost constantly but now their games have had a drop in quality.

Minor step 3: Check the player reviews

Sites like Gamespot that have player reviews have them for a reason. The player reviews should be checked to see what people think about the games. You shouldn't just look at a few though. Check out maybe around 20 or more to be safe. If you see a pattern in the scores that say it's bad then it's up to you to decide if you want to put up with the problems that were talked about in the reviews, if they are all bad though it's probably not worth the money. If most of the reviews say good things about the game that are legitimate then it's probably worth buying. Here's an example of something that isn't legitimate: On a review of a Sonic game if the reviewer complains about Shadow not being in the game then that really isn't a legitimate thing to complain about. If a game has a lot of mixed reactions than it's up to you to decide whether you want it by seeing if the good parts of the game make up for the bad parts.

Minor step 4: Check the critic reviews

The critics review games as their profession, so they usually know what their talking about. However, that doesn't mean they can't be biased about something. After all, they're only human like the rest of us. Take their reviews into consideration, but not to heart.

Minor step 5: Know about the game itself

This is the most important step out of these minor steps. You should know what genre it is, how it is played, if it's in your difficulty range, etc.

Step 5: Know your tastes

If you have been a gamer for awhile then you probably have certain things you like about games. These should always be taken into consideration when thinking about purchasing a game unless your the kind of person who likes to try new things when it comes to games.


All of these things should be taken into consideration when picking a game. Hopefully this will be of some use to people when trying to select a game to play. Bye and have a nice day.

A few random thoughts...

Well today something occurred to me. Rings are everywhere in the Sonic universe. I've been thinking about how the rings could work. In the Sonic cartoons and comics the rings were rare and they granted power to whoever possessed them. However, in the games they are everywhere and they just give the character a free hit. If the rings still had the same power that they had in the comics and cartoons then shouldn't Eggman just set out on a mission to collect all of the rings he can? Furthermore, how can golden rings naturally be created in any environment? I wonder if there is some race of magical creatures running around the Sonic universe leaving rings everywhere? Maybe I shouldn't question video game logic in the first place.

Can I haz ringz?

While I'm on the subject though, why do Mario and Luigi recover their health when they pick up coins? Right now I can see two possibilities: Firstly, it could be that Mario and Luigi are so greedy that just picking up a coin makes them feel like a million bucks. :shock: is Nintendo saying greed is good? The other possibility is that maybe the coins are actually those chocolate coins. You know, the ones with the golden foil on them. Maybe Mario and Luigi eat the chocolate coins which somehow recovers there health. It might make since seeing how there is almost no way that somebody could carry hundreds of coins in there pockets. Although wouldn't eating chocolate coins deplete their health? Oh well these are just theories.

Mario's Greed

This also brings up the topic about where all of these video game characters put all of these items they have. I wonder where Sonic and all of his friends put there rings since most of theme don't where clothes. Maybe they put them in there mouth like a squirrel. Where does Link keep all of his arrows, bombs, and other magical items? There isn't enough room in his tunic for everything he has with him. Too bad everything I come up with is just speculation.

Thanks for reading this and have a nice day.

Are JRPG video game characters too generic?

Note: For those who don't know JRPG means Japanese Role-Playing Game.

A lot of JRPG game characters seem like they've been created by the same person. Is it even possible to know about a JRPG character that doesn't have two or more of the following qualities: filled with angst, is frequently depressed, hair defies gravity and/or is oddly colored, is a teenager, is the center of attention, owns an odd weapon, blames every bad thing that happens on themselves, weird name, has overly complicated looking clothes, etc.? There may be some normal characters, but they are few and far between. Many may ask: what's the point of it? Well my friend, they make characters like that so that the character will stand out. It's actually kind of ironic: companies make a crazy looking character so the character will stand out, but since so many other companies do the same thing the character becomes somewhat normal.

One thing that really distinguishes a JRPG character from a normal character is their hair. There are two apparent possibilities for what could cause this abnormality. Firstly, it could be that they use a lot of hair gel. The money used for the hair gel they go through could be used to feed thousands of homeless people. It also could be that on these strange worlds that there is less gravity. This may make a little since. The characters can usually jump quite a few feet off the ground. Heck, some of them can even do a double jump. Furthermore, there hair is almost always a weird color such as blue, green, purple, etc. Sometimes it's even multicolored.

Cloud's gravity defying hair
Is a comment even needed to show how weird cloud's hair is? The picture sums it up better than words can.

Another thing that sets a JRPG character apart from a normal character is that they're frequently depressed and the world is apparently is going to be depressed with them. When the character is sad the world around them sometimes seems a lot darker than before. Anyways, they feel that everything is there fault and that they our the only ones who can defeat the omnipotent evil that is plaguing the land. It would be the job of the character's love interest to cheer them up. Actually it works in the opposite way occasionally. The incredibly evil villain will kill the main character's love interest to either make them suffer or make them want revenge. That would then make the hero go with his group of friends to defeat the villain and restore peace to their world. In the end all of the villains taunting would be there downfall.

Furthermore, JRPG characters have some of the weirdest weapons ever thought of. Just look at Sora from Kingdom Hearts: he goes around beating and slicing his enemies to death with a giant key. Getting sliced up with the blunt edge of a giant key would probably hurt more than anyone can imagine. Some weapons are pretty huge too. Take Cloud's sword for example: the fact that he carries and uses it as easily as he does baffles me. Logic dictates that if a sword is bigger than the person that uses it, it shouldn't be very efficient to use. That logic is disproved by Cloud though. Also his sword is bandaged. This might not be a problem if his sword was broken in half, but the fact that it's not just makes it more brutal. The bandages make it more blunt so it hurts more when it slices through an enemy. It would be crazy talk to suggest that a JRPG character had a completely normal sword with nothing added to it. If someone said that then the maker of the game would probably say something like "No, maybe if it were ten feet tall and was on fire then you might have something there."

Sora with his keyblade
Watch out! He's got a keyblade and he knows how to use it!

The characters have unusual names as well. Honestly who in their right mind would name there son Cloud? There are so many weird names in JRPGs that it isn't even funny. Names like Matt and Jill probably seem crazy to the people who make these games but names like Sephiroth and Kairi seem perfectly fine to them.

One last thing that defines a JRPG character is their clothes. The men usually wear short-pants/long-shorts with a long-sleeved shirt that has a collar a lot of the time, that is if they wear shirts at all. The women usually wear rather skimpy clothes that show off their bodies, but some of them do wear normal clothes. The clothes can be all sorts of weird colors. One thing that seems to always be true though is that JRPG character's clothes are very intricate. There are all sorts of pockets, buttons, insignias, designs, and sometimes parts of armor on them. Also quite a few JRPG characters wear boots instead of shoes.

The fact that all of these things apply to so many different series is just pathetic. At first all of these things were kind of cool, but now they just feel cliche. The fact that now if a character was made who had flat brown hair, a bland light-blue shirt, normal dark blue pants, and a pair of sneakers they would actually be "original" in a JRPG.

So do you think that JRPG characters are too generic these days? Please leave a comment with your thoughts on the subject. Bye and have a nice day.

Well...

Today is a pretty, boring, rainy day so I thought I would throw a few random thoughts I'm having into this blog. Let's see first of all I must say that, in my opinion, Rurouni Kenshin is the best anime I've ever seen. I never actually saw all of it so I decided to go back and watch every episode. It's way better than I remembered. I'm not completely done with it yet though... Anyways, I'm also wondering about whether I should get Majora's Mask on the Virtual Console. It's only 1,000 WII points, but I'm not sure. I'm kind of curious about why I didn't buy the game awhile back since I have an N64.

Well, thanks for your time and have a nice day.

EDIT: I just realized that this is blog number 70! Woooooo! Also the rain has stopped which is nice. Although it's still too wet to go outside :(.

Should graphics really matter so much?

It seems obvious in video games these days that graphics play a major role. The scary part about this is that sometimes graphics are put above game play on the priority list. Just because something has wonderful graphics doesn't mean that it's good. In the old days people played games without really caring about the graphics because the games were fun. Think about how much lower a score games like Halo 3 or Crysis would have gotten with Nintendo 64 graphics. Take Sonic Next Gen for example: it had so many bugs in it that it was laughable, but it had great graphics. It seems like Sega decided to put 90% into how the game looked and 10% into the game play. It's almost like they didn't even test the game all the way through. Maybe they just played the first level, saw it looked good, and released the game to the public.

Sonic Next Gen
Wow, it looks nice, too bad it sucks.

Don't get me wrong though. Good graphics are nice to look at, but they shouldn't be one of the main selling points. Graphics should not make or break the game. If a new game was created that had you playing as a pixel fighting other bigger pixels, then it should still have the potential to be a great game. Over time games have become a lot more advanced, but that doesn't mean simple things can no longer please the average gamer. Even to this day in age a game like Pong can be fun to play with a friend. A game shouldn't have to be made with "Next gen" graphics to be fun. Of course, "fun" is in the eye of the beholder so maybe there are some superficial people in this world who think graphics are one of the main game-breaking points of a game. Actually, it wouldn't be too bad if there were more 8-bit games being released.Just look at Mega Man 9. It seems to have sold pretty well, even though it only has 8-bit graphics. The game was actually praised and it was a refreshing return of the retro Mega Man.

pong.jpg
Ah, good old Pong.

There are more important things to judge a game by such as controls which can make or break the game. Unfortunately, in this day in age, graphics are unquestionably important to a lot of people. This will probably never change but that doesn't mean a new game should be judged harshly for having an older type of graphics as long as it presents an enjoyable experience.

Here's a question for everyone, how much do you think graphics should influence how a game is scored and judged? Thanks for your time and have a nice day.

Hmm, that's odd...

My recent activity feed says there is no recent activity... Is this the glitch I've been hearing about? Or is everyone suddenly doing nothing?

Anyways bye and have a nice night.