Boktai

Okay, I enjoy boktai, I enjoy it a lot. Since I'm into this whole "denial of lack of nintendo Wii," I'm trying to find Zelda style gamplay experences. I got Children of Mana for christmas, which was pretty big dissappointment since it fails to really give you diversity in dungeon crawling.

So I popped in Boktai 1, I read that Lunar Knights will have GBA support in which you can access from the sun bank. First thing I discover my memory was erased, which is okay since I enjoy playing that game. So I travel around the first castle, find the coffin, drag him out to the pile driver..... and well, that's where the problem comes in. It's 4 PM, sun down, and it's 20 degrees........ yeah, it's clear SUNNY day, because the winds are pushing the clouds making it freezing. I'm standing on froozen ground trying to extend my arms up higher to get more slots of sunlight.

I initially recomended Boktai for this reason, your going to be running around finding sun with the Gameboy..... but I just don't understand why Kojima Production decides to release these games in Winter? That an excuse why they are doing so poorly in sales in the US, but Japan? Are there little 8 year old kids shivering on their housing complex rooftops just complaining it's nearly impossible to purify a boss at sundown?

Coming back from the fridged cold.... yeah, I'm not wearing gloves or mittens, since I'm running back and forth for sunlight and heat. Boktai is just the silliest intention of make individuals run around seeking for sunlight. But as I retruned with my cold clamy hands I went onto Amazon.com and pre-ordered Lunar Knights for the DS. I don't think it's reasonable to play this game in the Winter. I'll save this for Summer to replay, especially on those long dead periods of no game releases.

I do love Boktai and think it's a considerably better Zelda experence, and right now it's better then staying out in the cold for a Wii.

Okay a while ago I hung out with a friend of mine in line for a Nintendo Wii, coming in at 5 AM..... and then realizing there's already a line forming. Well, after a long 3 hour wait, we were too late and they had no more when we got there.

But that didn't stop my friend. In fact he went out of his way paying $410 on ebay to buy a Nintendo Wii. He's been doing well with his business, so he felt that spending the extra was something to avoid the entire line waiting in the cold and finally and having something just in his hands. Although when I check ebay, I keep seeing shaddy, and hidden fine print Wii selling around $500 and $400.

Uh, I just don't know if I'm that kind of a guy to do that? My friend is considerably happy paying more for a nintendo Wii. I'm just afraid of getting an empty box and a guy with 400 bucks. I'm going to patiend and wait this out..... groan, this is such a painful wait. Still I do play a lot of Guitar Hero, Legened of Zelda the Minish Cap, Metal Gear 3's online gameplay, I got Yoshi's Island DS which I'm diging a lot (a bit flawed), and I am replaying Castlevania 1 while my girlfriend is loving Portrait of Ruin..... I think I've had a longer relationship with Medusa heads then I have had with my girlfriend.

But I've got more painting jobs this year. Hopefully I'll get more money through these jobs, and for now I'll spend my cash on gifts AND THEN, i'll get a wii........ for now I'll keep this single controler and just think about the potentional of a Wii.

I can't help but think after 20 years, this is the oddest evolution I couldn't have imagined. Although I do recall back in 1988, I did imagine of VR goggles, enclosed track floor, motion captured rooms, and you had to jump kick as He-Man himself. HE-MAN the VR POD avaliable in Disney World!

well, that means about a lot of things about me.
Through out history I'm not an early adopter, but I was really eager to get a Nintendo Wii. As of now, I doubt I will be that over-zealious nintendo fanboy I was hoping to become. Hee hee, but I guess that's for the best. It's practicly impossible to get a Wii right now, not only are retailers angry at Nintendo, but they are reserving their own retail units onto their own employees. I did call their main stores to report their stores since that's just unfair practice.

Regardless, continuing onto the theme of the title, I'm also late into the Guitar Hero fanclub. Well, Thanksgiving is a holiday where your basicly STUCK with people you don't want to be with. In hopes to lighten things up, while I was at Target in middle of the hesteria of Black Friday, I picked up a toaster, an ipod clock and Guitar Hero 2 after waiting an hour in line. It wasn't a bad thing, the ipod clock was pretty bad but not guitar hero 2. I went back and picked up Guitar Hero 1 so I could play some 2 player games.

Jeez, I sound really out of touch talking about this game at this point since Gamespot has his praising the game for over a year and half, and now I'm late to add anything new to the reviews. But it's a game that's really doing what Nintendo Wii would have done with my family, it's gotten everyone together made us look like fools and still have fun. Although personally I find guitar hero a major strain on my hand then typing or painting. There is considerable strains all running down my arm, and I do experience some numbiness. So I find myself just taking breaks and praciticing every now and then. It's not that I'm out of shape...... and how much shape can I get from pushing down buttons, but I'm getting better and I'm experiencing less pain as I practice.
but it's good to have a game that brings everyone together. It brings everyone together and we all yearn to perfect our skills every time we play.

sigh, still there is rumors there will be a bigger Wii Shipment this December 6th. Keep an eye on it ladies and gentlemen.

As for me? Nah, I'm picking up Zelda and waiting till Janurary for a Nintendo Wii.

Irony..... you are beautiful mistress.

I say that, because I am one of those who didn't buy a Nintendo Wii on Sunday or wait in line on Saturday.
In fact it was quite the opposite.

I was at a party with friends all 20 of us kept talking about how much we all wanted a Wii.... and none of us went out to buy one, instead we had lots of silly fun and Marathons of Guitar Hero.

So I come back on Monday, call up every store only to find out every store selling electronics has sold out.

Sigh, I admit I was irresponsible for missing out this opportunity, I'm reading all these mixed reviews of the Nintedno Wii and I'm so anxious to join in with everyone. I was under the impression that we would be tripping over all these Nintendo Wii, I could easily head out into a Toys R Us and buy a Nintendo DS at the height of it's launch. Now, I'm in the position I have to stalk stores and read up on their shipping to know if Nintendo Wii are available. I actually had a chance to buy a Sony Playstation 3, but refused it since I want a Nintendo Wii...... I seriously have problems, don't I?

hee hee, yeah, But I'm also eager since I didn't buy a Nintendo Gamecube. I have intentions to buy Windwaker, Metal Gear, Zelda 4 Swords, Alien Homine, ect. I originally wasn't impressed with the Gamecube, but now the Wii seems a lot better package for someone who skipped a generation and want to try out something else other then the latest and greatest. Same thing with the Sony PS2, I bought it to play PS1 games. I'm fond of backwards compatiblity since I'm more devoted to fighting games and simple games.

HELL! I think I logged in more hours on Tetris on the Gameboy then I did on any other video game in my entire life. Hee hee, I don't want to brag my "video game player status." But I think I'm not the average consumer, I see the Wii as a wonderful opportunity to see what I missed out.

A small little comment, What is with Gamespot's forums and ranting on Gamespot review scores? I mean if your following any of these, NONE of these kids are reading the review and understanding to context of the score. Instead they are complaining about the score and the score alone.

Behold, Criticism of the Criticism, this is the world we live in.

I guess this would be considered video game related

Well, my girlfriend went out of her way to pre-order Castlevania Portrait of Ruins before I did.

I have a lot of things running through my head.


First off all, we were both in agreement we dispise the anime art of Dawn of Sorrows, and thought the cover to Portrait of Ruins was a tragic car accident. Second, I showed her the EBGames off for a collectors edition with a fancy box, art book documenting the art of the series, a soundtrack, a DS Slip case, a Stylius...... and NO GOD AWFUL ANIME ART ON THE COVER! Speaking as an artist and a Castlevania fan the art of Dawn of Sorrows was really laughable pretty much all the time. I can imagine that there was a decision to replace Ayami Kojima from making the franchise stale, but then we got Curse of Darkiness which will be a random game we will call upon when we want to recall obscure Castlevania storylines much like Portrait of Ruin's origin. We both are in agreement that discarding Ayami from the Castlevania games was the worst mistake Koji Igarashi, but we both in agreement that Dawn of Sorrows was the BEST out of the series recently.
Third, and the BEST Reason, it's only 35 Bucks. I loath pre-ordering from EBgames or gamestop. I think I only ordered once, but I'm more comfortable with heading down to Target or a larger franchise that doesn't want to bother you with extended questions on your gaming habits. "How often do you play the sims? Do you need an expansion pack for that?" Actually I prefer online shoping just to avoid it altogether even if I have a friend working there and even they have to ask me about subscription to Game Informer.
Although, my girlfriend didn't hesitate to think about that and continued into EBGames and reserved herself a copy of the game...... meanwhile I'm a schmuck who's going to get a crappy anime cover just to avoid all that. HA! I'm kidding, in fact I'm inspired by her and am going to preorder a copy without worring about all those little things that bother me about EBGames.

well, I've spent a great deal of time with Final Fantasy 12 both on Japanese and US, and I'm somewhat dissappointed with it. I guess this is the first reaction I can feel and it's something I just want to get off my chest.


I would have to say that the fact that it's take 6 years to make this game, and we had several games like Star Wars Knight of the Old Republic, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 11 that had simular design of combat but make the design of Final Fantasy 12'S combat feel shallow. It's not innovative like compared to final Fantasy 7 which did redefined the way we played RPGs, or even FF6 which had a wide variety of character classes with innovated gameplay elements like Sabian who had fighting games moves to memorieze in order to perform ingameplay. Recently with games like Tales of Syphonia which added a more variety to the combat, and path of the story, FF12 really does fail to be innovative since it seems to just ignore the past 6 years of video games.

The main MEAT of the game is the combat. And it seems pretty shallow that there isn't much to do within the game, unlike compared to lets say Legend of Zelda Orcarina of time. In Orcarina you were a fisherman, mask salesmen, horseback rider, archer ect and it felt like you really did a great deal of many different professions in a great deal of time. FF12 is more about the combat, so it can become rather dull grinding your way to the top, in fact, majority of the MMORPGs don't even have "JUST COMBAT" gameplay. One of the biggest flaw is how Mist Knacks and Summons lack power near the end of the game, when your near the end your player's regular attacks become more poweriful then a massive summon. So the combat boils down to just hacking away everything and then managing your ally's health status.

I can imagine that the initial design of this game was going to be something more along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics, of a larger detailed world in which you can do quests and battle all the time. But I think in the end, the combat is more along the lines of Final Fantasy 1, where "you hold down the A Button to win."

Little things would have gone to really help this game, better design of the enemy AI, more detail within the 3D surroundings, Night and day and weather effects with your surrounding happened naturally. Grand Theft Auto really did raise the bar of how 3D enviroments should react, and FF12 just feels like it's a SNES game with pretty graphics. A lot of enviroments randomly change, and there isn't any real intelligence to the crowd within the game. I mean there is threat of a massive imperial war and everyone walks around chatting with one another like it's every other day. You can freely walk around without any fear except for massive argo monsters. There was never a moment like in FF6 where I feared for running into an imperal officer. The main story is really just atmosphere and didn't effect the universe.


Although I felt that nothing within the game's graphics felt intuitive, and that's the biggest fault of the game. You don't have any feeling to your surrounding, you don't know when it will rain, when or where cetain bosses will appear, or how to solve puzzels. There is very little hints to how the world works, your going to run into massive argo monsters, stuck on puzzels with no hints, and forget why you have this item and whom to send it to. Resident Evil series gave better hints how to solve puzzels then in FF12, "This tiger statue is missing it's eyes, I wonder what would happen if I add a red jewel to them." instead you had to run out to a FAQ file and find the answer.

Recently Okami was criticized for being too easy, but for how little people have forgotten at how initially game were in their crude design. In Okami, you look at a dungeon, see a massive source of the problem and then an obsticle. FF12 you do see the design of the dungeons to be broken down to BLOCKS like an old dragon quest, secrete of mana or the original final fantasy design. Eventually the dungeons and everything within the game gets boiled down to trail and error with punishing results. There is no crime in just showing a player a wall design, and then your player has to assemble that design in a puzzel. Intuitive design, don't have to HIT people over the head with the answer, and Okami was a perfect example with "Oh, there is a small sapling, I wish there was light to help it grow." Or even letting the players own curioustiy play around with the ideas "I wonder what would happen if I bombed this wall." Intuitive design is all about just making the player feel rewarded for trying something that the player either understood or is experimenting with ideas.

Regardless if people only as Amertusa as only a dog in Okami, you did eventually feel like you impacted this world by helping it. You helped people's lives, you saved them, and you fought in these massive battles for them. Final Fantasy 12 doesn't even have that. And in the End, Amaterasu was rewarded with people remembering her deeds. Same with Orcarina of Time, little things, little details helped make an Nintendo 64 game come to life. Or even Half-Life 2 benifited by blocking off certain sections and punishing the player to convince them this was a comunity opressed and at war with the Combine.

I'm a big fan of Final Fantasy Tactics, and enjoy viewing this world as a represenative of that small 2D world. I think that's where my heart lies. I do feel inspired by seeing Moogles, Vieras, and Monblac running a clan. I feel that even with the 6 years of development within this game there was something missing in the production. I do hope that later Final Fantasy games embrace ideas from FF12 and refine them, but as far as innovation is concerned FF12 doesn't have it.

The game isn't a waste of time, it's fun, it's GOOD! It's the first Final Fantasy game I've played since tactics, so that's got to count for a lot.

I'm one of those few who was just turned off with Tekken Tag Tournement..... oh wow, a 6 year old game what a wonderiful way to start a journal.

Well, this has been scratching my head a bit since I'm a devoted fighting game fan and majority of the time there is rarely innovation but just reiterations on the same design. As we come closer to the PS3's launch I'm reminded of the PS2's launch and Tekken Tag was the launch title, which wasn't that bad of a title of begin with...... although that is if you were so HUNGRY for a next gen Tekken game that you would just swallow it up without hesitation. It was less then a year and the advancements in Tekken Tag were no where as impressive as Soul Calibur on Sega Dreamcast.
The incressed Poly Count, more animation, a larger line up, more more more more, it's basicly everything the PS2 promised.... and it basicly left me with a sick taste in my mouth. Tekken tag is a good game, solid, but I played this before.... and it was called Mortal Kombat Trilogy..... but Tekken Tag was by NOOOOOO Means MKT, instead there was more refined gameplay and characters were tweeked up since some haven't returned since 2004's tekken 1. There was enough here to really enjoy....... but, it pales in comparison with 1998's Tekken 3 on the playstation 1.
I might sound like too much of a fanboy by saying that, but as much as there "MORE is Better" Philosphy, Fighting game sequels or spin off rarely improve gameplay. Although not all fighting game fans feel that way, we all squable and debate over which is better, and then we evenetually make this long dreamlist of everything in one game. Now only a small minority of games reach that level of pandering to audience and updating characters to play on current games. I'd say the best example would be the King of Fighter series, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Tekken 5.
I think I'm loosing my point, although I don't quite see much of this slapped together game with Virtua Fighter 5. Inestead I'm seeing a perfectly polished game that might help just convince everyone to respect the PS3..... and this is coming from someone who's not a Virta Fighter fan. I'll be honest that I'm not too fond with the fact that each VF game is used as a launch game for what 3D engine Sega makes. On each release it's becomes the industry standar of video game graphics, but..... can anyone look back at VF3 just for a minute? Or even recalle the just miserable Dreamcast port of VF3? I highly doubt that's the case with VF5 on the PS3's launch. IN fact, I feel pretty confident this will be the gold standar that we should rank the PS3. Since 2004 the benchmark for video game graphics were Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, and we see that everyday with the Xbox 360 and right now the PC is surpassing that benchmark with crisis.

So I bring it back to Tekken 3, as much as I really want to own a next generation game I just wish for something simple. Two guys right at each other's face just pummeling their fists at one another. I guess I'm an easy to sell to person, but in this past year and the 360's launch we haven't seen polished and refined games. Rarely is anything INNOVATIVE, that takes time and money...... sigh, so with that, I got my hopes riding simply on Virtua Fighter 5.

sigh..... I would just love to hear more on Tekken 6, but after that really disgraciful 15 second trailer at e3 2006, I can wait patiently, I can live with boxy character models, some dull textures, but grey shadows...... ugh, this is 2006, come on, stop using black and gray shadows and turn up your abient lighting so you can make it feel more like light bouncing off of flesh. It looks like such an amaturish 3d modeling attempt.
This gives the impression the PS3 can't even render Pixar Toy Story quality images.
I'll have to end my little rant here, but I do fear for amature 3D art.... but yeah, another day.

Capcom ends funding to clover
this is really heartbreaking news since I really enjoyed Okami A LOT! sigh

oh well, with that I did some speed painting of the two head guys responsible for Okami Kamiya and Inaba

I was immediatly surprised to find okami at 40 bucks. I'm somewhat am used to paying 50 bucks for a new game, so just a ten dollors less is something that caught me off guard.
aside from the beautiful art direction, Okami was always something that caught my attention. I guess it's been wha? like 3 years since it's been previewed on gamespot, so the hype has been building, on each time I'm viewing it it looks magnificent and amazing and it made me wonder "what is holding up this game?" Capcom has recently been holding back a lot of games, like Resident Evil 4, Killer 7, Viewtiful Joe, ect. Capcom is a company known for milking a series to death, but I'm always used for them to holding onto a date..... although I wasn't asking for Final Fight Streetwise or Megaman spin off series. But still Okami is a well desirved wait.

I'll admit I've been replaying a lot of Legend of Zelda Orcarina of Time , so immediatly I can easily compare Okami with Zelda and not fear that backlash of overhyping the game. Aside from that, I think I will just talk about the immediate reaction to it. I've been just feeling this urge to play this game more and more, and I think that's because of the game's immediate accessablity. Although on the other side of it, it also feels really well thought out gameplay since you can always stop everything to paint. So there is never a moment where I feel stressed out over the heat of battle and forced to draw a symbol while my fingers are all jittery like Castlevania Dawn of Sorrows. Also with that, it's a joy to listen to NPC history, problems and requests they are all well written that add more depth to the story. Much like animal crossing....... yeah I do often keep thinking of other games, but not in a bad way, I think Okami borrows a lot of ideas from a lot of games and makes it own game. As I was saying, much Like Animal Crossing, the NPC characters are all well written and the translation is amazing. I'm heavily enjoying Issun, the sassy little loud mouth "wandering artist" that helps lighten up the game.

maybe I'm in the urge to play Legend of Zelda, but instead I feel "why do I want Zelda at this point?" HA! I probably won't say that in two months, but yeah, Okami is very emmersive and makes me thank god I have a PS2 to enjoy this game.I'm going to save wirting about the game for later because I do intend to write a review on it.

It just hits me, like a sack of bricks at how ironic this is. I wake up this morning. Up all night drawing an upcoming comic, I wake up after an hour of sleep and get over whelemed by all the Nintendo Wii news.....
I open the mail box and what do I get? Gameboy Advance NES Classic CASTLEVANIA
........ As much as I am excited about the Wii for a whole download service I just went out and BOUGHT a game I could have boughten on the Wii..... am I a bit too over zealious? I paid 6 bucks for it, when I probably could have gotten 5 bucks for it on November 19th.
UGH! I feel ill from that.... so I play original Castlevania and I'm immediatly reminded "HEY! I never have beaten this game!" Well, since I've never owned it, I had a humble 20 games on my NES Libary, and I'm missing quite a few big ones. As much as I'm happy to own a copy of the game but I'm greeted with the PUNISHING Difficulty and stiff controls...... UGH!
Ha! But that's my immediate reaction, after a while I got back into the skill of Castlevania. It's still a skilled based game and memorizing the map and enemy placement..... god it's unforgiving.