Professor Layton and Pandora's Box

This just screams the Orient express

The second game in the series and it starts more serious than the other. We actually have a murder case as an old friend to the professor ends up dead after finding the titular Pandora's box and Layton and Luke has to take the Molentary Express to solve this puzzle. It's freaking Agatha Christi. Travelling the train is really fun and while traveling we enter this 50 year old town and then onward to the dark and mysterious Folsense. And really, it's a bit boring to travel the town areas since it's just pacing back and forth all the time, but at least they gave you more mini games to play between the puzzle solving, like brewing tea or train the hamster.

I can't believe it either, a dead person in a professor Layton game

Admittedly Folsense starts boring, but the more you find out the more interesting it get. A town that was griped by some disease, vampires and cravings for tea. Inspector Chelmey makes his first real appearance since he wasn't actually in the last game since Don Paolo impersonated him. Flora also returns... for a while until she gets replaced by Don Paolo. Really, this Arch-nemesis of Layton has as of yet only done identity thefts. And now also two cases of theft that went incomplete. He's not really good as arch-enemy really. I wondered what he feel Layton did to him to be so obsessed.

And now we got vampires as well, best Layton-game so far

So the puzzle of the Pandora's box is that it's made out of an ore that gives away an hallucinogenic gas which somehow makes people kill themselves? It makes people very easy to suggestions. The material is found in Folsense (which I guess is a play on the words fool and sense) which is the cause of the disease and as well as the vampires since the count used the effect (unknowingly it seems) to scare of trespassers. In fact the count is caught in some eternal nightmare as he misses his wife (?) while being alone in his castle only surrounded by his own illusions. As Layton drags him out of the shadows of time he gets more mad and it ends in a sword fight between the professor and duke. A sword fight so intense that the castle crumbles around them. Now, the twist is that the duke really is around 70 (?) years old while he appears like 20-30 something due to the gas, but how the hell was he able to cut a steel chain holding up a chandelier? Must be a really sharp sword.

Well, it's not a MAGIC DUEL TO THE DEATH!

Ending is that he finally accepts what has happened to him as his granddaughter finally reaches out to him and he unveils the secret of the Pandora's Box. With the right actions you are able to open a secret compartment where he hid a letter to his loved one, but it had been switched out with her answer as she somehow got hold of the box. And this puzzle could have stumped many people due to being the only one using a certain thing the DS and 3DS have. The microphone. Yes, the very final puzzle solution is to blow the mic. And no, I didn't cheat on that one. I did on the sliding puzzles and had a huge itch to do it on the make the silver balls disappear games. The rest not so much.... oh and one puzzle needed you to use a real train ticket which comes with the game. I luckily got one even after buying the game second hand, but at that time it was at my parents place so I had to look it up as well. But overall was decent puzzles. 18 hours for one playthrough and I can't wait to play the third game.

Wait, he survived? Meaning no murder? Come on!

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

The Lord of Zelda: Fellowship of Twilight

I bought the Wii port (cause obviously the Gamecube version has to be the original, it was the one where Link was left-handed) back in 2006 or 2007 when I bought my own Wii. As I recall this was an answer for all of those who complained that Wind Waker was to cutesy, to colourful, not like the Spaceworld 2000 demo gamers had been promised so obviously Nintendo listened and decided to give the most dark, most gritty zelda-game ever. I mean, when I played the remake I was struck by how dark the story was. I actually think this is the one game in the series where most people die during the course of the game. Maybe not as surrealistically dark as Majora's Mask, but it's up there. Also, which the Swedish gaming magazine I read pointed out back in the day, this feels like they copied the Lord of the Rings.

I mean, this is pretty much a Balrog

Story overall is that Link, a shepard in a forest province gets sucked in to this Twilight realm that has taken over most of Hyrule while trying to save some children who was kidnapped by... Moblins? Boboklins? Whatever, they look like goblins anyway. Inside the twilight the goddesses power awakens and he is turned into the sacred beast, a wolf. He's taken to Hyrule Castle where he breaks out with the help of an imp named Midna. They meet Princess Zelda and are told that Hyrule was attacked by Zant, a Twili who turned his people into some dark monstrosities. You set out restoring the light to the different provinces and gathers the fused shadows that Midna wants for some reason. After saving the three main areas Zant appears and puts a permanent wolf curse on Link while Midna gets blasted by light, which will kill her. Link takes Midna to Zelda where Zelda infuses Midna with the powers of the goddesses. Somehow this makes Zelda disappear. To free Link's curse you head to the Lost Woods and get the Master Sword and now Midna points you to the Gerudo desert where you can get the Mirror of Twilight which transport you to the Twilight realm where you can confront Zant. Of course the mirror is broken and you are told that behind Zant probably is Ganondorf as a failed execution forced the sages to throw him into the Twilight Realm. Oh and he killed one of them as well.  With the sword they thrust into his torso. So you enlist the help of a resistance group in Castle town which are looking into ominous signs around Hyrule and the Mirror shards are corrupting its surrounding area. Like the ring from Lord of the Rings. You get the shards and then you enter the Twilight Palace, defeat Zant and Midna straight up tears him apart with the Fused Shadows we got back. You travel back to Hyrule to confront Ganondorf at Hyrule Castle. After rescuing Zelda Midna teleports you away to Hyruel Field while she keeps Ganondorf occupied... for 10 seconds. Ganondorf appears on horseback and starts to charge at you so Link and Zelda climbs Epona and charge forward. And the trick is to keep Z-targeting long enough so that Zelda can fire a light arrow at him and you slash him. After some hits it's mano el mano as you whirl around Ganondorf, avoiding his attacks until you get in a hit. After some fighting you stab him in his bleeding wound and here I can't really follow what happens. Somehow the triforce of power leaves him and Zant appears and seems to break his own neck which kills Ganondorf? Of course, Ganondorf still stands up in his armour even though he is dead. Everything is back to normal and Midna is freed from her curse and returns to the Twilight Realm while destroying the mirror to ensure that they can't harm each other again. 

Shelob... and I hate spiders.

The story works for the most part, except, the time. Is it the original Ganondorf? Then, how long did Zant rule the Twilight realm before attacking Hyrule and of course, how long was Hyrule under Zants control? Also it is implied that Zant broke the Mirror, so how did they get all around the world in that case? Small things like that. When it comes to the dark and gritty parts of the story we have Ganondorf that is supposed to be straight up executed but kills his executioner, Midna tearing Zant to pieces and what I didn't mention a pretty graphic retelling of how the Twilight beast attacked Kakariko village and slaughtered the item shop owner and, like 20 others as well. Children gets kidnapped... but for some reason they just end up at Kakoriko village. I gotta say, this story feels epic in all the way. Also fighting against the bosses help as well. Just take fight against the dragon where you fly high above the ground with your clawshot to avoid the dragon fire and get behind him to jump on to his back and attack him while he falls down to the platform below. Really, the only fight that doesn't feel epic is the one against Zant, because he feels so pathetic. Which is interesting cause when he is introduced you feel a menace as he has his helmet on and wields this dark magic that curses people and kills them. Then when he take it of he just feels pathetic as previously stated. Must have been Ganondorf that left him to rule in Hyrule Castle. 

They even crammed in Smaug even though Bilbo wouldn't come out for several years after the original game

Overall it is a good game, but this is only the second time I played through the game. It's on equal ground as Skyward Sword and that has only been released once. Music is... well it's good music and it feels melancholic that fits the twilight theme, but most of it is the same music that appeared in earlier Zelda-games. Also, the dungeons are varied. You have your typical forest, fire and water temple, then the spirit temple and ice temple... but the ice temple is actually a yeti house on top of a mountain which just happens to be infested with ice monsters. Then we have the temple of Time... which I wonder what it does in the Lost Woods since in Ocarina it was in Castle Town, but then again in Link to the Past the Master Sword was placed in the Lost Woods. Then we have a sky temple and twilight palace before Hyrule Castle. I like these dungeons. Varied, different hazards that really uses the environment. So overall I like it, why doesn't it feel more fun? It could be that the colours of the game is pretty boring. It's dark, and brown. And it doesn't help that the twilight realms have a colour filter that makes it even darker. It's almost sucks the joy out of me. And half the game has these. Could also be the obvious railroading as they push me forward to each area and I must do those since I turn into a wolf and not until I saved the area light spirit I get turned back. Really, not until I can turn into a wolf at will the game starts to get "fun" since I can explore freely and try to do side quests. Like finding the 60 poe's souls (which is more of a pain than collecting the 100 skulltulas since in this game there is no instant day to night item or song compared to every other 3d Zelda-game meaning I have to wait for long times until night when they decides to appear). Or find the heart pieces. Which you need 5 for each container. The reason for that is obviously as the overworld is huge and they needed to fill it with prizes. Which still has the problem that it is empty. Then we have rupees all over, but nothing to buy for it. Cause I'm always full. Great for the end game with the super armour that uses rupees to power it. Making the harder parts a breeze (for example 2-3 Iron Knuckles at once. So this time they gave us stamps to collect. I missed 8 of them, but it works. Less money in circulation I guess.

Overall, good game, but maybe it's only worth playing every 10th year. I at least found out I don't remember much of the puzzles so I had my small snags in some temples. Probably a great reason to replay it, but still. Of course it could be due to the wii set up which necessitates a TV compared to the Wii U where I can watch the gamepad. The gamepad is THE invention of this console generation cause I can play the game when I want. I notice it with my PS3, I got loads of games for that, RPG 60 hours long or more... but I can't play them since the TV is everyones. Which leaves me with either the 3DS or Wii U (for most games, Splatoon is an exception). Maybe the grittiness killed it.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

or Eat the blue ice cream movie

God, the last game was a disaster for me. An obnoxious gameplay mechanic with cards is just annoying. Why was all spin-off games (and even main series games) so into card based gameplay? Thankfully I can play this game which is apparently set before, during and a bit after Chains of Memories. So I boot it up and... and it is a movie. Well, at least I don't have to play the game. Basically it's the cutscenes from the game with a small text in between explaining story event during the game. It's a couple of hours and what I got out of it is... that some guy Roxas belongs to an organization named XIII where he is friends with Axel from the last game. Roxanne is member XIII and they introduce XIV, a girl which looks a bit like Kairi, in the same way Naminé looked like Kairi.  And mostly the three of them sits and eats blue ice cream on a clock tower. Apparently some internal conflict within the organization where Axel is trying to smoke out some traitors while watching the two kids back. Roxas and XIV try to keep each other safe, but for some reason XIV is breaking down. Axel has to get her back several times and then she disappears which sets Roxas out to get her, but he is confronted by Riku who unleash some... I guess darkness to stop him. Which interestingly enough is the ending teaser from Kingdom Hearts 1. If you don't get it, sorry, I could hardly follow it. I'm glad I didn't have to play it since it saved me several hours of  gaming. Still, coming from this way I hardly care for the characters since Axel is the only one I know about (besides those doomed by canon is I killed them with Sora in the last game) and even if he was the nicest of the people in the last game I hardly find him that interesting. Although my sister disagree I would assume. 

90 % of the movie people!

I will give it credit though for feeling very nice to see the bad guys (I assume) have this interaction. I don't get what they do and I assume it's due to it being a prequel to Kingdom Hearts 2 where you get to play Roxas. I know this since my sister for some reason become completely obsessed with this series and pretty much have them all and I watched her play the second game so I get a little. But now I got Kingdom Hearts 2.5. but I wonder when I will get the time to play that. I'm getting a bad habit of ending series before finishing them off.

Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories

Cardgames in a castle

So I got to play the sequel of Kingdom Hearts. If I'm correct it was originally a Game Boy Advance-game, that was remade to a Playstation 2-game that then was ported over to the PS3. Given that origin I get why they changed the gameplay. Instead of the action-rpg that the original game gave us they instead gave us a... card-based rpg. Seriously? That's not the only time a spin-off game gets a card-based gameplay. Metal Gear had the Acid-series, Paper Mario gave us the boring Sticker Star (which obviously had stickers instead of cards, but it work pretty much the same). Sometimes it doesn't need to be a spin-off, but the whole game like Baiten Kaitos. And to be frank I hate that game mechanic. Either everything is chance based or you have to craft the perfect deck with just the right sequence of cards to really make the best attacks. But I think this game is even worse than at least Baiton Kaitos. Barton Kaitos problem was the randomness of what cards you drew from your deck, but here using combos means that the first card in the combo is taken away shifting the orders of card you get. Meaning that if you don't finish a battle before reshuffling your whole strategy is out of order. Best bet is editing together a magic deck since it really works for crowd control. Start with Aeoroga, then a magnetic attack followed up by stop time then hit the rest with firaga and blizzaga. Throw in some Thundaga and curaga to make sure you always stands on top. Really, a battle just last at most 30 seconds and in the final area I went up over 10 levels without much problem. In the end that deck was even able to defeat the final boss even though it was a hassle. 

Dude looks like a lady

Story starts right as the original game ends with our heroes following Pluto to a mysterious castle, Castle Oblivion. They are tasked to reach the top of the castle and along the way they will lose their memories and might regain some lost memories. Basically it works as the Auryn wishes in the Neverending Story 2. During the trip Sora get's memories of a girl named Naminé and he begin obsessing over her to save her. Behind the scenes a secret organisation is behind all this as they control Naminé to erase Sora's memories and replacing them with those they want. But apparently the local leader is trying to use Sora in order to take over the organisation and Axel, the red headed one, is working to stop the pink haired one. In the end Sora defeats all of the local organisation members (but I get it that Axel is the only one that lives to tell the tale) and saved Naminé and to undo all the jumbled memories Sora, Goofy and Donald is put in stasis. 

Same white walls everywhere, makes it feel like the endless staircase in Mario 64

I hate this game. The gameplay is just annoying since your action is limited with what cards have which determines combos and so on. The story has interesting parts, but most is just meeting the same characters in the first game, but changing up the story, although still pretty much be the same outcome... and pretty much the same bosses. You change the layout of the castle by using room cards you collect after winning a battle (unless you have over 99 of them, which you will get). And when you defeat the final boss (who cheats by the way by using an attack that makes you drop all your cards so you have to pick them up, bastard) you unlock another mode as you play as Riku... F*** that. The only time I would play that is if I in 10 years replay the game... you know in anticipation when they finally release Kingdom Hearts 3. But seriously, maybe a handheld console would have worked better since that was the original intent... and when I'm thinking about it, why do they give you glide and super glide abilities when you can't use it to search the environments?

Final note is the voice acting, clearly Haley Joel Osment hit puberty and makes the decision from the remaster of the first game to not add voices even better. On one hand I think the voice doesn't suit anymore, but I assume that is nostalgia talking, cause as a whole it sound alright. David Gallagher and the others sound as they did before so it sticks out a bit, but he isn't bad. And since he got that voice for the whole game it makes it acceptable for me. I would guess I would have approved even more if he hit puberty in Kingdom Hearts 2 after this game since, hey, prolonged stasis exposure.

Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix

The original cover of the game

Back in 2002 at my birthday I got the original game as a present. I guess I was 15 or so if my math checks out and this was an enjoyable game. It had Final Fantasy-characters, Disney-characters and what wasn't to love? Most voiced Disney characters were voiced by either the real voice actors or someone close (as far as I know, since most of these I've only heard the Swedish dubbing for). The main character Sora was voiced by the kid from The 6th Sense, Haley Joel Osment and the big bad is Billy Zane, you know the actor playing the Phantom? From the Phantom movie back in 1996? Alright so he was also the bad guy in Titanic. And the part of Riku went to David Gallagher from 7th Heaven... 6th sense, 7th heaven??? Nah, must be a coincidence. So basically the game is an action-platformer RPG. You swing your weapon, use magic and jump around a lot. The spells are all from the Final Fantasy-games, but here they are actually useful outside of combat to interact with the world. See a chest on a floating platform? Gravity it down. Lighting a fire? Fire of course, but if you need to extinguish it blizzard works. Of course the platforming isn't always the best, sometimes a jump doesn't register, close quarter combat on small railings are not advised (especially in Hollow Bastion) and small nitpicks.

The remake cover... or is it remaster?

So you play as Sora, young kid living on an island together with Riku and Kairi... and Wakka, Tidus and Selphie. But those three aren't important other than training exercise. The main three kids dream of leaving an island so they construct a raft, but before leaving dark shadows appear on the island and Sora is sucked of to another world, Traverse Town. There he meet Donald Duck and Goofy who are out looking for King Mickey who has disappeared. Donald is a wizard and Goofy is a knight. Sora have for some reason been given the Keyblade, a weapon that will destroy the Hearless, shadowy creatures consuming people's hearts. The only way to stop them is to the seal the keyholes on every world so Sora sets of in Donald and Goofy's Gummi Ship in search for the King and Sora's friends. You know, reading the summary... this is a really silly game. How can't it be when you mix the worlds of Final Fantasy and Disney? And for some reason this was a really enjoyable game for me as a kid and replaying the remake I quickly found myself feeling very nostalgic. You travel to worlds based on Alice in Wonderland, Hercules, Tarzan, Winnie The Pooh, Aladdin, Pinocchio, The Nightmare before Christmas, Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid. And you would think they would use the music from all the movies to really catch you, but if my ears hears correctly I could only find three places were they used the movies music and that was The Nightmare Before Christmas, Winnie the Pooh and The Little Mermaid. And those have the worst ear worms of them all.

HAVET ÄR DJUPT, HAVET ÄR DJUPT!

Fun fact the Swedish dub for Sebastian is the same actor who voiced Gandalf in the Swedish Lord of the Rings radio dramatisation.

So during the course of the game you face the antagonist, the Disney Villains. A shadow conspiracy led by the most dark and evil characters from the Magical Kingdom led by Malificient. There's Hades, Captain Hook, Oogie-Boogie, Ursula and Jaffar... they are the villains because they f***ing cheats. Now, stupid as I was I went for Proud mode since the easier settings sounded like an insult. Take these extra items and such thing. So stupid me choose proud meaning that they hit harder and apparently have a bigger repertoire of attacks. Doesn't help that most of them are puzzle bosses with platforming needed. I especially look at you Ursula. Magic in cauldron... f***ing cheap. Most other bosses you can beat with some grinding. That is until the end game start. You sealed most of the Keyholes and you found your way to Hollow Bastion, the place where the Final Fantasy-characters live in. At the beginning Donald and Goofy abandons you when the Keyblade switches over to Riku who has joined the dark side so you have to get help from Beast (from Beauty and the Beast) to enter the castle. Inside Beast is fooled away and Riku is about to confront you, but at that moment Donald and Goofy switches sides again since even though they were given orders to follow the wielder of the Keyblade, they can't abandon a friend. Defeat Riku and he leaves, but becomes possessed by an unknown person. You find Maleficent and defeat her, but as she tries to escape Riku joins her and plunges another Keyblade into her heart transforming her to the Dragon from Sleeping Beauty. Turns out that the person possessing Riku is Ansem, the lord of Hollow Bastion that researched the Heartless and apparently was consumed by his findings. You find his scattered reports after defeating certain bosses. This was an interesting twist when I played it the first time. He was with you from the beginning hinting about some dark mystery during the first 10 minutes of the game and you naturally assumed Maleficent or Riku would be the final boss. And so this person shows up that everyone told you would have the key to understanding the heartless. Really subtle work there.

Maybe not his design, but you can't get everything

You defeat possessed Riku and retrieves the unconscious body of Kairi... who's a Disney princess and her heart together with 6 others princesses (Snowhite, Aurora, Belle, Cinderella, Alice (?) and Jasmine) the villains had kidnapped in order to open the Keyhole, but Kairi has lost her heart so she is basically a lifeless doll. Turns out her heart was hidden in Soras's heart all along so to release it he uses Riku's blade and stabs himself and seemingly killing himself. Wow, and I thought this was a Disney game. Suicide? Hardcore. Well, since this is Square of course he comes back, but in the form of a heartless and have to travel down the whole castle to catch up with Donald, Goofy and Kairi who escaped Ansem when Riku's spirit stopped him. Kairi senses that it is Sora in the heartless and tries to shield him from the other heartless ready to attack and as in any Disney movie he regains his human form. It's kinda sweet. They escape back to Traverse Town to regroup and after some side questing you can return and seal the keyhole, but Ansem have disappeared. You travel to the End of Worlds and start the decent and the surrounding gets more and more twisted until you reach...  NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN

First suicide and now the literal devil, this game is hardcore

A tip, just fly behind him and whack him. A bit undignified for one of the most scary Disney characters I must say. Travel onward and you reach the end, which is the beginning, Destiny Island, Sora's home. Here a fight in what, 7-8 stages with Ansem until you bash him enough so he opens the doors to Kingdom Hearts where he is obliterated by light... ok, so he actually thought it would be darkness, but since this is a Disney spin-of of course every heart has a speck of light. The gang tries to close it and on the other side Riku and king Mikey appears, sealing the door from their side. Credits roll and our friends are now searching for Riku and Mikey again. The End!

And King Mickey saves the day

I really liked this game as a kid and playing again it felt rather nostalgic and I actually did things I didn't do before like actually trying to synthesis items. The only thing I dreaded to touch was the Gummy ship construction since I still don't get how to use it. This being a remake certain things have changed and been added. First and easiest to see is that they changed colours on several of the enemies. Why I don't know, I actually prefer the blue colours compared to the yellow ones on the soldiers and fat men. They also added some scenes that stand out like a sore thumb, not because they don't fit the narrative, they actually explain things that I didn't get in the beginning. The problem is that it's voice less and you see that this should be speaking parts due to the font they uses on the text. It's a small nitpick cause I could see how the voice acting would stick out even more since Osment was a kid when it was first released. Other thing's I find interesting thinking back is the completely useless side-characters you can add to your party, but you are limited to three people at time so one of the regulars have to go. Now why would I change? Donald and Goofy is clearly superior due more items to use, more armours to wear. The AI is still bad for all of them so it doesn't matter either. The only time picking the other characters is in Agrabah due to Aladdin being able to hit 2-3 switches to unlock treasures, Neverland where Peter Pan is needed to fight an optional boss and Hollow Bastion where Beast can break down walls (and for story reason he is your body guard during your first trip). You even have to equip them with better gear since they come with just the standard. Things that they should have changed is the information in the bestiary. Can't they please add what everyone drops so I can quickly check which enemies to grind for stones, shards or gems? And also where to find these monsters. Jiminy Cricket, you can do better you know.

Yeah, show some concern will you!

Now I never played any other game in the series since it was all over every console and since I moved away in 2006 and never bought a Playstation 2 to play the sequel and I actually think I couldn't get my hands on the GBA game or even the DS ones. Well luckily there's 2 more games on this compilation so let's get started.