Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros.

 

Now Your Playing with Power, Nintendo Power!

I couldn't resist getting this. I have two of the games on it, the original Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2 (aka the Lost Levels). I could get Ball on my 3DS with either the rereleases for the DSI or Game & Watch Gallery releases for the Virtual Console... so technically I could classify my 3DS as the same thing. But there is something special in having it in your hand. We had a couple of Game & Watch games at my parents house so it was a bit like "yeah maybe get one myself". 

There's also watch... wouldn't be Game & Watch without it I guess. Also hidden within it is 35 secrets you are encouraged to find... although pressing A+B to get the timer shine isn't that much of a secret I would say. Nothing else to say really. Played around with the games, but beside the authentic way of playing it I find that the NES Mini plays better. I don't know what it is, but I find I don't slip around as much. Could be that I watch it on a big screen.

Well... that short. Happy Belated Birthday Mario!

Final Fantasy VIII Remastered (Switch)

 

The love story of the ages

Finally played through Final Fantasy VIII on the Switch and with this I've played through Final Fantasy I through X. Another of those I got back in the day so I also have them on PSOne disc as well, but I couldn't finish it. The furthest I got was fighting Cerberus in the Galbadia Garden. My biggest problem was not understanding the leveling system of this game. Me being a bit of grinder completely failed to get that the enemies and bosses scaled with the characters level. So I grinded away causing my own downfall. What I should have done, as I used more of here, was running away and turn every enemy to a card. Enabling me to save on exp, get cards to turn into items and magic, and still level up the GF needed. Cause when you understand the system... it's rather fun junction magic and get your GF to level up to get better abilities to put you ahead of the leveling curve of the monsters.

The story on the other hand, parts I like, but it doesn't all make sense. Ground story is that you play as Squall, a mercenary in training that wakes up after a match with his arch-nemesis Seifer which left both with a cut across the face. It's graduation day so together with Instructor Quistis he heads out to get Ifrit, the Guardian Force (GF). Together with Zell and Seifer they head out to help a small city from being overtaken by Galbadian forces. After some troubles that leads to a communcation tower the order to withdraw is delivered by a exchange student from Trabia gardem, Selphie. Seifer leaves the group to get to the escape ships on their own, which pretty much disqualifies Seifer from becoming a SeeD while the others become it. At the graduation dance Squall dance with this mysterious girl with dark hair and then is taken out by Quistis that announces she has been demoted due to the failures of her students.

Next day Squall, Selphie and Zell is sent to Timber to aid a resistance group fighting of the occupation of Galbadia.  Before arriving they are put to sleep and experience a part where they are three galbadian soldiers fighting their way out of a forest and then travelling to Delling City to look at this singer Julia, which Leguna, the leader of the group, has fallen for. A short date later they are sent out again, but Squall and the others awake. In Timber they meet the Forrest Owls, lead by the mysterious girl from the party, Rinoa. The plan is to kidnap the President of Galbadia, Delling. After executing the plan it turned out it was a decoy and instead Delling arrived to the TV-station to send a message with the now working Communication Tower. Turns out he is gonna announce a peace diplomat in the sorceress Edea, but Seifer runs in taking Delling hostage. The others try to save him, but Edea turns up takes Seifer away. Procedure is to get to nearest garden, that is Galbadia where they pick up Irvine and a mission to assassinate Edea in Delling City. After some running around the city with planning the assassination and the man leading it is the general of the Galbadian army and Rinoas father. It goes awry in many ways, but Squall has reached the Sorceress and... gets an icicle showed through the shoulder ending disc 1. 

It's a strong start. Pretty good characters and the mystery of the Laguna sequences are nice (and his battle theme is the best). I've have a small problem with the high school setting of the Garden and that all main characters are 17-18 years old. Probably why Laguna is much more fun as well since he is a bit older together with Kiros and Ward. Most fun here is also the game theory that Squall actually dies here and the rest of the game is he slowing dying and imagining a better ending. The biggest claim to that theory is that from disc 2 and onward the story goes all bonkers with first an escape from a max security prison, splitting the team where one team tries to stop rockets being launched on Balamb Garden and Squall heads for Balamb to warn everyone. But there is a civil war between the student where a creature named NORG is looking for the headmaster to throw to Edea since his failed assassination forced the attack. And to avoid the missiles coming they get the Garden flying out into the sea. Where they crash into some Fisherman colony and are reunited with the other team that survived the base exploding. They go to Trabia Garden where they found out that all main characters (beside Rinoa) grew up on the same orphanage and Edea was the caretaker of that orphanage together with Balamb Garden headmaster Cid. Really? Which they forgot due to using GF as it apparently alters their memories? REALLY!?!

Gets worse, you attack Galbadia Garden that also flies now and enter it to fight sorceress Edea... and I couldn't get past Cerberus last time, but with an average of level 15, this is easy. Fight Seifer and Edea and... Rinoa falls into a coma as she is taken over by Sorceress Ultimecia that comes from the future to search for a girl named Ellone that appeared through the game and can send peoples conscious back in time, which is the cause of the Laguna episodes. You get to Eshtar, the hidden country that Galbadia fought against 17 years ago against sorceress Adel and are sent to space where Ellone is together with the president of Esthar, Laguna. Possessed Rinoa releases the trapped sorceress Adel and as she is slowly dying in space Squall jumps after her and finds the spaceship Ragnarok. With it the team boards a flying cube that concentrates some sort of moon beam that destroyed a civilisation 100 years ago. You defeat Seifer... again and then Adel that have been possessed by Ultimecia. Rinoa is possessed again and is sent back in time by Ellone and then taken back causing Ultimecia to achieve "time compression" so that the past, present and future converge and you end up at Ultimecia's Castle where you battle out the monsters and then finish of the 4-5 forms of Ultimecia to achieve victory. Credits roll, every ones happy and Squall and Rinoa ends up together.

I skipped a lot, like the central love story between Squall and Rinoa and I give it credit, it's nice at times, like the space sequence, but some parts just feels weird since the action the player takes doesn't always match how the story wants it to go. And everyone else doesn't matter really. Especially when it turns out non can remember anything before joining SeeD. Squall's inner monologuing goes on my nerves at times since he is a really bratty teenager at times. Zell I can at least tolerate, Selphie is just weird... and Quistis clearly going after her male student have a bit of problematic undertones, but then again she's hot and the same age (what is it with japanese and promoting young inexperienced people to positions of authorithy... one would think it was like Sweden).  Irvine perving on Selphie and Quistis is also troublesome, even more so when he clearly remembers them from the orphanage. I just don't like Irvine. You also get to play as Edea, but as tip... don't give her any special spells since when she goes they go to which I sadly experienced.

So I gotta say I liked the game. CD 1 totally fine, 2nd as well with the escape, garden civil war and the fight against gardens. CD 3 had the space station and after that the game slows down trying to grind for magic and items to junction and upgrade weapons and get GF:s. Instead of me falling back on grinding levels I should just have run around on the Islands Closest to Hell and Heaven to get the magic I needed. I liked the junction system when I got it, the music is fantastic as usual and the remastered graphics looks a hell lot better than the original. And another thing with the remaster, speeding it up with 3x makes it playable. Normal game is SLOW, everything takes forever, speeding it up makes it enjoyable. Just be sure to have a finger on it during boss battles, especially the last on so that you don't lose one of the main three characters you use to fight Ultimecia.

Ys Origin (Switch) Part 3

Devil's Walk Beside You

So entered the tower for a third time, this time with the Claw, or better known as Demon Toal... or just Toal Fact. Described as a berserker with high attack, but low health. So he's the worst to play through actually. I've died more times than the others combined... and maybe it has to do that I've played it on Hard. Otherwise plays as much as the others, but some significant changes. For example Toal doesn't get the mask so he won't be able to see the hidden bridges or the secret room that Gemma hides in. In return he gets better equipment that enhances stats. He also doesn't get an auto-revive like the others in the endgame, but the goddess ring that boost strength and defence with +5 and have some plot importance, but that's it. 

Storywise it's a bit more interesting. After staying behind with Commander Tovah to cover the ascent of Solomon Shrine his cleria sword was broken and the darklings took him in and granted him some demonic essence. As the darklings started to search the tower for the goddesses Toal began from the first floor and climbed upward. The interesting thing with this is that you gotta fight members of the search party. Also, apparently he was in love with the older of the goddesses and they tell him that there is a traitor who gave the darklings the power to build the tower and control the demons. Now we getting somewhere. So the rest goes as usual up to the point when you defeat Dalles. From the sky a trident piercis him and kills and Cain Fact appears, Toal and Hugo's father, the mightiest of the six priest of Ys. He apparently orchestrated the whole thing to gain ultimate power to free humanity from the goddesses he sees as suppressing the human race. How and why I don't get, but Toal is given back his sword that have been restored by Gemma and fight the the transformed Cain that have taken the shape of Darm, the final boss of Ys II. And who named the tower I've been running up and down in. Take two tries to get the pattern down, but he is defeated, the goddesses goes to sleep and the ending wraps up. Both Roy and Epona survived, the silver sword that Adol gets from the Roda tree is the same sword that Toal used and hid there. It's also Toal that started the creation of the six books of Ys, named after the six priests. He also took over the role as high priest off the Fact family after his father and returned to Ys while Hugo stayed on the surface. 

Overall a fun game, a bit repetitive, the three characters doesn't differ that much. Unlocked a couple of extra mode like a Battle Arena and boss fights. The arena was interesting in that battling enough you could afford to unlock Adol, but only for the arena and boss mode. Which is kinda disappointing since a story-less mode of just running up the tower and defeating bosses to learn how Adol worked would be welcome. Still, I won and another game is completed. 

Ys Origin (Switch) Part 2

The Names Fact... Hugo Fact

Played it again as Hugo Fact, sorcerer supreme. Instead of the hack and slash of Yunica it turned into a shooter since Hugo predominantly attacked with the eyes of Fact that orbits around him. The beginning a bit harder since he is extremely vulnerable to close encounters and the first boss was rather hard, but the higer level made it easier since you can avoid the telegraphs and just hammer the enemies and bosses. It turned a bit interesting when the different play-style made me save up SP for some different blessings. For example, since close encounters was best avoided Hugo didn't really need resistance and shorter time on the bad status effects since if he got poisoned he was to close the enemy anyway.

Storywise it mimics part of Yunica's, but with some exceptions. First of, the Claw that really didn't appear that much in Yunica's run is actually Toal Fact, Hugo's older brother that turned away from the Fact's sorcerer line and instead become a holy knight, staying behind together with Saul Tovah, Yunica's father to buy time for the people of Ys to escape with Salomon Shrine. And he joined with the demons and Hugo was given the special mission to kill his brother for turning against the goddesses. And then we have Epona, one of the darklings that harassed Yunbica that seems to have fallen in love with Hugo and helps him during the game. The story also focuses on Hugo and the shadow his older brother cast over him and since Toal was shunned by their father for joining the knight and made Hugo the successor, a role he didn't really want. He also grapples with the fact that he wants power and that it corrupts him enough that he accepts Dalles offer for demonic power, which Epona has to beat him out of, but in turn she is turned to stone and killed by Dalles. Turns out that the man Yunica killed in her story was Eponas big brother, but he lived in this story, and so does Roy that stays with Yunica on the surface instead of returning to Ys... well, in Yunica's story he died so he doesn't get back to Ys either way.

Beating it unlocks Toal Fact as a playable character so that's where I'm heading next.

Ys Origin (Switch)

Go All the Way To The Tower!

 So, in wait for Ys IX they apparently just released Ys Origin, a game from 2006, taking place 700 years before the first games in the series... or pretty much any of the games in the series (well, besides parts of VIII that takes place millennia before the games). So it doesn't have Adol Christin as a main character, but instead you gotta choose between a Hugo Facts and Yunica Tovah... The naming scheme is really all over the place here. If you don't know both are from the land of Ys so why one has normal western name like Hugo and the other is named Yunica (which I assume is something Japanese or Asian overall) is a bit hard to understand, and it shows up in other names as well making it a bit of a mismatch.

So I choose Yunica, since she had a big axe and went for the easy difficulty. So the game starts in french describing how the land of Ys was lifted up into the sky due to the attacks of the demons and then an anime cutscenes play which tells the intro, without words so at first it's a bit hard to get, but basically the two goddesses of Ys have vanished together with the Black Pearl so a 12 man rescue team is assembled and descend upon the land, but an unknown force blasts from the tower that the demons built (and is the tower Adol climbed in the first game) and shatters the party upon arrival. Yunica awakens near the Roda Tree and it explains that it saw the goddesses head for the tower. She follows and rescue the priest and acolytes that handled the transportation magic. Yunica heads in on recon and finds out that the demons are summoned by humans that controls them. One of them even killed Yunica's father, the commander of the Holy Knights. She herself joined the Holy Knights in order to be close to the goddesses. 

The other knights and sorcerers arrive at the tower, and one of them is the knight Roy that is a clear love interest. Climbing the tower you fight demons and solve some platforming puzzles with the equipment you get. Finding one of the goddesses ends up with her being captured and Yunica fighting against the man who killed her father, and loses, but she is saved by the goddesses giving herself up without resistance. She is taken back to the entrance by the other knights and she lost all hope, until Roy tells her of her father's sword laying on an alter in the tower. She finds it and get to speak with her father's ghost as well as getting fire powers to light torches with, as well as a decent sword. 

You continue to climb, find the imprisoned goddess, but since you can't do anything a couple of the sorceress stand guard. You continue and find Dalles, the man behind it all and one of the bosses of the original game. The other knights join, but they are turned to stone. So you have to help them to get the medallion to enter the next boss battle. You do that and continue and faces off against Dalles again, but this time he trapped Yunica and as it looks grim Roy appears and releases her, but not without getting mortally wounded. And he pretty much confesses that he loves her without saying. Yunica kills her fathers murderer and ends up at the summit of the tower where she faces off with Dalles again, together with all from the search party that still lives. You defeat Dalles and the goddess restores the black pearl... that somehow caused this. I think I recall that from the first game with both the cleria ore and the black pearl summoning demons. But know the goddess goes to sleep in the ground and the search party returns to Ys, but Yunica Hugo and two more stays behind to set up that those people descendants where on the ground at the start of the first game. 

It was a fun short game, only took 20 hours to get to the end and a high enough level to beat Dalles. I also grabbed all power-ups and most upgrades (think I only left the last upgrade since it needed 500 000 SP). The game is kinda fun in that you can see the call-backs to the first game. Not only is most artefacts in both games, but the tower itself is the same, but since the much better graphical power it isn't 1 on 1, but rather close approximations. Most obvious is the mirror hall at the end. Originally from 2006 and released for computers. Gonna run through with Hugo next to see the differences.