Donkey Kong Country Returns HD (Switch)

 

And the monkey business returns.

Well, I still haven't gotten Banaza and it's been a week now. At least I had time to play through Donkey Kong Coutry Returns for the first time. I got it for the Wii, 3DS and Switch, but this is the first time I finish it. I think I played through the first two worlds on the Wii, but got stuck on the boss and then gave up. It wasn't that hard when I played it now, but that could be the Modern Mode cause I was ready to give up at some times.

Story is that one day the DK Island volcano explodes and unleashes the Tiki Tribe that begins hypnotize the animals and stealing Donkey's banans. Together with Diddy they set out to get them back and beat up the Tiki's. 8 worlds later you defeat the big boss of the Tiki and everything's great again, except it reveals the Golden Temple, yet another stage. I can't take it anymore and I really hope the new game comes tomorrow. 

I might sound irritated, but I spent 10 minutes on the final hit on the boss and I think levels like the barreljets and rickety rides just is infuriating. I used up something like 30-40 lives on two stages each trying to get through. Glad I got enough Banana coins to just buy more extra lives without problems. It was a struggle for me, and I can't see myself 100 % cause some of the feats to get some of the collectibles are beyond my abilities. I had a hard enough time getting how Rambi and the barreljets worked so I probably had more problem than necessary. Lucky I got the instruction manual from the Wii-version. Remember when games had physical manuals in the box? I do miss those.

Overall I can see the charm of it if you like 2D plattformers, which I do to a degree, but maybe not in 30 degrees Celsius on the first week back at my job after vacation. And a non-functioning postal service for the game I'm actually interested in playing. I find it interesting though that the game had really long load times, especially since I played it on Switch 2 since I thought the console would cut some of these, but maybe there needs to be an update for it first. Another thing I'be been thinking about it that compared to say Super Mario, Donkey Kong very often disrupts the flow in a level. Super Mario feels really great when you just enter the flow and can rush past stage after stage since it just clicks. Maybe I don't know the levels enough or the mechanics, but I just doesn't get that feeling over the game, since when it seems I'm on my way breaking the code, the game changes up and slows down the gameplay, either with the rickety rides or barreljets or something like the barrels that spin... or the bonus stages that constantly take you away from the main game. 

Another Code: Journey Into Lost Memories (Another Code Recollection) (Switch)

 

The original cover

The Sequel came to the wii in 2009 and begins 2 years after the original game and Ashley is visiting her father on a camping trip near his workplace but as soon as she gets off the buss, Richard Robins doesn't show up and a boy steals her bag. And from there it spirals away with mysterious secret agents, holograms, another ghost and a damn another... Another Machine. People gets shoot at, mass hypnosis, a company bankrupted by an evil CEO and so on. This game's story gets bonkers and it actually have less ghosts than the original. 

The boy is Matthew that have run away from his uncle to look for clues about his dad that disappeared 5 years ago. He was the CEO of a resort company that tried to develop the area around the lake that they are staying at, but got blamed for polluting the lake. Turns out that that the company Richard works for had created an Another machine that stored memories in liquid form that was polluting the lake, but the CEO covered it up by infusing memories into the townspeople so that they turned on the resort company. And Matthew was constantly... or rather from the background a couple of times, followed by a ghost who turns out to be his younger sister that he failed to save as she fell from the clock tower near the lake. That scene broke me as he learns the truth and breaks down, and then his ghost sister shows up and forgive him and that started the tears leaking and then a bright light and there mother that died in sickness shortly after the incident appears and takes the girl away and the floodgates are open. God Dammit!

That's the emotional highpoint of the game, the following part is running up and down a lab in water opening doors and such... sounds like the first Resident Evil Revelation game. It's bonkers since one of the more mysterious people in the game Ryan is revealed to be pretty much a manifestation of a boy that died 15 years ago as he was tested on by his father, the CEO to try to take him out of the PTSD that happened when his mother saved him from a car accident, but she died from that and caused Ryan to shut himself out of the world. So it's really sad, but there is a bit of botched moments. For example that father CEO, really isn't described as caring so much for his son, I gather that's how that is, but he is described by the computer Ryan that he only cared for the machine. Maybe it's hinting on the computer not getting the emotional investment the father put into it to save his son, but there is no break down scene, and the one Ryan tries to resurrect is Ashley's mother by overwriting Ashley's memories and not his father.  There's a disconnect there.

9 hours to play through so it's a bit bigger, but it's a lot more drama since there is more people around and I don't jive with that. Probably due to not connecting as well as with Matthew's emotional story. There's some stories they could have milked more, like Charlotte and her missing daughter that ran away with the photographer... I don't think we had a picture of them until the end? Come on, make me cry more damn it, make me feel something! Prove that I'm human... *ahem* Where was I? Oh yeah, overall a good collection, 16 hours total for both games. Second game was a bit harder on finding the origami cranes so I missed two of them. You really need both of them since if you haven't played them the second game gets a bit strange with the one ghost. I thought it was supposed to be more ghosts in the game, but instead we got holograms pretty much.

Read through the plot of the original version, and that seems to change dramatically, since there Ryan seems to be a real person and all is just an inheritance dispute... again. Yeah, the hologram story seems better now. Also, someone mentioned that Matthews ending wasn't part of the original game, but supposed to be a spin-off game with him as a main character, but since the company behind the game went bankrupt after this it wasn't meant to be so they pushed it in here. And it worked for me!

Metroid Prime (Wii)

Deja Vu

I've just been to this place before

Higher on the street and I know it's my time to go

Well, I couldn't stop playing Metroid Prime so after getting a serious beating from Meta-Ridley in hard mode I went back to my Wii version that I hadn't finished before and played through it from start to finish. Kinda easy when you learned every trick there is after three playthroughs before it. A bit harder to get used to the control though. And I don't know about it. Some say it's the best way to play, but too often for my liking I felt the controls not doing what I wanted to do. The camera controls especially. And then we haven't talked about the range of the sensors. I had to move the sensor bar in order to get a comfortable playing seating and I still wound up putting my legs in way of the sensors moving around. 

Still, I got it around 8 hours and that included scanning everything to get the 100 % logs. So practice makes perfect. Forgot to mention the logs last time as well. Quite groundbreaking for the series cause it gave the series some much needed world building. You have the pirate logs from the space pirates that tells heir scientific studies on the planet and their weapon development to try to take over the galaxy as well as stop Samus Aran aka the Hunter. Those are the most interesting when they begin to panic about Samus appearing on the planet and hunting them. Then is the chozo that tells of their settling of Tallon IV and the disaster with the meteor strike that poisoned the planet and let Metroid Prime almost loose on them. There is also small bits here and there that isn't saved for easy reading, but it works, as well as leaving hints here and there.

A difference with other versions is also the fact that you get credits for different things, like beating a boss or finding an artefact. You then use them buying concept art, music or special things, like the Fusion suit. Won't use it since I feel the remastered edges out with it's ease of pick up and play as well as saving in on using AA-batteries. That and I already got all credits for that game. Funny how they use different triggers for getting the soundtracks and galleries. Sadly, can't get everything since they obviously had to incorporate a system of friend vouchers to get some of them, and since you can't log onto the internet from the wii system when they closed that down it's locked away for ever, unless they put them in the rereleases. 

I went back and finished off the final stretch of the Switch remaster on hard mode. Meta-Ridley being the worst one where patience is more important as well as a trained trigger finger. I hope they don't put the last things behind finishing the hard mode on the rerelease of Prime 2 that surely be coming. I couldn't beat normal on the Gamecube, so will be interesting how far I can get on the Wii version. 

Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles

Resident Evil 3.5

So me and my sister sat down and played her Resident Evil game and used her double wii zappers for best effect. It's just a rail-shooter game so all you have to do is line up and fire. Rather simple. The only bad thing about it is that you are encouraged to shoot at anything to find hidden emblems and gold by destroying the environment meaning that you constantly hear the gun sound. In instances where you can feel the horror atmosphere it's rather jarring to hear gunshots all the time. Not speaking of the inconsistency from the original games where you had limited ammo. And when the story bits along you can't hear them and instead make the best out of it by reading the text instead. So it's not recommended for its suspenseful story since the gameplay pushes you out of it. Doesn't help that there is no way to separate voices from the SFX in the sound option which could have alleviated some of the problem.

The story then is that you play as Leon two years before Resident Evil 4 as you and Jack Krausser is in an unknown South American jungle looking for a drug kingpin that have some connections to Umbrella. They find a girl that seems to control the B.O.W. and follow her into the jungle while Leon tells the story of his first day in Raccoon city where he met Claire Redfield (Resident Evil 2) and her continues adventure looking for her brother Chris (Resident Evil Code: Veronica). In the end Leon reach the drug lord and fights of the enemies and learn that the girl is the kingpins daughter that have been infected with the Veronica virus to stave of some other disease and it ends with Krausser hurting his arm and pushing him through his shift to the bad guys in Resident Evil 4.

Overall it's a good distraction when playing with two players as you can help each other and at the same time look for hidden treasures. A single player would have a tougher time I believe. Mindless fun for the most part. Makes me hope Capcom releases all the HD releases on the Switch. Can't wait for Revelations 1 and 2.

Resident Evil 4

The first Resident Evil game I've ever played

I noticed in the last post I never wrote anything about this game so I decided to amend that and I finished it a couple of times with only hard difficulty setting left... and I will probably not finish that since I had a hard time on Normal, of course I used the special costume that made Ashley invincible making the more frustrating parts a little bit easier. The story is that Leon Kennedy has just been assigned as the US presidents body guard, but his daughter have been kidnapped and your first assignment is to get to Spain and get her back. A nice stroll through the Spanish countryside, how quaint.

Oh, the welcome committee, you didn't have to.

As per usual with Resident Evil all villagers have been infected, not with a virus, but with a parasite. A local chief, noble and a cultist leader are using it to take over the world as they want to infect Ashley that can infect the President and then they can take control of the US and of course THE WORLD! Obviously, its up to you to stop them. The plot is rather easy, but they made it atmospherical as you play through the first time and begins to figure out what's happening. There is like 4 different locations. The village, the castle, the island and a medical facility. Really, the village and castle are the best parts although the enemies are getting a bit frustrated in the castle area with instant kill and crossbows. Of course those are all over the island and facility. Plus it just feels more like a shooter at that point... or more like a sniper shooter. 

The easy mode for all other modes... or the mode to play the whole game

I got the Wii version just before Halloween back in... 2009? 2010? I can't remember, but I recall I had to restart after playing through the first part since I completely bungled the resources and finding the treasures to sell and upgrade my weapons. So with a walkthrough on the computer I played it through on Easy. I also figured I missed certain areas that was missing so to get the full experience I had to play it at least on Normal, but thank god for the mobster costume that gives Ashley a suit of armour that makes her invincible to attacks and to heavy to be carried away. Stress eliminated for several encounters in the castle as you could take your time with the sniper, which incidentally is probably the best weapon as its the most powerful and if you line the shoots up save a ton of ammo from other weapons. Of course the semi-automatic sniper is the way to go as you don't have to loose the sight each and every bullet reload.

I hate the later game monster

Replaying the game is a very satisfying procedure unfortunately it is crippled with a bit of irritating game design. First, if you want to change difficulty, start a new save. No keeping the old weapons on other difficulties and they probably saw that as a fault as well, since both 5 and Revelations makes it able to change difficulty. Another problem though is that you can't delete saves. I got it that you could if you deleted the save thing on the console, but the problem is all unlockables disappears as well. So I made another mistake and that was saving every singel act change and such meaning I now have several saves, when I at most need 3, one for each difficulty. So if I want to change that I have to replay the game 3 times.... I hate that.

Resident Evil 0

 

So after 5 I got the craving for some classic Resident Evil to get the full story. So I decided for the prequel. Got this for the Wii together with the Remake of the first game some years ago as well. Haven't touched this before. And it was an interesting experience. Maybe the intro turned me of because the intro music isn't horror, well except for my ears. So this takes place just before the original game and you play as B.R.A.V.O. teams medic Rebecca Chambers as she search and finds the fugitive Billy Coen and both need to team up to survive this nightmare. You start on a train, then a mansion and lastly a factory. Really, this game has atmosphere that really creeps me out. It might be together with the music and the sense I'm very vulnerable compared to the other Resident Evil games... or that might be the controls that makes the best course of action is standing still and shoot at any monster, no dodging here. I think I understand the talk about these so called tank-controls, a bit frustrating going back and forth trying to get in place to get ammo or whatever. Really, I'm so spoiled by the new games that just walking past important clues trigger a warning to press A or some sort... here I have to run around and press A all the time in order to stumble upon an important clue. The puzzles aren't that hard, I just needed to run around the areas two or three times before I get the right item on the right place. Really, the biggest problem is that my English isn't 100 %. Was some sort of rod for a "vise" (if I remember correctly) and I had no clue what it was. Worse was that I run around in the appointed room and just accidentally stumbled upon the thing I needed.

The story then is kinda hard for the main characters to figure out since important information is only given the player and someone that has played the original game. For example, the main bad guy is Dr James Marcus who was the head researcher for Umbrella on the original virus (which I learnt in Resident Evil 5) and supposedly killed by Albert Wesker and Birkin (the original bad guy and the sequels bad guy), but revived by a queen leech he crossed with the virus? Anyway, Birkin and Wesker tries to cover their tracks and stop Dr Marcus who releases the T-virus in the Raccon forrest which leads to the original game. Now, I don't get how the virus can give him control of looking old or young... or how it's supposed to work overall. Is it some sort of performance enhancing drug with healing abilities... or is it to create zombies? Cause all the games I've played the zombification seems to be the real goal of the research, proven by that they only talk about the B.O.W. as the goal and that none of the research goes into take that away. And this might be for missing the original three games that it doesn't make sense... or maybe it has to do with only some specific people can withstand the zombification, like Wesker and/or Jill Valentine (according to Resident Evil 5). Need to play the remake and Resident Evil 6 (and maybe hope for HD remakes for 2 and 3 on Wii U, although it seems unlikely).

Xenoblade Chronicles

 

The other must have JRPG for the Wii and compared to the Last Story's 30-40 hours game this one clocked in on 120 hours when finished. Really, I dreaded the playtime when I checked on it before starting cause how can a story keep you interested for so long, playing roughly 10 per day? Somehow it did. It start out with a prologue at the last line of defence for the humans... I mean homs as the Mechonis is advancing. The only one standing in their way is Dunban, the warrior who wields the Monado. In a final attempt he and his friends Dickson and Mumkhar push the Mechonis back so the other homs can retreat, sadly Mumkhar betrays them and gets himself killed. As a final act Dunban unleashes the Monados full power ending the war, but leaves himself crippled. One year later and we are introduced to Shulk, scientist studying the Monado and Reyn and Fiora in their home Colony 9. Fiora is the obvious love interest and Dunbans younger sister who nurse him back from the burns he received by the Monado. Well, we can't have a story without conflict so the Mechonis appears which forces Shulk to wield the Monado and this grants him the power to see the future, but at the same time a new type of Mechonis appears, those with faces. They slaughter and captures several homs, one being Fiora and this starts the quest for revenge. Later on we end up with a sniper/healer chick Sharla, magician High Entian (angelic elfs) Melia, Nopon heropon Ricki and Dunban.

And now for the spoilers, of course Fiora survives, as one of the faced mechon, but with the coinciouse of the Mechonis (the titan home world of all mechanical life, compared to the Bionis biological life) as she tries to stop the machina leader for destroying the Bionis. The twist is that he seek revenge for what the Bionis did all those millennia ago and prevent further conflict as the concioise of the Bionis, Zanza, will destroy all life to regain his form. Pretty standard stuff. Gods fighting  and it's not the obvious enemy that are the long term threat. The rather fresh twist was the walkway toward the final boss and we are in space near Saturn, then Jupiter, then Mars and finally near our moon. Beat the boss and the twist is revealed, the world is a post-apocalyptic universe where a human experiment by the scientist taking the form as gods, eradicating our world. Not new, but rather fresh.

Other than that this game is a huge and epic sci-fi story that aren't like any other JRPG. You can level up by killing anything you see, but that isn't recommended. Rather go out and explore as every new location grants you exp or do loads of quest, it even pays enough so I never had trouble with money, accumulating 6-7 million without problem. It actually felt more like a DnD session than just kill to level up. The bad things on the other hand is the micromanagement of equipment and collectibles and the like. First of you are limited to how many different things you can take with you meaning I have to sell or throw away certain thing that I might need in quests or to rebuild Colony 6 with, but I threw that away 10 hours ago since I didn't know I needed it. They try to fix this by giving you vision of the future of certain things and that is a small nudge in the right direction, but somehow when I threw an ingredient I have 10 of, as soon the quest is given I can't even find 1 after 2 hours searching. Cheating computer bastard. Also switching equipment is a hazzle since you can on certain armors equip crystals to enhance different thing, but if you want to keep those crystals you must equip them one by one again. Did I mention you must do this for 7 characters? Apparently they are doing a spiritual successor for the Wii U so I hope they fix that.

Update 2014-08-30: Nintendo also announced a port for the New 3DS so hopefully they fixed that. I'm also interested in seeing the game in 3D since I will probably look amazing. Hopefully I have a job so I can afford it by that time.

The Last Story

 

After playing Final Fantasy X (with a quick detour into Tales of Symphonia) I got this craving for another Hironobu Sakaguchi game (the main creator of Final Fantasy up until X or XII) and thankfully I picked this game up when I revisited Karlstad earlier this spring and together with the compositions of Nobuo Uematsu (the main composer of the Final Fantasy-series) I knew it would at least be enjoyable. So I started playing expecting a turn-based JRPG (since that's what I know them for)... boy was I surprised. It's more akin to an Action-RPG, but with strategy elements as you control your main character directly and then you issues certain commands to the rest of the squad if you need something special done, otherwise they just do what they feel like, which is slaughtering enemies so it works pretty well, although why the healer magician can't put it in to attack when a green barrier is up and then revert back to healing without me giving order is kinda annoying. Since it's clearly impossible not to, let's compare it to Final Fantasy XIII (since even the name alludes toward it, I mean Final Fantasy - The Last Story, they really asked for it) which also focused on a lot more auto-battle, changing up tactics in the middle of the battle. The difference being that Final Fantasy got boring and repetitive due to button pushing while the Last Story you hardly need input more than running into the enemy (like Ys book 1 & 2). Why doesn't it affect me the same? FF XIII is a 60+ game where the battle interrupt my progression while TLS is just under 30 hours (including most side-quest) and there is no random-battles so the story moves along with character building banter during the fights. More enjoyable for someone like me that focus more on story.

So about the story, it's enjoyable as it's cliched. Which I enjoy. This group of mercenaries work for the Count of an island. One mission takes them into some kind of ruins where one of them (Zael... is it alluding to Zeal, the Chrono Trigger flying kingdom? At least in the translation), when they are beset by the undead receives the power of the Outsider to protect those he cares for. Back in the city everyone prepares for the marriage between the Counts niece (who is the real heir to the throne, but her uncle stepped in as she was to young when the old count died... lets say of mysterious circumstances) and Lord Jirall, a relative to the Emperor. So our hero Zael happens to walk the city when he stumbles upon someone hiding in a wagon while two guards search for a girl... as they mention roughly the same age as Zael... gee I wonder if it's the niece and we have the set up of a love story. Of course it is. Anyway, the rest of the story is Zael and the mercenary climbing the social ladder in order to become knights, but as the veil falls on the stories they've seen and heard of they begin to question the goal. At the same time a war between the humans and their century old enemy the Gurack blossoms once again. You have magic cannons, moving island, floating fortresses and meteors bringing doom to the world as the land itself is dying. Really, most things are pretty standard for Sakaguchi stories.

Music is magical at times, the main theme being really beautiful while certain boss themes is really pumping it up. Graphically on the other hand... it shows it was made for the Wii. Not ugly, but the FMV's are nothing more than areal views of the island, I think maybe one FMV in the beginning introducing the mercenaries and that's it. You also get the expressions of the character, but comparably to FF X, I really think FF X will still look good in 10 more years. Doesn't help that the colors are more in the shades of grey area. Also, it lags if too many people are on screen and twice I had the city disappear into the blue sky before it loaded correctly. Or it could be the Wii U's emulation not working correctly, I don't know. No harm done as the game didn't crash at least. Although twice I got stuck in a corner as my comrades blocked the way out and wouldn't move an inch to let me through, the towns people I can just shove aside, but not my friends it seems. So I had to hug the wall and slide past them.

Really sad thing is that it is unlikely a The Last Story 2 would be produced, especially when you haven't seen anything of this world... you just sat at that island, of course it moved around in the end, but all you saw altogether was the main island and three others. You have at least two continents to explore, the political intrigues of the empire itself, an uneasy peace between the Gurack and humans  and more knights to lecture on the true merits of a knight. On the Wii U preferably... or Mistwalker can just port their other games to that console so I don't have to buy an Xbox if I want Ian Gillan to sing while I beat up bosses.

Ys Book 1 & 2

Another game I got my hand on was Ys book 1 & 2 for the TurboGrafx-16, an action RPG were the basic form of attack is... running into enemies. An odd form of attack I believe was used in earlier games since there wasn't enough graphic power to show the sword attack or so. With a bit of imagination your character, Adol, either fences around the enemy to deliver the deadly strike with his blade or he rams the enemy head on caring nothing for his well-being to save... whoever needs saving. The story is fairly simple, you arrive at this new continent were there once stood a powerful civilization named Ys (pronounced ease or something like that) were dark forces gathers so you must stop this darkness and find the clues for what happened. Fairly standard atlantian story-telling, sadly the game suffers a bit for being two games in one. This separates places and characters making it feel very restricted in terms of exploring as well as having problem creating characters that are memorable past their special scene. It still worked as a story, just feeling disjointed after clearing the first half.

Graphically and musically the game have very nice anime cut-scenes and sprites as well as a decent orchestrated score as well as voice acting. Sad part is that in some places the voices hard to hear and there is no text so you must listen really hard to know who spoke and whatever happened to the plot. All in all a decent game that has an interesting mythos, sadly the other parts wasn't released on the Virtual Console so hopefully they get released this time around, although with the different releases and such I have a hard time seeing it. The fun thing is that with this game and Castlevania: Rondo of Blood I really start to see the TG-16 in a very good light, although that could just be I'm only touching the best of the consoles library.

Metal Slug Comeback

Oh, a month since the latest update? And a new year at that? Golly, that went fast. At the moment my home is a bit of a renovation site since we found a water leak that pumped water below the kitchen floor... for maybe two years. So a good start for the new year isn't? What happy things should we talk about then?

Before Christmas I went on a Virtual Console spree and got games I had heard of, but never seen or played. Let us begin discussing the METAL SLUG-series, especially the first four games and the remake of MS 2. HOLY F***ING GOD!!! What an awesome series! You take control of one out of two or four characters as you mow down rebels threatening the world peace, sometimes even jumping in tanks, planes, helicopters, submarines or other machines to stop the evil General (who I forgotten the name of). The graphics are amazing for sprites and the music makes the blood pump. These games are the 80's and 90's action movies distilled to 1-2 hour gameplay. At certain points you can get turned to a big blob, a zombie or a mummy that can be really annoying, especially as you loose your machine gun or rocket launcher while in that form and if you don't find medicine quick enough you will probably die before the effect wears of, almost forgot, ONE HIT KILLS.

One of the few games I felt that the more I played, the better I got, even going so far surviving the first stages without using a continue or the like... compared to the first time when I used up all credits to reach the first boss and then die. Personally MS 2 (the original) is my favorite and that is due to the slowdowns which everyone else hates and would prefer the remake MS X. Best scene is the final stage when you jump across ice cold water, jump over sandbags with enemy soldiers covering behind them while you fire machine gun and then the twirling bridge appears. The slow downs hit with all enemies, projectiles and rockets on screen, but it feel like a slow motion action scene. It's AWESOME! And the music rocks.

Explosions for everyone and a toast to everyone and a wish that 2014 will be a good year to look back to!

Phantasy Star

 

Played the classic RPG Phantasy Star for some time now, released in the amazing year of 1987 it was one of the earliest JRPG's to enter the western world. Funny enough it was one of the latest of the big ones, like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. And it shows in the graphic department. Amazing sprites, creatures move and the same for the rolling oceans. That is the good stuff, the bad is more in the story-telling. More or less the end. The beginning is fine and they do tell you what to do in most cases. The only exception being how to get a road-pass so that you can enter the spaceport in order to get a new ally that has a potion that can revive another ally that has been turned into stone. This particular road-pass must be bought in a second-hand shop and the item is referred to as secrets. But does the salesmen want to sell it? No, he wont, he throws you out instead. You must ask him three times which is a bit random. The only way I found out was running out of ideas and do everything again, that's when I noticed he said something else so I visited him again and what do you know, I got the road-pass. The other problem is the end. You defeat the evil dictator and return to the governor that helped you, but instead of praise you fall down a pit and walk trough a dungeon until the end where you meet Dark Falz (or Dark Force if you prefer that). Who is he? I don't know. He doesn't say anything, he just attacks. Afterwards the governor mentions that he was some cosmic horror that threatened to possess him and destroy the solar system. No one else mentions this apparently dark demon. The only hint I could guess pointing toward this is that you were attacked in your dream when you stayed at the governors palace at the beginning of the game.

Aside from that the gameplay mechanics makes the game a bit... boring. You can't decide which enemy to attack which makes it a bit harder when your party leaves one enemy with 1 hp to deal with the others having 100 and still get pummeled by the 1 hp guy. Meaning there is no strategy other than either randomly attack, randomly cast a magic spell or flee (talking to the monster I never succeeded in). Overall an interesting game that at least should be experienced once, if you play it through depends if these games are of your liking and taste. It is a bit dated, but it holds up a bit better than it's rivals of the era... or that might be due to it being more modern than the others.

Skyward Sword

By the title people can probably guess what I've been up to during the last week. Yes, I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. And I completed it 100 % in one week. Compared that to the me in 2003 that had taken five years with a guide to finish Ocarina of Time. So now I can say once again that I finished every Zelda game published by Nintendo. And what do I think about it? It was OK, the story was interesting in its way to try having a new archenemy than Ganon and the series as a whole seems to go that way (this is gonna contain spoilers for those who haven't finished the game just so that anyone stumbling upon this knows). What I mean is that this games end boss is a demon lord, Spirit Tracks had the end bosses as a Demon Train and a Demon King, you have lovecraftian horrors like Bellum and Vaati so the series seems to go with ancient demon horrors as the main enemies of the series where Ganon is, as explained in the end of Skyward Sword, the eternal curse put upon the, by the Goddesses appointed, Hero and Princess. So instead of the manifestation of his inner-self, Ganondorf must have somewhere before Ocarina of Time made a pact with the series actual devil to gain his power and his Ganon form being the price for it (giving up his humanity and so on) which looks a lot like the actual devil himself.

Other aspects of the game is the music, not bad, I really liked the song when you followed the path to the Goddess Sword, but I miss familiar tracks from the older games. I only recognized one and that is the Zelda-theme. The graphics are nice and atmospheric and I have nothing against the cel-shaded look, it actually make it look lively (the more realistic look from Twilight Princes mostly went in colors of brown, red and grey which is not the prettiest colors to look at). Then again it's hard to tell due to the condition of my TV which I still haven't fixed so the colorful graphics make it at least easy to see what's going on. Then we have the controls, motion based making you theoretically swing with the sword yourself pulling you into the combat... in theory. I don't know, but sometimes I've had a hard time making a forward thrust with the sword (often crops up during a certain boss-battle against a Scorpion) and sometimes it feels like the most reoccurring boss is cheating since he blocked my every move (which he is supposed to do, but it doesn't feel like I could create a pattern on how to strike so it usually ends with me swinging all I got until he decides to use a sword instead). Mind you, they aren't horrible or hard to understand, there is just some flaws.

An enjoyable experience overall during the 50 hours it took me to finish the game and then they top it of with a hard mode as well (or "Hero's Mode" as they call it), don't know if I'm gonna finish that, but I now regret that I didn't make a double save post before the final battle so that I could have some proof of my 100 % cause I feel that the hard mode probably will kill me a lot more than the normal one (I think I died twice and one time was during the boss-rush game to get the best shield which was really good to have in the final battle). The biggest complaint though is that it feels short, the world itself feels small in comparison to the open plains of Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess or the vast ocean of Wind Waker. Now it's just an open sky with small rocks thrown around and three larger ground areas to explore, I miss the feeling of the epic scale the 3D Zelda games just have when you leave the forest area for the first time and can see the mountains in the north with the Castle just below standing as a monument over civilization in a world plagued by evil and the wild. You felt small in the world, in awe of nature, in this game it just feels... empty in the sky while the ground areas feel cramped together. All in all there is 6-7 temples that for a console Zelda is pretty standard so it shouldn't feel smaller. Maybe it has to do with me getting older and actually multitasking the game to find all secrets, heart pieces and so on compared to me as a child spending time just walking around avoiding the temples and dungeons cause I was scared. Talk about personal character development. Now it's just waiting another five years for the next home console release of the series to see where they are going with this with some handheld games in-between.