Toukiden Demo Impressions

Toukiden is pretty much Monster Hunter.

That's the brunt of it, really.  It's not surprising - all the media beforehand suggested as much - but it also manages to not be disappointing through some magic of tweaking the basics of the Monster Hunter gameplay mechanics.  Still, the skeleton, most of the muscle and indeed, some flesh that resembles Monster Hunter is present, even though it's got a convincing costume of something else on top of it.

That costume is good, however - Toukiden's aesthetic is fairly interesting despite carrying a lot of the browns one would expect from a Demon War-torn country, as that simply makes the more striking bits shine all the more.  The cutscenes are standard KOEI fare as well, which means they're incredibly nice to watch and easy to enjoy with how deceptively good they look.  And really, just the game itself looks pretty good from the character designs and outfits, to the weapon designs and the Oni themselves.  Even the canned faces and such that you get through Create-a-Warrior (which is your only way to have a character, rather than my initial thought of having a cast of characters to select from like most Warriors games) are fairly good-looking, though I use that from an aesthetic point of view, and not one from personal tastes.  More to do with the model, the look than my appreciation of them.

I suppose I should clarify that I'm no Monster Hunter expert - far from it - as my only real experience was playing the demo for one of the PSP games for three non-consecutive hours and not 'getting it', and then watching a friend stream hours of Monster Hunter 3 footage while also similarly not understanding it.  So I appreciate that there might be a difference in 'feel' and an overall difference in the experience because of that.  However, I also know what I see, and what I see in Toukiden is something that is very, very close to the same -thing- that Monster Hunter is.  The maps are the same segmented affairs in which there are monsters (and I assume they can eventually move between them).  Missions are handed out in the same way, with even the same weights of Important -> Not Important (but you need to do some to unlock the next) -> Important -> Chapter Close.  There's still a little town that you can meet up with others in, you can still gamble with getting buffs before missions, you can still upgrade and create weapons and armor and while that all seems generic, it all has the same approach to it that the comparisons between both games are inevitable.

The weapons are different, at least in most cases, and they offer a suitable amount of variety for the combat to keep you switching up at the very start until one just clicks.  I myself really really wanted to enjoy the Gauntlets as I love punching people, but they're the strongest base weapons in the game which means they have to have a disadvantage.  Of course, that disadvantage (quite bogglingly so, really) is that they're the slowest weapons in the game as well.  So then I went to the other extreme with the Twin Knives which I believe (though I'm not sure) are the fastest, but weakest base weapons of the group, and I'm enjoying that much more.  I find that I quite like really fast combat as opposed to slow, but strong.  I imagine maybe the Katana and the Sickle/Chain will offer that as well, but I haven't really tried them out.  There's a lot of ground to cover in the demo yet, which is a good thing as it really lets you sink your teeth into what the game will have to offer.

All in all, the game seems competent enough, perhaps even -good-, though that remains to be seen as I am giving this my maximum amount of skepticism because KOEI and Monster Hunter are both involved.  I've yet to see whether or not the 'purification' mechanic is a game-changer - essentially holding R next to a fallen foe or severed boss part to rid it from the world and sometimes give you an item - but I can't really imagine it being so which is really why I didn't bring it up in any big capacity.  I pre-ordered it, as I'm wont to do with just about everything that has the KOEI name on it, and I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it, but how much is what remains to be seen.  I'm hoping for "a lot" personally.

why would you fight with giant weights on your hands, that just seems silly

In Which I'm Mostly Positive About the XBone For Once

Do I really have to preface this post with a reiteration of my past opinions on the XBone?  No?  Okay.  Because I'm not going to for now.  What I am going to do is direct you to the above video of what is apparently a real XBone running the real dashboard in real-time.  And it is rather delightful, I should say.  While I applauded the use of the PS4's UI on-stage some time back for its simplicity while still showing off the nuances, there's something to be said still for a nice sit-down, "Here is how everything works" presentation when it's handled well, and this was nice and smooth with only a couple things I can really complain about.  That's..kind of the point, obviously, and it's probably not -completely- indicative of every situation, but it's still promising.

The first thing that needs to be said is, of course, how seamlessly the game goes back into play once you resume it from the Home menu no matter what you were doing previously.  I'm personally used to this already with my Vita since I frequently pull out of a game to access the internet browser or check a Youtube video for some help, but I understand that it is a new concept to some people and am still appreciative that it works as well as I've already seen it work.  Though, I do have to agree with Chance in wondering how the One will handle the whole "People play more than one game" thing, since Yusef could have been playing a different game entirely on his XBone, or even if he was playing Forza, he still has his own instance that obviously can't really be transferred over like that.  For having "everything of yours on any XBox One" (the pinned things, it seems) available, that one thing seems like it's the most -important- thing to have, but I don't think it's actually feasible.  Though, I suppose at least that's when the whole "You can download your (bought and downloaded) games to any XBone and use them so long as it's you actually using it" comes into play, so you still -can- get to your game, and I imagine your saves can automatically go to the cloud, so you'll be able to pull it from there.  It might take a bit, given file sizes and all, but still.

I would like to call special attention to the Skype demo.  Even though I'm not a fan of Skype at all, nor do I really care about its inclusion, I have to admit that I'm really, really impressed with what they showed off.  I never would have even thought that the Kinect could be 'smart' enough to actually zoom in and follow you if you were moving about and doing that was a real smart bit of forethought.  Even though you're mostly going to be using it when you're just sitting down and playing, there's something to be said for if you have it set up in an area where there's a lot of visibility and things you can do.  Maybe you're cleaning house and talking to someone else, or something along those lines, since, hey, it's totally possible with that set-up.  I dare not think of some ways that it will -actually- get used, but the -intended- usage is neat and actually uses the Kinect to its capabilities instead of just making it kind of like a webcam for that as I might have expected.

Really though, I'm not quite sure what to think about with the whole Game DVR.  As someone who watches a lot of Let's Plays of games and the like, I clearly understand the appeal of simply watching a video game being played, and with reactions (though not necessarily facecams) but that's not really what this is for.  So the next usage would seem to be little tip videos, showing you how to do something specific or what have you, but that seems to be a little limited as it's hard to tell just how long you can make these Game DVR videos.  I understand not being able to do 'walkthrough/Let's Play' length videos for multiple reasons up to and including HDD space concerns, copyright concerns with the companies that aren't cool with those types of things and that sort of thing, but if you can only do 30-second clips (I'm sure you can do longer, it's just a matter of how, and how much longer) then...what's the point?  To be fair, this is all shared concerns for the whole Share aspect of the PS4 as well.

I do find it a bit concerning that there was not even a single instance of them attempting to use the whole Two-App thing with the Snap interface, since that's something they've been touting for a while.  The worrying idea is that perhaps it's not working up to snuff and thus wasn't shown off because it would have looked bad, but we are officially past the "Well, it kind of looks bad" phase in terms of end-game functionality.  Because we are -at- the end-game here.  The console will be released in two weeks (if you don't get it early as someone has who is in the process of being banned from Youtube, Twitter and possibly Live as we speak) and the Day One patch is already live - it's where it's going to be at launch.  Maybe that function simply won't be available - I haven't really paid attention to news about it - and in that case it can be patched in later on when it's in a working state, but still.  It's a really weird omission for an otherwise stellar little presentation.  They officially have my attention in some capacity for now.

I made it the whole post, that is kind of amazing

Soul Sacrifice - Demo of the Year of All Years

In what continues to be a rather pleasing trend, I have picked up yet another something and found little to be disappointed with it.  Because of my whole snafu with the sickness thing, I didn't really get to put any time into Soul Sacrifice (given that afterward, I wanted to enjoy something light-hearted, which I did in Dragon Fantasy Book I as mentioned) and, in truth, I sort of forgot about it.  Earlier, I plugged in yet more time into Disgaea 3:  Absence of Detention, plodding Dinah closer and closer to Level 9999 (which it seems I might just have to achieve to grant her victory over a surprisingly difficult foe) and it was only after a random flip through my pages that I caught glimpse of the icon for the demo again.  And after some outside prodding, I decided to throw my hand back into it - after all, the only time I spent playing it was half-asleep and that's hardly fair to the game itself.

So I played the demo some more tonight....and I played and I played and suddenly an hour had gone by.  Let it be known that I was thoroughly entertained by this point, if that much was not already decidedly obvious.  Let it also be known that I had not a single clue of what the hell.

I don't mean that in a bad way, and it's understandable as I'm still a little hazy and sick because of sinus and allergy issues, but I can't effectively quantify what I experienced in the half a dozen missions I slammed through to draw closer and closer to a conclusion of the Ordeal.  It was intense, it was fast, it was chaotic, but most important of all, it was fun.  It was absolutely enjoyable and I have no earthly idea what ideas and executions are responsible for this, but I also don't really care.  To be honest, I feel an itching to jump right back into it now, but I will abstain for several reasons, most of which are completely responsible.  Totally.  Super responsible.  Unfortunately.

The basic gist, I have down and it's actually quite a bit refreshing in that it damn near reminds me of Phantasy Star Online which is a surprise that I never would have expected.  Not in so many ways, but in the particular binding of spells or offerings to the Square, Triangle and Circle buttons, where X is your dash and R switches to a separate palate of the same three buttons with different spells.  That's....where the similarities end, of course, but that momentary familiarity brought me immense pleasure and brought a level of comfort into the experience that I might not have had otherwise.  From there it gets more complicated, depending on the spell you're actually using of course.  Some spells require a charging time, others some aiming and then firing, while still others alter your attack pattern entirely for a duration, such as making a sword out of ice that you can either chain attacks with or hold for a long combo attack.

Perhaps because of the inclusion of "Soul" in the title and the tonal similarities with concept art and such, I think there were a lot of misconceptions about the game early on, thinking it would be a sort of "Souls" game (Demon's or Dark) in that it would be at least semi-open world.  In fact, it could not be more opposite, given that it seems every mission is an arena battle, basically, which is kind of a hard sell I should think.  Though, knowing that it was going to be that type of game also put illusions into some people's heads that it would be Monster Hunter + Grimdark which it decidedly is not either.  It is -far- too fast-paced and, er, responsive to be a Monster Hunter clone, of which I am quite thankful.

Regardless of what its intention was, what Soul Sacrifice ended as was an enjoyable thing to be sure.  The demo is something that I'm going to hop into several times between now and my purchase of the game, and I look for more entertaining fights the caliber of which I saw tonight.  For instance, one battle ended when a Ghoul (basically a large, undead bird) was zooming down towards me and I threw down the Stone Clod offering which brought a giant Stone Fist up through the ground.  The fist uppercut the Ghoul straight out of the air and killed it.  If that is not satisfying, friends, then I cannot tell you what is.

I seriously laughed so much....and then I made a "Flipping the Bird" pun which didn't end well

Ffffff- A Hundred and Fifty -What-?

I stole this picture from you Chance.  Sorry!

So, I was checking around on places last night as I do, and I checked over at The Games of Chance (which I do a lot) and saw this little tidbit of information.  There was much rejoicing and table-flipping all at the same time which is an odd thing, let me tell you, and at the time, I didn't quite know what to do with this information.  I sat down and I thought about it for a bit, weighed it, and I've been doing that on-and-off today between bouts of playing Final Fantasy XIII and...well, yeah, that's pretty much all I did today.  Well, did that was of note, of course, since I also did mundane things as we all do in a normal day.  Anyways, the point is that I've been thinking about this Limited Edition and whether or not I want it, and the answer is yes, of course I want it, but the sub-question is, as chance put it, do I hundred-and-fifty-dollar want it?  That has been what has plaguing me since last night and I fear it will continue to do so until Persona 4 Golden drops and I'm in GameStop again with the option to upgrade my pre-order to the LE.

I mean, I -am- working now, and I can swing it financially, I believe.  Which is....honestly very odd to even consider, but good as well.  But the barebones of it, in pure financials, is that it boils down to the lamp, the obvious draw in this, being a $60-70 item.  If you consider the game itself is $60, as they usually are, and then take the others into consideration - soundtrack at $15-ish if it's physical which it won't be, so $10 for digital, and the steel case is, what, $10 more?  Maybe $15 itself? - and end up with $80-90 before the lamp.  So the rest of that, the entire game still between REVENGEANCE and the LE pricetag is specifically towards an admittedly really fucking cool lamp that, to be honest, I don't know if I'm ever going to plug in.  I mean, I -probably- will, but I don't know.  Depending on the quality, I might decide just to keep it in its box or whatever, always telling myself that I'll display it at a later date even though you and I both know I'm never going to get around to displaying it.  So the -real- question is whether or not I will ever regret getting it, and I just....don't know if I would.  I've never actually used the Messenger Bag I got from the inFamous 2 Hero Edition, but that was still goddamn worth it, so who knows?

Regardless of what I will be getting with my copy of REVENGEANCE, I will, for sure, be getting the game.  My hype for it has remained at a fairly high state, and a constant one at that, because of what has been shown in the way of 'cutting shit' and also 'slicing bitches' which is tantalizing to me.  I long to experience Raiden slicing a potentially robot soldier into 17 bits simply because I can even though it's very obvious that that is overkill of the highest order.  Even now, with an admittedly dour mood that I'm trying to fight back, I am able to do so with the twinge of excitement that burns at just the thought of running and cutting support beams as has been shown in previous footage to bring an entire roof down on some mook heads.  For once, here is a game that gives you a sword which can cut things well and truly beyond the scope of what most swords even dream to be able to cut, much less video game swords which can apparently strike flesh a dozen times without drawing even a drip of blood, or, in some cases, produce it by the buckets without actually rending a foe in twain.

So great has my desire been that I have given serious consideration into purchasing the Zone of the Enders HD Collection simply for the physical demo that the package has to offer.  "But Mogs," you say, "I thought you were excited for Zone of the Enders HD Collection?!"  I was, dear friend.  I was.  I awaited it as a child awaits Christmas morn, and as a parent awaits those happy exclamations and excitement from said children.  But this Christmas morning only saw boxes of socks, it seems, so there is very little to celebrate, much less rejoice in.  To say that the HD Collection is shoddy is apparently generous, though whether that's from the everyman or the ultra-focused hardcore among us that can tell the difference between 60 frames per second and 58 is uncertain.  Regardless, it is not a claim you want to hear, and the issues the collection has are specifically the only issues you would not want associated with a series like Zone of the Enders.  For a game that relies on its pace, its action and its grip on your reflexes, to hear that there are significant Frame drops when the action gets packed is a death knell, plain and simple. 

In these days of patching, it -is- tempting regardless, as one can always hope that complaints are overblown and/or they will be things of the past at some point in the future, but we can never be too sure.  Konami doesn't have a great track record with these Collections, in releasing nor supporting them in the days, weeks and months that follow their journey into the masses.  Being that Kojima Productions wasn't involved with the porting for....whatever reason, it's hard to say if the man himself will step in and right this wrong or at least motivate someone, anyone, to do it in his stead and, really, who's to say it's something that -can- be fixed?  It's a sobering thought, that some classics just have to stay that way, in the past, but for all sorts of reasons, some games are just that, unbending to the constant flexibility needs the future weighs in with.  Still, I feel like loyalty, if nothing else, compels me to grab this Collection sometime, and my hunger for the REVENGEANCE demo within is certainly not helping.  Decisions, decisions...

So I Tried the Demo for Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

Meet the antagonist to the demo of Zero Escape:  Virtue's Last Reward - A door.  A locked door, to be precise, being the thing standing between you and progress into the next room that presumably also offers a locked door to be opened with a lengthy series of searching every inch of scenery and combining the items you come across.  I mean, that is sort of the MO for Escape the Room games which is basically what Zero Escape seems to be which is fantastic.  I rather enjoy them for the ways they encourage you to think, though there is a line between being clever and requiring such a break from logic that it makes me question what the hell is going on.  Luckily enough, Zero Escape offers no such break, as the puzzles are either pretty blatantly easy or approaching rather clever, never really even broaching the line in which I throw my hands up in frustration and consult a FAQ.

Of course, this could be because of the rather large flaw in design that the demo offered in locking you into 'Easy' mode which basically takes 80% of the challenge of the game out of your hands by giving you the answer to a good portion of most of the puzzles themselves.  Not all of them, mind you, but the ones that really could have made or broken the difficulty of the demo, thus not really giving you a good approximation of the game itself which is kind of the entire point -of- a demo.  I really can't see the point of this except trying to 'trick' people into feeling smarter than they might be, thus convincing them that Zero Escape is a game that they could, theoretically, play and understand and such.  I'm really not sure why the deception is 'necessary' however, as I really don't think the things it spoils are -that- far-fetched.  The screenshots I offered are mostly out of context, but they don't really offer knowledge onto anything that couldn't be parsed out yourself.  And probably would've made for a more worthy demo -had- you been able to figure it out for yourself.

However, despite my grumblings, I did enjoy the demo quite a bit and have played it a couple times past my initial attempt which didn't go so hot because I had a headache at the time.  Something that's helpful is that the numbers seem to randomize, so you can't just memorize them and move on through the demo without a thought to what you're actually doing.  You might remember the method, sure, but the execution will be different each time meaning that anyone who finds themselves playing the game multiple times won't get too bored with things.  Seeing as I might be one of these people, this is good news enough for me.  And the demo does have one thing that I find myself reaching towards the skies and praising the gods of all that is good and makes sense in the Memo function which allows you to utilize the touchscreen to leave yourself notes on things that might be important rather than having to rely on actual pen and paper for your notes.  It's a godsend and a wonderful idea that needs to be in like everything of this ilk.  Because it is, as I suggested in my screencap so goddamn useful.

I will note that I have not played 999:  Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors which does present a little bit of an issue here since I -like- Zero Escape, but I severely hate playing a sequel without playing the first.  In fact, as we all know, I hate playing a series over the span of multiple handhelds, but that's somewhat tempered in this case because it is also available on the original console as well (well, same line, that is) which is generally all I ask.  I planned on getting 999 anyways, so it's not a case where I -have- to get it to 'understand' the sequel, and in truth, I'm not even sure if Zero Escape will have much to do with 999 at all, story-wise.  Which I have also said is no excuse but look, just shut up and let me be a hypocrite for this series.  Escape-the-room/point-and-click is practically dead as a genre outside of PC (even there, it's mostly just flash games) and any release in it is generally one to treasure unless it's just balls-out dumb.  Which I am told 999 is certainly not.

Still, not having picked up 999, I'm not quite sure about just what I will do with Zero Escape.  I want to buy it, surely, but I won't play it right away if I bought it right away, and that just feels wasteful.  However, I don't want to be in a similar situation with the game as I am with 999 in that I simply cannot find it in stores, my preferred method of getting games.  Yes, yes, Amazon and all that, and I will get it that way -eventually-, as it seems like the price is stable for now.  I believe a stealth reprint happened at some point and that helped the game stay at the $25 pricepoint for months now, which is always nice.  But my issue is that if I get 999 right now I will similarly probably not be able to play it because, well, I have a lot of gaming to do between my PS3 and Vita, despite people claiming that I should have no trouble in that department.  Because....well, people are stupid.  Clearly.  I've held off buying like four Vita games because I'm saving the money for four -other- Vita games, but noooooo, it -has- no games and I'm clearly saving money for absolutely nothing at all.  Twats.  Anyways, I suggest you grab the demo for yourself to give it a whirl if you're so inclined.  It's not perfect, and I would suggest you only play the Escape portion as the Novel portion is literally just a cutscene, but what you do with it is your business and such.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories Demo, You Say?

So, I have actually been waiting with something resembling morbid curiosity for the last few months as word of Silent Hill:  Book of Memories started to track out there and impressions started popping up, mostly from people who hadn't experienced the game in any fashion beyond looking at things for it.  My interest in it is basically that it is a game for the Vita, as I'm not much of a fan of roguelikes, and I've always experienced Silent Hill on the outside, shall we say.  In layman's terms, I mean that I am a giant chicken baby and have never played a Silent Hill game proper beyond enough time to play Silent Hill 1, get scared by the giant moth thing that very well may have simply been a giant moth at the very start of the game and presumably I shut off my PS2 (since, yeah, BC) and cried in the corner like a small child.  Also I played like half of Origins on PSP and just got bored with it.  So I am only a Silent Hill fan in the sense that most people are football fans - not once have they ever really picked up a football, nor have they really 'experienced' the game, nor the team sensibility, but they have something of a vested interest in it anyway.  (Yes, I just mentioned Silent Hill and Football in the same breath.  That just happened.)

Impressions have been a wide bag between people who are Silent Hill 'purists' shitting all over the game because it is clearly not a Silent Hill game, to people expressing interest because it's certainly not a combination you would -expect- to hear, to people just saying "Huh, I guess that looks pretty good" or similarly, "Huh, that doesn't look very good".  Basically what I'm saying is that there is no real consensus out there yet for how we are all 'meant' to feel about the game as it often happens so I'm free to really just say what I think without wondering if I'm bucking the trend, going with the flow or what have you.  Not that I -care- one way or another about that sort of thing, but it is something that does get brought up every now and again, so it is a thought that crosses my mind every now and then.  It's just a liberating sort of feeling being out there with a game that is still kind of up in the air so far as "it could work" goes since the real proof for this kind of thing is strictly in the playing of it.

I am all at once impressed, intrigued and confused by Silent Hill:  Book of Memories after playing around with the demo for a good half hour, I believe it was.  As a game, it's fairly accomplished - a roguelike dungeon crawler that presents you with a certain artistic direction and at least a semblance of a reason as to why you're actually crawling through said dungeon.  As something to do with Silent Hill, and again I am no means an expert here, it's....not so great.  It's one of those setups where the game is there and it feels like they just sort of attached a name to it instead of trying to establish it as a new IP.  I'm a dude in a place bashing the Hellhounds and Nurses to death with 2x4's and lead pipes, but it's less like Silent Hill 1/2's: Aaaaahhhh what the fuck is happening aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh run away, kill it I dunno haaaaaaalp, and more like Silent Hill Homecoming/Origins':  Alright who's next?  The guy about to leap out from over there?  Okay, gonna smash ya.  It's all the paint with none of the aesthetic, is the point I think I'm trying to get across here, but I suppose that's not necessarily a bad thing.

That it's somewhat loosely attached to Silent Hill doesn't detract from the game itself, and it's kind of an interesting theory behind it from what little bit I've been exposed to with the demo.  At the start of it, we're introduced very.....very slightly to a main character, perhaps -the- main character, who has a book delivered to him on his birthday from Silent Hill which apparently sends up no red flags other than that he doesn't know anybody from Silent Hill.  The Postman just sort of chuckles and states "Oh, I don't know.  People get around these days...." before leaving.  Inside the book, our demo hero discovers that it chronicles his entire life to that point, his memories on every page of the book up to and including the meeting with the post man and the delivery of the book.  Being a stunning paragon of common sense, he decides to write something in this book of his memories because that never goes poorly, and then goes to sleep.  He 'awakes' in the Nightmare that is the Silent Hill dungeon layout of Book of Memories and the game sort of just goes from there.

Something that I believe is a first for the series as a whole is that it features a merchant who is, in fact our friendly post man who has a shop on possibly every floor of the dungeon that just requires a little finding.  The currency is memory remnants which is something that I'm not even going to bother trying to wrap my mind around and for an amount, he will sell you obvious things like weapons to carry, first-aid kits, upgrades to your backpack and the like and you can also bring him things to sell - basically what was mentioned already.  What's a little finnicky for me personally is the fact that the weapons in the game are finite - you can find a few in just about every other room, but that's because they have a durability meter indicated by what color the weapon is - green is good, red means it's going to break.  As such, I'm not quite sure where the compulsion is to buy a weapon from the Postman when it is going to break and money is not something that just everything drops like in your average dungeon-crawler.  Though I'm not about to get upset that I can grab some weapons scattered around the floor and make them into money for little to no reason.

What I -can- say about the game is that I'm pretty much going to keep playing the demo for a time - see if it actually saves progress like I think it does in the books scattered around the floors, or if I have to start anew each time.  Neither would hamper my interest so much as it's only a demo and I want to experience it a few times over before I'm fully equipped to deliver anything resembling a verdict on it.  Still, I think one of the main purposes of a demo is to present a game that you might be interested in playing and Wayforward has certainly crafted something here that I am interested in playing, albeit for free and as a demo.  Whether I will put money down for it is up in the air as, if I do, it will certainly be down the line a bit unless I catch a windfall, and my desire to do so will hinge on repeated playthroughs of the demo to get used to the roguelike thing all over again.  My main beef is the random dungeons since it rarely feels like there's anything 'crafted' to them - it's just interchangeable rooms and hallways randomly pieced together and I'm not really for that.  Still, like I said, I'm planning on playing BoM some more, and that's probably some high praise right there.

Spring Disclaimer Version 2

Now, last year, I had to make a post that basically said that Spring (and technically Summer, but we're just focusing on Spring for now) is my arch-nemesis as the presence of an overabundance of electricity (lightning) generally makes all the other electricity unusable.  Like computers.  Also game consoles (but not handhelds).  Granted, I'd hoped to have had a Laptop by this point to make this all a moot point, but best laid plans and all that.  So really, what was said last year stands for this one as well.  Now would be the time to start getting yourself acquainted with the lovely twitter side bar as, thanks to LiveTweet on the Vita, I have the best access to that as possible, and will be using it to say when it's storming, when I'm sick (because I'm gonna be sick a lot this Spring, I'm sure) and the like.  Just basically when you should expect little to no content.

I figured it was about time to say this as, as you might have noticed, the last couple of days have been kind of taxing on me because I'm getting adjusted to the heat and the sudden shift to it.  Also there was a threat of Tornadoes today which are no good.  Thankfully, everything's fine and the storm pushed me back into Uncharted:  Golden Abyss to get a little further into my Hard playthrough which will in turn lead me to  my Crushing playthrough.  Random side-note about all this, by the by:  Why can't I transfer all my Clues and such to a new game?  C'mon, I've had to deal with the lack of unlockable 'cheats' since the last Uncharted, now I have to find everything over and over again?  Story/path-related things I can see.  The early charcoal rubbings, the things you pick up when you're going the way you're supposed to go, etc.  But there's no reason why I can't carry over my pieces of Turquoise and such.  Angryface.

Anyways, just so I can have something approaching content, I did also want to say that I tried the Shinobido 2 Demo and it was pretty great.  I was a bit surprised by that, actually, since I figured I would be terrible at it.  Granted, it was just tutorial missions and then one singular actual mission (which means the demo was way too short) so it was easy enough and was meant to be as such, I'm sure.  But moreso than that, I'm pretty happy with how it controlled.  It's not amazing, but it's not overly tanky.  The grappling hook makes for some pretty righteous movement, though the lack of a double jump was something that I consistently forgot about which bothers me for several reasons.  Still, the lack of the different animations for kills (at least, I performed three stealth kills in a row that were the exact same thing, not too happy about that) was kind of a downer.  All in all though, a pretty good demo, in the same way that the Katamari demo was a good one; it gave me a tiny, tiny chunk of the main game that was fun enough to make me want the whole thing.

So, yeah.  With any luck, Mother Nature will stop deciding to be such a bitch about stuff and I won't have to worry so much.  Because I worry so much, you guys.  You don't even know.  Still, I guess it's good that I'm concerned since it helps me prevent disasters rather than find myself stuck in them.  Hopefully I'll get stuff sorted out this Spring so it won't be so much of an issue; I'll try to do things to give me material for personal pieces rather than parroting off news all the time since that is almost impossible to rely on.  With a steady stream of content like that, any bumps in the road will barely be noticeable, or at least that's what I think I've learned about this for being at it a year and all.

Some More Demo Impressions

Looks familiar...

Since there are still quite a few demos up on the store, thankfully, I decided to grab a couple more for the games that I've had my eye on.  There's still some that I haven't gotten, and some that just aren't on yet (Like the Gravity Rush one, -come on- I know it's not out til June but I want it now without resorting to exploiting the other region stores and the method for grabbing their content without a full reformat), but with the four demos I have (on top of the two games I own), I have plenty of content already, not to mention when some more of the games I own digitally become fully compatible.  And when I get PSN SEN Funbucks next.  As it's been described on the Penny Arcade forums, it's quite easy to trip over wonderful things in the store and find yourself having bought and played them for hours before realizing just what happened.  Not in a "this is too easy to buy what the hell, I didn't want it" way, but in a "This is too easy to buy stuff, God I want everything give it all to me" way.

Regardless, Touch My Katamari has a demo up as of last Tuesday and I am all sorts of grateful since I just want to play the game, get a feel for it, before I decide if I want it or not.  And...in all honesty, I think I do.  It's got the same lovely charm, the same level of wackiness, that I grew to expect from Nobi Nobi Boy which was spawned from the same mind, as we know.  And while I would rather still have Nobi Nobi Boy for Vita, Touch My Katamari seems like it'll fit the bill quite nicely in the meantime.  I sort of knew what to do with Katamari anyway, but if I hadn't, there was a handy tutorial included as, well, half the entirety of the demo, so I played that, despite knowing the content already.  It did quite a good job of explaining the finer points of things, especially the new mechanics of stretching the katamari itself.  That simple action proves to be quite useful, despite how simple it sounds.

Then the sole -level- of the demo, pictured above, was quite obviously a simple boys bedroom.  The goal was to make a 15 centimeter Katamari within 2 minutes and anything beyond that was just a self-challenge, I suppose.  It is possibly one of the simplest game concepts I've played, but it works and I can't really describe why.  All I know is that there simply isn't enough in this demo, which I guess is the point, because all I want to do is play more, more, more Katamari.  I want to get back in the level, figure out the best ways to get the objective items (playthings, in the room) and just try and get bigger and bigger Katamaris.  I want to see if I can roll up that swanky looking handheld in my Katamari.  I'm quite surprised at the instinctual -hunger- that the game instills because I pretty much just put it down before I started writing and I find my eyes darting towards it again and again, wondering if I can just maybe glean a little more fun out of that single level of the game.

Dat Texture.

Quite contrary to my experience with Katamari, my time with Modnation Racers was too long if anything.  I spent about twenty minutes messing around with the very limited group of items for both Mod and Kart creation and came up with the above, more or less.  (My Mod ended up having shoes.  Big surprise.)  The Kart I ended up with looked like this which is obviously -very- creative, what with the Christmas Lights on the front.  It was not easy to get to this point of completion as every item requires a touchscreen usage and it's just not all that accurate.  I can't tell you how many times I tapped an option only to have nothing happen, requiring several more touches, pushes and flicks before it registered.  I was less than impressed with the whole experience, as I'm sure you realize by now.

Then I got to the actual racing portion of the game and it was pretty much exactly what I'd feared it would be.  A perfect comparison of the game would be the above image.  Sure, it looks pretty good if you're not looking too close, but the second you actually get in it and look, the poor quality of it springs to the forefront.  The racing is simply....passable.  There's nothing that really makes it shine, nothing that makes it feel interesting and nothing that makes you want to come back to it.  There's no real feel of weight, and I can't quite put my finger on how to use the items I snatch from the middle of the road from spheres and definitely not cubic type things with question marks on them.  In fact, if I try to put my finger on the item I get, the one method of usage you might figure on working, it seems to just convert it into boost energy that I didn't know quite how to use for a few minutes.  In the end, it didn't even matter, as I only came in 4th out of 8, since I discovered that you could, in fact, have up to that many racers in a single match, though not without its downsides.

I'd played the demo before and the only matches I'd done had only 3 AI opponents, both of which races I lost pretty dramatically.  Fourth place both times, so I suppose I can just never break that top three when it counts.  I spent about a full lap in this past race in first, but then some pretty wild slowdown, slowdown I'd never experienced prior to this race with 7 AI opponents, happened I was knocked off my game and dropped down to fifth.  I only managed to pass the fourth place guy in the last stretch, to which I then finished to see my Mod slamming his fists against the steering wheel in frustration.  I could clearly sympathize with him. 

So once again, I have two wildly different experiences with mere chunks of games that the Vita has to offer and I've barely scratched the surface.  Whereas my last two demos were both pretty positive, but for far different reasons, I've finally had an experience I'm not going to remember too fondly.  It had to happen eventually and it doesn't really sour anything but my outlook on the whole of the franchise which wasn't too high anyway.  I think I gave it a fair enough shake, however, having played all three incarnations of it in some fashion.  Hopefully LittleBigPlanet Karting, when it comes out, will have learned from Modnation's mistakes and won't suffer the same short-comings.  I suppose it'll all develop on who is making it, however.  Still, there's hope in my mind!

A Few Demo Impressions

Since I can actually download things, giant things in fact, on my shiny new Vita with no worry, I've finally partaken in something I haven't done in a while in downloading demos and playing them.  I'm kind of impressed and afraid of the fact that there's a LiveArea for the actual demo and on each one there seems to be a big spot that says "Buy now!" because that is -way- too easy, and it makes it entirely too tempting for me, despite not having the funds to buy any of them just yet.  And even when I do throw in a $20 or so, it's instantly spent on PSP games.  Regardless, while there isn't a wide selection of demos currently, there are a few choice ones, so I picked up the two that I was most interested in:  Lumines and Rayman Origins.  Obviously, the above will indicate to you that Lumines is up first which I'm kind of mixed about.

Lumines is...certainly an experience, I'll grant it that.  Everyone who has said "You have to play it to get it" in so many words or more is spot on since I really had no way to anticipate what Lumines had to offer me until I started it.  And I don't think I was quite prepared while I was playing it either, so I'm kind of left with a little confusion here as to how to describe it.  I think my problem, which is a personal one, not one with the game, is that is that I'm trying to play it like Tetris which makes you lose really fast.  I'm kind of not grasping the fact here that you have to really think about it a little more, making squares and rectangles rather than lines, as well as trying to think of how to utilize the few tools they throw your way (randomizer blocks and....something else that sort of takes out all the similar touching blocks) really throws a surprising amount of depth.  An amount of depth that I can't just wrap my head around yet.

I'm not sure if there's an actual end-point to the demo, since it seems to be "Voyage Mode" which....I don't know if that ever ends either, aside from if you lose.  I know that I've only experienced two backgrounds and songs, with the above being the latter, accompanied by this song which is pretty fitting of the mood set by the Glitter Disco setting, as I called it, when I sent Kaseius the above screen through the Group Messaging app.  Which is so goddamn handy, you guys.  The level of multi-tasking the Vita allows for absolutely blows my mind again and again, especially so whenever I remember that I can just take a screenshot and use the Vita browser to upload them to Imgur to post here.  I'm going to use the -hell- out of that, I already know it, and that's so friggin' awesome.

Rayman Origins was a much more wholly pleasing experience, on the other hand.  Lumines wasn't -unpleasant- by any means, so much as it was a bit disorienting for someone who doesn't generally play puzzle games, whereas Rayman was a return to form for Sidescrolling Platformers that I just haven't put too much time into lately.  There's LittleBigPlanet, of course, and the Classic Sonic stages of Sonic Generations, but cases could be made for their extra bits to take them out of 'Pure' Platformer status which might not be too out of line.  Rayman Origins, at least by the demo, has none of that; it is a platformer from side to side, top to bottom and it is glorious for that.  Not only that, but it's an absolute visual treat to look at, not only by the fact that, as you can see above, it's just magnificent looking, but because the framerate is locked down friggin' tight.  Or, at least, the demo's is, which is very much appreciated.

There was a genuine moment of hesitation as I loaded up the LiveArea for the demo again and saw that icon for unlocking the full game.  I don't have the money, but I have the game downloaded, more or less, so it's just....-there-.  Any time I wish and can manage it, I can just flick that, and have access to the entirety of it, which I might just be forced to do if it happens to wind up on sale digitally at some point.  While I like Physical media (I even like the little Vita cases, despite the fact that they more or less always only hold a game cart), I might not be able to help myself if the right price comes around.  Which I hate, since I've pointed out that if I like a game, I should be willing to throw full price at it, but I just can't afford to do that right now, both because funding is a little low, but because I just don't have time.  I haven't even started up Uncharted yet.

Anyways, getting back on topic, there's nothing really negative to be said about Rayman Origins' demo which I find a little surprising.  I hadn't given the game a second look during its development when I heard that it went from Download-only title to full retail, but after playing around with it, I'm not too surprised by that anymore.  It's charming and old-school at heart, slowly easing you into the mechanics of it all, while also presenting interesting layout to enjoy while you learn.  There's no real story because it doesn't need one outside of the fantasticly lovely intro sequence would suggest; the equivalent of having a crotchety old downstairs neighbor causing problems because she thought you were being too loud.  Of course, instead of just yelling at people to try and cause you distress, she sends her dark minions up into the world for you to fend off.  This is all told without words, without a lead-in and it's perfect the way it is.

Beyond that, it's not too complex, not throwing new or outlandish things at you, but it doesn't need to.  With the smooth framerate and the wonderful art, all it needs to do is give you a world of that to traverse, and you're more than happy to do so.  Collect the lightning bug things, find relics, don't die.  Simple enough, but extraordinarily pleasing thanks to Rayman's presentation and direction.  I honestly walked away from the game completely surprised, if that wasn't obvious, and while it's obviously a little moreso with Rayman, both games I talked about here are things I will be constantly be revising by choice, which I'm a little surprised about.  If you haven't given them a look, I'd heartily recommend you do so.

Catherine Demo is NA-Bound

 

This one's for you, Chance.

Siliconera has just recently reported that Catherine, the apparently super-hard, super-strange game from Atlus will be getting a demo release in English sometime between now and July 26th, when the game is released.  At least, that's what I would assume, since demos are generally better served -prior- to the game's release, rather than afterward.  Unsurprisingly, the 'English' in the phrase 'English Demo' denotes that the demo will feature full english subtitles as well as voice-acting from the English cast, including that of Troy Baker (I'm assuming it's this one) and Laura Bailey as the lead characters.

Siliconera also stated that those a little wary about the game after hearing about the super-hard part of it will be glad to know that the NA region release will include the patch that was released for the Japanese version to reduce the difficulty a bit.  Unless you're, like, crazy or something. 

Fans who are eagerly awaiting any morsel of Catherine (the game) should be ready to grab that demo right when it comes out, of course, because it has been known to disappear and then reappear for a bit before disappearing again.  Which, when you type it out like that, seems almost like it was done on purpose.  Atlus, you teases.