Terraria on Vita Can't Come Fast Enough

Today, I finally got to wrap my hands around a 360 controller as Minecraft for the mentioned system was loaded up and, indeed, I actually played it, which is something that, before today, I had not done.  Being a creative mode game that was already loaded up, I did the only thing that you do in Creative - I built.  At first, I was frozen with the possibilities; after all, this is a game where literally everything that is grand and wondrous has been made, basically, and anything you can do will hardly pale in comparison.  Yet, we try anyway because the thrill is there no matter what, and eventually I settled on making what everyone more or less ends up making first.

I made a house. 

Rather, I constructed a house.  The semantics, I'm glad to say, are more about the amount of pride used rather than the logistics of it.  I didn't just throw up four walls and smash a door in.  No, I laid down a framework of pillars and built walls in between.  I carved out beneath them and laid down a stone foundation surrounding those walls.  I slammed wooden floors in place.  I created a floor rug with colored wool.  And then I threw down stairs for a second floor and basement both.  I furnished the place.  Without so much as a floor plan, without so much as a preconceived notion of just what this thing was going to look like, I had already put together something quite nice, especially for a first effort.

And then I worked on the second floor.  I extended it out a single block around the edge of the first floor and hopped down, adding supports at the four corners, using fence posts that dropped down to a single wooden block.  Then those wooden blocks were supplemented with stairs that served as a sort of 'trim' to add depth to the facade as they covered the entire bottom layer of the outside of the house.  A set of wooden logs surrounded the front doors to create a 'frame' while also adding depth.  Then, building up the new walls of the new floor, I separated it into the 'landing' from the stairs and a nice bedroom within which I used half-slabs to create nice varieties in height, building up to a focal point where the beds went.  It was about this time that my 360 time was cut short and while I was nowhere near complete, I still held something of satisfaction.

I'm not done, however.  I cannot physically finish that house now, nor can I begin the project anew here, being that I don't own a copy of the game, nor the means with which I can actually play it.  I have an urge to create, to construct, yet no outlet with which to do so other than LittleBigPlanet which I can't get back into at the moment because Soul Sacrifice drops Tuesday and I'm going to play that thing.  It's not quite the same either.  Nor is my other outlet, Terraria, but it will be something different enough, new enough, that I should be able to play with it whenever it comes out.  That's the rub, however, the 'whenever' is not Tuesday, nor next Tuesday, nor the Tuesday following.  And, essentially, I need it now, not then.  My urge to construct will have to take a backseat to my urge to destroy, to cast spells, to fell monsters and that's something that I'm generally fine with.

Still, I really want to play Terraria.  I want to build a house.  I want to find a snow-covered area and build an igloo.  Then I want to build a -riduclous- igloo.  It will please me.  Especially since the game is coming out during the summer and it'll be nice to think cool thoughts.  As in thoughts involving cool and/or cold things.  Not things that are awesome and neat.  Well..that too, but you get my point.

please, Mojang, let 4J port Minecraft to the friggin' Vita, I will love you forever with 20 of my US dollars

Deus Ex: Human Defiance is April Fool's Joke - Could've Been Awesome

I don't really like April Fool's day since, at best, you generally get a bunch of companies and developers drastically missing the point and announcing silly things that are very obviously jokes and not even funny ones at that.  I believe Squeenix used last year to 'announce' an otome game starring the cast of Final Fantasy Type-0 which had the significant side effect of pissing off everyone who isn't in Japan since it's just reminding us that they know about Type-0 and refuse to do anything with it because they don't like money or something.  At worst, you have things teasing news that -could- be true, and -should- be true, and then it's just heart-breaking when it's not and you swear a blood oath.  A good example of that from this year would be RadioSega reporting leaked Valkyria Chronicles 4 news that said the game would be releasing on PS4 and would literally make me pick up a PS4 on launch day.  I'm not bitter or anything, though.  Nothing like that.  I'm not harboring very, very dark thoughts about them or anything like that, why would I?

...anyways, on rare occasions, you do get some folks who approach things with the correct degree of humor and possibility.  Or at least, you get folks that get -close enough- to it that you can't help but laugh and go with it because, damn, they put some effort into it at least.  Had it not been for the announcement on Facebook that there was going to be 'news' about a 'new Deus Ex game' tomorrow, as in today, then it would have been perfect.  You don't announce an April Fool's Day announcement because number one, you end up going "oh boy, that's April first hmmmm" and second, you build hype for what is, essentially a joke.  Which is one of the many things you really shouldn't build hype for because that is just cruel.

The announced Deus Ex:  Human Defiance is, as obvious from the above video, just a prank even though it's quite an ambitious one at that.  The video presents an 8-bit version of Human Revolution in that Adam Jensen is the main character and a lot of the design principles are there, but around the time where you can press a button to destroy the world and summon JC Denton as a Co-Op partner, there's clearly a bit that's...embellished, to say the least.  I can't fault them for making the most out of a trademark that they weren't going to use for a commercial product and, in all reality, I applaud it.  The video was very well done, especially towards the end when it showed how....well-liked the idea was around the office (clearly a skit, but still).  Again, had it not been 'announced', then it would have been perfect.

In all reality, it's still a bit of a shame since what I had hoped from the announcement of an announcement was that they really -were- making another iteration in the Deus Ex series.  Human Revolution is far from perfect, which I'll cover some other night, but it has a lot of good points and the Wii U Port seems to suggest that they understood a lot of the issues and have worked to fix them.  Not all the issues, granted, but some of the bigger ones nonetheless.  With all that knowledge under their belts, I'd love to see just what they can pull off now that they don't have to 'prove' anything, so to speak.  It's no small comfort that we will likely see more Deus Ex -sometime-, given its brand recognition and relative success (Squeenix's publishing ineptitude notwithstanding), since that sometime could be a year from now, if not more.  I need my cyberpunk augment-based shooters and Human Revolution is only going to sustain a single further playthrough, if that.

It's a good problem to have, I suppose.  Wanting something that isn't here rather than having something you don't want, but a problem is a problem is a problem.  Hopefully an announcement, a real one for a real game, will be on the horizon (perhaps even hinted at or teased in the Wii U port), because at least having the idea of what it's going to be like next.  Still, I can't help but wish that today had been the day instead of showing off something that they probably spent entirely too much free time making.  All in the name of humor!

Well, This is Certainly a Reversal

In brief moments of pause when I haven't been obsessively playing LittleBigPlanet Vita, finding time to spend on playing the excellent Sleeping Dogs, watching something on YouTube or throwing hours of my life at a time into watching episodes of Burn Notice (which is sooooo good you guys) through Netflix, my free time has been devoted to very very slowly progressing through Hero of Leaf Valley still, as I would like to see at least an entire playthrough through before I call it done.  This has been difficult however, which I think is hilarious, since I have reached the point in the game where I have effectively streamlined everything and am set to earn a good few thousand Gs in a single day.  I have pretty much bought everything there is to offer, tool upgrades, appliance upgrades, house add-ons, farm add-ons, you name it and I have it, so long as it's available to me.  So I basically just have to play through the day dicking about however I wish to get through it so I can then do the next day.

I think that's where the issue is, however, as there's really nothing else to do except follow the routine to a T.  Leave the house and pick up the dog, put him down, go to the food bowl, whistle for him, tell him to sit with the ocarina and give him food in the dish.  Go to the chicken coop, fill the troughs, pick everybody up and get their eggs.  Head to the stables, fill the troughs, talk to the horse and cows, brush the horse and cows, milk the cows.  Harvest and rice that has grown, water it all, fill the watering can.  Go back in the house, make cheese with the milk (at this point, I get two large milks and three smalls which means three things of cheese), make egg and rice dish if there's any rice, otherwise throw eggs in the fridge.  Go to the woodcutter's, talk to Gwen and give her a Very Berry, wait for Woody to go outside and talk to him to see if I can cut lumber.  Afterwards, go to the mine and mine the available caves using reference pictures for single-strike mines because I am a dirty cheater.  Sell ore at woodcutters.  Sell Cheese (and rice dish if any) at Grocery Store.

That list of things to do is the exact routine I end up following to start every Hero of Leaf Valley day.  It is formulaic and it only manages to get me to about 1 PM Harvest Moon time which means the rest of my day is playtime, but....there's really nothing else to do besides talk to folks.  I've effectively cut out all the fat of the game, you could say, in that I am not wasting time collecting things to sell so I can buy food to restore part of my stress/fatigue bars, nor do I have to do a lot to get to where I -would- need to, aside from when I cut trees.  With my tools fully upgraded as well as almost all the Power Berries in the game, I can do...quite a lot before getting fatigued and the house add-on has a Bathroom that allows you to take a bath and get a free boost for both anyway!  About the only thing I can do when I'm done with my routine, again outside of just milling about and talking to everybody, is going off to fish which....serves no real purpose unless I want to feed my dog some fish, because I do believe I have all the Fish recipes already and if I don't, well, who cares?  Certainly not I.

If anything, I suppose it speaks to some pacing issues that the game might have, and, in truth, perhaps some content issues as well.  Most other Harvest Moon games tend to offer a broader range of things over a longer period of time (generally you can buy something to add-on to your house with once a week, and only one thing) which allows them to piecemeal out to you a kitchen and such.  Still, it just feels like there should be more by this point, and not what I have done which is basically seen and conquered most everything.  Doing some peeking in guides, I've learned that there is another slew of upgrades available in the third year, but that's....well, a year and a season away of nothing in between besides gathering and getting prepared, I suppose.  I already have 51 excess lumber, and I think one project maybe requires 100 pieces, but I doubt it.  My point being that I will probably have a good bit, if not all of the lumber stocked up for said upgrades well before time.  Though I'm not sure what else I could hope for, and I certainly would not have hoped for a sort of arbitrary restriction keeping me from getting what I have before now either.  Since that just would have been padding.

I'm not really sure what to think.  Certainly, I've been in this position before in Harvest Moon games, where I have everything streamlined, but it was always because there was just something else on the horizon.  While that technically holds true for Hero of Leaf Valley, in that all of Year 3's offerings await me (including being able to marry Gwen), it's....not quite enough.  I want something a little more immediate or close enough to it.  The closest goal I have is winning the Horse Race towards the end of Fall which I am pretty confident that I will be able to do, since I have my horse all the way up to max affection which means he can apparently 'run like the wind'.  I believe that has something to do with one of the many endings the game has to offer in which you have done something amazing to save the Valley that wasn't outright buying it, and that's fairly cool enough for me, but there's just the whole getting to that point (since I assume the endings come into play at the end of year 2 or 3) that has become difficult.  With any luck, I'll soldier through it, however, as I still do quite like the game, which I'm surprised by.

Bonus Post: LittleBigPlanet Vita Being Sold Early

So, there were rumblings throughout the internet speaking to the possibility that LittleBigPlanet Vita had its street date broken, quite a bit moreso than usual for a release game (not considering that it's two weeks early) and it was more or less proven accurate by a statement made by Sony's PR Manager, Eric Levine, who made a little post on the Playstation Blog about it.

Hi everyone – production on LittleBigPlanet PlayStation Vita was completed earlier than expected, and due to the excitement from our retail partners, some have decided to put it on shelves as soon as the product was received. You’ll still be able to fully enjoy all the offline features of the game, but the servers will not go live until September 18th. We apologize for any confusion this may cause and will keep you posted on any further updates.

That statement is basically saying "GameStop broke street date because I don't know, and we're not going to go after them because it means they're selling our game and that's pretty cool at least", which is a rather nice way to handle it, really.  They also point out that because the game was being sold, again, two weeks early that the servers weren't online and won't go online until a week before.  This is probably customary procedure, as not only do companies tend to try and stress test them, but so that reviewers can partake in the online offerings of a game for the purpose of the review.  Again, this is a pretty cool move to say "Just so you know, the servers are going up this day" instead of....well, just not mentioning it, or even worse, trying to deter people from playing it online on the 18th.  Which, if the Sound Shapes release is anything to go by, would probably be alright, since it would likely have the effect of having people slowly ween themselves to them when it becomes 'more okay' with each passing day, instead of slamming them day one, ensuring that the traffic makes it difficult to play.

I don't generally advocate looking into the comment sections of posts I link to because they are generally a sinkhole of idiocy and this is really no different.  However, I have gazed into the eyes of madness and if you should choose to do so yourself, you'll see that a lot of people are unhappy about this for reasons that....are quite silly, really.  Namely that Sony wasn't prepared for GameStop to break the street date by two full weeks and, as such, aren't releasing the digital version of the game early.  Since clearly, clearly all you have to do to release a game digitally is flip a switch, right?  RIGHT?!  It can be done whenever because Digital Distribution is just magical like that and when the switch is flipped, you can pay for it with unicorn farts and sunshine nuggets.  Because this is imagination land, you see.

For my part, I'm just going to brush that off because I know that the 19th, not the 25th, is the day that I will have LittleBigPlanet Vita in my hands, and thus the 19th will be a glorious day.  Unless GameStop shennanigans occur which would be a surprise, as I've never been on the receiving end of one of these 'horror stories' that float around out there when it comes to GameStop as a whole.  I'm not figuring that I will be, but there is a fairly sizeable amount of weirdness going on already.  Namely that they told me to come in on the 19th to get it which is A) not the release date and B) a Wednesday when games are generally released on Tuesday.  Still, a call to the store before I go there will likely save a lot of hassle on my part, so I'm none too worried.  And I'm certainly excited to have it that much closer to the horizon since I'll be jumping right into the creator after I get enough pieces to put a decent level together.  And it will be glorious.

Way of the Samurai 4 Released Today, I Can't Play It

In the rather beefy PS Store Update today, Way of the Samurai 4 joined the ranks of several other games in appearing in the digital storefront, most of which provide a rather disturbing reminder for me everytime I consider it.  Way of the Samurai 4 is just yet another game that's out there that I -want- to play, and just cannot, since they are relegated behind a wall that is much higher for myself than others, though I am assuredly not alone on this side of it.  As a digital-only title, Way of the Samurai 4 requires only three things to open up to you, the consumer, as a product to be played and experienced:  Enough money in your account to buy it, enough space on your hard drive to store it, and the internet connection that is fast, reliable and unrestricted enough to allow you to download it.  That third bit right there is something that we, as a whole, seem to be wholly disregarding as an idea, though it's a very, very real reality that is simply unreachable for many people like us who enjoy sharing this hobby that we do.

I've lamented it several times before, and will likely continue to do so - My internet connection is entirely too slow for me to even -consider- going digital for more than the odd title here and there, much less going full-digital as 'everyone' assumes is the future.  I might seem as if I'm in the minority in this, but I suspect that is the exact opposite of the case as a standard (since it's not only gaming that assumes everybody has internet to freely do this and that and devil may care on the size) and it's unfortunate since it's only going to get worse from here on out, I'm sure.  And even for those not in my situation, there's the chance for another one entirely, when they have the speed, just not the ability thanks to internet caps designed to hamstring people attempting to enjoy the internet unfettered because infrastructure was never considered properly and it's too difficult to change now.  So while 'internet' as itself is not a finite resource, that which enables it certainly is, which is where these absurd charges, theories and caps come from.

Let's just take today's Playstation Store Update for an example.  It was a very beefy update, as I said, and I could see the same person wanting to get a lot of the items offered.  So let's say they decide to download Metal Gear Solid 3:  Snake Eater HD, Way of the Samurai 4, Metal Gear Solid 3:  Snake Eater HD for Vita, and Gungrave Overdose.  This is being conservative.  All together, the file size for all that is in the neighborhood of 19.5 GB alone.  This is just for PS3 and Vita gaming.  If you are a PC gamer, then boy-oh-boy, are you looking at a large internet usage every month just from obtaining things that you are purchasing.  Imagine, if you will, that you are in one of these awful places where the cap is very low per-month where they give you only so much and no more, charge you ridiculously if you go over, cut the speed when you pass the arbitrary number or do some combination of the three.  Now not only are you unable to get something that you've paid for already, but you might be screwed out of using the internet as a whole for a period of time, or it'll cost you a ridiculous amount.  How does this make sense at any level?

Now, I -get- that the -option- is nice for people who can make effective use of it.  I encourage a digital future so long as it is a companion to physical since it is not as widespread an option as people think, nor will it be in the foreseeable future.  And I get that there are some companies who endeavor to make smaller games that only have a chance of success at digital retail.  The counter-balance to that is that these companies keep their games, as you might think, -small- so as to not need the 5-15 Gigs of space some of these games seem to think they need.  (Seriously, why is Michael Jackson:  The Experience 15 gigs?)  There are things in place to make the digital space as user-friendly as possible, and there is a giant difference involved then between a full retail game going digital and a game being built from the ground-up as digital.  The former becoming the only option is just horrid for everyone involved since it honestly just completely loses sales from people like me who want to buy your game and just can't.

And that's what the case here is.  I want Way of the Samurai 4 for reasons that are well beyond me.  It's not a serious game, nor is it likely a technically amazing one, but it offers a specific scratch for a specific itch, and I want to procure it for said itch.  But like Warriors Orochi 3 before it (and basically every fucking KOEI game to come unless I buy a 360 and they actually release it for that) that's simply not an option unless I go above and beyond my own means instead of doing what I should be able to just do with any other game.  But thanks to this wall that has been established by things well and truly out of our hands for silly reasons, it's just not an option.  With niche games like this and KOEI-fare, you really cannot afford to cut out -any- of your customers, though that's exactly what they're doing.  It's simply worrying because if we can't buy their games, we who normally would, that means they're getting even less than normal and are thus less inclined to continue.  And that's.....well, that's just a real shame.

Vita's Youtube App - A Month Later

This is basically how I regard Youtube.

So it was just a little over a month ago, June 27th to be precise, when I first talked about the Youtube App in a rather positive light as, at the time, it did exactly what I wanted it to do - offer me the ability to watch the videos I wanted to watch.  It is, honestly, not a difficult task, especially for a service that is solely dedicated to offering videos to watch.  And honestly, it still does this task, although only mostly instead of totally which, no matter how you spin it, is a strike against the app.  A very deep, very broad strike against it.  It is akin to having a programmer on a video game who doesn't know a specific language well enough to write it, or having a TV that just forgets to display a color.  You have one job and you're not good at it, so what good is it?  Well, I still like it, but it's sort of a begrudging like, like a cat who always claws you when you pet it, or a certain food that tastes delicious but always causes digestive problems.

So my problem with the Youtube app is, simply, that it is, again, an app to let you watch videos that are on Youtube.  It is honestly a very, -very- simple process, but one that is assuredly mucked up on Youtube's side as it seems like there are just broad walls where content is blocked from even showing up, much less being watched.  You know those Vevo channels that are just completely annoying and basically spearheaded the whole "Youtube will mute your videos for having music in them" thing?  Yeah, just go ahead and try loading one up.  You cannot.  Which is fine and all, music is generally really friggin' hard to get to nowadays unless you're just throwing dollars at everything and anything  Besides, the Youtube App was always sort of broadcasted to be a 'Video Game-centric' App, right?  For video game videos because it is a video game -device-, you need constant video game exposure on it, thus spoke the power that be.

Where it becomes an issue is when there are video game videos, as in the subset niche that was specifically mentioned as the -thing- that the App catered to, that just don't friggin' show up no matter what.  I follow some Minecraft Let's Plays, as I've mentioned before, and there's one series in particular that I was trying to catch up on, and it was actually easy to do.  Things were numbered, I could just throw in the show name and the episode number that was next (if it wasn't in the Suggested videos, since who needs episode playlist support except Youtube on the computer) load it and watch.  Well there's one video in particular that, no matter what I did, type the name in exactly in the search, favorited it to try and force it into my favorite list, anything, would not show up.  This presents a problem, you see, because now I am missing something like forty friggin' minutes of gameplay between the video I just watched and the one that comes after it.  It's a small example, but it is no less egregious for that fact.

I would bet money that this is either a symptom of, or the cause of, no subscription support for the App (which is compounded by Youtube's need to fucking redesign the site every three months) which takes it down another notch pretty much every time you use it.  Search functions that -only find exactly what you're looking for- (which, let's face it, the Search function in the App barely does that, even) when there is literally a sea of billions of videos in the Youtube collective is not sufficient.  The streamlined system of searching for an author and then looking through their videos should -not- be that goddamn difficult to make happen and it's practically embarrassing that it's not present here.  I suppose the App was only meant to be a supplement, and not a stand-alone thing, but come on.  If you're going to do a thing, don't half-ass it because I don't care if you're only planning on casual use - somebody (like me) is going to want to use it for something more rather than wasting time and RAM and effort watching things on a POS computer in the scant amount of time he can be on it before going off to do any of a billion other things.

It's sufficient enough, I suppose, but I can't help being a little disappointed.  I touched on it a little in Tweets a while back, but I've always meant to get a little more in-depth with it, since I can think of too many reasons why it's a bad thing than I can tweet comfortably.  Like the fact that Youtube is content-driven, focusing on people who make content that a lot of people watch, since that means everybody gets a piece of the action that is generated from it.  Cutting things that make it easier for the basic user to find said content (since most people just use the service casually enough to just rely on whatever shows up in a subscription box) means the people who work hard to get this stuff recorded and encoded and the like just get the shaft since it partitions off who is able to watch it without jumping through hoops IF the content is, indeed, watchable at all, as per the example I gave above.  But I'm not surprised at all since, if Youtube is good at anything it's making all the wrong decisions and not suffering for them at all.  Seems like a running theme elsewhere too.

Storms and Fried Routers and Chrono Trigger DS Rants

So, as I warned might have happened on my Twitter the other night, the storm that we had was a rather nasty one.  It was pretty obvious that we were going to lose power and I unplugged things that I worried weren't safe, whereas things that I thought would be safe, I kept plugged in.  However, when the power went out and there was a rather loud 'Pop' noise, it was clear that when the power came back, something would reveal itself as a casualty.  The next day, when it came back, the problem ended up being the wireless router.  It was fried.  Like, plugging it in resulted in just the number "4" port lighting up as a light would come on during a horror movie - that practiced, tell-tale flickering that means something is either struggling to light, or simply struggling to -not- turn off.  On the cusp of life, you could say, but it was safe to also say that such a sign means the router is no longer going to work for its intended purpose; that of supplying internet.  So I have a new one set up (I won't be sharing what it is because I don't need the purchase criticized or praised; it's bought and set-up, not worrying about it anymore) and I presume it works, since before me is my Vita with a fully loaded up youtube video of Moto - BoA, but we shall see if it lasts, since it was almost -too- easy.

These outages are getting fairly taxing, as I'm sure you all realize, being as much affected by them as I am, but there's not a whole lot I can do against them.  The upside is that generally when they happen, either the downtime means that enough news is brought up in the meanwhile, or that I, without internet, am forced to do -something- that I can then talk about.  As you might infer from the above picture and the title, I am totally up for talking about Chrono Trigger DS which I picked up, much as I did the last time there was an outage and in my playings this time, I have made it to one of the two big things that was added to the DS port, and it is very clearly the single thing that pretty much everyone agrees shouldn't have been added in.  Or at least, I'm assuming everyone agrees because the Lost Sanctum, what I'm talking about, is unequivocally, universally terrible in design and execution and is a blight on gaming as a whole, not to mention the otherwise great game (and good, not great, port of it).  This is probably where you think I'm kidding.  The next few paragraphs is where I'm going to convince you otherwise.

As always, I'm going to blatantly talk about Chrono Trigger and Cross while throwing out plot points like candy in a parade, so if you're not into that, look away.  So, the Lost Sanctum is a place that exists not only in the Pre-Historic age (noted as 65,000,000 BC), but also in the Middle Ages (noted as 600 AD), denoting a 65,000,600 years worth of difference.  This is, unsurprisingly, important to remember since I specifically brought it up.  However, despite the two gates (they are gates, as in Time/Space gates on the map, so it's not like it's a finite, existing place in the world) being in those two eras (and no others, further denoting it as a non-finite place in the world of Chrono Trigger itself) it's only done so as a convenient excuse to have to time-traveling an excessive amount of times to accomplish goals, and Pre-History and the Middle Ages are pretty much the two places lacking the most reasons to visit.  (Antiquity, or 12,000 BC, should be on that list, but, well, the Kingdom of Zeal portion and the whole Lavos blowing errthang up kind of nixes any reason to consider the place for things.)

Regardless, as I have inferred, the time periods have little to do with it since I'm of a mind that the two Lost Sanctums aren't really 65,000,600 years apart.  There are various reasons for this, of which I will eventually cover, but the one prime among them is the fact that I am pretty sure that the Lost Sanctum is -supposed- to be Dinopolis in its early days (both times), which is pretty much based solely on the fact that Dinopolis is a place that existed where only Reptites lived (as they do in Lost Sanctum) and the port job just -loved- adding in superfluous things to tie it closer to Chrono Cross.  Having you do menial tasks for the folks who would end up getting transported into the proper timeline and trying to destroy the world with dragons sort of fits the bill.  And yes, that is a plot point from Chrono Cross:  'Time', in an attempt to bring balance to the world, brought in Dinopolis, a civilization of dinosaurs that never grew up technologically to counteract Humans using super-technology to accidentally time travel a super-advanced scientific facility that harbored FATE, a machine that controlled the world in Illuminatti-esque ways or something.  Because Dinopolis had Dragon Gods that stood absolutely no chance against FATE.  Try not to think of it too hard.

One of the strengths of Chrono Trigger is the fact that it uses on-screen monsters so that you can, in theory, skip most battles if that is your thing.  And when you're doing menial fetch quests, you generally like to just get from Point A to Point B with as little resistance as possible, since you just want to get it done.  Of course, one of the failings of the Lost Sanctum is that it takes this tenant and just kind of throws it out the window, in that the detection boxes or the forced battle boxes, cover entire paths.  In layman's terms, it simply means that the places surrounding the Lost Sanctum proper (as in, the cave where the Reptites live) all have at least a few forced battles per screen.  They're not even difficult battles, and some of them are simply insulting, like one of the Fetch Quest Mountain screens features a battle with an enemy called a Jadewing.  A single Jadewing.  You have to use magic to kill it.  It goes out with a single Dark Bomb if you're rockin' Magus, and likely goes out with a single magic attack from anyone else because it's a pissant enemy.  Those forced battles are both way, of course, since going up the mountain necessitates that you come back down it, obviously.

So honestly, if it were just a matter of getting requests from all the reptites, going out, doing them, suffering the forced battles and coming back to be done with them, it would be bad enough, right?  Some poor design decisions, assuredly, but nothing too dire.  That is why it doesn't end there.  Only one reptite thinks of a task for you at a time, meaning that you'll have to do them all pretty much in succession.  There is -some- overlap, as I have three requests, so to speak, open at the moment, but just to get to a place where I could technically do those three requests, I had to do another request that is an utter abomination in design and is pretty much what governs all of my anger at the port at this moment.  This, coincidentally, also reinforces my "This is not 65,000,600 years apart" theory, which kind of helps, but it also just makes everything another degree of stupid.  Simply because my position that it's not that far apart is -purely- conjecture, whereas one would assume that it is to be considered that otherwise.

One of the things that happens in the Pre-History Lost Sanctum is that one of the Reptites says "I need something from the top of the mountain, but a Nu is guarding the bottom of it".  So you go and beat the Nu and then go get the thing from the top of the mountain because the guardian was just -a- reason not to go, not -the- reason.  The Nu, after you beat it, says it's going to train for your next encounter, which I'm sure you can't guess where it happens.  So, for various reasons, you'll need to go to the 600 AD Lost Sanctum to go up the same mountain and when you do, the Nu is at the bottom because Nus live for several millions of years and challenges you to a fight if you make it to the top of the mountain.  You need to get to the top of the mountain anyway.  So he runs off and you head towards the top of the mountain.  There is a problem, however, as the first rope ladder you encounter has broken in the middle which is entirely a possible thing that has happened after sixty five million years.  Or, presumably, the Nu broke it because he is a dick.  You have to, of course, approach the ladder close enough so that your characters can stop and confirm that the ladder is indeed broken, instead of just turning around after seeing it is broken.

This is still sort of non-offensive at this point.  One of the reptites has gone on and on about ladders so you think he is an expert on them.  So you go to him and he's like "Well, there's some sturdy vines in the glade to the south."  The glade, in 600 AD, is what you have to pass through to get to Fetch Quest mountain.  In Pre-History, it's a swamp.  I'm sure this is how nature works.  So you get the sturdy vines which are in fact vines and not....you know...something else.  Something that could presumably be more sturdy than vines which are just vegetation which is known to rot away and such.  Especially over the course of sixty-five million years, if that's what they really expect us to believe.  (By the way, if that's what we really are to believe, then that Nu has been training for that sixty five million years and yet you are expected to beat him?)  So you think "Well, I have these vines, so I need to take them to the ladder guy" right?  Wrong.  If you take them to him, he will not acknowledge them whatsoever.  And you will probably be confused.

What you have to do is go back to the broken ladder to confirm that it is, indeed, still broken and to realize that there is no way you can hang the new ladder vines, since if you could hang them, you wouldn't need them.  You -need- to trigger this event.  It's literally like two lines of dialogue if that, but it's one of those event flags.  So you have to take these vines, once again going through all the forced battles all through this entire journey of going to this point on the mountain, through the glade and swamp, and go back to pre-history to go through the swamp again to the point where the ladder is broken....so you can move a foot to the left and drop the vines which make a carbon copy rope ladder.  Which is supposed to survive the apparent Sixty Five Million years between events.  And of course, it -does-, since once you go back to 600 AD -again- and go through the glade -again- to get to the mountain -again-, there is the vine ladder that looks like a rope ladder right next to the broken rope ladder that actually is a rope ladder.  And to top it all off, when you go up the vine ladder that looks like a rope ladder absolutely nobody remarks on it.

I'm not sure I've effectively quantified just how poorly this all is executed and, indeed, designed, but I like to believe that I have.  Ten Trips to a single area in a mountain for what is honestly just one request (beating a Nu's ass twice over the span of, again, apparently Sixty Five Million years) with at least two forced battles each way, I think, hammers the point in a little more effectively than I could hope to do otherwise, but it still doesn't really cover the soul-crushing tedium that is generated by the Lost Sanctum.  This is just -one portion- of the entire thing that was apparently so good that Squeenix thought it was just a fabulous idea to throw into this otherwise half-baked port of a great game.  "Oh, but Mogs, it's purely optional!"  Yeah, so is like everything else at endgame which is when this unlocks.  Getting ultimate weapons, going through the Black Omen, reviving the main character of the fucking game is all optional.  They're not entirely banal, superfluous and terrible though.  Still, if a selling point of an enhanced port is the 'enhanced' portions of it, as in the stuff that was not there originally, or the stuff that is changed, I would suggest that it's a little less optional than those things, even, since this is supposed to be the stuff that makes veterans of the game want to buy it.  So that poses the question:  Who the -hell- would want this?

Power Up!

There's no real reason for this picture aside from the whole power theme of the first couple paragraphs.

So!  As you may or may not know, people on the east side of the States have been getting hit pretty hard with some pretty rough storms lately causing massive power outages and the like.  That is what's been up with me since, uh, Friday.  It was not fun.  It continues to be not fun because it's still hot as hell despite the fact that we actually have power and thus Air Conditioning again, and it will remain not fun because it's still friggin storming like every day.  It will continue to do that for a while, so some disruptions in Kupowered is still possible and if at all possible, I will actually forewarn of them this time.  Of course, the only reason I didn't this last time was because the Meteorologists with their fantastic weather machines that cost more money than most small businesses earn yearly didn't really predict that the storms would unfold as they did.  And they're like "Oh, how could we have ever expected it to be this bad?", to which I just have to kind of scoff at.  Because I don't know, it's kind of your fucking job.

Anyways, no power and also no internet kind of puts a damper on maintaining a thing which requires both power and the internet to run, hence why there was another one of these unplanned hiatuses (which is apparently a word, according to spell-check) that sucks.  It has also left me with kind of a clusterfuck of issues considering there was a ton of news in my absence and I am also sort of rusty after the whole not writing for six days thing.  Since for some reason I am just not as good writing things physically as I am with typing them.  That is....kind of an issue that I have never really considered too much since I -have- been able to write things physically before, it's just a little easier to lose what I'm going for.  Also it's almost never an issue unless it's a -big- issue which, well, if it's a situation wherein it's a big issue, it's a bit too late anyways.  Oh well, something else to think of in the future.

Anyways, living without power aside from the assist of a generator simply there to power a little TV with local channels available is about as interesting as it sounds in that it's not interesting at all.  Passing the time in the extreme heat was something of a challenge since it seemed to crawl by and my hobbies didn't really facilitate an expedition of the flow of time whatsoever in feel.  Putting together jigsaw puzzles, doing sudoku puzzles or simply watching TV shows that I don't like (aside from a few that I -do- like now, like The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson because it's awesome) made me feel like....well, that I wasn't actually myself, really.  Granted, I -like- doing all those things, but not because there simply isn't anything else to do.  The only Mogs-like thing I found myself doing was using the DS Lite's battery of the Gods to replay Chrono Trigger DS as my other DS games are all....well, a bit played out.  No less than Chrono Trigger, of which you all know my fondness for, but at least CT is one of those 'timeless' (no pun intended) things that I can play pretty much whenever thanks to my attachment to it.

Well, to the original, at least.  As you all may or may not know, my fondness for the Chrono Trigger DS port is well documented and playing it again basically cements that.  I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why anything that went into this port actually happened.  The new script, the new gameplay sections, such as they are in the loose sense of the word, none of it really makes sense in any shape or form.  The staple answer, of course, is simply "Money", but I have to question the validity of that when it was A.) simply an enhanced port of a well-liked SNES-era JRPG (making it more or less just a 'Cult hit' almost by definition) and B.) the same price (or more) as every Pokemon and Mario game on the shelves.  You know, the games that actually sell, thereby making it easy to have that price-point.  There is no reasoning, no actual logic (not even flawed logic) to have expected that Chrono Trigger DS, at the $40 pricepoint it was introduced at (and remained for....quite a while) would sell anywhere above moderately at best.

So if not money, then, what?  Brand loyalty?  One could assume that the intention of Chrono Trigger DS was an attempt to gauge the popularity of the franchise to see if it was further exploitable or something that was simply better left alone.  If that's your aim then, for the above mentioned reasons, it was a rather poor attempt, which suggests that that....might not have been the goal either.  It was certainly -a- goal, I should say, since Shinji Hashimoto, Senior Vice President of Squeenix or something was quoted as saying "If people want a sequel, they should buy more!" meaning that Chrono projects were certainly on a board somewhere, but only half-heartedly at best.  It almost seems as if it was an in-joke for the company; someone put down a bet that said a Chrono Trigger revisit would sell gang-busters and, if it did, they could build on that with even more unnecessary revisits and remakes and sequels that don't make any sense whatsoever.  Clearly he was wrong in that, as apparently everyone -but- him expected, and the end result is 2008 being the last time we've seen anything out of the franchise, both since then and likely indefinitely.

Which, for my part, all I can say to that is good.  If Chrono Cross and even the DS port of the game is any indication, Chrono Trigger is simply bigger than the sum of its parts.  It's lightning in a bottle and Squeenix has no idea what to do with it, if in fact, anything -can- be done with it at all.  I understand that I'm extremely biased in this, and it simply seems that the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia are clouding my perceptions, but for my money, Chrono Trigger in its original form is simply a level of quality that Cross, the DS port and even Radical Dreamers simply cannot compare to.  And it's not for any one particular reason, but, as I said, because it is just greater than all of its components.  The story isn't spectacular, the characters aren't as wonderfully developed as we've seen can be done, and the gameplay of it is, well, archaic -now-, considering how things have simply grown.  But it has a quality to it that simply cannot be harnessed to be placed into other things bearing the same moniker.  So I would surmise that anything new to be entered into the Chrono franchise would simply not be able to carry that, even if it was made by the Square of old.  Simply because the Square of old tried already and failed on most levels.  But we'll never really know for sure, as all we have is the original, the port, and the sequels (is it plural if one is a really really big re-imaging of the other?) will likely be the only things we have as evidence to either side.

Unfortunate Downtime with Dynasty Warriors Next

So, if there was one thing that I expected with 2012, it was certainly not having a period of downtime in terms of gaming, yet since I beat Trails in the Sky, that is precisely what I've found myself in.  This is only because I can't/won't play my PS3, of course, since my backlog mostly exists there and the damned heat of the Spring/Summer prevents me from taking a shot at it, and I don't have a lot of Digital Copies of PSP games and the one that I do that I would be playing (Phantasy Star Portable 2) doesn't work (goddamnit, Sega).  So I'm stuck with the PSP games I do have digital copies of (Persona 3 Portable, Final Fantasy Tactics:  War of the Lions and, of course, Legend of Heroes:  Trails in the Sky), and my two (three) Vita games.  I have no reason to throw Uncharted:  Golden Abyss back into the Vita, and minutes with MotorStorm RC shaved entire months off of my overall lifespan, so that leaves the last choice with.....Dynasty Warriors Next.

Sigh.

I have a very love/hate relationship with the game as you might be able to figure out, even if you haven't read the many many posts I've written about it, but considering I have $3.07 to my Playstation Wallet and the money in my actual wallet committed elsewhere, meaning no way to any other games, I'm pretty much stuck with it until Tuesday.  At that point, I'll get Resistance:  Burning Skies that will likely have bullshit Multiplayer trophies that will keep me quite busy until the next thing that I want comes out, namely Gravity Rush.  (By the by, we're getting the Gravity Rush demo this week as well.  Eeeeeee~)  And so on and so on - Hopefully in the break between Gravity Rush and LittleBigPlanet (or, with any luck, the Beta for it) I'll get access to a little more cash to throw down on another PSP RPG or something that will be a good time-user (not waster) so that I won't have to worry about this whatsoever.  Because falling back on Dynasty Warriors Next is less than optimal as you might guess from my previous rantings.

The only reason that I'm not done with Next is the fact that it takes 54-78 hours for a few of the trophies meaning that it's a semi-endless grind.  Having that means that it's 'convenient' as a game to pick up every now and then for a few hours of gameplay that ends up with minimal progress.  A second Officer card or two, some weapons, a few sworn/spouse relationships, yet when it's held up against the great wall of necessary progress, it's almost infinitesimal.  And of course, with forced duels in every single map you play, any fun that could be derived from the actual playing of the game is drained rapidly, leaving you with a husk that used to be fun and almost makes you realize just why the series is despised by game reviewers.  Almost.  Of course, their reasons are not these and merely cosmetic at best, so all you share is a dislike for the game, despite the wildly different approaches for it.

Regardless, seeing as there's not enough time to pitch back into Persona 3 Portable or mayhaps even a Trails in the Sky NG+, yet there's too much time between now and Burning Skies, I find myself at quite the impasse.  Given how many times I've come back around to saying this, I imagine you can understand the frustration that this is a game in a series that I enjoy, not to mention a portable version of it that I can technically enjoy, and yet in playing it, I simply....don't.  In what was originally just a minor annoyance, the Dueling system has evolved into something that truly makes me loathe the play the game, when if it was not there, I would merely resent the style in which I have to play to ensure that I get the most 'bang' from my playthrough 'buck' as it were.  Barring the other unfortunate side-effect of the randomizer in Force Numbering on top of the Dueling, the game would be enjoyable to start and devolve into merely 'playable' for the last bit of the grind, yet those two items make it a chore, and one that I don't want to invest my time with, honestly.

Regardless, when the game isn't sucking my soul out painfully, I am happy to say that I am still making progress with it in the only way that's completely possible.  After wrestling with the way Second Officer Cards work (which is...uh....not at all like it should be.  You'd think that having one person in play means they can only show up as their alternate, but apparently you can have three of one person on a board at the same time as I did with Wang Yuanji) I got about four or five plays in before I just became bothered with it, leading me to turn it off.  Those plays meant that I filled out a few weapon slots, I got Wang Yuanji's Second (and only her; this is so much more of a pain than it has any right to be) and formed a handful of new bonds.  Actually, I learned something on that front as well:  Using Daqiao as a ruler for a handful of female sworn officer bonds, I discovered that it is actually impossible to form a Sworn Sibling oath with her sister, Xiaoqiao.  This is a level of detail that is all at once astounding and terrible, as it makes -far- too much sense and actively impeded progress for me earlier.  Of course, this will not be an error I will make again in the day or so left I'll spend with the game.

2013: The New 2012

Now, I know I keep hammering in the point, but 2012 is pretty much jam-packed with a bunch of games that I am going to have to buy which is an entirely new scenario for me (I think the count is up to twelve), and in pointing that out a lot, I've complained that, well, they're all coming out this year.  And it seems that a lot of studios have realized this as well and have responded....by delaying their games to the first Quarter of 2013.  Like, all of them.  This doesn't so much as handle a problem for many (Including me, unfortunately, as not a single game that has been delayed was one I was really really looking into buying, save for -maybe- Tomb Raider and South Park), but rather pushes it further off into time.  As in, the start of the year.  Of course, we have kind of been introduced to this concept in the last few years, wherein Q1 tends to....'affectionately' get referred to as "Christmas 2" since it's basically the Holiday Rush after the Holiday Rush.  There's really no simpler way to put it.

If you need a little scope on the amount of delays we've had, here's a little list for you:  Tomb Raider, South Park:  The Stick of Truth, Aliens:  Colonial Marines, DmC Devil May Cry, X-COM, Bioshock:  Infinite, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards HD, Ni no Kuni and Metro:  Last Light.  Mind you, the bulk of these are only fairly recently relayed as delayed, with a little bit of digging required for the last few, but just because they weren't delayed this week doesn't mean anything.  This is on top of the other games that were delayed that I haven't spotted, as well as the games that are, well, just slated to release in Q1 2013.  I don't know of very many and searching isn't producing very many results, but I'm sure there are some and especially so after E3, since I'm sure a lot of the games announced there will be slated for late 2012 (damnit all) or early 2013.

So, the above, that right there is a list of nine games that are, essentially, overspill, since while some of them are being moved so that they'll be done, I imagine a couple of them are there so as to try and avoid competition which...isn't going to work too well now.  And of those nine games, at least three of them are pretty high-profile releases where two others are definitely games to watch out for, if not high-profile to a certain niche of people.  (Looking at you Ni no Kuni.  As I always am.  Sigh...)  This is....well, this is completely the scenario of this year repeating itself into the next and it's fairly worrisome.  Especially for me since, well, I already have enough Vita games I'm looking at through to the end of the year, and it's going to start hitting its stride next year as the games that all the other studios who -finally- got a Vita Dev Kit, having chosen to not get it before the system came out for one reason or another, or have just been bad at time management, will start seeing announcements and releases as well.  Because there are games, I assure you.

I suppose it's only a good thing that there is this much of a glut of games coming out to be excited about, since it means hours upon hours of entertainment for us.  Of course, that comes at the price of, well, the prices of all these games, as they are not cheap individually, and especially so when you have several coming out in a cluster as they seem to be doing for...well, every season between now and Spring of next year.  As such, we all have to just figure out which can be held off on for times when wallets are not so strained, nor is the time.  Of course it might seem like those times do not exist and, in all reality, they might not for a while, but again, that's the good part about it all.  You just have to remember that those good experiences will definitely be worth it, provided they're good enough to make a real impression on you and for the games that are in the line-up from now until Q2 2013, a lot of them carry just that potential.  We'll just have to see how many of them actually make it, though.

Update!:  This isn't really an update so much as it is thumping my chest.  Obviously, the delays are a big enough deal that Joystiq got the same idea I did, to write up a little post about the games that have been delayed.  Our lists are pretty similar for obvious reasons, but they neglected to mention X-COM and Leisure Suit Larry HD (I wonder why.), where I didn't list Prey 2 because I have no idea what Prey 2 is other than a game that sure isn't coming out in 2012 nor Q1 2013, which is what I tried to focus on.  Well played, Joystiq!

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for Vita Has a Release Date

So, another sort of weird title in the future of the Vita officially has a release date and, unsurprisingly, it's the date that was leaked a little bit ago:  June 12th.  And also unsurprisingly, nobody is going to acknowledge that it's a fairly big boon for the system for several reasons, the most of which being that it's just a Vita title and anywhere you look will have you believe that they simply don't exist, because that gets in the way of the doom-saying and rhetoric and all.  Of course, there are a few valid points of contention to have with the Vita version of the Port which I'll get to eventually.  I will say, however, right up that the MGS HD Collection for the Vita is simply not a game that I'm going to invest money into this year.  It's rather unfortunate since I have, actually, been looking forward to the prospect of re-familiarizing myself with Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 in portable form, mostly for the convenience factor of course, but, well, therein lies the problem with the game:  It's only Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3.

"Only" is a pretty misleading word, of course, as both titles are the 'enhanced' versions of themselves, meaning Metal Gear Solid 2 is a game and a half with VR missions and Snake Tales, and Metal Gear Solid 3 is actually three games with Snake Eater as well as Metal Gear 1 and 2 - The 'good' versions, even.  I mean, any way you look at it, the game is full to the brim with content, but the problem here is comparative envy.  As we all know, the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection's appearance on the Vita is not its first - it first appeared on the Playstation 3 and XBox 360 with the content outlined above as well as Metal Gear Solid:  Peace Walker, the port of a portable game, remastered in HD.  And therein lies the rub; the portable port of a collection of ports does not have the portable port ported in the collection of ports.  (Ports)  It boggles my mind in bad ways that you could release a collection of Metal Gear Solid games for a portable console and exclude the game that was made explicitly for portable gaming.

So, knowing that there is an entire game missing, one has to go on and wonder -why- and the answer is....well, pretty sloppy, really.  The 'fan' answer is that there's probably not enough room on a Vita cart because that's not actually a bad idea, and from my little digging, I don't know the min-max space of a Vita cart.  But in that case, you could just throw in a voucher code for Peace Walker and call it a day, right?  You still get all three games for your $40 (which, s'far as we can tell, is how much MGS HD Vita is going to cost, the exact same as the PS3/360 versions) and everything's all spiffy.  Of course, that's not the official response, as the official response is:  'Why port it? It's already on the PSN for download, and the Vita touches it up already'.  Which is...uh....well, first off, that's a less-than-friendly way about it, and second off, it's not.  I have my Vita right in front of me and I cannot look up Peace Walker for purchase nor download.  Yes, you can get it on the PS3 and transfer it over, but that's not the point at all.

Maybe they assume the people who want to play Peace Walker on Vita already have the HD Collection on PS3 (since everyone who owns a Vita owns a PS3, clearly) which came with a download code for Peace Walker's PSP version to make use of the Transfarring feature.  So they want to pay another $40 for two of the games on the go because clearly in the -months- that the Collection's been out on the PS3 and 360, they haven't beaten it yet and they really really need that 'on-the-go' factor.  So they figure "Hey, they have Peace Walker HD on PS3 already, and a code for Peace Walker on PSP, they'll download it to their Vita and go and be awesome."  Which is....where the second problem comes in.  The second problem being that Peace Walker can't Transfar to the Vita.  So if you follow everything as is, buy both versions of the Collection and play the PSP version of Peace Walker on the Vita 'as intended' (to prevent from using resources that are so vital elsewhere) you don't get to enjoy the -one- feature that is -most- important for the Portable game that isn't in the portable collection.

This is some pretty gigantic fumbling going on here, unfortunately.  Fumbling enough that's it's dutifully pushed the game off my radar which seemed pretty impossible honestly.  On one hand, I'm pretty relieved by that, since that's $40 that I can spend elsewhere, but on the other hand, I really wanted to play Metal Gear Solid 3 on my Vita sometime soon.  I still will -someday-, but I can only hope that E3 brings about some happy Vita news from Konami to kind of make up for this.  Since it's just a bad look no matter which way you go at it.  Regardless, someone without access to a PS3 or 360 would probably be best served picking the game up if they desire; like I said, it's not exactly lacking for content, so much as it's simply lacking for the content of its big brother version.

'Dark' Looks Good, Is 360/PC Exclusive

In yet another one of those moments that make you go "Well -that- figures.", Joystiq ran a post today sort of introducing 'Dark' after a press release from the publisher, Kalypso Media, went out today.  The press release is a fairly good read, since it gives a little insight to the game that I've only known of for just over a week (Nothing really new from then, however), but it also sheds a little light (haha, no I'm not proud of that) on something a little unfortunate for me:  The game is only in development for PC and 360.  As you might see, I was actually pretty hopeful for Dark at first sight and was all-aboard, but this little hurdle means that I can probably comfortably drop it off my radar completely.  I'm interested in its development and how the end product turns out, of course, but not too much so; I won't be able to experience it unless I buy into a 360 at some point in the future which honestly is not in the cards.

Now, this is a bit annoying for me as it was just a couple months ago that I was saying what the industry really needed right now were games just like this.  Or if not what the industry needs, then certainly what I want, because, without rehashing my argument from the linked post, there just aren't enough actual supernatural games right about now.  It's all futury and high-tech or super fantasy with not a whole lot in between, the lot of them shooters or isometric romps.  On top of being a modern day attempt at vampire lore (without trying to put too much of their own 'stamp' on it, in the vein of Twilight sparkle, True Blood's brand of awful, etc. that I can see) trying to take it at least somewhat seriously, it's also a third-person stealth affair which I'm sure we'll all agree there are far too few of.  (Hitman and Thief rank here.)

What also stings is that the game looks really good in that it just has a lot of things that make it sound tantalizing.  Which is the point, clearly, and it requires on the actual execution of it to see just how it works out, but it is set up to succeed currently.  The cel-shaded graphics, as you see above are quite nice if a bit overly green (though it will give it a certain identity at least), but they'll likely have to be seen in motion to appreciate fully.  The RPG elements will likely allow you to give the main character 'your' own spin on him, depending on how you decide to grow him and what you focus on ala Deus Ex or Alpha Protocol.  I imagine as such, we could possibly expect the story to branch a little depending on how you handle matters, but that sort of remains to be seen.

Something I am curious to, as I'm curious with every sort of vampire piece is how they suggest the vampires blend in with society.  The bulk of the time, it's as simple as that; simply slipping into situations where they don't have to be out in the daylight, generally working the underworld and such.  It does seem like that may be the way it goes here in Dark as well, given the scenes shown.  Lots of indoor places, lots of artificial lighting, not a speck of sunlight to be seen around.  From what I can tell, our main character is freshly bitten as well, so that might weigh in on the gameplay some as well, in more ways than being a blank slate and/or at 'level suck' as it were.  Like, perhaps he's sensitive to even regularly lit areas to start with, thus necessitating the stealth in a big way at the start to ease you into making good use of it.

Whether or not the game will ever see a Playstation 3 release is iffy, but I'd be more than willing to imagine that it won't, unfortunately.  Unless it's a smash hit, of course, and the developers only omitted a PS3 version because of lack of funding, considering I imagine making a PC and 360 version of a game are fairly similar processes, where the PS3 is a whole other matter entirely.  So unfortunately, there's a good chance that I'll just be interested in the game without being able to do a whole lot about it.  It wouldn't be the first time, and I can only hope that it won't be the only thing to attempt something full-heartedly supernatural in the coming months, where I'll be able to partake in the others, but we'll just have to see.  If not, well, it's not like I'm hurting for games now or in the future to buy and play.

No Surprise - No UMD Passport Program for the West

Near has nothing to do with this, but we have different Vita pics, so I'm using them.

So, with the release of the Vita being counted in days rather than months now, the lack of a UMD Passport system announcement for us in the West was rather telling, but it seems like it's officially not happening.  It's disappointing to be sure, but given that it was mostly a Developer/Publisher-side thing, the fact that they're not willing to bother is not so much of a surprise.  Nor is it a surprise that the general populace of the internet isn't comprehending that it's not really a Sony issue, nor is it something Sony can do themselves.  As I stated in the above-linked post, Sony as an entity cannot give you digital versions of games that are not theirs to give.  Which is roughly 98% of the games on the store if not more because even the first-party games aren't developed by Sony, they're developed by first-party studios who are their own entity.  It's rather absurd to blame this solely on Sony, but the internet is quick to do that regardless, so we shouldn't be too surprised.

The program, as it turns out, hasn't been doing too hot in Japan either, as several big-name devs/pubs who have tokenly signed on with the program still haven't put their money where their mouths are, leaving a lot, if not all, of their games out of the program entirely still.  So the sentiment that 'at least Japan has the option' that you'll see in a lot of comments about this story isn't even all that founded.  If anything here, that's the surprising bit since PSP sales actually did -well- in Japan, though not digitally which could be the rub, I suppose.  Japan might be more keen on keeping their PSPs and playing UMDs than bothering with getting a digital copy, even if it is cheap.  Couple that with the fact that some of the big names aren't putting their games up for cheap in the Passport Program and that is something of a recipe for disaster.

Once again, I kind of have to point the blame at Steam/Valve for setting up a digital distribution hub that seems to work outside of reality, though at the same time, I imagine licensing and such for a PC game is much less stringent than for a console/handheld game.  It's hard to point at a PC game that isn't offered on Steam, at least a well-known one, so it's hard to even draw a direct correlation, but it's the same theory.  We'll use Star Wars:  The Old Rebublic, I guess, since it's Origin-exclusive (technically) and it's about all I can think of.  Is anyone blaming Valve for TOR not being available through Steam?  No, the blame is on EA.  Oh, here's one, is anyone blaming Valve for Minecraft not being available through Steam?  No, that's on Mojang.  Or, if we're showing off the general internet mindset, it's all Notch's fault.  (It's not all Notch's fault)

It's the same theory here; Valve cannot sell you a game that the Developer/Publisher isn't letting Valve sell you.  Sony cannot sell you a game or a digital version of a game you already own that the Developer/Publisher isn't letting them sell through the Playstation store.  And, I have to reiterate, sometimes it's not even the fault of the Developer/Publisher in so much as they're not willing.  If anything, it'd be their fault for not including clauses that account for future digital distribution, but such foresight wasn't common to have even a few years ago, so it's hard to point the finger there.  Bottom line, it is a rather unfortunate situation that everyone's involved in, and while a Passport System would have been nice, it just isn't going to happen for a multitude of reasons.  Very few of them are actually Sony's direct fault.  If we want our PSP games on the store and/or for a discount, throw it on the Pub/Dev to do so.

I've Kind of Ruined Animal Crossing for Myself

With a PSP that's on the fritz, a month til the Vita drops, and a lackluster DS library, my options for portable gaming have been limited.  It doesn't help that I keep forgetting to check out DS games at GameStop whenever I go there, but that's another matter entirely.  So since I've disallowed Harvest Moon DS to ever grace my system again, I'm burnt out on Rune Factory still, and my other DS games are more or less "Played it, Beat it, Don't Care" (Castlevanias, GTA:  Chinatown Wars, etc.), I decided "Welp, guess it's time to go back to Guardia."  Guardia being the name of my town in Animal Crossing:  Wild World for DS.  I'd always considered going back to it, but, well, the game kind of encourages continued play through something resembling penalties for staying away.

In Wild World's case at least (As well as City Folk since the games are fairly interchangeable, don't know about the first game) if you're not around then nobody else will pick the weeds that constantly grow within the walls of your town.  For some reason.  This is an issue, of course, because it causes your town to devalue or something, nobody likes living there, and eventually you're stuck with a bunch of people moving out because the place is such a crapsack.  So when you do hop back in, you have quite a bit of work to do before you can get back to the daily grind of life in an Animal Crossing game.  So the first few hours that I spent playing, it was doing nothing but going around and pulling up weeds because yes it took that long.  I did discover, however, during my weed pulling that only one inhabitant of Guardia had moved out.  Who this person was, I don't recall, of course, nor did I get a letter, I think, so it was of no concern.  Replacing whoever it was was a new person already, a cat with the skin of an orange (not kidding) calling herself "Tangy".  I have been avoiding Tangy.

Of course, once I finally got things set up, there was only about an hour of play to be had in Wild World.  Look about for fossils and dig them up, have them appraised by the Owl working the Museum and pocket them for selling to Nook.  (Because I have pretty much all the Dinosaur skeletons put together already)  Grab a cup of coffee from the cafe under the Museum (despite having the avatar of a ~13 year old kid).  Start digging behind rocks and then smacking them to try and get bags of money (the holes being the thing holding you in place to get the max of seven bags).  Check the recycling for free items.  Visit the Able Sisters and check out their stock.  Go to Nook's, sell things, check the catalog and see if I haven't already had something the Sisters are selling.  Repeat for Nook's furniture stock upstairs.  Talk to villagers if I feel like it.  And finally, go home and go to bed so I can turn the game off.

It's very routine, unfortunately, because I can't seem to make Animal Crossing, er....not be routine.  Wandering the limited slice of a world you're given just isn't too much fun, I've given up fishing, and I can't bother talking to the other residents beyond what's necessary since residents of a similar personality seem to, er, say the exact same things.  And there's not that many different types of Personalities unfortunately.  As was evidenced by Roald (a penguin) and Tank (a rhino) who lived directly next to each other and were obsessed with working out.  While it was cool for the theme, since it made -sense- for them to live next to each other, they would oftentimes say the exact same thing to me after talking to the both of them, so it got a little less fun.  It was about when I started figuring this all out that I came to a very unnerving conclusion.

Animal Crossing is basically a Facebook game you play on Nintendo products.  It's kind of an outlandish claim at first, but the parallels are there.  It's built from the ground-up to be played in short bursts everyday.  Facebook games do this by having things happen in semi-realtime (Plants in Farmville only grow every few hours and such, Cafe World food takes hours to cook, etc.) and Animal Crossing does this by only having a limited amount of things you can do in a single day.  They both tend to change in the day-to-day while largely remaining the same. (Sales in the in-game shops corresponding to certain days, celebrating holidays and the like)  They both tend to have exaggerated art styles to cater to a wider audience.  The only big difference is that Facebook games tend to be made by undesireables with the intention of siphoning money out of you for bonuses which, to be fair, some game companies do anyway.  (See Bamco's Hyperdimension Neptunia's DLC)

I don't say this to be extremist or anything of that nature, nor is it a condemnation of Animal Crossing, as a lot of people see "Facebook Games" and instantly go to a bad place.  Which is natural, of course, but having played a few Facebook games in my day, I can't help but see the similarities and be annoyed by them.  After playing Mafia Wars for so long, it was less something I was playing and more something that I did because it was in my schedule which I can sort of how I see Animal Crossing capable of falling into.  And try as I might, I can't really think of a way for it to get out of that rut beyond actually introducing more game to it, but at the same time, I'm not sure about that, either.  With Animal Crossing played in real-time, there's only so much you can really put into the game, since you don't want to have enough content that people trying to do all of it every day will burn themselves out.  But you -want- your players to play your game for more than a couple token hours as well, which is what I imagine a lot of Animal Crossing players do unfortunately.  Perhaps Animal Crossing 3DS will offer a solution, but we won't be able to see until it's out.

Woah Now, Europe

Stop getting all this shit I want, okay?  I mean, I know we Americans are kind of spoiled with releases since we get things when you generally don't but, well, these are things I want.  Earlier today, a Tecmo KOEI community manager mentioned the fact that Warriors Orochi 3 will see a European release, though it was not, y'know, confirmed quite yet.  Notice that it was, indeed, called Warriors Orochi 3 because it will be the third proper Warriors Orochi game outside of Japan where it, much like Dynasty Warriors, has been quite funky with its naming of the iterations of the series, leading our Warriors Orochi 2 to only be considered an expanded version, thus making our Warriors Orochi 3 their Warriors Orochi 2.  It's all quite confusing and brought about by quite dumb things, but oh well, that's just sort of how it flies.

My interest in Warriors Orochi 3 is very well documented and I never really -doubted- a version with English would get released, considering this would be a mainline release which we get fairly consistently.  I just never imagined that English would mean, well, English, as in from the UK.  I still don't think it'll come to that, but if it does, then I guess I'll just have to jump into this whole importing thing with both feet, because I am going to get this damn game one way or another.  It's apparently the closest I'm going to get to play Samurai Warriors 3 on PS3 in English, so I guess that's all I've gotta think about when I go for it.  (Tangentally related, Samurai Warriors 3 is getting a PSP version which means it's going to stay in Japan, obviously.  They can port the game to everything under the sun, but not localize it?  Makes total sense, of course.)  Aside from that, I love the Warriors Orochi series, as I've said before, for the simple fact that it goes crazy with mystical stuff, screwing with the timelines and relationships and doesn't even care.  I can respect that.

You would think that with me playing so much Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 that I'm actually grumbling about random things with it (Like it having -9- missions that are the same as every other mission with guaranteed aces that have to be played on hard for no reason other than to pad it out some) that I would be a little tired of Warriors news.  Or, maybe you know me and wouldn't think that at all, because I am very obviously a Warriors sponge and I soak this shit up and can't wait for more.  I'll keep an eye out for an official announcement regarding overseas release, but I would imagine at least the PAL release is concrete and a NA release would be right behind it.  With any luck, KOEI will be brilliant and release it right after/before One Piece:  Pirate Warriors and something else to flood the market with KOEI games and then wonder why only some of them get bought, instead of reasonably releasing them at something resembling a good pace.  Because why would they do that, that would be sensible!

In other "Getting a European release but no word of American release" news, Way of the Samurai 4 is finally getting released outside of Japan 'sometime this year'.  It seems a bit late and all, since WotS4 has been out for quite a while already, but, hey, any chance for us to get our hands on it is a good one because of just how different the games are.  I imagine Way of the Samurai 4 is a little....errr...more realized in this gen than 3 was by any measure as well, which should make things a bit nicer for it on the whole.  Just the picture above is miles and away better than how 3 looked at some points, possibly even its best, but that's fairly expected from something that was sort of realized as a budget title anyway.

Still, as I mentioned, the amount of choice and the way the story conforms around your choices is pretty much unmatched by any other game out there.  Sure, it's not very long if you're just looking to get a couple stories down, but if you are the type who wants to (or has to because of trophies) get into everything, these types of games will give you endless hours of content that, at times, will always seem a bit new to you, if just because something different than the norm, or what you expected to happen, happened.  Those subtle little details are taken into account always, and especially so with 4, as it seems your choices might directly impact the next time you play as well.  So not only does what you do build the story, it also shapes your next one which likely means that much more possibility.  I'm not sure how it works, but it's interesting, at least on the surface.

Ragequit - Harvest Moon DS

Now, I have been known to vocally enjoy the seemingly-droll games that encompass the Harvest Moon series and its spin-offs, so the fact that I'm playing one should never be a surprise.  The fact that I'm outright refusing to play one of the titles should be one, however, and that's just what I have to do with Harvest Moon DS for being one of the most buggy things I've ever had the misfortune of dumping dozens of hours into to only have it lost.  There's more bugs (or if not more, then at least more devastating) in this damn thing than a Bethesda game and that's -saying- something.  What makes it worse is the fact that the game offers quite a lot and it's not inherently bad, but for the fact that you most likely -will- lose your game in a way that makes it unrecoverable is damning in a way that most games won't ever be party to.

I'll break it down right now and let you know just how you can and will lose your Harvest Moon DS game:  The saving system.  That might be obvious, but it's the bug with the almost innocuous, everyday application of the system that other games have that makes it so dangerous.  At any time, provided you're not in conversation, event or Holiday, you can move to the data screen on the bottom screen and save it in one of the two files available.  It's just that simple, and that's what everyone loves, is a simple saving system.  However, you'll find guides for the game online, or even just advice pieces around online that tell you to save in areas that have no movement on-screen.  Why is that?  It's because if there's something moving on-screen while the game saves, that save will just become corrupt and any attempt to load it will return an unsuccessful message.

That's not the only problem, however, as there is a specific freezing glitch associated with another glitch that is very, very easily activated which makes absolutely no sense.  Apparently in the winter, if you hire the fishing team to fish at the beach and then go down and cast your own fishing rod for a couple seconds, there's a chance that, when the Mayor comes to take your shipments for the day that an exorbitant amount of money that tops out at A Billion Gold will be put into your account.  It seems almost 'perfect storm'-ish as a scenario but I assure you it's very easy to trigger it on accident.  And, in my experience, if you save when you have that Billion Gold in your account, you're not loading that game anymore.  When you try and load it, it just freezes up and the sound that plays stutters and such, and your only recourse is turning off the DS entirely.  So all that work, unless you've been using both slots to save (which you shouldn't be forced to do), is gone.  Unsurprisingly, that's what happened to me and it's the reason that Harvest Moon DS is getting shelved permanently.

It sucks a lot really, because Harvest Moon DS is sort of the last resort I've got when it comes to Harvest Moon games.  I have Rune Factory, and the lot of you know I've gone on and on about those, but they're spin-offs, pure and simple.  I could play Harvest Moon:  Boy & Girl on my PSP, which takes Back to Nature and the Girl version and puts them both together on a single UMD, but Back to Nature takes place in Mineral Town with all of Mineral Town's characters who I am, frankly, a little tired of.  In my playings of Harvest Moon 64, Back to Nature (via Boy & Girl) and Friends of Mineral Town, I've married Karen, Popuri, Ann and Mary more times than I care to remember, and developed more friendships with the same denizens of the Town over and over again than I've formed actual friendships in real life.  I have exhausted Mineral Town of all it has to offer and thus need to move along.

On top of that, Harvest Moon DS actually brings quite a few good, or at least decent, ideas to the table that vary things quite a bit.  With a few extra types of buildings available, not to mention the fact that you can decide their design (sort of) and their placement, that alone opens more doors and windows for variety, and variety is always a welcome thing for HM games as a whole to have.  Joining the usual roster of animals you can raise are ducks, which require you to have a Pond (a new 'building') put into your farm who give off eggs that sell for more than Chicken eggs on the whole, but they only produce them every other day.  Another new source of income (in theory, at least) is a Mushroom Shed that you can buy if you like having something around that won't start to pay for itself for like two or three seasons afterward.  Basically, it's a shed that comes with six slats, you put lumber on those slats, seed them with mushroom seeds and water them everyday for, again, months (In Havest Moon games, generally your 'months' are your seasons.  30 days of Summer, 30 Days of Spring, etc.) and eventually you'll be able to pick off a mushroom.  After the initial one, you'll be able to get one every few days, and if you leave them on and continue watering them, the mushrooms will go up to Medium or even Large size to, obviously, sell for more.

Alongside that, the new ways to up the affection that your animals have for you is welcome, if not executed well.  Using the "Touch Gloves", any action you would take with your animal (petting, brushing, milking or shearing basically) is turned into a scored mini-game and some of the mini-games lead to gaining up to three times the amount of affection you would normally gain.  Granted, that three times means three points over one and a single heart (the measure of affection, they can get up to 10, I believe) is 100 points, but like I said, it's a good idea in theory and not execution.  That the mini-game is entirely optional is the good point, of course, since any action taken without the Touch Gloves equipped is just as normal as it is in any other Harvest Moon game - same efforts, same results.  That the mini-games basically entail "Rub your stylus on the screen really really fast" is also a detracting factor from them, but it honestly would be mitigated easily if the gains weren't abysmal.

Also fairly interesting about HMDS is that there's literally three different casts of women that you can marry, as opposed to just the normal roster of five or so that you generally get.  That is one cast, obviously, and it features Celia, the fair farmhand with a fragile bill of health, Lumina, the rich girl with a curious streak, Muffy, the resident bar girl with a bit too much hot air in her head, Nami, the rough-and-tumble traveling girl, and Flora, the archaeologist's apprentice.  They're your normal group of varied girls who live and work in Forget-Me-Not Valley to cater to varied tastes of the players, and 90% of the time, you're likely going to go for one of them.  However, keen-eyed readers might notice the above picture of the Witch Princess features a little out-of-place black heart as well, and if you know that the Heart System features only with women you can marry, you might just wonder about this a bit.

The second cast of women that you can marry in the game is actually the more 'fantasy' themed ones that features the Above-Pictured Witch Princess, resident 'evil' character, the returning Harvest Goddess who is sent to another dimension at the start of the game and can only be brought back by unlocking 60 Harvest Sprites during the course of the game by performing various tasks, Keira, who is apparently a "Sleeping Beauty" reference that lives at the bottom of a 255-floor mine, and a Mermaid that's being kept in the resident Mad Scientist's basement.  No, I didn't make any of that up, yes it's a little crazy.  The common theme with those few is that if you want to get with them, you're going to have to put in a lot of extra effort.  The Mermaid is almost the exception to that, as you really only have to befriend the Mad Scientist Daryl so he'll let you go into his basement, and he is a fan of the wild colored grasses that grow about the valley regularly, but the Harvest Goddess' hand requires that you ship one of every single item in the game among other things.  It's not a pleasant thought.

And finally, the third cast is the returning cast from Mineral Town, which is apparently just a short walk away from Forget-Me-Not Valley.  Their inclusion is one of those 'neat' little things that you'll likely miss out on anymore, as it requires a copy of Friends of Mineral Town and a DS that has a GBA slot to keep it in.  All five women have their own schedules that take them into Forget-Me-Not Valley a day or two out of every week so that you can talk to them and give them gifts to win their affections.  That's not the only time they come around, of course, but I'm fairly certain you can't woo them without the linked method explained above, and if not then the alternative would be quite tedious.  There are obviously a few ticks against going after them, however, as you might be like me and simply be jaded with them, but even more importantly is the fact that marrying one of them means relocating to Mineral Town which will end the game right there.  I don't know why you necessarily have to move to Mineral Town, but that's how the game handles it and no there's not something that carries over into Friends of Mineral Town if you do so.

After reading this over once, I've realized that the tone is entirely too positive, so I think I need to throw down some of the other annoyances I have besides the few I've mentioned.  First off, saving the Harvest Sprites is a tedious, terrible, game-padding move that detracts from the game more than it adds, despite the obvious.  In previous games, you could hire the Harvest Sprites to do various jobs around your farm that you didn't want to do, or possibly couldn't do (like event days, the birth of a child, etc.) and they retain that role in HMDS....after you bring them back from the other dimension that the Witch Princess inadvertently sent them to directly after the Harvest Goddess. 

This is done by doing various things attached to their particular team, so for example, to bring back a member of the Fishing Team, you have to fish up a certain amount of fish before he comes back somehow, and for another sprite like a sprite from the Collection Team, you have to chop up a certain amount of logs found around the Valley or so.  It sounds simple, but the requirements get way over-the-top for many of them, of which one of the more egregious examples being a member of the TV Team won't unlock until you ship 100,000 of a single item.  Other sprites won't unlock until you acquire Mystic versions of tools which can only be gotten after upgrading every single tool to Mystrile level, unlocking the third mine (which requires getting to the bottom of the 255-floor second mine), finding the cursed version of the tools and then paying a Priest to remove the curse from it.  That's practically a quest in itself and that's only for a handful of Sprites.

Possibly the worst part of it is that half the game of any Harvest Moon game is interacting with the folks about town, so the fact that the denizens of Forget-Me-Not Valley are, in fact, quite forgettable is bothersome.  Characterization is not very strong here despite the fact that the character list includes an android Doctor (or at least a Doctor with a T-1000 eye replacement), the afore-mentioned Mad Scientist, a darling old married couple, and a hulking artist with a fondness for 'modern' interpretations that aren't commonly seen in the Harvest Moon vistas.  Still, even with those, none of them are interesting enough to warrant peeking at, especially when the timing system in the game seems a little sped up from previous iterations.  Less time to do more in a day doesn't bode well, after all, in life or a game simulating life.

Money is either entirely too hard or entirely too easy to get in the Valley, depending on whether or not you know the 'tricks' to making a quick buck.  Normal fare of grabbing up the stuff that grows in the wild and selling that next to crops you grow isn't going to get you very far, and when everything is as expensive as it is (building-wise, at least, which is basically all you need to spend money on), that can lead to not getting a whole lot of satisfaction out of the game.  Even going to the mines and mining a lot of ores doesn't quite pay the bills properly (at least, I don't think it did, or not proportionally to the amount of effort used) so you have to wonder just how in the hell you're supposed to get anywhere.  And while it's not 'the' method, there is 'a' method involving Van, a traveling merchant who wanders into the Valley on every day of the month that ends with a 3 or an 8.  Van sells quite a few things of interest, but the more interesting aspect of his usage is that he buys things -from- you, and apparently has a fondness for accessories.  A Red Cape that can be gotten from the Harvest Sprites for 65k or so medals can be sold to him for a price that fluctuates in the 400k-600k range and the slight pieces of jewelry that can be dug up in the main dig site that leads to the mines can be sold for a few thousand G a piece.  It doesn't feel right and it's fairly cumbersome, but it'll get you what you need.

I guess if I had to describe it in a few strokes or condense what I've already said here, it's that Harvest Moon DS obviously has a few good ideas, but the overall handling of not only them, but some core mechanics of the game (not mentioned so far is the fact that Stamina and Fatigue do not go long -at all-) is fairly poor.  Adding to that the game-crippling bugs and you don't exactly have a 'good' game by any measure.  It's the truth and an unfortunate one at that, but no game can be considered 'good' when your save data can get corrupted for little to no reason at all.  Or when you can get the maximum amount of money possible for no other reason than you went fishing during the winter and didn't keep your line out long enough to reel anything in.  And just the thought of all that progress that I lost just because the game wasn't properly tested...I can't call this anything else -but- a "Ragequit".  Avoid the game by all means unless you're not the type to get attached to your characters.