Yes, Of Course I'm Going to Bitch

As I stated yesterday, I had reached the precipice of Terraria's content where my fore-knowledge ended and the newness of the game's offerings began.  Specifically with the boss named The Wall of Flesh which is then immediately followed by what is rather appropriately called "Hard Mode".  It's not difficult to imagine that I have indeed surpassed the challenge of the Wall of Flesh and entered Hard Mode, and it is so, but it's not exactly...what I was expecting.  Or hoping for.  Which is where I begin to get a little grumbly about it, because of just how the game deigns to earn that 'Hard Mode' descriptor.

Hard Mode is hard because the entire caste of enemies has been upgraded and expanded on to a ridiculous amount - no longer are Zombies your only concern at night, but Werewolves, Armored Skeletons, Skeleton Archers and Phantasms roam the ground, where Demon Eyes have been joined by Wraiths which go straight through walls and ignores all barriers, meaning you cannot simply box yourself in and remain safe.  Below ground is the same deal, with Illuminant Slimes and Bats joining Creepers and Giant Bats and Spectral Swords and Shadow Hammers (both of which similarly ignore barriers like Wraiths) and Mimics.  All of these have inflated health values and defenses that necessitate weapons better than you'll likely have because Hard Mode begins with absolutely no aplomb or changeover, and you're stuck getting right into it.  The Wall of Flesh might leave you a weapon - it left me a Buster Sword, yes like Cloud's - but I don't know that it's guaranteed, and thus you might stand a chance of being thrust into this changed version of your world without the proper tools to protect yourself.

Something that the Wall of Flesh is guaranteed to drop is the Pwnhammer, a hammer that has the ability to destroy Demon Altars, which are scattered through the caverns and corruption of your world.  Goal Number One of Hard Mode is, without a doubt, to find three Demon Altars and destroy them.  Doing so will release new ores into your world and these new ores are powerful as tools and as armor both.  Of course, by 'release new ores into your world', I mean certain blocks in your world will be changed -into- ore blocks which means you get to search your entire world all over again.  While everything wants to, and is more than capable of killing you.  Now, I'm not sure exactly how much of 1.2 is in the Console version of Terraria, so let's make it simple - the first Demon Altar will spawn Cobalt, the second will spawn Mythril and the third and final one will spawn Adamantite.  (If 1.2 was present, there could be a chance of them being Palladium, Orichalcum and Titanium respectively)

You want Cobalt Ore right away.  Cobalt is used to make a Cobalt Drill or Cobalt Pickaxe which is the entry-tier pick/drill that can mine Mythril.  You then need to make a Mythril Pickaxe or Drill to finally mine Adamantite.  It's very padded and drawn-out, and while you make other, important things with these ores as well, it's a little frustrating on its head.  Especially at the start when you're vulnerable, desperately seeking out Cobalt with every monster and its brother bearing down your neck.  Perhaps there are some that find a thrill in that.  Were I not sick, maybe I would too.  I doubt it, but it's possible.  No, all I feel is a slight miff and annoyance, especially when Cobalt is, for some reason, exceedingly difficult to spot while playing the game.  If you'll note the screenshot I used for this post - the sizable blue mass in the bottom right corner is all cobalt.  It was only after taking that shot, uploading it to Flickr and linking it here that I actually saw it which was, of course, a while after I had died and began on my next task of making a proper storage room because my damn backpack fills up far too fast now.

I haven't actually delved too far into it.  I don't even have enough Cobalt for the purposes of making a pick or a drill because of the reasons stated, and the only reason I know what I know is because I did cheat a bit and look up a wiki for it.  Since I found some of all three ores, but couldn't mine a single one of them.  This is because Cobalt requires a Molten Pickaxe which is actually a downgrade from the Nightmare pickaxe despite being of higher 'quality' and that downgrade has expedited my search for Cobalt which has, in turn, made my search more difficult.  It's a vicious cycle, I'm sure you can tell as much.  It also does not do too much to breed 'fun' in a game that I was otherwise enjoying prior to the Wall of Flesh which was, by the by, a pain in the ass as a boss fight because Ranged-Only Boss Fights are almost always terrible as an idea.

Not to say that I'm bitter!  It all just relies on me actually getting the ball rolling so I can get the tools and get the gear and then be at the place where I was at the end of Normal Mode again, where I'm just comfortable building and exploring and enjoying.  It's just that I -was- there and now I'm not, so it's a bit jarring.  The padding of the ores is honestly the only thing that really bothers me as it just seems blatant - you have three new ores, so it's a little...silly to require each one for the next, since that leaves the best as little else than a prize in terms of mining equipment, even when its true desire is thus in armor and weapons.  There should be -something- that only Adamantite can mine, is my point, if just to make it worth it.  Oh well.  I guess the first step is just finding the area from that screenshot again and getting all of that Cobalt!

it's such a nice blue color, how the hell do I miss it so easily?

Well, That Was Short-Lived

I would like to start off by saying that I'm sorry.  Kind of.  I'm sorry if, after my faint praise of the game and its low, low sale price were enticing enough for you to have bought the game, then I apologize.  Not because Touch My Katamari eventually turns into a game that lives and breathes on punching you in the dick and laughing at your torment or anything, no.  In fact, it's very fair and when you unlock the Eternal Modes for the levels, it's quite enjoyable indeed.  Fundamentally, there's not a whole lot wrong with the game part of the game if you don't count the fact that it's kind of short.  There is something, however, that is one of those naturally terrible things that just grate on me because it screams of design that you should never ever ever incorporate into a game.  Ever.

The currency of the game world in Touch My Katamari is Candy.  You get candies for finishing requests (based on your performance), for buying things for the King (never as many as you spent) and for playing every day.  That last one is the key - playing a few days in a row will only get you a couple to a handful of candies, whereas a full ten days in a row and thereafter will get you 256 candies simply for loading up the game.  That seems like a lot, right?  It does.  Until you learn that everything costs thousands of candies.  Some of it is the low thousands so it's not -bad-, since you're earning a couple hundred easy from requests anyway (so long as you're not getting really low scores, which you -won't- in Eternal because you'll be rolling all of the things), but it's still a bit of a slog to buy everything.  Even utilizing Candy Tickets, which multiply your candies earned in a request by 2, then 4, then 8 (if you use three at a time) won't get you a -lot-, but it'll get you a good amount towards buying things.

And if you want all the dozen trophies that Touch My Katamari has to offer, then you're going to have to buy all the things.  Specifically all of the music (you'll want to anyway, the music is more or less pretty good) and all the King's clothes, which is where the issue is.  You see, the upper echelon of outfits for the King's wardrobe will cost in the high thousands per piece meaning you're kind of stuck playing the levels over and over and over and over again...which is fine in theory.  Either that or, if you're going for the mega secret ultimate hidden item, which is literally a golden poop soft-serve that costs a grand 76,500 Candies which is...far more than the rest of the items in the game combined.  By quite a wide margin.  Given that your biggest get for a single level using three candy tickets if you finish off all the bonus things in the same level (which are one-time-only affairs) is probably somewhere around 1,000-1,400 candies.  Maybe.  For about 15-20 minutes playtime.  You....can see how this will end up being a sort of a problem.

This is where that bit about the 256 candies per day comes into play.  See, the silly thing about Touch My Katamari is that, even though there's something that clearly checks an external source for the date and time (the rank/title vendor, basically - you title will upgrade as you continue to play the game which eventually gives you candy multiplier bonuses that do not stack with tickets) you can go into a menu (guides suggest the curio menu) switch to settings, advance the day by one, go back into the game, exit the menu and get handed 256 candies.  You can repeat this process over and over and over again and it will take you a long time, but it will be far, far faster than getting the candies legitimately.  And by far, far faster, I mean it will take hours of your life and cause you to advance the clock manually, day-by-day, to June 22nd, 2014 if you started today with a no-streak (meaning the first ten days were building up to the 256).  Like I did.  Today.  Right before I bought the golden poop soft-serve and got the trophy for getting the golden poop soft-serve, uploaded my save data to online storage and deleted that shit.

That is really my main issue with the game other than it being short, but it's a pretty damn serious issue if you have terrible not-actually-OCD-but-let's-call-it-that-anyway like I do, and as a design philosophy, it's abhorrent.  You might think, with Namco and the way they treat Katamari games, that it was a trick to get you to -buy- candy with real money, but no, that's not even an option.  You can by Fan Damacies (that are otherwise completely random spawns) which you trade for Candy Tickets (and also unlock the free DLC missions with) and that's basically the gist of the whole....real-money aspect to it.  Aside from maybe buying more music or something, I didn't really look into it.  And it's not that I was going to buy candy, it's just that I was assured that that's what Namco wanted me to do.  But no....no it was not.  Which makes the decision even more baffling.  Still, for $3.75 and Eternal Modes, it was a rather fun, enjoyable game that would've been easily "alright" if it wasn't for that whole glaring issue.  As it stands, I just can't continue to recommend it unless you just...don't care about trophies at all.  Which is probably the healthy move.

it burns usssss, needs the trophies precious

Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Public Planning is Bullshit

Continuing the trend of not being able to talk about New Leaf in a completely positive light, I have a whole new complaint about the game now that I've put quite a bit more time into it.  This time around, it's a biggie, unfortunately, because I have a bone to pick with the entire new mechanic they added to New Leaf: The Town-Building aspect.  I was initially intrigued and hopeful for the mechanic, but its become quite clear that it was under-thought and implemented poorly as one might fear.  To be honest, I have a sort of complaint with every single facet of how it's handled, if you can believe that, and it's annoying that I -can- be that bothered by it, since it's really something that shouldn't have been too difficult to implement.  Yet, Nintendo took the route they usually use and over-complicated something that could have been refined and enjoyable instead of obfuscated and tedious.

I've already mentioned that everything costs an exorbitant amount of bells, so I won't harp on that so much aside from reminding that the lowest-cost item is 30,000 bells (a bench) and a project that was 39,800 Bells only raised 1,200 bells in three days in my village, if that much.  As mentioned, you are pretty much going to need to fund these projects yourself, and that means frittering away doing menial side tasks for the express purpose of simply scraping together said amount of bells.  Though, to be fair, they only exist to buy things with - there's no reason to save them in the ATM aside from getting some badges whenever the badge guy decides to stop into town.  Still, gathering Bells without the express intention of doing so is hard to do, and the process of doing so is tedious at best.  It's not a good thing.

Of course, that doesn't even skim upon the issue of actually obtaining things -to- build via the means of throwing bells at a gyroid because your villagers won't do it their damn selves.  The step at the start, simply sitting in the Mayor's chair and picking a project to work on is tricky because you only have a certain caste of things you can pick from initially.  Thereafter, everything else has to be suggested before you can build it.  Some of these are fairly simple - You cannot get a second floor to the museum until you've played for something like 10 days and have at least one piece of work displayed in all four exhibit areas of the museum.  That one's understandable and easy and when the conditions are met, all you have to do is talk to Blathers, and he'll tell you that he's going to suggest it to your secretary.  Next time you're there, you can pick it, and it's just that simple.  The -other- method, unfortunately, is simply walking around by your villagers in the hopes that one of them will make the animation of noticing you and speak to them, hoping that it's a suggestion and not a request for you to find them a common/rare bug/fish or something equally inane.  Suffice to say, it doesn't happen a lot and indeed, I've only gotten three suggestions in my, what, month of playing(?) to add to my list via random suggestion.

Perhaps the most annoying step of the whole process is the actual placement in New Leaf.  You see, once you've figured out what you want to build from the minute list of what you -can- build, you and your secretary have to wander about.  She's looking for you to tell her where a building should go, and it's based on, roughly, where you're standing when you ask her.  It's inelegant, unwieldy and is guaranteed to keep you from putting things where you actually want them.  You pick out the perfect spot and, without fail, Isabelle will inform you that it's too close to a rock or a pond or the City Hall or a bridge or a previously constructed project (by a degree of 'spaces' which aren't...marked in even the slightest bit) and it quickly becomes a game of just trying to figure out where in the hell you can plop down this goddamn fire hydrant so that it'll be out of the way and won't ruin and of your fruit trees.  Oh yeah, picking an area with trees will just sort of get rid of those trees.  Which you only know about when Isabelle says "Oh this is a good spot, here's what it'll look like!" which brings up a flash and then you can see the spot with the project built minus whatever was there previously with no visual indication that anything is, indeed, gone.

It stands to wonder how this couldn't have been handled in...a better way.  You cannot do this sort of thing when your city is open to others, so doing something a little more 'restrictive' but far more precise is...something that comes to mind.  Personally, I would've liked the ability to just use the map on the touch screen that you literally have from the start of the game while in the office to bring up an area.  On the top screen, it shows the building or what have you as an outline (white if viable, red if not) with anything that would be destroyed as a red tinged object.  You know, like every single other game that allows you to plop down buildings too.  That Nintendo missed about two decades of design cues on this very type of idea is nothing short of astounding and disappointing, considering their method of this thing isn't even charming, it's just bad.  The whole of it is just an exercise in frustration and it's bothersome, since this was supposed to be the big draw of the game and it was barely thought-out at all.  I'm...just not sure if I'm surprised by this or not, unfortunately.  Always next game, I suppose.

Isabella, you cannot tell me that this thing is 2 spaces by 4 spaces because I HAVE NO VISUAL CUES AS TO WHAT SPACES ARE

Project Spark - On Opportunities and Waste

While I was writing up a general E3-ender post, I took a proper look at Project Spark and, as I tried to continue the post, I found myself coming back to it over and over again.  Which seems like a good thing!  Except I found that I was coming back for all of the wrong reasons.  Instead of finding interest in the game itself, I find myself simply poking at this and that, going 'hrm' and grunting in annoyance as I move on to the next thing to whinge about.  That is frustrating in and of itself, of course, which just leads to even more frustration over the whole thing and it's just a vicious circle.  All of it is very unfortunate, of course, given the context of it.

I want to like Project Spark, much as it might not seem it.  I have gone on record several times, I'm sure, stating that I'm honestly fine with people cribbing ideas wholesale and adding their own touch to it, which is clearly what's gone on here.  Project Spark isn't "Let's make a game where players can make all sorts of things!", it's "People really like LittleBigPlanet and make some amazing things in it - we gotta get in on that".  Which is fine.  Encouraged, even!  Challenges help everyone grow since one party is always aiming to make a better product than 'the other one' that's out there.  If this means a fully 3D LittleBigPlanet for the next iteration (Which practically writes itself:  "LittleBigPlanet 3:  Now with a 3rd Dimension!") then I'm -all for it- since that's really the one big limitation it has, which has even been circumvented in a sense, in some ways.

I have plenty of issues with what I'm -seeing- of Project Spark, however.  Which, I will admit might be a lot of ado about nothing, considering my (and most people, I would think) only exposure is the above two videos of a game that's clearly not in its finishing stages or anywhere near close yet.  I hope this isn't meant to be a launch title (and nothing says that it is) because it certainly won't be ready for that - in reality, it might not have been ready to show off just yet.  Why not, you might think.  There's videos of it and everything!  Videos showing 'games' that people made using the game itself!  Games that look suspiciously like Limbo and Fez and Geometry Wars and Space Invaders and Fruit Ninja!  Games that are clearly games!

It has to do with the Intro Video, mostly, to be honest.  I got to the part where it was showing off how easy it is to 'make' things in a 3D environment with Kinect, and interact with them and I could not shake my head hard enough, yelling "NOPE".  Once upon a time, you see, I got to play around with 3D software in which you can actually create, you know, 3D renditions of things.  Things that you can rotate and look at and see all the little details and the like.  While this was a few years ago and technology has sure changed, I don't think the real philosophy has, and the philosophy, basically, is that "this shit is fucking hard" because the 3D space begs for feedback, and it's only when you've created the perfect looking rubber ducky that you turn it and realize everything is clipping through it in the wrong way and it looks terrifying and horrible.  So you're going to have to excuse me if I call bullshit on just waving your hand and making a little snow-covered cliff and putting a house right on top of it and not slightly inside of it or completely in the wrong spot because you can only look at it from one angle at a time.

Perhaps it's tool-assisted or something, but all that tells me, then, is that you're working within certain limitations that you don't honestly need in a 3D environment.  Limitations that you don't want in a game that is supposed to task you with creating everything and anything you want.  Limitations that, from what I've seen unfortunately seem to be there if only because of the over-stylized Fable-esque look surrounding every facet of the game, preventing some sort of identity separation from happening even with the games that we are so obviously supposed to see as X and Y existing titles.  Everything, even Limbo, looks like "X, but with Fable".  At least with LittleBigPlanet, despite everything about the look and feel of the game, you -could- establish a striking visual identity if you worked at it enough.  And perhaps that technically is the case with Project Spark as well - I'm just not seeing it yet.

As it is, I'm not impressed with Project Spark, but I suspect it will take a little actual information on the game before I am.  When it's in a proper state, release a "This is how you make a game" fast video like LittleBigPlanet has done numerous times (because, I mean, come on) and let us understand just how 'easy' it actually is.  While also showing off just how much is something you make from scratch (since you can literally build block by block in LBP) versus how much is canned, you-can't-do-anything-but-change-its-color, like that monster shown in the video.  Assuming you can't actually edit it for....some terrible reason.  I cannot stress enough, however, that I want to be impressed with Project Spark.  I want it to be released and be popular so that it helps spur more games of its type.  I long for a world where LittleBigPlanet is not the 'only' big game where you can make literally anything in it.  Because that is a world wherein I will actually make something wonderful eventually.  Maybe.

seriously, again, I say it looks like friggin' Fable and I will continue to say that

What Makes a Portable Game Portable?

With Animal Crossing:  New Leaf on the near horizon and twenty-five of my dollars ensuring that I will have a 3DS XL bundle at the GameStop I frequent on the 9th, I have found myself rather oddly excited to jump back into the world of Animal Crossing, as well as get to know the 3DS properly.  Getting to know a 3DS properly, if you listen to a lot of detractors for the Vita, will allow me to get properly introduced to -actual- portable games, and not just 'watered-down console scraps'.  That part is interesting to me for many reasons, all of which should probably be obvious, but without getting too snarky, it did get me thinking.  Why is there a notion that the 3DS' offerings are so much more 'portable-focused' than the Vita's?

Let's take the example'd Animal Crossing:  New Leaf since it is literally the game I'm getting a 3DS XL for since Rune Factory 4 still has a tentative release date.  I legitimately have to question the portability of a game that originated on a console, and has seen only two more releases til now - another one that was just on a console, and a portable one that was literally just like the console one, but missing a few things.  Surely, if Uncharted:  Golden Abyss = Uncharted on consoles and thus isn't a portable title, Animal Crossing checks the exact same boxes, yes?  Unless, I suppose, there was something in the gameplay that would differentiate it as such.

Animal Crossing is a full-out simulation game, complete with town management (not even counting the new Mayor stuff, just tidying up and collecting things), networking between residents and time-specific events - not only things that only happen at certain times a day, but random events where people want to show up at your place at a specific time, or give you something to give to someone else before a timer counts down.  Moreso because of that last point, I'd say that it doesn't really qualify there either, as that is not a 'pick-up-and-play-put-down-whenever' aspect, as I assume we're judging by here.  Not only is that something that'll make you continue to play the game far beyond when you actually mean to, thus not allowing you to put it down whenever, it works off of the system clock, not the game clock (because there is no game clock, it's -just- the system clock) meaning that you can't even just shut it to put it to sleep.  It'll still run, it'll still trigger that event and if you miss it, that's it.

My point is not that the Vita's titles are not guilty of being console series, but rather that, well, the biggest 3DS titles are as well.  Mario Kart 7, Castlevania:  Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (Castlevania games on the DS have been big deals in the past, though they were Igavania affairs), Fire Emblem:  Awakening, Kingdom Hearts 3D:  Dream Drop Distance, The Legend of Zelda:  Ocarina of Time 3D, Luigi's Mansion:  Dark Moon, Metal Gear Solid:  Snake Eater 3D, New Super Mario Bros. 2, Resident Evil:  Revelations, Shin Megami Tensei IV and Super Mario 3D Land are all likely some of the biggest titles on the system, yet every single one comes from a console series or franchise.  The only one that I more or less -know- works as a portable title is Fire Emblem:  Awakening, with the others being possible, but I don't really know.  OoT3D is a friggin' N64 game.  So I'm really missing where the 'true portability' comes in that makes these -not- 'watered-down console ports'.  I mean, I guess in the case of OoT3D, it's an -enhanced- port, but you know what I'm getting at.

Then you have a game like Soul Sacrifice which was built specifically around the theory of portability.  Small maps with very direct encounters that are meant to last anywhere from a minute to ten/fifteen minutes if you get really unlucky.  Obviously the longer things inhibit your ability to call it portable, as well as the multiplayer aspect, but with those, if you're planning on playing it online, you're -likely- not doing it from a place where you need to be able to immediately put it down and leave.  Everything screams "this is a title for a portable console" and it's on the Vita.  Perhaps it's because it's a recent release that it doesn't count?  I don't know, it's all a bit silly and it's silly that I've gone on this long about it.

Really, the point is that both systems have portable games that are actually portable, and games that kind of aren't but are on a portable system anyway.  Both of them generally have a manner to -make- them more portable anyway, with the 3DS' sleep and the Vita's out to LiveArea.  So all I'm getting at is that if you hear someone telling you one system has more 'actual portable games' or 'no lame console ports', punch them in the back of the head.  Or do something less violent, I guess.

god, that kind of went nowhere

Grumble Grumble Raaaaaaage

So, ever since my Twitter gadget broke and I had absolutely no recourse but to remove it, which annoys me to no end still, I've been a little annoyed with things on Blogger.  Yes, I realize the Twitter gadget I was using was third-party, so Google technically has no need to assist in fixing it or even assure that it works.  Yes, I realize it is a very small thing and yes, I realize that I can probably find one that works beyond the list of gadgets that blogger 'supports' in the "More Gadgets" tab when you're looking to add a new gadget in the whole layout thing.  The thing is, it's fucking Twitter.  It shouldn't be a goddamn issue to imbed Twitter in my goddamn blog because social networking is fucking everywhere and especially Twitter is everywhere.  Everyone uses Twitter.  Hell Chance is even on Twitter!  That they can't have a third-party relationship that is enough for an 'official' gadget is just baffling.

But, you know, whatever.  That's a thing, it's not acceptable, but it is since there is technically some measure of it being out of respective hands.  I don't like it, but I understand.

What isn't acceptable, however, is when one of the official Blogger gadgets isn't working.  And especially not when all it is is a fucking custom search bar gadget when Blogger is owned by fucking Google.  This is an entire level of absurdity that I would never imagine in my wildest suggestions or ideas because this is elementary shit right here.

Go ahead.  Give it a shot.  The little gadget on the side that says "Big Enough to Need This Now" because my blog has over 700 posts now and damned if I'm going to search through them all when I need to find something I've referenced in the past is the one that I'm talking of.  You type in anything, "review", "Playstation", "Yakuza" anything that you know I've talked about before or anything and hit enter and it always comes back "No results found." for what is, and I'm being truthful here, no damn reason.  It has effectively become as useless as the Twitter gadget before it 'officially' broke in that -now- you can't even add it back as an element anymore, but before that, it was just a fancy "Follow me" button.  Which, coincidentally, they don't even offer that in the third party gadgets.  (Well, there is one Twitter gadget that has a few revisions....in spanish.  I think.)

Thank God there's three individual Google+ gadgets, though.  Don't know what we would do without those.

My only real line of thinking here is that perhaps it's not working because I have not update the layout in a while and I do believe that Blogger was pushing new templates -hard- a while ago, if only because I think I remember Chance talking about changing his up.  But I don't quite remember if he changed to something even newer than -mine- since his was...obviously before mine, or if he's using one of the same templates I had to pick from.  I would assume the former, given that his search bar works just fine, whereas mine....doesn't, but I really doubt that would be why.  All I really know, obviously, is that it's not fucking working and that's really bothersome.  So bothersome that it was really the only thing I could think about tonight.

So...there's that.  Raaaaaaage and all that.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is Also Dumb

Ever since I popped XIII-2 in after beating XIII and subsequently reviewing it, I have been trying so very hard to like it.  Because it's apparently good!  I mean, that's all I've heard about it since it came out at the start of this year and, after what was considered a 'bad game' like Final Fantasy XIII, the idea that the sequel was, then, good seemed like it had to have a -lot- done right to earn such praise.  In most cases, even when you don't particularly like a game that is praised as 'good' by the collective known as 'the internet', you can at least see why they judged such as they did, so at the very least, even if XIII is 'bad' and XIII-2 is 'decent' if not great, then hey, you've upgraded in any case, right?  So everything's sugar and rainbows no matter what, because at least, at least you're getting Final Fantasy XIII 'if it were good'.  Surely, I'm not really hammering in this point for any reason in particular.

So, before I address what is perhaps the least subtle thing I've said in the entirety of writing this blog, I would like to once again direct your attention to a recent post titled "How Final Fantasy XIII Could Have Been Better" because I pointed out three specific areas in which FFXIII came up short - Linearity, Poor Balance in terms of the Skill System and General lack of Focus with the story and elements as a whole.  I have stated, as well, in the past that the Battle System is an unusually good aspect of the game, that the Crystarium was not wholly bad and was, in fact, close to being good and that the characters, if nothing else, were fantastically established and grown throughout Final Fantasy XIII.  For XIII-2 to be praised so highly, you would think that it would at least fix a couple of the issues while strengthening the good parts, because that's generally how things work - a clear improvement gets a cheering.  And it is because of all that, that I think Final Fantasy XIII-2 is an amazing game, because it manages to take everything I just said, good and bad, and make it worse.  Frankly, I am fucking baffled and amazed at just how the hell that works.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a game that knows even less about what the hell it wants to do than its predecessor and that is saying something.  Being that it's a time travel story (spoiler:  FFXIII-2 has a Time Travel story), you go into it knowing that by the end of it, absolutely goddamn nothing will make sense because nobody knows how to write a competent time travel story that isn't Chrono Trigger, and I'm sure people will argue on that one too.  That, however, doesn't excuse the absolute laziness that goes through the rest of it, hitting on the parts that aren't even directly affected by time travel dickery.  For example, and this is pretty much the biggest example and the one I've been gritting my teeth against for the entirety of today in which I put many, many hours into the game, let me tell you about Lightning.  And when I say let me tell you about Lightning, I mean I am going to openly spoil Final Fantasy XIII so if you don't want to know anything, please move on to another post, sorry for the inconvenience.  I can't very well explain the laziness in the story without explaining the story, unfortunately, and I imagine most of the folks who want to play it, really want to play it, have already and know this anyway.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 begins with Lightning in a strange land that is quickly identified as 'Valhalla' where she and Odin are fighting some dude and it's all very epic I assure you and stuff is going on.  Then one of our protagonists, Noel, is introduced and speaks to Lightning who gives him a magical moogle (I am serious) and tells him to go find Serah on the other end of a time gate.  This is important.  So, blah blah blah, Noel finds Serah and they become TIME TRAVEL BUDDIES and BLAH BLAH BLAH, none of this is actually important, really except that the gist of it is Serah says "I had a dream that Lightning was in Valhalla, so I know she's alive" and Noel says "Yeah, I was there, she is" and Serah is genuinely fucking surprised by this.  They go on to meet old friends, discuss the situation and find more evidence that lends credence to the story of the guy who literally brought a fucking magical transforming Moogle that can talk and mentions Lightning through a time gate saying he saw Lightning.  And every.  single.  time. they 'realize', with great shock that Lightning 'might' be alive in Valhalla and that maybe they can get to her through a time gate.

I wish I was kidding.  I honestly do, because this shit is offensively stupid and it detracts from the overall experience which isn't too high to begin with.  Because the game can branch, in that you can go off and dick around in many time periods at once, I assume -some- of it can be contributed to the overlap in ensuring you establish a story no matter where the player goes, but after a certain point, you're literally somewhere you can only get after Point A and Point A included a portion where this whole Lightning bullshit was talked about already, and regardless, you have to play through everything eventually, so maybe you just need to manage it a little tighter in the narrative, which, after FFXIII is a fucking -riot- to say. 

But I can't really say too much of the story or the narrative overall just yet since I haven't beaten the game.  I imagine that when I do, I'll have an entirely larger post devoted to picking it apart completely and totally because I am very annoyed.  I guess the thing that's the problem is that I just really saw potential with FFXIII and with the assurance that XIII-2 was a good game, it had earned that by capitalizing on what was good about the original.  Instead, I am greeted with something that is praised for reasons I honestly, truly cannot comprehend on any level.  I am not having fun playing the game as I was with XIII towards the middle of it.  Maybe that will change later on, as I am probably still early on in it, but I really don't know.  I know that I'm very, very over-leveled for the area I'm in, so I'm absolutely steam-rolling everything which, honestly, kind of takes away from the fun too.  Odd as that might be, being able to stomp everything, including bosses, in your path isn't even fun in XIII-2.  Perhaps not yet, but certainly not now at the very least.

Thanks Nintendo, See You Next Year Maybe

I'm pretty sure that every time I bring up the Wii U, I state just how difficult a decision it is whether or not I want it, to the point of honestly just not knowing still this week when the console was released to the wild for public consumption.  That's because until this week, the thing was still a mystery of sorts with key bits of information about it merely left in the box to be discovered by those who doled out the cash to partake of its design.  Perhaps it was that lack of transparency that bothered me or perhaps it was a slightly higher unwillingness on my part compared to others in accepting the latest from Nintendo in whatever form it carries or even some other factor, but there had been something, something gnawing at the back of mind for the longest time now about it and I do believe I know what it is.  Or rather, what they are, as there are quite a few factors that have pushed me into a decision.

Earlier today, I was in a situation when someone who does not share an enthusiasm for video games and the like, but understands and appreciates my own verve, took a circular from some store, I believe it was Target, and fixed me with a curious look.  "What's this?", she asked, referring to the Wii U display on the front page of it, taking up an inordinate amount of space than I would've liked to see.  As I began to rattle off the basic gist of it, that it's a brand new console and its main draw is a gamepad that does this and that and the like, she nodded and took a moment when I was done before looking at me again with that same expression.  "Would that be something you'd want?"  Posed to me like that, the question seemed almost rhetorical to me, in that it took me not even a beat to answer.

"Nah.", I said.  "Not this year, at least."

It seemed odd to me that it was that easy to answer this question that has...well, not agonized me for a while, but certainly has been something I have not gone a day or a considerable amount of time thinking about.  But, armed with the knowledge that's been released in positive and negative feedback about those who have this thing in their homes, their living rooms and their hands, I can safely say that, as it is, it's just not for me.  Not in the state it's in which is one of being favorable, but not without several flaws that I'm sure nobody can really argue against -being- flaws.  And even some of the things that can be hand-waved away for....some reason are just telling of things to come that I'd rather be on the opposite end of thanks to a bit of waiting.  In any case, it's left me all a bit wary to say the least, and that's pretty much all I needed to push back the interest and the subtle cravings for the new tech that I was feeling.

Primarily, my concern had always been the library, being that I'm not one to be taken in by the next Mario game (that will never ever ever again be Super Mario RPG:  Legend of the Seven Stars, also known as the best game with Mario in it as a titular character) or the next Zelda as, indeed, I've skipped so many of those at this point I've lost count.  I'm very, very comfortable with Sony's first and second party studios generating enough exclusives that I can have my fill on those and even skip those I might not be so enthusiastic with that I'm not really hard-up for 'new' 'original' games, leaving it down to the third-party support.  And, well, seeing as the bulk of the Wii U's library consists of games I could go out and purchase now, some even for a bargain price, there's not really anything there for me being that the few titles Nintendo has to itself don't really draw much interest from me.

Beyond that, however, the hardware and the network had always been the points where Nintendo had to 'prove themselves' so to speak and honestly, they came up a bit short.  They took very, very large strides forward with the Nintendo Network ID that was never completely explained until people were unboxing their Wii U's, downloading the gigantic firmware update and setting one up for themselves.  And that, more than anything else, had me wary from the beginning to the point where I began to wonder if the NNID -was- something you generated yourself or not.  After three different pieces of hardware with the much-despised Friend Code system, you would think they would shout from the rooftops, "And here is the Nintendo Network ID page where you create your own ID name, whatever you'd like so long as it's clean, to share as you game" and just hammering that point in.  If you want to be XxLinkRulezxX, hey, you can.  You'd be utterly, utterly terrible, and that probably exists out there, but you can, and that's really something that Nintendo should have covered in no uncertain terms.

Another facet that's a bit off with the network is that there's going to be almost no unified system beyond the NNID, which means things like no platform-wide achievement/trophy system.  It seems like a little thing to harp on, and in truth it might be, but I'm honestly less concerned about not having Nintendo's equivalent to Achievements and more concerned with the message it's broadcasting.  I imagine, being new to this in a sense, Nintendo's playing it a little conservatively, keeping network things to a minimum while simply concerning themselves with running a shop and the actual Nintendo Network and that's fine I suppose, but I just expected a little more out of them.  Not fully embracing what's already out there and instead cherry-picking what they want to embrace that is out there (Digital Distribution, Online Multi-player and the like, things they'd never be interested in unless their competitors didn't also have it) seems stubborn, and it'd just be a much, much easier sell if you could just say "Yeah, it does what everyone else does, -plus-" and then you rattle off the few exclusive bits that the Wii U has to offer.  But it doesn't, and that is a problem, considering we might have six years or so of the Wii U to look forward to.

People don't like to admit it, but there is an inherent value in Achievement systems nowadays and when even mobile phones and tablets that just so happen to play phone games are incorporating Achievement systems, you just go with it.  It is a gaming thing now, much like more than two buttons, much like dual sticks (or control methods to mimic that) and the like.  Embrace it and make it your own, because, especially at launch, you want to give people reason, any reason at all, to keep playing the few games (comparatively speaking) that are out there while getting more out.  Personally, I would've liked to see what Nintendo could have made out of such a system, and in truth, I suspect we'll see it just yet.  If the 3DS has taught us anything, it's that Nintendo will be quick to cave into pressure so long as it means selling their product over another, so expect such a system to show up late to the party (much like the PS3's trophy system) if a formal price drop happens for the PS3 or 360 or, by some chance, the next version of either console is announced as well.  Anything to direct some of that thunder onto themselves while also making it a somewhat more appealing package.  I don't particularly like it, if you couldn't tell, but it's just business and that is a thing they do in business.

On the hardware side, it's rather telling that this is Nintendo's first attempt at a big, bad system like this, with reports from....what, like everyone who owns the system? that there are definite issues with it still that need to be ironed out.  Hard locks, crashes and the like, thankfully not leading to bricking in most cases, are entirely more common than is acceptable, I should say, and that's something that just can't be overlooked.  And while these crashes and locks aren't leading to system bricking, something fairly consistent is, however, and it is a very dreaded thing.  Upon plugging in your Wii U and setting it up, you will need to download a System Update if you want to....do just about anything but play some of the games, completely offline.  Miiverse, Wii Backwards Compatibility and a slew of other things are handled and/or unlocked in the initial firmware update (as well as the whole not being able to be online with it unless you're up-to-date) and it definitely shows in the size.  There's no official word out there that I know of, but I've seen some statements claiming that the update is just under the 5 gig mark (based on bandwidth usage for those who have a cap, take that for what you will) which is absurd.  Now, folks out there seem to be saying that if you turn off the console, unplug it (which you should never do on these two fronts) or in at least one case that I read, if your internet cuts out (which is...well, not your fault), your system could very well turn into a shiny paperweight.

That is exceedingly alarming for me personally when you consider that I have a very, very shitty internet speed and, unless you buy an ethernet adapter, you're stuck with Wi-fi which is not always super good in terms of signal strength and reliability.  The absolutely insane amount of time I would need to download 5 gigs (if estimates were right, of course) almost insists that I would have a period of time in which the internet would -not- be up, cutting off the download short.  That's just based on general signal strength and the like, not that my ISP likes shutting the internet off in the wee hours of the morning sometimes for 'maintenance', usually only for 10-15 minutes or so if they do it, but, well, it's taking away any sense of reliability that exists.  Knowing that the only thing as a broad network that's waiting beyond that is Miiverse leaves one a little less than enthused as well, which is not a very good combination to have going on.  It's doubly worrying that it's something that's never really going to go away either, I imagine, since you -always- need a firmware update when you get a thing, no matter how new it is.

The final gripe I have is with the whole Gamepad thing itself, and it's just -in general-.  The battery life on the thing is a joke and it's like "well yeah, but-".  No.  No butts.  It is a controller that was built to be a wireless thing.  If you can't get more than 3.5 hours out of it on default, then you have a shitty controller, I don't care how much fancy shit is on it.  And seeing as a lot of games -aren't- actually supporting the Pro Controller that has all the same buttons and stuff as many are quick to point out in defense of the Gamepad itself, and is in fact a $40 ($50?) paperweight unless you have one of the few games that uses it, you are stuck with a system that has a shitty controller.  One that I suspect was done on purpose as many have stated that the battery on the thing is small compared to the space it's in, suggesting that an 'upgrade' is likely in the cards down the road.  Which...means that there's either a revision on the Gamepad in-coming before it's actually available for separate purchase (because remember, the only way to have a Gamepad is to have a Wii U, since it's not sold separately, and no game currently supports more than one, negating the need, for now, for another) or there's going to be an add-on that is specifically just a better battery.  Seeing as Nintendo is no stranger to either practice...well, you see where I'm going with this.  It's frankly something that I feel like Nintendo gets by scott-free on, when any other company would be berated into the ground over it at this point.

Regardless of my griping, and I know there's been a lot of it, making this sound ridiculous, but I don't have any honest ire or anything against the system.  I've just taken the bits of information that are out there (plus a couple I didn't even bring up because oh lord this is long enough already, I swear I don't actually hate Nintendo) and surmised that it's all just a little too much for me to justify actually wanting a Wii U without seeing if any of it is taken care of.  And honestly, that's enough of a concern as anything else, since you just don't -know- when it comes to Nintendo.  I don't actually see them as being a particularly user-friendly company, 3DS pandering aside, and I worry that these complaints and any others that people might have just won't actually be addressed in a meaningful way.  Perhaps I'm being a little too cynical, but we'll just have to see in the long run.  Certainly wouldn't be the first time I've had to say "Well, Nintendo proved me wrong" about something, but I'm not going to stand back and say nothing, because I'm not worried about having to say that.  I might even -welcome- it, since it'd mean that there's truly some great strides being made.  Maybe half a year or a year from now, I'll be able to look back and say "Man, I was worried over nothing", but, hey, it's equally possible that I could say "Man, it sucks that I was right".

So, I've Been Slipping Lately

To make up for it, enjoy this video of someone in a Deadpool outfit having some fun with Gangnam Style.  And then briefly consider that it's entirely well within his character and ponder just how awesome that is.

In all seriousness, things have just not really gotten a whole lot better and I imagine that they will not for a while.  This is the part where I just say "Hey, bear with me" because, well, I'm trying.  It's not easy on the easiest of nights to really come out and write up something that I hope is informative, entertaining or a combination of both, and if I didn't -really- enjoy it, I probably would've stopped.  Well, no, I definitely would've stopped by now.  But I really do love having this outlet to actually sit down and clear out thoughts in my head or even make some things a little clearer in some cases, simply by typing it out and really trying to form cohesive thoughts about it.  It helps a lot, and while I hope there are people that read this blog and actually enjoy it, right now I need the outlet more than I need anything else.

Of course, there's just going to be nights where I just can't do anything with that outlet which is very, very frustrating for me, but it's not something I can change.  I can't force it, and I doubt anyone would want to read the results of if I were to attempt that feat.  It wouldn't bother me so much if the Twitter gadget on the sidebar would actually work, but with Twitter's recent updates, it seems it went and borked gadgets all around, so maybe it'll fix itself eventually, or maybe it won't.  At least I know it's not just -my- gadget, as I have looked around to see others similarly affected, but it's annoying nonetheless since I wholeheartedly doubt there are people who know my twitter exists outside of seeing it on the sidebar.  But that's another thing I just can't change.  I can just say that if I feel like I'm not up to writing, I'll probably point it out on Twitter.  It's still here and feel free to check it out if you'd like, but by no means am I trying to make it a thing you have to keep up with.

So yeah.  While I'll try to keep things fairly steady here for myself if nothing else, I can make no guarantees because, well, things just sort of happen and it's by and large not been positive lately.  I'm sure I don't have to explain how that might just not be very good for a lot of things, including writing.  I just know that low points have to even out eventually and then I can build back up and get back to fairly normal.  Between now and then, there might be some fits and starts and such, but I'll try to keep them at a minimum and I don't plan on making this the place where I go boo-hoo about things since you're not interested in hearing it and I'm not interested in sharing it.  I (mostly) just want to talk about video games here, so that's what I'll continue doing.  Though, I have been interested in watching a few movies again lately that I want to do up a Popcorn On for.  And I've wanted to do something about Burn Notice for a while...But, that's all future stuff.  For now, that's about it.  If you haven't read the Final Fantasy XIII Review, it'd be cool if you did that, since it was an effort, but no worries.  Hell, just watch the Deadpool video again if nothing else.  Because, again, it's pretty damn cool.

Something Like An Update Post

As we all know, when it comes to things that are bad, they never come in, stroll around for a moment and then leave without so much as a second thought.  They come in with a few buddies, also bad, and hang around for a little while until you're ready to strangle something and you don't really care -what-.  That's been what it's like here since the last time I posted, and that's directly responsible for the -why- I haven't posted.  I'm still not in a good place as it is, but I realized that there are possibly people who use this as their sole venue to know if I, as a person, am doing alright or something like that, and it'd be kind of a shitty thing for me to do to -not- update those people if I can help it, which I can.  Because, you know, I'm just a nice guy like that or something I suppose.

The situation is thus:  I'm pretty alright.  I lost internet the night after I posted last, hence the first night of non-posting and it was kinda sucky for me and such, but nothing too bad.  The next day, we (by we, I mean my family) got some news that is....well, pretty bad.  I don't want to throw this out here because I don't need attention nor sympathy or anything like that, but suffice to say that there could be some severely bad news about a close family member in the coming week or two.  So that's been weighing on me since and it does wonders for keeping any enthusiasm or verve I could muster for anything at bay, which is why it's been particularly hard to even consider posting since I've just not been in it.  I'm still not, but I suppose I'm managing fine enough, might start again normally depending on how things go.  The other issue is that I'm sick-ish again.  Because, you know, why not.  Nothing beyond waking up with a surplus of mucus for now, but given how things are, I'm not liking my chances of getting better without getting a little worse.

I've been keeping busy, though, which is good.  Between the first and likely only chapter of Corpse Party that I played which I suspect has made me a worse person overall because of the things that are now in my memory that I cannot un-remember, Ragnarok Odyssey that has the most adorable Slimes that I have murdered by the hundreds already and Youtube videos on the Vita App (which I'm still not entirely happy with, and it could be fixed with just a little more 'robust' channel viewing, and by more robust, I mean any at all), I haven't had a moment to say that I am bored.  Of course, I have work, Final Fantasy XIII and the recently-finished Costume Quest  to thank for that as well, which is to say that it is a good time to do what it is that I do, I just wish the conditions were a little more conducive for enjoyment.

That's been the most noticeable with Costume Quest, which I finished in two sessions of plays, getting 100% of the trophies while I was at it.  (Of course, there's only 11 and they're pretty simple to get)  It's a light-hearted Halloween-themed romp that I played, in fact, because it was just Halloween and I did nothing else to celebrate than eat candy and....well, I ate some candy.  It was, in fact, delicious.  I suspect that any other time, I would be able to fully appreciate it for what it was, but instead I could only find the mechanics boring and grating, much like Final Fantasy 13's own, and glare at my screen whenever the FPS dropped noticeably as all Double Fine games seem to do, and do a lot.  It was fun and I liked it, but I also wasn't playing it to enjoy it, simply because I felt like, hey, I should play it because of that time and, when I played it about halfway through, because I was almost finished with it.  I worry that that might've hampered my opinion of it overall, which is why I decided not to continue with the Grubbins on Ice expansion, choosing to instead save that for the Holiday season, with hopes that my natural excitement during those times will help the game put an exclamation point on it.

I did purchase Assassin's Creed:  Liberations as well, and I have been avoiding playing it for much the same reasons as I've listed already.  We all know my opinions on the Assassin's Creed games, particularly AssBro and AssRev (though AC1 and 2 are both spoken of as well in those) and they are not ever universally positive when I'm in the best shape I can be.  So trying to go into such a game and expecting that I will walk away satisfied in the least is lunacy which I will not attempt - I want to like Liberations or at the very least give it a fair shake.  I'm in no position to do either at this juncture, but when I am, you will probably hear about it because that's sort of what I do.  With any luck (I notice that I say that a lot) I'll be back to posting tomorrow night, and there's some genuinely interesting things to speak of that's come up lately, so I'll have plenty of things to cover.