Just say it...Kingdom Hearts. Somehow it just rolls off the tongue ever so pleasantly. Recently, I dusted off my PS2 and tossed in Kingdom Hearts #1 for old time's sake. Now I remember why I love this series so much, and can honestly say that Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 are my favorite games of all time.
Everything about them is superbly done: the music, the characters, the moments, the enemy design, the Story (the goddamn STORY is amazing!), just....everything. I must have beaten KH 1 and 2 about 20 times a piece, and I STILL love playing them. I honestly can't gush enough to do Kingdom Hearts justice. I've played every Kingdom Hearts game with the exception of Re:Coded. I simply can't get enough, and I'm anxiously awaiting Kingdom Hearts' return to consoles!
The mythos of the game is vast, beginning with Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, then Kingdom Hearts 1, KH Chain of Memories, KH 358/2 Days, Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded and now on the horizon: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. The majority of which revolved around the Sora Trio, but also tied in are the Roxas Trio and the Ventus Trio. The overall story of Kingdom Hearts can be a little convoluted, and not counting Final Mix games (Japan only), can actually vary a little depending on if you played the Final Mix version of 1, 2 or BBS.
Final Mix versions usually contain a bit more story, some other sidequests, new battles, and more weapons. As such, certain tie ins are introduced a little earlier and tantalize you with mysterious characters and unknown goings on. These versions have been released in Japan only, but hopefully Square Enix will pull their head out of their ass and make it happen.
If I had to pick one game as my absolute favorite, I'd have to say Kingdom Hearts II. The year it came out, I had never before been that excited for a game to come out. I'd read every article, watched every trailer, and talked about it with all of my friends. I remember watching my PS2 load it, and eagerly waiting to hear Dearly Beloved again. BVG Buena Vista Games.....Square Enix.....copyright info....and then it came. A white screen, an image of Sora eating Sea Salt Ice Cream on a beach, and the amazing notes of Dearly Beloved. I just about died, I was so excited! I watched that intro movie and was so ready to play the game, I was STOKED. I'll never forget it, haha.
I honestly recommend the game to anyone who likes Disney or just a fun action RPG. Maybe I'll keep going with this an try to explain some of the story next time? We'll see!
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
My Love/Hate Relationship with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
Welcome to one of the foremost ideologies within my gaming complex. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, hereon referred to UMvC3, is probably the game I play most right now. It's one of those really good games that comes along and endlessly eats your game time. It's the perfect blend of speed, control, gameplay, chaos, order, character roster, and visuals for me. Easy enough to pick up with a little execution, damn hard to master.
I don't know quite know why I enjoy the game to the point I do, nor why I obsess over trying to find my complete center mentally when it comes to it. Some days I feel like it's my dream come true, others I absolutely hate the game and never want to play it again. Such is the ebb and flow of a competitive fighting game. Nearly all my youtube outings are tourney footage of UMvC3, combo videos, tactics, protips, character analysis, you name it.
You see, I have this insatiable urge to get better at this game. My understanding of the game, and fighters as a whole, has really increased while playing this. I grasp how certain universal concepts to fighters work in their respective games much more thoroughly during gameplay on UMvC3. I'm constantly watching videos and sifting through forums, try to pick everyone's brain and find which characters I like work best on a team. The conflicting sections of my mind have a hard time coming to an agreement, mainly the cheap / fanboy / uniqueness vs. team synergy / utility factor in team.
Sometimes it's hard to pick. "I want to use ____, but everyone and their Mom uses ____. Though I could really have an easier time online using him." Or, "Damn, I really want to incorporate _____ into the team, but they lack stamina / power!" Or more recently, "I swore I would use _____, but I can't. I can't get in with _____." With UMvC3, picking the right team is extremely difficult at times, if you're looking for victory. One must balance your allegiance to a character, how comfortable you feel with them, their play style, their stats, their assists, their synergy on a team, how well you can use them, how easily they can open peoples defenses, and whatever other faculties you apply to roster choice.
Herein lies one problem though. I'm stuck in the stage where I'm trying to find my team. Others have moved on and started learning higher level play with said team, or have kept moving after original MvC3. I'm trying to find a team that's good, but won't shatter my notions of who I am as a person somehow. Trying to balance all the above without violating my anti overpowered character usage clause is tough. It may not seem like much to others, but to a gamer, it's rough.
My other problem lies with my own personal drive to play this game, or lack thereof. I'm no slouch at this game, I'm much better than any casual player that picked this game up, but definitely not higher rank material. UMvC3 does little to raise one's spirits to keep playing. Online play is good, but if your connection suffers even slightly, you'll find yourself unable to move during a match, pinned down my the fear of taking damage and the knowledge that the button you press probably won't make the motion come out in time. The matchmaking system seem kind of busted in my opinion. I can understand putting the 4 lowest ranks in one bracket (Amateur, Rookie, Fighter and 9th Lord), but after that, I think it'd be better to keep numbered brackets together.
When one searches for a match, or creates a match, you can choose Any Rank or Same Rank as a filter. But somehow, me being a 9th Lord and doing Same Rank, I'm pitted against people far above me. 8th and 7th Lords! How is this fair or a good idea? Each number has a few ranks to it, so why not place me against a 9th Scout or 9th Ranger? So after I get my face raped in a few times, I'm not exactly feeling the drive to keep going. Improved matchmaking can really help new players try to get ahead in ranked mode.
The way one's ranked is calculated is also pretty fucked. While one does seem to accrue points via victories online, a lot of it also has to do with one's Win / Loss ratio. You are actually able to go down a rank if you start getting whomped on for too long. Ok, to me, that seems to be a bit much. What kind of message does that send to your players if they shuffle from a 9th Lord down to a Fighter? Why would you even bother programming the ratio into your calculation formula? I ranked down from a 9th Ranger to a 9th Lord a couple times, it shatters your will sometimes.
As such, I'm at an impasse. Caught between my intrinsic need to improve upon my game, and my shattered will to go online and test it. I decided to reshuffle my team and am trying to learn a little synergy with them, but it's proving annoying. Simply because I have no idea what to really look for, you know? I lack to knowledge of what makes an A-List team, or rather, how to form one. I'm trying my best though, I think it just takes a little more understanding of the finer things.
I used to use Dr. Doom / Spider-Man / Vergil, but completely shuffled my stuff. Doom is absolutely great at what he does. He can either shut and opponent out and provide excellent defense, or completely entrap them and keep them under a barrage of weapons fire. I can never seem to penetrate defenses with Doom though, a lot of people use him, so everyone knows how to shut him down. Spider-Man is excellent at moving and keeping the proper distance for attacks, he's also capable of some lengthy solo-combos. Problem is, under laggy conditions, Spider-Man is nigh impossible to use because he require strict timing and execution to use. Vergil is amazing: staggering mixup, great pressure, good moveset, but he takes damage like a little girl, and has really unsafe normals.
So, I changed it around to people I like to use, and know my stuff with, mostly. Right now it's Wesker / Nemesis / Firebrand. Wesker is a god, plain and simple. He has absolutely nothing wrong with him, and is the most overpowered character in the game. I got past my cheapness filter decided that since I was a Day 1 Wesker user in original MvC3, I earned my right. Nemesis is slow, but powerful. He has a command grab, and the resets to use them, so I think he'll pan out well. He's tough to use simply because he's huge, and his normals come out really slow. It'll be ok though. I learned some longer ground combos for him, so hopefully it'll give me an edge. Firebrand is a fast little bugger, great mixup, decent assists and a total nightmare in Lv3 XFactor. If one were to activate Xfactor and use his Luminous Body hyper, he becomes fast enough to do a nearly endless loop of down+heavy into a Fireball.
I am taking a break from it all, kind of. I'm mainly using Training mode to get a feel for how I can use my team, nothing online though. I finished Dead Space 2 so I kinda need a new time consuming game. As such, I'm trying to hunt down a copy of Tales of Vesperia that won't rape my bank account. I hear it's a fantastic RPG, so I have my fingers crossed on that one.
Til next time!
I don't know quite know why I enjoy the game to the point I do, nor why I obsess over trying to find my complete center mentally when it comes to it. Some days I feel like it's my dream come true, others I absolutely hate the game and never want to play it again. Such is the ebb and flow of a competitive fighting game. Nearly all my youtube outings are tourney footage of UMvC3, combo videos, tactics, protips, character analysis, you name it.
You see, I have this insatiable urge to get better at this game. My understanding of the game, and fighters as a whole, has really increased while playing this. I grasp how certain universal concepts to fighters work in their respective games much more thoroughly during gameplay on UMvC3. I'm constantly watching videos and sifting through forums, try to pick everyone's brain and find which characters I like work best on a team. The conflicting sections of my mind have a hard time coming to an agreement, mainly the cheap / fanboy / uniqueness vs. team synergy / utility factor in team.
Sometimes it's hard to pick. "I want to use ____, but everyone and their Mom uses ____. Though I could really have an easier time online using him." Or, "Damn, I really want to incorporate _____ into the team, but they lack stamina / power!" Or more recently, "I swore I would use _____, but I can't. I can't get in with _____." With UMvC3, picking the right team is extremely difficult at times, if you're looking for victory. One must balance your allegiance to a character, how comfortable you feel with them, their play style, their stats, their assists, their synergy on a team, how well you can use them, how easily they can open peoples defenses, and whatever other faculties you apply to roster choice.
Herein lies one problem though. I'm stuck in the stage where I'm trying to find my team. Others have moved on and started learning higher level play with said team, or have kept moving after original MvC3. I'm trying to find a team that's good, but won't shatter my notions of who I am as a person somehow. Trying to balance all the above without violating my anti overpowered character usage clause is tough. It may not seem like much to others, but to a gamer, it's rough.
My other problem lies with my own personal drive to play this game, or lack thereof. I'm no slouch at this game, I'm much better than any casual player that picked this game up, but definitely not higher rank material. UMvC3 does little to raise one's spirits to keep playing. Online play is good, but if your connection suffers even slightly, you'll find yourself unable to move during a match, pinned down my the fear of taking damage and the knowledge that the button you press probably won't make the motion come out in time. The matchmaking system seem kind of busted in my opinion. I can understand putting the 4 lowest ranks in one bracket (Amateur, Rookie, Fighter and 9th Lord), but after that, I think it'd be better to keep numbered brackets together.
When one searches for a match, or creates a match, you can choose Any Rank or Same Rank as a filter. But somehow, me being a 9th Lord and doing Same Rank, I'm pitted against people far above me. 8th and 7th Lords! How is this fair or a good idea? Each number has a few ranks to it, so why not place me against a 9th Scout or 9th Ranger? So after I get my face raped in a few times, I'm not exactly feeling the drive to keep going. Improved matchmaking can really help new players try to get ahead in ranked mode.
The way one's ranked is calculated is also pretty fucked. While one does seem to accrue points via victories online, a lot of it also has to do with one's Win / Loss ratio. You are actually able to go down a rank if you start getting whomped on for too long. Ok, to me, that seems to be a bit much. What kind of message does that send to your players if they shuffle from a 9th Lord down to a Fighter? Why would you even bother programming the ratio into your calculation formula? I ranked down from a 9th Ranger to a 9th Lord a couple times, it shatters your will sometimes.
As such, I'm at an impasse. Caught between my intrinsic need to improve upon my game, and my shattered will to go online and test it. I decided to reshuffle my team and am trying to learn a little synergy with them, but it's proving annoying. Simply because I have no idea what to really look for, you know? I lack to knowledge of what makes an A-List team, or rather, how to form one. I'm trying my best though, I think it just takes a little more understanding of the finer things.
I used to use Dr. Doom / Spider-Man / Vergil, but completely shuffled my stuff. Doom is absolutely great at what he does. He can either shut and opponent out and provide excellent defense, or completely entrap them and keep them under a barrage of weapons fire. I can never seem to penetrate defenses with Doom though, a lot of people use him, so everyone knows how to shut him down. Spider-Man is excellent at moving and keeping the proper distance for attacks, he's also capable of some lengthy solo-combos. Problem is, under laggy conditions, Spider-Man is nigh impossible to use because he require strict timing and execution to use. Vergil is amazing: staggering mixup, great pressure, good moveset, but he takes damage like a little girl, and has really unsafe normals.
So, I changed it around to people I like to use, and know my stuff with, mostly. Right now it's Wesker / Nemesis / Firebrand. Wesker is a god, plain and simple. He has absolutely nothing wrong with him, and is the most overpowered character in the game. I got past my cheapness filter decided that since I was a Day 1 Wesker user in original MvC3, I earned my right. Nemesis is slow, but powerful. He has a command grab, and the resets to use them, so I think he'll pan out well. He's tough to use simply because he's huge, and his normals come out really slow. It'll be ok though. I learned some longer ground combos for him, so hopefully it'll give me an edge. Firebrand is a fast little bugger, great mixup, decent assists and a total nightmare in Lv3 XFactor. If one were to activate Xfactor and use his Luminous Body hyper, he becomes fast enough to do a nearly endless loop of down+heavy into a Fireball.
I am taking a break from it all, kind of. I'm mainly using Training mode to get a feel for how I can use my team, nothing online though. I finished Dead Space 2 so I kinda need a new time consuming game. As such, I'm trying to hunt down a copy of Tales of Vesperia that won't rape my bank account. I hear it's a fantastic RPG, so I have my fingers crossed on that one.
Til next time!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Gamer's Eye
As a gamer, I'm constantly asked "What's your favorite game?" I shudder at the question because i can never choose a single game I truly enjoy at any time or that I can play forever. So, A couple people cobbled together a few categories. Well, sit down, I have quite a few to go through.
Zombie Related Games
Well, there's honestly only 3 flavors I can think of this genre having: Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead, and Dead Space. And since Dead Space is less of a zombie game and more of an Alien game, I'd have to say I like Resident Evil 1 Remake the best of all. It's the perfect blend of suspense, who-dunnit, horror, and action. The graphics on the cube are great, the game is much better than its PS1 original, and is always a ton of fun to play. I love the storyline, and the overall layout of the land, despite myself knowing it all, sometimes I forget things or find new camera angles. I adore REmake!
First and Third Person Shooters
Ahh yes, the genre of the bane of my gaming existence. I despise Call of Duty with everything I've got, that's no secret. But, since there's a plethora of shooters and only a few I've played: in the case of first person shooters Bioshock is my favorite. It fulfills my storyline requirement. Has a very ingenious system involving the Plasmids and upgrade system. Everything fits together so perfectly, and not many shooter games can do that for me. Out of the Third Person shooters: Dead Space hands fucking down. I love Dead Space, it was one of the few new games to scare the hell out of me on my first run. Lovely blend of story, action, fear, tension and all around awesomeness. I have to say Necromorphs are one of my favorite new generation enemy breeds. Something about an Alien bacteria contorting human corpses into vile, disturbing creatures totally rocks me.
Western and J RPG's
I've never really liked Western RPG's. I've yet to play one that made me want to keep playing. 9/10 times I drop the game pretty quick. I guess because the earliest RPG's I played were asian ones. Final Fantasy mainly, and Super Mario RPG. I had a rough time thinking about my favorite RPG. I finally concluded that it is Chrono Trigger though. Chrono Trigger is simple in many ways, but has a great story, amazing characters, great game mechanics and is overall just a great game. Runners Up were Final Fantasy IV and Persona 3 FES. FFIV was my first ever RPG and remains my favorite Final Fantasy in the series. P3FES has the most amazing story of any video game I've played, and extremely innovative mechanic and gameplay style, but it loses because of how much grinding you have to do. Although I really do love Kingdom Hearts, but it's more of a neo-action RPG than a classic one.
Fighters (2D and 3D)
Fighting games are probably the one genre I play the most. I have this insatiable urge to play them and get better, but constantly lose during online play. Of course, there's 2 styles here. 2D fighters in which your characters move on a single 2D plane, and 3D in which you can rotate or move freely on a 3D environment. I have massive hard on for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 in the 2D department. I constantly find myself playing this game, trying new teams, getting better, losing online, grinding for H&H cards, etc. Just overall love the game, it has a simple yet refined system and and amazing cast, though not without it's unbalanced characters. As far as 3D fighters go, I have to say Soul Calibur 2 takes that one. I played the hell out of the Xbox version of that game. The cast was really interesting, and the game played like a dream. It's fuckin' SOUL CALIBUR! Plus the Xbox version had Spawn as an exclusive!
Racing (Arcade and Sim)
This one is short, because I've never been a big fan of racing games. My favorite one? Mario Kart Wii. Why? Two Words: Dry Bones
Shoot 'Em Ups and Space Shooters
I believe this prevents confusion with your category Ryan, haha. Anyways, these are kinda of dying breeds without being in the Indie Games category. Shmups usually follow the walk-sideways-and-shoot-stuff formula, akin to Super Turrican on the SNES. Space Shooters are games like R-Type, Gradius, 1942 and other games. Shmups is easily taken by a certain series in my mind: Contra. Contra is friggin' hard, but somehow coerces you into playing it more. The bosses range from giant robots to giant blobs with baby heads. It's awesome, it's over the top, it's fun. Space Shooters, I actually narrow it down to one game; Gradius III on the SNES. The music is addicting, so is the action, the weapons are awesome, and the bosses rule! Worth playing for sure, but it is rather difficult.
Visual Novels
Actually, I've only really played one. And that one is.... Hotel Dusk on the Nintendo DS. I haven't even beaten yet, but I love the style!
Dating Sims
I've never really played a dating sim before, unless you count certain parts of Catherine.
Real-time Strategy
Well, like any good nerd, I got into this in the era of Warcraft. However, WC was completely eclipsed when Dad brought home Starcraft ! I had never played anything like it before. There were humans (feh!), Organic aliens (Zerg, whoo!!), and advanced aliens (Protoss, eh.) I've always loved playing as non human entities, and the savage Zerg were totally up my alley. I never really forgot my experiences with Starcraft, the story was amazingly well done, the characters were all memorable, the mechanics were unlike anything I'd played before, and everything looked so good! Easily my favorite, and I've yet to play SC2.
Life Sims
If you want to get technical, my favorite life sim would have to be Seventh Cross Evolution on the Dreamcast. You start as an amoeba eating particles, then grow into a snake eating small organisms, then into a reptilian based fish thing. As you eventually find a stone monolith thingy, you can draw pattern to create new evolutions for your animal. Examples being, a bone covered chest, bladed arms, and bipedal legs. You start off fighting crabs around your lake, and once you make new evolutions, your creature is able to explore new areas and take on new enemies. I never knew what the story was or what the games objective was. I was too young to know or try to know. I just remember it being fresh, and new!
Platformer (2D and 3D)
Ahh yes, my original genre. My first game was Super Mario Bros. on the NES. I wasn't very good, but I was playing it! Platformers are very hard to come by these days, good ones at least. In 2D, Super Castlevania IV is my favorite. It's everything you love about old timey Castlevania wrapped up in a visually pleasing 16 bit package! The controls are much less clunky, everything looked fresh, and the music is addicting as hell! nothing really bad about this game except how hard the last levels are. I've barely played any 3D platformers, mainly because I find them difficult to control, since no one quite knows how to make a good one. However, one game still did it 100% right in my mind: Super Mario 64 . This is the game that I judge most 3D platformers by. Everything is really good about this game, the only real gripe I have is with the camera. In certain areas it can be a pain, but it functions just fine everywhere else!
Well, there you have it everyone! I hope you enjoy it! ^^
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