Golden Sun, I am disappoint.

I was a little disappointed with Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Seven years after The Lost Age was released, and all GS3 brings to the table is better graphics. Camelot is the video game developer who gave me Shining Force 1 and 2, and they certainly didn't disappoint with the first two Golden Sun titles. Perhaps too many golf and tennis projects have turned their brains to mush. As the third half (ignoring logic) of the story goes, everything takes place thirty years later. Things seem to occur most frequently in numbers divisible by ten, ensuring that the next group of adventurers would be old enough for fappable fan art, but not too old to be adults, because adults saving the world would just be stupid. I'm not a fan of the time jump in sequels. It usually becomes an excuse to explain everything over again in the form of teaching the new characters about all the basic stuff they need to know for their upcoming journey. I was treated to all the yawn-inducing lectures of Issac and Garet as they accompanied me through the terrifying woods filled with leaf bats and the iconic blue slimes that like to inhabit the weakest spots in all JRPGs.

"Um... Mr. Slime, is it? We need you to not smile during the battle. Oh, no no no! It's a great smile, but, you know, we don't want Enix to sue us."

I especially enjoyed the parts where Garet began overreacting to how I moved a block that was in front of me and applied fire to a plant. 

This whole bit in Goma Plateau and Tanglewood is a long-winded tutorial for those who never played the other two games in the series. It's also punishment for those of us who did. See, it's all unavoidable. Garet even tells you how to use the aptly-named psynergy Move after you've already figured out how with the first block that you shoved into the hole that was perfectly shaped to fit it, while terrific father figure Isaac watches his kid jump across these pits, ignoring the "what if..." situation of Matthew missing a step and falling to his death. There's also the tutorial about the djinn, an encyclopedia, Sun Saga issues to collect, and even a training course that summarizes the other two games in the form of an obstacle course, because everything else I mentioned, along with the introduction that began right after you ignored changing Matthew's name (which loops at the title screen), just wasn't enough hand holding.

I would like to point out that the script, much like my blog, is rather verbose. I wouldn't mind if all the chatter was actually worth reading (kinda like a subtitled episode of Kitanagatari), but it's just your usual "blah blah" storyline with little more than that to maintain the player's interest. Occasionally, you get to choose one of four emotional responses to answer someone, but it doesn't always provide a reply you were expecting, and none of them will alter how the conversation will continue.

It was so dull at the start of my journey that I barely made it to the 30-minute marker before saving and turning off the DS to find something else to occupy my time. Eventually, I'd pick up where I left off, and, within another 30 minutes, grow tired of it again. Midway into the game, however, I began putting in some legitimate effort. When I found myself sailing around to various islands for a bit of side-questing I grew world-weary. At that point, I actually put the game down and played those Yu-Gi-Oh! titles I bitched blogged about earlier.

I put so little effort into combat. All mobs were beaten with simple attacks. Once in a while, I'd stop and heal. Repeat when necessary. Bosses were essentially an onslaught of summon spells at the start, then use Djinn until I could cast summons again. Chaos Chimera and Dullahan were the only exceptions to all of this. It was after I lost twice to the chimera that I began to realize that I hadn't bothered to do anything with the crafting material, nor had I bought any other basic equipment to replace the low-level bits I had found in chests throughout the game. Once my junk was up to snuff, that thing didn't even merit a Water of Life. Dullahan, however, is an evil bitch. Abilities such as Charon and Condemn tend to succeed at the worst moments, dropping my party members right when I get things together. After a bit of research, it seems he follows a simple attack pattern and can be defeated by a low-level group so long as one pours all his strength into Matthew and knows when to use defensive Djinn, like Ivy, Shell, and Doldrum. What I found to be more interesting was reading about how he is considered to be more powerful in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. I didn't have any problems against him in the second game. When I thought about why, I could only speculate that it was because I was actually interested in the previous sequel. Here, I just wanted it done so I could collect my summon tablet of Iris the Goddess of (Puking) Rainbows.

"Taste the painbow, mortals!"

I bought this game out of respect for the series, and a desire to see how the next part of the story would play out, but Dark Dawn just isn't all that impressive. The characters lack any sort of charisma, the story is just a long, boring read, and the new psynergy abilities Slap, Thermal, Track, and Third Eye added little to nothing to the (non-existent) complexity of the puzzles. 

So cryptic! How will I ever figure out... already done. 

It's a mediocre addition to something that was an amazing throwback to the glory days of RPGs on the SNES. It felt like Camelot stripped Dark Dawn of this and just made it pretty. I appreciate the visuals, especially the animation of the summons, but not at the cost of everything else. Even the box art is kinda blah. The cover of its instruction manual is much better, and I can't believe it wasn't used instead. You're online right now. Look up the box art for the first two games and compare it to that of Dark Dawn. I know, don't judge a book by it's cover, but this is the sequel to something that hadn't been around for seven years. Trying to grab the attention of those who may not have played the previous Golden Sun games starts with that cover. Even I stop to look at titles that catch my eye, and, in a few cases, have purchased them. Still, there is something about seeing Matthew on that box that reminds me of greatness...

"I'm not just a boring main character... I'm A SUPER BORING MAIN CHARACTER!"

If I was to score this game, it would be a number out of a bigger number, and I'm being generous about that. 

On a positive note, I adore Sveta. She reminds me of my first video game crush:

Katt's the muscle in the party, speaks her mind without qualm, and she wears no pants. What's not to love?

Dark Dawn's ending doesn't go into any sort of detail about the psynergy vortexes, so I'm going to assume the adventure will continue with them in the fourth game. Perhaps there will be a similar connection between it and Dark Dawn as there was with Golden Sun and The Lost Age. I want to hope I won't have to imput another super fucking long password, but, since I have no friends, I doubt there will be an alternative for me to transfer the information. When it does arrive, the game better be more difficult. The hardest thing I had to deal with in Dark Dawn was trying to stay awake through the conversations. 

It's still a better sequel than Bomberman: Act Zero, for what little that's worth, which tried to bring a new "look" to the Bomberman series.

Even the characters wanted nothing to do with it. 

To be fair, the game isn't really as bad as I seem to make it out to be. It's just not all that good, either. It certainly doesn't do anything befitting the franchise. I want to compare GS3's situation to how Chrono Cross could never live up to Chrono Trigger's success, but I saw the effort put into making Cross. In its own right, Cross is still a great game. Dark Dawn, on the other hand, is a garden-variety RPG that is easy on the eyes.

Whine to go with the Cheese I Slice

Enjoying a few blog entries from other people about their bad experiences with the staff at various places, so if they can be childish online, why not I?

I won't speak for other grocery stores. Even within the same supermarket chain, your experiences with the staff will vary based upon the set-up of the department, the expectations placed upon it by management, and, of course, the mind-set of each worker (a.k.a. "grunt"), which will shillyshally during the times one is alone and when one is coadjuting with other grunts. There are other factors to consider as well, such as the time of the day, the time of the year, and the stability of the person's emotions. If you are expecting impeccable service on a Saturday afternoon during a holiday weekend from someone who has been having a rough day, then you're still enjoying the ignorance of having never worked a minimum wage job. Problems arise all the time, but even when things are running smoothly, it doesn't take much for a single consumer to toss a spanner into the works, creating a domino effect of setbacks. In the best interests of everyone, I try to encourage people to come into our store with reasonable expectations and a flexible attitude to help us provide you with a positive shopping experience. For the rest of this entry, I will be addressing the common peeves that seem to deteriorate the disposition of many of my colleagues. This isn't to say one won't receive proper attention from one of us, but there are certainly benefits that our preferred customers will occasionally (not always!) receive.

The two major issues are the business model of most of our departments and how the employees handle it. In hopes of maximizing profit, the workload is meant to have each employee in a constant state of busyness. When everything is done the way we are trained and expected to do it, there is no time to help a customer. This might sound odd, because it's certainly not true for the front-end. The first job to come to mind when one thinks of a grocery store is typically the cashier or bagger, and the bulk of the work for those two positions is to handle your purchases. They also deal with the carts out in the parking lot, cleaning the bathrooms, returning items left by people who decided against paying for them, and a few other odd jobs, like shucking corn, but when called back to the registers, they stop what their doing to comply. That's them. For the rest of us in the other departments, we are provided with enough to do to keep everyone busy so as to not waste any of the company's time with standing around or goofing off. As one particularly odious individual who ran my department used to say, "If you've got time to lean, then you've got time to clean." If anyone needs assistance, it's up to each person to be able to handle the manner swiftly so as to not fall behind on other duties. Obviously, if the workload is meant to occupy the entirety of a shift, then trying to handle customers is going to become difficult once in a while. "IF everything is done the way we are trained and expected to do it" ...for minimum wage, this is not the sort of thing to expect out of a grunt. With many of us (not me, of course) cutting corners, we'll have more time to service our clients. On the other hand, don't expect the greatest of... anything. If Lennie Small the deli clerk is half-assing his duties behind the counter, then it's a sure bet that he's half-assing his ability to service you, as well. The job is accessible to anyone over the age of eighteen, so it doesn't matter if your education ended in middle school, but I've been working at my store for five years now, and I've seen plenty of book smart people who couldn't figure out the three sink method for washing dishes, let alone understand how to rotate our product. Then again, my department has also enjoyed the company of morons who had to learn firsthand, with their hand, that the big spinning blade on the slicer is sharp while others had to be reminded that if the cookie label says "12-ct..." on it, then it's probably safe to assume that a dozen of them should be in that container. Basically, this is not meant for everyone. Just because anyone can get the job, it doesn't mean they possess the competence to keep it. Think Reversi. Anyone can learn to play, but being good at it is a different matter. Trying to find a balance between preparation and interaction is tricky, especially during holidays, weekends, and those times when your area is short-staffed and you're forced to pick up the slack.

Another issue is with the amensalistic nature behind seniority and the lack of responsibility associated with it. I've seen it more than a few times. An individual has worked for a decade or two and they feel entitled. It's not that they will try to intentionally make your job harder, but there are things they no longer deem worthy of their attention. This only becomes an issue for the shopper as the younger employees grow increasingly bitter about their situation. Cheerful, somewhat eager to learn idiots start to grumble, slack, and many of them eventually quit without warning. Again, I've seen this happen, and it's kinda sad to watch that work ethic turn to shit because of those moments when the support they were expecting from the rest of our department isn't there. As a side note, for those of you wondering about our training, it's kept at a minimum for two reasons.

The first is explained above. Those with experience have no desire to share it. My entire training in the bakery was to play a game of Memory by matching breads to figure out the numbers for their labels. The next day, the person who "trained" me with this sentence-long bit of instructions complained that I didn't get much done. I believe her exact words were, "Did he even do anything yesterday?" On a related note, don't call a bitch "a bitch" to her face or you'll have to go upstairs and hear a lecture about how one shouldn't be disrespectful to bitches. Another possibility places the blame on the rookies. "I don't do..." is a common response I hear while trying to teach some newbie. I just laugh at them and reiterate what they are going to do, but for the older ones in our department, there's a lack of patience to deal with someone who either won't learn willingly or is a little slow and requires more time to understand.

The second is due to the high turnover. Why spend precious company time and money educating someone who is probably going to leave within the first year of employment? I've had plenty of customers pick at me about it. My very first day included an old woman wearing one of those forced smiles while being roundabout with the way she was trying to tell me I should stop what I was doing and learn how to work another department for the sake of serving her. This is a rather common thing, too. They find the nearest person in a uniform and start asking questions either unrelated to the department or about something unusual, like how much it would cost and how long it would take to prepare a fruit tray using only "tropical" fruits, or they demand help with something that an employee may have no idea how to do. Ideally, everyone working in a grocery store knows everything about the grocery store, but if you actually take a moment to consider such a notion, it's rather absurd logic to accept. Using myself as an example, the entirety of my shift is spent in the same work station, either frying and baking cluckers in a variety of shapes, or I'm darting between three slicers and the cooler behind them. At what point would one expect me to memorize the layout of all the aisles, know the difference in taste of farm raised and wild caught fish, and be able to prepare an appropriate bouquet of flowers for a 73-year-old woman who just got out of knee surgery? It would be like a mother going into a hospital and asking the oncologist to explain why her child farts so much while he sleeps. Unless it's a result of irregular and uncontrollable cell growth, that gassy brat will probably be sent to a different specialist to have his pooter peeped at. All I can say (or type rather) is that a customer needs to have patience. If one of us doesn't have an answer, we can usually direct you to someone who does. As for more training, it can take years for someone in our store to learn something new. Some do know a little about everything, but, as I see it, it's because they don't quite "fit" anywhere in the store. A person who performs poorly in one area is moved around until he finds a job he can do without being too much of a burden to the others in that particular spot. Taking this into consideration, it might be better to wait for a person who is only trained for one or two roles.

Moving on to other issues:
Selection. Even within the same chain, what is sold varies from store to store. What sells here might not sell there. Sounds kinda obvious, right? Had a woman ask for Black Diamond Cheddar Cheese the other day. Our deli carries it in a wedge, but not in the spreadable form found in cups that she was wanting. Some, usually the newer and larger stores, in our chain do have it on the sales floor. Wedges of the brand do reasonably well at ours, but the cups, for whatever reason, do not. It's fine to ask for what you want, but don't get fussy if the specific type of product you desire isn't available, and, please, don't have an attitude about it. We hear enough tantrums from the children who don't want to be in there. "This is a huge mistake! You people need to fix this, because..." Businesses are trying to make money. If what you want isn't selling to anyone but you, then carrying it is bad business. In fact, if the product was found at another store, what we can do is request an order of it. It might take a few days, maybe even a week, to receive it, but it is possible. If the box we order continues to be a loss, we won't order it again until more request it. Believe me or not, that's your only option, and it's no guarantee, even if we can order it. This is especially true during times when a particular item is on sale. Part of an order can be scratched leaving us with nothing until the next truck arrives. "Why promote something in the paper if you don't have any of it to sell?" Because what we had sold out and what we ordered didn't come in. It happens.

Service. "The customer is always right" is a phrase I still hear, and I still don't understand why so many people actually believe that means they can treat the employees like garbage. When I was a teenager, I was already aware of the fact that this didn't literally mean I could do no wrong as a shopper. How come other adults haven't figured this out? Because a common grocery store caters to the general public, it's going to provide basic stuff in a wide variety based primarily upon what the average person buys. There are a few niche items, but nothing too extravagant. At least once a week, someone calls my department and tests the bounds of what we can and cannot do. There's about thirty different kinds of sandwiches we offer. The problem is someone has to walk over to our deli counter and demand a creation that utilizes an assortment of flavors that a Subway or a Jimmy John's could most likely provide, but, for a reasonable price, we cannot. Pulling bottles of specific condiments off the sales floor, along with a loaf of a particular type of bread, slicing the desired meats and cheeses, and doing so at that very moment is expensive and time-consuming. It wouldn't be if enough people requested sandwiches to use up all of what we opened. The remainder of what was use for that order is almost always thrown away as an overall loss in profit, as well as being a giant waste of food. Sometimes, we can't even do that much, either because we don't have what they want, or because we know we have run out of it. I spoke with a lady (and I use the term loosely) over the phone wanting aquamarine-colored icing. I told her we have blue. She wanted the message on the cake to be perfectly written in the middle, the decorations in certain spots, and was making sure to grumble while telling me all of this. No matter. I took the order and repeated it until she agreed that all the information was correct, but not without adding one last grumble about how it should be aquamarine. When she picked it up, she took it up front, told customer service it wasn't the color she wanted and got it for free. I'm glad I wasn't notified of this until after she had left, or I would have gone up front to plead my case. I may be in the right, but we're suppose to play guilty at all times. Don't actually apologize, but don't disagree with them, either.

At other times, we're trained not to do something. There's no number in the system to ring it up, and charging it as something else can complicate inventories and arouse suspicion from management about potentially helping friends or family by giving them unjustified discounts. When someone new comes into our department, one of the things I make sure to teach them is to be wary of the requests some will make. Old people are particularly manipulative. While marking down items out on the sales floor, I've had more than a few of them talk to me about their fixed incomes and the costs of medication or medical attention, and then it seems like I can help alleviate them of these problems by knocking off an additional twenty cents or reducing a pastry or loaf of bread that is suppose to be sold at full price for another day or two. Others will purposely share unfavorable opinions and comments in order to goad the worker into saying something to get himself in trouble while customer service gives them free food as an apology. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong. "Give the baby his/her bottle and go back to work" is how we usually handle things. A manager might even insult us in front of the customer, then, as the person leaves with their spoils, the manager will turn around, talk nice to us again, and remind us that it's only business. This has happened to me twice, and, in both events, it left me with a sour attitude the remainder of the shift. Keep that in mind. If you try anything dubious, you'll likely get what you want, but it'll leave a bad impression upon yourself, because we will remember people who give us a hard time in front of management. This is also true for those who intentionally try to be difficult with an order. There are restrictions on what a typical grocery store can do, and the customer is only right within these limits. We cater a little bit to everyone, offering basic needs and wants. For those of you who seem to take pride in being persnickety, please find a specialty store.

Minor things to address.
~ Don't stop us for assistance when we're shopping. Even when I'm not in uniform, someone will usually recognize me and start asking questions. If someone is "off the clock" it means they can be fired for doing their job while not being paid for it. I have a tendency to stop and help others, but not in that location. Anywhere but there.

~ If food says "(Hot)" it means it isn't cold. It has nothing to do with being spicy. We prepare some things to be ready to eat right away, and they last only a few hours before being replaced. We also prepare food to be chilled then sold refrigerated for two days. I prefer to buy cold product so I can place it in the oven at home later and have a relatively fresh-tasting meal, rather than get something that was nearing its two-hour limit and is desiccated. Cold food not only lasts longer, allowing us to provide something at all times while preparing more for the hot table, but it's also the only option available to those who rely upon food stamps.

~ Look at the signs and tags before stopping an associate. In every single major grocery store I've ever been in, there has always been a sign of some sort telling me what to find in each aisle. It's one thing to ask where coconut milk might be located, but it's another thing to ask where cereal is found. Right there, above you, is a big-ass sign that includes "cereal" on it! And everyone has met that one guy before. That special customer who wants to know where something is, and all you do is tell them to turn around. "Oh! I was looking everywhere for this and it's right here behind me. Thank you, sir." Some never even bother to look. They walk in and torpedo into someone stocking the shelves, wanting that person to find everything for them.

~ We don't make the prices. Quit blaming us and demanding answers for why they are what they are.

~ It's a minimum wage job. Threatening us by going to another store will have no effect. I even encourage it. Different stores have different deals. Make the most of your money and go where it's cheapest.

~ Do some research. There is no one at our store who has memorized all the ingredients of every individual item, and many of us have put little thought into what is appropriate for certain diets. If you are allergic to nuts, gluten, fruits, or have issues with salt, sugar, dyes, etc., then look that shit up on the internet! Even better, consult a dietitian and/or nutritionist. Once again, we work a minimum wage job. Do you really want advice from one of us about something that important?

~ Learn to be quick and courteous to us and the other shoppers. Don't block the aisles to chat. Don't cut in front of someone in line to demand help. Don't stand there for ten minutes staring at what we have while others behind you are stuck waiting to be served. Don't ask us if that's all we have on the hot bar or in the deli case. It's not like we are trying to hide hot food in the back. Don't order something then walk off. We need to make sure we know what you want and how you want it. Plus, other customers don't like the idea of standing quietly at the front of the line, and still not be acknowledged because we are preparing something for someone who isn't even there. Don't use a funeral as an excuse to not order ahead. Even calling right before driving to the store is time we can use to make a tray or fry chicken. Besides, I've had deaths in the family and I've been to funerals for those people. Never once did any of them turn into a mad dash to piece together a farewell party for the deceased. We always had at least a day to get things in order.

~ Sliced meats and cheeses come in "loaves" that are not always perfect. The ones that will look like they are would be the processed ones. Until you are buying the cheap stuff,  the loaf itself may be misshapen, causing itself to wobble on the slicer. This might result in odd-looking slices. Don't like it? Demand perfection at a specialty store.

~ Thinner doesn't make the food taste better. If that was true, I would cut my pizza into sixteen slices to double the flavor and eat ice cream with a smaller spoon. What thinner slices will do is cause the meat/cheese to spoil sooner. This goes for "shaved" or "chipped" meat as well. Think of how much faster crushed ice melts in your drink compared to cubes.

~There seems to be an odd rumor of how fresh our hot food is. It's made on the day it is served. Not the day before. Not even half a day before. That food gets two to four hours, depending upon what it is. That's it! Those numbers in the "Fresh from the oven at..." sticker are... *dramatic pause* the time of when it came out of the oven. The price for an entire chicken isn't "2:30".

Lastly, we get complaints all the time for an assortment of things. Sometimes, it feels like we can't do anything to please anyone. If a person does his job adequately, then let customer service know about it. "It takes a lot to make me highly satisfied!" Why? For eight bucks an hour, what do you expect from one of us? To kiss your ass and wash your feet with our hair? Yeah, there are many who don't even have a job, but that doesn't give someone the right to talk down to me or one of my associates as if we're sub-human. Treat us with respect, and most of us will return the favor (sometimes with added enthusiasm).

"You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? It's like, 'Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law.'" 
-- Chris Rock

Why did I hit the "Publish" button?

I watched a Burger King commercial with Steven Tyler being stupid. I had no idea what the Hell he was doing, but after looking it up, I discovered he was promoting chicken strips. How the heck was I suppose to know that from what went on, and why would chicken strips need to be advertised? Chicken in strip form! Until now, I would have thought such a thing to be inconceivable! What an original... ok, that's enough of that!

Looking over the ads I grabbed from the mailbox, it makes me wonder why more people haven't realized that those deceptions are insulting to our intelligence. Dish Network's "America's Top 120" package for only $24.99*! The * being that this price jumps up another $20 after the first year, while the "Top 120" seems to include a bunch of niche Sirius radio stations, another bunch of DishCD music channels, the Liquidation Channel, Jewelry Television, TV Guide Network, and Buy!. This is America's Top 120? I've never even heard of Three Angels Broadcasting Network, and why would that American list include Russia Today? Is Horseracing Television really that popular? Seriously, Dish, why? I would imagine the response to be something along the lines of, "People are buying the package, so the ads must be working!" You know, because it's not like people actually buy it because many of them still like to watch TV. Many view television as a necessity. It's the same with buying a vehicle. If a car commercial shows off the brand new 2012 Overpriced GT going down an empty road while someone talks about all the award-winning this and that associated with it's company, there's a good chance that a person bought it simply because he needed a car. He didn't see it during the commercial breaks of his favorite show on Dish Network's Earth channel (which, I'm told is also one of the top 120 channels in America) and say to himself, "I must get that right now with the $40,000 I have burning a hole in my wallet!" Of course, this situation is even less likely to happen for those of us who are just trying to make ends meet, but, either way, this isn't the same thing as an impulse buy available at the checkout lanes. The stuff we see on TV, in papers, online, and hear on the radio are constantly resorting to the same tricks we've been exposed to for decades now. I can't be the only one who gets angry at the idea that these people actually think I'm so stupid that stale marketing stunts are what drive me to make my purchases. What pisses me off even more is that individuals are being paid to come up with it all. "Steven Tyler in a Burger King being a burden to the working staff? That's brilliant! It ties in perfectly with chicken strips!" Some marketing genius earned his money with that gem. Let's not forget that it's 2012, so there's also the oh so wonderful mud-slinging campaign ads to endure until November. Presidents can serve two terms only. If a president gets that second term, what incentive does he really have to try and help America? Give the commander his four years and just move on to the next guy. I don't care about what he did right and what he did wrong. That's going to be the same for everyone we elect. That second term should be given to the select few who go above and beyond to help this country. As election time nears, I'm guessing two-thirds of our commercials will be about politics:

1. "President Obama hates you and here are a list of reasons we came up with by taking various actions and comments he made and using them out of context." 
2. Papa John's Pizza is reminding me that better ingredients make better pizzas, but they can't prove that the pizzas I buy at a particular location utilizes these "superior" ingredients, nor can they verify that the pizzas I eat will indeed be better than what they would have tasted like had they been made with merely good ingredients.
3. "Obama can do no wrong. He is more glorious than a double rainbow made out of Skittles and treats every other American as a loving member of his family." 

(-___-) Please, just tell me the basic shit and let me make my own decisions. No sugarcoating, no vilifying, and, in the case of Burger King, don't assume that people like myself are going to be buying chicken strips because the Demon of Screamin' vaguely told us to do so. Just say, "Here's what we got now. Get some if you want." I like chicken. I'll probably buy them at some point, because I like chicken. I highly doubt I'll hear Livin' On the Edge and go, "Holy shit! I needs me some BK chick strips pronto!"

Less importantly, and completely off topic, why does Diablo 3 have such tiny font for it's channels? Someone, if not everyone, playing it in beta must have mentioned this issue on the forums. I can barely read it. Raynor and I were conversing in all caps, though I felt silly doing so. I love the changes to everything else, with exception to the barbarian class. It wasn't so bad in Diablo 2, but Blizzard has somehow managed to transfer nearly all the shortcomings of WoW's warrior class to this hack and slash. I was getting my butt kicked in the last two acts of the normal difficulty whenever I tried to experiment with each of the new abilities and their runes. Nearly every situation calls for my survival talents. Breaking away from this to increase damage and build upon my killing combos for even short period of time typically resulted in Juppiter's painful demise: screaming as his body falls over while the mob around him backs away to avoid stepping in the mess he makes when his muscles relax and the remains of his last meal empties onto the floor...  strips of fowl he was coaxed into purchasing by some aging, spoony bard with bad hair he met in Act I who was carried off soon after by a group of zombies who had mistaken him as being one of their own. I was having fun changing the combination of talents in the first three acts. Now I have to always carry a shield for added protection or else my ass will get banged like a drum that Todd Rundgren mentioned in one of his songs that the old people I work with have never heard of before, so they assumed it was something brand new and complicated that all the kids are into nowadays, just like that Pac-Man fellow I once mentioned. I guess I could go back to Juppiter on WoW, but the only fun I get out of that now is PvP, and literally everyone who is a legitimate PvPer has said that warriors are the worst choice for arenas. Many forums even claim warriors are only useful in BGs as flag carriers. Sigh. Perhaps I'll just go back through Golden Sun 3 again and type up something about that on here which also won't be read because everything I say is nonsensical, long-winded, and boring. A post about my long-awaited sequel would, of course, be one more added to a long list of ideas I've been kicking around in my head for years now. It's just difficult to focus on something like that when there's the combination of work, sleep, anime, and video games taking up the bulk of my time. It used to be TV, instead of anime, until Boston Legal was taken off the air. America is airing too much other crap (different from my crap) on television. Well, Japan is doing the same thing, but most of that changes every three months. If The Big Bang Theory was only 12 episodes long, even I could tolerate it. Oh, I do have Mario Galaxy 2 to finish! Paul honoured me with his permission to play through the first one. I had never experienced a Wii game before Galaxy that involved utilizing motion detection (I don't count Wii Sports, because the controls on that were brainlessly simple). My moments with the Wii only involved Gamecube titles, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and playing Punch-Out! by turning the wiimote to it's side and using it like an NES controller. Once I got the hang of it though, Mario Galaxy was a lot of fun. Nintendo still manages to create a challenging platformer without making it feel unbearably difficult. Paul told me Galaxy 2 is suppose to be a bitch. I'm sure I'll have feelings of regret once I get into it, and not the kind of regret I had while playing Farm-, City-, and Castleville to help send crap to my dad. I'm typing about that other sort of regret that will be replaced with pride once I finish the game. As for Zynga and their library of -villes, everything about them is just abominable! The tactics they use in their games are blatant. A complete disregard for any sort of subtly in their pursuit for more wealth, it's the business equivalent of clubbing you over the skull with a blunt object while screaming, "Stand still while I club you over the skull with this blunt object!" Even now, I go to Castleville and I get "Hey, Jerod! For a limited time (with "limited" meaning until the company finally dissolves), if you give us $100, we'll give you 1000 crowns, instead of 800!" What justifies this as a sale? Because Zynga gives me an added 200 bits of fictional currency for my money that involved no added effort on their part to accomplish? And why do I need it? Because I can only buy diseased, in-bred mutant livestock and hideous, tacky decorations with the gold I acquire within the game, or is it to provide me with some form of alleviation from the headache of the constant stream of inane "quests" I'm expected to complete while my eyes are treated to the same few pictures of the characters over and over again, because it would cost the company an extra fifteen bucks to have a person draw just one more unique image of the Duke? "This treasure chest is cursed! It'll take at least 8 quests to break it, but for now, I need you to grow 100 plots of carrots to attract bunnies, then plant clovers all over the kingdom, and craft enough glasses of bubbly grog to turn my liver to stone within one day. This grog is for me just in case the rabbits' feet and four-leafed vegetation aren't strong enough and I suddenly wish to drown the sorrow I'll experience from your failure." Wow, these tasks are going to take forever. Wait a minute! For ONLY $100, I could buy crowns and use them to help me skip these daunting steps. Thank goodness for Zynga for providing me this inexpensive alternative from the grief of these ongoing quests that they were the creators of in the first place.

I think I've rambled enough for tonight. If anyone actually reads this whole thing, feel free to email your complaints to my yahoo account of dpamaregoodtome so that your comments don't divert attention away from those charming bits of spam that half of my old posts are already infected with. 

7 Destinies to Bored Glory

I finally finished playing Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005... and some other piece of garbage. 

Many moons ago, my friend Jeremy bought me this, along with Yu-Gi-Oh! Destiny Board Traveler, for my birthday. At the time, I just kinda took these... "games" and thanked him for the gesture. The thought that crossed my mind was that of the old episode of The Simpsons where Homer bought Marge a bowling ball for her birthday. What the Hell was I going to do with these two? I didn't know anything about the card game. Yeah, I watched a bit of the anime, but that's like watching Pokemon to get an idea of how to become a great trainer. The heart of the cards, just like the bond shared between Ash and his team of unevolved failures, isn't going to do me any good when I've got Tristan beating me silly with a weapon-equipped Goblin Attack Force while I am trying to figure out why it hasn't died from having a defense of zero. Any logic I picked up through Magic: The Gathering only made matters worse when I sent three creatures to their doom and killed myself in the process thanks to the damage I took from each of them being destroyed. As a result, I became frustrated and set this present aside to try out the other game I was given.

Destiny Board Traveler is like some cheap-ass knock off of a Mario Party title featuring the main characters (and Rebecca Hawkins) of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. It lacked any sort of tutorial for understanding how to play, so I was clueless as to what I should have been doing. I guess Konami believes I'm supposed to just know this stuff, as I am with the card game variation I had tossed back into my dresser. I admit, this isn't entirely true, since lengthy explanations can be found within the instruction manuals of both games. It's a nice chunk of reading, but I found it to be an added pain trying to go back and forth between the game and manual to help understand what was going on. Destiny Board Traveler gave me plenty of time to practice, since each match takes over an hour to finish! The special powers the characters have are worthless, and the computer-controlled players are so fucking slow to do anything that my mistakes made little difference. I'm suppose to endure this to the end, actually win the games, and do so repeatedly with specific characters to unlock things?! I could understand if this was something made by Natsume Inc. Their "serious fun" approach to gameplay is one of the most excruciating forms of S&M I have ever had the painful pleasure to experience. When I demanded more flogging and hot candle wax on Farmville, Natsume came along and released another installment of Harvest Moon. I got to hoe, seed, and water 1000 small squares of soil on my touch screen while Witch Princess would periodically stomp on my back with her high heels, strangle me with her whip, and call me a filthy pig.

If you're allergic to latex, a bowl of rainbow curry will also make her happy.

DBT, on the other hand, managed to make me miserable (and flaccid) by omitting any sort of save feature during play. My only options were to either stick it out for hours at a time, or turn the game off and restart the stage later. I decided to turn it off, put it back in its box, and let it sit in my shoe box for another five or more years. 

"It's time to d-d-d-d-durr!"

Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005 is not a great game by any stretch of the mind, unless, of course, you compare it to Destiny Board Traveler or anything made by LJN .

LJN: 1970 - 1994 Good riddance!

You are a new duelist in Battle City (great fucking name, btw!) who is given enough duelist points (DP) to buy a starter deck at Grandpa Muto's card shop/nudie bar. After a lap dance or two, you then go out into the world and have matches with every person and animal that you come across. The world, however, is only twelve screens shared within five locations and not all that interactive. Each spot has opponents shuffling back and forth outside of buildings and arenas, while some are just standing around in the middle of the street. It's about the same with nearly every other video game featuring NPCs, but because of the lack of space, everywhere seems a little crowded. About half of them are generic players, like an elderly couple, a business man, and a little girl, while the others are characters from the series. I was really hoping there would be more named duelists, like Pegasus or Bandit "I'm an American!" Keith, but 7 Trials compensates for this by granting the cast with advanced versions of their decks once you've finished the first half of the game and includes two decks per person once you unlock the shadow world, which is simply called "???" on the map. While Battle City bans certain cards and limits the use of others, the shadow world has no such regulations, and it's with this concession that a player must create a few new decks to be able to hold his own. It's also because of this that opponents you face in both areas will have different, but similar, decks. Be prepared to see the same cards used over and over again. Fissure, trap hole, man-eater bug, hane-hane, and penguin soldier are all common sights in Battle City, while residents of the shadow realm will always have their hands filled with banned cards, such as raigeki, mirror force, monster reborn, and change of heart. Granted, it was naive of me to hope for this, but I really wanted to see a better mixture of cards. Pot of Greed is all well and good, but I don't need to put three of them in every deck. One particular flaw I discovered in the CPU involved the card Stumbling. Since every face-up monster entered play being tapped, one would have to wait a turn to be able to attack. Unfortunately, the computer will never bother to put his creature back into the attack position, so just playing that spell card is usually an automatic win for you. The exceptions to this are Tea, who has no real offense to begin with, and the Rare Hunter, who utilizes one of the cheapest strategies in the game. The R. Hunter spends the entire match drawing cards until he gets all five pieces of Exodia, which will allow him to win instantly. I had to create a deck specifically designed to counter his, because the concept of the Exodia deck, similar to Magic: The Gathering's commonly seen Burn or Counterspell decks, is just that powerful. It certainly isn't something to be proud of, though I'm sure in casual play there were many elitist tweens challenging their friends with one and bragging about their success because of it.

"Oh I say! Exodia! You gents lose again!"

I like how I can hold up to twenty decks, and building one just for the rare hunter isn't really an issue, but playing against him in the dark survival tournament and having to use it against everyone else just for the sake of beating him ruins any sort of personality I may have wanted to incorporate into my game-winning creation.
Boring credits roll by, I collect a nice chunk of DP for my victory, and now I can go back to unlock the rest of the 1000 cards to... awww, fuck it. There is very little replay value in this. I didn't care if I had them all or not. Once I grabbed the final trophy, I turned it off and put it right back in the shoe box with my other Game Boy games. To this day, I can still enjoy Contra or Gradius on my NES, but I very much doubt I'll ever have an urge to pick up this Konami title again. It is what it is. Like the Pokemon or Mega Man series, 7 Trials is just another bland sequel offering little more than what was found in the previous one. Then again, I guess I can't fault the game too much, since MTG's Shandalar didn't come out until 1997, and Pokemon Trading Card Game didn't arrive in America until April of 2000. Both are superior card battle video games, but they also had a few more years of technology to support their development.

At least Yu-Gi-Oh! didn't get any worse...

Sign spinners are killing enough motorists nowadays! We don't need the added distraction of dueling!

Dead Horse Discussion

"If we allow the courts to pass a law against the selling of mature games to minors, then it won't be long before video games are outlawed completely! We must protect our First Amendment rights!"

I'm am so sick and tired of these idiotic remarks. Every time someone tries to pass a law about video games, two or three more threads about it appear on numerous gaming forums, filled with several pages of "preaching to the choir" garbage about how unconstitutional it is to stop minors from buying video games not suitable for minors.

We already have laws that restrict our freedom of speech.

Norm: I got a plane full of people saying you threatened that stewardess.

Greg Focker: I was not threatening her. I was just trying to get my bag into the overhead storage thing...

Norm: You were acting like a maniac and you threatened her with a bomb.

Greg Focker: No, I said I didn't have a bomb.

Norm: But you said bomb.

Greg Focker: I said, "It's not like I have a bomb".

Norm: You said "Bomb" on an airplane.

Greg Focker: What's wrong with saying 'Bomb' on an airplane?

Norm: You can't say 'Bomb' on an airplane!

Greg Focker: Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb. You gonna arrest me? Bomb bomb bomb bomb! During the war I was a BOMBadier!

As for freedom of expression, there are age limits placed on explicit movies, music, and pornography, but if we allow a similar law for video games to pass, then Jack Thompson will suddenly have the power to completely eradicate the industry from existence? We're not dealing with a comic book villain, people! It's one thing to regulate a freedom, but an actual banning would be way too blatant to succeed. Just look at the prohibition America tried to pass with the eighteenth amendment. We know, for a fact, beer is bad for our health, but that didn't stop the twenty-first amendment from succeeding. The potential harm in playing video games isn't even an absolute problem. Restriction would only be a safety precaution; not the first step of gaming's inevitable downfall.

Do any of you seriously believe the lawyers representing the industry are doing so to protect the First Amendment? If it was a punishable crime to sell M-rated video games to minors, then fewer children with cautious parents would be able to buy them. They fight for higher profits, just like any other business would.

As it is now, many families can not afford to have a stay-at-home parent, yet they should always have the spare time to check everything their child does? And children, especially teenagers, are not so innocent that they won't lie about what they are doing either. Show mom and dad a different box with an acceptable rating on it and wait for them to leave the room before continuing the game. If one of them stay to watch, save it and quit, or play something else until they are gone.

"Oh, but parents knowingly hand their children money to buy these games."

Who here was never able to manipulate their parents at one point or another? My dad gave me $10 a week for school lunches. I usually skipped lunch in order to save the money for games and MTG cards. He never caught on to it. Some might use the allowance they earn each week under the trust that they won't waste it on things they shouldn't have... but I guess that would be the parents fault (It's hard telling them that they can't trust their children nowadays, isn't it?). A child can also use money he received during the holidays, or cash in his old games for store credit. All he'd have to do is hide it when he gets home, and play it when no one is around to see him. As for the retailers, how much do those people make standing behind that counter? Do many of them even receive benefits? Wal-Mart employees don't care about doing a great job for that sort of money. Punishment is usually the only way to motivate these employees, and a law to criminalize selling mature titles to minors will promptly cause more of them to check for ID.

The thing I really hate about this particular topic is the number of under-aged gamers posting their complaints about it. You little punks have no say in this! That's like asking pedophiles if they think sex with children should be legal. This isn't to say old gamers are any better.

"I played mature games when I was child, and they didn't affect me."

There are a couple of factors to consider before blurting this out, with the first being the difference in eras. There were far fewer people in the 1970s and 80s, with a more relaxed society. As a therapist, my dad was always the busiest during the school year. When life is more structured, problem children become more obvious. They have more trouble abiding by all the rules laid out in front of them. This leads to more stress and more aggravation, and if one of these kids goes home and starts becoming irritated by constant fragging, ganking, or alleged hacking, who knows what they'll do out of anger? Those are merely the online games. Offline can be just as bad, but it's normally a more influential danger, than one caused by rage.

My best friend and I would watch wrestling together as children, betting on who would win, enjoying the obvious story lines and terrible dialogue (as any true American should), but afterwards, Jeremy would usually want us to participate in our own fights. This guy was 6'5'', even at the age of 15, and heavily outweighed me. I rarely enjoyed be his sparing dummy, because I had been hurt on several occasions, including landing on my leg improperly.

Jeremy has minor mental issues. He talks like a normal individual, dresses himself correctly the first time he tries, and his hands aren't covered with wounds from trying to use a fork properly, but some TV shows, like wrestling, encourage him to re-enact what he saw. Apply this to a similar child with access to firearms. Do you think this can't happen? I'm not saying passing a law would stop these sorts of problems, but I'm sure it would diminish them.

"Well, in that instance, it is the parent's fault for not being more careful with their guns."

Maybe so, but with the Second Amendment, we can't stop Americans from bearing arms, and the NRA does all it can to prevent "unconstitutional" restrictions from forcing us to learn to use and care for them before purchase.

Even without guns, who hasn't had their car broken into? I never got the chance to play the PS2 my brother bought me, because it was stolen shortly before we left to take it back to my dorm room. Granted, Grand Theft Auto doesn't tell children to go out do this, but it does glorify it, and for some, that's all it takes.

Another factor is the degree of content found in today's gaming. How can we compare our childhood gaming to the stuff found in Eternal Darkness, Silent Hill, Gears of War, and Crackdown?

What did we have to fear back then?

Small pixel zombies and creepy chip music?

Blocky, bloated Nazis guarding treasure chests?

Patrick Stewart?

The nudity in gaming back then was scarier than all of that!

*Mostly Censored*

(Who's the target audience of this crap anyhow? Legophiles?)

Plus, a lot of violence wasn't senseless back then.

Totally justifiable!

Pass the law. If the parents believe their kids shouldn't have these games, it's easier to enforce that rule with store clerks checking for identification. For the smarter ones, I'm sure they'll be able to convince mom and dad to purchase Halo 3 when it arrives.

I know what you are saying. Parents should do this and retailers should do that, but there are a lot of things people, in general, should be doing. Gamers under 17 should learn to respect the rating system. I should be using my spring break to complete my bibliographic essay. Viz Media should stop making more Pokemon movies. Too bad life doesn't work out the way it should.

Just put aside your self-serving bias and outrageous beliefs long enough to really consider what sort of impact this would have on the industry. Minors won't be allowed to buy R-rated games. That's it. We still have beer. We still have movies. We still have books, music, and sweet, sweet porn. Why would it be any different for this?

Not Knowing When to Stop 3: Jusdie, X!

With X4, players will now have the opportunity to take control of either X or Zero from start to finish. The bonus is that choosing one of them will not feel like a retread for those wishing to complete the game with the other. Each hunter comes with his own attacks, strategies, and storyline, while each boss comes with his own obnoxious "WARNING" signal. The animated cut-scenes are fun to watch, but not to listen to. I found myself nearly doubling the volume in order to hear the voices. X speaks with a high-pitched, sissy voice similar to that of the original blue bomber.

Everything else is the same. Surprised?

The developers prefer you choose X first, since it's with him that you'll witness the conversation between General and a cloaked individual with familiar face paint. While the big man may refuse to declare war on the humans, it isn't long before the Repliforce begins an assault on the Sky Lagoon. It's up to (insert your choice) and only (insert your choice) to handle this mission, because (insert the one you didn't choose) is busy (insert masturbation joke) elsewhere.

In a nutshell, you make your way through the debris, beat up a bunch of weaklings, talk with Magma Dragoon about what's happening, teleport to the ground, beat up more weaklings, hop out of a pit trap, and destroy the mecha dragon (possibly for the second time) who doesn't put up a real fight, because he's the first boss and all first bosses suck.


"Ok, they get it. Now, shut the f*** up!"

With X, you'll meet up with an uncooperative Colonel who'd rather start a war than put down his weapon and talk. Under normal situations, I could understand his mistrust, but he's face to face with the guy who saved their planet three times already. I think we can give X the benefit of the doubt.

"You will all die for the sake of my honor!"

With Zero, you'll find Iris, the Colonel's sister, lying helpless on the ground. After you take out the mecha dragon, the Colonel will be grateful, but equally unwilling to disarm.


**Missing: her beret and chest.**

With this, General declares war on the humans. Sigma laughs manically.

Once Zero returns to base, he finds Iris waiting for him. She begs him to not fight her brother, but as a maverick hunter, he has no choice. When X returns, he is greeted by a different pair of breasts:


Double is a rookie hunter who stands by Mega Man's side throughout much of the game. There isn't much to say about him, since he never actually does anything to help you.


Both heroes must fight eight maverick bosses, but in X4, they will converse with the enemy before the battle. Usually, it's a final attempt to convince the maverick to "end the coup." This may not seem like a big deal to many of you, but it does signify a real purpose for them to fight. They're not just waiting around for you to find them, like heavily-armed cheese at the end of some dangerous maze. These guys have other things to do.


Magma might come first in the maverick order, but I prefer the arachnid. The leg upgrade is very easy to acquire, the level reminds me of Super Mario Bros. 2, and the boss is a cross between the original maverick spider from MMX1 and Squitter the Spider from Donkey Kong Country.


The maverick lives up to his name by spewing homing webs at your hunter throughout the entire battle. With a little practice (very little), you can dash underneath most of them. If you rather play it safe, climb the wall and leap over each one. Other than that, Web will spend much of his time impersonating a pinata. When his end draws near, Web will construct a giant web in the middle of the room and scurry around on it. X has nothing to worry about, but Zero's close range can be a problem (a minor one).

Defeating him will grant X the Lightning Web, which allows him to reach higher areas, and will allow Zero to unleash a slow and powerful burst of electricity known as the Rajingeki technique.


**Also known as Gemini Man's penis**

Split Mushroom lives in a bio lab full of spikes. Nearly everything has some sort of pointy protrusion sticking out of it. Just be glad that most of those pricks aren't fatal.

Split will cling to the wall and drop featureless clones of himself onto the ground. They will then begin to spin in your direction. It's best to jump over the first one, wait for the next to fly by, and continue on with the pattern. If you have lightning, feel free to strike. The shock will interrupt his inital attack, causing him to resort to his second strategy.

You may have seen it before. The fungus will leap into the air, create a true clone of himself, and the two of them will move around in a circle. It's your job to hit the real one, but that won't be easy, since they will be rotating at different speeds. Once again, if you have lightning, just keep hitting him with it. He'll never have a chance to fight back.

Defeating him will grant Zero the ability to double jump, and will allow Mega Man to clone himself with Soul Body.


Magma Dragoon is a traitor from the 14th Unit who can easily pummel anyone and everyone foolish enough to battle him first. Luckily, you have the option to challenge this Akuma wannabe from within a ride armor. You'll probably wipe out about half of Dragoon's life bar before your armor falls apart. At this point, you may have the advantage, but don't get complacent. Dragoon is still a dangerous opponent. I prefer to fight Magma with a few heart tanks and/or one of the energy tanks for support, but that's just me.

For such a difficult opponent, you'd think the reward would be something special. Both attacks, the Rising Fire and the Ryuenjin, allow your hunter to strike enemies directly above him. It sounds useful, but over the years, many fans have grown accustomed to Mega Man's inability to raise his arm another 90 degrees. It's not even a convenient weapon to use as a counterattack against the game's obligatory ice maverick. Don't worry. You'll be thankful to have it when you run into the bald reaper.


Out of the frying pan, and into the freezer.

If you wanted to begin the game with Frost Walrus, then by all means, go get him! He is nothing more than your standard big-n-slow boss with a huge disadvantage against long-range fire. His attacks include shooting ice from his mouth, creating obstacles with his cold breath, and sliding on his tummy. Think of him as a more blubbery version of Chill Penguin.


**Sorry, but I couldn't find a picture of "Big Jim" Sweeney**

On the plus side, he's probably the toughest of all the video game walruses.

Once you finish off four of the mavericks, Colonel will wish to battle you. If you're Zero, you get to watch a cut-scene. If you're X, the fight is suppose to determine whether or not the war continues. You defeat him, he flees, and the war continues. Dumb, f***ing liar.


Throughout much of the stage, you'll be chasing after Jet Stingray. At first, he'll try to distance himself by removing the dead weight stuck to his tail. It's best to leap over this obstacle, but if you time it just right, your vehicle should be able to dash right through Irwin's lifeless corpse unscathed.

Skimming through the walkthroughs of Gamefaq.com, I believe too much is said about fighting this guy. All I had to do was stand behind him with Zero and repeatedly jump and swing at his back. No special weapons needed. With X, I stood under him, jumped, and stopped him from attacking by using the frost tower. Without that attack, this guy is a real prick.


Slash Beast is an enigma. If you have no life or friends (and use Purin as an avatar), you'll spend an hour or two finding answers for the mysteries of this maverick:

First, if it's his job to protect the train, why is he not on it? I practically wiped out everything, including the floor I stood on, before he made an appearance.

Second, when he does make his appearance, he is fast enough to run alongside the train, but utilizes none of that speed during our battle?

Third, as Slash hops aboard the train, he lands on top of one of the cargo boxes. Once again, wasn't it his job to protect those? Perhaps he was trying to intimidate me.


"Very good, but [metal box] not hit back!"

Finally, I'd like to know which old kung-fu movie this line was inspired by: "Challenging my unit was both foolish and reckless! You are nothing more than my prey... One that is soon to be retired!"

Slash Beast's strategy is similar to that of Slash Man, but a little more difficult. As you can tell by now, this seems to be the trend with the eight mavericks.


Peacock's stage is set up like an obstacle course. Heat-seeking triangles, flying light bulbs, and even special appearances by the megatanks from Code Lyoko will do everything possible to stop you from attaining a perfect score.


Don't EVER watch this cartoon!

You are graded on how well you perform, and regardless of how slow and pitiful you are, Cyber will say the same thing every time:

"Peacock: His potential... is limitless?! ...not possible."

He's tough, but you'll never have to worry about him fighting back, since he's one of those robot masters who are at a tremendous disadvantage against anyone who exploits his weakness.


Storm Eagle's dumpy, younger brother.

Shoot the hooter with the Aiming Laser, a difficult-to-use targeting weapon of limited range, or use the Rakuhouha, Zero's energy-consuming giga attack. I wish I could say more about him, but Storm Owl, much like Tony Hawk, has absolutely no personality worth mentioning.

Once the final maverick has been defeated, the entire Repliforce army retreats into space, and all the boss battles here on out will now include one or two lines of vocal taunting.

You're first opponent will be a rematch with the Colonel at the space port. Iris will beg Zero for mercy, but you already know how this is gonna go down.


"I swear that I probably won't flee this time if you win."

Any damage you receive before reaching the Colonel will be in his favor. There are no health tanks near the end of the stage, so be careful.

The fight will be straightforward and boring. His only new attack involves turning his sword into a lightning rod. You shouldn't have too much trouble with him, but if you're looking for a quick win, Frost Tower and Kuuenzan will do nicely.

When you return to HQ, you may want to refill your tanks and locate any remaining heart pieces and body parts before proceeding to the Final Weapon.


With X, you'll get to watch a neat video clip (I'm sure you can find it on YouTube) that shows Double's transformation into whom many refer to as "Jello Man."

"There's always room for beatings!"

Double can be quite a handful. It's best to use only the X-Buster for this match, because if he is struck by the Double Cyclone (his weakness), Jello will retaliate with flying, laser bots.


...and that's where babies come from!

Iris is not all that compatible with the battle armor she wears during the fight. Once you hit her a few times, a purple crystal will leave her body and float around the area, firing at you vertically, in conjuction with her horizontal beam. The crystal is the only vulnerable spot, so don't waste your time trying to hit on Iris, unless you know she's good and drunk.

I may be mistaken, but I believe Iris is the first female boss in a Mega Man game; beating Tron Bonne by a few months.


**She's also featured as a centerfold in the June 2000 issue of Almost Legal magazine**

After your first hard-fought battle, you get to participate in another one, but first...


an overdramatic death scene!

I don't understand why she has to be dead. Couldn't Zero just have her rebuilt; or, at the very least, make love to her lifeless corpse? No need for her death to be in vain.

"You're a queer!"

General is a massive reploid.


An idea of how big this guy really is.

As you approach him, General will stand up, causing his chair to explode (I don't know why). He will gradually make his way across the room using a pair of jets whose blue flame will hurt if your hunter gets too close. He'll also stomp the ground, breaking the floor under him and causing more blue fire to shoot up out of it (I don't know where it came from). You'll need to reach his face, if you want to win this thing. Like Sigma and Wily before him, General will provide you with a pair of platforms in the form of his hands. Sounds generous enough, except when he shoots at you as you're trying to get into position. There's always a catch, isn't there?

X may be able to keep his distance and fire him while clinging to the wall, but using Zero is going to require some practice. You're best bet is to strike at his head while jumping over him. Even with the fists to hop on, it's not likely that you'll have enough time to leap at him and connect with your saber before one of his projectiles stun you.

As Tiny crumbles, you finds out that he is no longer in control of the weapon, which is now pointed at the planet.

Fight the eight Repliforce mavericks again, you say? OK!


Victory attainment procedure: just add fire

Grim Sigma isn't much of a threat to your life bar, but when you come face-to-face-to-face with Sigma's third form(s), you're really gonna want to have as much health as possible.


Sigma has been remunerated for his appearance.

As long as his scythe is never thrown into the ground, there is a chance for you to come out of this unharmed. Unfortunately, you will need the leg upgrade and a handful of luck to do it.


Two heads are better than one, but let's add three more just in case.

At the start of this battle, Sigma has graciously provided your hunter with a pellet of health. As I said, it is possible to not take damage in the second round, but highly unlikely. This little gift allows for a small margin of error. Be thankful.

The lesser of two evils clings to the wall, firing a laser gun that prevents him from moving his arm during each shot. Just don't stare into the gun's barrel and you should have no problem with this part.

In between the two forms, you'll have to deal with red, blue, and yellow. Blow them up if you want to, but the attack won't last long, and the three will be back to help/hurt you during a brief assault by Sigma's hideous second form.

Here's where I had the most trouble. When he appears, if you try to keep your distance, Sigma will blow you into a wall of spikes. If you get too close, he'll try to suck you in. With X, you can keep dashing against the wind, firing your arm cannon into his nasty, metallic mouth, but with Zero, you'll need to a bit more precise with your positioning (as shown in the image above). If you have X's lingering arm upgrade, the stationary blast will continuously damage baldy and nullify most of the spewing debris he inhaled earlier.

The ending isn't interesting, but none of the Mega Man endings are, and I doubt any of them ever will be.

Sigma goes for global destruction, but with no success. Thanks, big guy!

Both hunters dwell on the past and worry about the future (so, what else is new?), but if you still don't know where Zero came from, then you have something worth playing for.

It's hard to not like X4. Every aspect of the X series was mildly improved upon. It may feel like you're just getting more of the same thing, but in reality, you're getting more of the same thing!

And for a moment, I thought Capcom had a good thing going, but, in X5 and 6, too many changes and additions ruin the series.


Who could the mysterious voice be?

It all begins with Mysterious Voice and ?? having a conversation about how to deal with the maverick hunters. ?? wants to know if X and Zero are as strong as Mysterous Voice claims them to be. Mysterious Voice tells ?? to observe as he does battle with them.


Defeating Sigma's giant floating head releases the Sigma Virus, which have become actual floating obstacles for X. Ok, this doesn't make sense. Computer viruses are not real viruses, and even if they were, they should not be seen by the human eye (or even with a light microscope), nor should they be able to move about freely from their hosts. Four games go by with us trying to contain this plague, and now Sigma somehow figures out how to unleash his virus in the form ghostlike heads of himself? Of course, as a Mega Man fan, it's our duty to turn a blind eye towards any attempt by Capcom to flesh out the story, no matter how desperate they become to create an interesting plot.

Case in point, you have new allies (Alia, Douglas, and Signas) to provide more idiotic conversation, but no actual support, and a new arch rival named Dynamo:


"X! Tell us about your feelings!"


He's as overconfident as Bass, but comes with a personality as well.


As if the return of Sigma, the arrival of Dynamo, and the illogical flying swarms of purple people possessers isn't outlandish enough, the Eurasia Space Colony has exploded, and it's going to crash into the planet unless you hurry up and find the four mavericks who have the parts needed to activate some old, powerful cannon capable of destroying it.

Still not enough suspense?


Well, the letter B has gone maverick, waging war on the rest alphabet!

There is also a time limit to worry about, with you being ranked by your performance, and to earn extra goodies, the 8 robots must be fought at levels 4 or higher.

More, Capcom! More!

Ok. How about the addition of more upgrades?


Dr. Light must have had a lot of free time after creating X, considering all the new sets of armor he created and hid throughout the world. These include the Falcon, Gaea, Hyper, Nova, Blade, and Shadow armors.

What put me over the edge was the inclusion of this prick!


"I'm baaaaack. Come give your old friend a hug."

I've never defeated the yellow devil from the first Mega Man game, and I've grown to hate every other devil because of it.


Sigma's final form takes after one of Wily's contraptions, and is just as easy to destroy.

If Zero went Maverick, X will be saved by another "??" individual and lose all his memory of Zero. If Zero remains an ally, he dies saving your blue butt. X gets to keep his sword, but that still leaves me wondering about how robots can die.

Zero continues to think about Iris, Sigma, and his creator. Riveting.

As for X6, let's make this brief:


Gate finds Zero's DNA (don't ask), turns evil, makes robots called "nightmares" to transform innocent robots into mavericks. If you destroy them, you can collect their souls (don't ask). Somehow, collecting souls allows you to use more parts (don't ask).

Assisting him is High Max, a hulking moron that you'll hate dealing with in the near future, and while dealing with the other 8 mavericks, you discover their willingness to help Gate, regardless of whether or not they see him as a villian.


Even with the Shadow armor, this guy is a pain.


F*** you, Metal Shark Player!

It was only a matter of time before a dung beetle would go maverick.

Reaching the end is difficult, even with all the parts and armors to assist you. Once you defeat Gate, Sigma will finally make his appearance. He wasn't around for the rest of the game, but we all knew he had to be lurking somewhere.


Look out below!

In his first form, Sigma will fall to ground, landing headfirst into the floor. He'll slowly pick himself up and shuffle across the floor in a seemingly drunken stupor, using a green shield for protection and firing small orbs of energy first, then unleashing large blasts of energy later in the battle. The metal anchor will cause him to fall backwards, but enough shots from your X buster will have the same effect. He shouldn't be too much trouble, but even if he was, his other form isn't much stronger.


He may look impressive, but Sigma has lost his mind.



Having gone unconscious, Sigma runs on sheer determination and hatred for you. What a trooper!

There are three endings, and all of them suck.
1. X and Alia talk about repairing Gate.
2. X and Alia are greeted by Zero who then quickly leaves them.
3. Zero goes into slumber for over 100 years.

Once you've completed all six games, feel free to enjoy the Mario Kart knock-off of Mega Man Battle & Chase. Sure, the racing looks awful, but I still managed to enjoy myself.


"I own the road, motherf***ers!"