I Have No Commenters, and I Must Blog

Why do we call it the "adventure" genre? When did wandering around a world filled with awkward pathing, clicking every single thing on the screen repeatedly to trigger the required events necessary to progress, and solving unrelated puzzles count as an adventure? "Ok, I got my sword, a shield, some herbs... yeah, it's time to go out and shove some boxes into a specific pattern, rearrange canned goods, and complete a 20-step challenge of Simon Sez." In RPGs and action-adventure games, brain twisters are usually scattered throughout the game to help break up the monotony of killing and looting.The best excuse for having them would be to stop intruders from robbing a tomb or a treasure room that, for whatever reason, your character eventually explores out of curiosity, because you can't put a place like that into a game and not expect the player to visit it. Side-questing? The Hell it is! The moment I come across a new location is the moment it becomes part of the main objective. Gunning down a gaggle of Garys? Lightsabering a crazy man holed up in a locker? Rubbing salt and pepper on Katt's half-naked body? All of this becomes necessary because it's there. The term "side-questing" would be best used with those achievements specifically meant for perfectionists wanting to complete the same tasks in record time, with unusual power restrictions, and, in some cases, for the sake of obtaining some item that only drops once every thousand battles. With that in mind, side-questing should be for those too young to realize how short their lives are, unaware of how many great games they will inevitably miss out on because they are obsessed with obtaining a shiny version of every Pokemon.

The fans of true adventure games are an odd bunch. They clearly want to suffer. It's not that they won't play something different, but they definitely prefer to play it differently. After all, why make coffee for Dr. Bitch when you can first check the maker (because you absolutely have to in order to proceed), steal a bowl of seeds from a museum exhibit, attempt to give them to the janitor, fail, go back to the lab, ground the seeds up, go back to the janitor, fail again, find a used coffee bag in a trash can, fill it with the seeds you crushed, then take the bag back to the janitor, and finally return to Dr. Bitch with a fresh cup of whatever the hell you stole from the exhibit? See, that's them. They're probably the reason why we have challenges like the Ironman play style of Diablo. "Yeah, I could rest, repair, and buy items, but wouldn't it make more sense to just go deeper into enemy territory regardless of how badly hurt and ill-equipped my character is?" I don't care. Even if I go through all that added trouble, I'm still going to be treated to the same ending. All I'm concerned about is reaching the end within the "rules" set by the game's developers. That's about as challenging as I wish for a game to be. I want to finish a raid in Warcraft, but I won't rely upon an add-on to do it. I still want to beat Karnov, but I don't want to use my Game Genie to give me unlimited lives and more items. I want to finish Contra, but... alright, I'll admit that there are exceptions. Because a straight adventure already puts in the effort, there's no real need to come up with handicaps to make things more "interesting" for the player, and many of the best titles that the genre has to offer (Grim Fandango, Riven, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle...) all include clever, multi-layered puzzles that don't do them justice to be lumped together with the likes of Tetris, Puyo Pop, Beje ...Candy Crush. I'm not insulting Tetris, mind you. I'm merely pointing out the significant differences between matching colors and a basic understanding of touch spatial relations to that of Rube Goldberg contraptions, anagrams, and MacGyver logic. I detest them (especially when they use anagrams), yet I will admit that adventure games cater to a couple of niche audiences who would likely never play video games if not for them. I may not enjoy the nonsensical process involved in obtaining a cat mustache on Gabriel Knights 3, or winning the fictional love of a 2D lady from Let's Meow Meow! who arrived at my doorstep naked and curled up in a package, but I know some other screwball does, and it's thanks to games like them, along with other stuff like Ai Cho Aniki, School Days, Seaman (We love you, Nimoy!), Typing of the Dead, et cetera that allow me to confidently tell non-gamers that there is something out there for them, too. They just haven't played it yet.

Prior to typing this, I decided to indulge/torture myself by participating in three types of adventures. I also watched a longplay of Myst. ... That game is so. fucking. boring! I was looking at some of the comments talking about how the people in most Let's Play videos are childish and get in the way of listening to the "awesome music" Myst provides. What fucking music?! Most of the game is silent! Why even make a soundtrack if the developers are barely going to use it? And why watch a Let's Play just to listen to the music? Idiots.

Ugh, my first of the three was Magical Diary. I have no clue as to what possessed me to play this, even if it was for the sake of the blog entry. It's an adventure title falling under the sub-genre of visual novels centering around a fat girl I named "Love Hungry" who attends a school for witches and falls in love with one of five individuals that she hopes will indulge her cravings for cake and pretzels during lovemaking. She is a wildseed witch, meaning she was born into a family of muggles. This is done to allow for the perfect excuse as to why your professors and fellow students will explain everything you will need to know to play. After a lengthy introduction, you plan out your week, choosing between five types of magic, going to the gym, studying, and rest. During the weekends, you can go to the mall (because that's what cool girls do!), study some more, or sleep. There's also the possibility of detention on Saturdays, which is necessary for one of the love routes. This process continues for a full school year (from September 1st to May 1st) with holidays and various school activities in between. I've played similar games for free, but this one definitely earns its pay. It also features the fewest images of poorly-drawn penises throughout the experience, so that's something to think about as well.

Magical Diary is a welcoming start for those new to the sub-genre. There are multiple solutions to the exams, including an option to give up that doesn't result in an immediate bad ending, the stress-building feature is much easier to manage here than what I've experienced from similar games, and the dialogue is both well-written and genuinely interesting. The player will be able to take part in all of the necessary school events regardless of how he/she develops, bypassing the luck factor seen in other visual novels and dating sims that involve being in the right place at the right time, and any relationship one wishes to pursue will offer a deep and rewarding love story. Plenty of save files are available, too. Gotta love having multiple save files in an adventure title, right? There are a few minor issues to address, however, because you might play it for yourself and say something like, "Why didn't you type about this and that in your award-winning, Nobel Peace Prize nominated blog?! I am now perturbed and prone to snarky remarks!" Well, Love Hungry's dialogue choices, along with her overall character design options, don't allow for too much variety. This is more of a limitation than an actual flaw in the game. If there's a specific, somewhat peculiar type of personality one wishes to express through Hungry, it's not likely going to happen. Also, nearly all of the interesting stuff revolves around finding love (and consuming pie). There's no major plot unfolding throughout the year and no grand finale of sorts to look forward to. If you're not working towards a relationship, it's going to be a somewhat dull experience. Oh, perhaps you'll spend your time becoming an all-powerful witch, right? MD does allow the player to learn several spells, but many of them do the same thing and aren't all that impressive. The only time to really use a spell is during the seven exams and that's only if you've managed to train enough in a particular field of magic to learn one of the spells necessary for success during a particular exam. I focused on white magic (I was aiming for an achievement) and ended up failing my first two exams and the fifth one, because there was absolutely nothing I could do to succeed. Even if I decided to learn a few other types of magic, will I know enough in one of those to have learned the magic necessary for the exam? For a game with "magical" in its title, I'd be lying if I didn't feel a little disappointed. I still got my achievement, so suck it, Grabiner! Likewise, for a game featuring a mall, there is very little to buy, and the selection doesn't change (the glasses aren't that wacky, either). Lastly, the visuals bother me a little. The girls come in two types and look the same within each, requiring superficial differences to help tell them apart (like the cast of Sailor Moon or Oriemo), while the males are all effeminate in appearance. The style of the entire game is that of amateur Anime. It looks like the early results of a "How to Draw Manga" book. Heck, it probably is.

Moving from one title to the next felt like I was jumping out of a hot shower and into an ice bath. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a psychological horror, point-and-click adventure that has no business being paired up with Magical Diary. Inspired by a short story written in 1967, you play as five unfortunate survivors who have been tortured for 109 years by a sentient supercomputer calling itself "AM". AM was built for war. Even after it became sentient, AM realized it was only capable of understanding death and destruction. Unable to move, speak, and think freely like human beings, it becomes furious and takes its hatred out on mankind by wiping out life on Earth. The only reason five individuals survived this catastrophe was because AM wanted to keep a few playthings around for it to punish over and over again for all eternity. Here, we get to participate in one of AM's sick games. There's nothing special about what you'll get to do. All the usual problems pertaining to half-assed logic puzzles and an unnecessary abundance of cryptic remarks plague I Have No Mouth's gameplay. What makes this a treat for the player is the story that unfolds. It provides the sort of questionable content not commonly seen in a video game back in 1995, including rape and suicide (the option to eat a baby was removed from the final product). This is thanks to the author of the original short story, Harlan Ellison, who not only co-created the game by providing new dialogue and back story, but also offered to voice AM itself. He does a phenomenal job of that, by the way, as is evident within the first few minutes of the introduction and is continued throughout the whole thing. His performance is a bit hammy, but you'll genuinely hate the machine before it's all over. Ellison truly captured the essence of an all-powerful machine that is also a total asshole psychopath.

My final attempt to really get into the adventure genre was released back in 1993. The 7th Guest distinguishes itself from my other two choices by being an interactive horror movie that heavily relies upon standalone puzzles, live action cut scenes, and 3D graphics that far exceeded the visual quality of Star Fox, which was released a few months prior. With that said (and typed), I would like to point out that those puzzles all suck ass, the live action is notoriously bad, and a game that looks good means nothing if the main character has trouble moving around the mansion. Moreover, the puzzles don't really coincide with the story. You cannot progress unless you solve them, but there's no plausible excuse as to why that is. "Stauf created puzzles and built a mansion with the wealth he obtained selling them and dolls." That's it. He doesn't even put much effort into his work. You'll run into the typical stuff, like the slide puzzle, follow the leader (for a chain of eighteen friggin' notes!), a handful of Chess puzzles (two of which are the same thing), and even a long maze for you to get lost in. Between exploration and puzzles, you'll be treated to what appears to be a competition for the coveted World's Worst Thespian award. The winner, of course, was Robert Hirschboeck (Stauf) who also played in the sequel The 11th Hour, and as Gargamel's stunt double in the live action Smurf films. As a horror, The 7th Guest pales in comparison to I Have No Mouth. It's tough trying to scare somebody when all you do is make stupid puns while he or she is fooling around with slices of cake and cans of soup. You probably don't have a clue how many times I heard him say, "Don't take all knight!" while I was fiddling with a dumbass Chess puzzle on the bathroom floor, cause that's not gross or anything. On the other hand, The 7th Guest has the most enjoyable music of the three games. "Skeletons In My Closet" is a decent song to listen to during the credits, and there is a commonly played tune that includes random piano keys being struck which spooked me for a few moments. I wish I could compliment the music in Magical Diary, because that seems like the one that would have the most enjoyable soundtrack of the three, but the song selection in that game is a bit off, and some of them don't match well with when they are played.

I might go further into The 11th Hour, though I really just want to play something I'm more familiar with. Also, being poorly insulted for restarting my puzzles and having to figure out a bunch of anagrams doesn't exactly encourage me to continue. In case your were wondering, I don't care much for Sierra, either, which is why I didn't choose to play anything from their collection. If anything, Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded might be worth a try. It might be. It might. Maybe. Doubtful.

I hope you all enjoyed this text-based blog adventure of mine. If you actually read the whole thing, you can consider that the bad ending. Also, you died. Would you like to load a save file?

We don't want zombies, bandits, sheep, zerglings, orcs, musical notes, or balloons on the lawn.

Around 480 BC, King Leonidus Butler enlisted the help of Kevin Sorbo and Pit to defend the Greecy city-state of Red Rover. On the very first turn, things went south as Butler rovered Little Zizou to come over. Going straight for their leader, the Persians felt threatened. Thanks to their high speed stat, the Persians quickly arrived at Thersmopylons long before their leader could come right over and began xerxing Butler's chain, crippling Leo's strength with an abundant use of Pay Day, and then proceeded to lick themselves. Three days later, Lil' Z walked right pass the weary defenders and claimed what was rightfully his. He brough Pit back with him and then it was Zizou's turn to rover someone over to his chain. Now left with Struggle, the Persians were unable to prevent Sorbo from bringing Pit back with him, leaving Platypusa no other choice but to send her second-in-command, Perry, to end this silly game at once. To make a long history lesson short, everyone became Roman, and a sequel was funded seven years later with the coins scattered about the field.

While many still believe in the Sand Castle Vs. Ocean theory, this idea is without reliableWiki resources to support it, thus the Battle of Thermohoppopotamus remains as the first documented use of what tacticians refer to today as a "tower defense".

The tower defense strategy was nautrally conceived through conception. Since women are the opposite of men, and inherently evil because of it, sperm is treated as a sort of enemy. As sperm enters the female's body, it reaches an abyss-like region aptly named the "tartuterus". While the egg cell's membrane acts as the primary shield, the tartuterus is set up as an elaborate maze filled with trap cards, anti-sperm monsters, David Bowie, and acid to prevent all but the most determined sperm from ever seeing the egg. For those few who survive the trip, they will then have to fight their way through the cannon towers, slowing traps, and an excessive number of sunken colonies fortifying the membrane of the ovum. In most cases, only a sole survivor lives to tell the tale (not that anyone cares to listen).

All of this, along with Custard's last stand for revenge at the Alamo, laid the foundation for this sub-genre of RTS gaming:

If it wasn't for the pants, you wouldn't be able to tell'em apart!

Still, it was a weak foundation with few developers willing to create titles based solely upon giving their enemies the D, that is, until Starcraft arrived. Not only did Blizzard breathe new life into real-time strategy with the overwhelming success of Starcraft, but the included campaign editor opened the doors for players to expand upon that success. The most notable of these creations were the turret and sunken defense maps. Because of the Zerg creep preventing non-Zerg teammates from building their own defenses, the earliest maps typically kept the two separate, meaning waves of flying units for turret defense maps, and waves of ground units for sunkens. Eventually, one of these map makers realized that Zerg also have spore colonies (those buildings no one gave a fuck about, because Hydralisks are cheaper and more effective), so it was possible to have both ground and air waves with a single race without having to waste space with pylons or resources with making units to fill bunkers. As people became more familiar with the editing tools, we got mixed TD maps ("turret defense" was the preferred label, even when sunkens were also included) with all three races, stationary units acting as additional defense options, and, sometimes, a relatively competent balance in the increasing strength of the waves. The concept is easy to learn, but it does entail effective mazing and careful spending on upgrades to complete, so the player doesn't feel stupid afterwards for playing it (that's the job of the bunker wars and zone control maps). When Warcraft III took over, turrets were replaced by towers. People were still making "TD" maps, but the "T" changed to accomodate the medieval setting, and the name just stuck after that. The "D" was stuck somewhere else for added enjoyment.

The tower defense genre boomed with the help of Adobe Flash. Not everyone wanted to buy a Craft game, and there was nothing else worth playing in 2007...

So it was up to independent developers to fill this void with browser games (and porn advertisements).

The first major success was in January of 2007, and it was actually a Flash remake of the Warcraft 3 map Element TD. Lazy bastard. Personally, I believe Defend Your Castle ! deserves a little more credit for its 2003 contribution, but I understand that it doesn't play much like what qualifies for a tower defense game nowadays, and no one cares what I think, so fuck it. This was followed up with other popular titles such as Desktop Tower Defense, Bloons Tower Defense 1 - 4, Gemcraft, Cursed Treasure 1 and 2, Kingdom Rush, Cellcraft, Symphonic Tower Defense, Pokemon Tower Defense, Throw Pillows at a Toddler's Face as Hard As You Can, and plenty of others that now make up entire websites dedicated solely to them. Why are they so popular? It's partially because the gameplay is, at its core, simple fun, like a Bejeweled clone or an old beat'em up, though a few have tried (unsuccessfully) to make their games a bit more complex. Another reason is because many of them are 100% free to play. Can't afford to buy a copy of Plants Vs Zombies or Orcs Must Die!? Who cares?! There's plenty of other choices out there. If you don't mind paying, however, I highly recommend both of those games! I'm especially impressed with Orcs Must Die! because it utilizes the third-person perspective of standard action games without complicating anything in the process. I also appreciate the humor Robot Entertainment injected into it. Whatever TD you decide to play, you're likely going to have more fun than you figured you would... unless it has a shitty rating. Why would you even bother playing if that information was available? To prove my statement wrong? Why would that matter? Who's going to actually read this and agree with anything I type? Your effort to make me look foolish has been in vain! I made myself look foolish long before you were even aware of my existence, so there!

Oh, and Rampart existed at some point during all of this.

Yeah, that's how I remember it.

Anyway, the only reason I've wasted so much of my lonely, worthless time typing about this is because I've spent the last few months playing four of them, three of which I bought as part of a Humble Bundle: Orcs Must Die!, its sequel, and Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten. The fourth is Symphonic Tower Defense, which is not only a decent TD, but the music you defend against is also legally free to download. What more could I want? Dr Pepper and a 3DS that isn't a piece of shit? Nah. Nah.... *sighs* I hate you so much malfunctioning shoulder buttons.

Oh my twinkling stars...

Prior to it, my experience with RPGs as a child involved Dragon Warrior 3 and... Baseball Stars? I saw Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (Quest. I know. Shut up.) as rivals back when I was in grade and middle school, so I avoided Final Fantasy solely because I thought I would be a traitor to Dragon Warrior. Yes, kids believe in stupid stuff like that all the time, and I was no exception. Fortunately for me, I've never made another mistake ever and have been perfect in every other manageable, imaginable, and unimaginable way.

What actually got me into the genre itself was due to a comment my oaf of a friend made while I was spending the weekend at his place. Resting atop an uneven pile of perforated bricks in his guest bedroom was a Sega Genesis, and at this particular moment, I noticed Shining Force lying on the floor nearby. I asked if it was any good and he told me it would be too hard for me to figure out. Hearing that sort of thing from a guy who couldn't dress himself properly unless his mom laid out the clothes for him irritated me, so I played it secretly whenever he left me alone for a while to figure the game out for myself. Once he finally saw me playing it, I told him it wasn't that difficult to understand (for me, at least). He was kind enough to let me borrow it and I spent my free time playing through the game multiple times in my brother's room. Why did we always have the Sega Genesis in Ian's room? I probably didn't want to have a Sega system and a Nintendo system in the same room together because of their rivalry... dang it! I made the same mistake and didn't even realize it! Actually, Ian told me it had to do with my television lacking space, or was it the three-color setup, or something something... com-plete. Oh, well, at least this now validates my prior claim to flawlessness, unless one wishes to accuse my poor memory as being a flaw, then, you know, shut up.

Shining Force is the second game of a series that began with Shining and the Darkness back in '91, though you probably wouldn't know it if "shining" wasn't used in both names. Darkness has a similar look to that of Wizardry, while Force more closely resembles Nobunaga's Ambition and Fire Emblem:

The first picture is of Wizardry VI, I believe. A lot of hot pixel nudity in that one. As for the second image, I'm convinced Nobunaga's ambition was to cover the world with tatami mats.

I should mention that SF developer Hiroyuki Takahashi showed no love for Fire Emblem, despite the similarities. What brought about his game was a desire to make the battles in Dragon Quest more enjoyable without the help of Toriyama's artwork. Impossibru, you say? Merely improbabru. Inspired by Silver Ghost, combat in Shining Force revolves around commanding multiple charismatic individuals, and, for whatever reason, Lowe, in turn-based battles that usually take place on maps twice as spacious as they really ought to be.

Masochists might demand more pain in their Strategy/Tactical RPG, but the only legitimate issue with Shining Force is having to battle in areas full of empty space with movement-hindering terrain that prolong a fight for no beneficial reason. If one really wishes to nitpick, there are certainly minor problems to point out.

For example, while there are plenty of PCs to recruit, many of them are just different versions of each other. This is especially true of the centaurs May, Ken, Arthur, Pelle, Vankar, and Earnest, with similar lance-wielding individuals, such as Guntz and Kokichi. The only one who stands out dramatically is Lyle, the centaur with a fucking bazooka, whose face seems to be the standard look of all the playable characters:

Another minor problem revolves around healers and their inability to keep up with the team. They, like anyone else, can become quite powerful, but if you don't enjoy wasting extra turns to boost their experience with healing, then switch'em out, toss each fighter a healing seed, and go into battle full force. (I've done it. It works quite well.) Other nuisances include debuff spells that are worthless (no surprise there), all boss fights are won with a bum rush, a handful of extremely weak PCs join late in the game and require an excessive amount of attention to be of value, there are a few of those obnoxious "But thou must" questions creating the illusion that your decision matters, and the menu is cumbersome. Again, minor problems. All they really do is show the game's age, as these issues were common with RPGs in the '90s... until Final Fantasy VII came, fixed everything, and made RPGs the greatest thing ever:

She hugs the enemies.

The Shining Force roster has only one weak character, Jogurt, and his entire purpose is to be comedy relief. He's not half bad at that, either. Want to bring down the ultimate evil with the might of a dozen hamsters? He can do it!

What's more impressive is that he's the only one to find work outside of the Shining series.

Among the rest, there is no Delibird or Luvdisc of the bunch. Just choose whomever you like, level'em up, and watch the magic happen. Bleu and Adam are ridiculously pathetic to begin with, and helping them grow probably isn't worth the effort (at least the healers can keep their distance), but those two are by far the most rewarding for your trouble.

The player will have to deal with a lot of shit to level Adam, but, if you're patient, he'll return the favor once he's stronger.

As much as I enjoyed each chapter, once I experienced Shining Force II and it's properly-connected world, I became displeased with the idea of separating the world map into eight pieces. I won't refer to this as a flaw of Shining Force, because it never mattered until SF2 was released, and comparing it negatively to it's sequel would be silly. In fact, Shining Force II actually manages to improve upon nearly every aspect of its predecessor, which is what a true sequel should do.

... or just keep churning out the same fucking thing.  That works, too.

That's quite a feat considering it had the same shitty budget as the other Shining titles and a fresh team of developers to help Takahashi create it.

Shining Force II takes place half a century later with an anthropomorphic rat stealing the two jewels that sealed Zeon, one of the three Devil Kings. Demons emerge from the tower where the gems were kept and Sir Astral is brought in for assistance. Astral is a more developed character than his Shining Force counterpart Nova, a Dragonute (Dragonewt?) whose existence discredits an NPC's comment about Elliot being the last of his kind in the first game. I believe the comment was altered in the remake to, "...one of the few left of his kind," so it's not as if it went unnoticed by SEGA, though more backstory of Nova himself would have been appreciated. Oh well.

The main character in Shining Force II is a student of Astral who was trained in both magic and swords. As with Max, he learns Egress to allow an immediate escape from battle, and Bolt is eventually learned, but he'll always be much more effective fighting up close.

By default, the dork's name is Bowie, though I usually change it to Karn, and his appearance made me reluctant to use him in battle any more than necessary to keep him alive. He's convinced by his classmate Sarah to see what's going on. Followed by a third student, Chester, the trio lie their way into the castle. Why Astral went alone to begin with doesn't make much sense considering he is too decrepit to do anything outside of teach and advise. Fortunately, he spots the kids, also lies, then has them accompany him to the tower where the geezer sends his students off to die against a group of demons. It's a typical School-Life Anime introduction. All this story is missing is a mysterious transfer student to assist them in battle. Once the fight is over, Astral casts a single spell, becomes winded, and collapses in the king's bedroom. Typical. Realizing the threat at hand, Granseal's army is called upon to hunt down the escaped Gizmo (a demon). Obviously, trained soldiers are useless, so the children are also dispatched. Before leaving town, a fourth student appears to join them. He's not a transfer student, nor is there anything mysterious about him... and he's uglier than Bowie, but he swings a mean axe, and, by this point, we learn that Chester's an unreliable fuck-up, so greet the sluggish dwarf with open arms, then send him up front to take all the hits, because you can't afford to stock up on enough healing herbs to keep Chester's sorry ass from dropping.

Some real effort went into the introduction of this adventure, and it only gets better from there. The English translation of the original Shining Force omitted numerous pieces of information, including Max's backstory and his (intimate) relationship to Kane. As far as I knew, the first chapter was little more than the first episode of Power Rangers with Nova recruiting a team of teenagers with attitude (and Lowe) to episodically fight evil. It's fun, but the reasoning for why I went from one place to another was a bit two-dimensional. In Shining Force II, there's all sorts of drama and detail to appreciate. The English translation isn't all that bad, either... compared to its predecessor, that is. So Dark Dragon's real name is Lucifer. Is anyone surprised about that? I'd change my name too if I had my dark followers calling me "Lucy" all the time.

As with Shining Force, the sequel offers numerous PCs to choose from. There's a little more depth with this roster, as it has been with everything else about the game. There's also a greater difference in power between individuals. For example, Peter the Phoenix practically breaks the game. He is a flying unit with very high stats who resurrects himself for free and doesn't require weapons to fight. Granted, Shining Force has Jogurt, but this guy is a one-man army... who isn't actually a man, because he's a bird, and birds have opposite chromosomes, so his would be XX, and since I typed "one-man", he would clearly be a female if his species was human instead of bird, making that description incorrect, though it would be anyhow because a bird's determining system is based around Zs and Ws, but it's the same even with different letters, because male birds are homogametic, which is what females are for mammals, so he's actually a one-bird army, right? Then, there is Higins the Centaur. Old, weak, slow Higins. None of his stats justify his inclusion in your team, because there are plenty of similar PCs with much stronger attributes. One could also call into question the need for Zynk and Claude. Both possess formidable power, but with practically no movement, neither will reach the front line quickly enough to be of any use. Leveling won't help them hustle, either. What I am typing is that there is a "best" team to use in this game, and choosing favorites who don't qualify will require level grinding to compensate. This won't matter too much on the normal setting, but try tackling this game on the Super difficulty (Ouch! mode has better targeting, but someone at SEGA forgot to buff the enemies' stats, so it's actually the second hardest). It won't take long to realize that this is not as forgiving as the original.

SFII offers a few detours with reoccurring battles (actually, this annoyed me whenever I walked into one), special promotion items to allow some minor customization of your characters, and fifteen hidden pieces of mithril that can used to craft unique weapons.

The music is cheerful, maybe too much at times, with Motoaki Takenouchi's "Welcome to Our Town" being my personal favorite of the soundtrack. Actually, I can have almost any track looping in the background without being bothered by it. Still, as a child, I would occasionally turn down the volume and play alternative rock radio (103.1 The Buzz). Now, thanks to that, I can't listen to "Pumping On Your Stereo" by Supergrass or "Sucked Out" by Superdrag without thinking about these games. This is still better than having the entire Jagged Little Pill album being linked to playing Metroid.

It's like picking up 10,000 ammo when what you need is energy.

Also, some content in both games is either questionable, or outright confusing:

There are hidden outfits for Anri and Tao in the first game, an all-out boss royale battle on top of Sonic the Hedgehog in the second one, and a delightful code in both to allow the player to rename all the characters. My brother and I used it on Shining Force to rename everyone "Dick" in some manner, because we were mature children.

Dicknose, Dickchin, Bleudick... you get the picture.

If there is any advice to give, I guess it would be to watch your ass in the circus tent and at Shade Abbey on Shining Force I and cautiously battle the Kraken and chess army in Shining Force II. All four fights can be problematic for first-timers, especially if they are not accustomed to this sort of gameplay. One more important piece of advice: don't nobody touch my hoes!

This includes the redesigned Khris in the GBA version.

Lastly, an inside joke:

Just for you, Ian. Just for you. :)

Stercus Casus Dare

Back in 2013, one of the winners of Ludum Dare put in the effort to spruce up his evolution-themed RPG and market it for ten bucks on Steam. Disregarding that shit, I bought it through a Humble Bundle for six dollars, which came with other titles, their soundtracks, AND most of the money I paid went to charity. I'm not saying the game isn't worth an Alexander Hamilton on its own, because I'm clearly typing that at the moment.

**You probably already know this, but the Ludum Dare is a competition that requires a single person to create a video game from nothing in 48 hours using a chosen theme that's given the moment the competition begins. It's called "Ludum Dare" because dorks like to name shit using Latin. Not only are we under the false impression that it makes things sound cooler, but we also love it when you ask us to translate what we just said.**

Evoland beat just over 1400 other entries (and some children) by centering its story around the evolution and imitation of RPGs. Nearly every aspect of the genre's history was incorporated, minus the whole "type in a command" bullshit that only manages to be enjoyable nowadays when blended with a high concentration of nostalgia and alcohol. Whether it was meant to be clever or an excuse to be lazy, chests are opened to unlock practically every aspect of the game, including sound effects, enemies, random battles, health, experience points, traps, vendors, a restless child that runs in circles, and graphical improvements, but not an interesting plot.  This begs the question; "If treasure chests created the world, then what created the treasure chests?" Possibly chicken eggs, but that's the sort of philosophical inquiry best left for a raptor.

It's the only day in the history of Aogai. I literally unlocked you all less than an hour ago.

Throughout this game, the player will notice blatant inspiration from various major franchises, though none are more apparent than Zelda, Super Mario, Diablo, and, especially, Final Fantasy:

If you're wondering, the airship's owner is named "Sid."

Most of Zelda's references involve the gameplay outside of random battles, the chest-opening cinematic, and dungeon enemies. There's also the main character, Clink, still sporting the green attire that complimented the appearance of his original design for the Ludum Dare: a dead ringer for the NES Hylian. The most notable trio of enemies from the Super Mario Bros. series show up as random battle trash, and Diablo's hack 'n' slash, combo-building, loot-dropping mechanics are represented within one cave dungeon, though I didn't notice a single reference to the all-important Horadric Cube. 

What the fuck did you just say?!

Yeah, it's a really shame, too. I hear there's quite a treasure in it... porn, Dr Pepper, and an NES copy of the Tengen (Toppa Gurren Lagann) version of Tetris (complete with shades).

Also, there are plenty of minor references sprinkled throughout the journey, but they're more enjoyable to spot on your own.

For a concept thrown together during the length of a typical weekend (thirty hours, actually), Evoland does a wonderful job of showcasing the industry's technological progress throughout the years. Unfortunately, very little was added to the project once the competition was over. There's certainly an improvement with bosses, collectibles, more non-Horadric Cube references, and stronger graphics, but when you finish off the final boss, you'll likely agree that it's still lacking, and I don't just mean it could be longer. I enjoyed seeing a bastardized version of a Chocobo and was surprised by the minor reference to Illegal Danish, but that's it. After a few years, you'll probably only remember this as "that game about stuff from other games." You can expect roughly six hours of play if you aim to get everything on your first run. A straightforward adventure can be done in under an hour with the current record holder finishing it in about 34 minutes. There's no customization, no satisfying conclusion once you defeat Zephyros, and while finding all the collectibles will earn you a couple of achievements, hugging every wall of every dungeon to discover hidden passages without the convenience of some sort of Zubat repellent just isn't worth the trouble of doing it yourself. Also, once the changes become less frequent, all the player is left with are stupid-easy puzzles and mindless trash battles to grind worthless experience (raising Clink's level will do nothing to help with the final battle). On the plus side, the purchase of Evoland comes with it's complete soundtrack. As one would expect, the music also evolves with 8-bit, 16-bit, and HD tracks... all mediocre.

 I strongly recommend waiting until it goes on sale again, but if thirty minutes of entertainment are worth ten dollars to you, then go ahead and download a copy. It's not a bad game. It's just too plain and simple.

Including zombie dogs and grammatical errors.

Greatest idea I've had since gluing sliced bread back together.

I'd like to create a freemium dating sim. Don't point your finger at Namco High! I'm talking about a genuine freemium game with little to no enjoyable content that the player must suffer through unless they generously fill my diminutive bank account with lots of glorious e-dollars. Now, this might seem like I'm just being greedy, but it's more than that. I want the gaming community to experience something truly amazing, but I don't want to do anything to make that happen, or make it all that amazing if it does. Instead, with your help, I will be able to pay someone else to add content and increase the quality of the dating sim with a fourth of what you'll give me. Everyone benefits! ...and it'll actually be an eighth.

Gameplay would be standard 2D dating with multiple stock character females for your ordinary, average high schooler to chase after. Initially, there will only be three choices: Fatty, Greasy, and Dirty, but with the purchase of conquest bundles, the player will be able to unlock an additional nine girls in groups of three: "Better Than Nothing", "Averagely Attractive", and, the premium package of "Unrealistically Pretty Bitches." Of course, there's something for the ladies. By choosing a female character, all twelve choices will now be labeled as "traps." Eventually, palette swaps or completely new portraits may be created, but that'll cost more money. Hopefully, fundraising will be held and a fifth of the proceeds will go towards making that goal a reality. Numerous mini-games (two) will be accessible at launch at half their price for the first three days, and numerous clothing options, accessories, colors, companions, font changes, and horse armor will be made available for purchase over time at the game's e-store.

What makes my idea unique is the RPG elements I plan to incorporate. Your character will need to learn various skills necessary to woo the love of his life, like how to wield a shield, how not to shit himself in front of others, how to turn a door knob, understanding algorithms, doing taxes online, cooking newt, and clicking a cookie repeatedly to summon ovens and old women who will serve as part of the unholy army you'll need to amass in order to seize control of not only the planet, but also the entire high school! To accomplish this, however, you'll need to gain enough experience, which will be earned over time. Each second equals an experience point, and each level only requires 100,000 of them, so the more you play, the sooner your character will be able to dress himself properly and walk down the stairs without losing health. Be careful, because fainting in battle will result in a minor loss (all of it) of experience gained for that level. I understand work and family can be problematic, so I've included pay options to help speed things along. Why wait when you've got things to do, right? Also, at the end of each stage, the character will be able to choose between a boxing match, a high-speed race, or a match-three game against the lizard wizard Randuft. He's quite a handful, but hints and assistance are available at the e-store.

Once you've farmed enough cabbage to unlock the ivory lighthouse, you and your lady of choice will be invited to the prom. There are five endings to obtain which will be dependent upon the choices you make and the small (large) amount of money you would be willing to pay. Girls don't like their men to be cheap, so you'll definitely want to buy all of them.

Glitch Plays Fallout

More frustrating to complete, and certainly not as entertaining as TPP, it was at the demand of a former co-worker that I bought Fallout 3 on Steam during a holiday sale of its Game of the Year edition. While I was at it, I also purchased a handful of other titles that included Fallout New Vegas and the enhanced version of The Witcher, but my priority was Fallout 3, and my first playthrough was relatively straightforward: I went in, acted the hero, and focused heavily upon completing the main quests. Excursions were basically the result of me either getting lost along the way or poking my nose in the lives of those I came across while trying to find the Lone Wanderer's father. The most notable waste of time involved helping Moira complete her survival guide. Since she was my go-to vendor for supplies and repairs, I felt like I needed to return the favor by acting as her assistant, but not enough to genuinely care, so I lied a few times and half-assed the rest of it. I was more thorough my second time playing through the game, so we published a much better version of the guide. Also, I turned her into a ghoul and lied again so that she blamed herself for the Megaton incident. Yep, she's my go-to vendor... now located in Underworld.

A deadly combination of Diet Nuka-Cola with Mentats. Also, you're gross.

Prior attempts to blog about my initial experience were unsuccessful simply because I soon realized through my research that I missed A LOT of content. I managed a similar playthrough of New Vegas with minimal side-questing, obtaining an achievement for taking over the robot army and ruling the desert myself, then fumbled my way through a small chunk of Bioshock before bringing myself back ro replay Fallout 3 with the intent to check out all that it had to offer, or most of it, I guess.

First impressions are hardly the most important with me, as I am well aware of the fact that life isn't perfect, people are not perfect, games not called "Chrono Trigger" are not perfect, and that shit can occur because of these imperfections. Fallout quickly reminded me of this as it refused to launch. No problem. There's actually a shit-ton, buttload, and/or surplus of glitches, but most are minor annoyances at best. Flipping screens is where the real fun comes in, because there's a strong chance that the game will crash. There's also the possibility of a crash even when I don't flip screens. I'm sure there are fixes to all of this, but I'm not computer savvy. I can't find some of these file names that possible solution threads type about. Hell, my issues might not be the exact problems being addressed in the posts. Most Google results were just different sites typing the same answers to the launching glitch I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph and I didn't realize it until the end when the post finishes with something like, "... and this should allow you to launch a new game...." *shrug* I can cope with this. It's been a long time, but not so long that I don't remember the second most important bit of advice for any gamer: Save early, save often, and don't override saves. Thank you, Sierra. 

Fuck you, Sierra.

Even without the glitching... the overabundance of glitching... the "How the fuck does this become the game of the year with all of this glitching?!" amount of glitching... I would highly recommend multiple save files, because one of the biggest draws to this RPG is that there are numerous choices to pick from as one makes his or her way through the wasteland and one never knows how much of an impact a particular action or response will make (unless they visit the Wiki page). I replied to a bratty child in a similar bratty manner and now Three Dog is blasting me for it on the air. Then, I abruptly ended the Rivet City wedding by dropping a mini nuke in the middle of the room and not only does Three Dog say nothing about it, but the survivors stopped caring after three days. In addition to the default choices, others become available based upon your stats and perks. If that's not enough, there's all sorts of special items, locations, and backstory to be gained for putting in that added bit of effort in exploring the Wasteland, and the ending will change based upon certain decisions, karma, and race/sex. Provided it's included during the next holiday sale, I'd definitely recommend picking it up if you're more knowledgeable about how to effectively patch the more problematic issues I've had to suffer through as a result of my ignorance. If you're not, well....

As I sort of hinted at when mentioning the endings, Fallout begins with a pleth... a bunch of options for personalizing your character's features. All of them are ugly, just like everything else in this game that isn't Dogmeat.

Unfortunately, every time Dogmeat was killed, the action would slow down dramatically and Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" would begin playing.

Expect a lot of recycled visuals:

Rubble, rubble everywhere.

With exception to a landmark here and there, it'd be difficult for a casual player to tell one part of an area from another. I've gotten lost inside a building or while traversing the metro tunnels on numerous occasions. It doesn't help that this "open" world has an awful lot of choke points that force specific routes to be discovered in order to reach many areas around the D.C. area. There's also a limited selection of enemies, despite the size of this post-apocalyptic playground, and it's a shame to see the same creatures and people coming after me fifty hours into it. 

Gameplay manages to stay true to the Action RPG tradition of simple, repetitive combat: find the enemy, shoot the enemy, and loot (possibly teabag) the enemy. Remember those moments in a traditional RPG where you'd find a town and just sort of chill out for a while because you just spent the last hour and a half surviving random battles that occurred every three steps and are reluctant to go through that same shit again so soon? A bit of Fallout questing should jog that memory! With my first playthrough, Kickle did just fine imitating Gallagher with a Fawkes' brand Super Sledge-o-Matic. Then, in my second playthrough, Iuppiter was kinda doing the same thing with small guns and energy weapons. I seldom bothered with dodging and hiding. It wasted too much time, and only the behemoths required any real strategy. I tried to change things up with silent kills and sniper action, but, again, it was an awful lot of effort just to take down another generic raider or mutant. On the other hand, nukes and missiles are a wonderful distraction, so long as you don't kill yourself in the process. There's also a bunch of karma-dependent (with two exceptions) companions who will tag along, block your path, ruin stealth, step into the line of fire, and quickly die to just about anything. The only two worth a damn are Fawkes, because he can actually survive, and Dogmeat, because the Puppies perk allows for the infinite reincarnation of the lovable pooch.

I wish I could post some of my screenshots, especially the one where I shot a member of the Talon mercenaries in the face with a railway spike and his detached head was stuck to the door of a nearby building. Unfortunately, this also requires a fix of sorts and my attempts to follow directions offered on help threads have proven unsuccessful. Over a hundred of them were taken before I realized I couldn't access a single one for the sake of this awful blog. I guess it doesn't matter too much. Most of them were of the various glitches I encountered, including detached body parts still moving, my companion and I walking through solid objects that occasionally resulted in getting stuck in invisible holes, and floating bodies/items/debris. There was also one of Initiate Pek whom I had rescued long ago. While going through that area much later into the game, he suddenly appeared behind my character, staring straight at me, and was still talking about how I needed to escort him back to Hoss and the other members of the brotherhood.

Every move you make, every face you break... I'll be watching you.

Yeah, I was freaking the fuck out.

With the GotY Edition, I was able to gain an additional ten levels, earn new perks, see new sights, and complete quests involving slavers, aliens, hillbillies, gut-flinging ghouls, and Chinese holograms. While this means there is much more to do in a game that already had more than enough to begin with, none of it really feels new. Just more of the same shit, which is also the reason I got tired of playing WoW. At least Warcraft has plenty of lore to witness and take part in. With Fallout, the bulk of obtainable information is just pointless bits of, "Hey, that's neat, I guess." Outside of the main quests, most of what I found to be interesting came from exploring the other vaults. Well, the reappearance of Harold was kinda nice, too, even if he wasn't as joyous as he used to be.

"Hey, life's not so bad."       "Somebody kill me."

If you insist upon seeing all that Fallout has to offer, it's best to start with high Intelligence in order to maximize skill points and quickly learn the Intense Training, Educated, and Comprehension perks to further bring out the full potential of your wanderer in the long run. If you plan on just speeding through the main quests like I originally did, just grab whatever helps your primary choice in weapons and traits, then blow the rest of your leveling on the goofy crap like Animal Friend, Mysterious Stranger, and anything that adds special dialogue just to make the brief experience a bit more entertaining.

I tried to play through the entire thing. Hell, I did explore every area of the original game. There's a bunch of subtle references, like the Snatcher shout-out found in the Capitol Post building, and a few not-so-subtle references, like the haunted Dunwich Building which, of course, takes its name from the short story by Lovecraft. Three Dog's GNR news station provides a surprisingly catchy selection of licensed 40s music, and Three Dog himself is quite charismatic. What he says will change depending upon what you do and how you do it, though all of it will eventually grow tiresome if you choose to hang around for Fallout's entire experience. It's also possible to kill the guy, but his replacement's whiny remarks are far less varied and the station becomes unbearable that much sooner. I'm likely going to buy most of the playlist, starting with "Civilization (Bongo Bongo Bongo)," thanks to this game, though I can't imagine enjoying it half as much without hearing Three Dog's howl and news segment afterwards.

Overall, I want to tell my non-existent readers to add this to their collection, but the constant problems soured every happy moment I had. Whenever something brought a smile to my face, an error pop-up immediately removed it. There wasn't quite as many issues with New Vegas, so I might go back and do more of that after I finish Bioshock, which feels like a depressing version of Fallout that compensates with a far superior atmosphere and story. I'm genuinely on edge at all times thanks to the sound, lack of ammunition, and creepy surroundings. Then again, I'm not too fond of stuff like that. I think I mentioned something along those lines back when I blogged about Revelations, remember? The only reason I played that game was because Josh recommended it. You know, he's the one who bought me Bioshock for the PS3 as a Christmas present. *Note to self: ignore all other gaming suggestions from that misery-inducing assclown.*

Time once again for an important public blogging announcement!

Don't feed the yao guai... unless you brought them Agatha.

That is all.

And now, some music!

Lucky 13

Unimportant information aside, to further prove how great Japan is at naming stuff, Final Fantasy's own Lightning returns in Lightning Returns: The Returning of Lightning. No one is quite sure what it's about, and to ensure nobody will waste time asking, the game's director Moboobfoyu Toriyomomma said that he was going to distract the gamers with more mamm for their money and include an unrealistic bounce feature that will allow Lightning to strike twice whenever she swings her arm, but at the risk of smacking herself in the face if the second blow misses. There will also be downloadable bullshit like outfits from other Final Fantasy games. One in particular is causing an uproar, because it claims to be Aerith's flower girl outfit. This is obviously false because I couldn't find a blood-stained stab-hole anywhere on the thing. Other outfits include Yuna's summoning robe and staff from FFX, Cloud's compensatingly huge sword and attire from FF7, and many other choices that fall into the three categories of Terrible to Wear in Battle, Terrible to Wear Regardless, and Skank. There is also talk of allowing her to cosplay as Tidus, but Square Enix is afraid that she'll look more masculine in it than he did.

Update:

The fake Aerith's outfit was supposed to be a reward for those who pissed away hard-earned yen on the V Jump Lightning Master Strategy Guide for Dummies, but Square placed the horse armor up on their online store for three days before realizing that they had made an oopsie-doodle.  Square Enix went out to make an apologetic "Fuck you!" to both V Jump and the players, assuring them that they will do everything in their power to prevent this from happening again by tackling it with full force, or whatever the Hell their message was trying to say. Bewildered, the rest of the gaming community responded in a similar manner to myself with, "What does any of this have to do with our plea to quit making shitty app versions of Final Fantasy titles?"

Update-2:

Inspired by Lightning's growth, Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai has decided to increase the size of Mario's junk in the upcoming sequel for the Wii U, 3DS, and Philips CD-i. Equipping a small shield and changing items are "recommended actions" by the director. He also decided to remove half the characters and gradually add them back to the game as DLC at $10 each. Other options for wasting money include swapping Luigi's mustache design for Mario's, a much louder and more obnoxious taunt by Jigglypuff, and wet farts from Wario.

And now I favor Gilius.

I recently bought a video game that wasn't made decades ago. No, it wasn't part of a Humble Bundle, either, so shut the fuck up, Paul! After wrapping up my blog about sky pirates, I decided to purchase Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, because it has Vyse in it, along with Rhaknam, who makes a cameo appearance under the islands of the Rogue's Landing track. Seriously, that's why I bought it. It certainly wasn't because Wreck-It Ralph is a playable character. Who's bright idea was that shit? Oh, I can't wait to choose a racer with "wreck" in his name! Typing of wrecks, Danica Patrick is also a playable character. What she has to do with actual racing is beyond me, but it's interesting to note that she is the only character whose vehicle will automatically smash itself during the first lap. The occurrence is random, and there's nothing the player can do to prevent it. Once, after I selected her, the Danicar exploded the moment the race began and all I could do was watch her walk out from the flaming rubble and sign autographs for Billy Hatcher and his friends.

In Sonic & Sega All-Star Racing, the Racing Rooster requires a microtransaction of twenty-five cents from the player before a race can begin. Even then, all it does is slowly move back and forth to carnival music.

Billy isn't a playable racer in the sequel, because Sega refuses to pay any more royalties to Wonder Bread for his vehicle's appearance. Fortunately, he can still be seen in the game as a sticker. As a sticker! The kid has an entire race track themed after his game, and he, apparently, wasn't popular enough to be part of its background. Yeah, thumbs up to you too, Billy ...you fucking dork.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing With An Unnecessarily Long Title For A Simple Kart Racing Game Transformed, or "S&ASRWAULTFASKRGT" for short, should not be viewed as the poor man's Mario Kart, because that title went to Konami Krazy Karts Racers over a decade ago when it recreated the series in a seemingly blatant manner, with special exception to the weapons and characters whose fame doesn't hold a red candle to the amount of recognition for Nintendo's mascots.

You wanted Goemon? You got Goemon! You wanted Snake? You got, um, Gray Fox. You wanted Simon Belmont? You got whatever the Hell that thing in the back is suppose to be.

Sega's racing sequel does quite a bit more than play the role of a Mario Kart doppelganger. It offers up a cast that digs into Sega's rich library, much like Nintendo does with the Smash Bros series, and follows that up with the obvious request of including people outside of Sega's virtual world, like Yogscast's Simon Lane and three of the members of the Team Fortress 2 family: Spy, Pyro, and Heavy. The selection depends upon the version a person buys. As of this moment, more DLC is being created, including more faces behind the wheel. For an idea that Nintendo utilized in the Fighting genre, it's a shame they haven't done much of the same thing with their Racing series outside of Japanese arcades. It would be better than trying to fill out their roster with a bunch of baby versions of main characters who would be constantly pooping their Pampers, tossing them out like brown banana peels, and smearing the fecal matter all over the place until it looked like a stage from Super Mario Sunshine.

Here's a smart move on my part. A callback to a blog entry no one read.

The race tracks exhibit a great deal of personality, more so than many of the locations found in the Mario Kart series, and not only do they represent the games where many of the drivers originate from, but also of some of Sega's other gems, like The House of the Dead, Panzer Dragoon, and Burning Rangers. Most reward exploration and experimentation with all sorts of forking routes, shortcuts, and ramps for stunt boosts that can be sought out by any one driver thanks to unlockable vehicle modifications. This is a sort of courtesy to those of us who prefer to select the same mascot(s), even when their standard attributes are not necessarily the best choice for a particular course. In addition to the usual Grand Prix, Time Attack, and Single Race modes, there's also the World Tour, a series of mission-based races that rewards the player with stars needed to unlock vehicle mods, drivers, tracks, and Expert Mode. There are achievements or stickers that can be earned for a variety of reasons, though this sort of feature has become a standard for video games nowadays. Still, it's amazing how much is packed into each course. Rather than winning, take the time to slow down and admire the view. Plenty of cameos to look for, including Ecco the Dolphin, Big the Cat, and the giant, godlike presence of an all-seeing Amiga. Not to be outdone by aesthetics, Sonic & All-Stars also delivers a soundtrack that's almost as glorious as that of Sonic '06 (which was awful in every other imaginable way), offering numerous remixed versions of popular music from various Sega games, as well as a personal all-star theme song for each character when activated. All in all, I should be proclaiming this as, like, the bestest racing game on karts ever!

"Does it not totes yagotes?"

Almost, but no, Upset Earl, it does not. While Sumo Digital clearly put a great deal of love and hard work into this offering, there are a few things I've experienced that left me feeling cheated. I once found myself stopped because of a closed door on the Burning Rangers stage that did not open as we approached it. A few days later, while racing Ocean View, I fell through the track near the end of the third lap and, like with Burning Depths, was stuck with six other drivers, all of whom were sliding back and forth against the wall in a similar fashion to those idiots in Arathi Basin who believe they're going to reach the Farm's flag before I do by mount-humping the starting gate. Hey, if you ain't sportin' a movement buff that I lack, you might as well continue on towards Blacksmith!

I lost all my screenshots of Juppiter flexing arrogantly, so here's a picture of Chance and Cooper as puppies cowering under the table arrogantly.

Vehicle transformation is generally seamless, except in a few areas, like in the Dream Valley where converting back into the aircraft seems to result in a troublesome hard right turn into an invisible wall, regardless of what direction I aim the joystick. Each type handles differently, as would be expected of a car, boat, and plane, with the boat being the most difficult to control. Periodically, I will hit a wave and watch my racer get turned around long enough to fall to last place. Sailing's a tricky bitch to master, I suppose. Since tracks will be altered with each passing lap, everyone will need to switch to a different vehicle mode to adapt. This is the excuse one can use to combat the whining of the fanbase when it comes to Sonic in a Racing title. Without it, many would waste their time polluting internet forums with gibberish like, "Why would Sonic need to drive a car," instead of the usual, "Hey everyone! Rate my new original creation. He looks just like Sonic, but he has neon yellow fur and his eyes are different colors!" Sigh, while I can't quite figure out the reasoning for producing these look-a-like fan characters, they're still better than abusing the old South Park templates that were around back when I played Starcraft with people quoting Zero Wing, proclaiming themselves to be "Gosu," and adding SSJ- to their account names.

I'm somewhat out of the loop of what's popular to exploit nowadays. Is it still fake CCG cards? Fsjal?

Ponified bullshit?

I guess it doesn't matter. The point I was trying to make is that since many race tracks require the hedgehog to take to the sky or sail across the water, people now have a valid reason to shut up about Sonic being in a vehicle: because he can not swim, he can not fly, and, just throwing this in for good measure, he can not appear in a 3D Platformer that doesn't bring shame to the Sonic Team developers.

Meanwhile, perfectly concealed, Knuckles indulges in his voyeurism unabashed.

Another odd thing I'd like to point out is Amy Rose. Not Amy Rose herself, though I wouldn't mind strangling her every time I hear that obnoxious voice, but that she's seemingly the rival driver of everyone else. During the Grand Prix, or any race including her among the competitors, Amy will fly out in front and earn herself a strong early lead unless quickly beaten down with weapons. This isn't to say that a player cannot pass her. As fast as she may be, Amy collides into nearly every moving obstacle the track throws into our path and wastes her weapons as soon as she picks them up, just like the other CPU drivers. It's not really a complaint I'm making. Just an observation. I'm curious to know if there really is some sort of favoritism going on over at Sumo Digital. One of the reasons I ask has to do with those glitched races I mentioned before. In every situation where that occurred, Amy was always able to pass through and take first place. I have no clue how she gets around the problem, but she's the only one that ever does.

Overall, I think the 3DS version of S&ASRT is a wonderful game in its own right, but I also believe it is noticeably inferior to its console counterparts. Possessing weaker graphics means boost arrows and smaller obstacles are more difficult to spot, and a lower frame rate creates moments of slowdown during the track transformations of a race. There's even a few other glitches that many will probably never see patches for in their handheld copy. One that I find particularly obnoxious can occur after using the all-star move. For the remainder of that race, the player will be unable to perform any more stunts, meaning no trick boosts. Another has to do with the game not recognizing all successfully-performed stunts. There were a few races where I played it safe and settled for a single trick during a high jump only to receive nothing for it. Still, none of these complaints are game-breaking. If you've got options as to which one to buy, I heavily support the decision to choose one of the console versions. After all, if you plan on playing Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, you might as well play it to the fullest!

With Gilius Thunderhead!

...the sore loser of the bunch.