Anyway, Sonic games. Yeah yeah, I know. sonic has been REALLY bad lately. And it hurts me deep… but there are good ones. Lemme show yah what ones.

Starting with a newer game:

Sonic and the Black Knight

No, really. I’m not kidding. The concept for this game was HORRIBLE, but the execution is pretty damn good. Sonic is summoned to the land of King Arthur by a cute loli version of Merlin named (surprise!) Merlina and after some delicious chili dog eating, Sonic gets a magic talking sword named “Caliburn”. The action is fast, and the sword allows you to obliterate most enemies without a care in the world. Now, like Secret Rings, there are a few slowdowns. There are points where you have to give villagers rings and there are large enemies that don’t go down in one hit, but everything else in the game is a pretty damn good time. I don’t really recommend it for someone who doesn’t like Sonic, but it’s worth a try even if  you don’t.

Sonic Rush

This is the game where Blaze the Cat was introduced. The story for this game is something like Blaze comes from the negaverse and there are funky Chaos Emerald style gems there as well and Blaze is looking for them… It doesn’t matter much, it’s really not important. This game also introduced something I think all Sonic games need: A boost meter. You can use it to get to speed with a small burst or use it to destroy everything in your path for a short time. It’s filled by rings, doing mid-air tricks or defeating enemies. It’s awesome and EVERY SINGLE SONIC GAME SHOULD HAVE IT FOREVER.

YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE BEST

Sonic CD

Oh god, this is one of the best Sonic games in my opinion. It brings together some of the best parts of the first three Sonic games, but it adds in cool shit like time travel and some of the most fucking amazing music ever. The level design is amazing, the bosses are challenging and the time travel mechanic gives each level a wonderfully fresh feel. The game has good replayability and looks totally amazing. It’s for the Sega CD, PC and is an unlockable in the Sonic Mega Collection.

And, finally…

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

What happens if you take one of the most critically acclaimed Sonic games, then add the functionality to play as FUCKING KNUCKLES? You get one of the coolest things ever. Ever. This is seriously one of the best things that 16 bits has to offer. Climb shit, swim in the water, get around… You can do it all. You can do it with Sonic 2 as well.

That wraps up this stuff. Sorry about being gone so long, personal shit…

Anyway, I hope that soon I will be able to contribute regularly again!

Till next time!

Jumpluff~

No, not your wallet! I mean that thing that that played games… You know.

Your Gameboy! Hell yeah you remember that. Well, lemme help you find some games to play on that bad boy.

Pocket Bomberman

This game was an instant classic… for me anyway. It was never terribly popular, but it was good and it was challenging. You play as Bomberman(durr) and you have to climb a tower for some reason… I forget. Anyway, each floor of the tower is a new world, guarded by a different giant bad guy type monster. You get lots of cool power ups for your bombs, and what I really liked about this game is you had to use the bombs to solve puzzles… By jumping on them. Sometimes they’d blow up and kill you, so you either had to be fast or have the power up that makes them detonate on command. This game is totally awesome and definitely worth a try.

Revelations: The Demon Slayer

This is an interesting mix of Final Fantasy, your mom, and Pokemon. You play as [Instert Name Here] who is learning the ways of the magic of Gaia. After the orb of magic in town is taken by monsters your journey begins. The overworld map is how you get around, much like Chrono Trigger. You find your destination and head inside… However, there is always the chance for a RANDOM ENCOUNTER. In random encounters, there are monsters. You can befriend those monsters and have them fight alongside you. Cool, eh? Of course there are some that can never be tamed, but having those would be unfair. If you’re in the market for a serious RPG, this is it.

Legend of Zelda Ages/Seasons

I’ve always liked the Legend of Zelda, but these games took it to a new level for me. These games are over the head, much like Link’s Awakening and A Link to the Past. In fact, they’re all made by Capcom. Good stuff.

Both the games play fairly similar with one mechanic being different: The Wand of Seasons and the Harp of Ages. The Wand allows you to stand on a stump and change the seasons around while the Harp allows you to travel through time to solve puzzles or give something to someone. The game really uses the special item to death and back… and that’s good. The dungeons are challenging, it’s got classic Zelda puzzles and more secrets than you can shake a Deku Stick at. Get one, the other or both. It won’t matter because you’ll be happy either way.

Pokemon Pinball

Yeah. Pokemon Pinball. This game will rock you. It has a rumble feature, and an awesome feature. You have to catch pokemon by hitting them with the ball in this one. What the hard part is: Making the bastards come out. It’s even hard to catch them all. You gotta go to different towns by doing all this stuff… Man, that game was hard. And I’d do it over

And over.

And over.

I hate you, pinball.

Well, whip out that ol’ GBC and get crackin’!

Till next time!

Jumpluff~

Seiken Densetsu, or Final Fantasy Adventure, was the first Gameboy game I owned, given to me by a friend of my brother.  I cherished that game, and now it’s gone, lost in one of my many, many moves ’round the continent.  Everything about it was beautiful: The frantic combat, the surprisingly deep story, the lovable characters,  the gorgeous four-colour graphics, but most of all, the music.

Hearing the music on the title screen was even enough tomake my mother hate video games less.  Any time I played my big grey brick, she’d say ‘Arcy, play the one with the turkish music.’

I’m not good at writing slow, heartwarming music, I’ll be the first to admit that.  I write hip-hop, which tends to be either upbeat and happy, or downbeat and depressing.  Even so, I’ve been in a lot of pain these past few days, and when I hurt really bad, I get nostalgic.  As such, Iremembered my favourite handheld game, and the music that went alongside of it.

I think the song was called ‘Let the Heart Sing With the Melody,’ or something else in just as poor of English.  My mix is a slightly marchier version, slightly slower and slightly calmer.  If you’ve ever played Seiken Densetsu, you might enjoy Let the Heart March With the Melody.

I don’t know what more I can say, really.  If you haven’t played the game, you should track down a copy.  It’s not as advanced as its sequels, the Secret of Mana series, but it beats the hell out of the remake, Sword of Mana (Which is actually still worth playing simply for the retold story).  If you enjoy The Legend of Zelda, or any of the other Mana games, it’s worth a few hours of your time.  And if you ever feel nostalgic, it’s the perfect game to come back to years and years later.

Diablo(2)

These games redefined RPG for a lot of people. Diablo has been a staple for any real RPG player since the original. The first one was made on the PC, and ported to the Playstation by EA. I like the PC version better, but both are good. In Diablo, you pick a class and are thrown into a world where demons are messing shit up and you are the only one (wo)man enough to kick their sorry asses. The interface is probably why this game is such a winner.

See that monster? Click it. Oh, you hit it!

You’re a mage, you say? Well, right click it!

Oh, it burst into flames and died! Awright!

Of course, as you play it, the game gets harder, the enemies come at you more, you find unique and boss monsters and you get better equipment. Thank god this game has online play, because with friends (Or total strangers), the game only gets more exciting. It’s even got a decent story, to boot! Can’t wait for Diablo 3!

Matt Uelmen is one of the best composers I have ever EVER heard. EVER.


Valkyrie Profile

A game developed by Tri-Ace BEFORE Squaresoft bought them out. This game is magical. You play as Lenneth Valkyrie, reaper of souls. She’s gotta run around Midgard and collect  the souls of fallen warriors, Einherjar, train them and then send them to the Asgard in Valhalla so they can postpone Ragnarok.

Each character is assigned a face button

The battle system in this game can really only be described with two words: Unique, Simple.

When in a dungeon, it’s a basic sidescroller. You can shop with your sword, jump and shoot crystals to freeze enemies or scale walls. When you touch an enemy that isn’t frozen, battle begins. Each character gets a face button and position in battle. You can make them all attack at once, one at a time, whatever tickles your fancy. Certain equips allow for bigger attack chains/magic effects. Now comes the fun part, Purify Weird Soul. PWS is pretty much your Final Smash, your Super Move, Fatality… It’s your finisher. When you hit an enemy enough times, the battle pauses, tells you to tap a highlighted face button and then it starts. I wanted to describe these, but I really can’t. If you haven’t seen one of them, just take a look here. Oh god, every time I activate that… Goosebumps go up my spine. This game, originally on the PS1 has been ported to the PSP, has a prequel on the PS2 and a sequel is coming to the DS later this year.

Mother 3

Like you didn’t see this one coming. This game is all sorts of good and bad. I cry a lot during sad moments in games(not in movies, though… Weird.), and this game had plenty.

The battle system in this one is turn/rhythm based. Each enemy has a heartbeat that you can hear when they’re asleep, which allows you to rack up a 16 hit combo. The characters are memorable, beautiful locals, amazing humor, vicous rippings at your heart… This game is a masterpiece of story and gameplay. Just make sure you have the box of tissues with you. This game, on the GBA is available only in English via a fan translation, still very worth picking up.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

This game and a package of bacon decimated my birthday weekend. Me and a good friend had the gear, and the will. We sat down and played the shit out of this game. Anyway, this game is designed to be multiplayer, this is where it shines, but single player is still damn fine.

In this game, you have to collect Myrrh from trees protected by crazy weird ass monsters/robots/whatever. The only downside to multiplayer gameplay is that someone has to carry the chalice around so the adventurers don’t get screwed over by the miasma that’s plaguing the land. As long as you can manage the chalice well, this game is a god damn awesome trip. Try to keep your pants on.

Alright, I think that’s enough this time around. I have more,  but that’ll be for another time.

Till next time!

Jumpluff~

Written for GIANT ENEMY BLOG

Ahh Pokémon, the wonderful little Gameboy RPG that helped spark a franchise of toys, trading cards, anime, books and manga.  In this article I’m going to go over the Red, Blue, and Yellow versions of Pokémon.

The Pokémon game franchise Began in Japan in 1996, and made its way to America in 1998 with versions Red and Blue, which introduced the first generation of Pokémon.  The game was developed by Game Freak, which it still is today, and was Published by Nintendo.  Later in ‘98, and ‘99 for Europe and Australia, Pokémon Yellow was released, featuring a few different and new elements to the game, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Pokémon game play included an overhead view, like that of the Legend of Zelda games,  battles, a vast world to explore, and the ability to trade Pokémon with friends.  The battle system was turn based, like that of Final Fantasy, and gave you options to attack, use an item, switch out your Pokémon with one in your party, or run away from the battle.

There were two different types of battles, trainer battles, and wild battles.  Trainer battles were battles against trainers(obviously), trainers could have up to six Pokémon with them, you couldn’t escape from these battles, and if you won you got a lump some of money.  Wild battles were battles against wild Pokémon, you could escape from these battles if you pleased, or you could catch the wild Pokémon and make it your own.

Pokémon Red and Blue took place in the region of Kanto, starting in the small town of Pallet with the protagonist “Red”.  The young boy awakes one morning, and is told by his mother that their neighboring Professor, Professor Oak, was looking for him.   Shortly there after he ventures into the outside world towards a slew of tall grass, where he is told by the wise Professor not to venture into the grass because it contained dangerous wild Pokémon.

Returning to the Professors lab, where he receives his first Pokémon of choice(Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle).  Depending on Which starter you pick, your long time rival/grandson of Professor Oak, will choose the one that can easily overpower it(for example, you pick Charmander, he will pick Squirtle, because water beats fire).  This leads to your first battle, which you can win or lose because nothing will happen except “Blue”(your rival, also known as Gary) will say some snide remark and walk off.  You then run an errand for the Professor, and obtain your Pokédex, which helps you in your quest by indexing all the information on Pokémon you’ve seen or caught.

This now leads you on one of two main quests, that being to capture all the Pokémon for the Professor, and the other being to collect all 8 gym badges, defeat the Elite 4 – which consisted of 4 very skilled Pokémon trainers and the current Pokémon champion – and become a Pokémon Champion.  The gyms are run by various gym leaders, using various elements, and puzzles to challenge you.

Along your way to becoming a Pokémon master, you encounter not only your rival again at different points, but also the notorious Team Rocket, who are bent on controlling the world, and all the Pokémon in it.  You battle it out with these villains, and their leader Giovanni quite a few times, and eventually you defeat them.

Pokémon Yellow was alike in all ways said above, except it followed to the anime more in allowing you to get Pikachu as your starter Pokémon, your rival got Eevee as his starter, Jesse, James, and Meowth of Team Rocket made cameos,  and you could obtain all three starter Pokémon from the Red and Blue versions, and catch Pokémon from both said versions.  The big kick about this game was that Pikachu followed behind you in this game like the anime as well, and he would show different emotions, ranging from angry to content, happy to sad, etc.  The game reached number 1 a week after release, and was very complicated to find because everyone wanted to get their hands on it.

Well that’s all I have for part 1, part 2/4 to come soon.  Feel free to leave comments, critique, or any questions in the comments section.

Photos from wikipedia and photobucket