Oh my god, this game. First of all, it's just technically impressive. It's obviously a 3DS game retrofitted for the DS (the third version will clearly be a 3DS exclusive) but the game itself actually borrows 3DS software. Even though it's a DS game, the wireless functionality seems borrowed from the 3DS; the game features always-on (enabled by default, you have to go out of your way to turn it off) wifi, which can street pass other trainers as well as dynamically connect to hot spots on it's own. I played it on the train, and I kept getting a single as the train flew by various houses with wireless hot spots, I even passed by other players and their characters popped up in my game. This even happened when the train went underground. Amazing.

Aside from that. Everything else is just incredible.

Story

I'm going to try to be brief here, but the story in this game is incredible. It's on par, if not above, a final fantasy game--but by playing to the strengths of the Pokemon franchise: The semi-realistic setting, the idea of using animals as weapons, the society focused on competitive sparring. All previous Pokemon games have been set in alternate-reality versions of Japan (the first two games were set in the areas around Tokyo, in central Japan, the third was set in southern Japan, the fourth in northern Japan). This game is set in alternate New York City. And it's not just that you can now understand all the local references, they actually mean something now.

Pokemon Black and White's story is actually a complicated love letter to America from a Japanese perspective. More than just having Poke-hipsters living in Poke-Williamsburg (which is hilarious) the history of Unova actually parallels American history. For example, Victini is captured in a lighthouse on "Liberty Garden Island", the history of which resembles the history of the Statue of Liberty. The mythological backstory is actually a reference to the American civil war, with two opposing dragons representing a divided nation (interestingly, the existence of these dragons precedes the founding of Unova, as does the issue of inequality that was central to the civil war). The main plot is actually an acknowledgement of the fact that, in the Pokemon universe, Pokemon are treated like slaves.

The antagonist (who is actually sort of the hero) is named N, and is the leader of a group called Team Plasma, that wants to overthrow the government to free Pokemon from their slavery. The "tee hee" joke everyone made about the titles when the games were announced was not lost on the creators; the story is both about moral dualities and racial divisions. They intend to do this by obtaining the most powerful Pokemon and defeating the Elite Four, which sounds kind of stupid at first (they just have to beat the game to rule the world?) but it's made pretty clear later on--if they defeat the strongest trainers in Unova, they prove that they can't be defeated by anyone, which forces people to bend to their power. Which is pretty sound logic! It actually becomes clear in this game that the government in Pokemon isn't just some of-camera entity: In the Pokemon world (at least in Unova) the government is the Pokemon League. Becoming the Champion is like becoming the president, because you've basically proven you can beat up anyone who would stand in your way.

Unova, in contrast with the previous regions (and Japan) features a diverse array of characters. There's a black gym leader (with a white husband), a gay gym leader (PRETTY explicit), a southern gym leader, and so on. In fact, the gym leaders play a much larger role in the story; each one sort of acts like the mayor of his or her town, and assists in tackling Team Plasma. Whereas the previous Pokemon games felt like a solitary journey, this game feels more like a slowly-building group of freedom fighters facing a serious threat.

You also start the journey with two rivals, Cheren and Bianca. Both characters are actually incredibly complex (more so than any previous rivals) and have interesting, somewhat tragic development arcs. The game even subvert's the series own "become the best!" trope, as well as acknowledges the fact that some people can try their hardest and fail. These two characters also represent a duality of nature and industry, something that overshadows the entire game. Not only are Pokemon slaves, they represent the thoughtless subversion of nature guided by human industry.

It's just. A really good story.

Gameplay

Aside from triple battles and rotation battles (which are beautifully designed), the game makes subtle changes in the form of a few new moves or items that are honest to god game changers. For example, a new move "Hone Claws" raises accuracy and attack; it's previously been impossible to easily improve accuracy, and many many moves use low accuracy as a balancing agent, so this opens tons of new strategies. Another small-but-influential change is an item called Eviolite, which boosts the defense stats of any Pokemon that can still evolve--suddely making dozens of previously useless Pokemon competitively viable (for example, Chansey holding an Eviolite is better at taking physical hits than Blissey). New passive abilities make more Pokemon immune to more elements, which is a big deal; total immunity is a big part of competitive battling, as it allows you to switch-in without losing a turn's worth of damage taken, a single loss of which is as devastating as the loss of a single pawn in a chess game.

The best improvements, though, are just ease of use things that make the game feel so much more... Nice, and forgiving. For example, all TMs are reusable, which means you can more casually teach and delete moves without that nagging pressure of consuming a rare item. Forgotten moves can also be re-learned by trading a rare (but infinitely re-obtainable) item to a certain character. The game also generously hands you previously rare-but-useful items like an EXP-doubling hold item, EXP-share, and so on. There are also great new features, like "Nurse" and "Doctor" type trainers who can optionally defeated and in exchange will serve as a one-man Pokecenter, healing your parties midway through dungeons. There are also very few dungeons! The first "Mount Moon"-like area doesn't appear until halfway through the game. This is a very good thing.

The way random battles work has also been overhauled. While the random encounter rate has been jacked up (you can't walk 8 or so steps in most grassy patches without hitting a Pokemon, maybe 16 or so in caves), they made it way less annoying, because you almost never HAVE to walk through grass. You could probably get through the entire game without seeing more than 20 wild Pokemon. You wouldn't be underleveled, either; Trainers can still be challenged or evaded (or sometimes are required) and just battling trainers is a fine way to level up. About halfway into the game (when I first got to the real "dungeon") I just started using Repel and only fighting trainers; if I wanted to catch a wild Pokemon, I'd come back for it later.

In addition to that, there are also different types of grass, "thick grass" where you can enter double battles, and "shaking grass" (or "rippling water" or "swirling dust" or "low-flying bird's shadow") that will appear for only a few seconds. All three of these different types of grass contain different Pokemon. For example, one Pokemon that gives off a ton of EXP will only pop-up in shaking grass (though sometimes other Pokemon do as well) and is always level-adjusted to that point in the game. So basically, if you see a shaking spot of grass, you're going to want to run to it to get the EXP bonus. There's even, cleverly, an area with raised walkways above the grass, making it easy to jump down and ambush the high-EXP-yielding Pokemon without trudging through the random battley grass. Also, in the case of "swirling dust" and "low-flying bird's shadows", sometimes instead of battles you'll find rare element-boosting stones or rare stat-raising feathers.

Also, did I mention it's all new Pokemon? You don't see a single old one until after you complete the main story. And it's not what you're thinking; instead of seeing a billion Zubat, you aren't going to see a billion Woobat. Not only are you seeing all-new Pokemon, you're rarely seeing the same Pokemon over and over. While the same 3 or 4 Pokemon may populate a single area, it's always all new Pokemon populating each new area. No Zubat or Tentacool-like filler.

Music

The music is actually super good. I was never a fan of the music in Pokemon (compared to series like Mega Man or Zelda) but it's actually REALLY good in this game. Instead of a "low health beep", when your health is low, the music shifts to this dramatic song that uses the old "low health beep" sound in a cool technoy dubstep way. The themes songs to different characters are actually super distinctive and awesome. One of the coolest features, musically, is that when you get a gym leader down to their final Pokemon (which is always such a special moment!) the standard battle music changes to an orchestrated (sounding) version of the main Pokemon franchise theme song. Which sounds great. It's such a great use of the theme song, which I don't think usually appears in the actual games very much.

The music used throughout the game is great too. Some of the songs used for various routes sound like an adventure movie score--exactly the perfect music to accompany a young hero running through a verdant field.

The sound effects are also awesome. I'm not sure how to describe it, but the sound and animation of moves are so weird and synchronized and pop so perfectly, it feels sort of like a Final Fantasy game. Sort of like how in an FF game you'll cast certain spells just because they look and sound awesome--it's like that here too.

Graphics

I think the graphics are great. It's like a weird evolution of what SNES games would look like if they went 3D. The characters and textures are all cool 16 bit era sprite work, but they're mapped to a 3D world. The style is actually really pretty if you like sprite work. The animated battle sprites are actually more animated than I thought they'd be. More than just wagging their ears and twitching their tails, some Pokemon have many frames of animation, and are like a 20 second looping GIF with weird little things you wouldn't expect to be in there. For example, a Pokemon with sagging pants tries to pull their pants up every 20 seconds or so. A gliding flying squirrel Pokemon will eventually land and jump back up. Their animations also slow down and become tinted a color when they're affected by a status condition (whereas previously you only had a little icon). The battle field is also legit 3D, even though the sprites are 2D. The game, in general, knows the perfect way to move the camera so that sprite work is displayed at 1:1 pixels most of the time, even though the game is in 3D and things are scaled based on distance.

Multiplayer

The connectivity in this game is amazing. The game pack itself has a built-in IR sensor, and you can swipe the IR sensor past another game to exchange mac addresses an instantly start a wireless match. Normally with DS wifi games you have to go on the wireless and "create/join group" and all that nonsense. With the IR sensor, you just stand next to each other to connect, and then use wifi (ie, not stand next to each other) to play. Your IR sensor can even be used to exchange friend codes and passive data with other players.

On top of that, there's online battling and trading with people on your friends list. Which includes both voice chat and video chat. For some reason it was misreported pre-release that video chat is only for local wireless, but that's not true; you can video chat with anyone on your friends list. In addition, when trading, you now have the option to go through your entire Pokemon box, not just the Pokemon you bring with you into the trade room. You can also offer up three Pokemon, and pick from one of the three offered by the other player. You can use this same "pick one of three" method to trade passively on the built-in Craigslist-like Global Trade Station, which makes it way more useful than the previous generation's "one very specific Pokemon for one very specific Pokemon" system.

There's also online multiplayer with random battles.

There's also online multiplayer with random battles with rankings based on the same algorithm used to rank chess players.

There's also online multiplayer with random battles with rankings based on the same algorithm used to rank chess players that can be linked up to your email so you can be contacted by Nintendo to compete in official IRL tournaments based on your in-game competitive ranking.

On top of all that shit, there's also the Dream World which hasn't even launched yet. It launches on the 30th and essentially lets players vote on special Pokemon to be distributed each week. For example, in Japan, on the first week everyone voted on rare legendaries like Mew and Arceus and what not; the following week, they voted on more normal stuff like Pikachu and Bulbasaur. But why vote on Pikachu and Bulbasaur when you can just import them from a previous game or breed them? Because Pokemon you get from the Dream World have abilities they can't get in any other way. For example a Dream World Pikachu has the ability Lightning Rod, which makes it immune to electric attacks and gain a Special Attack boost when hit with an electric move--an ability that actually opens up tones of new strategical options for using Pikachu.

When the last generation of Pokemon was released, there was a LOT left to be desired. And indeed, with almost every single Pokemon release, there's tons of annoying things that they could've done right.

But this one literally nails every single feature that could be nailed.

I bought Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, new at GameStop, and it was marked down by $15 for some reason, which means I only paid $20 for it! I can't believe how good it is. It's my favorite Final Fantasy game since Final Fantasy III, to which it's essentially a spiritual sequel.

When the story starts, you're asked to name the four heroes. I'm not sure what their default names are. I named the main hero Brad, he's going to the castle for a coming-of-age ceremony on his 14th birthday. Then he has this Huckleberry Finn-like friend, who I named Shuckle. Then there's the bitchy princess, who I named Vintage, and her finicky chambermaid (or something?) who I named Alex. Brad and Shuckle are sent to save Vintage from a witch, and find Alex as the only survivor from her entourage. The four of them defeat the witch, and she mentions something about Vintage entering a contract with her.

When they return home, everyone is turned into stone, and it probably has something to do with Vintage's contract with the witch. Some government officials from another town come and try to take the heroes as refugees, Vintage and Shuckle go with them because they're both kinda selfish and lazy. Alex feels guilty and stays behind to try to find a fix for the curse, and Brad accompanies her. Eventually, Brad finds Alex annoying and ditches her, and Shuckle can't deal with how bossy Vintage is, so they split up too. The party keeps splitting up and regrouping and being joined by guest characters which keeps the pacing interesting. Usually when you clear one 'mission', the story shifts focus to the other characters.

The game isn't divided into discrete 'missions' per se, but it sort of revamps the old de facto RPG standard of "Go to a new town, talk to the king, be instructed to go to a cave, kill a boss, come back to town, talk to the king, get reward the moves the story forward." Though, usually, not only do the characters get a reward that propels them forward, the narrative also switches focus to the other group of heroes.

But the individual 'missions' are so good! Each town/boss has some sort of theme, and after defeating the boss you unlock classes relating to that theme. Like the first town is all about magic, and the boss is made of sand and can only be hit when you use water magic on him. When you defeat him you get the black and white mage classes. Another one is in a forest, revolves largely on elemental defense coverage and range attacks, etc, and when you defeat it you get ranger/elementalist classes.

One of the best so far was this one city that revolved around money. There's a giant religious tower that used to be the world's Mecca, which made the city so big and booming that everyone became atheistic and only cared about commerce. The town isn't ruled by a king, but the four Merchant Lords who have a monopoly on the four different industries.

In order to clear this area, you have to pay a sorcerer 10,000 gil to lift a curse of an ally. Which is a LOT. You could just sell all your shit and pay for it, but instead the town offers all these cool ways of making money. Each of the merchant lords have different jobs you can do (traveling salesman, defeat a monster blocking the supply chain, steal an item from a monster, and an advertising minigame where you try to use advertising to trick NPCs into buying you old gear at inflated prices.) Once you pay him, he takes your money and runs, and then all of these dolls he sold to all the other residences turn into monsters. You have to defeat the monsters, and then you're rewarded with a ship by one of the Merchant Lords to chase after the sorcerer. You also get the Merchant class (find more gems) and the Salve-Maker class (use items more efficiently).

STUFF LIKE THAT. It's awesome.

Also, the battle system is great. Basically, there are 9 commands (Attack, Boost, Item, and then 6 slots for spells and class-specific skills and what have you) and you select the command for all four characters, and then the turn plays out automatically. All you do is select the command. There are no submenus (ie, targeting an enemy, or whatever) except for the submenu to pick a specific item. So you just touch 'Cure' and it automatically cures the weakest party member. This makes battles go WAY faster. You can even turn on 'auto-battle' where everyone will do the same command over and over until you press the X button to turn auto-battle off.

The items/gear/economy/classes are so well balanced and fun. There are secrets everywhere, but it doesn't feel like a burden to find them, and you don't feel bad if you miss stuff; but you feel great when you find optional stuff. For example, I was staying in an Inn, and it had an elaborate Victorian bath tub, and I checked it, and I got a "Hydraxe", a water-type axe that was 20% stronger than any other weapons I currently owned or could even purchase. The stats are also really easy to follow, everything is usually in the under-100 range, sort of like how Mario-themed RPGs tend to be.

Also, there are 8 different types of 'gems' that are all different colors and shapes. You don't get money from monsters, only gems. You have to sell gems to get money. Different gems are more commonly held by different kinds of monsters and in different areas, and it's pretty easy to follow. You need a certain amount of gems to level up your classes (which give you new abilities) or your weapons (which make their stats stronger). So classes and weapons you get early in the game can potentially still be useful later on when you get the right gems to upgrade them. Also some gems are more common early in the game, then you sell them all for money, then you find yourself needing them later.

I'm sure by the end though all four characters will reunite and I'll be able to explore other areas more easily ... I feel like I just described what generally all RPGs are like? BUT GUYS. IT'S REALLY FUN.

This game is so amazing. It's a $12 downloadable DSi game. I'm 4 hours into it and it's maybe 60-80% over, but it's been a hell of a 4 hours. The fact that it's not a longer retail game may contribute to it being amazing. It just feels really dense, like, I'm going through all of the same gameplay stuff you go though playing a Metroid game, but faster.

Basically, there is a side scrolling over world that's really richly detailed and spread all over it are hidden entrances to side scrolling caves and dungeons. Sort of like the first Legend of Zelda game in structure. Essentially you have to progress though certain events in a specific order, but then there are tons of other seemingly optional things you can do at any time--but a lot of the 'goodies' from the optional stuff seem to be required to pass the linear stuff later on. For example, I spent time collecting new spells before advancing to the next mandatory part, only to find that the next mandatory item puzzle would've seemed impossible had I not gotten a specific 'optional' spell first, even though that spell was one of many I could've gotten.

There is a linear story to follow and it's surprisingly refreshing. Even though the frame plot is that Shantae has to find 4 magic seals, it's not as formulaic as it could've been. So far the two dungeons I was in were totally different, the first was a 'dungeon' like you'd expect from Zelda (albiet side scrolling) and the second was a timed "cave of ordeals" style rush through enemies. In fact, I didn't even realize the second dungeon was the second dungeon, because the means of getting to it was so different than the first dungeon. It wasn't until I saw the second seal floating in the air that I realized I was actually progressing the story and not just dicking around.

Throughout the world there are several unique items you get (these are almsot all 'keypoints' in the story) but there are also tons of "Magic Jams" and "Heart Containers" which are spread with the rarity of Heart Pieces in Zelda. Getting them requires using both optional items and mandatory items, so there's a lot of puzzles that you'll attack from multiple angles, fail, and then decide you need another item later.

Heart Containers give you another unit of health, obviously, but the "Magic Jams" are really cool. Basically 'optional' items and spells that you can at the store (think Viewtiful Joe) require both currency (which you can get from grinding) and Magic Jams (which you find by exploring). There are three basic 'optional' spells, a fireball (gun), a rotating shield (skull man), and a cloud (bomb). You can buy three variations on this (the first shield is one spinning wrecking ball, the second is two, the third is three, etc) and each one costs progressively more Magic Jams.

Every single attack seems to do 'one' damage to enemies, so it's easy to know how many hits an enemy will take to die. Instead of using confusing invisible stats, Shantae's "stronger" attacks actually hit more times... So it's more like DPS in World of Warcraft than actually doing more damage. Two wrecking balls hit twice as likely as one, and so on. The most expensive item (in terms of Magic Jams) are the Hair Gels which boost Shantae's basic attack, her hair whipping ability. With no upgrades, she'll whip once, return to her normal stance, and then whip again. With one upgrade she'll be able to whip twice before pausing, and with three upgrades she can whip her head endlessly without stopping.

I invested in the wrecking balls because I felt they had the best synergy with Shantae's already necessarily melee combat. When I finally got the third wrecking ball, I continued exploring, and found platforms with spikes on the top and flat surfaces on the bottom. If you attack these platforms they flip over, but only for a second. I was surprised to find that with three wrecking balls (but, not as easily with one or two) I could ensure the platform would flip before I landed on it each time, and I used the 'optional' wrecking balls to cross the pit and get another Magic Jam. Shortly after, I found a mandatory item that I could only get by using the fireballs to burn some plants. And shortly after that, I decided to buy the three-way-shot fireball upgrade, and later I backtracked to an 'unsolvable' puzzle and realized I could use the angle of the third fireball to burn a tiny bit of wood. These discoveries were all really unexpected and satisfying.

The map branches out in two directions from the exit of the town. I'm pretty sure I've gotten almost everything in both directions. The next and final area branches out from within the town. I think there's maybe 2 hours left in the game, but I've loved every minute so far.

I am constantly impressed. Like Feel the Magic, this game is essentially a narrative where cutscenes are turned into interactive minigames using 'innovative' controls. Except it's made by Squareenix, and the cutscenes, writing, 'acting' (both voice and CGI faces) are all top notch. This doesn't feel like a incomprehensible melodramtic Final Fantasy game, so much as it feels like a modern comic book movie. The characters are very grounded, super powers are used symbolically and explained thoroughly. It feels a lot like the X-Men or Spiderman movies, though set in the Crystal Chronicles world.

Even though there is a main engine, it takes a back seat to the minigames. Even combat itself feels like a minigame. There aren't random battles so much as fixed set pieces with battles that happen on them. Miasma streams will fill areas with a specific mix of monsters (who are intended to react to each other, for example, skeleton monsters are paired with wolfs because they'll react to bones, etc.) and you can defeat all the monsters by the time limit and seal the Miasma portal.

If you can kill all the monsters and seal the Miasma portal before the time runs out, you'll be rewarded with a new unit on your life bar (which only comes into play during battles) and if you ignore it, you'll get nothing and be weaker at the next battle. Also, if you fail to customize yourself and make your attack stronger, you wont be able to kill all the monsters before the time limit which results in lower HP.

But, weirdly, I feel like I'm halfway through the game and have only been in maybe five battles. There has also only been one boss battle and it was pretty cool, albiet one-note. But the battles are not the focus--there have been more minigames than battles so far. I know the word "minigame" carries a stigma, but the minigames are mostly really fun.

This game is kind of like Luigi's mansion in that it's short enough to be replayed a bunch of times to get a better score. But rather than an overall score, you have individual scores for each minigame, and you have a ton of achievements to unlock. The long term replayability would be replaying the 10ish hour story maybe 3 or 4 times and try to get all of the achievements. There is no way to replay a lot of the minigames, they are all very story specific.

I say 'minigame' but they feel more like interactive cutscenes. For example, there's a scene where Layle is trying to sneak from one end of a train to the other, unnoticed by guards. The music is cool, Layle's voice acting and expressions are cool (he does the shifty eyes thing pretty convincingly) and the general ambiance of the scene is cool. As a player, you monitor the food carts and guards and flick the remote in the right direction when you want Layle to move. Layle will roll under seats and hide against the rafters while guards whistle obliviously and passengers and Moogles look at him confusedly. While this isn't innovative in a gameplay sense, it feels like something I've never done before.

HP is only ever used in battles, and your penalty for failure in minigames is either having to start over or failure to get an achievement. The win/loss state for non-minigame/non-battle portions (ie, walking around) is money and items. You can find new items and money by breaking shit, tossing NPCs around, and buying at shops. But you can also lose money if you get attacked by a guard or if you send something flying into yourself. Also, at one point I was on a museum (which featured 3D models of Crystal Chalices and gate keys and other trinkets from previous games in the series) and my little brother (co-op) broke a vase, and a librarian Moogle made my gil counter go into the negative thousands, so I panicked and reset before it could auto-save.

Everything is a minigame. Every single area has some kind of minigame element to it, even small areas. For example, there was one area where a Moogle couldn't open his store because he lost the key to his briefcase. The key was hidden in the sand, and you could pick it up, but you can't carry things with gravity magic while swimming, so you couldn't take it to him. So you had to use your powers to pick it up and then throw it at him, and it would clock him in the head and he'd be confused and then open his case and set up shop. Then you could buy items there that were so far unobtainable.

The game makes sure that Layle is a rebel, and will often only allow you to do things the "Layle way" even if there's an obvious normal way to do it. There's not really a 'talk' or 'examine' button. If you want to interact with a person, you have to pick them up and throw them. If you want to open a door, you have to tear it down. Layle doesn't give a fuck, and the game doesn't allow you to give a fuck, and that's kind of cool.

In terms of story, it's... Really good. It does everything right, and nothing wrong. The character models are surprisingly emotive (but never emo) and the voice actors are very talented. This is a story where glances and tones mean a lot. One of the recurring themes is that pretty much everyone hates Layle and is using him (and his powers) as a means to an end, and he's aware of it, but he doesn't use it as an excuse to act immature.

Crystal Bearer or otherwise, a large focus of the story is about those who live on the fringes of society--minorities, outlaws, dangerous individuals, political descentors, anyone who dares to change the existing system, etc. No one is painted as a bad guy, not even 'the system' itself. While it definitely seems unfair that the Lilties rule, the Yukes are dead, Clavats are the ruled and Selkies are outsiders, no one is whining about it. Characters either accept their role in society or are actively working to improve it, but no one is being annoying about it, which is rare and refreshing in a Square game.

The story is basically about about 7 or 8 strong-willed individuals trying to live their lives in an unfair society, even if it means clashing with each other. You're never sure who you're supposed to root for and you're basically rooting for everyone.

I had attempted (and wrote about) this game a year ago. It was on a Gamecube disc played through Wii, which is cumbersome enough, but then I didn't realize how saving worked and basically lost 2 hours worth of gameplay to the apocalypse.

But I'm trying to start it again, this time on the Virtual Console, which is much easier to deal with. I just beat the first temple.

If I could describe this game in a word, it would be: Unnecessary. This is the most unnecessary Zelda game, which is kind of why I skipped it, in terms of story--it's set in a parallel universe, within a parallel timeline. But then again, my favorite Zelda game, Link's Awakening, was also similarly detached, and I loved that one. Like Link's Awakening, Majora's Mask creates it's own little world and fills it to the brim.

But "unnecessary" seems to be a running thing throughout the game. I'm somewhat of a completionist, but not to an OCD degree. This makes Majora's Mask especially addictive, as every major endeavor comes with 20 minor offshoot endeavors that are completely optional. If you don't get all the little stuff while getting the big stuff, you'll have to do the big stuff a second time to get the little stuff. Also if you save/reset without tying up all the loose ends, you'll miss some stuff. This leads to me playing for hours on end, trying to economize time and get everything in order before I play the Song of Time and save by returning to the first day.

This game has more items than any other Zelda game (unless you count the 'rings' in the Oracle games, which function a lot like masks) and it seems maybe less than 30% of these items are needed to beat the game. But this is mostly because only items save between resets, with few exceptions. So if you put a lot of work unlocking all the rooms in a dungeon, you better make sure you picked up everything before you save/reset, or else you'll have to do that shit again.

Speaking of which, there are also these little unnecessary fairies in each dungeon. You have to collect all of them in order to get an item or skill upgrade from the Great Fairy they create. They're all pretty hard to get and well hidden, there's no way you'd find them all without intensely searching for them. It makes dungeons a lot more involved, as they're still typical Zelda dungeons, only now you have all these tiny heart piece-like things to find.

Also weirdly unnecessary, is the boss fight mechanics. I only fought the first boss, but it was... Weird. Recent Zelda games such as Twilight Princess or Spirit Tracks have bosses that are basically just minigames that test your effectiveness with a new item you just got. The bosses in Majora's Mask are more similar to the bosses from Zelda 1 and 2, Link's Awakening and Link to the Past, in that they're sort of a free roaming agent with several random attacks rather than a boss-shaped minigame.

The fairy implied I should use my bow and arrow on the boss, but I really didn't need to. He had a bunch of crazy attacks, and I had to dodge them and hit him with my sword a lot--arrows could've stunned him to make sword attacks easier, but I landed some attacks while I was out of arrows too. It felt more like a PVP battle than a boss battle. I kind of liked it that way.

Anyway, so far, so good.

Played this game for a few minutes the other day. Biggest surprise: The entire game is co-op? By "certain parts are co-op" I assumed they meant specific minigames. But nope. Like Mario Galaxy's Co-Star mode, a second player can control a second on-screen cursor for Layle's gravity attacks at all times. But, unlike Galaxy, the cursor is actually a pretty significant part of the gameplay.

Also interesting: Sometimes cutscenes transition into minigames with super minimal introduction. You'll basically see a little onscreen thing telling you "Point at the screen" or an icon indicating that you're supposed to shake the remote or use the analog stick. And as soon as you do, that icon goes away. These minigames are almost indistinguishable from cutscenes and are mostly on rails with voice acting and similar camera angles as the cutscenes that precede them. So the long intro cutscene is broken up by a few player-controlled minigames at actiony parts, that blend with the cutscenes seamlessly. Oddly though, there's a fight scene in the intro movie that the player DOESN'T control.

Interestingly, there seems to be no 'lose' state for cutscene minigames. They end with a score or a time, and the goal is to improve that (I'm sure they'll be replayable eventually) but the lack of introduction and possible failure essentially serves to make cutscenes much more engaging.

One of the intro cutscene minigames was two player (Lyle used gravity magic on his machine gun, which is floating behind him, and you us the cursor to aim and fire the gun) and the other was not (using the D-stick to steer a crashing airship while passengers scream dialog at you). There was a little bit of walking around through a mall-like area that served as somewhat of a tutorial for the gravity controls, and then another cutscene minigame happened, this time focusing on the traditional gravity controls but with a camera on rails.

Another weird thing about the game is that in the town area, it's full of NPCs who have simple Chao-like AI, you can't talk to most of them. The only NPC that gave me a "talk" command was Stiltzkin, the traveling Moogle. You can use gravity magic to toss NPCs around the room, but they don't seem to mind or respond. Also, there was a mail Moogle and you could use gravity to yank the letter from him and read it. Sometimes it was a letter intended for you, but sometimes you'll intercept mail intended for others.

I'm going to try to force Dom to play the entire game 2 player, I'm curious to see how it plays that way.

Got all the train cars--a Herculean feet. Officially out of things to do, other than finish the rabbit quest, which I'll get around to eventually.

Unlike, Mirkon, I thought the ending kind of sucked a lot. The boss fight was essentially a series of semi-clever minigames, but never once felt like a real battle. In fact, all of the boss fights have felt that way. The only boss fight that feels like a real sword fight was the optional boss at the end of the "Take On 'Em All" game in Hyrule Town.

I also hate that it didn't ask me to save after beating the boss, or acknowledge on my profile that I had beaten the game, considering how so much of the game functions like a checklist of achievements. The menu is literally just a tons of different ways of representing a checklist--not that that's a bad thing, it's fun to fill up all the checkboxes. It's just lame that there's no "beat the boss" checkbox.

I'm still playing it though. I really really like the train stuff. I got all of the Force Gems, which means I've completed the train tracks. I also got the golden train and have almost all of the train cars, I'm only missing 3 and I'm working on getting them. This is a huge feat, as the game expects you to trade with other players to get the rare resources needed to build certain cars, so doing it on your own is more difficult. Or at least, more repetitive. Getting a rare treasure of a certain class just means doing the thing to randomly get a treasure of that class more times.

Either way, I've been having fun sucking the last bits of life out of the game. Cargo-delivery quests are infinitely repeatable, and are one of the best ways to get treasure, so I've been doing those a lot. I also train around to different shops every day to see what's new, and I'm so close to getting Beedle's Diamond Club Card. I'd hate to stop playing now.

I just got to the Fire Temple, and so far, I really like it. A lot. Maybe more than Phantom Hourglass? It might be right behind Link's Awakening as one of my favorite Zelda games.

I like Zelda, and I'm happy when I complete a Zelda game, but they're often long arduous processes and much of the time spent is frustrating and annoying. I don't want to re-play Ocarina of Time because I can't even really think of a single temple that isn't exhausting. So far, this game has never felt 'exhausting', I think that's because the challenges are more broken down and linear. Rather than having to spending an hour in a dungeon, you spend 20 minutes each in 3 short dungeons. Like popcorn, each unit is easier to digest and it makes the game as a whole harder to put down.

I also like the relative linearity of it. Metroid Fusion and Metroid II were my favorite Metroid games because they were structured so that you were always directed to the next place to go, and could choose to do side-quest things if you wanted to. That format, IMO, is much more enjoyable than wandering around aimlessly trying to separate side quest stuff from the main adventure. I know many gamers disagree and are annoyed with the current shift, but it's actually working out pretty nicely for Brad.

I also like the train. I think I like it more than sailing! I like that you don't have to chart your course, which was annoying in Phantom Hourglass, and that you can just choose to switch tracks with a lever on the bottom of the screen. Which makes me wonder why they didn't just include an on-screen helm in Phantom Hourglass! The first few train segments were relatively breezy, but I've found the train portions to be the most challenging parts of the game. Transporting the Mega Ice to the Gorons was really fucking hard, and I'm intimidated by the idea of getting 10 ice cubes there (as per a side quest). Getting the keys from the flying elephant monsters was really fun, even if part of the clue was lost in translation; By "make a sound of an animal they don't like" I think they meant "choo choo" as in "chu chu" which is an onomatopoeia for the sound mice make in Japan, but not in America, because I'm pretty sure Japanese people just made that up. Because mice don't make that sound.

I'm also really looking forward to the side quests. I'm slowly recalling really getting into the side quests in Phantom Hourglass and getting 100% of everything. I like all of the side quests so far. Flagging down Beedle is always fun, and especially rewarding once I realized the bomb bag was entirely optional and that Beedle is the only way to get it. I love the treasure and the optional train upgrades and how it affect's the game's economy. Rupees were a bigger deal in Phantom Hourglass than they ever were in any other Zelda game, and it feels the same here too. The train sidequests are also fun driving people places safely and comfortably in a toy train is weirdly satisfying in a disturbingly wholesome way. Like watching reruns of The Patty Duke Show on the Christian cable network, which I do some times, for some reason.

Speaking of identical cousins (...Patty Duke reference...) I really like how characters are directly related to characters from Phantom Hourglass. The fact that Niko is the same Niko, albeit 100 years older, is awesome. I also really liked meeting Linebeck III and visiting Linebeck senior's grave; it reminded me how awesome he was. The story so far is pretty light hearted, not much plot has happened, just living out a necessary plot point in the overall Hyrule history (the founding of the new land after the flood) but I'm hoping for some sort of twist or revelation by the end.

I feel like I tore through half the game in a day (I basically just started today) but I've been loving every second of it. I'm hoping it keeps the same smooth pacing and difficulty curve near the end, and that the side quests are fun enough to merit actually doing them.

This was the most boring unsatisfying game I've ever played. I gave it way too much of a fair chance--I played it right down to a few turns away from beating the final boss before giving up. Because the final boss has a minimum level requirement that is higher than the level you would be at if you advanced through the entire story normally without grinding or doing side quests. Fuck that.

The final boss has an attack called "Big Bang" that hits the entire party at once and if anyone survives they are inflected with sap which lowers their HP and cannot be cured until he uses a different buff/debuff clearing attack called "Black Hole". The only way to survive Big Bang (without exiting the final dungeon to do side quests and coming back, which would take several hours) without leveling up is to boost my magic defense. So I equipped all the gear with the highest magic defense, got his attack pattern from an FAQ and casted 'Shell' before he attacked and set all characters to 'Defend' and my Dragoon to 'Jump'. Doing that maybe nets me 2 or 3 living but badly weakened characters and it takes several turns to repair them.

But there's a point in his attack pattern where he uses Big Bang twice, and at lower HP he just starts using Meteor over and over. There is literally no way I can win, so fuck it. I watch the ending on YouTube, and it wasn't even that good! And defeating the final boss had no baring on the story, they could've just as easily walked away and nothing would be different. The villain's only means of affecting anything on Earth is through mind controlling two specific characters that share his blood, but those characters are immune to his mind control by the end and head to his lair in space to defeat him. Why? He can't affect anything on Earth anymore and his only motivation is that he's impatient for an event that happens immediately after they defeat him. And they could just go home and they know this. It's retarded that they're even fighting him at all. And then of course he unleashes a demon that is "the evil in the hearts of all men" and when they defeat it he says "I'll always exist as long as there is evil." Okay. Great. Mission accomplished?

There are very few things I enjoyed about this game. The story was very well written, and had sort of a Shakespearean story structure and themes and whatever. The cutscenes had really good voice acting and some of them were well directed. And I really liked how Final Fantasy spells like Break, Esuna, Meteor, Slow, Cure, and Fire were frequently mentioned and acknowledged by the plot, as opposed to most FF games where the powers exhibited in battle were seemingly inaccessible in cutscenes. One of my favorite parts was Rosa's lack of story; there seemed to be some kind of past love triangle between Rosa, Kain and Cecil, but all the characters were over it and basically acted like mature adults rather than hormonal teenagers.

But basically everything outside of the story (which was likely given an injection of subtlety by the re-writing and re-translating in the remake) was awful. The story even faltered at times (the over abundance of crystals and red herrings, the meaningless final boss, the lack of conflict resolution in the ending and the characters constantly "dying" and coming back, so much so that it made me forget about the one character that really did die) but it was the only thing mildly interesting enough to make me drag myself through the unbearable gameplay. It just sucks, there's a veneer of customization but the game has a specific thing it wants you to be doing at all times and your choices really boil down to either doing the obvious effective thing or doing your own ineffective thing and struggling.

Whatever. I'm glad to be rid of this garbage.