MIDI Week Singles: "Cut Man Stage" - Mega Man (NES)

"Cut Man Stage" from Mega Man on the Nintendo Entertainment System (1987)

Composer: Manami Matsumae

Album: Mega Man Official Soundtrack

Label: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

I thought that since Mega Man 11 was officially announced this week, that featuring a track from the original Mega Man might be a good idea.  Additionally, it looks like we have not used the first game in the series for a MIDI Week Single, so again, this seems like the perfect time.

What I really like about "Cut Man Stage" is that it incorporates a lot of what I personally associate with the Mega Man franchise.

First off, the music is just super catchy in both the A and B sections.  Second, in the A section, there is the sound effect that comes in pairs (at 0:03, 0:06, 0:16, 0:19) that sounds a lot like a combination of Mega Man's jump, gun fire, and transportation sound.  Basically it is just a "b'd't" sound.  I do not think that it is there to confuse the player, just something incorporating a bit of Mega Man into the music perhaps?  Lastly, there is the B section where the whistle-like instrument that comes in around 0:29 and plays a new melody until the song repeats.  The whistle tone is something that I associate with sounding like a song you would find in a Mega Man game.

Talk to a handful of people and you will probably get a handful of answers as to what their favorite song from the entirety of the Mega Man series is, and "Cut Man Stage" just happens to be one of mine.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Invincible Winner

Game EXP: RiME (NS)

I love this game, plain and simple.  The story was emotional and well written despite the lack of any dialogue throughout the entire game, the character design was simple but beautiful at the same time, and the music which played through the majority of the game was perfect for what this game was trying to accomplish.  There were downsides too though, in the vein of performance issues and the hiding of objects and story elements that ended up going undiscovered.  I should warn anyone interested in playing RiME on any platform, that there will be spoilers of sorts, so be warned.

The game starts out with your unnamed character waking up on the sandy beach of an island after brief visuals of a storm out at sea.  As the game starts, there is no direction.  No note is left to give you any hint at who you are or what you are supposed to be doing.  Through self exploration you discover what each of the buttons on the controller do, or do not do in the case of the shoulder buttons.  What the game does do, is give you obvious landmarks and the sense of adventure took over from there.  As above, there looks to be a tower that looks like you are able to access via a partially broken, but still accessible bridge.  Maybe I will try to go to there.  

This was about the time when I first became aware of the game performance issues that I had heard so much about prior to buying the game back in April.  The game was not as smooth as I was hoping, but was also far from unplayable as a lot of people had made it out to be.  Sure there were times while running along a path towards some white washed building a few hundred yards away that the frame rate dipped down into the low double digits (I cannot say for sure as I do not have a counter for the Switch) and in a handful of instances, the game skipped a couple of frames.  

Now, I bought the game back in April, which was after the patch in February that was supposed to fix a lot of the issues people had with the game, so I can only comment on what was present in version 1.0.2.  For me, the game is far from unplayable.  I never had the game skip on me while trying to jump over a gap on a ledge, or while trying, causing me to fall and lose all of my progress.  The skips and obvious frame rate drops were obviously distracting, but at times it was not so much that I actually felt that I could no longer play.  Glitches on the other hand were a bit different, as in the picture above.  This happened late in the game when I was trying to get to the third windmill, but could not figure out how to get back down to the water.  I do not recall exactly how it happened, but I think I was trying to jump down to some rocks that looked accessible, but I died, then spawned outside of the world, in water, and could not reach anything.  So I restarted from my last checkpoint, which ended up putting me where I wanted to go.  It felt a little bit like cheating since I do not know how I would have gotten there otherwise.  This type of glitch happened only one other time.

As far as story goes, there is a lot going on, but you have to find it first.  There are a lot times that the game allows you to explore areas, partly to look for objects that you might happen to come across, but also because exploring a new place can be a lot of fun.  One of the other issues I had with RiME though was that I discovered, pretty late in the game, how much of the story I had accidentally missed in previous stages because I apparently did not look hard enough.  Scattered throughout the world are pedestal-like objects with a golden keyhole that when peered through, show a painted relief of your life before you are shipwrecked/stranded on the island.  The first keyhole like this I found was well over eight hours into the game, which seems very late to be introduced to something that could only strengthen the emotional impact of the story Tequila Works was telling.  There were also a number of other collectibles that I either failed to find all parts of, or just missed completely.  For instance, there are conches you find that are part of a lullaby, but I did not find one until the second to last act of the game.  In one instance, I knew the location of a collectible, but it was behind a wall that was blocked and I ended up missing out on part of a very powerful (visually and musically) in order to go back and collect it.

And what I said earlier about there being no dialogue, I actually think that this only intesifies the emotional impact of the game.  Similar to Link in The Legend of Zelda games from Ocarina of Time onwards, the character in RiME makes noises when he jumps, laughs, and when he inexplicably is able to intensify the flames in braziers by yelling "Ha!" at them.  The rest of the time, emotion is told through the character reacting to objects around him, and how sometimes those objects react to him.  Even objects, like above, are given some level of humanity by their movements and how the character interacts with them.  In the above screenshot, it is kind of amazing how the sphere is personified by both the boy and the player; or at least it was by me.

And I would be doing RiME a massive disservice if I left out any mention of David García Díaz's score.  There were very few instances where music was not present during the entire game, and when it was present, it definitely felt like it was composed for that specific scene (despite there not being as much music as the amount of time I spent playing), which only amplified the power of the scene.  There were a number of times where I would just look off into the sky, or away towards the horizon as the music played in the background, just taking a moment to take it all in.

In the end, RiME is not a perfect game, or a perfect Switch port (handled by Tantalus and not Tequila Works), and the placement of story related elements seemed to be placed more for the sake of finding something than telling the story.  But I feel that through all of its faults, of which there are not a lot, all of the other positive aspects of the game overshadow the negatives.  And even without the collectibles, Tequila Works has still managed to craft a story and game that left me full of feels and I needed a few minutes to compose myself after the credits finished; Lindsey Sterling's song over the credits was a wonderful addition to David García Díaz's score too.

I guess you could say that I would recommend RiME if you are looking for a game that is not perfect and you are willing to not have buttery smooth 30 fps, but want to experience an amazing journey in a beautifully crafted world with a gorgeous score.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Give Me Something Pretty


P.S.  

Oh yeah, there is a fox too.  Adorable little bastard.

MIDI Week Singles: "A Gentle Welcoming" - Runner3 (NS)

"A Gentle Welcoming" from Runner3 on the Nintendo Switch, PC, and macOS (2018)
Composer: Matthew Harwood
Album: Runner3 Original Soundtrack Sampler
Label: CD Baby
Developer: Choice Provisions

So Runner3 was released yesterday and I only recently found out that part of the first run release of the game, a "sampler soundtrack mini-CD" was included.  I was pleased to find out that it was in fact, a mini-CD, about the size of a Game Cube disc, but before I uploaded the CD to my computer, I decided that playing the game would be a lot more fun and productive. 

When the game started, I was pleasantly greeted by a rendition of the theme from BIT.TRIP.RUNNER, but this time in a snappy un-digital arrangement, complete with whistling.  And you know, not having played BIT.TRIP Presents. . .Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien in a while, this music I felt was the perfect re-introduction to this tight rhythm platforming game that Dr. Potts introduced me to a number of years ago. 

As the song was playing, I was really hoping that this would be one of the songs on the mini-CD, then I panicked because I was afraid that the "sampler" part of the CD would not contain the full songs, but just samples of them.  But lo and behold, it is the first track on the CD and in its entirety.  So now I present to you the wonderfully titled "A Gentle Welcoming" to this wonderfully difficult yet fun game.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Thanks for Reading My Book.

An Article About Birthdays & Shared Interests.

In celebration of Conklederp's birthday, I just wanted to talk about a couple of her favorite video games over the years; mind you this isn't all of them, just meant as a brief briefing of the games I have watched her enjoy over the years since we have been together.

The Sims 2 & 3:  I say 2 and 3 because I think it was The Sims 2 that was her introduction, if not what really solidified it as her favorite game after the original The Sims. And The Sims 2 was what she was really into when we first started dating 10 years ago.  In 2009 when The Sims 3, came out, it was more of the same, but better.  At least that was my impression.  Better except the fact that EA started coming out with inventory expansions every 20 days.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem:  If any game was nearly the exact opposite of The Sims, Eternal Darkness probably fits most of that bill.  I introduced Conklederp to this game, probably around 2008 (a year before The Sims 3 was released), but it was great watching her play and be actively engaged in one of my personal favorite video games.  And I say actively in that she did not just play the game because she was trying to win me over and earn the oft coveted Girlfriend of the Year award, she genuinely enjoyed playing it, and being frightened along with the rest of first time players when some insanity took hold.

Plants Vs. Zombies:  Another game that I was introduced to during PAX08 that I thought Conklederp would like, due to our mutual love of zombies, plants, and semi-relaxing video games.  I am 99% positive that she beat this game waaay before I did and had nearly cleared out Crazy Dave of his unique inventory and had already spent I don't know how much time with her mushroom garden before I even reached the roof.  There are times when the music from the game plays and we are hit with a little wave of nostalgia for the summer of 2009.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:  This was another game I introduced Conklederp to, partly because she was considering buying The Sims 3 expansion where you could play as a knight, or there was something about a kingdom.  I do not recall exactly, but in the winter of 2012 after I showed her the character creation and that you could basically do whatever you want while this gorgeous music played in the background, I found that my in-game time had been eclipsed by hers, easily in the double digits.  At last count, her one character, Magicia, had upwards of 400+ hours.  She tried creating other characters, like the older Nord woman who all of a sudden discovered that she was the Dragonborn and began gallivanting around Skyrim instead of retiring to a nursing home, but it was always Magicia that she went back to.  And, Conklederp has finished more of the game than I have (main quest and both DLC's), despite my 150+ hours with my one Bosmer.  And I love it!

Stardew Valley:  Lastly, there is Stardew Valley on the Nintendo Switch.  I knew that Conklederp had played a bit of either Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon waaaay back in the day, and she tinkered around with Farmville like most of the world, and I figured that its focus on taking the game at your own pace was something that she would be drawn to.  So I ordered it on the Switch for her, really hoping that it would be a game that she would like (it was part of an anniversary gift after all).  Well, some 150ish+ hours later and I do not know how many years of in-game time, I think I found another game she kind of liked.  And it was a lot of fun having her show me her farm, the various animals and their names that she acquired (and raised), and what I really loved was her approach to the game, which she has talked about a bit.  It really is a relaxing game to sit back and not only watch, but to listen to as well.  Except when cows/goats are unable to give you milk, that sound was yick.

So those are just a brief sampling of Conklederp's favorite video games, to say nothing of her favorite board games.  And I also wanted to add how doubley awesome it is to have a partner (girlfriend, now wife) who you happen to share such an interest with.

Love you!

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

Game EXP: Bayonetta 2: The Goods (NS)

Disclaimer: This is Part II to an unintentionally long Game EXP article from Monday that kind of turned into Bayonetta 2 bashing, but all the while knowing that that was not going to be the end of it all.  I did in fact enjoy a lot of what was in Bayonetta 2, even though there were things that I disliked.  For those points of view, go back and read Part I (If you'd like), then come back here to find out the rest.

And once again, if you have not played the game and are looking for a 100% spoiler free article, I would not recommend your eyes go any further, if they haven't already.

Welcome back one and, um, two.  Maybe five, but let us not get carried away. So now that I have aired out all/most of my displeasures with Bayonetta 2, let us get down to all the awesomeness that was, in fact, Bayonetta 2.

Pretty damn epic for an opening act mind you.

The boss battles.  Holy bloody hell the scale of a lot of the boss battles was ramped up here to a level that I was not expecting.  As you can sort of see here, Bayonetta is smaller than even the nasal horns on this creature here (I know the creatures name, I am just trying to keep even just a little bit unspoiled).  Granted some of the boss battles were not all this grand in scale, otherwise by the end of the game you would have ended up fighting the moon. . . but this was one hell of a way to start off the game.  Another aspect of the boss battles that I was very much impressed by was the music, which I feel like I am going to have to feature in an upcoming MIDI Week Singles article.  But while I honestly did not notice the music during the regular fights as much as I kind of did in the first game, the music during a lot of the later boss fights came across as very grandiose, complete with full symphonic orchestrations and what sounded like a full choir.  I am definitely going to have to look up the music the more I try to recall how it was used in those battles.

And just like the first game, it does not take itself too seriously, such as in the first game you fight while riding on a missile, while in Bayonetta 2 you find yourself (more than once) fighting on the back of a fighter jet.

How is she flying the plane if she's standing on the back of it?  Probably magic.  She's a witch after all.

But unlike the missile stage in Bayonetta, the plane stage in particular was a lot more forgiving and therefore, I was able to enjoy the absurdity a bit more, rather than be annoyed with the length and repetitiveness of the stage.

Another aspect of the game that I felt was an improvement over the first game, was the combat which felt a lot more fluid.  And by fluid, I mean that I felt that I was the bad ass hand-to-hand fighting witch that I had wanted to be in the first game.  There was also inclusion of the Umbran Climax, which allowed you to use some of your built up magic to, in essence, release a flurry of critical hit attacks for a limited amount of time.  Torture attacks were still present here as in the first game, but I definitely found myself wanting to save up enough magic to use the Umbran Climax.  Unless of course that the Torture Attack was the attack that would kill off an enemy.  And even the Max Bonus button mashing was a lot more forgiving than in the first game, where it seemed like unless you knew ahead of time and were already vigorously mashing that Y button, you would be lucky to even fill half of the meter.  Instead, in Bayonetta 2, it was almost hard not to get the Max Bonus.

As depicted in the above video, by the time in the game that you earn the swords, I nearly stuck with them for the rest of the game.  I did feel a little like I was cheating against the design of the character since one of her key elements was that she used four guns.  But something about the way the swords often felt and the combos that came out of them stuck with me.  A few times I did switch back to the four guns, but that was pretty rare.  And once I acquired the Alruna whips and put those on my feet, wooboy did I have my favorite weapon set for the rest of the game; although leading up to the whips, I did favor the flame/ice throwers as feet weapons.  I guess I liked a lot more of the optional weapons here than in the first game, of which I found that I rarely used.

The story too I felt was very well conceived, although like the first one, a bit confusing until near the very end.  And considering that there were direct connections to the first game, I was eager to see how those connections manifested themselves here without feeling like the first game was entirely retconned in order for the writers to come up with the story here.  Or maybe there was a lot that was retconned but went over my head.  The only thing that immediately comes to mind is Jeanne's hair in the beginning of the game is over three feet long when there was only supposed to have been a few months between the end of the first game and the beginning of the second.  However, I feel like you can get away with it since the Umbran Witches use their hair as an outlet for their magical powers, so who am I to dictate what can and cannot happen with their hair?

Connected to the story, at least in most parts, were the locations used throughout the game.  For the most part I liked the general variety even if the location itself did not change much.  In the city of Noatun, it offered more than a stereotypical European cobbled city as depicted in Vigrid.  And I seem to recall that the transitions between areas seemed to make a bit more sense than how I sometimes felt about the area transitions in the first game.

And while we are on about story, I did briefly restart the game after finishing the main story in order to find out what the hard difficulty level would be like, and upon watching the opening cinematic with the knowledge of both games, I definitely had an "Ahhhhhhh" moment in regards to events coming together and fully understanding parts of the first game and now made a lot more sense.

Well, I am sure that I am missing elements of the game these are the first that came to mind while planning out this article so I take that to mean that those that had the most impact.  And as I mentioned in the previous article, I was still entertained enough by Bayonetta 2 that I already pre-ordered Bayonetta 3.  And at least I am hoping that the blood over the moon and the purple-ness hint at something dark and foreboding in the third installment. But that is just me.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Wounded by the Claws of Beasts

Game EXP: Bayonetta 2: The Criticisms (NS)

Disclaimer:  When I started writing this article, I had planned on it being a standard Game EXP article, but as it went on, I realized that I would need to either split the article up into two separate pieces, or do one very long article that would have gotten out of hand.  So I decided to split this one up for Monday and Friday.  So apologies on that front.

Additional apologies as this article is probably going to come across as being pretty harsh on Bayonetta 2 in general, but please keep in mind that these are just the criticisms I had of the game, where as Part II will go into all of the things that I enjoyed in the game.  I tend to believe to start off with the negative and finish with the positive, which is how I started writing this article, so all of the criticisms came out first.

Also, there might be spoilers to some degree, so beware on that front too.

So, I accidentally finished Bayonetta 2 the other week.

I say accidentally because at the time, I did not know I was facing the final boss in the final battle.  I had also played for about 13 hours; but there are reasons for such a shorter playtime, which I will get to in a second.

But, something that I should get out of the way with before you continue reading any further, is that I feel like I prefer Bayonetta to Bayonetta 2, althought B2, does do a lot of things right [but it looks like I will get to all of those points in Friday's article].  

These are my blind playthrough times, so I didn't go back and
refine anything.

First off, the short play time.  Maybe because I was coming off of the heals of playing the first Bayonetta, but not once during the game did I spam, or feel the need to spam levels for halos in order to be able to buy accessories, techniques, or afford consumables.  Now that I think about it, I feel like this comes across as an odd criticism.  Maybe I was looking for a more challenging experience that required me to take a step back and rethink my strategy?  But I also think that part of it was that, at least to me, the levels were not quite as memorable as the first game?  I of course say this having only replayed a handful of levels from B1, and two from B2, but with B2 it was because I either accidentally exited out of the game before saving, or forgetting about the checkpoint does not equal a save point.  Otherwise, I started the game and played through each level once and beat the game.  Okay, I beat the story.  

After the main story, there are a series of "Witch Trial" stages where you go up against enemies in a setting identical to the Muspelheim challenges; meaning a small enclosed area with somewhat limited space.  I played through the first one, attempted the second one twice and haven't played since.  My feeling was, "Why not just take these four Witch Trial stages and instead integrate them into the main story, or just use the time and resources to make a couple additional levels?  Lastly, there is the Tag Climax mode, which is/seems similar to the Witch Trials, but designed to play as co-op, but also has the added element of gambling halos in order to earn more.  I tried this once and again, as I was not feeling like I was in desperate need, I have not gone back.  You could argue that the game was designed like older NES era games where one of the goals is to get the highest score possible, and/or to collect all of the Witch Hearts or other collectibles, but I guess I just do not have the time.

The only other thing I actively did not really like about B2 was the character of Loki.  Other than elements of his story, I cannot think of much that I liked about this character.  I did not like his design as a Caucasian-esque pre-teen kid with white hair in cornrows.  Okay rewind.  I feel like his design is something that I would have expected to see in The World Ends With You, and I think he would have fit in very well in that setting.  In the setting of a Bayonetta game, he seemed beyond out of place.  Even the voice actor (apologies to Mark Daugherty) I was annoyed with, I think mainly because the character was a pre-teen kid who was acting waaaay older than you would expect; yes I realize this makes sense as the game goes on, but that doesn't mean that even with that information that I liked it in the end.  Maybe even his use of cards as a weapon for some reason bothered me;  Gambit on the other hand, no problem with him.  At least his cards did not summon creatures to fight for him, that would have been too much.

And while we are on the topic of characters, what was even Luka's deal in this game.  He showed up a couple of times but that seemed about it.  Oh, and he also filled the role that his father had in the previous game in that he left books/reports about Fimbulvintr scattered throughout the levels.  Even his character design looked like a bonus outfit that Leon Kennedy would wear in NG+ in Resident Evil 4.  I felt that either something better could have been written for him, or he could just as easily have been written out all together.

To a significantly lesser degree, I felt that much of the game as a whole was lighter.  The easiest comparison can be made by looking at the two title cards on the left.  The first game uses a lot of darker colors with a black and red logo, while the second game has a sunlit background with gradient shades of blue and bright gold/yellow.  Combat was smoother and chaining combos was a little bit easier (which is a good thing), but as a result, attacks felt like they had less weight behind them.  The set pieces for the game seemed noticeably lighter in tone and brighter in color palette.  Which is kind of odd considering that in this game, you do go to Hell and are fighting demons instead of angels for about half of the game.  But even the design of the demons I feel is a lot less intimidating than that of the angelic host you originally go up against.

I guess you could say that their color palette is similar to that of Bayonetta's color scheme in this game, and it is still similar to the attacks Bayonetta receives from Madame Butterfly.  And it is not the physical design of the demons that I am not partial to, just how brightly lit they all seem to be.  Maybe it is that I like my infernal demons a little less neon based and shiny?  Maybe something more along the lines of Bosch?  As was the case in Bayonetta, I liked the design of the hosts of angels, but something about the brightness of the denizens of hell, just does not sit well with me.  Or maybe that is the whole point?

So let us leave this semi-rant fest for now and come back on Friday after we have had some time to cool our jets a bit, where I will talk about all of the things that I really did enjoy about Bayonetta 2; so much so that I pre-ordered Bayonetta 3.  

By the way Conklederp, I pre-ordered Bayonetta 3.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

MIDI Week Single: "Meka Chicken" - Alfred Chicken (NES)

"Meka Chicken" from Alfred Chicken on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Amiga, & Amiga 64 (1994)

Composer: David Whittaker

Album: No Official Release

Developer: Twilight

Probably one of the more bizarre game titles that I have recently come across as I have been listening to NES game soundtracks in alphabetical order (#AllTheNESMusic), I was actually a bit surprised by how much of the music I was entertained by.

When I first listened to this song, I only knew it as "Track 07" and it was not until I was doing more research into this oddity of a game that I discovered that this music occurs during an on-rails shooter sequence that leads up to a boss fight against Meka Chicken.  I thought simply calling it "Meka Chicken" was a simple yet appropriate name.  I find that it works as a 1942-esque chicken themed shooter, and especially when Meka Chicken shows up at around the 0:28 mark and you hear the metallic tinkling noises.

I just find that I am greatly amused by the name of the game, the visuals in the game, and the music couples very well with everything.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Make it Alright

Game EXP: Bayonetta (NS)

It has actually been a few weeks since I finished the Bayonetta on the Nintendo Switch.  It had been some time since I had played a God of War type game, and I actually think that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was the last game in that style that I played back in August, 2015.  So my skills in a third person action combo-oriented game were a bit rusty to say the least.  Coupled with my general not great ability to remember combos often lead battles to turn into button mashing hair filled frenzies.

Yeah, um, she's uh, mostly naked here.

To be honest, I was a little concerned about playing Bayonetta, already knowing beforehand that there was a fair amount of over-the-top / cheekiness to the game paying fan service to certain demographics of the gaming community.  And believe it or not, I had not seen many screen shots, or any gameplay videos of the game for any system before pre-ordering it on the Switch back in January. For the most part though, I did not find the shots of Bayonetta to be too gratuitous as they were relegated to finishing moves against bosses, or to cut scenes.  Okay, sure, here she is naked with around 92% of her body showing, and I would definitely feel uncomfortable playing this game around my father.  Conklederp on the other had began watching me play (in both docked and hand held mode) shortly after the seventh chapter, which was, I believe, before I started spamming Chapter VII for halos, but more on that later.  

Ultimately the point is, is that because the designer of the character of Bayonetta is okay with how Bayonetta was depicted in the game, I guess I can be okay with it too.

Bayonetta’s long hair is the source of her power, and she normally wears it around her body as a means of adornment and protection. However, once she enters battle, she can use her hair to summon incredibly powerful demons from hell. When she summons these Infernal Demons, she is using all of her power, so she has no time to control the hair wrapped around her body and thus she ends up in more “comfortable” attire. The exciting way she looks in this state is one of the parts of Bayonetta that I love.

~Mari Shimazaki

The thing though about Bayonetta using her hair in her special attacks, is that even when she does it during regular fight sequences, often events are happening so fast that being able to focus clearly on her character in order to gawk at her lack of clothing-ness is nearly impossible for the person playing the game.  Although I guess if you are the kind of person who is playing this solely for the purpose of seeing an animated woman whip off her clothing (which already is made of her own hair) and become naked to fight enemies, then I guess you have found the game for you.

Still not going to play it in front of my parents though. 

But still going on about the art style in the game, I loved the design choice for both the angels as well as the other messengers  of God.  In particular, Fortitudo, with the upside down face coupled with the two dragon heads seemed like something out of a 14th century Italian manuscript .  There is no reason for the face to be upside down, but if you read the descriptions of various angelic beings as is written in the Bible, those do not make a lot of sense either.  Some of the creature designs were a bit more absurd, but how are we expected to understand the mind of God?  Yeah, that is what I thought.

In other news, because this game is so heavily based around combat, and that combat is based around doing as much damage as possible in a single long and strung out combo often chained with another combo performed on another enemy, one would think that you would have to be a master on the level of Killer Instinct in order to actively compete in this game.  Let me tell you from someone who spammed the hell out of  the "punch-punch-punch-punch-[oh yeah!]kick" combo, that is not completely necessary.  And this screenshot was taken around halfway through the game when I found out that the game actually kept track of what attacks you used throughout the game.  I probably used this one combo attack close to 300 times by the time I finished the game; actually I'll go check. . . As it turns out, it was 551 times, which was second to my favorite combo, being the "punch-punch-punch-punch-punch" combo which I performed a whopping 723 times.  

I think that perfectly illustrates my take on combo heavy fighting games.  I spam what I know, or at least what my brain resorts to when confronted with having to fight a busket full angels hellbent on your destruction.  But do not get me wrong.  I did not utterly fail at this game and there were times that I felt very accomplished, as witnessed below:

As far as the story goes, I will be spoiler free in that I felt that I did not fully understand what was going on with the characters surrounding Bayonetta and what the aim was with the main antagonist until the very end of the game.  Then elements clicked and (nearly) everything seemed to make sense.  Except how the hell a certain side character made it up into the Tower of Truth, considering you had to traverse a tower that was exploding behind you, running across floating wall tiles that rose up into the sky, and a ran and up across multiple bridges made of angelic light.  I would really like to see that missing part of the story from that characters perspective.

In the end, I spent about 25 hours playing Bayonetta and, with the exception of feeling frustrated by my lackluster fighting skills, I had a pretty good time playing.  I did play Chapter VII frequently as it was the easiest and fastest way to earn halos (money) in order to purchase health and magic upgrades, additional fighting techniques, and accessories to add special elements to fighting in general.  And because the game ranks you after every chapter, I feel it necessary to finally show off my mad skills.  Behold.

For those not in the know, that grey figure who looks like he is falling (a statuesque depiction of the annoying character of , that is like the equivalent of a participation ribbon, and are called "Stone."  Up from that you have Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and a no hit super-fast and very accurate Pure Platinum.  And by looking at that last award, you can see that I apparently spent close to 20 hours grinding out halos, or at least attempting to get better at stages before finally being able to beat them with what I had equipped.  To note, I did find out that the mid-stage checkpoints only exist as long as you do not turn off the game.  I found that one out on Chapter XV after already spending close to 30 minutes trying to make my way through the stage.

 So I guess you could say that if I spent 25 hours on a game that could be completed in about six, I either hated the experience and just wanted to be done with the thing, or I had a fun time and eagerly awaited Bayonetta 2.

I'll let you find out next week.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Cheers to the Devout Lamb



P.S.  Oh, and here is Bayonetta flying/riding/directing a missile, because Bayonetta.

Monthly Update: May 2018

I have been playing a lot on the Switch.  Or more accurately, a lot of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.  And I just finished the game on Tuesday night after playing for roughly 150 hours; I do not have an exact count as the Switch only rounds to the nearest 5th hour.  But damn, that was quite a ride for the last couple of weeks.  I also finished the first Bayonetta. . .some time last month.  Then I promptly started Bayonetta 2, to which I was frequently annoyed with the character of Little One; I know his name by Chapter XIV, but I am purposefully leaving that out for now.  I also finished two other games, Kamiko, and Xeodrifter, the last which I have already talked a bit about.  Plus I think I will try to make some headway with Perception, which I put down after a while due to being perpetually lost.  And since I have put Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, and Darkest Dungeon: Ancestral Edition on hold, along with Dark Souls being delayed until the summer, I have a bit to wait until Runner3 is released on the 22nd.

The point is, I am having a ball with the Switch and it has apparently replaced my (somewhat aged) computer as my preferred gaming platform.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  Anything less than 1080p at 60fps is unplayable and I don't know either how I could possibly be having fun playing an unmodded version of Skyrim.  The horror!  The horror!  But my computer probably won't run anything at native 1080p anyway, so the point in kind of moot.  And according to Steam, the last time I booted anything up, was my 57 minute session of Dark Souls III.

In the physical realm, our local D&D group had two sessions in April, which worked out well since looking ahead at May, I do not think that we will be able to make time.  In our last session, we actually managed to have the entire group including another friend (name to be determined later/ when I ask him) as well as Beardsnbourbon which brought our total up to nine, which is the largest group that I have ever DM'd for.  It was an experience to say the least and everyone seemed to have fun, but even with using clothespins for initiative markers during combat, we still ran short and didn't even get half way through one of two three hour stories that was designed for a group of 6 - 10 characters levels 4 - 7.  So it looks like we will have to wait until June to find out what awaits the ground in the Shadow Realm (what I decided was an off-shoot of the Shadowfell).

And it looks like the Fireball Island kickstarter was completely funded so now we are eagerly awaiting the end of the year when the game is projected to be released by.  Hopefully they have not over promised with now needing to deliver around 23,325 games instead of the possibly low-balled 4,167 they needed to be funded.  Roughly speaking anyway.

In the movie realm, I feel like I have fallen somewhat behind.  Conklederp and I saw Black Panther, last week, and A Quiet Place earlier this week, but then there are movies I would kind of like to see like Rampage, Annihilation (yeah, really late on this one), Tomb Raider, Ready Player One, Avengers: Infinity War, and probably another or two that I am unable to think of.  The point is, there are currently a bunch of movies out and not enough time or money to see them all.  And let's not forget about Solo in a few weeks.

Lastly, at least for now, if you follow us/me on teh Twitter, that I have been posting more video clips of my atrocious playing on Switch, but more importantly, is that for reasons I have yet to fully determine beyond curiosity, I have begun to listen to the soundtracks of all the released NES games in alphabetical order.  I started the other day with 10 Yard Fight, and today I made it through Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing.  There have been some games/songs that have surprised me, and thankfully, not too many (with the current exception of the Adventure of Lolo series) have run together without too much notice.

So I feel like that might be a pretty decent look at what happened over the last month and what is ahead for the rest of this month.  I am now going to finish this tasty beer, then go relax on the couch until it is decided that I should go back to work on Monday morning.  Or something else crops up.

Goodtimes.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I'll Sleep In This Place