Game EXP: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (NDS)

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

Systems: Nintendo DS

Release Date: July 11, 2009

Publisher: Square Enix, Nintendo

Developer: Level-5, Square Enix

Time Spent: 90 Hours, 35 Minutes

I have mixed feelings about Dragon Quest IX: Sentinel of the Starry Skies.  On one hand, it felt really good to play a down-to-earth JRPG complete with turned-based combat and a party of four characters that I could fully customize both in terms of names, gender, equipment, jobs/vocations, and abilities.  On the other hand, because the game was released on the portable DS, there was an over-emphasis on implementing unique utilities of the DS into core gameplay mechanics with seemingly little thought for the longevity of the gameplay past the lifespan of the system and its online StreetPass function.  This is where most of my feelings of "meh" stem from and we will get to that in various aspects throughout this entire article because of how widespread those aspects of gameplay reached into the very depths of the game.

Unlike many of the games in the mainline Dragon Quest series that I have played, I - VI and now IX, this was the first game I believe that you can create your entire party apart from your starting character, who you are able to customize.  In some ways, I liked being able to decide on the makeup of my party, that if I wanted to go in with your main character (who starts out as a Minstrel, which is kind of a jack-of-all-trades type vocation) along with three mages I could do that.  I went the more traditional route though and created a Mage, a Priest, and a Fighter.  Not terribly original I know, but you are also limited in which vocations you can choose from at the start of the game, and not knowing how the game was going to unfold in the early stages, this seemed like the safest and least frustrating option to go with.  Plus there was the option of unlocking additional vocations throughout the game or I could just hire a new person to bring along.

Let us now talk about part of the online/StreetPass functionality baked into Dragon Quest IX.  One of the core, albeit optional, mechanics was that you could recruit new party members from other people who also played DQIX through StreetPass, although to what extent their characters' skill level and equipment were transferred along with the StreetPass data I am not 100% sure about.  I would imagine unfettered "uploading" of end-game characters to players in the early game would essentially break the game's difficulty?  But since StreetPass seems all but dead at this point in the life of the 11-year-old system with a 13-year-old game, the likelihood that I would pick up a new DQIX character seemed highly unlikely.  I resigned myself to the party that I created towards the beginning of the game being the party that I would finish the game with.  Unless of course there were pre-generated NPCs that would join your party along the way, either permanently or temporarily.  (We will be coming back to Stornway Inn in a bit).

Once you reach the aptly named Alltrades Abbey, a recurring location in the series, you are able to change your character's vocation from a growing list throughout the course of the game.  For me, I decided about halfway through the game that I thought my main character would better be suited to a Martial Artist, which seemed more in line with their divine Celestrine roots than a Minstrel, and I thought that having a Paladin instead of a Fighter would be a good change.  What I was not expecting that was upon changing vocations that it would reset the characters entirely.  Their HP, their MP, their stats, and even the character level would reset to Level 1.  So my Mage and Priest were Level 30 and now I had a Level 1 Martial Artist and Paladin who died very quickly even against the weaker enemies surrounding Alltrades Abbey.  I could have changed the characters back to their higher level jobs, but me being stubborn decided to try out this mechanic and I ended up sticking with this party makeup through the rest of the game.

Why would I do all of the work needed to unlock the Sage vocation for my Mage or Priest if it meant an additional 10+ hours of grinding just to get them back up to an appropriate level to fight in the last quarter of the game?  And along with resetting all of your stats, only compatible weapons with your new class would transfer over too, which makes some sense, but why not other aspects of your previous vocation like HP/MP?  Maybe there was something that I missed that explained the reasoning behind having your characters essentially reset when switching jobs?  On top of this, by the time all of my characters were at level 40+, they were only earning three points to put towards skills every two to three levels they earned, which meant that the buffs and abilities you earned by spending skill points into various attributes required more and more time to grind.  Again, it really felt like grinding for the sake of grinding, and not in a fun way.

Since we are talking about another online component of the game, I need to talk about the Alchemy mechanic.  On its own, I actually like this mechanic and how it operates to a certain extent.  Throughout the world, you find items that the description says "Alchemize it!" and you can eventually create all types of consumable items and even equipment and weapons.  The biggest downside to this mechanic is how you actually go about alchemizing objects, which is in one location, that I was able to find, for the entire game.  In the castle city of Stornway, the first large city you visit after leaving your starting village, through a series of events that are not important to this particular rant, there is an inn (a merry old inn, one might say) where most, if not all, of the online mechanics, are centered.  Any characters you meet through StreetPass are located here if you want to recruit them into your party, with the premise being that you will be frequently returning to this one particular inn throughout the game to adjust your party when new StreetPass NPCs show up.  With the state of StreetPass being what it currently is (ie dead), there was no reason for me to return to Stornway to check in on the inn since I never got a StreetPass notification about a new character waiting for me at the inn.  It also appears that you can quest with other people who also have the game, likely through an in-person co-op wireless connection but that again was not going to be happening.

With that in mind, I had been wondering how long it was going to be before I could use alchemy with all of the suggestions to "Alchemize it!" in item descriptions.  Then one trip back to Stornway to look for quests that I might have missed, maybe 70 hours in, I found out that there was an intelligent and sentient Alchemy pot (called the Krak Pot)at the Stonway Inn that I only just unlocked.  How this Alchemy pot was unlocked I will never know (unless I look it up or I replay the game) but upon unlocking this mechanic, I also unlocked the ability to skim bookshelves and pull recipes for items and equipment from books throughout the entire game.  I had begun to wonder if the weapon and armor shops in Upover were in fact going to be the last place to buy any upgraded equipment.  As it turned out, because I came into the Alchemy game so late, I had missed dozens upon dozens upon dozens upon dozens of recipes to create new and probably better late-game equipment, a lot of which seemed hinged on upgrading previously created as well as the old equipment.  This immediately changed how I played the game in regards to my gear because up until that point I would sell my old gear and put that GP towards buying new gear; which is my go-to method for most JRPGs.  Now, I was holding onto my old gear out of some feverish hope that it could be used in a recipe for newer and better gear, all the while creating more grind for me to be able to afford the newer expensive gear.  Yes, this is me now just being bitter about the whole alchemy mechanic.

Actually, a lot of what I have been complaining about is all focused on the online mechanics that made Dragon Quest IX popular when it was released (if that was not already obvious at this point), but if you take those mechanics out of the game or instead have the Krak Pot available at any Inn you stay at and revamp the way vocations work by at least maintaining your HP and MP, then this was actually a really enjoyable JRPG the way that I played it.  I found the story to be fairly linear with the exception of a couple of instances right after getting access to the ship so I almost never felt lost.  I would travel to the nearest town/castle and check out the weapon and armor shops to see what I could immediately afford as well as how much I could get for selling my gear.  Then I would inevitably grind for GP raising several levels in the process and by the time I could afford the best gear, I would continue the main quest which would lead to a boss battle for that area and then open up the next area.  I never felt overpowered in a lot of the boss battles and at the same time, I never felt underpowered either.  My technique for the final area, because there were no places to save along the way, just like old school Dragon Quest games, after each mini-boss I defeated, I would flee the dungeon (thanks to the Evac-u-bell), fully heal at Alltrades Abbey (because this was the closest place that your limited airship/flying train could land where you could heal and save), then head back to fight the next mini-boss.  Granted this meant that I spent a lot of time in the final dungeon, but it also meant that I went up against the final boss with nearly full HP/MP.  But what did my final group look like?

I liked that I could create my own party out of blank slates.  Names and faces started out as generic fantasy characters that became slightly more developed by the end of the game.  It turned out that Dormundr and Markus developed a relationship along the way, partly because they were the two spellcasters in the group who never changed classes the entire time because they knew who they were from the beginning and saw no point in wanting to be anything else.  Malexa had likely been in a relationship of some kind before joining the group in Stornway but had decided that she would liver her own life with the skills she had learned being a fighter in her past life.  As she journeyed with the group, she found herself taking on a more protective role, wanting to watch over the other members of the party while still maintaining her training, so she became a Paladin, a warrior in her newfound belief and faith in the Celestrines;  I also thought that there might be a holy weapon that only a Paladin could wield that would have been beneficial in the final battle, but that ended up not being the case.  Although Jaquonæn took on the guise of a human female, that was nearly a form that the humans on the surface could comprehend.  They started out as a Minstrel (because that is the default vocation) to both better fit in with the human society and because it would allow them an excuse to travel from town to town without much trouble and assist in the finding of the Golden Fyggs (yeah, there was that whole plotline that I have not touched on).  Partway through their journey, Jaquonæn changed vocations to a Monk, one that better suited their outlook on interacting with humans, taking on a more passive and less violent approach.  That is what I told myself anyway, but I did have polearms equipped and by the end of the game Jaquonæn was dealing the most damage out of all my characters.

I do not regret at all the 90+ hours I put into Dragon Quest IX and for the most part I did have a lot of fun.  If I thought too much about all of the online functions that ended up being limited, then yeah, I would become a little annoyed/sad, but that does not come as close as this article might seem to overtake my enjoyment.  I do think that there could be enough changes to the online mechanics to port this to modern consoles, it might just have to be more than an HD Remaster and it would be great to have even more people to be able to play this title.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Unbegun, Undenial, Unforeseen by Thee

Game EXP: Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1 (NDS) -Atari 2600- Mind Games Pt. 1

 

This collection of games from Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1 on the Nintendo DS surprised me more than most of the curated categories presented.  My first thoughts going into 3D Tic-Tac-Toe were not positive.  After reading through the manual for Atari Video Cube, I felt confused as to how I was supposed to play the game, a prime example of learning by doing.  And Fun with Numbers sounded too simple to be its own video game.  Like a lot of the collections, not all of the games I felt like I would return to, but I did end up having a surprising amount of fun amidst the confusion on some level with each of these games.

3D Tic-Tac-Toe

I was initially a little skeptical about 3D Tic-Tac-Toe before I read the instruction manual because I thought it was going to just be Tic-Tac-Toe on a 3D board.  I was not expecting four 4x4 grids stacked on top of each other that felt more like a three-dimensional Connect Four.  Like standard Tic-Tac-Toe, you are trying to connect a series of Xs or Os, but here, instead of three, you are trying to connect four of your pieces across one 4x4 tile, or spanning across all four stacked 4x4 tiles.  The manual does a good job of explaining how winning works more so than I could, so we will go with that.  "The object of the game is to place four X's or four O's in one horizontal, vertical or diagonal row.  To do this you may use one plane or all four planes."  In my first two games, I definitely thought this meant I could win with two or three planes, which was not the case.  Chalk one up against me for misreading the rules.

One thing that kind of annoyed me was the difficulty settings, besides the fact that I lost five games all on the easiest setting.  What bothered me was that, like a lot of chess video games, is that on harder difficulty settings, the time it takes for the computer to decide where it is going to move takes time.  Like, a lot of time.  Like, upwards of 20 minutes per move on the hardest difficulty setting.  That could mean, that in my longest game which had 16 moves by the computer, that it could have taken nearly five-and-a-half hours, and the computer still would have come out with the same winning result, although considering how poorly I played, it probably would have beaten me in only a few hours instead.

In the first two games I played, I was still trying to figure out a strategy for working with four different boards and did not realize that my rows had to be in sequential order from either top or bottom, and not scattered between the four boards but still filling in a row/column.  In my last game, I decided to play a purely defensive game trying to block the computer whenever I saw what I thought they were trying to do because I recognized that I was not able to pull one over on the computer, so I thought maybe I could accidentally force them into a mistake.  Well, even on the easiest setting, I still lost 0:5.  But you know what, I still had more fun than I was expecting.

Verdict: Yes.

Game 1: Lost (9:10)

Game 2: Lost (6:7)

Game 3: Lost (11:12)

Game 4: Lost (10:11)

Game 5: Lost (15:16)

Atari Video Cube

You know, even after reading the instructions on this I was a little confused as to how the game was supposed to play.  I got that it was kind of a more mobile Rubix Cube, but if you could remove the stickers from a side and place them where you wanted to put them; because I totally never did that with the one Rubix Cube I had growing up.  There is the added complexity though that your character then takes on the color of the square you select and replace (and here we go with me trying to explain the mechanics and rules of a game that I felt was pretty confusing until I had been playing for a couple of minutes).  Your character starts off as a particular color, let us say, Blue, and you want to pick up the Pink square.  So when you pick up the Pink Square, you become Pink and the square becomes Blue.  When you are Pink, if you pick up a Red square, you become Red and the square becomes Pink.  Your goal is to have five sides of this cube their each individual color.  However, more complexity ensued.  Whatever color your character is, you cannot move into/through that color square.  So while you are picking up colors and moving around this cube, you constantly find yourself bumping into walls you cannot see because the square on the other side is the same color as you.

Getting all of one side to be a particular color, in the two games I played, always seemed to take a while as there might be two or three of the same color on one side and the rest of the same color squares scattered around on the other five blocks.  As I started moving one color to a particular side, I ended up starting to move another color to another side, slowly separating the colors to where I wanted them to be, rather than where they sort of ended up being placed.  By the time I had one side a single color during that first game, everything really started to click and I found that I was having fun.  That first game did take me about six-and-a-half minutes to complete, but during the second game, when I felt that I knew what I was doing in the Normal mode, I took only (I think?) 5:46.

A few minutes into my first game, I was pretty convinced that I was going to be giving this a No verdict because I could not tell what I was doing even after a couple of minutes.  But by the end of my first game, I was actually looking forward to my second game and trying a different mode; there are 18 modes so I figured I would just try Normal and use the time scoring method.

Verdict: Yes.

Game 1: (Normal, Scored on Moves): 546 Cube 28

Game 2: (Normal, Scored on Time):  5:46 - 9

I just realized that the number of moves from the first game and the time from the second is essentially the same number albeit in different number formats.  That was obviously not intentional.

Fun With Numbers

This is not what I was expecting with Fun With Numbers, which is essentially just doing math problems and the game telling you if you are correct or wrong, then moving on to the next problem.  There are two difficulty settings, one where you are timed and the other there is no timer.  You are given a total of 10 problems.  At the end of the 10 problems, the game flashes your score at the top, and then you start again on the same mode or choose a different mode.  The (Choose Top Number) mode allows you to select the top number in the equation and the bottom number is randomly selected, but this would allow you to pick, say 1 or 0 and blaze through the answers; unlike me who chose 8 and temporarily forgot what 7 x 8 was.

Before we leave Fun With Numbers, I will say that my initial low score on Random Division was because it took me multiple attempts to figure out the mechanism for the remaining number.  Because the equations I was given were all single-digit, there should not need to be spaces for a three-digit integer remainder.  So at first, I could not figure out why my answer of 1 2 to 5/3 was wrong, or why my answer of 3 1 to 7/2 was wrong.  Apparently, you have to have the remainder placed in the second of three spaces after the answer, so 2 _ 2 for 8/3.  I don't know.  Needless to say, which is why I am saying it, I did not have fun with Fun with Numbers.  I wish I could say that I wanted my money back, but that joke is a bit null at this point.

Verdict: No.

Game 1: 1 Table Addition (Choose Top Number)

Game 2: 3 Table Multiplication (Choose Top Number) 9/10

Game 3: 5 Random Addition 10/10

Game 4: 7 Random Multiplication 10/10

Game 5: 6 Random Subtraction 10/10

Game 6: 8 Random Division 5/10

Game 7: 8 Random Division 10/10

So those were the first three of the seven games in Mind Games, the remaining four will be featured in next Friday's article.  Since I first played these games, I have gone back to 3D Tic-Tac-Toe a few times and have managed to win a grand total of zero games.  I do not know what it is about not being able to wrap my brain around getting a line of four Xs to work correctly, but something is just eluding me.  And it is still a lot of fun even on the Easy setting, primarily because I am still finding it challenging, but also because the wait for the computer to make its move is not long.  And with Atari Video Cube, it is just really satisfying once you get that first square completed and quickly after the second and third.  I could probably try to do it in as few moves as possible, but it really is just the satisfaction of the act of completing the puzzle that I enjoy.  And I have already used enough words on Fun with Numbers on a game that has the same mechanic as those arithmetic worksheets from third grade.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

MIDI Week Singles: "Desktop 1" - American Truck Simulator (PC)

 

"Desktop 1" from American Truck Simulator on PC (2016)
Composer: Currently Unknown
Album: No Official Soundtrack
Publisher: SCS Software
Developer: SCS Software

American Truck Simulator is not a game that is about the music.  There is music in the game, primarily during the menu screens, but while driving on the open road, you really only have two options.  The first is to not have any music playing and just listen to the sound of your rig and the world around you be it other vehicles, the sound of construction crews as you wait to be let through on a two-lane turned one-lane highway, or the rain pattering on your windshield in varying degrees of severity.  Or you log on to one of the internet radio stations and listen to some real-world music as you drive through a semi-real-world landscape.

Having only played the quick jobs, I have really only heard this particular track which the Interwebs tell me is titled "Desktop 1" for reasons that remain unclear.  This is also, I think, the only song I have heard in the game as it plays when you first start the game and when you watch the credits (looking for any information on who wrote the music in the game, which apparently does not exist).  I do not know if my liking of this song is somewhat Stockholm-Syndrome-esque because it is the only song I have heard in the game, or because it is in fact a banger of a song.  I do find myself enjoying the song outside of the game too. . . so I guess there is something to it.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Gnisten har slått flamme

First Impressions: American Truck Simulator (PC)

American Truck Simulator

Systems: Windows, Android, Mac, Linux

Release Date: February 2, 2016

Publisher: SCS Software

Developer: SCS Software

I have talked about American Truck Simulator a few times over the last couple of months and all of this stems from two separate and completely different avenues.  The first was from Polygon's Overview video from Justin and Griffen McElroy six years ago, and the second was because The Squire really likes semi trucks, which we refer to as Kammthaar's because of the song/video by Ultra Vomit.  Before I started playing, these were my primary reasons for throwing (discounted) money at SCS and Steam.  Then I drove my big rig from Sacramento up to Redding and that was when I had a realization.

This is the first dedicated driving sim I have played, although I have done plenty of driving in other games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, GoldenEye 007, Bayonetta (although that was directing a missile), and the closest was probably The Crew which was a driving/racing sim with very little consequences.  Really it has been the enjoyment I got from playing The Crew that I had been chasing in an open-world driving game but I did not know that I could get that from American Truck Simulator.  If you have ever stolen a car in GTA and then carefully driven it around, obeying traffic laws and not GTAing your way through crowded intersections, ATS might be up your proverbial alley.  There is just something relaxing about driving a 56,000 lb vehicle loaded with two trailers carrying drywall through not-too-crowded interstates and then being given the option at your destination to hand the steering wheel off to someone else to park.  Sure I lose out on extra XP, but I have been playing for X.X hours doing nothing but Quick Jobs, so I am not really too concerned about the garage I supposedly bought in Sacramento for the purpose of creating my Truck Driving Empire.

There is a campaign mode in this game.  I think.  Because you pick an avatar, a preferred truck design (whatever that means), and name your trucking company (or in my case, join a pre-existing company) and acquire a crappy garage when you start and you can only exit your truck to go into first-person exploration mode when you own your own truck, which I think you can only do if you purchase one from wherever your established garage is located, heavily implies that you do not need to do quick jobs your entire life.  The way I have been playing ATS is only partially realistic in that I am not fast traveling to different cities to pick up specific jobs.  When I started in Sacramento, CA I drove up to Redding, CA.  Then the next job I selected to start in Redding, CA, and chose a job that took me north into Klamath Falls, OR.  Once in Klamath Falls, I selected a job that took me to Burns.  You get the idea.  I could just decide to take a job from Ontario, OR to Astoria, OR even if my last job ended in Bakersfield, CA, but I am enjoying selecting jobs based on the city that my last job ended in.

As for the realism in the game, I already briefly touched on the condensed maps or the omitting of entire Interstates (RIP I-205) in other articles, but let us revisit that here.  Briefly.  While a large part of each available state is here along with various highway systems, they are condensed.  You do not have access to all roads and streets as those are blocked off by large floating yellow Xs that I assume act like an indestructible brick wall if you try to drive into them.  So a large part of this game is the appeal of driving in real-world locations, otherwise, I could be driving anywhere in any game.  But driving from The Dalles to Astoria and driving across the Fremont Bridge and taking the Vaughn Street exit from I-405 to Highway 30 felt very cool because I have taken that exit many times driving out to the Pearl District or up towards Sauvie Island.  But when I drove from Sacramento, CA to Redding, CA along I-5,  was sad to see that Woodland, CA was committed completely (RIP Woodland); sacrifices were made.  There is plenty of talk online requesting that SCS include additional highways, landmarks, or vistas of cities to be included in future updates and DLC.  

The other detail that I appreciate is that the sound effect used for the turning signal seems accurate based on my real-world experience driving trucks.  And by driving trucks, I mean the U-Haul trucks that I have driven over the last 15+ years.  I think the largest truck I have driven was a 20' U-Haul (or equivalent company) 450+ miles up I-5 in California.  And now looking at California regulations, I might have not stopped at enough (any?) weigh stations along the way.  Although I do not recall there being anything said about needing to stop at weigh stations when we signed the rental paperwork.  Oops?  Although maybe they were all conveniently closed?  But I do stop at weigh stations in-game because I do not want to be fined, which because this is a video game, happens immediately any time you commit a traffic violation (not turning your headlights on, running stop signs or red lights, etc).

I wanted to talk about how ATS plays on the Steam Deck because that is how I have been playing this whole time.  The game is rated as "Playable" and that is pretty accurate.  There is some ease of functionality that does not quite translate from playing with mouse/keyboard to a controller, even with the customizability of button mappings, but most functions are intuitive.  I  have noticed though that there is no trackpad functionality even though there is a cursor that you could move around on the menu screens, thankfully I can still use the Steam Deck's touchscreen when needed  I did have an issue once where I somehow put on the parking brake and the game prompted me to release the parking brake by pressing Y, but pressing Y decoupled the trailer from the truck and I could not find in the key bindings how to release the parking brake.  So I reloaded a save.  I have only had to reload a previous save file after tipping over my truck on a rain-slick curved stretch of road because I could not figure out what I needed to do.  There was no on-screen prompt to call a tow truck or a popup letting me know that I would be billed for having ruined the truck that I was contracting out to drive along with all associated costs for damaged products (I think I was delivering dumpsters or some other top-heavy load).  So I reloaded a previous save file and chalked it up to having a bad dream premonition about my next haul.

My brain is all over the place with this article but I think it really just comes down to that I am able to find some semblance of zen, even when the game gives me a bit of a puzzler in how to navigate a multi-trailer semi-truck around tight curves while avoiding oncoming traffic only a few blocks away from my destination.  If I ever get around to playing the campaign mode, I might end up writing a Game EXP article and also figure out how to successfully back up with a trailer attached, because that is not at all intuitive.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

With Just the Beer Light to Guide Us

1000!

 

I actually had another article planned for today but yesterday I was making random graphs at work (on my lunch break of course), looking to see the number of posts we have made each month of each year since we started at Two Boys and Their Blog back in 2012 to see if any patterns emerged.  That was when I found out that as of Wednesday's MIDI Week Single article, we have posted 999 articles.  This means that today is our 1,000th article, specifically on Stage Select Start; although if you count the articles we posted over on TBaTB, then this would be our 1,541 post, which is not quite as milestone sounding.

When I figured out that our next article was going to be our 1,000th, I had two thoughts.  The first was to continue with our scheduled posts as usual and only mention it on our respective Twitter and Shminstashmam pages.  The second was to push back the Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1 posts back a week and write an article of self congratulations.  So  I decided to push several articles back, which actually worked out nicely so that we will start the Sports category in March because apparently, sports are a big thing in March if you are one to care about college sports.

If I had been paying attention to how many posts we have made on this site since we rebranded back in 2015, I probably would have had something a little more meaningful than my ramblings about arbitrary numbers that really only mean something to us here.  I mean, I did not really make much spectacle last March/April when we reached our cumulative 10-year anniversary, maybe when we reach July 2025 when we have been here for 10 years on this site I will have something a bit bigger planned.  Maybe we will have guests, interviews, retrospectives, and everything that made me anxious about fundraising week at KDVS; I still have the occasional dream that I haven't done any prep work for that hour-long fundraising pitch to people awake between 2am - 4am.

The point is, is that 1,000 posts are nothing to shake a stick at, or at least I think so.  Even if our first post here was to establish that this space was going to be used back in May 2015, then a reference post in June full of links to our previous site.

So thank you for sticking with us for these first 1,000 articles or however long you have been reading our meandering words and maybe we will hit 2,000 circa 2029* or thereabouts doing a lot of the same things that we have been doing these last 10 years.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Instrumental

*P.S.  I am actually pretty excited to see what video games will be like at the end of this decade although I am fully enjoying where we are currently at (says the person who is playing and writing about games that were developed and released 40 years ago).

MIDI Week Singles: "Credits" - Iridion 3D (GBA)

 

"Credits" from Iridion 3D on the Game Boy Advance (2001)

Composer: Manfred Linzner 

Album: No Official Release*

Publisher: Majesco Entertainment

Developer: Shin'en Multimedia

I have not played Iridion 3D but having listened to the soundtrack, this credits music is another instance of, from what I can tell, the closing music not relating to the rest of the in-game music.  The rest of the music is quite good too, but I wanted to focus on the music that plays over the closing credits for the sole reason that it reminds me of music that would play after an '80s-movie or TV show targeting 10 - 13 year olds; maybe something written and/or directed by John Hughs?  Something potentially silly just happened right after the final conflict was resolved and then this banger arrives to be like, "Yeah, we get it!  This is awesome!  Go!"  There's even a sudden key change too which in my humble opinion, elevates this song a few notches on the Catchy and Memorable as Hell chart.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Feasting on the Power

*P.S. While I could not find a soundtrack of just the in-game music, there was an arranged album released back in 2003, "Iridion 3D & II Arranged Soundtrack and Perfect Selection" from Shin'en Multimedia.

P.P.S.  What do you mean John Hughs only directed eight films!?

First Impressions: Alan Wake (PC)

Alan Wake

Systems: May 14, 2010, & February 16, 2012

Release Date: Xbox 360, Windows

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios & Remedy Entertainment

Developer: Remedy Entertainment

I have had Alan Wake sitting in my Steam queue for many-a-year.  I remember back in 2017 there was an issue with the licensing rights to some of the songs used in the game expiring and that it would end up being pulled from digital storefronts (until Microsoft renewed the rights in 2018), and I had already had that game for a while at that point.  I cannot honestly say why I had not started the game as it is right up my alley.  It is a third-person episodic psychological survival-horror game that takes place in the Pacific Northwest, specifically in the fictional town of Bright Falls, Washington.  Although before starting the game a few days ago I did not know that it was episodic and where the story takes place, I just knew that it was a survival-horror-related game that had received a lot of good reviews when it was released back in 2010 on the Xbox 360 and then on Steam in 2012.

Presently, I have am part of the way through the second of eight episodes (two of which are special DLC-type episodes), which are presented like episodes from a TV series, complete with a "Previously, in Alan Wake" recap leading into the second episode.  I have gotten the basics as far as mechanics go, which does not offer anything too different from other third-person games I have played, although the slow-motion "cinematic dodge" is pretty fun to pull off when encountering enemies.  I really enjoy the setting in its forested and appropriately wet-feeling locations which make sense in the Pacific Northwest.  There is a bit of a Twin Peaks meets Stephen King vibes which I very much appreciate.

One thing I am not a fan of is the FIND-ALL-THE-THINGS mechanic.  Your primary objective, at least in the first episode, is to find your wife Alice who was mysteriously and violently taken from a cabin (which may or may not have actually been real) and Alan is running through forested areas while trying to cross a roaring river and reach a lit up gas station off in the distance.  But, you are also prompted to find pages from an eerily written and relevant manuscript, thermoses of coffee, listen to radio broadcasts, watch TVs, knock over pyramids of cans, and [something else].  And to say nothing about the manuscript pages that you can only find if you are playing on a harder difficulty level feels like a forced way to draw out the length of the game and keep aspects of the game locked behind a skill wall.  There are just too many collectibles to find scattered throughout the maps that any real sense of urgency to locate Alice before something bad/worse happens to her takes the player out of the experience.  In one instance, I ran into a construction trailer to escape a couple of enemies because they do not do well with brightly lit areas, where I found a TV and then spent the next couple of minutes watching 2-3 minute episode of a Twilight Zone type show on the TV.  It is just a little thing that I know I can complain about.

My only other possibly premature worry is that so far, I am essentially facing the same type of enemies, shadowy figures that I have to first attack with the flashlight which then allows them to be shot.  Yes, I can use a flare to weaken them or a flare gun to do both at once, but the only variance in my approach, whenever enemies show up, is how many of them there are and if there is a larger brute who takes longer to weaken and more shots from whichever gun I am using.  I am only in the second episode so I would not surprise me if a new type of creature was introduced by the end of this or the next episode; the Hunters in Resident Evil were not introduced until after you get back from the little lab cabin going into the second half of the game.

I have high hopes for the rest of the game and coming off 100+ hours of Dark Souls II, I feel a sense of relief knowing that I am playing a game that could take anywhere from 11 to 26 hours, but it's me so it is likely that it will be upwards of 30 hours.  But yes, I am having a lot of fun with this title so far.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Saw You in the Lampglow

Game EXP: Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1 (NDS) -Atari 2600- Gambling

Today's article is a bit of an outlier compared to the rest of the articles in the series.  In the self-titled categories created by Code Mystics for Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1, they titled this category as "Gambling," but only one game apparently was a fit for this classification: Slot Machine.  I fully acknowledge that I am already biased towards video game-centered gambling although I would not be surprised if there were some kind of tells to help you win this specific Slot Machine.

Slot Machine

I am not a gambling man, let alone a video poker or video slots person.  I have been wary of video game gambling since the mid-'80s thanks to Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack on the Intellivision, but I did love that game.  A video game slot machine on the other hand seemed odd and honestly kind of confused me on some of the game modes.  Granted, my idea of a slot machine is the simple one where you are trying to get two or three of the same on three tumblers on a single line.  Slot Machine here has two primary games, one where you only play the center line or one where you play five potential lanes.  There are also two forms of payout, either payoff or the jackpot.

I will be honest with you that I am not sure based on the game manual what the difference is between the jackpot and pay-off form of winning and I need clarification about how all of the numbers work.  The numbers at the top I kind of understand are the money you are betting with, with the number on the right being your money and I guess the number on the left being... someone else's bank that you are playing the slots against?  I think you are playing until either side hits zero first and once a side reaches zero, the game is over.  The question mark at the bottom of your column next to the zero was confusing too.  It really just felt like error text, or the game not knowing how to calculate a lower than zero score, "I guess you won zero?"  I also thought that the symbols on the slot machine itself could have been clearer as to what you were trying to aim for.  It could also be that anything beyond a single-line slot machine is just too confusing for me, although even playing the center payline was not as clear as I wanted it to be.

This really just is not fun for me because you could hypothetically play forever if the game gives you good results on the slots but to what end?  A high score I guess.  Yeah, not fun.

Verdict: No.

Game 1: 0:12? (1-Player, up to 5 paylines, jackpot)

Game 2: 0:22? (1-Player, center payline, pay off)

Game 3: 10:0? (1-player, up to 5 paylines, pay off)

Game 4: 4:0? (1-player, center payline, jackpot)

Game 5: 0:1? (1-player, center payline, pay off)

Hunter S. Thompson's interior monologue really sums up my feelings about video poker and overly complicated slot machines and while this likely spilled over into my psyche while playing Slot Machine, I still submit that this was not a fun game to play, and at least there was only one game in the Gambling category.  Next week we will return with a great follow-up to Gambling, Mind Games which includes a few surprisingly fun and innovative titles.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

But Then They Cry Themselves To Sleep

MIDI Week Singles: "Seagull Stacks" - Walkabout Mini Golf (MQ2)

"Seagull Stacks" from Walkabout Mini Golf on the Meta Quest 2, Meta Rift, Windows (2020)
Composer: Chris Reyman
Album: Walkabout Mini Golf Original Soundtrack
Label: Self Published
Publisher: Mighty Coconut
Developer: Mighty Coconut

From the first moment I landed in Seagull Stacks in "Walkabout Mini Golf '' I just stood there, taking in the view and listening to this absolutely gorgeous song.  I did not start putting, all I could do was take in the scene with Chris Reyman's music pounding my memory banks because I felt like I had heard some semblance of this song somewhere before.  Even as I listen to it now, I swear that I can hear elements of "Irish Eyes are Smiling" maybe hints of Randy Edelman's score from Gettysburg or elements from Howard Shore's motifs from  scenes in Hobbiton in The Lord of the Rings.  Whatever the similarities this song has to preexisting music, which Mr. Reyman discussed a bit in an interview with King of Nerds last month, his use of the pentatonic scale helps to make "Seagull Stacks" "sound like a lot of different things."

I have actually lost track of how many times I have listened to this track while researching where I thought I have heard elements from this song. Even if it was upwards of 20+ times, I do not think that it will ever become old, because having music that works outside of the in-game experience is just as important as the mood that it creates as you are standing hundreds of meters above the ocean while putting a 1.68" ball into a 4.25" hole while seagulls glide overhead.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Everything Is Catching on Fire

Year in Review: 2022

 

Since part of the point of a Year in Review is to look back at the games that were not only played in 2022, but the games that were released in 2022, let us jump into list mode because I can promise you, this is going to be a short list.  

BRING ON THE LISTS!!

And to be clear, this first list is just a list of the games that were released in 2022 that I actually played.

• Dobo's Heroes - Switch (January 17)
• Diablo Immortal - Android (June 2)
• Fall Guys - Switch (June 21)
• Please, Touch the Artwork - Switch (September 3)
• Bayonetta 3 - Switch (October 28)
• This Way Madness Lies - Steam (November 11)

And then there were games released in 2022 that I purchased/received but have not yet played:

• Triangle Strategy - Switch (March 4)
• Evil Dead: The Game - Epic Game Store (May 13) [received this game free]
• Live A Live - Switch (July 22)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection (August 30)

And then there are the games that were released in 2022 that I have not purchased or played:

• Horizon Forbidden West - Steam (February 18)
• Elden Ring - Steam (February 24)
• Tunic - Steam/Switch (March 16)
• Citizen Sleeper - Steam (May 5)
• The Quarry - Steam (June 9)
• Neon White - Switch/Steam (June 16)
• Tiny Tina's Wonderlands - Steam (June 23)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge - Switch/Steam (July 16)
• Stray - Steam (July 19)
• Cult of the Lamb - Steam/Switch (August 11)
• Rollerdrome - Steam (August 16)
• Immortality - Steam (August 30)
• Metal: Hellsinger - Steam (September 15)
• God of War Ragnarok - PS4/5 (November 9)
• Pentiment - Steam (November 14)
• The Callisto Protocol - Steam (December 1)

If that does not tell you why we are 1) Not doing a Game of the Year section or 2) Proclaiming the Best Game of 2022, then I do not have anything else for you.

I think if I were to break down how I played games this year, it would probably look something like 35% Switch, 20% Steam Deck, 15% PC Games (Steam, GOG), 12% DS/3DS, 12% Oculus Quest 2/Meta Quest 2, 3% Wii U, 2% Android (App and browser games), and 1% PSP.  The Steam Deck has really invigorated me back into PC/Steam games and I have to keep telling myself that just because I have a Steam Deck does not mean that I need to buy more games off of Steam because my existing backlog is already quite large.  But there is Elden Ring and all of the games that were released last year that I want to play, but also a handful of games, that I am aware of, that are going to be released this year too, here's looking at you Dead Space.  And all of this is before I figure out how to upload games that I already have on GOG, and the Epic Game Store, not to mention other system emulators that the Steam Deck seems primed for.  I know it is possible as there are dozens of articles of varying difficulties discussing how to do it all.

I think the most unexpected game that I played this year was probably American Truck Simulator, which I have talked about in person but I do not think I have mentioned it a lot here, outside of brief mentions in Monthly Update articles.  It is just driving this honking-big truck and trying to navigate it to another city some hundred miles away.  It would be like if you tried to play GTA and observe all of the rules of the road.  Even after driving over 1,000 real-world miles in a car, I still am able to find a kind of zen driving a hog along Highway 84 along the Columbia River.  I only wish that there were more states available as DLC so that I could talk about how Highway 77 between Charolette and Columbia is the absolute worst.  I know I could get other DLC states (Oklahoma and Texas I think were the two new DLC states released in 2022), but knowing the locations is part of the draw, otherwise, it would be like I was driving in any other fictional location.  I should really just write a First Impressions article already; maybe the 23rd?

This year I also read a lot of Dungeons & Dragons books, starting back with The Legend of Drizzt series, and have branched out into the original Faerun novels Moonshae trilogy, the Starlight and Shadows trilogy, and The Sage of Shadowdale (aka Elminster).  Granted I haven't read everything in either of those series yet (currently on Book VIII in the Drizzt series, Book III in Moonshae, Book II in Starlight, and Book IV in Elminster).  And then on top of that, there are the 1-5E modules that have built upon the lore in the early novels that I have somewhat resigned to myself that I may never actually play.  I have also thought about finding ways to acquire the 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition campaign settings for even more information because in Elminster in Hell, which takes place in 1372 DR, 15 years (and 214 novels and short stories) between that and where I last left off with Drizzt in Starless Night in 1358 DR.  No, I am not going to be reading all of those books because that is a lot of books and I am pretty sure that I do not nearly enough time.

Sadly, we did not do much in the way of board games this year.  I did pick up the Ravenloft board game back in March and have played that a handful of times (lost every game, but it was still a lot of fun), but it is still a lot of time management with what time I do have to sit and play anything.  My days being as full as they are, especially weekdays, that unless I can lay in bed and play it, there is less of a chance that I will play said thing, which is probably why close to 85% of the video games I play are all handheld systems.

In health-related news, both Conklederp and I contracted some kind of non-COVID-related cold back in July; we both tested negative for multiple consecutive days, so we've managed to dodge that bullet yet again.  I also had cold-like symptoms brought on by undiagnosed asthma for a couple of months afterward until I decided to see a Dr. and now I have a couple of inhalers, but now at least I don't have a wheeziness when taking deep breaths or shortness of breaths from doing simple things like bouldering.  But this was also the year of Mpox and a resurgence of RSV cases in young babies (typically less than a year old). Again, thankfully The Squire is not in the range of ages for us to be overly concerned, still concerned mind you, just fortunate that it is likely that we would not need to rush to the ER.

I know that I could probably be more vocal about other social injustices such as the US Supreme Court's rolling back of women's healthcare rights and the continued attacks on People of Color by some angry manchild with an assault rifle.  Or having to worry about a foreign country claiming that my country doesn't actually exist and needs to be saved from a make-believe threat with bombardments from missiles, bombs, and frustrated soldiers' libidos.  And again, I come from a position of privilege where these are not things that I am assaulted with on a daily basis.  I wake up, I help take care of The Squire, I go to work, and I come home, there is more to it than just that, but you get the idea.

Let us end this Year in Review though on a similar note on how we came in, with two bits of generated data from both Nintendo and Steam about my tastes in video game genres:

This pretty much makes sense as I did play a lot of Final Fantasy X, Fortnite (only in the first quarter of this year), Skyward Sword, Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning, and Bayonetta 3.

Steam's analysis surprised me a bit.  I did spend a lot of time playing Dark Souls II in the end of this year (although some of that was offline so that apparently was not factored into any of this data), but I also spent 83.5 hours playing Borderlands 2 and 19.9 hours playing F.E.A.R., although I guess Borderlands counts as Loot here?  I know that This Way Madness Lies was the primary JRPG I played, although I did start up Cthulhu Saves the World back in January 2022 and played <1% of my total time playing through Steam, but I am surprised that Steam gives that my largest point on the spider graph.

To say nothing about my breakdown for games that I played on the 3DS and the Meta Quest 2.  I am actually pretty surprised that Meta did not come out with a personalized Year in Gaming analysis like Nintendo or Steam (as I am sure that Microsoft and Sony did the same with their respective consoles).  Maybe next year for Meta (if the company has not imploded by then?)

I was also very happy to kick off my multi-month series by looking at all 51 games packaged in Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1, released on the Nintendo DS back in 2010; not to be confused with Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection.  This was a fun albeit at times stressful series to put together, although I am not against doing something similar for the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection and would love to do it for Intellivision Lives! collection on the DS, but that game might be more difficult to track down, and significantly more expensive than I am willing to pay.

Looking ahead at 2023, I think I already know that a lot of my Steam Deck time will be taken up by Alan Wake and the standalone American Nightmare, followed by jumping back into Dark Souls III (after taking a Dark Souls break), then getting into Elden Ring.  But then Dead Space comes out in a few weeks and I am eagerly waiting to see how well that runs on the Steam Deck; oh, and The Callisto Protocol which has had a rocky first month that I am sure will be ironed out in time for Steam's Summer Sale.  And I am also thinking about buying/starting The Last of Us Pt 1 which will see a release outside of the PlayStation in March (likely to coincide with the HBO series), but I think I might only consider it if it is guaranteed that Pt. 2 will also be released.  On the Switch, I plan on finishing Bayonetta 3, then either getting back into Kingdoms of Amalur or taking a little break for action-oriented games and starting Live A Live, or Bravely Default II.  But then there are the 3DS and Wii U eShop closures happening in March and I am still waiting to see if any of the games I have on my respective wishlist go on sale so I do not end up spending upwards of $500.00 by paying full price for digital games that have been out for 10+ years.

It really just boils down to needing more time to play video games, but also more time to spend with Conklederp and The Squire.  I think it is really that work just gets in the way.  There is a solution: less work and more time to spend doing everything else without having to worry about finances.

Maybe I should buy a Lotto ticket. . .

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
To the Best Time of Your Life