The art of opening packages

 Say, a package just arrived? And you need open it in order to get it´s videogamey contentes? Been there, done that.

 Safety comes first, so you are gonna need gloves to handle the... tools.

 Make your pick, now... strap them on.

 This next part is a toughie... You will have to pick a tool to get the job done.

 You are going to need a tool that is made for opening this kind of package...

 If it´s too long it might damage the goods.

...nor too short.

 Eventually, you should find the tool that fits the task.

 Now it´s my favorite part, stabby time!

 After drawing first blood, slide gracefully the other end. Congratulations, you just made the cut!

 Now, grab both sides of the openings and pull, it´s time loot the insides....

 Congratulations! You just opened your first package! Now go into the wild and pillage your nearby stores, using the technique you just learned, you should have no trouble opening any kind of package that separates you from what´s rightfully yours. And remember, winners don´t do drugs, not during daytime anyways.

Megaman StarForce Spectacular

 So, how much do I like the Star Force series?

 Enough to own all versions and the Artbook, I´d say a lot. Truth be told, while replaying them I found out that I don´t like the series as much as I used to, but they were still enjoyable, except StarForce 2, but I´ll get to it in a jiffy. All games follow the same basic formula, you explore the town as Geo Stelar, and accept quests from townfolk, but to do the fighting, Geo turns into Megaman. While playing as Megaman, you are subject to random encounters. While Fighting, you are placed in a 3x5 Grid. Megaman can only move to the sides, while enemies get to move through rows too. Before each battle, you get to pick among 6 cards, randomly selected from your 30(Up to 5 mega and 1 giga card per deck) card deck. You have a choice of six cards, but you can only choose: Same cards, cards of the same Column or cards of the same row. While fighting, a gauge starts filling, once it´s filled, you can pick new cards. After each fight you either get money or a new card.
 Battles use a Rock-Paper-Scissors kind of system. Fire cards deal double damage on Wood enemies or enemies standing over Wood panels. Wood deals double damage to Electric enemies or enemies over electric panels. Electric cards deal double damage to water enemies and enemies that are frozen. And Water deals double damage to fire enemies. There are also non-elemental cards. Megaman, usually, is non-elemental, but if he uses one of the special forms, he gains an elemental affinity. Get hit with your weakness, and you revert to Normal Megaman.
 Megaman can only increase his HP by collecting HP ups hidden throught the world, or by equipping abilities(StarForce 2 and 3 only). Another trend, is that there are alwasy 150 standard cards and 5 giga cards. Mega cards vary from game to game(30 in SF1, 42 in SF2 and 45 in SF3). Then there are the special forms, each version of each game has a different form for Geo to use in battle, if he fulfills a certain condition. A neat extra, all games have "achievements" of sorts(Get all Standard cards, beat all V2 bosses, etc) and they grant you medals on the Push Start screen.
 Sadly, all three games suffer from the same flaws:
A) Most of the cards from each game carry over to the next. There are very few new cards introduced per game, and most of the time, they act as some of the older cards.
B) Bosses must be refought many times. Up to four times in SF 2, more if you plan to get every card on the game.
C) Getting cards is a grindfest. SF1 and SF3 have the Card Finder, which make sure that after every battle, you will get a card, but getting the card you want can take a while, which means loads and loads of battles. And getting the stronger cards of the bosses means getting an S rank on them, not an easy task.
 With all that out of the way, onwards to...

 Megaman StarForce: Dragon/Leo/Pegasus.

Favorite Transformation: 

Leo!

 I mean, Red and Orange? Fire related? Plus he looks badass? Yeah, this is my fave.

Favorite Standard Card: Break Sabre, a diagonal slash that deals 200 dmg. Awesome.

Favorite Mega Card: Cancer Bubble, leaves the enemies in a bubble, opening them up for a follow up. Use an Electric card, and it deals double damage. Neat!

Favorite Giga Card: Pegasus Magic, not as strong as Leo Kingdom, but leaves the enemy frozen, allowing a follow up. Like an Electric card for double damage.

Favorite Charged Shot: Pegasus. Leo is too slow, Dragon is unimpressive. Pegasus freezes!

Favorite StarForce Big Bang: Atomic Blazer. Yes, Magician´s freeze freezes, but Atomic Blazer looks much more awesome.

With that out of the way... Megaman StarForce begins with a depressed Geo. He´s been skipping classes for a long time now, and neglects friends, due to fear of being hurt, since his dad went into space some years ago and he neve came back. Eventually, Geo meets the alien Omega-Xis, Mega for short, who grants him the power to turn into MegaMan. Due to many circumstances, he befriends the trio of Luna Platz, Bud Bison and Zack, and he starts going back into school. This is just a small introduction, the story is actually pretty solid and engaging, specially for a portable kid´s game.

 The game takes place in the future, so there are tons of technological advancements and comodities. For starters, when Geo turns into Megaman, he becomes and EM-entity, unable to directly interact with the real world. He can, however, jack into various devices, and he will need to, in order to clear the viruses. While Geo himself cannot walk on the EM-Roads, he can put on his visualizer  in order to see them and talk with nearby EM entities. To turn into Megaman, Geo has to stand over  over special zones, and he goes directly into the EM-wave roads above town. Worth mentioning, since the next games will change this quite a bit. Interestingly, each of the intitial dungeons have some sort of gimmick that requires the player to use the Stylus. They are not bad, but they are just a gimmick.

 The game is a grindfest, though. Getting cards means hours of grinding. Y´see, each enemy holds a different card, and after each random encounter, you either get ONE card from ONE of the enemies or money. Don´t get the card you want? You have to earch for the same enemy again. And you will need to get all cards in order to access the post-game. Luckily you can find the Card Finder, that makes sure that you will get a card, or the Zenny Finder, which makes it so that you can only get money from random encounters. Bosses are a whole different can of worms. First of all, refighting bosses is a bit of a chore, as they are the rarest random encounters, and getting to them doesn´t mean you will get the card you want. There are three versions of each boss card, and they depend on the rank you get. 1-7 is the vanilla card, 8-10 is the V2 card and 10(rarely) or S gets you the V3 card. Get ready to grind a lot.

  In order to use the transformations, Geo has to get the StarForce card and pick it. While you can only use the version of your form, if you link up with players with the other versions, you can use their transformations. You could do this via Wi-Fi, but I doubt the community is still alive. This also means that I´m never deleting my Pegasus file, since I have all the transformations avaiable. Another change between versions are the Giga Cards and the last Boss. Pegasus players be warned, Pegasus Magic is the hardest of all three AMians.

 The 3D, used in battles, looks very nice, although the rest of the game is made in 2D. While I felt the sprites looked pretty nice(Megaman has a different sprite for facing left and for facing right!), the next two games make it look quite crappy. The game lasts a solid 20 hours, and there are loads and loads of quests.... which can get a bit annoying, since you need to:

1st) Pulse into the Wave Roads, get above the NPC, read his transer(A device everyone carries around, like a cellphone)

2nd) Pulse out, talk to them as Geo.

3rd) Do the quest. You can´t accept any other quest until you finish the last one you accepted.

It gets a bit tedious having to traverse the wave roads just to read their transer first.

 StarForce 1 is a 7 out of 10.

 Megaman Starforce 2 Zerker X Ninja/Zerker X Saurian.

Favorite Form: 

Zerker Saurian!

 Zerker Saurian is the result of a Zerker activating a Saurian transformation. He looks awesome

Favorite Standard Card: Elec Slash, deals 150 damage and paralyzes.

Favorite Mega Card: Cancer Bubble
Favorite Giga Card: Flying Impact, but I usually turn a blank card into Pegasus Magic, so...

Favorite Charge Shot: Thunder Slash
Favorite StarForce Big Bang: Elemental Blade.

 First of all, the whole game has been redrawn. All the 2D sprites now look way more colorful, and way prettier. From the town to the characters. While the 3D models look the same, the grid looks much tidier. Combat itself feels a bit tighter too.

 Sadly... the story isn´t as engaging. While the introduction of Solo/Rogue is a bit neat, the whole ancient civilization stuff isn´t too interesting. Megaman lost the ability to use the powers of the three administrators(Leo, Pegasus and Dragon), so now he gains access to the ancient tribes. Fire Saurian, Electric Zerker and Wood Ninja. Unlike the previous game, if you are playing the Saurian version, you cannot turn into a Zerker or a Ninja... however, if you befriend Zerker or Ninja players, you can "Double Tribe" into a combination. Combinations have the strengths of both tribes, while only having the weakness of the tribe that was used last. If you have friends of all tribes, you can Triple Tribe into the over powered(and ridiculous looking) Tribe King. While in Tribe King  form, all cards deal double damage. So, for example, if you use Pegasus Magic, instead of dealing 450 damage, it would now deal 900. And it freezes the enemy, which grants you a free hit, overpowered alright.

 The out-of combat sections also were improved upong. This time around, Megaman walks on the ground, just like Geo, however, only Megaman can walk over the EM roads that extend from the ground. It looks much neater. Another neat, and pointless, addition, is that when using the visualizer, you can see Omega-Xis tagging along! Sadly, taking quests is still annoying. Since EM roads are no longer above the ground, getting to the NPCs to read their Hunters(The Transers got upgraded!) is much easier.

 The best new addition, by far, is a customizable Megaman. By registering real-life players or some NPCs you gain ability points, which can be used to customize Megaman. Maybe turn his Charged Shot into an X shaped attack? How about a forcefield at the start of the battle? Maybe take two Giga cards instead of 1? It´s pretty neat. Combat, while it feels tighter, has two new additions, first, you may randomly get to fight Giant Viruses. When beaten, this enemies leave behind "Star Cards". This cards use special slots in your deck(Meaning that they are not part of the 30 cards that make up your deck) and add extra damage to the non-star versions of the card. Hardly game changing. The other addition are Hertzes. During random encounters, you may find a Hertz. Beat the enemies without the Hertz getting damage, and he will give you an ability to customize Megaman with.

 The game has a few issues though. The bosses are incredibly hard, even their normal versions. It was probably done in order to balance the incredibly over powered Tribe King, but since most players won´t get to use that form unless they befriend all three tribes or cheat, it becomes a bit taxing, specially S-ranking their hardest version just to get all the Mega Cards. There´s also a pretty big reason as to why I hate this game... The Skywave. You will have to use the Skywave to reach some places, many times( And many more if you plan to do all the sidequests). The Skywave can only be accessed by Megaman, which means Random Encounters. It´s also a pretty labyrinthic place, where it´s easy to get lost or wound up in places you didn´t want to reach. This area alone makes me despise this game with passion. It´s a vexing and annoying area that must be visited many, many times. Sure, you can open up some short cuts later on, but it´s still easy to get lost. 

 While it looks better and feels tighter than part 1, the story is not as interesting, and the Skywave is way too annoying, making this game a drag to play.

 StarForce 2 is a 4 out of 10.

 Megaman StarForce 3: Black Ace/Red Joker

Favorite Form: Red Joker/Rogue Noise

 For standard forms, I prefer Rogue Noise. Not only does Black Megaman look badass, you get enhanced Sword Cards and a regenerating barrier. Rogue Noise is amazing. But, between both Finalized Forms, Red Joker looks so awesome. Black Ace may be cooler, but Red Joker... I MEAN JUST LOOK AT IT

Favorite Standard Card: SwordFighter deals 50 but slashes 5 times. It looks awesome

Favorite Mega Card: Cancer Bubble/ Apollo Flame
Favorite Giga Card: Dread Laser.... or Pegasus Magic

Favorite Charge Shot: Rogue Shot
Favorite StarForce Big Bang: Red Gaia Eraser.

 The story, this time around, has Geo fighting off the terrorist group Dealer, led by King. It sounds simple, but it deals with some darker elements, including the death of two characters, one being one of the main characters(Both of them get better though, one is resurrected as a matter of fact). While it is still a kid´s game at heart, the new darker themes are much more interesting. Heck, you can even get some one on one time between Geo and Sonia or Geo and Luna depending on a certain choice(I picked Luna both times).

 Gameplay wise... there are loads of new features, the best one, you can turn into Megaman any time you want, no longer have you got to find those annoying portholes, about time! Getting Quests is also made simpler, you just talk to the NPCs as Geo, and if they have a Quest icon on the touchscreen, you touch it and BAM! You just accepted a quest. The customizable Megaman from SF 2 returns, albeit slightly deeper. Now, Megaman has access to 11 different forms(You gain them after defeating giant viruses, you can choose to change or keep the form you are using). Each form has it´s own abilities, use them a lot and you unlock those abilities for you to customize Megaman.

 Battles now have a "Noise" gauge. You fill it up by using non-elemental cards. Whenever you defeat an enemy, if you deal more damage than needed, that overflow goes towards the Noise gauge, for example, kill an enemy with 30 HP left with a 50 damage card, and you increase the gauge by 20. During boss battles, half the damage you deal goes towards the Noise gauge. When the Noise Gauge reaches 50, Megaman "Colors out" and his armor takes the color of whichever noise he is affected with, and gains it´s charge shot and Big Bang attack. If you register real-life people, you can mix noise forms. Now, if you go beyond 100 in the noise gauge, it gets interesting. For starters, the gauge will drop steadily until it gets to 99. While above 100 noise, you can hurt enemies as they blink. If you reach 200 or beyond, you can access the Meteor Server, which lets you use Black Ace or Red Joker forms. Besides being stupidly powerful, you have access to the strongest cards in the game while in this form, however, the Noise Gauge drops back to 0.

 It doesn´t end there, if you finish a battle with over 100 noise, you get Illegal data instead of the normal cards. Illegal data means cards from older gamess, including the overpowered Pegasus Magic! What card you get is random, but S-Ranking the bosses with over 100 noise give out 3 different rewards. Picking cards also got reworked, now cards have different sizes and positions. If a card is above another one, the latter card takes special properties. You can either use it as a support card(Different elements have different support uses) or pick that one single card and use it normally. It adds a bit of randomness and strategy at the same time, which makes fighting a tad more fun.

 This game has many more cards and forms than the previous games. The story is as tight as the first entry, and the tone is a bit darker and more serious. Another neat thing, in this game you can see just how much the cast has grown. Geo is no longer the depressed character he used to be, he is much more confident and strong willed than before. And it finally provides closure to the series and Geo. This is the best Megaman StarForce game, but it´s probably a good idea to play StarForce 1 to get the most of it.

 StarForce 3 is an 8 out of 10.

 And thus concludes Megaman StarForce Spectacular. I´m not doing this again. Ever. Except maybe for Onimusha(Oh Capcom, why do you make the games I love the most, yet try to rip everyone off, why?!)

My beef with Xenosaga

 So it´s little past the wee hours of the morning(9:30 AM give or take) and I can´t sleep... Seeing how I have a blog, why not tire myself out from writing? And what´s more tiresome than Xenosaga? Nothing.
 Why do I hate it so much? Well... let´s start with the characters:

Shion Uzuki: In Xenosaga 1 she dresses just like Elly from Xenogears, albeit with different colors. She was a breath of fresh air, she was the main heroine, and she didn´t need to show any skin. She was nerdy, cute and a bit of a go getter, but then...

 Yup, in Xenosaga 2 she ditches the glasses, and now shows more skin, including the navel. Worst part? She is not even the main heroine, the obnoxious Jr. takes her place. Awesome. But Monolith wasn´t done, oh no, they just had to strip her further...

 This is ridiculuos. The outfit doesn´t even make any sense. When I found out that XS3´s designer is a known hentai artist, I wasn´t surprised at all. Still, appearance is the least of her problems. The most annoying part of her persona, is how Monolith played her relationship with KOS-MOS adding subtle lesbic undertones. Sex sells, but...

 I´m fine with lesbians. I love them. But this is exploitation in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Besides that, it´s quite dumb how she keeps treating KOS-MOS like a person, she is not, she is not even a realian, she doesn´t feel. "But she created it", yes, Shion did FINISH her after KOS-MOS killed Shion´s lover. Instead of despising the machine, Shion now loves her. Makes sense. Still, by XS3 she goes completely mental on how no one cares about her but spoiler, which is hilarious, since the whole game the party has been caring about her. Oh, and she finds out that her lover has been using her since even before the game started, so what does she do? Turn to his side. She is actually the penultimate boss of the game, alongside her lover. And even funnier? The big bad comments on her strong will. Yeah, such a strong will that she switched sides, to the boyfriend that used her, and it took her friends getting beat up for her to change her mind again. Strong will my ass. Shion, as a character, only gets worse with each installment.

 Rubedo(Jr.): The other lead, Jr is my most hated character EVER. EVER. I tend to overreact, but this time, I don´t, He is annoying. His voice is annoying. His personality is annoying. And he is the lead of Xenosaga 2. Xenosaga 2 is the worst game in the series for various reasons, and now you expect us to endure him as the focus? Please kill me. He is supposed to be quite older, but his body doesn´t grow up. Right... he still acts like a kid during all three games. Maybe it´s supposed to be funny, how he keeps saying he is not a kid, but acts like one, but it always came off as annoying. By Xenosaga 3 he is the character with the most lines, probably even more than Shion, and he is the de-facto leader of the group. Imamgine my vexation when, in his first appearance on XS3, he bosses everyone around... and they listen to him and follow him. Ziggy, 100 years old, way more mature than this ****, taking orders from him. Right.
 To add insult to the injury, his physical design is based on Billy, from Xenogears, but he takes Bart´s role. Instead of "Young master", everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, calls him "Little Master". Vexing, oh, so, vexing. However, unlike Bart, Jr. is not charming. Whenever Bart came off as impulsive and messed up, it was kind of endearing. When Jr. acts impulsively, it´s just annoying.

 chaos: chaos is, probably, the character I hate the least. His fighting style is partially inspired on Fei´s hand to hand combat, sharing a few similar moves. He is the most mysterious character of the cast. By mysterious it means that you don´t find anything about him ´till Xenosaga 3. Sure, you do know he has powers. You do know that he knows the big bad. You do know that he can see Nephilim, but you find nothing about him until Xenosaga 3. Yeah, there´s not much I can say about him, he is the least offensive character of the bunch.

 KOS-MOS: The mascot of the series. Someone at Monolith must like her a lot, since she keeps popping up in every crossover game they can put her in. For starters, her design makes no sense. She is supposed to be this one of a kind weapon, so she dresses in the least combat-friendly attires possible. Miniskirts? Sure. High heels? Why not. And in order to use her most powerful weapon? She must show even more cleaveage. Why? Why not, let´s have boobs. It makes no sense. KOS-MOS makes no sense. KOS-MOS was made with fanservice as the focus, there really isn´t much more to her than that. Oh yeah, and she houses some sort of soul of someone inside of her. This soul completely skips Xenosaga 2, but returns for part 3, where she eventually takes over KOS-MOS´s body. The worst part? Normal KOS-MOS has no personality at all. She is a robot. she is so uninteresting as a character, so she makes up with fanservice.

 Ziggurat 8(Ziggy): Ziggy is by far the most interesting character in the game. He used to be a soldier, ´till his family was murdered, and he commited suicide. He was so awesome, that he was revived as a Cyborg. Now he is a mercenary, doing missions, until eventually he can get his whole body to be robotic, as to forget his memories. He also develops a father-daughter relationship with MOMO which is quite cute. Except that he, alongside MOMO, gets shifted to the side during most of XS 3. Actually, you could argue that he loses his role to Jin during XS2. In XS1 he is the silent, mature guy, who advices the rest. Since XS 2 introduces Jin, he simply becomes the stoic, silent guy. He is probably the character with the least lines in XS 3, second only to MOMO.

 MOMO: During Xenosaga 1, she sucks. She´s used only for gratuitious panty shots. Because I want to be flashed panty shots of a little girl. By Xenosaga 2 they fixed her up, gave her a new, skirtless, wardrobe, and stopped exploiting camera angles. She actually has a couple of really badass moments in XS 2, one of the few, very, very few highlights of the game. Sadly, she is completely relegated to "look out!" line in XS 3. She has the least lines, and the least scenes. Heck, her lone, big scene serves only to develop a side character. Yeah, screw the few interesting characters you´ve got and focus on the most annoying ones. Well played Monolith, well played.

 Jin Uzuki: He looks just like Citan Uzuki from Xenogears, both in look, personality and fighting style. He is introduced in part 2 and takes Ziggy´s place as the mature, advicey guy of the party. He also gets some of the most amazing sword duels I´ve ever, ever seen. There´s really not much else to say about him.

 So yeah, I hate the main cast. I hate them so much, that the highlights of XS 3, for me, was seeing references to Xenogears. Oh! a character that looks just like Fei Fong Wong(epic name) from Xenogears! And he is named Abel!(Fei was one of Abel´s reincarnations, bonus points for details). Nephilim looks just like Elly. So seeing Abel and Nephilim holding hands at the end, just like Fei and Elly, the eternal lovers, was quite heartwarming. Or how they managed to add most of the Gears from Xenogears as bosses in Xenosaga 3, that was awesome.
 But then again, even the supporting cast sucks. I don´t remember too much of part 1 and 2, and I refuse to play them, but every new character introduced in part 3 is of the "Asshole with a soft side" variety. The first time they did it, it worked. It was cute. The second one was stretching it, an the third time was just annoying. All the characters were assholes, not a single, likeable one. Then there´s the fact that many of the character´s motivations made no sense. I thought Febronia and Virgil leaving together, with Febronia convincing him, was quite cute, but it didn´t make any sense. So Virgil chose to become a testament because he KNEW that he´d go back in time? And he was... rejecting himself? So that´s w... it made no sense. It really didn´t. Most of Xenosaga 3 didn´t make any sense anyways.
 Another reason why I hate the characters? After I started playing XS 3, after 4 years since finishing part 2, it was kind of nostalgic seeing all these characters again.... until I noticed that none of them had grown much. It´s been three games and almost no character developement. At least XS 3 gave closure to EVERYONE, even the villains, but it was too little, too late.
 One thing I love about Xenogears is how each character has his own mech, and it suits him. Xenosaga 1 gave you 3 or 4 generic mechs. They looked so boring, so lifeless... By XS 2, they gave you 4 unique mechs, which was nice, they looked good. Not as good as Xenogears´s, but it was a step in the right direction. In XS 3, each of those mechs has it´s default pilots, and the mechs had their weaponry match the pilot... which means that Ashur, the mech chaos piloted since before the games even began, was outfitted to match Jr´s style. Simply awesome؟(That´s the sarcasm punctation symbol).
 Still, my biggest dissapointment actually came from the combat itself. I loved... love, Xenogears combat. As a Fighting game lover, I love that by imputing certain button combinations you get special attacks. By the time I heard of Xenosaga, I expected the same system or an evolution. We got a watered down version. In Xenogears, you had up to 7 "points", which could be spent by mixing Triangle(Worth 1 point), Square(2 points) and X(3 points). There were loads of animations per characters, and loads of specials. Xenosaga´s battle system is more akin the mech combat in Xenogears, except only with Square and triangle. And you could only mix up to two buttons in order to use special attacks, if I remember correctly.
 Seems I wasn´t the only one who disliked the new combat system, so by Xenosaga 2 they... kept everything I didn´t like from 1, and made it worse. Now there are Float and Grounded status effects, which can only be applied by certain characters, and are vital to survive the random encounters. Also, there are no shops, so instead of equipping items with affinities, each character has a different affinity to it´s attacks. Even better, not everyone can attack "floating enemies". So you have to use a party taking into account all those things. Uneededly complicated, and uneededly annoying. I basically had to use Jr against my will. because I needed his guns to attack airborne enemies. The combat system was so flawed, that Random encounters could and would be harder than boss encounters. True story.
 By Xenosaga 3, they removed combinations, you only get a normal Attack. It´s more streamlined than before, but compared to 2, it´s faster, simpler, and way more engaging. I find it funny that the back of the box actually uses a bullet point to mention "The return of shops and equipment". You know your game was bad, when you have to mention the return of shops and equipment as a noteworthy feature.

 I dislike Xenosaga. Xenosaga 2 is everything that is wrong with JRPGS. Convoluted and nonsensical plot, impossibly complicated combat system and uneeded fanservice. To be fair, lots of JRPGs make no sense when you examine them hard enough, but the key to a good story, is to make it engaging. If you are invested in it, you will offer it your suspension of disbelief. Xenosaga´s story is not a good story. It´s too pretentious, and a lot of times it feels like it pulls stuff out of it´s ass.
 Look at Xenogears, supposedly, it was meant to be a 4 disc game. But funding and time run out, so it had to be shipped in 2 discs. The 2nd disc is so obviously rushed, but it still manages to make sense. It manages to sell you it´s world, it´s story. Xenosaga was planned as a 6 part game from the start, and they couldn´t manage to make a cohesive, entertaining story even though they had 2 more games than Xenogears.
 The moral of the story is: Thank god Xenosaga was cancelled after part 3. Part 5 was to be a reimagining of Xenogears. Thank god they didn´t get to rape one of my favorite games ever.

Archview #22: Tetris DS

 Better late than never.

 So I´m not really a Tetris fan. I could play Tetris if my life depended on it, but I´m not keen on it. But this version of Tetris is different from all the other Tetris games out there, so I just had to get it. So I got it.
 For starters, there are loads of modes: Standard, which can be played in Endless Marathon, Line Clear(Based on points) or VS the CPU. Then there´s "Catch", where you play as a dot, and tetrominoes fall, so you must catch them, and you can rotate the structure that you are creating as you try to fit more pieces. Every time you form a 4x4 block, it detonates, granting you points. This mode is timed, and every time you fail to add a Tetrominoe to your structure, you lose time, and so does every time your structure hits a falling Metroid(More on this later). In Mission mode, which can be played in Marathon or Time Trial, you are to play Tetris while you are tasked with completing certain tasks, be it making chains, clearing likes, or having a limited Tetrominoe variety.

 There´s Puzzle mode next, in which you must place the correct pieces in the right place in order to fulfill the requirements, there are 200 different puzzles. Touch Puzzle is more of a novelty, it´s kinda like puzzle mode, but using the Stylus to move around the pieces. This mode has 50 different puzzles or you can play Tower mode, in which you must make the balloons at the very top of the tower hit the ground. The last mode is Push, the least interesting one in my opinion, where you place Tetrominoes against the ones of your oponent, and you must drive him down... It´s a bit hard to explain, but it´s not too fun.
 The presentation is simply excellent. Each mode is themed around a different Nintendo character, Mario, Link, Samus, Donkey Kong and the guy from Balloon Balloon! Each mode has remixed music from the character´s franchise, and both screens are themed around him. If you grew up with Nintendo, or are a fan of, it´s quite charming.

 If you don´t like Tetris, this version won´t make you change your mind. But if you have at least a passing interest in it, this game is worth a try. There are loads of modes, loads of things to do, and the overall look is fantastic(Unless you hate Nintendo, in which case it proves that you lack a soul).

 8 out of 10.

"First" Archimpressions: Xenogears

 So far, it´s as good, if not better, than I remembered it.

 I just got captured by Aveh, and I´ve got to say... Holy smokes, this game was so awesome. I got a bit scared when Fei and Elly started arguing, since some of the dialogue was... ehh, but...it was not THAT bad. Not Xenosaga bad. Speaking of dialogue, holy smokes, the NPCs have a lot of flavor to their sentences, for example,  little kids have "cutish" speak patterns. It´s really interesting.

 And gameplay? Oh. My. God. It´s not as... free as, say Legend of Legaia, but it´s not worse, it simply is different. The animations are so fluid, and how they go from move to move... I miss sprite art of this quality. And the 3D graphics? The mechs look amazing, hard to believe it´s a PS1 game! It also has anime cutscenes, and they remind me of 80´s and early 90´s anime, they use light colors, characters have loooooong frames, there´s cryptic sounds.... and they are of the highest quality, so many frames.... it looks better than most anime now a days!(These scenes are kinda short, but all together, they amount to 20 min of anime).

 The best part? I´ve no real complaints or gripes. If I were to nitpick, I´d say that sometimes conversations get a bit too long. Even NPCs have a lot to say. But, it´s an RPG, I don´t mind.

 I LOVE THIS GAME.

Archview #21: Xenogears 3: Also sprach Zarathustra.

 It´s not as bad as Xenosaga 2.

 Xenosaga 3 is a very complex game, and it assumes you´ve played XS 1 and 2. Sure, there are multiple text-based memory refreshers, but they don´t really get the job done. You can´t just jump in 3 and expect to understand anything. Heck, even if you played 1 and 2, you won´t understand everything, that´s the kind of JRPG it is, the kind the flexes logic or overexplains it to the point of sensesless to be able to tell it´s story, just don´t overthink it and you´ll be fine. While I never liked most of the characters, everyone but one get closure in this game(The other one didn´t really have open issues), and they also get at least a couple of scenes to themselves, so that´s good.
 What´s no so good, is just how linear this game is, specially in the beginning. The further you get into the game, the more chances you´ll get to revisit dungeons(But only the dungeons, cities are gone forever). There´s also loads, among loads of cutscenes, but if you have been playing the past entries, it should come as no surprise, luckily, all of them can be skipped, assuming you grow tired of them or are in a rush. It should be said that most cutscenes look really good, however, the in-game dialogue is a bit jarring, as there is no mouth movement when they talk, but they do move the rest of their bodies. Another oddity, the full cast never, never appears on the in-game cutscenes... maybe it was too much for the engine? you can notice slowdown every now and then...

 They didn´t mess up the combat either! After the trainwreck that was XS 2, they simplified combat, a lot. Deathblows are gone(Boo! This was the thing that I loved the most about Xenogears), so are the Air and Grounded statuses(Thank god). Since shops are back, and so is equipement, character autoattacks are no longer associated to a type, so you can actually choose your party this time around. Characters have three offensive options: Attack, a simple attack, Ether, Magic spells that consume EP and Tech, mostly physical special attacks that consume EP. Why Ether and Tech don´t share a menu? Who knows?, Xenosaga was pretentious since episode 1.
 So, combat, this time around, enemies and allies have a red bar under their health bar, if you fill it up you "break" said enemy/character, which makes them lose two turns. There´s also a Boost meter(Both for you and the enemy), charged by attacking, that allows you to use the Special Attacks or get extra turns. Finish an enemy or a boss with a special attack and you get extra experience points, Skill points and Money. It´s a fun, simple and engaging system, although you´ll never use Boost for extra turns, you are better of storing it for Special Attacks. Combat is really challenging, and for the right reasons(Unlike XS 2). You are encouraged to use EP while fighting random encounters(Which are not really random, since you can see them while exploring), since there are Savepoints before most bosses, and they restore your HP and EP for free.

 E.S. combat is back, and it´s simpler, and flashier, than on-foot combat. E.Ses can be outfitted with different kind of weapons, and each one has a different fuel cost. On your turn you can chain as much attacks as your fuel allows it(Which gets restored every turn, so no worries). There´s no magic, but you can use some items. Instead of boost, you get the Anima gauge, which allows a special attack and makes attacks cost less fuel.
 The graphics in the game are really good, characters have a lot of detail, and the models look quite good. The dungeons are very inspired, exploring them is very entertaining. The cutscenes also look very good. Music was great, though after hearing it a lot(Areas are large) you´ll start to get tired of it. I did. The voice acting is a mixed bag, some are really good, some are bad, however, to add salt to the injury, the dialogue is really bad.

 Unlike past Xenoagas, there´s not a lot of extra content. There´s two optional bosses, and a couple of simple sidequests, but compared to the amount of post-game content from the other 2, it´s a bit disappointing. Guess they though Hakuox, a puzzly mini-game was enough to compensate, heck, they throw that game into your face at every chance they get(You actually have to play it once to further the story at one point!), but I didn´t find it engaging. Unlike XS 2, puzzles are few in number and rather easy, although I didn´t really mind it, I don´t play RPGs for the puzzles.
 All in all, it was not a bad game. It starts off quite weak, but as it advances, it gets better. Most of the 2nd disc is quite good, you just have to endure the first one. And I´m just talking about the story, the gameplay is engaging, even exploring feels good.
 7 out of 10.

Last Xenogasa 3 rant

 Ever since I put on the 2nd disc, the game got so, so much better. For starters, everything that was playable was fun, I had no gripes with the gameplay whatsover. What did annoy me to no end where the nonsensical situations, bad dialogue and the repetitive and dumb characters. Thing is, everything that happens on the 2nd disc is... dare I say, fun? Interesting? It was.
 Well, I did hate the fact that, as predicted, pulled a "Kevin was evil, but he meant well!" kind of thing. Because sacrificing yourself at the last minute completely exonerates you from using Shion all the time? From having the party involved in all these shady bussiness? Right.... Also, What The FUCK, Shion, What the fuck? "Nobody cares about me. Everyone left me but Kevin".... Dudette, two out of three games where about YOU. All the characters are at YOUR beck and call, they never, ever, EVER left you. They were looking out for you since Xenosaga 1, and you say that? I know they had to make Kevin not look THAT bad, but pulling stuff out of your ass doesn´t work.
 As far as combat goes, bosses got tougher, which means I got to fully exploit the Break status on them... it´s a fun battle system. HOWEVER, they completely messed up the last boss. JRPGs tend to have multiple-form last bosses... not Xenosaga, just one form and it´s incredibly easy, I guess they supposed you´d tackle the harder, optional bosses? One of the very few redeeming qualities of XS2 was the last boss, when after you take down it´s first form, you go to the spoils of battle screen and... he shouts "I WON´T LET IT END", cue in the next form. Nope, no such thing here. Another thing I disliked, it how tough random encounters got in the last dungeon. Yes, last dungeon, bla bla bla. Just make them do more damage. It´s boring having to pummel the enemies for so long, and you´ll be using the same strategies, since it´s the same kind of enemies, so there´s no point to dragging combat for so long. Make the bosses harder to make up for it, or something.
 Sidequests... there weren´t many, and I did as many as I found. Except the one for Ziggy´s last weapon. Do they really expect you to gather 99 of a drop from an enemy? And it´s one of those extra damage soaking last enemies. Not fun, so no deal. The other sidequests were incredibly short and simple, surprising, taking into account the 40+ sidequests from XS 2 and how much they boasted of them. Guess since they returned shops and equipment, there was no space on the disc for other sidequests? Heh.
 It surprised me just how linear the game was. Specially during the first disc, the times that you can go back to previous dungeons can be counted with one hand. Cities? Once you leave them, there´s no going back. Ever. As you go through the game you start getting more breathing room, but you´ll be getting dragged a lot. Still, something that surprised me even more was just how good it got. The first disc starts getting better the more you advance, by the 2nd disc it´s all good, not great, but good. It was a decent game, once again, all my complaints are story/dialogue/character based, gameplay was fun, even exploring was fun.