Archview #4: All Kamen Rider: Rider Generation

 That was fast....

 All Kamen Rider: Ridener Generation was a game I was pretty hyped for, and it didn't dissapoint, for the most part. KR:RG is a side-scrolling beat'em up game in which you take control of your Kamen Rider of choice and a CPU-controlled ally. It's a very simple, very short and quite solid affair.
 The controls are very simple, Y is a weak attack, that can be mashed into a 4-5 hit combo, X is a stronger attack that pushes back the enemy and can be comboed into with Y. Then you have A, that provides 3-4 special attacks,  B is your jump button, R is an special ability(Unique to each Rider), L is block and L+A unleashes the Hissatsu Attack. You can also carry Health Pills, which by touching the lower screen completely refills your HP. Very basic, yes, but it works and provides more options than your average Sidescrolling Beat-em up.

 There's a large amount of characters to choose from, 29 in all, and most of them have very unique moves. All the main Riders up to Fourze are in the game, and there's a couple of "sidekick" riders, like Birth and V2. One issue, is that certain characters are much more developed than others. Some characters have 3 A moves(Jumping, Neutral and Side), but some of them have Up+A specials. Each character has a "Special Ability", but some of them are quite useless, like gaining a power-up when low on health... while others get extra moves by pressing R. Speaking of extra moves, most of the latter Riders had many forms in the TV Show, and this forms are used for ther Special moves.... except OOO and W, by pressing R, gain access to those forms, meaning that OOO is basically 6 different characters(Even different Y combo between each form!) in 1 and W is 3 in 1. It's sad, because other Riders have enough moves in the source material to permit them form changes, but they only get to use them in their special attacks.

 The game is very short, 3-4 hours tops. It's divided in 5 worlds, each with 4 levels and 1 boss level. There are also 2 extra stages per world that get unlocked via passwords(16 digits passwords), it's annoying to type 10 different 16 digit passwords, and it was a dumb decision to make them password only. There's a couple of "obstacle" courses, they are not very fun, but they are short enough. Most levels are very easy(Normal difficulty), and quite short, which makes the game easy to play on the go. Surprisingly, the last boss is pretty hard, so you might want to level up a bit and clear some missions to raise the health pill limit before tackling him. Ah, yes!, missions, the game has replay value in the form of missions, they range from using a certain character on the level to not using Health pills..

 The presentation is top-notch, featuring big, well-animated sprites. The Riders themselves move like they did on their shows, which is a great plus, and most of the bosses are taken from the show themselves. It's a shame there's so few of them, 'cause they up the "Kamen Rider value". On the other hand, backgrounds are very plain and unexciting, you might as well play on a white void and you wouldn't notice. The music serves the game, and while I'm not sure if all the original voice actors are in(Kiva doesn't sound like Wataru...), the sound effects are legit. I never get tired of "Midnight Fever!" from Tatsulot!.
 All in all, it's a very solid game, it's a shame it's so damn short.
 It's a 7 out of 10.

First Archimpressions: All Kamen Rider: Rider Generation 1

 It's what I expected, mostly.

 And that is a good thing. AKR is a side-scrolling beat'em up in the same vein as Final Fight or Streets of Rage. While not overly complicated, it does offer more options than those games, presenting players with a Weak Combo Attack(Y), a Strong Attack(X) and the Special Attack(A), that coupled with the directional pad nets you two or three special attacks. The animation is superb, but the backgrounds are kinda lacking.

 So far, I'm enjoying the game a whole lot, it's fun, BUT, you will need a guide of sorts, since this game was never localized, and in order to unlock some of the Riders, you need to know what the mission objective is, other than that, it's smooth sailing.

Archview #3: Xenoblade Chronicles

 Spoilers: It's the best JRPG I've played since Persona 4.

 Grab the big, open spaces of your favorite Western RPG, add the narrative focus of your favorite Japanese RPG and mix it with the battle system of an MMORPG and you get Xenoblade, and that's the fastest way to describe it.
 Xenoblade tells the story of two giants, who were locked in deadly combat, until eventually they killed each other, and life was born on both of them. Mechons on Mechonis and Homs(Humans) and other races on Bionis. For many years the Mechons have been attacking the Bionis, and the races of Bionis had no means to defend themselves but the Monado, an ancient sword that hurts the wielder, but allows them to destroy Mechons. This sword finds it's way into Shulk hands, granting him the ability to see into the future, an ability that he will need in his quest for vengeance. The story is very good, with a marriage of original ideas and stablished tropes, told via excellent cut-scenes that never fail to impress.
 The game play like a western RPG in that the enviroments are huge, and you can reach any place that you can see. Waterfalls in the distance? You can reach them. Towers? You can reach them too. Nothing, absolutely nothing is out of limits. The game has a great sense of scale and has some amazing views from some of the highest points in the game's world. It has to be said, that since it's so huge, travelling is slow. You can make it a bit faster by inserting gems into your equipment, but it's not enough. Swimming, in particular, is very slow, and some of the high-level areas can only be reached by swimming, making it a chore to reach them. The game does allow fast-travel to many Checkpoints in each area, and you can fast travel anytime you are out of combat and to any place, regardless of where you are, making it quite convenient.

 Another problem with the huge areas are towns. Getting quests can be a bit of a hassle, since you need to find the NPCs on the town... NPCs that may be avaiable only at certain times. So you need to comb the city both at night and during the day just to search for quests. And there's no way to know if new quests popped up, and the map only shows you the Quest Symbol if you are close to the NPC that has a quest, so be prepared to return to the towns after every major plot point and comb the cities. Again. And search the cities after completing quests too, since each quest completed raises your affinity with the town, which in turn, opens up more quests.
 The Combat system feels out of an MMORPG. You control one character, in a party of three, and autoattacks are automatic. You can move the character around to reposition him, and on the lower part of the screen you have a customizable pallette with all the Arts you brought. There's no mana, so Artss are ruled by Cooldown only, also, there are no items, so combat is based solely on Arts. Unleash many Arts, and you'll raise the three-segment tension bar, which allows you to revive fallen comrades or use the Chain attack. Chain Attacks freeze the enemies, and allows you to use one Art per character, though if you raise the affinity between characters, you may get the chance to use more arts. Shulk's ability to see into the future affects battles too, so when a enemy is about to use an attack that'd kill a ally, Shulk gets a vision of it, granting you time to stop the enemy or make it change targets.

 The game looks amazing, while character's faces are a bit emotionless, all the areas in the game look incredible, and the character are well animated. Different armor pieces actually look different on the characters. There are about 9 different looks per armor piece, with different colors, and most of them look really good, and they are are reflected in the cut-scenes! The music is fantastic, and the voice acting is excellent. The britsh voice actors also bring a certain freshness to the dub, since it's usually American VAs who dub games. And the game has lots of little details, like the characters speaking with each other during and after combat, and optional "Heart-to-Heart" spots, where you can watch a short cut-scene between two characters, adding depth to their personas.
 Xenoblade is a LONG game, it's not your average 40 hours RPG. If you are gonna play Xenoblade, get ready to make a commitement with it. The game has a lot of content, be it sidequests(There are over 450 different quests.), the world itself, the optional Heart-to-Heart moments or even secret areas.
 It does have a few shortcomings though, mainly, some of the "gathering" quests. Everywhere you go there are blue spots on the ground, these spots are Items that can be collected, and "what" item they are is completely random. Some quests task you with gathering a certain amount of a certain item, and finding them can be a real pain in the a$$, you might find yourself going from one end of the area to the next multiple times just praying to find that last item. Then there are the rare drops. Some quests task you with gathering certain enemy drops, and sometimes, it'd be a quantity of a rare drop from a rare enemy, so you are gonna have to rereturn to the same area to make the enemy respawn until it drops the damned item. And with Unique Monsters, you are gonna have to soft-reset in order for it to respawn. This is not fun. My last gripe would be with the amount of HP monsters have, normal battles can last a wee bit longer than needed, having level 20 enemies endure more than 4 autoattacks from a level 60 character is not amusing.

 Luckily, it's few flaws don't put a damper on the whole experience. Xenoblade is a game that was worth the wait, and quite probably the best JRPG released this generation. Right now, it sits among my favorite RPGs, a feat I never expect from Monolith Soft, creators of Xenosaga and other underwhelming games. If you have a Wii and like RPGs, Xenoblade Chronicles is a must have.

 It's a 9/10

Romance of the Three Princesses

 Or how I learnt to like Twilight Princess.

 

 It's no secret that I'm not the biggest of Zelda fans, but I do enjoy the series. Searching through online stores, I found Twilight Princess, used, at a decent price, the owner said no scratches, so I bought it, turns out "no scratches" meant "quite a few". Still, I didn't notice 'till I got home, so I was screwed. I hoped for the best and played the game, but it was annoying. Every now and then, be it gameplay or cut-scene, the screen would go dark and "Problems reading the disc" would appear on the screen. I had to remove it, and insert it again, praying it'd work. At 35ish hours I finished the game, missing 3-4 heart containers, and only using a guide to find the bugs. My final conclussion? "Overrated, the game is bad, how can people like it?", regardless, I kept in mind that I had to get a new disc, since I want working discs on my collection.

 Days went by, and I found another used Zelda. Once again "No scratches", according to the seller. Guy lived so far, I had to go by bus(I like walking) to get the game. Got the game, returned home and... More scratches, same condition as the previous disc. I even tried it, and it presented the same problems. Bummed, I cursed the destinies, since I needed a third Zelda disc. For what it's worth, the Twilight Princess discs allowed me to install Homebrew on my Wii, so it wasn't a complete waste.

 Then, Nintendo announced it's "Player's choice" line, among them, Zelda: Twilight Princess. It was my chance. However, I decided to buy a slightly more expensive vanilla Twilight Princess, to get the white box, new, so that it'd have no scratches. Since I was gonna buy it again, I decided to replay it, as not to waste so much money, again, just for a ornament. This time, I used a guide to get all the heart containers, since I already went through the game once. 31 hours in, I finished the game with everything done. Only this time, the fact that it didn't have any "Unreadable disc" annoyances, I played the game straight, and.... I enjoyed it a lot. This was the "darker" Zelda I've been craving, while still retaining the more lighthearted elements of the series. It's a shame Link lost some of the expressions he had on Wind Waker, but the weirdness Zelda is known for was intact.
 I managed to sell the other discs, but branding them as "Slightly scratched"(Hey! They ripped me off first). The first sell was a bit odd, the guy thought I was selling the Gamecube version of the game, and they(He came with his kids) wanted to try the game. They didn't seem to friendly, so I faked " Oh, sorry, I don't live here, it's my friend's. I live further down the street". Initially they didn't want to buy the game, so I went to the university... only to get called midway, they changed their mind, and wanted to buy it, as to resell it later. I went back, only that I went further away from my house, as to return from the other side, since I was going to my "real" house. Sold the game, got the money. The second sale was nothing remarkable, so no funny stories there.
 And so ended the era of the three Zelda discs, and my hate for Twilight Princess.

Online Adventures of a Kid and Dial Up Internet

 You can take the Kid out of a Troll, but you can't take the Troll out of the Kid.

 Ah, yes, Dial-up internet, how I don't miss thee. Going online was more expensive, and you'd occupy the telephone line, so everyone would be on your back. "Get off! I need to make a call" and all those party-pooper lines trying to cut short my adventures. Nevertheless, adventures I had, and adventures I'll tell, starting with...

  Dark Ages was my first foray into online-gaming, I read about it in a GamePro magazine, and I liked what I saw, so at the first chance I got I searched for it and found it. The game had a level cap of 10 or 14, and afterwards you'd have to pay to keep playing, but, for some reason my main character(I made smurfs) Archile got bugged, and I could keep on playing, granted, I couldn't level up, but the game was awesome, so I didn't mind. To be honest, I don't remember much about the game, but I know that I used to be that guy. Yes, the guy that would shout "FREE EQUIPMENT PLEASE" and the like, luckily people were friendly and they'd drop stuff. For what it's worth, I gave out some equipment to beggers too. My fondest memories lie with a pink-haired girl avatar, being young, I assumed girl avatar=girl, so that was my first internet crush. We'd quest together, me being the Warrior, and she the healer, but eventually she stopped playing, but I kept going on.
 I remember one night in particular, where I partied up with 4 other Warriors, and we went to tackle the upper levels of a cave. Whenever one of us died, since it was a hardcore game, all of your stuff would drop when you died, we'd stand in a cross, around the fallen items, so that other players wouldn't steal their stuff. Even though they protected my items when I died, I do remember stealing a pendant from one of them. Nobody noticed, not even the owner. Ah! Five-finger discount, always reliable.

 Not an online-game per-se, but this is the site that made me. Funny thing, since I was a minor at the time, I wasn't allowed to create an account, so I faked age, and as soon as I turned 18, switched the birth date to the real one. I don't remember why or how, but I got hooked into the Forums, and had all kinds of adventures in there. My greatest achievements was being in the top 10 users with most reviews and Blams, but eventually I grew up and decided to make better, longer reviews( I did mention that this site molded me, right?) since I enjoyed writing them so much, and my previous reviews were pretty bad, one sentece reviews are lame after all!. I had a nemesis in here too, Tanner, a mod. For some reason, I developed a strong animosity towards him, so I'd make Topics like "Tanner the Banner", "Tanner the Faggot"(I was a kid, cut me some slack), "For Tanner" and the ilk, and proceeded to insult him. Or his mom. For some reason, even though he closed the Topics, rarely would he ban me. If I got banned, it was from other mods, Tanner himself probably found it amusing.
 While I wasn't a household name in the site, I was one of the first members of the LatinGrounds "spinoff" site, where Spanish-Speakers banded together. I made loads of online friends through LatinGrounds, among them Nacho-GS, my namesake, which whom I'd spent hours speaking and trolling with. Sadly I fell out of touch with him, but my god did we troll. He wasn't too keen on English, so I'd usually translate for him, and he too joined on my Tanner posts. One Troll that got us temporarily banned of LatinGrounds, was when one of us pretended to be Oscar, the mastermind behind Latingrounds, and fooled another member. It was so worth it. We were awesome.
 But all of these memories pale when compared to my Master Troll. The was this guy, Phantasmal_lx or something like that. I liked his Signature Banner(An animated gif), so I stole it.... and placed it under my sig. Since I was a young troll, and I wanted to troll, I copied all his personal info into my personal page, images, links, everything, and then changed my name to something similar, I guess it was "_Phantasmal_lx". Thing is, I started to stalk him, and post wherever he posted. He, for some dumb reason, changed his name to something different, and then I had my chance. I STOLE HIS NICKNAME. Next step in my Troll Gambit, was to search his post history, and I found it... a Photo of him, posted by him. Back then, the "Photoshop me" Topics were quite popular, so I made one with his photo. Many users chimed in, Wade Fulp, Admin of Newgrounds and Brother of Tom Fulp, the founder, made a photoshop too. It was glorious. Later he made Topics talking about me, he even e-mailed Wade Fulp about me, and was pretty pissed that even Wade photoshopped him. He cried that using his photo wasn't permited(Which many users corrected him, once you make it public, it becomes public.) and that he changed his name so that he wouldn't be associated with me. Of course, it didn't make sense, so most users, Wade Fulp included, didn't believe him. I had an earlier join date after all, so if someone was trying to ape someone, it was him. Some users, the minority, actually reasearched the case and figured I used to be named Archile, but it didn't make a difference. I had officially stolen his existance. I actually wrote in one of his Topics, saying "Why would someone do that((Steal his nickname))?", I was having a riot.
 Last thing worth mentioning, this is the site where I created the Archile persona(Oops, I think this segment should've come before Dark Ages. My bad), but before Archile, my first nickname was War_Striker. I came upon that nick name while trying to name myself "Cloud Strife"(Lame, I know), Strife became Strifer, then Striker. And Cloud somehow turned into War. Funny!

 One of my favorite game franchises( Part III is part of my backloggery at the moment, but after playing the Demo, I can say that it's a game with the name Dungeon Siege, but not a Dungeon Siege game. It's still fun though) ever, Dungeon Siege. The first game had an online component, and I trolled the sh!t out of it. The first step into my Dungeon Siege legacy was getting the Hacked spell, "Of Agony Of Agony". This spell would raise your stats way past the limits of the game, turning you into a killing machine. After enough begging in PVP game, some kind soul gave it to me, and afterwards, there was no going back. I'd make "hardcore" PVP rooms, which meant that if you died, all of your items would fall. I bid my time as people came, and I'd slay them, Kick them out of the room, grab their items and sell them. I was mean. I remember one guy in particular who kept coming back "Please, I need them". Poor fool, I'd let him join, kill him again(This time he'd drop nothing), taunt him, and kick him again. One surefire way I had devised of getting victims was naming the rooms "Noob Helper", "Agony of Agony for everyone!" or "Double Experience mods".
 There was one guy that had a complete hacked armor set, and when I hit him, his armor would reflect the damage. I'd do so much damage, that said blow would kill us both. All of our items would fall out, and even though I kicked him out of the room, he kept coming back, and having to grab my items from the huge pool of items was a daunting task. Still, I kept some of his hacked items, since they were better than mine. By this time, I had already dipped my feet into the world of mods, so I had a x4 inventory size mod, which allowed me to keep the Freeze and Molten armor sets, and grab everything my victims would leave behind.
 For what it's worth, before finding out about the For Agony For Agony spell, I had played a lot of multiplayer. I had made some allies which whom I'd play after my bed time. Heck, that's how I found out about the hacks, one of said friends lent me a hacked Sword so that I would have an easier time on the harder dungeons. Thanks to him I found out about Rejuvenating potions too!

 My adventures in this game are many, so I'll just mention the highlights, starting with my own code of rules. Yes, I am a troll, but I keep it as a rule not to rage at teammates. Unless they rage at me. Enemies, on the other hand, are fair game, so I always keep a finger over the Shift Key, for a swift "/all lol @ [insert enemy champion's name]".
 What made me infamous was Twisted Fate. I had two topics made in my... dishonor?. Y'see, Twisted Fate was redesigned at that time, and he had some bugs... like TF's skills working on turrets. That made him a Turret Killing Machine. Nothing could stop him, if you built him right(Which I did). I'd be the team carry, even if I ended 3/28/2. Every time I ulted towards a turret, the enemies had to stop whatever they were doing in order to stop me, otherwise, their tower would fall in seconds. Seconds. One game lasted more than an hour, since an Enemy Cho'Gath decided to stay at the nexus, protecting it from me. I'd ult in, damage it a bit and get killed. We were at a deadlock...'till I bough Guardian Angel and destroyed their Nexus. Cho'Gath got so mad he actually wrote in the forums, and while he didn't say my name, he was talking about me. I had fun. Until TF got nerfed.
 My next grand Troll was... the Smurfing. I made loads of smurfs in order to reap the rewards of referals, but one smurf in particular... "El Presidente". While playing as El Presidente, I'd play as Nunu, and would shout in the /all chat things like "I'M EL PRESIDENTE AND I'M GOING BOT". I spoke the truth, so they had no reason not to believe me when I said "I'M EL PRESIDENTE AND I'M GOING B".... except I didn't, and hid in the bush. They thought my lane partner was alone, so they pushed onwards... only to be greeted by an angry Nunu, and after the massacre? "I LIED". El Presidente was the most fun a troll could have without taking his clothes off. But it's better if he does.
 I have more League of Legends stories, but I'll keep them for another time....

First Archimpressions: Dynasty Warriors 7

 Spoiler alert: It's good.

 Just played some Wu missions, and... it's really good. While the lack of Free mode is an unforgivable omission, I'm willing to give Conquest mode a try. Meanwhile, the new Story mode is great, loving the fact that it's more faithful to it's source material. Graphics are great, but slowdown is frequent. This is probably my favorite set of character redesigns, but I'm still not feeling Zhou Yu's... luckily DW 8 gave him his old head back, but that's another game.
 Gameplay-wise, it's your typical Dynasty Warriors game, while I haven't played 3-6(Yet), I had no problems whatsoever getting into the game and bashing helmets. If you like DW, you'll like entry number 7, if you've hated it all along... just skip it.
 Moving on, since I hate to keep my posts short, what's the plan for this blog?
A) Dynasty Warriors: The retrospective -> Starting with 7, then going back to 1 through 6 to see just how we got to 7.
B) Xenoblade Review: It's a long game...
C) Megaman Starforce Spectacular.
D) First Book review of the blog!

Archview #2: Kensei Sacred Fist

 Breast physics on a man? Game of the forever.

 

 Kensei: Sacred Fist is your by-the-numbers 3D-Fighter. Clearly inspired by Tekken, visually, it actually borrows the basics from Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive, featuring one Punch Button, one Kick Button, one Grab Button(Unlike DoA and VF, Punch+Kick is NOT Grab, it's a separate button) and a Guard button. Like every 3D fighter worth it's salt, you have a sidestep, however, there's no crouching or jumping, except for a few moves. However, there's a key difference between this game and the previous three I mentioned... Kensei never had an Arcade release, nor was it meant to. Kensei is a very slow game, characters move slowly, and react slowly to your commands. It takes a while to get used to, and it never quite manages to feel natural.

 The game has a roster of 22 characters... however, there are only 10 base styles, the remaining 12 characters use a slightly(and by slightly I mean 2 or 3 moves) modified moveset from those 10 styles. For what it's worth, all 22 characters, visually, are very different, and the 10 different movesets are nicely fleshed out, some even feature stances! As for how they look.... it's a mixed bag., some moves look really, really good, but others look awkward at best. The ninjas in particular have awful animations and movesets, and there's three of them.

 

 Regardless, the characters look very good, very detailed. A shame most of them are very odd, and the ones that look good, are rip offs. You have Yugo, a Kazuya(Tekken) wannabe, Heinz, a mixture of Hwoarang(Tekken) and Jacky(Virtua Fighter), Cindy's alt and manerisms are reminicent of Anna(Tekken), then there's Billy and Jelly, two characters, one with a parrot head and the other one a penguin head, who share a slot, not unlike Roger/Alex(Tekken). Originality is not the game's strongest suit. Oh! I almost forgot, there's a Steven Seagul stand-in and the ill-named David Human, a wrestler, and probably, the first male character to have a bouncy chest. The backgrounds are a bit too simple, but there are a few standouts, like the street alley(which, incidentally, looks a lot like Paul's stage in Tekken 3).

 Voice acting in this game is best left forgotten. While it doesn't reach the cheesyness of Virtua Fighter, it's not good either. Some characters speak in english and others in japanese. The music is serviceable, it's so low-key you rarely even notice it while you play.

 

 You start off with 9 characters, and it's fun to play with each one just to find out which new character you get, prepare for dissapointment though. Something very odd, for a console fighter of it's time, is that there are no character endings whatsoever. There's barely any story either, not that a fighter needs it, but it shows a bit of lazyness. You do unlock an amusing racing-like minigame when you beat the game with all the characters, in which you hold X and race against time through some barebones circuits.
 The game... is not worth it. It's too slow and unresponsive, and lacks any type of originality, but, I feel that they could have fixed all that with a sequel. Kensei feels like a decent foundation for a greater game. Tweak the movesets, diversify the characters, make them more original, make the controls more responsive.... Sadly, a sequel never happened and we are left with this...
It's a 4 out of 10.