Archview #8: Trauma Team

 A must-have Wii exclusive .

 Trauma Team is so unexpectedly good. I went in expecting another by-the-numbers motion-based Wii game... it was anything but. Trauma Team tells the story of 6 different doctors(kinda) and their exploits at Resurgam Hospital. Each doctor has a different speciality, there's Maria Torres, who deals with first-aid, she gets the easiest operations, but has to juggle multiple victims at once, Gabriel Cunningham of Diagnosis, in which you have to question and study the pacients to figure out what's wrong with them. Hank Freebird deals with Orthopedics, he gets to fix up bones, Tomoe Tachibana has the Endoscopy missions, which are the worst of the bunch, CR-S01, a criminal who lost his memory, but is a gifted surgeon gets the more complex operations, and lastly, Naomi Kimishima, who gets my favorite missions, forensics. You have to study the corpses, personal effects and crime scenes to determine the causes of death.
 Unlike most Wii-games of it's ilk, Trauma Team gets motion controls right. They feel good, and the game wouldn't be the same without it. The Endoscopy controls are a bit cumbersome, and there's some positioning annoyances with it, other than that, these motion controls work. As stated before, there are many specialties, but they can be divided in two kinds: Operations and Exploration. Diagnosis and Forensics deal with exploration and deduction. They only require you to point at places or dialogue boxes and investigate. Operations, however, have you pointing with the Wiimote in order to use the various tools, selected with the analog on the Nunchuck.

 The story is told via some amazing artwork. There's not much animation, but with such a detailed and colorful art, you kinda don't mind it. The graphics during the operations are very simple, but they get the job done. It's easy to tell what is what, and they also use bright colors, keeping in line with the art. The music I found to be appropiate for the game, and the ending theme is a bit addictive, albeit a bit cheesy. Voice-acting is...variable. There is some great voice acting on some of the characters, and others are a bit weak. The dialogue is as cheesy as it can get, with Tomoe mentioning "The path of honor" at least 1 per episode, or Hank speaking of "Justice" every chance he gets.
 The game lasts a good 15-20 hours, if you don't skip cut-scenes(Which you shouldn't). You can tackle the story-mode either by character or following the timeline, eventually all the timelines meet for the 13-chapter long finale. There are about 8-10 different operations per character, 3 different difficulty levels(Not applicable for Diagnosis and Forensics) and multiple challenges per level, so there's a bit of replay value, but not unlockables of worth(Unless you enjoy the art-less "Extra" audio quips).

 Albeit initially jarring, the game mixes some very dark storylines, like the sweet old lady whose tumor made her hallucinate, which in turn, made her kill her daughter and attempt to murder her spouse, with some light-hearted elements, like Tomoe being a Ninja(And having a ninja buttler to boot!) and one of the doctors moonlighting as a hero(He dresses in spandex and acts the part!). Surprisingly, it works, and the game will make you care about some of the characters!
 What can I say? The game is amazing. I wasn't expecting that from a "Doctor's game", but it's really good. The gameplay is fun, the story is engaging and it proves that motion controls don't necesarily suck. Trauma Team is a must-have for any Wii-owner, even if not a fan of the genre(Is it even a genre?), they should give it a try. I did, and I was not dissapointed.
 It's a 9 out of 10.

Archview #7: Cardinal Syn

 It was bad.

 Cardinal Syn is not your typical fighter. In fact, it has more in common with Power Stone than anything. Matches are 1 v 1, in a big arena, filled with hazards and items, you even get a run button for 8-way movement around the arena.
 You have 3 types of attacks, Low, Horizontal and Vertical, certain combination provide... strings(more on this later), and characters get a couple of special moves. Blocking is done with a button, which is also used for parrying enemy attacks. Jumping is also done with a button, you get pushes and grabs with another button and then there's the free run button. Options, the game provides in spades, much more than your average fighter of it's era, it's a shame the gameplay itself sucks.

 Y'see, strings are not like the Strings from other 3D fighters. Here, the oponent can block after the first hit hits, what does it mean? There are no true strings. After the first hit, it's a guessing game, a guessing game in which the CPU always has the edge, since it knows what's coming. This game should be played with another person(If you can convince anyone, maybe put Tekken's cover on the case?). There are only two ways for the strings to work 100%: attack from behind or juggling. Oh yes, there is juggling, but it feels awkward. Sometimes, when the jugglee is too close to a wall, his position will "reset" closeby, it looks really odd, like most of the game!
 The game also has items around the arena.... which is an oddly half baked system. There are chests around the stage, and they may contain one out of four items: A sword, which enhances you strenght, an Orange potion, which restores HP, a Blue potion, which lets you use your special and bombs, which explode on contact.... Four items? it feels unfinished, you are better off turning off items. Yes, the developers had the foresight to allow you to disable hazards and items.

 Character designs are bad, and the graphics are bad too. Surprisingly, the stages themselves look good, and a couple of them are really cool. The game has many little details, like characters getting hurt(They will show cuts on their bodies) and blood spatters stay on the ground. Also, hitting a wall will make your weapon bounce off it(leaving you open for an attack). It's little things like these that show that, at least, they tried. There are also some really crappy intros and endings.... for each of the 18 charactes. They tried.
 The Single Player mode is hard, even on easy, due to the CPU's ability of knowing how you are gonna attack next. It doesn't help that there is are no movelists in the game, forcing you to look up the moves online. Each character unlocks another one, which sounds cool, until you realize that they are mostly clones of the unlocker, like Kensei, except that these character designs are worse. At least they each have their own intro, ending, stage and fatality.

 Cardinal Syn is a bad game, it has some very dumb design decisions, like blocking during strings, but the little things show that they tried to make a good game. They tried.
 It's a 3 out of 10.

First ArchImpressions: Alundra & Cardinal Syn

 Who holds a sword like this?

 Yeah! Filler! Before the Trauma Team review!. Anyways, Alundra, it's awesome. Seriously. I'm 2-3 hours in, and while I'm not a Zelda fan, and this is a Zelda clone, I love it. I have a few issues with it, though, first of all, no map. The Dungeons, so far, are small enough as not to need a map, but the overworld? It's easy to get lost. Also, I know Working Designs cut some their HP, but bosses still have too much HP. Enemies too. Can't wait to get a new Sword!.

 Props to Working Design for their translation, they always keep the same flair and humor in their translations. Bonair's chapter was a riot!. Speaking of Bonair, that's the last thing I played, so I'll be picking up from there.

 Yes, I bought this game. My quest to own each and every PS1 fighting game demanded it. And.... it was better than I thought. Maybe it's because I expected an unresponsive disaster, judging from everything I had read and seen before buying it, that I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe because I played it with a friend, which might've made it more tolerable. But after selling him on the idea "This game is gonna be so bad. I knew it was bad before I even bought it", we both agreed: It's not THAT bad.

 Oh oh oh! And and... Progress Report! I'm about halfway done with replaying Megaman Starforce 2, this time I picked Ninja(Instead of Saurian). I remembered it as the weakest in the trilogy... and I was right. Starforce 1 is great, Starforce 2 is just... more of the same, slightly refined. I can't wait to get to Starforce 3(Which I remember as being the best Starforce game). 

 

Archview #6: Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon

 Now this game is right up my alley....

 EDF is an arcadey third-person shooter, and like most arcadey games, that means it's just the game I like. No frills, much thrills straight to the point action, and that's the way I like it. The game is very simple, Aliens have manipulated insects genetically, making them enormous and able to spew damaging liquids(Or damaging cobwebs in the case of spiders), and are using them to invade and ravage earth, and it's up to the Earth Defence Force to stop them.

 You get to pick from one out of four different classes. Each class has different weapons avaiable to them, and each one has different perks. The Battle Armor is slow, but has a Shield and some Energy Attacks, and can take damage like a sponge. The Jet armor grants flight, but flying and reloading now share a regenerating Energy Bar, which if depleted, takes a long while to recover. The Tactical Armor provides different kind of turrets, and lastly, the Trooper, which has no special gimmick, but gets faster reload and reviving speeds. Before each missions, you get to pick two different weapons, but since this is a very arcadey game, ammo is unlimited, with the tradeoff that reloading takes a while. If your timing is good, you can halve the time by pressing reload at the right time.

 Visually, it looks like a PS2 game, which is to be expected from a budget game, but then again, PS2 graphics are not bad. On the plus side, there's little to no slowdown, even when the screen gets crowded with insects. Most of the structures in each stage are destructible, which is awesome. The music is serviceable, and the voice acting is passable. There are loads of cheesy lines, and they sometimes tried to add some funny lines... but they are not too funny. Sound effects are a bit to low, so it's a good idea to temper with the sound settings. They should have added subtitles, since most of the dialogue gets lost amidst the explotions and the gunfire.

 Something that got on my nerves a bit was the lack of damage feedback. It's hard to tell if you are actually hurting or hitting something, since there are no audio cues and the little blood spatters from bullet-based weapons are hard to see, the enemies don't even flinch, so they proceed to move as if nothing.

 

 The game is quite short, with a total of 15 levels spread throughout 3 chapters. The game lasts about 2 to 4 hours on Normal, but higher difficulties will take more time, since enemies get harder to kill, even with higher tier weapons. This, being an arcadey game, was made with replayability in mind, and after you beat it, you unlocked remixed mode, with different enemies on the levels. There's also a Survival Mode. Oddly enough, while Campaign and Remixed Campaign allow for Online or Offline Co-Op, Survival Mode can only be played Cooperatively online. It also has loads of weapons per class. Classes also level up, but it takes a long time to level up each one, perhaps a bit too long. The few enemy types do get a bit repetitive after a while.
 There are quite a few different Vehicles and Turrets on some levels, which help alleviate the repetitiveness, but on higher difficulties, your weapons will probably be much more usefull. This game is better played on Co-Op, since the AI is a bit dumb. For example, they won't sprint to revive you, instead settling for running while shooting. Also, even if they have an enemy right on their face, they will still use explosives and harm themselves. And both of those things don't mix well together, they will die before getting to your corpse! 

 Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon is a very good game, but it could've use some more time in the oven to iron out some quirky bugs, enhance the AI and maybe add 5 more levels. Regardless, if you are looking for an action packed game that is not trying to be something else, you can't go wrong with it.

 It's a 7 out of 10. 

 



Archview #5: Punch-Out!!

 I don't like it, but it's a great game...

  Punch-Out!! is a bit hard to describe... it's not your typical boxing game. For starters, you don't get to move around the Ring, being limited to side steping and ducking, there's also blocking, but latter oponents can't be blocked, so it's better not to rely on it. For offence, you get left jab, right jab, righ hook and left hook, and fulfilling certain conditions(They vary from oponent to oponent) you get Stars, up to three of them(Which are lost upon being hit), that allow you to unleash "Star Punches" for, excuse the expression, massive damage.

 The game is very arcade-like, fitting, seeing how the Punch-Out series actually started on the arcades. It consists on going through different oponents, 13 of them, to become... number 1? There's no real story to the game, befitting of an arcadey game, but there's no real need for it either. You do get some really good looking picture-slides before each oponent, giving them a semblance of background, and every time you clear a circuit, a "Little Mac training" cut-scene is played. Each boxer is completely diferrent from the other, with different patterns and moves. The game is... quite challenging actually, but memorization and reflexes are key. You can defeat each boxer through trial-and-error, figuring out what and when to dodge or counter and how to aquire stars. It's been a long time since I last had to take notes for a game, but learning the patterns will net you victory.

 Graphically, the game looks amazing, one of the best uses of cell-shading I've ever seen, and each boxer is incredibly expresive. The models also show damage, from bruises and band-aids to their rattled hair. It look awesome, but it's the least it could do, seeing how there's such a few amount of things needed to be modelled for the game. The music is very lively, and a very neat touch is how each boxer speaks in it's native tongue, and with the appropiate accent.
 The game also packs a lot of content. There's 13 different boxers, and once you beat them, you unlock Title Defence, where those 13 boxers get a makeover... and so do their movesets. Some of them are completely different from their normal versions. Each version of each Boxer has 3 different challenges to complete, adding further replay value. There's also a hidden 14th fighter, unlocked by meeting him in the incredibly challenging Last Stand Mode, where after 3 losses, the mode becomes unaccesible unless you start a new game. And they say Nintendo only makes kiddy games!

 The game does almost nothing wrong, and it's very hard to find flaws with it. One could argue that 12 out of the 14 characters are taken from previous games, and there's only one real new boxer, since the 14th is a guest character. Some could also take offence on how some characters are a bit racist in their stereotypical designs. One could also complain about how basic the Multiplayer mode is, which it is, but it's the first Punch-Out!! to ever feature multiplayer, and it was never meant to be more than a diversion from the Single Player mode.
 All in all, Punch-Out!! manages to do everything it set out to do perfectly. There's no real flaws with the game, which is a shame, since I didn't really like it!(Not my type of game). However, for fans of the genre, Punch-Out!! is a must have.
 It's a 9 out 10

Getting Reacquainted: Punch-Out!!

 This game is hard as balls.

 After an extended hiatus from playing this game, I finally picked it back up... and it's so not my kind of game. It's completely reflex-based, so if you have a keen eye and lynx-like reflexes, you shouldn't have any trouble with it. The rest of us are cursed to forever hover over the "Retry" button in order to somehow salvage our record.
 For what it's worth, the game looks gorgeous, I know I said Metroid OM was the best graphics I've ever seen on the Wii, and while I do stand by it, when it comes to character models, Punch-Out!! takes the cake. They look shiny, colorful and lack jaggies. They also have some very expresive faces, and they take combat damage! Seeing bruises in their abs, from Mac's hammers of justice is quite satisfying.
 Worth noting, while Nintendo tried their darndest to make it easy... it's still quite hard, at least in Title Defence mode. Sure, you can mash 1 and 2 while your oponent is on the floor to heal a bit. You can press "-" in between rounds(Only works once per match) to restore some health. And you even have the chance, by mashing 1 and 2 while falling to the floor, to get a "second chance"... but it is still hard.
 Well, this time, however, I plan on finishing the game before ejecting the disc, I just wish I get to unlock Donkey Kong. Game's so hardcore, during Mac's Last Stand, you only get three tries, no "Quitting" or "Retrying" if the match isn't going your way, and if you don't meet DK during your run, you'll need to start a new file. I hate this game.

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.

"First" Archimpresions: Kensei Sacred Fist

 What... what happened to you?

 I like fighting games, they are my favorite game genre, up there with RPGs and Metroidvanias. After losing all faith on modern gaming, I decided to go retro and start getting older games, when companies hadn't become as greedy as today. My first two targets were: Older games I enjoyed and every PS1 fighting games I could find. I knew PS1 had a lot of crappy fighters, I had a couple, but if I had high hopes for one of them, it was Kensei. So, I boot up the game, pick the character I used to love, Heinz(If Hwoarang(Tekken) and Jacky Bryant(Virtua Fighter) decided to have a baby, it'd be Heinz. And first thing I notice is... input delay. It takes some seconds for the button presses to register. I read about it, but in my memories, it didn't seem to be a problem, I remembered an excellent Tekken 3 clone. Goddammit Young Me, this game is bad. Bad. BAD.
 It has some redeeming qualitites though, the graphics are pretty good, I mean, it's a fighter so it has no excuse, but it is very pretty. It has some neat ideas, for example, when blocking, the character will dodge the moves. It looks really nice, and very different from most fighters. Another neat thing, when tripped, if you press Block at the right time, your character will regain his balance, reminds me of Rival Schools a bit. It also has a huge roster(for it's time) of 22 characters, most of them unlockable, so they actuall give you a reason to play with each character(Since each character unlocks a new one). Oh! And there's an unlockable racing mini-game, but I will have to unlock it again before passing judgement.
 Sadly, they don't make up for the rest of the game. It's very slow, moves feel heavy, but they don't have the "impact" to match the wind-up. Also, the game-crippling input delay. It's very annoying, and not very fun. Remember those 22 characters? Well, most of them don't look very appealing, and those that do, are unmistakable rip-offs, and move-wise, half of them are clones. Remember the "reason" for playing Arcade mode? Well, there are no ending. A Console-exclusive PS1 FIGHTER with no endings. Stories rarely matter in fighting games, but they didn't even try. They didn't even try.
 And that's the gist of it. I will continue to unlock everything and then judge it. It will not be pretty.

Why KOS-MOS doesn't Work: A Xenoblade Prologue

  Meet KOS-MOS, the dumbest design you'll ever find.

 KOS-MOS makes no sense. At all. Bold statement, but completely well founded. KOS-MOS is supposed to be the only anti-gnosis ever, and they make it a... woman? First of all, if you had to give it a human body for whatever reason, you'd give it a male body. Why? Breasts. Breasts get in the way, there's a reason Amazons would burn one of their breasts in order to be proficcient with a Bow. And no, there's no "breast rockets" nor protective coating, proof of this is SRTOG, where KOS-MOS breasts bounce. You wouldn't place important circuitry in a "soft" spot, specially not in such a easy to target place. Breasts have no place on a mobile weapon. I'm willing to give the Realian women a pass since it's feasible to think that, since they don't have any particular purpose, companies would have taken a "Sex sells aproach", after all it's Japan we are talking about, they sell pillow-covers with anime girls on them, and the ever popular breast-mouse pads. But a Weapon? You want it to be efficient. And what about the cost? Being the only anti-Gnosis weapons would mean that she was probably quite expensive, last thing you want is to increase the cost by adding unnecesary features, like breasts.

 And what else does KOS-MOS have to aid her in battle? A Mini-skirt. Right, because that doesn't impair movement at all. And high heels. She's the only anti-gnosis weapon, and she wears high heels and a mini-skirt. Stupidity doesn't end there, it also has long hair, giving enemies another place from where to grab her. This amounts to KOS-MOS being the less realiable weapon one could find, and to top it all off, the only one that can harm the enemy Gnosis.

 I haven't mentioned the brilliant idea to give the ONLY anti-gnosis weapon a conciense yet. Why would you do that? If you, finally, after being defenceless for so long against an enemy, managed to create an anti-gnosis weapons, last thing you'd do is make it a robot. Heck, even in game, there's an incident where KOS-MOS goes haywire and kills people. Why would you continue with it? Just make it a weapon, doesn't take a genius to realize it's much more cost-efficient and reliable than having it "think".
 Her backstory doesn't make sense either, she kills Shion's lover, after going haywire, so Shion decides to complete her? It's not like KOS-MOS was their life-long proyect, not at all. Shion has no reason to decide to finish her, no real motivator. "Kevin's dream"? Bullsh!t. And the saddest part? Shion treats her like a daughter or some kind of love interest(It's Japan, so it's probably both), it makes no sense.
 I noticed something... if you enjoy a game, if it's good, you won't ever think about this stuff. It's only when a game is so bad that you can't stand it that you begin to realize just how dumb the plot can get. That's why some games get away with making no sense. They are so fun they suck you into their world. That's why older games are still fun today, even if they have no story at all. As long as the foundations are solid, you will have fun with it.
 Xenosaga 2 is a game that doesn't want to be played.

Monolith Soft: A Xenoblade Prologue

 Xenoblade is so awesome, I'm making a Prologue article.

 Monolith Soft is a company I've very mixed feelings about. On one hand, they made one of my favorite RPGs ever, but on the other one, they made the worst games I've ever played. Ever. One of the things I hate the most about their games, but they seem to have toned it down(Thanks, Nintendo?), is the fanservice. These guys love it to a fault, and sometimes it detracts from the games themselves. Still, they have made at least two great games, and their new X game is looking mighty fine, and since I've finally returned to Xenoblade, after a long study-hiatus, I decided to speak my mind on how I feel about their games, and... here we are.

 Xenogears, while technically made by Squaresoft, it was made by programmers who later left and created Monolith Soft. Xenogears was, and is an amazing game, from it's highly complex story and characters, to it's fantastic Battle engine, which mixed Fighting Games with the turn based battles of RPGs, it worked perfectly and created a impossibly original, and never imitated(sadly) system. Xenogears downfall is it's 2nd CD. It feels rushed, specially in it's begining, doing away with cutscenes, and switching to character narration, alongside images of what they are talking about. Luckily, it doesn't take away from the whole experience, despite feeling a bit odd.

 Xenosaga Episode 1, their first game as Monolith Soft was... a letdown. It might be a decent game, maybe, but the problem I have with this game, is that I was expecting Xenogears 2, and all I got was Xenosaga. For starters, some of the characters motivations make no sense. Xenogears had a very complex plot, but it made sense, Xenosaga's does not. Another gripe I had was with the battle system. I expected an evolution of the Xenogears battle system, instead we got a watered down version of it. In Xenogears you had Triangle, Square and X as attack buttons, now you only get Square and Triangle. In Xenogears, mixing buttons(each button had a value, Square was 1, Triangle was 2 and X was 3, you could press buttons up to a value of 16) resulted in various special moves, but now you can only mix up to three buttons. It's a huge step back from Xenogears, but it doesn't stop there, Mechs were a huge part of Xenogears gameplay and story... not so anymore. Their importance is downplayed, their designs are generic at best and their usage limited. Oh, and to top it all, multiple pantyshots of the underaged Momo. Thanks Monolith Soft.

 I have played many bad games in my lifetime, but this ranks up there with the worst of them. Definitly the worst game I've played on PS2. It's SO bad I haven't played Xenosaga 3 yet(I finished this one in 2009), doomed forever to collect dust. Maybe. I could go on and on on what makes this game so awful, but I'll save it for another piece I'll write on sequels, so I'll just mention the biggest offender: The battle system. Y'see, for some reason, they decided to change it up, again, but... it's needlessly complex, in a bad way. The first thing you should know, is that the game doesn't want you to play with the characters you want to, oh no, 'cause you see, some characters can make the enemies float, and others can bury them, both features which you'll need to use if you want to stand a chance. Oh, and the enemies with Float status? Only certain characters can damage them. But it doesn't end there, oh no, characters have different attack types, and enemies are weak to certain types of attacks, so you are gonna have to be shuffling characters according to the zone and enemy type. It's not fun, specially when more than half of the cast are an annoying waste of RAM. And you know there's a problem with your battle system, if the boss of a Dungeon is easier than a random encounter.

 Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier was the next game I played from them, and... I've very mixed feelings about it. The Battle System is very fun(for a change), but during Boss Battles it becomes annoying. Each character character can attack up to 5 times on his turn, this 5 attacks are pre-defined before battle, you can have the same Attack 5 times, or different ones. The goal of the battles(Besides winning) is juggling the enemy, to deal the most damage possible. If the enemy falls out of the juggle, he will, probably, block your next attacks, so by carefully cancelling each attack into the next one, you can keep the enemy floating and recieving damage. All this is thrown out the window once you reach a boss. Bosses have the chance, completely random,(And this is a fact) of falling out of the juggle and completely block your following attacks, and later in the game, it becomes quite annoying. The game also suffers from grinding, bosses are damage sponges, so prepare to grind in order to stand a chance against some of them. SRTOGS:EF is a very ugly game, the character cut outs look very amateurish, and so do the sprites themselves, luckily they are mostly well animated. Another thing that sets this game back is the focus on fanservice, from the female character designs(which makes them look really stupid), to their animated cut-outs during their special moves( boobs jiggling), to the dialogue. The game is full of boob jokes, never amounting to anything serious, making it a very light-hearted romp. Somehow, the game got a sequel, but it never got out of Japan. Can't say I care.

 Their last DS game to be released on America was Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Sayians. It's a very standard JRPG, the battle system is the very traditional turn-based combat most JRPGs follow, with little nuances, like "Super Ki Attacks" and combined specials. It's a very entertaining game, and maybe due to it's source material, lacks any kind of fanservice. The game starts a little bit earlier than the Goku VS Piccolo fight on the Budokai Tenkaichi, and goes up to the battle with Vegeta on Earth. The game remains quite faithful to the source material, adapting the filler from the anime and creating a few original substories(Which were needed if you meant to make an RPG out of DBZ). Surprisingly, while the sprite-art is similar to the one they used on SRTOGS:EF, it looks very pretty now. Characters look big, detailed and animate really well. While the game's ending teased with an image of Frieza, it never got a sequel.

 And this brings us to Xenoblade. While I'm only(Yes, only, this game is massive) 52 hours into the game, it already made me a fan at barely 3 hours in. The Scope of the game is ginormous, if you can see it, you can reach it. And it feels like Sidequests never end, which is both good(Lots of content) and bad(Sometimes you just want to continue with the story, but OCD kicks in!). The characters are not too deep, but the story so far is great, filled with mysteries and interesting twists(But you can see most of them coming anyways). The game feels like an MMORPG, specially the battle system, which I'm not a fan of, but it still manages to put every other RPG on the Wii, and most(Like I played most of them, this is just an asumption, sue me.) of the RPGS on X360/PS3 to shame.

 

 Monolith Soft, hopes are high for your next Wii RPG, and after Xenoblade, I doubt they'll dissapoint.

                     

 

Memories of a Young Pokemon Master

 I used to be the best. The very best.



 So how did everything begin? Well, before Pokemon became famous I.... who am I kidding, the TV Show, of course. Regardless, after getting hooked to the TV show, I knew of the existance of the Gameboy games, but I wasn't a fan of the portable console. Such a small screen? Limited color pallette? Bro, I had a N64, 3D, why'd I want a little NES?. Everything changed once I got my grubby paws on Pokemon Stadium. You could link it to the Gameboy games? Oh man, I want this sh!t!. So I pleaded. And pleaded. And eventually convinced my parents that Pokemon Yellow was a great investment for my entertainment purposes! And I promised to get good grades(Which I didn't. Mom, Dad, you should've learnt not to pay it forward!).

 And I got addicted to Pokemon Yellow. I'd play it on the Doduo Tower(Never managed to unlock the Dodrio Tower) for hours on end. Nevermind the fact that I loved, loved the art on the instruction booklet, it used very light colors, and it was very simple, but very eye catching, I'd reread the manual just to look at all the art.

  My closest friends got Pokemon Yellow too, so we'd speak of the game during school breaks. For some reason I can't recall, I suddenly had the urge to play Gameboy Games on the go, so, once again, I pleaded... and I got one... alongside Pokemon Blue(And since my sister would complain, they bought her a Gameboy too, and Pokemon Red). Since this is a third world, pirate games run abound, so I told my parents "Hey, this yellow cartridges are counterfeit, the only yellow cart is Pokemon yellow", so we went back to the store, and, of course, I was right, so somehow I convinced them to get us the original copies of Blue and Red, despite them being waay more expensive. And I ate Pokemon blue up. It was almost the same game as Yellow, but it was still fun. Interestingly enough, as a kid, I never had trouble remembering which Pokemon I had, but when I replayed the game when I was older, I noticed that, once you are in a random battle, there's no way to know if you already caught it!

 



 One day, for some reason, I decided to bring my Gameboy to school, and after some days, my friends started bringing their GBs to school. And afterwards? Kids who had a Gameboy would bring it. You can call me a TrendSetter! Pokemon became an every-day tradition, I'd clear the Elite 4 time and time again. It was fun.
 Then news of Pokemon Gold and Silver started coming, Oh. My. God, was I excited! I clearly remember an EGM issue that had Ho-Oh on it's cover, my god, did that issue hype me up. I'd tell my parents and my friends about all the new stuff the game would bring! And as soon as those games made it over here, I got Gold and my Sister got Silver. To this day, Gold and Silver remain my favorite Pokemon generation ever. With Cyndaquill being my favorite Pokemon and starter.

 And my god, do I have memories with Pokemon Gold. This was the game that made me want to get a Link Cable(Which I managed to find, but it was a counterfeit, and it would bring some fun experiences later on....). By the time I got it, I had already cleared the game, and the first thing I did was send all my Pokemon Yellow creatures to my Gold Cartridge. My time-honed Level 100 Pikachu and Level 100 Mewtwo were my most prized posessions. So prized, that a then-friend, but future enemy, wanted me to lend him my Pikachu, since he couldn't clear the Elite 4. I said yes, but played the fool and never lent it to him... I had a feeling I might not see my Pikachu again.

 Kanto. Once you beat the game, you opened up the road to Kanto. I had no idea about that, so when I first experienced it, my mind was blown. It's never been done again in any other Pokemon, the ability to return to the area of a previous Pokemon game, which is a shame, since this is one of the reasons Pokemon Gold and Silver were so awesome.

 Red. You can battle Red. This. Mind Blown. Again. Completely unexpected, and completely awesome.

 The legendary Cats. To be honest, way back then, me and my friends thought they were Dogs, so we'd call them the Legendary Dogs. All of us had agreed that it was nigh impossible to catch them all without the Masterball, so we gave up without even trying.... But I had bought a Expert Gamer magazine, and I read about Gengar and Mean Look. So one night, waaaay past my bedtime, I got a Hunter, traded it to Gold to get a Gengar, and trained him to level 56(I can't believe I remember the exact number). So the whole night I was chasing the Legendary Cats. And I caught them. All three of them. Next day I went to school, I was dead tired. But I was feeling like a baws. First thing I tell my friends is "I caught them." I caught them.

 

 206. That was the last number I saw my original file clock, before my data got deleted. Every day, when my mom would drive dad to work, and then leave us at school, I'd be chilling in the backseat, probably re-defeating the Elite 4. Or rebattling Red. I had caught, thanks to my sister's Pokemon Silver and Red, almost all of the Pokemon, and I was missing a very few of them. I'd probably got over 230 of them. Me and my friends were addicted, so eventually, we started wondering just who was the better Pokemon Master, and I had a Link Cable, so...
 I did mention it was a counterfeit Cable, right? We had the weirdest experience while battling. For some reason, in my friend's gameboy, it looked as if I had sent a Tangela, which I hadn't, and it was a Shiny Tangela. And even though he got the Tangela to 0 HP, it kept on fighting(We, instead of freaking out, were highly amused, so we continued fighting to see what'd happen). As for me, it'd look as if my friend had sent a Tentacruel, which he didn't have, and every now and then, when I got it to half HP, he'd call Tentacruel back, and... switch it with itself? Very odd.

 Fast forward to the future, I got a Gameboy Advance, with Mario Advance 1. It'd be my only GBA game for a looong time, since they were expensive as heck. So, one day we went to the Chuy... Tax-free games? I'm. So. In. The first game I get? Pokemon Ruby. I fell in love with it. It was a blast. Granted, I didn't get as addicted as I got with Pokemon Gold. The fact that only one of my friends had a GBA and Pokemon probably had to do with it, since there was no "Comparing notes" with more people. Still, when I look at Ruby now, I can't see why I enjoyed it so much. The new Pokemon design are a step back from Gold and Silver, and I remember being dissapointed at "just 8 gyms again? No 2nd city?!"

 I wouldn't play a Pokemon game again until Pearl. This time, I could tell the designs weren't too good. Definitly better than Gen 3 though! And I clocked over 120 hours on this game, thanks to the Wi-Fi. Trading 'mons only was a blast. Right now, on that cartridge, I have every Pokemon and Stone I need to fill the Pokedex, but I lost the drive to fill it.

 And then comes Pokemon HeartGold, the one I consider to be the Perfect Pokemon Game. I barely clocked 50+ hours or so, but it is the best Pokemon game. Everything that made Gold good is here, plus all the improvements the series has made over the years. And one of my favorite features? You won't see a new Pokemon until you reach Kanto. So it's the original Pokemon Gold experience, only enhanced by years of perfecting the formula. And my one complaint? Why wasn't this game released so many years ago? Young me would've loved, LOVED this game. It's a shame I can't get as hooked to Pokemon as I once did, but this game reminded me why Gold was so much fun. Why I consider Gen 2 to be the best generation ever. And how lucky the young kids are now a days.