deKay

3D Fantasy Zone (3DS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 05/11/2016 Written by deKay

No, not 3D Fantasy Zone for the 3DS, 3D Fantasy Zone. For the 3DS. This one is one of the ten games on the Sega 3D Classics Compilation, just like the other one is, but this one is a 3D port of the Master System version of Fantasy Zone, whereas the other was the arcade version.

Still with me?

Thankfully, the Master System version was much, much easier and instead of taking eight hours to complete, it took just one. It’s almost the same as the arcade version, only with a couple of boss changes and seemingly a lot more money to collect – which made stocking up on lives and heavy bombs simple to do.

All of the bosses seemed easier as well, especially the final one which took me $hlmun tries before, but just two here. It’s much slower, I think, so easier to avoid and attack.

Now to finish the other nine games! Even though I have half of them already.

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Actual Sunlight (Vita): COMPLETED!

Posted on 02/11/2016 Written by deKay

I’d never even heard of Actual Sunlight, so I was a little surprised to not only find it sat there on my Vita, but also to find myself playing it. Wait, what? A Vita game? Here? With my reputation?

It turns out it was on PS+ a while back. I dived in. Oh god.

When a game starts telling you to commit suicide, you know you’ve made a mistake playing it. Sure, it’s telling your character to do it rather than you the player, but the exposition of Evan Winter’s dreary, dead-end life – with his high tech trinkets that do nothing to make up for his non-existent love life nor his pointless, joyless job – rings a bell for many people, I’m sure.

Go to the roof, and jump off.

Actual Sunlight is a narrative discovery game, following Evan’s mundane activities as he gets up, has a shower, laments his existence, and heads off to work. Or the roof of his apartment building, if you decide to try and end it all. It’s a spoiler to tell you there’s no real choice in the matter, but a one worth spoiling as it’s as much about the journey as it is the destination.

I didn’t enjoy playing it. I don’t think you’re supposed to. Everyone you talk to is miserable, and playing it makes you miserable. Still, it was interesting, I suppose, watching Evan descend seemingly into schizophrenia as he converses with himself, acts out a life he could have had, and ultimately takes himself to the roof after all.

The opening titles warn you that Actual Sunlight deals with difficult and mature issues. I’m not sure it actually deals with them, but they’re certainly represented. Probably best to avoid the game completely if the themes here are likely to cause you distress. An odd choice for Sony to push as a PS+ title, I’d have to say too.

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Gargoyle’s Quest (3DS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 30/10/2016 Written by deKay

Along with some other games (like Year Walk), Gargoyle’s Quest was cheap on the eShop. I don’t know what prompted me to buy it, but this Game Boy classic has always interested me, at least a little due to the plot.

Well, what I knew of the plot – Firebrand, the bad guy gargoyle from Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins, is the protagonist in this part RPG, part platformer set in the demon realm Firebrand comes from. You quest is to defeat the even-more-evil-than-every-other-demon, the King Breager who is going to destroy Firebrand’s world.

How this plays out is surprisingly reminiscent of Zelda II on the NES, with overland travel – where random battles take the form of very short platforming sections – villages to visit, and “dungeons” which are side-scrolling platforming bits of substantial length. Firebrand upgrades his abilities to enable him to hover for longer, jump higher, or allow him to temporarily cling to spiked walls.

Unlike Zelda II, though, it’s actually possible to complete Gargoyle’s Quest, as I proved today when I did so. It is a bit janky (with lots of slowdown in sections), a couple of areas are incredibly frustrating (timing drops past spikes, in particular) and bosses that don’t get harder (the end boss is the easiest in the entire game). It also suffers from terrible dialogue, complete with spelling mistakes.

All that said, it’s a fun little title that was probably excellent when it was released, but hasn’t really aged well. I’m glad I played it though.

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Year Walk (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Posted on 28/10/2016 Written by deKay

It seemed appropriate to play Year Walk, given it is nearly Halloween, and the fact it was very cheap on the eShop helped too.

Year Walk is a graphical adventure game, where you play as a man taking part in the dubious Swedish ritual of Årsgång, a sort of spiritual journey where the participant can supposedly learn about their future. It involves exploring a small map, making note of various shapes and markings, and solving a few simple puzzles.

Oh, and it’s scary. And bizarre. I can’t go too much into it as that’ll spoil the surprises, story and jump-scares the game has to offer, but several events are more than a little disturbing.

Things get even more disturbing after the game has been completed, with secret extras that blur the line between the game and reality. Probably best you don’t play it just before going to bed. Like I did.

I can’t say it was fun, but it was certainly very interesting. And worrying.

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Pokémon Y (3DS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 25/10/2016 Written by deKay

A brief history of my time playing “main” Pokémon games:

1997: Pocket Monsters Green, a badly translated ROM on a Game Boy emulator. I had returned to university early from a holiday in order to spend a few days revising. Instead, I spent a few days playing Pocket Monsters Green, non-stop, reaching the Elite Four and realising my chosen team were no match for them. I never beat them.

1999: Pokémon Blue, on a Game Boy. I obtained the first 4 gym badges, then stopped playing. I don’t know why.

2001: Pokémon Gold, on a Game Boy Advance. As with Blue, I obtained the first 4 gym badges. Then I stopped playing.

2003: Pokémon Sapphire, on a Game Boy Advance. Once more, after obtaining the first 4 gym badges, I stopped playing.

2016: Pokémon Y, on a New 3DS. Completed!

After the earlier false starts, I’d given up on playing any more in the series because I assumed they’d all go the same way. After 13 years, however, and my 7 year old daughter wanting to play Pokémon X, the time was right to get back into the main series Pokémon games.

It was fun playing alongside her, mostly progressing through at a similar rate, with me occasionally helping out by sending her Pokémon or using O-Powers to augment her abilities temporarily.

Since the last game I played, things have improved greatly. The graphics, of course, but also there has been a lot of streamlining. Early on in Y, you obtain an item that allows you to share XP with all your party, meaning you no longer have to start with a Pokémon you want to level up and then swap them out immediately. Item management is easier, and trading your Pokémon is so much easier – and can be done over the internet. There’s even an online “swap shop” for them, where you can browse “wants” or offer your own Pokémon up. Or, you can do random trade matchups where you don’t know what you’ll get. I’ve used this a lot with duplicate creatures, and obtained some great stuff, like a high level Pikachu, a Shiny Oddish, and plenty of others I’d not seen myself at all.

All that is great, but the core game is the same as it ever was. Travel the region, fight the gym leaders, Be The Best. No bad thing, especially to someone who hasn’t played Pokémon in such a long time, and there are so many ways to make it easier (the trading, the online “Pokémiles” shop, the XP sharing, O-Powers, Mega Evolutions) that the frustration of grinding – perhaps a reason I gave up on the earlier games – doesn’t happen. Indeed, I beat the Elite Four, the Champion, AND the *spoiler* with my team of mainly Legendary level 100 monsters (and level 90+ Greninja and Charizard) taking down every opponent Pokémon (bar one, who was Sturdy) in a single hit each without taking any damage in return.

Too easy? Possibly. Did that matter? Not at all. Did I complete it before my daughter finished X? Hell yes. And isn’t that all that is really important?

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