Episode 7: Do the Mario! [Super Mario Bros.]

Coins and noings!  It's another fantastic episode, this time focusing on the indestructible demigod of videogames.  Mario's debut is certainly a classic, but, as is my solemn opinion, the classics are not necessarily good.  Does it hold up?  Do a plumber's routine duties involve jumping on turtles?



Download it, fools!

(0:30) We have a website!  If you like our show, leave a comment or email us!

(3:00) What we’ve been playing.

(10:45) Super Mario Bros.

(14:30) Enemies in Mario.

(19:20) Freaking water levels.

(21:15) We discuss this article http://www.comicsalliance.com/2013/02/15/super-mario-bros-continuity-ask-chris-141

(22:30) Compared to later Mario Games.

(26:00) Super Mario Bros. Vs. Sonic the Hedgehog

(28:30) Final thoughts on Mario.

(30:00) Videogame Sequels

(33:00) The Legend of Zelda and Nintendo


Next week, we go even further back in the past and try to take on the legendarily difficult arcade classic, Gradius!

Lose all the powerups in a single shot with us at

Geremy@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Tyler@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Zach@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 or LTOVG@lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 You can also go to the show page at plus.google.com/+LastTimeOnVideogames or comment on the site at www.lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 Also, you can follow our tweets @LTOVG.

Last Rant on Videogames: Disgaea: Hour of Darkness

Something that we've not touched upon during the podcast much is the subject of game developers and publishers -- other than Nintendo, I suppose.  In general, my opinion on the subject is that they... exist.  Companies change out employees all the time, and I really feel that the quality of a work produced by a company is decided mostly upon the people creating that work.  The biggest reason we haven't talked about it, at least for me, is that I don't really have anything to say about it.

That said, I do have some bizarre allegiance to one particular publisher and will buy almost anything that I come across with their name on it.  That company is Atlus.  If you've never heard of this company, I'd be a little surprised, given the astonishing popularity of the latest games in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series.  Atlus, at least over half a decade ago, seemed to my still impressionable sensibilities, the company that would take games resulting from a combination of unorthodox design and quirky scripting that had been cast off by slightly more main stream publishers and give them a nice warm home.  With a turkey dinner.  I suppose it could have been tofurkey or something, depending on the game's tastes.

I have mentioned previously on the show that I went through a phase where my sole consumption of my free time was playing SNES games, usually with some random anime for background noise.  During my quest for games I hadn't yet played that also looked mildly interesting, and likely influenced by the obscene amount of anime I was watching, I started turning towards games released in Japan that never got an official translation.  At the time, on of the most intriguing games I found was the first in the Shin Megami Tensei series, or ShinTen as I've taken to calling it.  I've often described the series as Pokemon, but with demons.  Demons is a little vague, but it's much more succinct than saying basically every major entity from every major mythology and pile of folklore.

Sadly, I did not know Japanese at the time and couldn't find a decent translation, so I never beat the game, but the encounter had intrigued me.  I researched it a little, curious as to who had produced such a thing, and found the name Atlus.  This, combined with one of my friends ranting about how much he was enjoying a recently released game from the company, the eventual subject of this review, had me hooked.  Unfortunately, I'm rather miserly and therefore do not make a habit of buying new games, but I always keep an eye out for titles with their logo on them.  Not all of them have been good, but are at least interesting enough in concept to warrant existence.  I'm looking at you, Steambot Chronicles.

At any rate, Atlus generally picks its children well, and today's subject is not and exception, though one might say it's exceptional.  Because the subtitle is cumbersome, I'll be eschewing it in favor of referring to the game as simply "Disgaea."  The premise of the game, without too many spoilers, is that you guide the party of demons led by heir to the throne of the Netherworld, Prince Laharl, and his most trustedish vassal, Etna.  Additionally, they are visited by others, who, for a variety of reasons, join his quest to become Overlord of the Netherworld after his father died.  Most notably, he's accompanied by an angelic assassin name Flonne, who sticks around Laharl to see whether he can be swayed from his generally surly nature to something a little more loving.  As a side note, it turns out "the" may be the wrong article for referring to the particular Netherworld the plot takes place on.

People seem to like antiheroes, myself not being an exception, and Laharl is about as unheroic as it gets.  In fact, most of the prominent cast are downright villainous.  The plot generally centers around Laharal learning to love under Flonne's influence... or not, as the game has multiple endings.  This is all done with incredibly cheesy voice acting and a generally anime-esque art style.  The plot's not exactly the stuff of classics, and is fairly goofy, but the writers apparently knew this, as it's played off with very enjoyable camp.  There are some ridiculously lines, Etna's voice actress (in the English version, at least) delivers excellently, there are silly fantasies from Etna between each episode of the game parodying popular anime but are still enjoyable without that knowledge, and there's a slight amount of breaking the fourth wall.  The whole experience, while mildly awkwardly paced and not too deep, is rather enjoyable.  Also, there are prinnies.  Just... Google a prinny.  Dood!

Now that we've gotten the flimsy sheet of plot out of the way, let's talk about the mechanics of this game.  First, the real meat of the game, combat.  The game is a turn based, square grid strategy RPG.  Characters level up when they defeat enemies, learn special abilities to do so more effectively, and generally do all the things you get out of a stat-based RPG.  Characters are dispatched, one at a time and up to ten on the field, from a base panel.  You take turn issuing commands until either ten of your party (or all the members that you have) or the entirety of the opposing party are slain.  Commands are issued one at a time, then executed either at the end of a turn or when the "Execute" command is issued.  Characters will then proceed to do whatever you told them to do in the order in which you told them.  As a single enemy or group of enemies is attacked in succession, the amount of damage each subsequent attack does is increased.  A notable thing about the combat, which is rather amusing but degrades in usefulness after a while, is that if characters are stationed around another who is attacking normally in melee, without abilities of any sort, have a chance to join in on the attack for up to four characters beating the enemy simultaneously.  There are different animations for each number of attackers, so it's rather amusing to watch it happen.  As I mentioned, however, it gets much less useful when your characters get more powerful, as their attack skills tend to do more damage than the combined attacks and cannot provoke counter attacks.  Did I mention you have a chance to counter?  It's nothing active, but it discourages direct melee attacks if nothing else.

There are two character types.  The simpler of the two is the monster type.  Monsters can equip only one type of weapon, and cannot lift other characters and throw them around the maps as human types can.  Yeah, you can do that, and it's pretty useful.  The tradeoff is that monsters tend to get either outrageous stats or learn skills with unique attack areas, which can help during combat.  Personally, I tend to avoid them as they lack the versatility that human characters have.

Human characters, which includes most of the main characters, can come in a variety of flavors.  I'll explain how this works in a moment, and it's rather interesting.  Humans can equip a variety of weapons.  The most easily utilized weapon is the sword.  It has a variety of skills to be learned that can affect numerous areas, making it easy for a sword user to participate in combo attacks.  The axe focuses on doing higher damage to single enemies but has a lower chance to hit.  The spear tends to sit in the same power range as the sword, but allows a user to attack from up to two squares away.  As it's important here, a single square is only the directly adjacent one, not a diagonal.  The spear's special attacks generally do damage while moving the user around the map.  Bows allow the user to attack from a distance, and the special abilities focus, generally, on dealing status effects to opponents.  Guns have a longer range than bows and focus only on dealing damage.  Fist weapons, like gauntlets and whatnot, do decent damage and focus on dealing damage while moving opponents around the map.  Staff weapons are pretty much useless for direct combat, but are useful for other reasons I'll touch upon in a moment.

So, you'll notice I mentioned special abilities for each weapon category; I also said that characters learn new abilities as they level up.  Many characters learn abilities specific to them, like Laharl learning firey punch moves that attack the area around him.  In addition to gaining straight experience, human characters improve their proficiency with the category of their currently equipped weapon by beating upon enemies with them.  The special abilities of each category are unlocked by becoming good enough with the weapon, and are unrelated to the character's level.

The staff weapons are particularly tricky because of this.  They're absolutely useless for attacking, but a character using a staff has a lot of incentive for mastering its use.  Staffs do not grant abilities as the character becomes more proficient, however.  Some character classes can learn spells, which are incredibly useful due to the vast number of configurations they can be cast in.  Something I haven't mentioned yet, as it hasn't yet been relevant, is that every character has a weakness or resistance to each of three elements: wind, fire, and ice/water.  The symbol for ice is a water droplet, but almost everything that is that element is an ice spell.  I'd have to say it was more easily visually distinguished that way, but I'm just guessing.  Anywho, mastering a staff allows the caster to attack from further away, with reduced cost, and with greater power.  Pretty useful.  It's also worth mentioning that each individual spell can also be mastered by using it more.  The higher the level of proficiency with that spell a character is, the more shapes it can be cast in, in addition to conferring the same bonuses that mastering a staff offers.

So, there's a pile of stuff for each character to master.  Yay.  We've but scratched upon the surface of this game, however.  Another aspect of this game is character creation.  Before we get into the chewy filling of that tidbit, let's cover the effects of killing an enemy in combat.  As one would expect, experience is gained from doing so.  However, in a manner I find mildly irksome, only characters involved in the final attack on the enemy actually gain experience.  This means that if you perform a basic attack and manage to get four characters in on it, they will all gain experience.  However, if you set up a five attack combo with the intention of letting the last character in the sequence perform the finishing blow, you might accidentally strike down your foe with the wrong character.  It's mostly something to keep in mind, and makes quickly empowering smaller characters a chore if you don't think things through.  The second effect of killing an enemy is that you gain some Mana (which isn't what you use to activate abilities; those are Skill Points, or SP, in this game).  However, only the character that initiated the attack gets the Mana.  This means that even if you get four characters in on a single attack, only the one actually attacking gets the points.  As far as I can tell, the amount of Mana gained is equal to the level of the defeated enemy.

So, what's Mana good for?  Actually, a fairly wide variety of things, all focused around the next aspect of this game: the Dark Assembly.  Basically, it's Congress for demons.  In order to do anything that might potentially disrupt the order of demon society, a bill must be proposed to the assembly.  Proposing bills costs Mana.  Therefore, the strongest characters in your party are likely going to be the most politically active, which makes some sense in a society based on martial prowess.  The bills you can propose vary from gaining extra experience in the next battle, to opening optional maps, to extorting money from the senators.

Proposing a bill works as follows.  First, in order to propose most of the useful ones, you must be of a certain rank.  You increase your rank by engaging that single character in a test of might.  The higher rank you're trying for, the stronger the opponents you must overcome.  Makes sense.  Once you can propose the bill you want, you spend Mana to do so.  That Mana's gone now, and you can only regain it by slaying more foes, regardless of the outcome of the impending vote.  You're moved to the assembly chamber with the proposing character at a podium in front.  In the bleachers are a number of, as far as I can tell, random senators.  Once they come into existence, they stick around for the rest of the game.

Why does this matter?  You can bribe the senators to make them more favorable towards you.  Pretty awesome.  Moving your cursor over a senator displays their basic stats, including level, HP, SP, elemental weakness, and their current opinion of the proposed bill.  Higher level senators have a stronger voice when voting, so you should focus your bribery on the senators whose voices will matter most.  For each senator, each item in your current inventory is evaluated, randomly, from "Does Not Want" to "Must Have."  The former actively causes the senator to dislike you more, while the latter greatly increases their opinion of you.  You can go about bribing senators until you think the vote will go your way.  The effects of bribing carry over to new proposals, so even if you don't get this bill passed, they'll still be more favorable to any future bills you propose.  In this manner, you can eventually control the entire senate.  What if you take the vote, and senators you bribed didn't vote for you?  Smite the dissenters!  You have the option of attempting to pit your party against all the naysayers of your cause.  This can be dangerous, as some senators are of a level you will likely not reach even after multiple plays of this game.

One of the bills you may propose that does not require a vote, usually, is creating a character.  There are multiple classes you may create, each with different aptitudes for each stat and weapon category.  Additionally, you may create each of the monsters you have faced, provided you've defeated a sufficient horde of them.  Different human type classes are unlocked after surpassing some obstacle, which are hidden from the user.  Additionally, each class has multiple tiers, with the final tier being the epitome of perfection for the archetype.  The higher tiers, in addition to costing more, are generally unlocked by having a high enough level character from the previous tier.

Similar to creating a character, 100 Mana may be spent (you can cancel this until the final confirmation) to transmigrate the character.  If you've played too much DnD, you can probably already see how this may be exploited.  It is, in fact, possible to achieve a character knowing every skill in the game with mastery over every weapon.  For time concerns, this is impractical, and it's generally easier to focus on a single weapon, but it can be done.  However, each time a character is transmigrated, they lose a portion of the mastery.  The amount lost depends on the rank they are transmigrated with.  The rank also applies to creation, but since it is a new character, mastery isn't an issue.  The different ranks also come with more skill points to assign to the character's stats upon creation.  There is, therefore, large incentive to save up Mana for the highest rank of character.  This is a rather large amount, however, and for transmigration all the Mana must come from the character of interest.  A useful point of the transmigration process is that characters may build up their primary "base" stats over many reincarnations.  I did this with the main characters a few times, and, though I don't know whether there is a point in doing this with them, Laharl had colossal strength and was capable of easily dispatching foes several times his level.  The downside, and simultaneous upside, is that transmigrated characters start at level one (with crazy stats and equipment) but ostensibly gain levels faster.

Hopping back a track, I mentioned that it's necessary to bribe the Dark Assembly to help them see things your way.  Since their interest in your items is random, you can accomplish this with a pile of useless things.  You acquire quite a few over time, but the easiest way to do so is through use of the bonus gauge.  Each time an attack is performed in combat, the gauge rises.  The longer the chain of attacks, the more it will rise, up to level nine.  The gauge starts at level zero, and you will always get the level zero reward.  An important item about this is that in order to receive the rewards, all enemies must be vanquished.  This isn't important for plot combat, but it's important later, for reasons I'll keep obscure for now.

By far the easiest way to boost the gauge is through manipulation of the Geo system.  The system itself isn't too complicated, but can lead to some real head benders.  Basically, maps can have a variety of colored tiles.  By themselves, they do nothing.  However, there are also colored pyramids called Geo Symbols.  The symbols have certain effects, information on which may be easily gleaned by hovering the cursor over them.  When placed on a Geo Tile, all tiles of that color will be imbued with the effect of the symbol.  Symbol effects may stack, and I'm pretty sure there isn't a limit to it.  When a symbol is destroyed, all tiles that the symbol is on change to the color of the destroyed symbol, provided it was a different color than the tile.  Anything caught in the change will be damaged, or in the case of other symbols, destroyed.  Any destroyed symbols proceed to repeat the process.  Of mild interest is the Null color, which just destroys the tiles instead of changing the color.  If all the tiles are destroyed, as small explosion damages all enemies.  By chaining color changes, you can perform what I've taken to calling a Geo Combo.  Each subsequent color change is worth an additional point per tile changed.  The number of points at the end of the combo translate directly into bonus gauge increase, netting you valuable bribing materials or rare equipment.

While we're on the subject of acquiring goods, every item has stats like a character.  The stats increase a character's by that amount when equipped, or heal by that amount for restoratives.  The interesting thing here is that items are populated by specialists, who are listed in the item description.  Each specialist affects on stat by the amount listed.  A specialist of Gladiator type and power twenty, will increase a weapons attack by that amount.  Each weapon has a maximum population of these specialists, with special and legendary weapons having a higher capacity.

This on its own would be useless, however.

Enter the Item World.  You see, in the universe of Disgaea, each item contains its own world that may be explored.  In essence, there are one hundred floors in each item to explore, and each floor is randomly generated upon entering.  Because there aren't really any limits to this, you might not be able to reach the exit all the time, though I've never found a case where it's truly impossible.  Additionally, the most interesting Geo configurations occur in the item world, meaning traversing the interior of an item is the best way to acquire more.  On your way through the item, you may encounter the specialists, who act as third parties in combat.  Should you, and not the enemy, manage to defeat them, you may transfer them between items as you see fit once you exit the world.  Exiting the world can be somewhat trying, however.  You are only given the option to exit every tenth floor, and enemies get stronger as you descend.  However, the level zero bonus of every tenth floor is an item that allows you to exit on any floor and return to that floor later.  Additionally, every level you descend makes the item more powerful, giving strong incentive to brave the depths of your favorite weapon.

Actually traversing the Item World is different than story missions.  The level may be cleared, as normal, by defeating all foes.  Additionally, you can simply get one of your characters to a glowing panel and descend to the next floor.  The sole detriment to this method is that any bonus items you might have received for your actions on the floor are lost.  Using this method, however, with the application of some strategic lobbing of party members and a little luck, can allow you to traverse items that are far more powerful than your party.

In addition to the menagerie of things going on with the Dark Assembly and Item World, not to mention trying to train your characters to be demons of legend, there's also a hospital that you must spend your precious Hell (yeah, that's the name of your currency) to heal you characters between combats that don't end a chapter.  The hospital, while not a super important part of playing the game, is generally visited as second nature after a while.  It keeps track of how much HP and SP have been restored there, in addition to the number of times it has raised your dead.  Get enough in one of these categories, and you get a fabulous prize!  Fabulous may be generous, but you can occasionally get something useful out of the exchange, and you'll be visiting frequently.

All this comes together in a game unlike any I have ever played.  That said, I don't often play strategy RPGs, having mostly dabbled with early Fire Emblem games.  However, the multiple endings, endearing cheesiness, the nearly vital New Game+, enjoyable combat, and interesting randomly generated Geo puzzles make this game one of my favorites.  It is my earnest recommendation that, if you have never played Disgaea, or an Atlus game, that you give this one a shot.  There are quite a few games in the franchise, and my experience is that they get successively more ridiculous.  Coupled that with the fact that the developer, Nippon Ichi, is registered on Steam, this means that there is plenty of enjoyment to be obtained from this series and that it will hopefully be easily available in the near future.

I had intended to keep this one shorter, but there's just so much in this game, that it's hard to do.  It really plays more simply than it sounds, I promise.  Until next time, game fans!

Episode 6: Really, More Like the First Fantasy [Final Fantasy]

This week we tackle the progenitor of a mighty series!  Be thrilled with tales of dazzling magic, amazing sword fights, and lengthy fetch quests!  Final Fantasy, while not really resembling the plot drenched behemoths it would become, is a fairly enjoyable game.  Give us a listen and find out why!



Download

(1:00) League of Legends.

(4:00) Final Fantasy

(5:20) The 6 Classes

(8:20) Beginning the Game and our Parties

(10:00) Compared to Dungeons and Dragons

(13:30) The Chore of Random Encounters.

(18:00) MP vs. Tiered Spells

(22:30) Yay Fetch Quests!

(26:00) Our history with Final Fantasy.


We weren’t sure what we were going to play next at the end of this episode but, Spoiler Alert, it’s the classic Super Mario Bros., the first videogame Geremy ever played.

Wanna rescue a princess? Join us at

Geremy@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Tyler@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Zach@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 or LTOVG@lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 You can also go to the show page at plus.google.com/+LastTimeOnVideogames or comment on the site at www.lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 Also, you can follow our tweets @LTOVG.

Last Rant on Videogames: About Farming Chore Simulators: Rune Factory 2

Hey, folks! This one's all text. I know, in this ridiculously media saturated age, that text is usually a bit too cumbersome of a form of media to ingest, but I'm writing a small reflection on the first few hours or so of a game. I actually plan on doing this fairly regularly as I plow through the games I'm playing that have nothing to do with the podcast. This is technically a blog, after all.

 So, a couple of weeks ago, we published our podcast episode about Harvest Moon.  While obviously a flawed game, concealed beneath its murky exterior are some priceless gems; such treasures are rare now, and I don't think we really emphasized how intriguing this game is.  If you listened to the premise and found yourself strangely attracted to the idea, don't feel ashamed.  It's a perfectly natural part of your development.

However, if you'll recall, we were only a few dozen grams of caffeine away from earnestly ranting about how boring it was.  When was the last time you got emotional about boredom?  The main complaint was that, as a game, it lacked a certain level of engagement.  The tasks you are supposed to spend most of your time with quickly dulls into routine mundanity, but it's generally better than the other things that are available.  Harvest Moon, despite its odd allure, wears out its welcome before it's done staying at your place.  I feel this is the necessary conclusion of simulation games of this nature; unlike something akin to Sim City, however, you don't get to finish your experience in the resplendence of fifteen natural disasters simultaneously ending your empire.

Somehow, though, Natsume is still in business and still making farming simulators.  Perhaps for a while, they survived off the hope of seeing what lay beneath the tedium, that horrible yet beautiful something nagging at the edges of our thoughts.  Perhaps it's simply that dating simulators, which these games tend to be, are a poorly represented genre in the U.S.  Geremy has, on occasion, raved about the excellence of Harvest Moon 64, so the company must have done something right.  At any rate, the initial success of Harvest Moon and its sequels enabled Natsume license to experiment with the basic formula.  There now exists a small pile of spinoffs, most of which now have sequels of their own.

This brings me to the eponymous game of this post: Rune Factory 2.  There are, at the time of this writing and according to the sum of all human knowledge that is Wikipedia, six games in this series.  Six games about farming.  That's already impressive, even if you don't consider the actual Harvest Moon series and the myriad other things Natsume has produced under similar guise.  What did they get right with this take on the premise?

Let me preface my following comments by saying that I do not know that I will finish this game.  I'm already having trouble thinking of picking back up after stopping for a few hours.  However, my first impression of this game is strongly positive.  Simply put, it's been pretty fun thus far.  So, what is this thing that I've spent so long talking around?  Well, succinctly, it's Harvest Moon with swords.  Also, fireballs and axes, but the prior sentence pretty much sums it up.  The main character wanders into town with amnesia, under what I can only assume to be some form of magical compulsion.  The plot wiggles a bit to land you a farm, and you're off to cultivate your adventure.

This game succeeds in a few vital areas that Harvest Moon didn't.  Primarily, I believe the characters around town have more substance to them, no longer the ephemeral impressions of personality with which we were originally treated.  Most of them spend a good portion of the early game telling you their favorite food, but their development is aided by a second aspect that was sorely lacking from the first game.  A necessary, but not sufficient, trait for the proper enjoyment of Harvest Moon is the ability for the player to set their own goals.  The game doesn't give you anything concrete to do, nothing to merit the growing of endless crops; if you are to succeed, you must introduce some tasks of your own invention.

While Rune Factory doesn't do a whole lot more for this, it does give you some quests to perform.  The artifice for this is that all the people in town post their problems on a board in the town square and hope that some generous soul will come and aid them.  Given that you are a farmer, which is an inexplicably easy task in this facet of reality, you have plenty of free time to be that person.  Accepting the quests allows you to both find something to kill time in the game until the next tending of the crops and gives you a small insight into the character you're playing errand boy for.  Sometimes it's something trivial, such as a small boy causes mischief and doesn't want to be caught, and sometimes it's amusing and rather telling of the character the writers wanted to portray, such as the local self professed badass being a lover of books.

While these two aspects may well be the meat of the game, they are certainly not the meat of the mechanics.  This is, disregarding the title, a Harvest Moon game, so there should be farming.  You'll be glad(?) to know that farming is a key element to this game.  I'll get to the twist that makes the premise so amusing in a moment to talk briefly about digital agriculture.  The farming in this works very similarly to the original Harvest Moon.  That being the only game in the franchise I've played for more than about 5 minutes, that is what I'm using for comparison.  Thus far, the major improvements I've seen are thus:

1) You can walk through your crops.  No more awkward lines cut out, meaning maximum value for your seeds.

2) Crops are worth quite a bit, which is both satisfying and useful to the "with a sword" portion of the game.

3) Your tools can, with few exceptions, be charged to affect a larger area, reducing the time you spend actually farming.

That last point is pretty important.  I actually only spend about 1 or 2 in game hours actually tending to the farm each day.  It occurs to me that I've neglected to mention that this game is on the Nintendo DS, which is mildly important.  You can queue up actions quickly on the touch screen, making the harvesting of numerous crops a breeze.  This means that you have plenty of time to do things that aren't farming.  Certain crops require a bit more attention than others, but most just require you to make sure that everything is watered at the end of the day.

Since you don't spend a whole lot of time farming, what are you doing?  Well, other than performing menial tasks for villagers, you're exploring dungeons.  I use that term loosely.  One of the dungeons is, in fact, just a forest.  It's not even densely wooded.  Anywho, using, at first, your farming equipment and later some more sensible tools, you can delve into dungeons and slay beasts, gather resources for crafting new equipment, and getting goodies to give to the villagers.  Like all Harvest Moon games, you largely improve your standing with individuals by giving them things.  Talking to them regularly reveals what varieties of objects they prefer.  Thus, much of your time, and energy, is spent hitting things with a suitable club surrogate.

Since the adventuring is a huge aspect of the game, let me regale you a bit with my thoughts on it.  First, it's fun.  Second, it handles only marginally better than a jellyfish on skates.  How are these things coincident?  Well, the enemies, at least as far as I've gotten, have mile wide tells before each of their attacks.  While you may have trouble positioning yourself for an attack of your own, you certainly have an abundance of time in which to do so.  Most go down after a few good combos (from the weapons that combo; not all weapons are capable of this), and you can pretty easily run circles around them.  However, they will continue to spawn unless you destroy the rather obvious swirling ball of energy that is the spawner.  That means farming a particular enemy for whatever items it happens to drop is not much of a chore, at least not compared to some other games.

While we're talking about the actual mechanics, I want to mention the energy system.  Similar to Harvest Moon, almost every action you perform in the game uses energy.  You have two types of energy here, though: RP and HP.  I can't remember exactly what these stand for, but you've probably played enough games to know what HP is.  You take a hit, it goes down.  RP is an arbitrary measure of your stamina.  As you swing your sword or water your crops, your stamina is consumed.  Better equipment uses more stamina, though you can increase your skill level in most actions to reduce the amount consumed.  Once you run out of RP, your HP is consumed instead.  This can lead to problems if you delve unprepared into dungeons.  There are a wide variety of  items available to recover either measure, so running out isn't really an issue unless you get surrounded by enemies.  However, unlike Harvest Moon, the night is not without end.  There are many maladies you may contract, mostly in the form of standard fantasy/RPG status ailments.  Additionally, you can catch a cold, and you are more likely to do so if you forgo sleep regularly.

Now, back to farming related things, since this subject ties neatly into that from dungeoneering, you may recall that we mentioned that in Harvest Moon you accrue most of your wealth through harvesting animal products.  The same appears to be true in this game.  However, there is no place to buy animals or equipment.  You get most of your farm supplies by completing preliminary quests for the townsfolk.  Among the essentials is the Pet Glove.  In the dungeons, when beset by monsters, you may attempt to pet them into submission.  I like to imagine is like trying to scratch the belly of an aggressive dog and eventually getting it to roll onto its back to afford you a better vantage.

At any rate, you may acquire cow and chicken monsters, in addition to basically anything else you encounter.  While many monsters do not produce valuable products like milk and eggs, you can shave most monsters and sell their fur.  That raises some questions about who would want goblin hair, but I digress.  The real purpose in catching anything other than a cash cow is that you can take monsters with you when adventuring, making your expeditions a bit less harrowing.  Eventually, you get the ability to tell them to perform special attacks, making their aid even more welcome.  I haven't gotten very far, but I just picked up a dire wolf of some sort, which I've creatively named "Lobo," and he appears to enjoy feasting furiously upon the flesh of my foes.  I've always enjoyed ending my foes through status effects, watching them perish from a safe distance.  To that end, it's rather amusing watching my wolf do all the work for me.

The dungeons themselves are... alright.  There are four main areas, one each corresponding to a season.  There are areas in each where you may plant crops of the appropriate season should you run out of space in your field or it is not the season for potatoes or something else you may desire, usually as a gift for a villager.  The dungeons are appropriately themed, although there are two forests mostly differentiated by color palette.  My one complaint thus far is that, aside from layout and enemies, they're basically all the same.  This may be more a problem with the enemies than the levels in which they reside, but it gets to be that exploring the initially cool ice cave is roughly the same as wandering the tropical island.

According to your world map, these two features exist within a couple miles of each other, by the way.

There's some promise for more, and potentially interesting, things around the corner if I continue playing, which I intend to for now.  Each dungeon has areas blocked off by arbitrary obstacles.  They currently come in two flavors, and I feel that the plot will explain to me what they are later.  There appears to be something of an actual plot, and the game has reasonable pacing when introducing new concepts.  It does, however, leave a lot up to experimentation.  I'm not sure how I feel about this; I normally like it, but some of the mechanics might be esoteric enough that I won't discover them without a guide.

So, you have farming funding dungeon delving funding more farming.  It's a positive feedback cycle, and this particular one is fairly satisfying.  I like most of the characters, and the town's a pretty colorful place, despite being made up of seven or so screen.  In addition, the game takes places over multiple generations, which is a gimmick I've always enjoyed.  If you're wondering what I mean by that, I shall explain.  When you marry the girl of your choice, you move in together and, as is the usual course of these things, have a child.  That child then becomes the new main character.  Yeah.  I really like that idea, but have no recollection of playing a game with this mechanic.  I don't know how many generations the game lasts, however.

My final thoughts on this game, at least for the purpose of this entry, are pretty positive.  As I mentioned, I don't know whether it will hold my interest for the entire length of the game unless it introduces some larger plot hooks.  I don't think this necessarily reflects poorly on the game so much as the type of game I'm in the mood for.  I've been playing a lot of fairly narrative and character heavy RPGs lately, so this may have to wait for a better day.  If you're intrigued by the idea of a farming game and like fantasy settings, this is pretty much the arcane relic of imagined lore.  It's quirky and a little corny, but worth a play if it sounds at all interesting to you.  It's available only on the DS as far as I'm aware, but it's a solid entry in a franchise brimming with posibility I'm probably going to revisit several times now that I've tested the waters.

G'noight,
Tyler

Epsiode 5: Double the Action. Double the Fun. Double Dragon! [Double Dragon]

Do you like fighting thugs on the streets?  Rescuing/avenging your girlfriend?  G-R-A-S-P-ing moving objects?  These guys do!  Double Dragon time!

We're back again in the fifth episode with our first double feature.  After playing Double Dragon, we decided there wasn't enough to talk about for a whole episode, so we played Double Dragon 2: The Revenge as well!  See what all the dragon punching is about!




Download right here!

(1:50) Double Dragon!

(4:30) Double Dragon II: G-R-A-S-P  Or um… The Revenge.

(7:30) Weapons in Double Dragon I&II

(8:30) Awkward Platforming and why it kills games.

(13:00) Co-Op and Multiplayer in Games

(22:00) How to improve Double Dragon.  Aka why Batman is awesome.


Sorry for the short episode, but despite playing two games, we didn’t have all that much to say on them.  Next time, we shoot for the opposite problem with Final Fantasy.

Help us find some crystals at

Geremy@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Tyler@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Zach@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 or LTOVG@lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 You can also go to the show page at plus.google.com/+LastTimeOnVideogames or comment on the site at www.lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 Also, you can follow our tweets @LTOVG.

Epsiode 4: Do the Metroid [Metroid]

It's that time again:  new episode time!  This time, we talk about about the progenitor of one of my favorite series, Metroid!  This time around, we talk about themes of exploration and stuff, and see what Metroid did and didn't do well.  Does it stand the test of time?  Does the Ice Beam kill things?  Will I ask a standard third question?  Find out in this episode!

As a side note, I think this is our best episode thus far.  Let us know what you think!


Download

(2:17) Wanting something Vs. Having it.

(4:45) Metroid the series.

(8:30) Metroid’s game play.

(13:00) Powerups.

(18:50) The Password system.

(20:50) The goals of Metroid.

(24:30) The Bosses, Ridely and Kraid, why both are not good Boss Fights.

(29:00) Themes and Aesthetics.

(29:30) And the Final Boss, Mother Brain.

(31:30) Multiple Endings.

Oh, my, we managed to stay on topic, and we have decent audio quality.  How will we one up that?  Well, despite what we say in the podcast, Double Dragon only has alternating Co-Op, not simultaneous, so in our first double feature we play Double Dragon and Double Dragon II: The Revenge.  Don’t miss it!

Beat 'em up with us at

Geremy@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Tyler@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Zach@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 or LTOVG@lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 You can also go to the show page at plus.google.com/+LastTimeOnVideogames or comment on the site at www.lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 Also, you can follow our tweets @LTOVG.

Episode 3: Farming Under the Light of a Harvest Moon [Harvest Moon]

You ever get the feeling you'd be better off growing potatoes and corn on you grandfather's abandoned farm to become a millionaire?  No?  Well, in case you have, you can live out that dream in Harvest Moon, everyone's favorite farming/dating/life simulator!  This seems to be a game that everyone has heard of, but few have actually played.  Is it worth trying?  Give us a listen and find out!

A quick note, this was the first one we recorded on Geremy's computer, so the sound quality was... questionable.


Download

(0:23) The First Games we ever played.

(2:26) Harvest Moon 64, and Geremy’s obsession with it.

(3:30) Why Farm Chore Simulator is fun.

(5:30) Harvest Moon

(8:10) A Hard Day’s Night, time limits in Harvest Moon.

(9:26) The Goals of Harvest Moon

(10:00) Girls!  (In Harvest Moon.)

(11:15) The Not-Girls in Harvest Moon.

(12:40) The flaws of Harvest Moon
(14:40) Multiple Endings!

(15:50) The Golden (Easter) Egg.

(20:20) Best parts of Harvest Moon

(21:16) And the worst parts.

(24:50) Reward structures in Video Games.

(33:30) We talk about Hex Empire.  If you’d like to play it, it can be found here.  http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/486811


Next week, Metroid!  A way better aliens game than Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Geremy@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Tyler@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Zach@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 or LTOVG@lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 You can also go to the show page at plus.google.com/+LastTimeOnVideogames or comment on the site at www.lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 Also, you can follow our tweets @LTOVG.