Cheerful Jester = Evil Minion? I don't think so.

I have a Sega Saturn. I got it last year and it came with a few games, one of which was Tomb Raider. I accidentally fell over a ledge in that game and was almost mauled by a bear, but that's beside the point. The games that came with my Saturn weren't really all the important. There was one reason that I wanted a Sega Saturn: NiGHTS into Dreams.

Just as Nintendo has Kirby and Namco has Klonoa, NiGHTS is Sega's own dream-related character. NiGHTS into Dreams takes place in a dream world separated into two sections or whatever they're called: Nightopia and Nightmare. Guess which one's good and which one's bad? In Nightmare resides an evil baddie called Wizeman who creates Nightmaren to do his bidding, which consists of stealing orbs called Ideya from children during their dreams. Anyone, Wizeman made two jester-like first class Nightmaren named NiGHTS and Reala. Reala was loyal to Wizeman, as good henchman are. NiGHTS was more free-willed, but how is this surprising? I mean just look at him! He's way too happy looking to be evil!


How is that even remotely threatening?"

Anyway, Wizeman didn't like NiGHTS being a bad minion, so he locked the purple jester up in a cage (Ideya Palace) where NiGHTS idly bounced around with no hope of escape. At least, he had no hope until two kids showed up in Nightopia. Eliot or Claris, depending on who you play as, show up and promptly get four of their five Ideya stolen from them (it happens each level), with only the rare Red Ideya of Courage remaining with them. Each kid can walk up to the Ideya capture and "dualize" with NiGHTS, which allows the Nightmaren to escape his prison and fly around to gather back the Ideya.

This video shows a typical NiGHTS into Dreams level, and even though it seems overly simplistic, it's actually pretty fun. You need to collect enough of the blue chips (forgot their name) in order to break the Ideya capture and well... get the Ideya. You need to get three or four Ideya each level, I can't remember which. After each level comes a boss fight, which sometimes confuses me because I have trouble understanding what to do. I mean, I'm still not sure how to beat Jackle.

A year or two ago Sega finally released a NiGHTS sequel. NiGHTS Journey of Dreams (I acutually played it before the first one) offers a bit more level variety, and healthier dose of plot. It's actually pretty similar to the first game: Will and Helen help NiGHTS round up their Ideya and defeat Wizeman. Reala makes a few more appearances in this game, mainly to force loyalty to Wizeman upon/fight NiGHTS. It doesn't really work.

NJD features a little garden thing called My Dream, where the player can raise small fairy creatures called Nightopians. Honestly, I don't really understand it. Sometimes it's happy, other times the trees are cut down.

Anyway, that's the blog post. There wasn't much noteworthy there, but it works. See ya next time. Happy gaming.

So my brother went to an anime convention and got me a Vampire Knight shirt signed by Vic Mignogna (Zero's English voice actor). This is awesome in many different ways.
a)It's an anime shirt
b)It's an anime shirt with Zero Kiryuu on it (my favorite Vampire Knight character)
c)It's signed by Vic Mignogna, one of my favorite voice actors.
Not only did that shirt excite me, it inspired me to improve my drawing. So now I'm looking at pictures of Vampire Knight characters (and some other pictures) and drawing their hands. Why? Because I can't draw hands, and therefore need to learn. It's going pretty well actually.

One more thing, in Vampire Knight Zero always gets the short end of the stick. Always. Things may go his way for a while, he might even smile a little bit, but then someone (sometimes himself) screws it up. Of course, he never makes a huge effort to make things better, because he's so angsty, reserved, and angry...
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I haven't really touched Twilight Princess this past week. Mainly because I was busy, or I just didn't want to play it. Now that it's the weekend, I've been sidetracked by Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I'm trying to play as Marth now thanks to a totally awesome web-comic. But I digress, the point is Link's currently sitting in the entrance to the lava-filled Goron Mines probably sweating buckets thanks to his thick green tunic.

Let's jump straight into gameplay. I can't speak for the Gamecube version, but I can't help but feel the attack combos in the Wii version of TP don't flow well. To attack all one must do is swing the wiimote aorund a bit, and Link will in turn swing his sword around a bit. Shaking the nunchuk produces a nice spin attack, and the A button gives a nice jump attack when targeting an enemy. Still, every attack seems slow and disjointed. Plus, it gets repetitive after a while. Slash, slash, spin, jump. Jump, slash, spin, slash. Wolf Link's attacks, in my opinion, aren't much better. Same controls, but the attacks seem even less connected. Maybe there are more attacks to learn though, or I'm just not doing it right.

Every time Link steps into the Twilight, he turns into a wolf. Midna then asserts her control over him, giving tips when needed. It's during Link's second Twilight adventure that the pair comes across a missing bridge. Then Midna gives you the basics on teleporting, something that can only be done in the twilight realm. It's pretty nifty is you ask me. Saves the trouble of run-dashing all the way back to the Ordon forest to find the bridge, because y'know... the shadows took it so they must've of left it somewhere.

It took me a minute to realize I was actually looking for an entire bridge left in a forest.

Zelda games are good at being serious yet still throwing in nice bits of comedy. Good ol' Epona disappears after Link turns into a wolf, and later shows up running like crazy to throw off the goblin things riding her. Link then gets the job of clambering on his charging horse and bringing her back in line. For some reason, watching Link get tossed of Epona over and over again made me laugh. Another thing I found hilarious was Link sumo wrestling. Not only did it seem random, but Link is basically a stick next to the guys his wrestling. It cracked me up.

Short entry today, because I don't have much to say (rhymes!). Happy gaming. See you next time.

Next time on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: I wish I knew...

Epona gets the day off too...

So I've been watching Phineas and Ferb since spring break, and I'm not ashamed to say I really like it. I mean, I've already accepted the fact that I'm just a really big kid, so I have no qualms about watching cartoons (and haven't for quite some time). Actually, I'm watching Phineas and Ferb right now. Oh, Perry the Platypus, you crack me up.
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I admit that throughout my gaming career I haven't been the biggest Legend of Zelda fan. I watched my brother play Ocarina of Time quite a bit when I was younger, but all of my attempts at playing it probably didn't get much farther than the Forest Temple, if that much, and of course I always wanted to hang out at Lon Lon Ranch because Epona is the best horse eve. Other Zelda games warranted even less of my attention, until Wind Waker. Why Wind Waker? It's adorable, and was actually a great game, but then I got to the tower at the end and haven't played it much since.

Last weekend, I was searching for something to play. I didn't feel like BlazBlue, and Tales of Vesperia involved too much grinding, so eventually my eye landed The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I thought, "Hey why not," so I popped it into the Wii, erased my first file (which only had 00:57 minutes on it), and started again.

I can pretty easily say that my opinion on Zelda is changing.

Where to start? Most people probably know how a Zelda game typically works. You play Link. Link lives a normal life until abnormality makes him grab a sword, shield, and green tunic (Wind Waker Link wasn't fond of the tunic), and then whisks him off to meet Princess Zelda. As it turns out, Link has to save the world. Thus begins the game.

Twilight Princess starts off calmly. Country boy Link is a responsible, well-liked young man in the village or Ordon. The village children, save for one twerp, harbor a great deal of admiration for Link, and why shouldn't they? He can ride like an expert, is sweet as can be, and even knows the basics of swordplay. Not to mention his horse is awesome. Everyone seems to love Epona. If Link gets a day off, Epona does too. Not because I wanted to give her a day off, but because adorable village boy Colin would not let me ride Epona. Heck, Ilia (who's about Link's age) death glares Link when she sees that Epona is lightly injured, and he flinches in turn.

Things turn for the worse when, right before Link is about to deliver a spiffy sword to the royal family at Hyrule, Ordon is attacked by mysterious "beasts" who cover the land in twilight, and kidnap the village kids (and Ilia). As if this isn't bad enough, Link gets dragged into the realm of twilight as a wolf. A really cool looking wolf. He takes it really well, actually. Anyway, after awaking in a jail cell Link meets the bizarre Midna. She smirkily helps Link out of cell and very promptly decides to ride him like a horse while basically telling him he can listen to her and get out, and not listen to her... he needs to listen to her.



Quite quickly you can figure out that Midna is using Link for her own purposes. She doesn't really hide it, because Link really does need to listen to her if he wants to get out of the twilight realm and save his friends. One might think this personality would make Midna an annoying character. I, on the other hand, think she's awesome and immensely entertaining, despite the fact that she's initially more interested in Link's fighting ability than his actual well-being.

Though, Midna did seem quite concerned when I was lolly-gagging around in a burning building. It was nice to know she cared. Then again, when said building caught fire she promptly left despite the "romance" of the situation.

She enjoys Link's pain. I know it.

Next time I'll try to stop talking about plot, but no guarantees. Happy gaming. See you next time.

Next time on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: Twilight Princess Part 2

So I suddenly want to rewatch Gundam 00, but Bandai's taken all but ten of the videos off of their youtube channel. The episodes they do have are in Japanese with English subtitles, which is fine except I'm used to the English cast for Gundam 00. Guess I'll just wait until the complete collection comes out...
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"Carl's story: one-hundred percent complete. Oh yeah, now onto arcade mode."

Ten stages shouldn't be that hard, right? Even though I was told that Nu-13 is even harder in arcade mode, I can still win, right? I'll eventually be able to pull off a victory on stage eight, right?

Of course not!

With a few blips along the way (and the fight against Litchi, that was annoying), I was actually able to bumble through arcade mode with Carl the other day. Then I got to stage eight: Hakumen. Here's a poorly organized picture to show how well my fights against Hakumen go (the "second panel" is in the bottom left).



He pretty much tosses me around like a worn-out rag doll. It doesn't help that it's Unlimited Hakumen, so his Heat gauge is... unlimited. Also, I'm pretty sure Hakumen can also dish out some pretty mean counters (whether for Distortion or Astral Heats I'm not sure), so I'm kind of scared to attempt any specials at times.

Have I gotten better at playing BlazBlue? Think so.
Have I gotten great at BlazBlue? Not a chance.

I've yet to try playing as any other character, but I'm thinking of playing as either Bang or Ragna. Each character has a pretty unique fighting style, so I'll probably have to head into training mode each time I try out a new character. For example, Carl uses Nirvana in battle, and he's the only character that uses anything like her in battle. Litchi, on the other hand, has a pole that can be placed on the battlefield. This pole can then be used to launch Litchi into the opponent or... do whatever her other attacks are. Then there's Arakune, who can float across the battlefield, turn invisible (you can still see a blur where he is though), and do other weird things.

Yeah, pretty diverse.

I'm the kind of person who enjoys seeing subtle, but neat, touches in games. BlazBlue includes some nice bits of character specific interaction in battle in the form of in-battle quotes. Jin Kisaragi will call Ragna "brother" in battle, something he obviously wouldn't call any other character. Bang, Carl's self-proclaimed mentor, occasionally shouts "You have a long way to go Carl!" when fighting the young puppeteer. In truth, it's really nothing much but I find it incredibly cool.

That's all I have to say on BlazBlue right now. It's a good game, but some of the moves are difficult for me to pull off ("Half circle back, foward, C! Aghh! C'mon! Half circle back, foward, C! Why won't my Distortion Heat work?!"). Until next time, happy gaming.

Next time on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: The Legend of Zelda Twilight Pincess

Hey, lookit! Another fighting game!

I turned on Pandora Radio so I could listen to some music while typing this post, and it gave me a song I haven't heard in a while. I'll probably have it stuck in my head for a while, but I don't really mind.
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I came home on Friday and saw that the PS3 was updating something. This prompted me to look on the stack of games atop the cabinet with all the consoles in it for a new addition, because it seems the PS3 is bound and determined to slowly torment excited players by slapping them with long updates every time you put in a new game. This proved problematic when I was bouncing up and down waiting to play Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time. I wound up running back and forth between two rooms to pass time and put my energy to good use, but I digress. As it turns out, my brother picked up a copy of BlazBlue since the price dropped to $20.

I've seen BlazBlue before. It was one of those games that I looked at when I went into Gamestop, thought "I should look that up," and promptly forgot about by the time I left the store only to repeat the cycle the next time I happened upon the game during another Gamestop visit. As it turns out, BlazBlue is a fighting game that, according to me brother, was meant to be like the Guilty Gear series. That would probably mean so much more if I had ever played Guilty Gear. Still, my interest was piqued, and I casually watched my brother play while I looked up voice actors (it's a habit).

This morning I made my own first attempt at BlazBlue, and chose Carl-Clover as my first character. I've probably made smarter decisions in my life. Ideally, I should have picked a rather simple character who I could use as a entrance to BlazBlue gameplay, but hey Carl's a cute little kid. He's even got a cool hat! The thing that makes Carl a poor learning choice is that to make the most of playing with him you have to use the marionette thing he travels with. The doll, Nirvana, makes up a good chunk (like, half) of Carl's attacks, excluding basic combos, so you have to control her during battle as well as Carl. Given that I have a hard time effectively controlling Carl, this doesn't work out for me. The player has to hold down the X button in order to automate Nirvana, which causes Carl's special Nirvana gauge to drain. Once that's down Nirvana just slumps over broken for a while.

The special moves of the game use the Heat gauge at the bottom of the screen. Distortion moves use fifty percent Heat (with Carl at least), while Astral moves use all one-hundred percent. Carl starts off with three Distortion moves, two of which use Nirvana, and his Astral move can be unlocked later. This video shows all of Carl's special attacks. Using a Distortion or Astral move only requires the correct percentage of Heat along with using the correct stick rotation and button combination.

BlazBlue has a surprising amount of story for a fighting game as far as I know. The game's story mode allows the player to play as any character and follow their story mode path. There are a few different paths to take within each story mode, but some endings may or may not be the true ending. Each character's story mode reveals more about their own personality. Carl calls Nirvana his sister. I'm not quite sure if it's because he really thinks she's his sister, or if he just feels like calling her Sis. I hope to find out. Anyway, getting one-hundred percent on each character's story will probably keep one busy for a while.

I haven't played BlazBlue much yet. Hopefully, I'll remedy that this week so I can get talk more about it next week, but don't hold me to it. Until then, happy gaming. See you next time.

Next time on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: BlazBlue Part 2 (hey that rhymed!)

4/19/10 Edit:
Thanks to a nice guide that told me which paths I had yet to take, I fully completed Carl's story mode. I've learned a few things from this. Carl's kind of creepy, Jin Kisaragi's a jerk, and Taokaka has at least two different names for Ragna. The first fact made itself known when Carl needed to obtain either Jin Kisaragi or Noel Vermillion's weapon, and then showed up to pretty much say, "Hey, long time no see. I need that weapon. Oh, you won't give it to me? Let's fight!" The second fact showed up when, if Carl loses the fight, Jin uses his ice powers to freeze Carl (partially at least) and decided to kill him. The final fact actually showed up earlier when I was watching my brother play (as well as some of the second fact). Taokaka's a cat who is looking for Ragna the Bloodedge in order to defeat him and get a lot of money for food. At one point she calls him Ragnya (made more hilarious by the fact that she was talking to Ragna but had no idea it was really him), which made me chuckle because "nya" is a cat sound in Japanese. The second name was Rawrgna. I'm kind of hoping she calls him Rawrgnya at some point or another.

I'm getting better at using Carl. A few times in Arcade mode I've managed to attack the enemy from both sides using Carl and Nirvana in tangent. Most of the time Nirvana gets left on the other side of the field until the enemy or myself heads back to the other side. The enemy does so on accident, but I try to get back to the other side so I can hide behind Nirvana.

My concentration isn't working well at the moment.

First of all I'd like to say that much of this post was written last week, but I stopped during the middle of it. Then I never got back to it for a full week. Yeaaaah. I... I was on Spring Break. That's my excuse.

Second, I got a new kitten. His name is Mr. Darcy, and he's adorable! He also climbs bird cages.
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Fashion trends. I'm sure some people follow them very closely, and if that's their thing then I say go for it. For the people of Shibuya, fashion is definitely their thing (at least it is in TWEWY). There's comes a point rather early in the game where Shiki reveals to Neku that she is, in fact, a seamstress capable of creating her own clothes (including the outfit she wears in the game). As a hopeful clothing designer-to-be, Shiki makes it a point to keep up with fashion trends. Neku does not. Hilarity ensues.

After Shiki basically tells Neku that he looks dumb, she gives an explanation of how fashion trends work. This little tutorial isn't just there for the sake of Shiki's character development; it's part of the gameplay. Each area of Shibuya has a list displaying which clothing brands are in style and which brands are not. Various stores throughout Shibuya sell different brands of items, and ideally you're supposed to build up a stock of them (Neku and co. can't be seen on the streets, but they're perfectly visible in stores). When you enter a new screen in Shibuya you can check the trends and then dress your characters according to which brands rank the highest (using different brands of pins works too). If you use a brand that's in style you get some nice boosts in battle, otherwise you're just average. Allow me to note that the game is playable without worrying about trends. I typically dressed my characters according to what offered the best stats, and I used the pins that I could fight best with. Fashion trends held little importance to me.

Sticking with the trends will require a bit more than just buying everything you see in a store though. Some clothing items require the character to have a certain level of bravery before they don their new apparel. If I remember correctly, bravery can be increased by feeding your characters. Food items raise different stats on your characters, one of them being bravery. However, you can't just force food down your character's throats as if it's an eating contest. You have to wait until food digests (or whatever) before you can hand out more food. Different food items require you to wait longer. Honestly, this is another game aspect I conveniently forgot about until much, much later in the game. Therefore, I know little about it.

Haha, don't you all love my terrible stopping points? Due to the one week lapse in the writing of this entry, my thoughts aren't flowing well in terms of TWEWY. Don't worry though, I'm adding some extra stuff at the end to kinda sorta make up for no post last week.
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I had started writing about the game Persona 4 in this space, until I realized it was even more sporadic than my other entries. Instead, I'm going to briefly (I hope) talk about Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. I can actually play this game. This is important because it's a fighting game, and I normally just mash buttons and use cheap attacks to try and get somewhere in fighting games... Wait, that's what I'm doing in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom... Ummm, this is different though because when I play it's less like grasping at straws and more like educated guessing! I'm mashing buttons, but at least I know how to use some special moves!

Seriously though. I've managed to complete arcade mode runs, even though the final boss requires me to revert back to cheap long range shots. This game pits various Capcom characters such as Ryu from Street Fighter and Viewtiful Joe from... Viewtiful Joe, against Tatsunoko character like Ken the Eagle and Yatterman-1. I'd never really heard of Tatsunoko before, but now I kind of want to watch the Yatterman anime.

Like other fighting games, various control stick/pad and button combinations activate certain skills. With Zero from Megaman X for example, his strongest attack (Dark Hold) is activated by moving the control stick forward, down, foward and pressing two attack buttons (on the GCN controller). Other attacks require you to roll the control from the bottom to the right while pressing one attack button. Yeah, I'm not explaining this well. It probably makes more sense when you're actually playing.

I tend to mess up control stick movements and get the wrong attack, leading me to announce "That was unintentional!"

There's not really much plot, but some of the characters have humorous arcade mode endings. Otherwise, it's pretty much straight up fighting. That sounds bad, but it's nothing terribly graphic.

My thoughts aren't piecing together well right now, and I wanted to keep this "brief" so I'm gonna stop. Have a good week folks!

Next time on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: I haven't planned that far ahead yet.

Noise, games, and fashion

I've been playing long enough to beat the game (unfortunately and actual time count is unavailable), and I stand by my my statement that The World Ends With You is one of me favorite DS titles.

The World Ends With You, also known as It's a Wonderful World in Japan, is a DS RPG made by Square-Enix, creators of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. I found this game purely by accident while working on an assignment for a class a couple years ago. For some reason or another, I was looking at games online and saw The World Ends With You posted on a store listing, looked up some stuff about it, liked it, and sometime after that picked it up at Gamestop. It's brilliant. I love the plot, I love the characters, I love the music...

...and I fail at the gameplay.

However, we'll touch on my ineptness in a bit. The plot rundown comes first. Neku Sakuraba is anti-social, quick-tempered, lone wolf teenager who always has a pair of headphones over his ears in order to block out everyone around him. Neku himself states at the game's beginning, "I don't get people. Never have, never will." He's basically alone, and it doesn't seem like he intends to change that. One day, Neku wakes up in the center of the scramble crossing in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. Despite being a Tokyo resident himself, waking up in the midst of a crowded shopping district would surprise anyone. Even better, Neku's got a case of amnesia. It's not a total mind wipe or anything. The bitter teen has retained his "do it on my own" personality, and he knows who he is, but memories about his past are non-existent.

Before he can get his mind straight, some freakish frog creatures start chasing him. Naturally, he runs and is hopelessly confused when none of the countless people around him even attempt to offer assistance. Just as his situation looks dire, a girl darts up to him and forces him to make a pact with her, after which the two of them promptly kick the enemies' tails. The girl is named Shiki (not-so affectionately called Stalker by Neku) and proceeds to explain to Neku that they both are taking part in something called the Reaper's Game, and they have to survive for one week. They've gotta stick together in order to keep from getting erased by the monsters they were just attacked by called Noise. Each day the pair will be given a mission to complete in a set time, and if it's not complete they "face erasure."

Neku was not pleased.

The plot then continues to unravel in a series of surprising twists, dramatic events, and plenty of funny banter between characters. Now onto the gameplay. Different DS games use the system's dual screens in different ways. TWEWY uses both screens in battle at the same time. The bottom screen in where you control Neku. You move him by dragging the stylus around the screen, and you attack using psychs, which for Neku are small pins in the Reaper's Game that each have different abilities that Neku seems to be quite adept at. Psychs have various ways to use the ability, and you can choose which psychs you want to use. Sometimes you dash the stylus across the screen, sometimes you may just tap the screen somewhere, and sometimes you might need to shout into the microphone (blowing into it works just as well). Here's a video of Neku's screen.

The top screen holds Neku's partner Shiki. If you so choose, Shiki can be controlled by the CPU. Otherwise, you can take over yourself. I really don't understand much of controlling Shiki, but by using the control pad you navigate through a short path of arrows to pick a symbol card. If you pick the right cards (which I'm totally not sure about) you can add to a fusion gauge thingy that can eventually allow Shiki and Neku to perform a dual attack. I normally just jam the control pad either right or left just to get Shiki to move and attack faster, but if I get tired of doing that I can stop and the CPU will pick up the her controls in a few seconds. See Shiki's portion of battle here.

If my lame explanation of Shiki's gameplay didn't already justify my claim of battle ineptness, I'll explain a little more. I'm can't adequately focus on both screens at the same time. If I'm focusing on playing as Neku normally I'll only jam the control pad either left or right, as stated earlier. If I'm focusing on the top screen, the most I'll do with Neku is just dash him around the bottom screen so he won't get the snap beaten out of him. The CPU can control Shiki, but Neku's movements are all up to the player. Even if you can only fight efficiently with one screen you still need to watch out. The health bar is shared by both characters, so they both to be decently able to... not get killed. Both screens together look like this (the black cat in the video is Mr. Mew, the stuffed cat Shiki carries as well as her weapon. Neku swears it looks like a pig.)

Next week I'll touch on some more of TWEWY various aspects, including fashion. Yup, fashion. Happy gaming folks.

Next week on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: TWEWY Part 2

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Court Day 2 (a.k.a The Edgeworth Rant)

WARNING! This post is mainly about one character.

I've been playing for the same amount of time as last week, because I've been busy and some new games have come out.

Before I get started, I'd just like to say that Nintendo's ploy to make Pokemon fans get up and walk has worked. I've had my Pokewalker on all day, and, after returning to the Wal-Mart clinic after a short walk around some of the store, I considered making another round so I could earn a level up for my Sentret as well as get some more shots at catching pokemon. Thank you Nintendo. You guys are awesome (seriously). /rant

I haven't touched an Ace Attorney game at all this past week (well, I touched the case and the game cartridge for Investigations as I switched it out for Pokemon), but I have some semi-decent reasons for it. First of all, I go to school. School gives homework, and although this work saddens me I must do it for the sake of my grades. Second of all, this week marked the release of a game I've been wanting for a year, as well as the release of the newest Pokemon remakes. So, my attention was diverted from good ol' Nick. Still, I can continue the discussion on Ace Attorney as promised.

However, I'm not entirely sure what I intended to start this post with, so I'm going to talk about Edgeworth.

This is Edgeworth. Edgeworth does not wear pink (it's more of a maroon/magenta). Edgeworth is a 24-year old, hard as stone, cold as snow, absolutely perfect prosecutor. Edgeworth will do whatever it takes to get a guilty verdict (as he himself explains).

Edgeworth is my favorite Ace Attorney character.

During your second case of the game, Nick is told that the case's prosecutor is Miles Edgeworth, so he should probably just go ahead and give up because Mr. Edgeworth has never lost a case, pal. Nick doesn't give up of course, and heads into court the next day to face the perfect prosecutor. I see Edgeworth and I want to let out a very fangirly "EDGEWORTH!" squeal. I've done it before, and I'll probably do it again. If you're not already a rabid fangirl, which most of you probably aren't, you might want to grab Edgeworth by the shoulders and shake him in frustration.

Caution: I'm about to mention the evidence used to slam a contradiction in case 2. I'm not telling you what the contradiction is or where it's at, but you've been warned.

You've discovered that the witness's testimony contradicts the victim's autopsy report, you're feeling confident about said discovery, and you call out your objection with pride. It's all going great, at least, it is until Edgeworth calmly informs you that your autopsy report is outdated, because he ordered a new autopsy to be performed. The new report supports the witness's testimony, and your contradiction no longer stands. Edgeworth does this a lot when you first face him, and while it's annoying, it makes even the smallest victory over him that much better. He stuttered once in court, and I felt victorious. Imagine how great it feels to watch his cool composure break as you slowly take victory. It gets the blood pumping! Take that Edgeworth (you're still awesome by the way)!

While Edgeworth is frustrating, Manfred von Karma is downright terrible. Guess what? He's Edgey's mentor (that nickname for Edgeworth is in the game, and is thus available for use, okay?)! Everything you say is interrupted by Von Karma's deep throated, frightening objection, and the man is so commanding and cruel that he basically controls the judge, and therefore controls the court. Von Karma's 40 year record holds not a single loss, and it probably has something to do with the fact that compassion is practically foreign to him.

Remember the prosecutor with the whip that I mentioned last post? That's his daughter.

Although the ending point is terrible, I'm stopping here. If you've read through all the entire post then congratulations! You've survived a lengthy character rant! If you've skimmed through/skipped parts of the post then... congratulations as well! If you skipped everything except this last part then that's okay. See you next week, and happy gaming!

Next week on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: Ummm... It's a surprise!

Because I haven't really picked next week's topic yet...

"I... object to the witness's talkativeness!"

I spent about four hours on Case Three, but other than that I don't know how long I've been playing.

I don't really know the fine details of the American court system, because, well, it seems really dull. I know some of the basics though. You get a lawyer, there's a jury, witnesses swear to tell the truth, and you're innocent until proven guilty. Doesn't seem to exciting, so why the heck would I play game all about court? First of all, the Ace Attorney series is not an emulation on the American court system. I'm not sure it's an emulation of any court system actually. Second, the combination of humor, drama, and suspense is for some reason very exciting. Finally, there's something immensely satisfying in watching the "perfect" prosecutor break his stoic "anything you can do I can most certainly do better" persona because you just blew his witness's testimony the pieces.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney places you in the shoes of Phoenix Wright, who is actually a newbie defense attorney. Phoenix, or Nick as his friends call him, is under the tutelage of the talented Mia Fey. The game's first case is Nick's first trial, and, luckily for him, it's a murder trial. Now, looking at it from Nick's perspective it's probably a really crappy situation, because a) his best friend has been charged with murder, and b) he knows said friend is innocent but has no idea who is the actual murderer. The point of each case is to prove your client innocent, and in the process catch the actual bad guy.

Now, in real life it's not really the defense's job to catch the bad guy if I'm not mistaken (which I could be), but in Phoenix Wright things are way different. As stated by my brother, in Phoenix Wright you're guilty until proven innocent, and you're not innocent until the bad guy's captured. Seriously. Basically, the entire world is against the defense and everything they hope to accomplish. The prosecution on the other hand receives much love as demonstrated by the fact that they're in cahoots with the police department. In every case the prosecution's opening statement essentially says, "The defendant is guilty because I have a witness/piece of evidence that irrefutably says so." By the time the words leave the prosecutor's mouth, the judge is ready to deliver a guilty verdict (there's no jury in Ace Attorney). Favoritism to the prosecution aside, the defense also has witnesses who refuse to the tell the truth for whatever reason they find acceptable.

Ace Attorney games are text based. Epic hand to hand fight sequences between Nick and the various prosecutors don't really exist, although Nick does get hit with a taser once and in the second game is openly whipped in court by a prosecutor (no, she doesn't get in trouble for it). The first two cases of the game show a brief little scene blatantly showing you who killed who, just so you can get your feet wet and know exactly who you're shooting for. Typically, cases start with an investigation phase where you amble around picking up whatever clues you can to help your seemingly hopeless situation in court. Investigation leads to a day in court, where you either actually make progress or stall long enough to extend the case to another day in court. If needed, you then do some more investigating and then head to court again. Due to the game's plot cases can only last three day, but as long as you don't get a game over you'll accomplish everything you to do in court sessions.

Nick's quite a funny guy. When he really has no direction in court, he makes something up. In fact, he actually tries to make a witness who he knows is innocent seem like the murderer in order to buy an extra day in court. Seem mean? Don't worry. She was released soon after and Nick slammed the real murderer in the end. Many times, dramatic court sessions become quite humorous when you see what Nick's inner thoughts are, and his general personality lends itself to humor. Despite having only a few cases under his belt, Nick has proved himself to be a twenty-four year old defense attorney prodigy which the grand ability to turn crappy court situations into great ones, thus the fact that the game's Japanese title translates to "turnabout trial" or "turnabout court."


That's Nick's "objection" pose.

Seeing as this has gone on long enough, I'll continue next week. So, until next time!

Next week on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney (Court Day 2)

Mega Man ZX Part Two

The time I've been playing hasn't changed from last week, so... yeah.

It always seems that by the time update day comes around I've moved on to a different game. Today I played Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney for about four hours, because I wanted to beat case three and head off to case four which is amazing in many different aspects (and also involves a prosecutor with the scariest "Objection!" ever). Last night I played Tales of Vesperia, some Phoenix Wright, and some Mega Man X4, but I didn't play Mega Man ZX. Oh well, I can still talk about it.

Last week I ended my post with a basic plot description. I'm not really sure what I intended to write after that so I'm just going to wing it for a bit.

If you like 2D side-scrolling platformers then you're in luck, because that's Mega Man ZX is. Oh yeah, then there's the whole "take down the bad guys" part that requires you to use the weapons you receive as you play the game and find biometals along the way. One of these weapons includes rapid fire ninja stars. :D The game runs on a mission system. You go to something called a trans-server, pick a mission, and head to the specified area and complete said mission. After the mission's done you return to the server and send in a mission report. You'll want to get the last part done decently quick, depending on your amount of patience. If you have a very low tolerance for blinking symbols accompanied by a noise that sounds in sync with it, then you'll want to send in you mission report very, very quickly, lest you be plagued by the constant reminder that your mission report must be filed.

I'm fine with missions. Missions give me the chance to choose what I want to do, and when I want to do it. My biggest personal problem is that I have trouble finding where my missions are. The world is divided into areas that are classified by letter, and then the various sections inside an area receive a number for identification. You might want through a door that says A-1. That just means you're in the first part of Area A. While, I completely understand that I still fail to find areas with a relative amount if ease. When you read a mission's info it might tell you to go to Area F. The information fails to tell you where Area F is. The result? One terribly lost Elizabeth.

Aside from the different Maverick filled areas, ZX has a peaceful little city where various civilians can be found. I like that little city, mainly because the background music that plays in it is really neat and catchy. When you first waltz into the city in full battle gear one of your new allies drop a friendly tip that using a biometal isn't the best idea. Dressing like a ready-for-battle combatant freaks out the citizens, and it also makes you the little security robots (or whatever their classification is) number one target. The latter really isn't that big a deal. Some of robo-guards are slower than Christmas, and most of the them are easily destroyed. In fact, they're so simple to be rid of that I take slight joy in running across town flaunting my battle-ready character.

As for freaking out the civilians, that's really no big deal. I actually find it rather funny. Without the biometal, fellow citizens simply view you as an average transporter, and they show very little hesitation in chatting about whatever they feel like with you. One little boy recommends that your character should take a trip to the local arcade, because you're obviously a harmless stranger. Activate a biometal however, and that same little boy will inform you that his teacher told him not to talk to strangers.

Seriously, I like that little city.

I also like the characters in MMZX. Giro is a character that is intentionally similar to Zero from the Mega Man X and Mega Man Zero series (his consciousness also resides in Biometal Z). Now, Zero is on of my favorite Mega Man characters ever, so Giro is automatically promoted to a high spot on the "Favorite Mega Man ZX Characters" list. For some reason, I also really like the villain Prometheus even those he seems kinda sorta crazy... If memory serves (which it might not), you don't get much back story on the ZX cast. Vent/Aile lost his or her mother during a maverick raid some time prior to the game's start. Prairie, the Commander of the Guardians, has quite a few background points that heavily allude to the presumption that she was a minor character found in the Mega Man Zero series. Still, there's not much back story going on. Doesn't make the characters bad though.

Feel free to look into this game if you want. I like it and you may too. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a case to solve and a man to prove innocent! Gosh, I love Phoenix Wright...

Next week on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney

Mega Man ZX Part One

I've been playing for around eight hours, and I still get hopelessly lost even in my second playthrough.

Not very surprising though. I circled the world map of Final Fantasy IV over and over again because I couldn't find a giant tower that reached off the screen. I later found out a way to actually bring up a map that would give me some semblance of direction and wanted to kick myself for not realizing it sooner. But I digress. Final Fantasy IV, while being a very good game, is not the topic of today's post. Instead, I'll be talking about Mega Man ZX, which really has nothing in common with FF4 except for the whole "directionally challenged" deal.

Just a bit of background info on this game. Mega Man ZX is a (really awesome) DS title in the Mega Man franchise (obviously). In the timeline of Mega Man, ZX takes place after the Zero series, which takes place after the X series, which takes place after the original series (I think), which takes place in the year 20XX. None of that's really important (especially the last bit) unless you want to understand in-game references to past titles (namely the Zero series) that make easily excited folk like myself chatter in happy recognition of something from an old game. Granted, it helps to understand some of the basics of the series in order to understand what's going on. So here goes a short lesson in Mega Man basics (not including the original series).

Mega Man in general is mostly about robots (but there are still humans). Many of these robots are called reploids, which means they were based off a highly advanced robot named Mega Man X. Mavericks are reploids/robots gone bad, and mechanaloids are basically machines (not so sure about the last one though).

Mega Man ZX actually has you playing as a human, but don't worry. There are still plenty of robots, even though it's sometimes hard to tell the difference (some reploids look very human-like). You can choose to play as either Vent or Aile, who are male and female respectively. The only difference between them is that the story undergoes very minor changes depending on who you choose.

Basic plot: Vent/Aile (I'll just stick with Vent from now on) works for a delivery service run by a guy named Giroutte (Giro for short). At the game's commencement, Vent and Giro are delivering an incredibly important package to a group called the Guardians. Of course, they get attacked and Vent is blown off a cliff (no, I'm not joking) along with the package, where the Guardians manage to meet up with him. Events lead to Vent putting the package into good use. "The package" is something called a biometal that contains the consciousness of an old warrior, in this case it's Biometal X. After he transforms into more-battle-capable Vent, the kid goes off and starts his journey.

For those of you eager for more, sorry. I'm splitting this into parts, so you'll have to wait till next week if you want to read more. Until then, happy gaming.

Next week on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: Mega Man ZX Part Two

"You almost launched me into a fireball!"

I haven't played for very long at all, so I don't have much New Super Mario Bros. experience.

I've only played the New Super Mario Bros. for a short time, but I didn't think it would be cool to switch the game like I did last week (which was also a game I hadn't played much). Still, it's pretty fun, especially in multiplayer. Last weekend I had the delight of playing this new Mario game with my brother. This may not sound like much, but maybe the image might be slightly enhanced if you understand how I play games.

Tpyically, I play alone. Multiplayer generally comes when my brother (and occasionally myself) invites the other, or my brother picks up a controller and sits down. This is happened at least once the past two weekends (last night played Castle Crashers, but that's another story), but normally we play solo. Not by any means because we take sibling rivalry to the extreme, but simply because we often play alone/play games that aren't geared for multiplayer/aren't fond of what the other's playing/would rather watch and commentate instead.

So, again. I generally play alone. That doesn't stop me from laughing, growling, and otherwise chatting it up while gaming even when I'm the only one there. Yes, I'm positive I'm not crazy. Add my normal chatter-box nature to a multiplayer Mario session, and you've got what, in my mind, turns out to be a fun game of good natured yelling and "teamwork."

If you've ever played a side-scrolling Mario game then you'll know the basic gist of what goes on. You run, stomp enemies, grab mushrooms and other power ups, and try to rescue a princess who may or may not be in another castle. The New Mario Bros. isn't much different in that respect. However, instead of each player taking a turn to play through a level, in the New Bros. everyone gets to play together on the same screen. Pushing and shoving will ensue. If not then you're way more careful than I am.

When even two people are jumping around on screen, it's hard not to accidentally take the power up someone else wanted or launch yourself off the top of their head. On accident, it's not always a good thing, but when used correctly then you've got good teamwork. An example of an accident: my brother accidentally grabbed my character, and then proceeded to accidentally walk of the edge of a platform. "Dude, you just killed us both!" came soon afterwards. Actual teamwork could involve purposely trampolining off another player to reach an overhead pipe.

New power-ups come forth in this game as well. A blue mushroom makes your character really, really tiny. So tiny you can pull off a Sonic the Hedgehog and dash across water. Some flight mushroom thing puts Mario in a really dorky looking suit, but allows him to helicopter into the air. Ice flowers are just like fire flowers, except with... you know, ice. There's even a penguin suit that I haven't used yet, but after watching my brother play solo it apparently lets you slide along the ice and even has the Ice Flower power (rhyme was unintended until I realized it rhymed) of chucking ice at enemies.

Plot-wise, there's not much. It's Princess Peach's birthday. She gets kidnapped. You go save her. Same old, same old, but hey people don't play Mario for plot anyway. You traverse through worlds, completing levels, playing mini-game things, and stomping Bowser's lackeys (not that I've even passed world 2).

Despite my own personal "play alone but still keep talking" gaming habits I still find the New Super Mario Bros. more enjoyable to play in multiplayer. Good natured yelling is actually quite enjoyable. Up to four people can play this game, and if you enjoyed the old games with the Italian plumber then you'll probably like this one as well. Whether you want to play is your choice though.

Happy gaming. See you next week.

Next week on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: Something in the Mega Man series (which title has yet to be fully determined)

I've been playing for... a long time, and Flyff is still my favorite MMORPG.

Change of plans for this week. Instead of Tales of Innocence I'll be talking about the free MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Flyff (Fly for Fun).

Now, I know World of Warcraft is insanely popular and has loads of players, and I'll admit that it's neat. However, it's not neat enough to pay fifteen bucks a month for (in my opinion at least). I've found free to play MMOs that I enjoy just as much; Flyff being one of them. I've played off and on, creating a new character pretty much every time I start playing again (therefore my highest level character is only level fifty something), but Flyff just has this draw to it.

So once you've got your account, downloaded the game, and created your character you can pick from one of multiple servers, and then choose a channel within that server. Typically the first channel houses the most players while the last only contains a few. You can change what channel you're on whenever you feel like it, but once you create a character on a server it stays on that server.

Every player starts off as the lowly Vagrant, which means you're low leveled and only get swords and axes to smack enemies with. If swords and axes work for you then this should be a fine stage in the game for you. If not, then keep leveling up until you reach level fifteen. At this point you can change to one of the four base classes: Mercenary, Assist, Magician, and Acrobat.

Mercenaries (mercs for short) continue with the use swords and axes, and they also get shields as part of their armor. Mercs are the best for getting up close in your opponent's face, and are probably best tanks (characters that can withstand loads of damage). I'm not sure though. I've never played as a merc. Once you reach level... sixty I think; you can advance to either the Blade or Knight class.

Assists are the healers of the game. Generally not to great at laying the smackdown on monsters, but if you place your stat points (explained later) right you can manage to pull it off. Some assists focus solely on their healing spells, and their spells that can increase a player's speed, attack, defense, etc. (herein referred to as "buffs"). This course of action pretty much requires that the assists always be in the company of a partner or party of combatants in order to advance in the game. Assists eventually can become either Billposters or Ring Masters (no, I'm not sure why they're called that).

Magician's explain themselves. Wave your staff (or wand, or... whatever the other mage weapon is) and ta-da! Unleash the elements upon your foes! Of course, high magical ability means that physical skills drop a bit. Soloing is still possible though. As a mage, it's a good idea to either memorize what elements are weak to each other. Elementors and Psykeepers are the two possible paths for a mage.

Lastly, we have my favorite class, the acrobat. No, they don't flip through the air, balance on high wires, or turn cartwheels. In truth, they are the long range class of the game. Acros use either bows or yoyos (that are actually more like giant frisbees of doom) to fight. Use of bow requires one to frequently purchase arrows that go for one Penya (in game currency) per arrow. Not to bad once you actually possess a bit of cash, seeing as three thousand arrows can last for quite a while. Possible acrobat paths include either the Ranger or the Jester.

I'm one of those people that really enjoys MMOs, but more often then not completely smashes the "multiplayer" aspect of them, thus potentially defeating the purpose. I play solo, and will not speak to another soul unless prompted too. And no. I don't consider a random friend request an adequate prompt. I just feel stupid asking people questions, and am typically too shy to just start up a conversation. However, I still give the polite, "Thank you very much! ^^" when someone helps me out.

Despite my self isolation, Flyff offers plenty of opportunities for player interaction. Guilds are groups for players to join up with and play together. Game events often bring together large groups of players, and in-game couples can even marry their two characters. In fact, couples who logged in together today got a free Valentine's Day gift. For the singles like me... tough love.

To touch on all of the aspects of Flyff (or any MMO) in this blog post would be impractical, not to mention impossible because I don't know everything about it. Heck, even when I had a character in the high(ish) levels I was still asking one of my few friends in the game questions about how everything worked. The best way to find out would be to just play it, and maybe even ask someone for help. Happy gaming. See you next week.

Next week on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: The New Super Mario Bros.

Tales of Vesperia

I've been playing for about 100 hours, and my Xbox awarded me for it.

At least, I think it was an award. Either that or my console was chastising me for having "Too Much Free Time." Still, it was time well spent on a game that deserves the effort. Tales of Vesperia is the latest mothership (main) title of Namco Bandai's Tales of series to hit the United States (Japan actually has the newest game, but that's another story). The Xbox 360 RPG quickly claimed a spot of my favorite games list, and I currently have it ranked as my second favorite Tales of game (Tales of the Abyss being the first).

As with most games in the series, Vesperia creates a new world with new technology and a new way to justify how everything works. Pretty much everything in the world of Terca Lumeris runs on blastia which are pretty much machines. Blastia run on something called aer that is just as invisible as real air, except in large concentrations at which point it becomes a pretty puddle of rainbow. Oh, and it's bad if you get to close to the colorful lakes, a warning that is repeated but often ignored due to plot circumstances.

Although you can play as pretty much any character you want too you start off as the sarcastic "do it my way" Yuri Lowell. Yuri used to be part of the Empire's Imperial Knights along with his best buddy Flynn Scifo. However, Yuri didn't like their way of doing things, promptly ditched the Knights, and returned to his home in the lower quarter of Zaphias (the Empire's capital) to help his friends in his own way. Unfortunately for Yuri, his way is often not in agreement with the law although it is more effective than the Knights. So what if he got a little jail time for laying the smackdown on some tax collectors?

The beginning for Vesperia's plot is as follows:
Yuri gets tossed in jail after breaking and entering into a house in the royal quarter (hey, he was chasing a thief who stole from the lower quarter) and then fighting with two city guards. Of course, he busts out of the dungeon and runs loose in the castle until he finds the pink haired princess Estellise Sidos Heurassein (later nicknamed Estelle). The two oddly manage to find a sort of common ground in the goal of leaving the protective barrier of the city and chasing their respective goals (chasing a thief and finding Flynn). They leave the castle, pick up Yuri's faithful dog Repede and begin their way too long adventure.

Tales of Vesperia contains real time battles. Essentially that means that everyone is doing whatever they want at the same time. For example, you could be slicing up a monster on the left side of the field, but your ally could be toasting another enemy on the right side. At the same time, another monster could be attacking your healer, prompting them to complain that they need protection. Basic attacks are used by smashing the B button and moving the control stick in different directions. Special attacks, called artes, are equipped to different combinations of the control stick and the A button. Players also have an "Overlimit" meter, and once you use it you can effectively beast your enemy. You can chain artes together in ways you normally can't, and eventually you can use your characters super special Mystic Arte to take your opponents down.

Musically, Vesperia's pretty good. When you need something hot-blooded, they've got it for you. If you're about to play the hero there's a track for that, and when drama strikes your party fear not! The background will play into that as well. Perhaps my favorite musical achievement in Vesperia is that Namco actually keep the main theme mostly intact. Previous games have provided instrumental versions of the original song in the Japanese port, or a different them altogether. Vesperia's theme is Ring a Bell by Bonnie Pink, and the theme was dubbed for English release. Finally, an English Tales of game with lyrics in the theme.

Other extras include the typical alternate costumes for characters, and fully voice acted skits. Skits in Tales of games are just side conversation the characters have that may relate to the plot, provide character backstory, or just serve as comic relief. Previously, the player had to imagine the characters saying their lines in skits. Now, your imagination can take a break, because the voices are there for you.

Much can be said about this game that typically takes around forty hours to beat the first time, but the best way to find out about it is to play it yourself. I'm only on my second playthrough but I'm trying to tackle the numerous side quests in the game leading to my lovely award that may or may not be hinting that I need more fresh air.

Next week I'll explain the lovely challenge of playing a game that I honestly can't understand what it's saying. Happy gaming.

Next Week on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: Tales of Innocence

"Validates parking for my car..."

I've played for maybe a couple of hours, but the songs still got stuck in my head.

I'm not a big fan of rap, at least not the stuff commonly heard on the radio. I don't deny that some tunes stick in my head or that I've even tried to rap along to something catchy (which never goes well), but overall I'm more into electronica and pop or... whatever its genre name is. It seems that most "rap" songs that get stuck in my head aren't mainstream, and they normally aren't by professional rappers either. Basically, if it's a rap song I like then chances are true rap fans won't. Odd sense of taste? Yeah, but I'm used to it.

My odd sense of musical taste and my love of video games come together in the rhythm game Parappa the Rapper. In it you follow a dog named Parappa as he goes about everyday life and raps about it. With only six stages it's a fairly short game, but the songs are catchy enough to replay multiple times.

Basic gameplay is as follows: The rap master (the person Parappa's rapping with) says their line with the rhythm displayed on a bar at the top. The bar shows the buttons the player will need to hit, and when it's Parappa's turn the player hits the appropriate buttons in rhythm. Easy enough. Still, I've found that the timing required throws me off a bit. Sometimes I'll try and punch out my rhythm a bit sooner than the indicated time in order for it to work right, but perhaps I'm just doing it wrong.

Your success obviously depends on how well you replicate the rhythm, and your progress is monitored via the "U Rappin'" meter in the bottom right. Generally you want to be rappin' at either "good" or "cool." I can't ever achieve the cool rank because it involves first beating a level with a good rank (not a huge problem), and then being able to freestyle when replaying the level. I'm a freestyle failure so I think I'll stay out of an explanation on how to become an excellent rapper.

There's not much to Parappa beyond that. The story is just whatever happens on a day in Parrapa's life, but a recurring theme seems to involve the lovesick puppy trying to win the heart of his crush. The game's graphics won't give you that "Wow!" feeling, but the paper-like appearance of the characters fits well enough. If you dislike bad rap then this probably isn't the game for you. Anyone who feels otherwise, the original Parappa was remade for the PSP, and I picked up a used copy for $10. Just keep in mind that it's incredibly short before you spend your hard earned cash on it.

And with that I shall end my post. Next week I'll break off from games that are little known and that involve main characters who share the same name as the game's title. Instead the discussion will turn to a game from my favorite RPG series; Namco Bandai's Tales of Series.

Next week on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: Tales of Vesperia

What a cute rabbit... cat... thing...

I've been playing for a lot of hours, and I still I wish my PS3 could play all PS2 games correctly.

In truth I haven't played a Klonoa game in a while, but as a whole it's taken up a good chunk of time. Kaze no Klonoa (Klonoa of the Wind), simply the Klonoa series in America, is probably one of my favorite series. With cutesy graphics and characters, it's pretty hard for me personally to not "awwww" at the sheer amount of adorable in the game. Not that cuteness is all Klonoa has to offer though. The series consists of about eight games if I'm correct, five of which are in America, most of which are side-scrolling platformers.

The titular character of the Klonoa series is a cute little guy with a debatable appearance.He's either rabbit, or a cat. I'm of the opinion that he's a rabbit, despite Namco calling him a cat. Cats don't have long ears or short tails (well, most don't), but then again rabbits don't have fangs or eat meat (Klonoa's very fond of hamburgers). Many a fan has settled this predicament by referring to Klonoa as a cabbit, which I find a very charming little name. All in all, he's adorable and undeniably sweet.

The basic plot line for a Klonoa game, while it varies from title to title, is this: Klonoa, aside from wind-inspired title, is also known as the Dream Traveler. Someone in another world calls for help, and (to my understanding) Klonoa is transported there in his dreams. Much like Musashi (see last post), he doesn't get to go home until the job's done and the world's saved. Unlike Musashi, the Pacman hatted cabbit takes it all pretty well; in fact he normally either A) doesn't realize it's not his own world to begin with, or B) gets pretty attached to his surroundings and his new bestest buddies.

The graphics and bright colors give the games a cute made-for-children feel, and in fact they are very playable by children. However, when I play through Lunatea's Veil, as well as the other games, I always feel some kind of melancholy behind all the happiness present in the game, especially when some of the darker themes come into play. One of my reasons for enjoying the game is that it can be so light-hearted and cute, but still manages to get serious when it wants to. Lolo for instance, a recurring character from Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil, suffers from acceptance issues and ridicule from her peers.

I love Klonoa music. It's whimsical, beautiful, and cheery when appropriate. Depending on your position in a level, the background music shifts to something more appropriate. In the first level of Lunatea's Veil the music starts off pretty solid, but once you waltz into a cave, it switches to a track that kind of has an echo to it, but still contains the theme of the previous song. Most of the tracks are instrumental pieces that really set a level's feel, many of which may seem moderately slow and mellow.

I'll cut this off here before I start rambling too much, so um... happy gaming!

Next time on I've been playing for 40 Hours: Parappa the Rapper

I've been playing for five hours and fifty-eight minutes, and I've stopped the Vambee attack.

Granted, this isn't the first time I've played through Square Soft's (now Square Enix) PS1 title, Brave Fencer Musashi, so I vaguely remembered stopping the half zombie, half vampire menace before. Not that's it's any less fun the second time, though I did get tired of ambling around in the dark trying to avoid bats, Vambees, and globs of slime only to fall in a spike pit due to the lack of vision...

Brave Fencer Musashi is, as mentioned before, a game for the good ol' Playstation. You play as Musashi, a pint-sized kid samurai that bears no other resemblance to the Musashi of Japanese legend save for his name, and the fact that he's a samurai. Musashi is "hero summoned" out of his own cozy world, and into the land of Allucaneet (All-you-can-eat) Kingdom during an attack on Allucaneet's palace.


Caution: Not as tall as he appears.

Long story short, Allucaneet's Princess Fillet, Steward Ribson, and the rest of the small palace posse tell Musashi that he has to find the super awesome sword Lumina, collect the five elemental scrolls, and stop the Thirstquencher Empire before they turn Allucaneet Kingdom into the One Plate Buffet Kingdom. Of course, Musashi just wants to go home, and makes that fact quite clear. Unfortunately for him, it's either save the kingdom and go home, or not save the kingdom and ultimately die after his "Bincho energy" dissipates.

Yeah, he goes and gets the sword.

Sometimes referred to as Square's "Zelda Killer" Brave Fencer Musashi requires the player to explore various parts of the kingdom in attempts to complete whatever task assigned at the time, including heading into the dangerous Twinpeak Mountain to find a dog, and exploring the dungeon that just so happens to be beneath the restaurant in order to stop the Vambees. Battle is pretty simple. Musashi, aside from Lumina, is given a katana named Fusion with a special ability. By filling up a gauge in the lower left-hand corner of the screen and pressing the square button, Musashi can chuck Fusion at an enemy and can, after repeatedly mashing the square button, assimilate the enemies' ability. Other than that, battle is mainly just swinging Lumina or Fusion around to take out your enemy. It's more fun than I make it sound.

Brave Fencer Musashi's soundtrack adds quite a lot to an already wonderful game. The main theme, titled "The Musashi Legend", makes one want to take on the entire empire at that very moment. Each track, whether upbeat, slow, or a reprise of the main theme, gives the different areas in the game that epic Musashi feeling, and are very enjoyable to listen to.

The game's characters (most of which have food-related names) add humor to a game that already tends not to take itself seriously (I mean really, Vambees?). Princess Fillet (played by Sandy Fox), for example, thinks she's pretty spiff for summoning a hero, and, after being kidnapped, thinks Musashi should "like, hurry up and save her." Musashi himself is excellently portrayed by Mona Marshall, and his equally hot-headed nature led him and the princess to start arguing very shortly after his arrival.

Many other features add to the charm that Musashi already has, but talking about them here would cause far too long a blog post. The best thing I can recommend is picking up a copy if you happen upon it at a reasonable price somewhere, and playing it for yourself. If that idea doesn't appeal to you, then that's cool too... I guess. Though you're missing out on a great game...

Thanks for taking the time to read this, pal! Happy Gaming!

Next time on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: The Klonoa series