RIP Terry Pratchet

On Thursday I found out that sadly, Terry Pratchett had died.

For those that may not know, Terry Pratchett was quite a famous author of fantasy novels and probably most well known for his Discworld books.  To be honest I'm not a huge fan of fantasy novels and as a result never read any of his books but Discworld did manage to find its way into the world of video games.

There's no way I could do the Discworld game justice in a short blogpost such as this but it's awesome.  If anything this event has inspired me to go play through it again so expect some in depth words about this awesome game later but if you haven't played it already you should go do it right now.  Terry Pratchett also suffered from Alzheimer's Disease so it's a news story that hits a bit close to home when it comes to the aim of this blog site. 

I've been told his books are really good too so if you can't find the game then go read the books instead, I know I'm going to go look them up now.  May he rest in peace and lets enjoy some Discworld to honor his memory.

Final Fantasy Levelling Is Stupid

With Final Fantasy 15 sort of round the corner I wanted to take a moment about my frustration with the level systems of basically every Final Fantasy from 10 onwards.

This post was first inspired by a news article that my friend link me a long time ago that I have long since lost, if I find it again I'll update the post.  The post outlined some things about how characters would level up and it compared the system to Dark Souls.  There's nothing inherently wrong with this and it's hard to make judgement without knowing all the other systems that the game will have but it still made me think how dumb levels have gotten in Final Fantasy.

All the way up to Final Fantasy 9 each character was kind of locked into a class.  The exception to this rule was Final Fantasy 3 and 5 which had a job system but if you picked a Fighter you better damn well play that character like a Fighter.  Final Fantasy 7 and 8 had ambiguous classes but it was clear who was better at things like sword fighting and who was better at casting spells.

Then Final Fantasy X came along with what seemed like an interesting level up system.  It introduced the Sphere Grid, a giant collection of circles where each one represented a certain statistical boost or ability.  A lot of people disliked the sphere grid but I thought it was OK.  I still have a lot of questions regarding how it works in the context of the game world but I didn't mind it so much.

My problem with the sphere grid is that the idea of a characters class went completely out of the window in the end game.  Every character could just do everything by the end of the game and you didn't even have to work that hard to get to that point.  You could argue the same thing about Final Fantasy 7 but the work you have to put in to achieve that is STUPID high while in FFX in requires very little effort.

FFX-2 was a bit more job based but jobs could be changed on the fly in combat which kind of ruined the whole point of the job system.  FF12 had that stupid license board bullshit and 13 just knocked the turd right out of the bowl with the fucking Crystarium. 

I'm hoping that the class and level system in FF15 will be back on point.  Where a fighter is a fighter, a mage is a mage and a thief is a thief.  The ability to make your characters more versatile is welcome but don't just abandon their entire role in combat so that everyone can do everything.

Sonic Runners

I really don't understand how Sonic is still going.  For YEARS they've just been pounding out shit game after shit game and yet there are still legions of fans for this guy.  There are still groups of people who actually get moderately excited for an upcoming Sonic game and considering the quality of these fucking things I have no idea why.

That's when I was surprised when my friend said to me "I've got this really cool new phone game" and when I peered into his screen I saw it was a Sonic title.  At first I just laughed and told him to get out with that crap but the next day I started to get curious so I ended up downloading it.

Sonic Runners is one of those auto running type games.  If you're not sure what I mean by that then it's a kind of game where you character just runs forward and all you have to do is tap/swipe the screen to avoid obstacles.  Quite frankly, the novelty of this genre ran out after a few days with Temple Run and yet I haven't deleted the game off my phone yet.

Game play is very simple; Sonic runs and you tap the screen to jump.  You have to collect rings and gems to build score, kill enemies and save little animals.  It never ends, you just keep going until you die and the longer you play then the harder it gets.  Once you build up enough points you can fight Dr Eggman which will net you some extra rewards.  There is also a story that unfolds as you beat each area but I find myself just skipping through it because I'm pretty sure the scripts to Sonic games are written on the walls by a monkey with the pen jammed up its asshole.

Outside of the running you have to level up your characters so that they get more score or item effects last longer or you can play a little roulette game to get companions.  The companions come in the form of Chao's or remote controlled objects and bestow various effects when equipped.

You can pay for a special currency so that you can continue when you die or buy new companions but the currency is awarded to you slowly as you play for free so they micropayments don't really get in the way of the overall experience.  Also the games doesn't throw constant "BUY THIS SHIT NOW!" messages in your face which is nice because the idea of paying money for an iPhone games makes me want to vomit.

So to conclude, Sonic Runners is actually pretty good and considering that it's totally free its worth a try at the very least.  It's probably the best endless running game I've ever played which isn't saying much but I guess that's one point in it's favor. 

Then again, you could just play one of the originals or Generations and use your phone for better games like Super Monsters Ate My Condo or Mahjong Mobile......just sayin.....

The Fuck Is GDC Anyway?

As someone who claims to love the medium of video games I have no idea if I should be embarrassed by the above question or not.  Judging from what I've heard about GDC2015 though, probably not.

I know very little about GDC.  I know that it stands for Game Developers Conference and that it's some kind of big event.  Judging from the name I would guess its a time for game developers to get together, show off their latest shit and talk about the industry.  I've never once followed any of the GDC events and I still don't see a reason to.  I'm not lacking in any information about upcoming games and if anything huge did happen I'm sure it would be plastered everywhere for me to see anyway.

That said, I have friends who follow GDC and I have people on twitter who pay attention to the goings on and judging from what they've posted regarding the event it seems to have very little to do with video games.  Everything I've seen about GDC is about social justice issues (Read: Bullshit), online bullying and all sorts of other stupid non game related crap.  The biggest thing that seems to be flying around my twitter feed these days is that Tim Schafer, a fat hack who hasn't produced anything of quality since Psychonauts, made some kind of GamerGate joke with a sock puppet or some shit.

Seriously, a big conference about the games industry and the biggest news going around the web right now is about a fat man making shit jokes during a speech?!  Why the fuck should ANYONE give a shit about GDC if this is the case?  I've not heard ONE thing regarding video games but I'd sure as hell love it if someone clued me in as to what actual gaming related stuff went down at that event.

When I went to the Tokyo Game Show last year it was just wall to wall games.  Games on show, games to try and developers coming out to talk about their fucking games.  There was a little bit of cosplay going on in the back but most of it was game themed so I'll forgive that.  GDC on the other hand seemed to be about everything BUT fucking games.

Someone please explain the point of this shit to me, I'm actually completely stumped. 

Geometry Dash

Geometry Dash is a game that came out on Steam a little while ago and as far as I understand it the thing is a port of a phone game.  That said, it is actually pretty good if not stupidly frustrating,

The idea of the game is very simple, the little block slides automatically across the level and you have to time your jumps in order to get to the end.  Sometimes you go through a ring and it will change into a little flying thing or take some other form where the game play might vary ever so slightly but all you're really doing is pressing A to not die.

That probably makes the game sound shit but trust me it's not.  The game sells and presents itself as a sort of rhythm game.  The idea is that it has a bunch of cool techno sounding songs and each level sort of matches the music so the more intense the track then the more intense the obstacles.  It's pretty fun and it's one of those games you can pick up, play for about 10 minutes and then put down again.

The game also features a level editor where you can put up your own stages and have other people download them.  Some of the stuff people make is actually pretty cool and given that the levels that come packaged with the game are sort of limited then this is a very welcome addition.

If the game sold itself as a platform game with a techno soundtrack I'd probably be a lot happier with it but when I bought it I was kind of expecting a rhythm game.  Despite the fact the obstacles loosely match up with what you're hearing the game is still very trail and error.  For example, I can go play Sound Voltex Booth and play a high level song I've never heard before and still manage because I'm good at the game.  With Geometry Dash you never know what the fucks coming until its already too late so you have to start the whole level over.

It's not a bad game by any stretch but it is VERY challenging so unless you're willing to burn a few hours learning the levels then don't bother.  Then again, for gaming masochists like me it's pretty damn good.

Stream Schedule!

I've been getting a little busy and it's been hard to just stream all willy nilly like I have been doing for the last couple of months so I think it's about time I set up some kind of semi solid schedule for streaming.

Here's the deal, I will be streaming on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays pretty much guaranteed from 10:30pm Japan time until whenever I get sleepy/have to get ready for work.  This isn't to say that streams on other days can't happen but they are not planned and will be a little bonus.

Don't forget to check out the right hand side of this page for a bunch of stream related donation incentives.  I would personally recommend the Mario64 and Megaman related ones, but that's just me

Anyway, sorry for the short post but thanks for the continued support.

February Retro Haul