I was going to title this post “Even on 3DS, F-O-E,” but stupid Tiny Cartridge beat me to it. Jerkfaces.
Anyway! Etrian Odyssey IV. 3DS game, features a sword-wielding girl in a plaid skirt whose class is listed as “Swordman.” Right on.
Archive for the ‘Games’ Category
GameSpite Journal 10: The Satellaview
20
Feb
One of the minor thrills of visiting Tokyo is dropping by the Mandarake Galaxy in Nakano and looking at the rack of not-really-for-sale rarities in the display case outside the shop. Usually it contains half a dozen rewritable Satellaview cartridges that have prized titles encoded on them — Super Famicom games that never received retail releases and thus exist only in the form of this handful of temporary ROMs. Well, and on the Internet, of course. Which is nice, because — say what you will about the ethics of ROM distribution — I sure don’t wanna pay $900 to play Radical Dreamers.
GameSpite Journal 10: Brandish
19
Feb
Brandish includes this minor female character, Dola, and she shows up once or twice through the course of the adventure — and, naturally, her image is plastered across all the promo art, the box art, the soundtrack art. The hero you play as for 20 hours, Ares? You never see him anywhere. My assumption is that he got dizzy from the world constantly spinning around him and had to go for a lie down.
GameSpite Journal 10: Mega Man X2
18
Feb
I don’t know why author Mike Zeller was so down on Mega Man X2 in this article. This is the game that introduced us to Green Biker Dude. Few games can claim such a legacy!
GameSpite Journal 10: Yumi’s Odd Odyssey
17
Feb
Sometimes I like to think about how Umihara Kawase Portable was announced for American release as Yumi’s Odd Odyssey, but then wasn’t. That is because I like to feel sad about life. At least the DS port was released before the DSi launched and therefore is region-free. If you can find it, buy it! It’s boss. And hard. Weird, too. But mostly boss.
GameSpite Journal 10: Sparkster
13
Feb
We really wrote a bunch of articles for GameSpite Journal 10; after three and a half months, we’ve still have about a third of the book to get up on the site. My goodness! Here is one tiny, interesting pebble toward building that mountain: A piece on Sparkster by the dude who helped make a sequel to it.
GameSpite Journal 10: Robotrek
11
Feb
Am I terrible person for never having played Robotrek? The name was so dumb it never occurred to me that the game might be kind of fun. Man, someone needs to release a Quintet collection stat. Like, Square Enix. Since they own all these games.
GameSpite Journal 10: Illusion of Gaia
09
Feb
Ah, Illusion of Gaia. I was so, so pumped for this game. I loved the heck out of SoulBlazer, and I had become smitten with Secret of Mana at first glance — but I owned neither. So when I heard about this semi-sequel to SoulBlazer, I knew I had to have it. So, I preordered a copy from the locally owned mom-and-pop game shop (those used to exist, believe it or not)… and as the promoted release date came and passed, I called them pretty much every day to check to see if it was in stock. I’m pretty sure they hated me by the time it finally came out! And in the end it wasn’t quite worth the hassle; it was a good game, but it seemed to try a little too hard. Jeremy Signor disagrees, though; perhaps you’ll agree with his take more than mine.
I think we can all agree it was pretty awesome the way the standard edition came in a jumbo box with a super-sized manual-slash-guide and, of all damn things, a T-shirt. One that was way too big. Oh well.
Breath of Fire: GameSpite Journal 10
03
Feb
My memories of Breath of Fire are inextricably bound to the most miserable summer of my life: The year I lived alone in Abilene, Texas tending to a friend’s house while he was out of town for several months. Although it eventually turned out to be a pretty decent summer, the first month or so was absolutely wretched: I was isolated in a house on the edge of the city with no money to speak of and nothing to do except play the two or three used games I owned and pore over the modest collection of comic books I had carried along from high school. This was before the Internet was particularly interesting, or in any way accessible outside of universities. About the only good thing I had going for me was being able to live rent-free. When I think of Breath of Fire, I think of being stuck in that house and being intensely depressed.
After a few weeks of that, I found two jobs, started dating, bought a dog, and generally made my life turn into a bundle of awesome. But for that first while, it was just me, the X-Men, and Breath of Fire. And that sense of ennui and emptiness is all this game brings to mind. No wonder I’m not a fan.
On the plus side, the Japanese subtitle of the game is “Ryuu No Senshi.” That is to say, “Dragon Warrior.” Yes.