Link X Dynasty Warriors: Only cool things can come from Nintendo and Koei combined

And you thought Twilight Princess was bad! HAhahaha! aHAhahahahaahaaHAHAHahah! HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAAH!

Sorry, that was my impression of how 90% of the Internet reacted to that video. 

Isn't this only natural considering Pokemonaga's Ambition? Silly, sure, but I kinda love that we're getting Nintendo/Koei crossovers. Two companies who've been in the industry as long as there's been an industry, one the most iconic and revered of all-time, the other perpetually mocked and banished to the shadows, both supported by fervently dedicated fans. It could be said there's not really any difference between the Nintenhardcorer and the Koeihardcorer except that the former were often so destined by the holiday console purchasing predilections of their parents, while the latter perhaps became so attached to their patron saint because of the effort it took to seek out their games (and then defend them from the onslaught of critics). Regardless, I think in some sense Nintendo and Koei are symbolic of both the best and worst of the video game industry - the idealism, the precision, the tight connection between the community and the creators, and also the redundancy, the pandering, and the reluctance to evolve.

As someone with moderate respect for the Dynasty Warriors franchise (though I can only enjoy the games for about two hours per year), I think the series is anything but a barren wasteland of inspiration. People trash Koei's action games a lot (and maybe they'd trash their strategy games if they knew they existed), but they're labors of love, not schlock. Honestly, check one out sometime. You can get one of the PS2 or Xbox games for all of $2 or fucking splurge and dump 19 cents on Samurai Warriors. Actually, do yourself one better and get the best (of the ~five I've played), Mystic Heroes. They may be boring to some (myself included), but they have a dedicated hardcore fanbase and each game is overflowing with dozens of levels, hundreds of weapons and characters, all kinds of mode variations, and the tried and true gameplay that the fans demand. Taking potshots about how they're samey mindless grindfests is like shitting on Godzilla movies for being ridiculously cheesy scifi or Friday the 13th for being idiotic flasher-slashers - that's the entire reason people like them. They're not trying to cater to the mainstream. There's a reason Ebert didn't bother to review Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, so I'm not sure why IGN feels so justified giving Dynasty Warriors 8 a 4.63/10 every year. It seems like maybe Zelda vs. Dynasty Warriors is a chance at a big budget mainstream crossover a la Pacific Rim or JJ Abram is Star Trek.

That's pretty much what Pokemon Conquest was for Nobunaga's Ambition - it stripped away the excesses of the franchise, concentrated on the core characteristic elements (recruiting and balancing a force, taking and holding territory, and turn-based tactical battles), introduced some Pokemon strategy (trainer/Pokemon matching and elemental cycles, which actually took on a new level when it became necessary to distribute different types of Pokemon around the map, determining which areas were Fire-vulnerable or where to make a strong Rock/Psychic attack), and significantly prettied it up for mass appeal (the series was barely animated up til that point). It was NOT just Nobunaga's Ambition in a Pokemon coat of paint. If Nintendo/Koei apply the same mentality to Hyrule Warriors and give a substantial Zelda slant to the action, there could be a pretty damn decent game in store. Especially if they keep the strategier elements of the better Dynasty Warriors games, or somehow find a way to replace them with Zelda's exploration/collection shenanigans. Of course, Conquest was nearly as obscure as the Koei games that spawned it simply because of the obscene glut of Pokemon spinoffs released on a daily basis - I doubt I Rule Warriors will suffer that fate, as the uproar already unleashed is indicative of just how rare and special it is for anything to bear the Zelda brand. [instead HW will find its way to obscurity via its release platform, Wii U, on which a 3D Mario game sold only 200k units in a November launch].

Is it the next Zelda game I wanted? No, but it's clearly not the next Zelda anymoreso than was Link's Crossbow Training. People are already panicking about where this is going to fit in canon and shit like that. Seriously? Link was in fucking Smash Bros., is this really any different?

What I'm Playing, October '13

In this feature, we commemorate games I have for the first time started and finished in the last few highly variable time units.

Alright gonna blast right through this because I forgot to fill it in at the end of October. Things got hectic with moving week and all.

Special Recognition for Starting and Finishing:

NAM-1975 (NeoGeo)

NAM-1975 belongs to that very small subset of shooting galleries like Wild Guns and Cabal that utilize an onscreen character, aka arcade third-person shooters - a class of games that I love and wish hadn't died after Sin & Punishment. NAM is credited to SNK and strongly reminds me of Metal Slug, though, as Slug was developed six years later by ex-employees of Irem, I doubt the games shared much personnel. Still, they both nail that perfect level of difficulty between reflex and memorization that I've colloquially labeled "fun". It's hard to describe what exactly makes an action game satisfying without just listing what it's not; it's not pure reflex, it's not pure memorization. At the highest level, there's something about learning to recognize certain setups and how enemies will organically and spontaneously interact to create threat patterns, and through failed attempts and experimentation developing high-level strategies to combat those emergent challenges without needing to know exactly what's coming when. To become skilled at the game, you memorize setups and strategies then reflexively identify situations and match them to tactics, rather than memorizing a sequence of spots on the screen to occupy and targets to shoot, or individually processing every single bullet and relying on reflexes for every move.

For instance, in the first level of NAM-1975, there's this water part. I've learned that the highest priority enemies are boats (and if you shoot the boats the riders will die), the second highest are choppers, and the lowest are swimmers. I've learned to dodge roll, not to run, because the angled bullet fire comes in quick bursts. I've learned not to take the Balcan (machine gun) rather than the Flamethrower, because the flamer has too little ammo and leaves me unable to attack the choppers. None of this has anything to do with knowing where to stand on screen, where to aim, or any specific mechanical inputs. It's all strategic data that I've stored in my head that allows me to intelligently structure a reaction to "there's an enemy" and "here comes a bullet".

NAM's got a blazing pace and plenty of variety, but it does fall short when it comes to boss battles. That's really the only reason it'll never threaten Wild Guns and Sin & Punishment 2 for the position of arcade TPS top-dog - every level ends with the same tedious tuck-and-roll fest, as SNK couldn't come up with any cleverer way to crank up the difficulty than to give the bosses super-fast projectiles.

Games Started:

Pokemon Y (Nintendo 3DS)

And the pacing is officially 'off'. It has now been 16 hours, nearly 120 caught Pokemon, and TWO FUCKING GYMS (at approximately the 8th and 14th hour). Y is chugging along SO slowly. Maybe I shouldn't be stopping to smell and catch every last Roselia, but Christ almighty, every time I think we're ready to move to a town that'll have a gym and give me a real battling challenge, yet another filler dungeon is tossed in. Save it, guys! I'm going to be so burned out by the time I get to the Elite Four that you can call me, uh, Flareon.

I know, I know. "It doesn't mean anything that gyms are spaced out, that's a completely arbitrary structure that you're forcing on the game based on past experiences". That's true. What keeps the trainer journey interesting isn't strictly the idea of a Pokemon Gym every two hours, it's the iterative process of collecting new Pokemon, refining your battling squad, and taking on a concentrated challenge - a test - that allows you to pass through to the next stage of the journey. In the past, those challenges have been represented by gyms. Just because gyms are less frequent doesn't mean the challenge/tests have to be... unfortunately, in Pokemon Y, that's exactly what it means. Thus far the only even remotely structured challenges have been the gyms, and even they have been easy as shit. But outside of that the worst you'll ever see are Trainers with three Magikarps that might know Tackle.

If you're asking: "So, are the Pokemon themselves still getting stupider?", let me just point you to Hawlucha.

I dunno, it's too early to say (which is insane, considering it's been 16 hours), but right now this feels like a game that is strictly made for people who enjoy catching Pokemon, not people who enjoy raising and battling them. But I will give them that there are certainly a shitload to catch and some interesting new tricks to the process, like the ever-annoying Horde battles, more spawning subtleties, a way bigger world with (I think) more optional areas (I say "I think" because I've been going everywhere anyway), and other stuff that's frankly kinda boring to bring up. Not bad stuff, just really specific.

Ultima VII (PC)

I'm not gonna do another first impressions of Ultima VII because I've barely played it since I wrote my first first impressions. I actually hate playing PC games for totally arbitrary reasons: if I've never mentioned before, I don't like sitting at my desk and using a mouse and keyboard, since I do that all day at work. Games are my relaxation time, so I like to be able to sit in bed or on the couch - I've never found a great way for this to mesh with mouse/keyboard (and yes I've tried a lap-desk, and no I don't care for it). Moral of the story is that unless I'm REALLY into a PC game or I'm in some life-phase where I have a lot of spare desk-time (like college), I generally stall after a few hours. If you can't guess from my original article, Ultima VII is probably gonna be one of those cases. The game just fans out so fucking much after that concentrated intro, which isn't a bad thing, it's just an "I have other games to play that are better at keeping me involved" thing.

The Witcher (PC)

Kinda same thing applies here as I just said for Ultima. I actually tried lap-desking this one because I like it so much, but the words are too tiny to read on my TV. I will probably chip away tiny hour-long chunks once a month for the next year until I start forgetting to play it. It doesn't help that I'm having some weird performance issues that I can't even describe well enough to search for on Google - my machine runs the game just fine, but when in free camera mode (i.e. anytime outside of combat) the camera jerks upward every few seconds, really breaking my immersion and making it hard to enjoy looking at the world.

One neat thing I was really enjoying was that the first chapter of the game shakes up the traditional hub structure by spreading the adventure field over the exact same area as the town, relegating night to Danger/Combat time and day to Talking time. The entire act is set in this broad village area with some fields and houses interspersed (there's definitely a term for this and if we were closer to my high school European history days I would know it. Virgate? Kenning?), and during the day, everyone is out and about, frolicking around, giving out quests and selling baubles. When night rolls in, the villagers shut their doors and the ghosts come out, and what was formerly the town area becomes the dungeon. It has almost a Zelda-y feel to it, like the way the towns would shut their doors and the spooks would come out when the sun set on Hyrule/Termina/Hyrule field.

Godzilla: Save the Earth (PS2)

Well, Save the Earth gets a lot of free points for being a fighting game that doesn't immediately feel like the three archetypes (Capcom, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken) we have today. I can't think of any fighting game since Tekken 6, and before that since Brawl, that had me up til 6AM just trying out every last character. But Save the Earth's widely varying roster (and that's just the eight characters I've unlocked) did just that. Aside from some rare camera wonkiness, hard-to-pick-up controls, and a far-too-long arcade mode (~1 hour *if* you win all the fights on first try), there's very little to stop the game from being completely enjoyable. That said, this is a model explicitly designed for disposable fun, so it doesn't exactly promise bottomless depth.

There's a very rock-paper-scissors feel to the fights, with each character mostly oriented around ranged, melee, or grappling attacks. Still, such basic core mechanics leave a lot of room for flashy, distinctive quirks to each character. That's kind of the calling card of the party fighter, and it's also exactly what you want in a tribute game.

As fan service, it's stellar. Even as a neophyte I'm impressed by how loyal the game is to the characters' filmic abilities and styles and how well that's worked into the gameplay. Anguirus uses his spiked back instead of blocking, Mecha King Ghidorah absorbs lazers, Mothra starts as a larva and metamorphoses mid-battle into an imago, Rodan flies instead of walking, SpaceGodzilla is totally oriented around telekinesis, etc. It's more strictly tied to what's been established in the movies than the contriving and occasionally straight-up arbitrary Marvel and DC fighters. Of course, kaiju translate really seamlessly into well-balanced one-on-one fights (I hear they made this famous RPG based on them...) so it's only natural that they all have well-defined and corresponding move-sets. Even in the movies, they pretty much each have a special beam attack, each have a special mode of transport, each have a special throw, etc. The only big disappointment for me is that Kiryu (here called Mechagodzilla III) from 2002's Godzilla x Mechagodzilla is completely lacking its signature Gundam-style detachable shoulder/wrist cannons and backpack. What's up with that? That's the whole point of Kiryu. Though it should be noted I haven't seen the movies featuring about a third of the kaiju, so I can't comment on how loyally presented they are.

Volgarr the Viking (Steam)

Actually started this in September but forgot to cover it. Volgarr is like Ghosts n' Goblins for a new era... in that it's a lot like Ghosts n' Goblins. I actually enjoy the core mechanics more than the GnG series (some have said they hearken back to Super Return of the Jedi) and the individual challenges feel more precise and fairly parsed. That is to say, after you've cleared one screen, you won't continue to be flooded from behind by respawning enemies from that territory.

I don't know if there's a lot else to say about it. It's fun - if you're a fan of Sir Arthur, definitely pick it up.

One note - it's a bit obnoxiously old school in a way that most reincarnations of old quarter-eaters aren't - there's no way to save your progress, neither through passwords or save states. Though the full game could probably be toppled in a half hour by a master, you're going to have to master it to that point to reach the end - though there are infinite continues on hand, unless you've got infinite time to pair with them, you'll have to start from the beginning every time you boot up the game. 

Games Finished:

Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse (XBLA)

A gorgeous finale to a gorgeous game. I love that they managed to make Mizrabel overflowingly cinematic while still retaining the punishing difficulty of the original game's final battle. I'm normally not a fan of talky bosses, as they tend to repeat themselves (The Witcher 2) or distract from the action (Anarchy Reigns), but Sega Australia managed to pace this fight perfectly such that Mizrabel's seamless [flamboyant?] incantation actually makes the rather straightforward platforming boss battle an engrossingly magical moment. I felt like I was playing Fantasia. The voice performance by Nika Futterman as Mizrabel and the crescendoing score by Grant Kirkhope really knock the scene out of the park.

Castle of Illusion immediately joins the ranks of games worth playing just to indulge in audio/visual beauty. I can't think of any game since Baten Kaitos which I have so delighted in witnessing unfold. It's a fun game to be sure, a loving remake to be sure, and even a rare capitalization on the full potential of 2.5D, but what will really stick with me from Castle of Illusion are those menacing saffron storm clouds, the gleaming licorice dragon bursting forth from his swirling river of creams, the orchestral attacks giving way to foreboding tinkling as Mickey was thrown to and fro through watery ruins, and all the other dazzling illusions the castle held. I cannot give a strong enough recommendation for Castle of Illusion, and if you're at all interested in 2D platform design, make sure you check out the original as a companion piece - it sheds a lot of light on just how clever the remake is. 

Pokemon X Animal Crossing

See what I did there? Okay, maybe it was a little oblique. The newest game from the Pokemon series is called Pokemon X. There's also a video game series called Animal Crossing. Then there are a bunch of Namco crossover games which combine two different properties and join their titles with an "X", e.g. Street Fighter X Tekken and Namco X Capcom. What I've done with the title of this post is to subtly suggest a crossover of Pokemon and Animal Crossing, while also implying that Pokemon X is the fulfillment of said proposition. In short, it was a title, a metaphor, a homophone, and a tragicomedy in two acts.

The alternate title was to be "Pokemon Y Animal Crossing", for reasons so obvious they don't bear explanation. Well, okay, maybe it's a little opaque. See, the latest game in the Pokemon franchise is titled Pokemon Y. There's this other Nintendo property called Animal Crossing. There's also this thing called the Spanish language - or "Espanish" - into which the English word "and" translates as "y", e.g. "yo tengo rice y quesadillas". What I've done with the alternate title of this post is to plant the idea of a combination of Pokemon and Animal Crossing, while also insinuating that Pokemon Y is that very game. In short, it was the exact same thing as the other version, except with Mexicans instead of Namco. Can't say that about many things.

So Pokemon Y (which is the one I'm playing, because I'm a boy, duh!) clearly wants to expand the Pokemon experience into more of a lifestyle sim than just a monster-battling sim, which isn't all that surprising considering that the series has been lethargically inching in that direction since its inception. I have the sneaking suspicion it's never become full-blown Nintendogs/Second Life simply because GameFreak is incapable of programming gameplay other than Pokemon, but I'll get to that in a second. I don't super-remember Red/Blue and I didn't play Gold/Silver in their original form, but "other bullshit to do with your Pokemon" has been piling up at least since Ruby/Sapphire's "Contests", which allowed Pokemon to enter into competitions that I don't care about and that definitely didn't matter. From there we've seen the introduction of Poke-Dress-Up, Pokeathlons, Pokemon Walkabout (or whatever that Tamagotchi thing that came with HeartGold/SoulSilver was called), and a number of other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. Stuff that has nothing to do with collecting, raising, and battling Pokemon. You can probably tell I don't really like these elements of the games and I completely ignore them, as they have no impact on the main gameplay and are entirely optional.

Really the worst aspect of the Super Contests and Pokeathlons and shit is that they're a massive detour from the main game, to the point of being wholly independent side-games rather than side-quests. They're all or nothing - you're either dressing up Pokemon for the fashion show as they languish at level 10, or you're out battling and progressing through the game. Lord knows people love terribly unfun and pointless RPG side-games (Chocobo breeding has acquired a legacy almost on par with Final Fantasy VII itself), but they really don't do it for me. While Pokemon Y does expand the bullshittery, most of the elements it introduces (in the first ten hours at least) are organically woven into the core gameplay such that you can enjoy a taste without needing to divert the main quest for thirteen hours.

I searched for "Pokemon Y stylist" and THIS was, no joke, the very first Google Image result

The new side elements are really just subtle features like dressing up your trainer, getting a haircut, tending a garden (which grows berries to be used in battle), editing together a "PR Video" (if the 3DS had been made in the 21st century, I'd upload my PR Video here), taking photos of scenic locales, etc. It's minor, but it makes the game world feel more lively, like you're actually a human being inhabiting the PokeWorld. This feels extremely 'right', like everything the stupid side-games were failing to establish - Pokemon has always been about projecting yourself into the shoes of a basically regular kid in a basically regular world, so it's about time they introduced a bit more mundane simulation. Actually (if we ignore the direction they were taken in the past seven years), it seems like exactly the kind of game you'd expect to feature Miis. 

Since the sim elements are so light and the tone of the game so friendly, the overall feeling is reminiscent of Animal Crossing. Even the perspective feels more City Folk/Wide World than Pokemon, although as the first 3D Pokemon game, that's to be expected. But it goes further than that - if Pokemon X/Y didn't explicitly borrow code from the Crossing series, they at least modeled heavily off it. For instance: customizable hairstyles are hardly an innovation of Animal Crossing: City Folk, but I can say for a fact that there are only two games I've ever played that made me choose what kind of mood I wanted for my hair-style: "Something cool", "Something energetic", etc. The whole going-to-the-stylist routine is word-for-word cut-and-paste from City Folk, and considering that it's a completely new addition to Pokemon (and doesn't involve the Pokemon themselves), it seems pretty weird. It's like I'm walking into Animal Crossing for a minute and then I walk back out the door into Pokemon. A lot of little exchanges mirror exactly the feel and flow of Animal Crossing interaction.

Oh, I've been forgetting the little thingy on the "e". Here, let me fix that.

It's kinda wéird - on oné hand I liké that théy'ré playing up what aré osténsibly rolé-playing/sim éléménts, on thé othér hand, thé Pokémon colléction/téam-construction méchanic is alréady an éxtrémély robust rolé-playing systém in and of itsélf. It cértainly doésn't hurt for thé ovérarching journéy to réfléct somé of thé fréédom and intéraction of thé capturé/battlé gaméplay, so whilé I'll say it wasn't dirély nécéssary, it's also a wélcomé mové in thé diréction of a béttér-roundéd virtual world - a living Pokémon world whéré thé Trainér's vocation is only oné of myriad routés a playér might také.

Jumping the Sharpedo

Oh what a job it must be to be the dude/dudette who is tasked with translating new Pokemon names from Japanese to English.  I've always imagined it just was one person, arduously going through the new version's pokedex one-by-one and just really letting the creative juices flow.  Whatever word-scientist first invented the portmanteau must have zombie-cringed in their grave just around 1996.  Cringed hard.

It took me a surprisingly long time to puzzle out "Sharpedo." 

So Pokemon X and Y are on their way to America this October, and as usual there is some hubub about the starters and legendaries and all that good stuff.  Now I most certainly won't play X or Y because it's hard to stomach coughing up 40 bucks for a game I've bought 3 times previously.  That doesn't mean that a time-honored tradition need be neglected when the time comes: being weirded out by the increasing absurdity of the freshly-minted sprites.  Let's pause to reflect on some of the fucked up things the Pokemon corporation has envisioned while trying to pad their pokedex roster:

People tend to forget that Pokemon don't have to be limited to strange morphing of real-life animals, they can also be objects.  Look around wherever you are right now and pick something at random.  Draw it poorly.  Add a face. Sell it to Nintendo for millions.  Use those millions to fund your own creature-battle game.  Call it Digimon.  No wait, don't, it's taken apparently.  Call it....uhhhh....how about something like "Battlezards?"  

Yeah, I mean I don't even know what to say about this guy.  Are his arms the heads of birds?  Are those his arms?  Is that a mustache or pubic hair?  So many questions.

This guy's face just freaks me out.  He looks like he knows something I don't.  Also his existence begs a question regarding the new water starter:

Meet Froakie.  Which I reason out to be a combination of "frog" and "croak" with an affectionate-sounding ending.  Odds that the Pokemon team just plain forgot they already had created a water type frog Pokemon?  About 50 percent.  Odds that they just didn't care?  The remaining 50 percent.

I'll leave you with the trailer for the new game.  

Really stunning stuff here, folks.