Animal Crossing is nice, very nice

I approached this game all wrong in the beginning. I had an RPG mindset, as if I could somehow collect everything there was to be collected and that would somehow make me powerful. Once I learned to relax with the game, it really became fun. I learned that it's better to go light on the agenda and heavy on the exploration.

No, I'm not done with Animal Crossing: City Folk. Can you ever be done with it? Seriously, I suppose there's a point where you've done everything, and caught all the fish, and collected all the furniture, and met all the characters, but I seriously doubt I will ever reach that point. And that's really the idea of this game: It's not an RPG to be conquered, it's a never-ending collection game.

Everything about this game is fun. Once I figured out that the game plays much better with the nunchuk I was completely pleased with the controls. I could just wander around my town, pluck weeds, plant flowers, catch bugs, pick fruit, buy furniture, make shirt designs, etc. It's like a vacation. There's an addictive collection aspect to the game that is very fun. But, it's fun to talk to all the characters and build up your relationship with them as well. The fact that they've given you the ability to change the time of day and the day of the year is appreciated as well. If you are trying to collect something that is only available on a certain day then this helps enormously.

The game is meant to be relaxing, and that's just what it is. Once I got over my compulsions I thoroughly enjoyed every moment I played of it, and looking at the screenshots from my previous posts makes me want to play again. What the heck: I'm in the mood to relax!

LEGO Batman: More of the same

See my LEGO Star Wars: Complete Saga review. Copy. Paste. (only less nostalgic)

Officially, I don't like Persona games

I'm not going to finish Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES. I just hit the 51 hour mark and I'm done with it. I'm burnt out and I don't want to play anymore. I've lost all my motivators for playing, and the game has been reduced to a stat-a-thon. Seriously, I don't care about any of the characters. I don't care about the storyline. And, I don't care about the Personas. The combat is fun and challenging (and is the best part of the game) but its mind numbing sameness has failed to keep me motivated. And worst of all is the fact that the game simply will not allow me to play how I want to play.

The player is forced to live life as a series of days (that sounds like a "duh" statement, but let me explain). Every day presents you with opportunities. During the weekdays you go to school and you're often presented with a chance to increase your Charm by answering an academic question properly. After school you're presented with an opportunity to increase a Social Link, which will help you create more an better Personas that are connected to that Social Link. After that you're presented with an opportunity to either raise another stat, or, if you wish, you can go to Tartarus to engage in battle with the Shadows there. These opportunities are rigid. You cannot skip school. You cannot increase a Social Link unless it's the proper time of day. You cannot visit Tartarus whenever you want. And, if you stay in Tartarus too long, your characters get Sick and stop fighting.

I have to ask: What are the game designers trying to achieve by limiting you in this way? I can't come up with a satisfactory answer. And this rigid structure is probably what made me abandon the game. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to fight and level up, but if I don't take advantage of the opportunity when it presents itself then I may not be powerful enough to beat the next boss (who will come at a set time, there's an ever present countdown in the upper right corner of the screen that says how many days you have until you face the next boss). So, unlike Final Fantasy, where I can spend as long as I want grinding my characters, in Persona 3 I'm forced to stop grinding them.

I can understand why some people would like that aspect of Persona 3. I can see how it would motivate people to try to get the most out of every opportunity that presents itself. But, like I hinted at before, sometimes I'm not in the mood. Sometimes I want to increase a relationship as far as it will go. Sometimes I want to increase a stat just enough to achieve some certain milestone. And sometimes I just want to grind in combat for hours and hours and hours until my characters are so overpowered that they can take down bosses as if they were regular foes.

Allow me to illustrate with an example. On the door of the Home-Economics room there's a note that is written in a different language. My character can't read it, but if his academics were higher then he could. So, level up academics, right? Wrong! You only get a certain amount of time to level up academics, and if you optimize your game play for academics then you'll probably get wiped out by one of the bosses you must face. I can't play Person 3 for 8 hours a day, so I was literally forced to wait 5 days (real days, in the real world) until I had leveled up my academics enough to translate the note (and see that the note was completely irrelevant and STUPID). In a nutshell, this is what's wrong with the game: Persona 3 will not let you play how you want to play, you must play the game how the designers intended.

So, after 51 hours of playing I still feel like the game would be more fun if it just let me HAVE FUN. But, no! You must play the game the way we want you to play it. You cannot pursue a relationship fully in one sitting. You cannot level up your characters to a desired milestone in one sitting. You cannot increase your stats or earn money whenever you want, you must wait for the opportunity to present itself. I've grown tired of being pigeonholed and I've grown tired of waiting. What a shame, because the game could be really fun, if only it just allowed me to have fun in my own way.

Moving on, there's no open world in Persona. And because it's missing the game takes on a menu-driven feel. There's nothing like the feeling you get once you've unlocked all the islands and towns in Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. Persona 3 never gives you that feeling. In favor of a world map you're given a glorified menu and you just choose what location you'd like to go to next. Literally, you have about six places you can visit; hope you don't get bored with them!

The menu-based aspect of the world is carried over in the stat-leveling as well. Basically, the opportunities you're presented with can be taken advantage of by first picking a location, and second picking an activity that will level-up a certain stat. I lost count of how many times I saw the animation of my character as he sat in the Cafe, alone, drinking coffee so that I he could increase his Charm. That's all there is to it. They should have just presented me with a REAL menu and it would have been just as satisfying; just let me choose "Level up > Academics," or "Level up > Chariot Social Link." The little cut-scenes that come with leveling up have failed to motivate me, and it just seems boring now.

There is a complete lack of side quests. Not that you need side quests to have an interesting game, but, because of the strict day-to-day structure of the game, there wouldn't be any time that you COULD go on a side quest. After all, you have to go to school. What a drag! Seriously! When I want to be forced to go somewhere I don't like, I'll just stop playing the game and live my life.

There's a ton of Personas. I have a lot of them already; too many for me to keep track of. And my compendium says that I've only discovered 30% of the Personas. I'll never use them all. But, maybe it was unrealistic for me to think that I would. I really love looking at the art design for all the Personas, but, I'm worn out trying to figure out how to get better Personas. There's cards and Personas that you can use to level up your weapons. There's cards that level up your Personas. There's a ton of crap that the game throws at you and not enough guidance to tell you what will really make you more powerful. So, not only are you given the feeling that you're playing a glorfied menu, there's also no way to be sure that you're leveling up efficiently unless you have a spreadsheet or two open while you play.

When exploring Tartarus I get the distinct feeling that I'm playing a random dungeon generator. The experience isn't crafted, it just an algorithm that generates random floors for me to explore. It is, indeed, the only aspect of the game that is exploratory, but even if you find something you like, it won't be there next time. Because it's random, it's never saved. So, if a certain floor give you triple experience, it won't be like that next time. The exploration becomes empty and becomes merely grind; very pure grind. Once again, I have soured on the game to the point where I feel like I should just be able to enter a battle through a menu and choose "Enter Battle > Level 4," or "Enter Battle > Level 2 Boss." It's that linear in the progression, and the exploration falls completely flat.

There's a lot that's good about the game. The combat is fun; finding the specific weaknesses of each type of enemy and exploiting it is fun. Getting experience and leveling up in battle is fun. The voice acting is top notch. The music is quite good. But none of this is enough to keep me going. I look at the game now and it just feels like I would have to work at it too hard to get an enjoyable experience. And, I'm only about half-way through the game. The game just isn't keeping me going until the end. That says something. It bored me.

Persona 3 gets an unofficial score of 2 stars: I didn't like it.

Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando...not really...just a joke

Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando is not without a flaw or two but overall I have to say that I loved it. The kids and I had a lot of fun playing it together, and the kids still love to play it (even though I've done just about everything there is to do and I think I'm done with it). For a game with such depth its unbelievably kid friendly. The kids love all the different weapons and vehicles that you get to use. It seems the humor is aimed at kids; its funny, but it's not truly funny. Ever since Portal came out my standards for video game humor have gone up a notch. Still, the game has a kind of cheesy-cartoon type of humor that has a lot of charm.

The different play modes of the game keept me from getting bored. You race bikes, fight spaceships, fight gladiator style in a dome, and run around a blast the crap out of a large variety of enemies with a large variety of weapons. You can upgrade the weapons by purchasing upgrades, and they become stronger (to a point) through frequent use. That kind of mechanic is addictive to me. Still, the weapons become less and less effective as the game goes on, so that it almost feels like they're getting weaker, instead of stronger. I almost quit half-way through the game, and that would have been a mistake! I decided to just push through the game as fast as I could to get to the end. Once I had beat the final boss and began the game again on Challenge Mode I really started to have fun! I had to look up the "cheat" for beating the final boss (stay on the ledge and keep hitting him with the sniper-type gun), but once the game started again the it became incredibly enjoyable. The money comes faster. The weapon upgrades come faster. The point of the game is so much more clear! I wish the game started in that mode!

I enjoyed it as much as I have ever enjoyed a platformer. There're tons of weapons to collect, level up, and use. The arena fights are fun and challenging as well. I wasn't too keen on the space battles and the bike races, but that's just me. Overall, I loved this game. It consumed my life for a week, and now I can't wait to find other games in the Ratchet & Clank series to play!

Majora's Mask, More of the Same: Thanks Nintendo!

I had never played Majora's Mask until now, and I had always seen it as a large hole in my gaming repertoire. Needless to say I was ecstatic when I saw that it had been released on the Wii Virtual Console. So, how does it compare to its predecessor, Ocarina of Time? It has more collection, less substance, and in short it's the perfect epilogue to one of the best games ever.

Majora's Mask has us playing as young Link once again. But, unlike Ocarina of Time, there's no adult Link to serve as the counterpart to young link. Instead, Link is able, through the use of masks, to change into other forms: Goron, Zoran, and Deku. Each form has its own powers and abilities. The abilities of each form complement the traditional aspects of a Zelda game quite well, and I appreciated the variety that they gave to the game. For instance, instead of getting underwater armor for Link, we can use Zoran Link to swim and breathe underwater. Zoran Link also has a weapon that can be thrown that takes the place of the boomerang. Goron Link can survive while walking through lava, and can smash down objects, taking the place of the hammer. Deku Link can float on air, bounce on the surface of water, and spin attack. These different forms of Link are a welcome addition to the game, and I really enjoyed using each's abilities.

Aside from those masks, you can collect other masks that don't transform you, but instead they give you special abilities, powers, or access to certain areas in the game. For instance, the bunny hood allows Link to run faster. The Mask of Truth allows Link to talk to animals. The Romani mask gives you access to the Milk Club. And the Gibdo mask allows you to talk to ReDeads and Mummies. Collecting and using these masks is very fun, especially for the kids.

Speaking of collecting, there are plenty of other things to collect besides masks. There are heart pieces, empty bottles, equipment, stray fairies, and more. I played through the game the first time, found about half of these things, and then got thoroughly defeated by the end boss. I'm confident that I could have defeated the boss if I had faced him again. But, instead, I decided to start over from scratch because the game was so fun. I grabbed a walkthrough from GameFAQs and began playing from the beginning. In the end of my second playthrough I was 1 piece of heart away from 100% completion in the game. Majora's Mask is fun either way; whether you want to obsessively collect everything and experience everything that the game has to offer, or if you'd rather just find what you can, and explore the world on your own. Both are great.

There's a point of contention in the game that seems to divide people. The game is set up so that you play the same three days (the three days before the world ends) over and over again until you've defeated the four major bosses and enlisted their help. For some this seems to destroy the classic Zelda format enough that they don't like the game. It didn't bother me. It seems a small trade off for being able to save anywhere and any time. Sure you lose your money, arrows, bombs and the like, but it's easy to get more; it's trivially easy as the game progresses to refill your supplies. To me it seemed like a small issue, but for other's it has really destroyed the game. I don't get it.

Conclusion: When compared to Ocarina of Time, I'd have to say that I liked Ocarina of Time better. Still, Majora's Mask keept the feel and joy of Ocarina of Time, but changed just enough about how the game works to keep me interested.

Boss too hard? Reboot!

It happened. Majora (in Majora's Mask) made me restart. I got to the final boss, I was defeated, so I went back to the beginning: I started over from scratch, only this time I brought a walkthrough to help me. I have a history of doing this, and I wonder how common it is for gamers to do this.

I did this with Final Fantasy VII; I got to Sephiroth, got utterly destroyed in an epic hour-long battle, and perished. I went to the store the next day, purchased the strategy guide, realized how much stuff I missed along the road to the boss, and decided that the easiest way to get all that stuff was to start over and follow the guide.

Final Fantasy X was a little different. I got to the boss, defeated it, but had such a great time along the way that I went out and bought the strategy guide the day before I beat the boss. So, once I had defeated the final boss on my own I had the guide ready to go and I started again from the beginning immediately. Defeating the boss with all my characters at level 99 and all the ultimate weapons was probably one of the most satisfying RPG experiences I've ever had. I love to be overpowered. I love to wipe out the final boss!

I only made it 6 hours into Final Fantasy XII before I realized that I needed a guide. Mostly I wanted a map of the License Grid. But I once again faced the final boss with all my characters at level 99. It's feels so good. So good!

But, back to Majora's Mask, I'm at about 75% on the walkthrough. When playing on my own I was surprised by the number of collectables I couldn't find. I had less than half the heart pieces, only about 60% of the masks, and only three of six bottles. So, I'm going through the game again from the beginning and following the guide. I'm still loving it, perhaps even more than the first time!