Pokemon GO

Niantic - 2016 - iOS/Android

This is probably the most timely review I've ever written since at the time of this writing, practically everyone I bump into is on their phones furiously tapping away at Pokemon GO. I was on my lunchbreak and saw people in the restaurant playing, on my way back, I saw a car pull up next to a known gym and whip out their phones, and on the way back to work, there was a lady in my elevator trying to catch a Pidgey. It's safe to say that Pokemania is sweeping the nation again for the first time since the franchise's initial release. 

So for those not swept up in the fever of Pokemon GO players, this game is a phone app that functions largely by placing virtual objects in real space by using the Google Maps API and your phone's GPS. It functions very similarly to Ingress, Niantic's other popular game, albeit much less popular. The game encourages you to explore the real world to find virtual monsters on your phone. The terrain around where you are may encourage certain types of pokemon to appear. For instance, water type pokemon are often found near bodies of water while more common Pokemon like Pidgey or Ratatta can be found pretty much anywhere.

Real world places of interest appear in the game as either Pokestops or gyms. At a Pokestop, you can restock on poke balls or other healing items where at a gym what you can do depends on what team controls the gym and also what team you've decided to join. There are three teams: mystic, valor and instinct all vying for control over in game gyms. At an enemy gym, defeating all Pokemon in the gym will allow you to claim the gym for your team and earn daily rewards as long as you still have a Pokemon present in the gym. Training at a friendly gym may increase the gym's prestige level and allow it to house more friendly Pokemon. Battles are not turn based, as in nearly all other Pokemon games. In Pokemon GO, battles pretty much consist of furiously tapping on the enemy Pokemon to reduce its health. You can also hold down on the screen to attempt a stronger attack, but this can only be done once a stamina meter has been sufficiently charged. 

Summary

The shell for a really amazing Pokemon game is all here, but I find this game to be pretty feature incomplete at the moment in addition to being very buggy. The app seems to freeze a lot when catching Pokemon or battling at a gym which can only be remedied by restarting the game completely. But the freezes only occur when you can login to the game in the first place, as the servers are very frequently down due to overloading. I'd love to see trading and friendly battles added soon, and maybe a little more depth added to the combat system, although I'd like to see server issues addressed first obviously. None of my concerns about bugs or lack of features have dissuaded half the population from playing this though and it's exploding in popularity at the time of this writing. Gotta catch 'em all!

Pocket Mortys

Big Pixel Studios - 2016 - Android/iOS

Ho ho another free to play game. And a licensed game no less. I've become a filthy casual. I guess. Developed by Big Pixel Studios and published by Adult Swim games, Pocket Mortys is based on the television show Rick & Morty and is a blatant and often self aware Pokemon clone. If you haven't checked out Rick & Morty, this game probably won't have much mileage with you. And if you haven't checked out Rick & Morty, you totally should. It's like Adventure Time but with more swearing. It's co-created by Justin Roiland (Earl of Lemongrab) and both title characters are also voiced by Roiland. It really is one of the best things on television right now. Anyway Pocket Mortys is mostly based around Season 1 - Episode 10: Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind which establishes that there are multiple concurrent timelines with multiple Ricks and multiple Mortys. In the game you play as Rick and you must collect and train your Mortys to eventually defeat the council of Ricks to get your teleport gun back to return to your own timeline.

Pocket Mortys is free to play, but also doesn't rub your face in the paid content for the game hardly at all which I really appreciated. Most of the paid content is just to buy more items which can capture new Mortys or heal your existing team, but it's certainly not necessary to pay money to progress in this game. There is also a crafting system in the game where random items you pick up throughout your adventures. Pro tip - look up all of the crafting recipes. The only other way to figure them out if by trial and error which is really tedious. Once you progress far enough in the game, it'll become clear that the core loop of this game is simply collecting and battling Mortys and there's not much more content to the game. But considering I paid nothing for this experience, I can't complain too much.

Summary

For a free game, Pocket Mortys is pretty solid even if it is a shameless rip of of Pokemon. I can't really strongly recommend this if you're not a Rick & Morty fan as a lot of the references are going to fall flat. But if you're looking for a free version of Pokemon, you could probably do worse that this

Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire

Game Freak - 2014 - 3DS

After Gold/Silver, I had taken a pretty long break from the Pokemon franchise until two years ago when I picked up Pokemon X/Y for my 3DS on its release. I thought X/Y was a decent enough game, I liked the 3D models, enhancements to the battle system (especially the Exp. ALL given at the very beginning of the game) and finally the integration of Pokemon trading over the internet. I criticized the extremely weak story writing and the laughably easy difficulty. Like I said before, I thought it was a decent Pokemon game and a good first foray into the 3D environment for the franchise, but it didn't really rekindle the love I had for the series when I had played Red/Blue or Gold/Silver as a kid. I wasn't even planning on playing Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire until my girlfriend suggested it was something she was interested in and thought we could play through them together. I figured I would pick it up, play through the first few gyms with her and then most likely forget about it as there are so many other games I've been playing recently. Quite the opposite happened. At the time of this writing, I have completed the game a mere couple weeks after picking it up while my girlfriend has moved on to other games. I could feel the "One more battle" addiction that I had as a kid returning while I was also simultaneously fighting off the "Gotta catch 'em all" compulsion.

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (ORAS) aren't really totally new Pokemon games, they're really more 3D upgrades or re-imaginings of the 2002 Ruby and Sapphire Game Boy Advance games. Before playing ORAS, I had previously thought I had never played the old Ruby and Sapphire versions, which was mostly true, but as I began playing I realized I had casually played Pokemon Emerald on an emulator back in college. Emerald was a 2003 pseudo sequel/remake to Ruby and Sapphire the same way that Pokemon Yellow was a sequel/remake of Red/Blue. So faint memories of playing the original began returning even though the new game is in 3D and features new Pokemon and all that. The events and story of the original are mostly intact, although my memory of this game is admittedly quite fuzzy, while the battle system and mechanics have been upgraded to match X/Y and also include all of the new X/Y pokemon. You can actually transfer over all of your Pokemon from X/Y using Nintendo's Pokemon Bank software, but there is of course a $5 fee charged to use this service which I shamefully admit I paid for. Gotta catch 'em all, I suppose.

ORAS isn't the same giant leap forward for the franchise the same way X/Y was with new graphics and features and game modes, but it does polish what X/Y did very nicely. The difficulty curve in ORAS feels much more adequate and I found I wasn't constantly annihilating opposing Pokemon trainers in my way, but at the same time it's not exactly what I would describe as a difficult RPG. There are a few new features they've added to the game which were pretty cool. The first of which, called "DexNav", makes it possible to spot wild Pokemon in the grass before even entering a battle with them. This is really nice for completionists like myself who want to guarantee an encounter with a specific Pokemon instead of wandering around back and forth in the grass, just hoping to encounter that one rare Jigglypuff or whatever it is you're looking for. They've also finally made a 3D model of the world map that you can optionally soar around in when you use the HM move "Fly", but this isn't as interesting as you might think. I didn't find the 3D world map model to be that detailed or interesting and, in practice, you'll find that this mode is just a less convenient version of picking your destination off of the 2D map. They've also added a ton more mini-games to play with your Pokemon that improve their base stats or improve their happiness value, but I have no idea what the latter even matters.

Summary
Pokemon ORAS is a pretty cool re-imagining of the original Ruby and Sapphire games which are now nearly 15 years old believe it or not. If you're a fan of the original Ruby and Sapphire versions, you won't be disappointed with this remake. If you're a new fan and looking for an entry point to the series on the 3DS, I'd recommend ORAS over X/Y. A slightly more interesting story, further refinements and additions to the pokemon gameplay, more mega evolutions, and a better balanced and more challenging difficulty gives these games the clear edge in my book. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to finish the "delta episode", which is apparently some new end-game story they've added on.

Portal

Valve - 2007 - PC/PS3/X360

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

Continuing my little list of favorite games, this week I want to write about portal. I'm quite aware that most everyone who is reading this is probably already quite aware of the brilliance of Portal, but if there is by some chance some soul out there that is reading this and hasn't played this game, YOU NEED TO PLAY IT. Portal gets an emphatic and universal recommendation for me no matter what gaming preferences are or what genres you usually gravitate towards. It is that important of a game. 

Back in 2007, Valve released "The Orange Box" in retail stores. It was a combo pack of Half Life 2, both Half Life 2 episodes, Team fortress 2, and a little game called Portal. I bought the Orange Box mostly for Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 as these were titles I was already familiar with. Portal was pushed to the side for a while while I played the other games. HL2 and TF2 were fantastic games, but when I finally started Portal, my mind was totally blown. I don't use that term lightly either. I can count on one hand the number of games whose mechanics have blown my mind. The original Pokemon blew my mind. Mario 64 blew my mind. Ocarina of Time blew my mind. And Portal blew my freaking mind. 

So for those who are reading this and are unaware, the main gameplay mechanic in Portal is the titular portal gun. The gun allows the shooter to create two separate spatial rifts on flat surfaces that connect one place to another. For instance, if I placed one portal on my floor and one on my ceiling, I could jump down through my floor and come out of the ceiling. Or if I placed one portal in my kitchen and one in my bedroom, I could have an easy shortcut for getting midnight snacks. You can start to imagine the gameplay and puzzle possibilities with this mechanic. The spatial reasoning puzzles were absolutely mind bending and I loved it. Even the momentum based platforming challenges were a blast. The gameplay varied from puzzles to platforming to bullet dodging and sometimes blended all three. The entire game felt fresh and each room was a new challenge to conquer

From a game design, balancing and difficulty curve perspective, this game is as close to perfection as I think I'll ever see a game come. It's a game that knows its mechanics are difficult to grasp for first time players, so it starts out slow to make sure the player understands the basics before things get more complicated. It first introduces the basics of how portals work before it even gives you the gun. Then once you get the gun, it only shoots one end of a portal at a time while the other connecting portal remains stationary to help minimize unwanted confusion while players are adjusting to the mechanics of the game. Then once all of the mechanics are introduced, the game starts slowly ramping up the difficulty of the puzzles and platforming at a perfect pace to match the player's understanding and comfortability with the game. Once you master one mechanic, the next room throws a different one at you. Or sometimes even layers several mechanics from previous rooms all together to make sure you understand them all. Another important thing Portal does is that it never outstays its welcome. Right when it's done throwing all of its layers of tricky game mechanics at you, the game winds down. It winds down particularly well with a satisfying and hilarious boss fight too, but my point is that there is nothing that feels stretched out or tacked on with Portal. Every part of that game feels very necessary and deliberate. It's totally brilliantly constructed and Portal is my gold standard for excellent game design

Also not to be forgotten about is Portal's excellent sense of humor. There's really only two characters in Portal, yourself and the intelligent computer system guiding you through the maze of rooms who is known as GLaDOS. Since your player character is silent, all of the humor in the game is delivered through GLaDOS. It's a subtle type of humor. The game initially wants you to trust GLaDOS as she is the voice who is instructing and coaching you through the test chambers. But then every once in a while, GLaDOS will utter a line of dialogue that makes you think "wait, what?" "did the computer just say what I think it said?". A lot of these lines are intentionally humorous and the game uses this subtle humor to eventually break down the trust that you place in GLaDOS in the beginning of the game as it slowly becomes obvious that GLaDOS is trying to kill you. The game brilliantly uses its subtle brand of humor throughout the course of the game and it has become famous for well known memes based around "the weighted companion cube" and "The cake is a lie".

Portal video review:

Summary:

Portal is an experience that every gamer should have. The puzzles are mind-bendingly brilliant, the platforming is fun and challenging, and the subtle humor keeps the game interesting throughout its duration. Portal 2 was a great game as well, but it didn't really add anything THAT new or mind blowing other than the multiplayer. The game's humor was still really funny, but it was more of an "in your face" comedy than the subtle "what did she say?" style. In any case, you absolutely must play Portal if you haven't already. It's my favorite video game in the last 15 years. 

Parasite Eve

Squaresoft - 1998 - PS1

I'm really not sure why I didn't try this game before now. It's got "me" written all over it. Parasite Eve is a text heavy horror RPG by Sqaresoft for the PS1. I love horror, I love RPGs, I love story and I love Squaresoft games. Classic Squaresoft, of course - not necessarily Square-Enix. Okay, so full disclosure: I haven't finished this game yet, but I'm on the 5th of 6 chapters. I usually try to complete every game I review here, but I wanted to play a bunch of new horror games in October and I think I bit off a few more games than I had time to chew this month. I'll admit to not finishing Clock Tower last week either. But I'm quite excited to wrap up Parasite Eve this weekend as opposed to Clock Tower which felt too aged for me to really enjoy.

Parasite Eve is actually a "sort of" sequel to a novel of the same name by a Japanese author named Hideaki Sena. The characters and themes of the novel were adapted to be used in the game, and a lot of new narrative was written by Takashi Tokita, who also helped direct Chrono Trigger. There's actually a lot of well-respected industry talent that worked on this game. Hironobu Sakaguchi and Tetsuya Nomura, both of Final Fantasy fame, respectively produced and did lead artwork for Parasite Eve. The game's excellent soundtrack was composed by Yoko Shimomura who is arguably the most prolific video game composer of all time who is not named Nobuo Uematsu or Koji Kondo. "Primal Eyes", "Missing Perspective" and "Out of Phase" are examples of Shimomura's great work on the soundtrack.

Parasite Eve tells the story of Aya Brea who is a cop working for the NYPD in a fictional New York City during Christmas of 1997. The game opens as Aya and her date are at Carnegie Hall watching an opera. During her solo performance, the lead actress of the opera starts to creepily stare directly at Aya and while the two gaze across the theater at each other, everyone else in the room suddenly begins to catch fire and spontaneously combust. It's a pretty crazy and horrifying opening scene. Aya then learns that the lead actress is being possessed by a being named Eve who is the source of the body melting fires. Eve eventually escapes Carnegie Hall and Aya must spend the rest of the game unraveling the mystery of who Eve is, learning what she's trying to accomplish, and finding a way to foil her plans. Parasite Eve isn't the greatest written game, but the story has its moments and keeps you interested by teasing a mysterious relationship between Aya and Eve.

One of the first things I noticed about Parasite Eve is how beautiful and detailed the backgrounds were. I love and miss all of the hand drawn backdrops that are present in all of Square's PS1 RPGs and I hope some of the modern RPGs will start to take a crack at this art style again. Parasite Eve's battle system is in some ways an evolution of Chrono Trigger's. There is no "battle scene"; encounters happen seamlessly while you're exploring. You also have full control over Aya's movements during the battle. You can move around to dodge enemy attacks and move closer when your ATB gauge is full to deal maximum damage at close range. All of Aya's weapons have range rating which determines how far away you can be from enemies and still successfully make an attack. I found I was constantly managing Aya's spatial position while my ATB was charging, which was an interesting mechanic. I know this is back-to-back reviews where I'm complaining about this, but really I found Aya's move speed to be too slow, both in and out of battle. Aya's snail-like move speed combined with the slow screen fade transitions made exploring a bit tedious at times.

Summary:
Parasite Eve isn't the most pulse-poundingly terrifying game out there, but I still found it be enjoyable. The game's creepy themes, excellent artwork and eerie soundtrack work together to make Parasite Eve an interesting play, but it's probably not anything that will make you want to sleep with the lights on. The combat was overall pretty decent, but it was hampered by Aya's slow move speed and the battles lacked that real addictive hook that's found in most of Square's games around this era. The story has its moments, but could really be aided by a little more character development early on. I did enjoy the realistic setting of New York City as opposed to the imaginary fantasy locations that are in most RPGs. I'm excited to finish this game up and to eventually move on to Parasite Eve 2 in the future

EDIT: Finished the game. The highlights of the game for me were the 4th chapter which is spent locked in a creepy abandoned hospital basement during a power outage and the 6th chapter final boss fight. Without spoiling too much, my first real moment of terror in Parasite Eve came during the final boss fight. I'd recommend this game, but only to players who can tolerate the pacing of older RPGs

Proteus

Ed Key, David Kanaga - 2013 - PC/PS3/Vita

This week, I played through Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and also the XCOM expansion, Enemy Within. Both are fantastic games, and I'd highly recommend either of them, but Aria of Sorrow is great for the exact same reason Symphony of the Night is great and Enemy within is great for the exact same reason XCOM: Enemy Unknown is great. I considered writing a more fleshed out review for XCOM since I did that one so long ago, but Enemy Within is essentially the same game as Enemy Unknown and I don't want to review the same game twice. Also Aria of Sorrow is pretty much the exact same game as Symphony of the Night, they just changed some of the character names and the castle is laid out differently. Just know that these games are totally fantastic and worth checking out. However this week, I think I'd like to talk about a little indie game I picked up for free on PlayStation Plus called Proteus.

I'm actually not even sure if I should be writing about Proteus on this blog, only because I'm not sure if Proteus qualifies as a game. This really raised the question of "What is a game?" for me even more than Journey did. At least with Journey, there was a definite end to the game. While the goal of the game wasn't directly stated, it was implied that you were progressing towards something by the various scenes and events in Journey. But Proteus has no end, no goals, no progress, no events or story of any kind. Now I'm not sure how you exactly define what a game is, or even if it matters whether or not Proteus is one, but for the sake of not being misleading, you might want to consider Proteus as an "audiovisual experience" rather than a game.

Proteus was created by just two dudes, Ed Key and David Kanaga. Development started in 2008 when David had the vision of making a unconventional and completely non-violent video game. Proteus was finally released last year and David certainly realized his vision. It's a very unusual game and there's certainly no violence. You begin the game standing offshore while staring at a very pixelated island. As you move toward the island, you'll realize that nearly everything on the island makes some sort of unusual synthesized sounds that all sort of meld together to make the game's soundtrack. The game will sound different depending on where you are on the island and what you're standing next to. For instance, in a forest, you'll hear the electronic purrs of all of the pixelated trees. Or on top of a tall mountain, the soundtrack may dim a bit and you'll hear only the quiet sound of the wind blowing. It's another game that you can just watch a YouTube video of and probably get the gist of it. Everything is procedurally generated, so the island is different each time, and everything is very pixelated and musical. It kind of feels like something that would belong at one of those "games of tomorrow" places at Disney World.

I hate to sound like I'm picking on the little guys, but Proteus is totally not my kind of game. The two things I love to look for in games are either a strong gameplay hook or excellent narrative. Most of my favorite games combine both of these elements to make a fun game that also tells an interesting story. Proteus has neither of these elements. There's absolutely no story, and there's really no gameplay either, at least not in the traditional sense of that word. I really did try to give Proteus a chance though, I tried to explore the island with no expectations and just enjoy the whimsical electronic music. But I just couldn't get into it. Sorry, Proteus.

Summary:
Proteus offers a very unusual and non-violent audiovisual experience. If that sentence sounded interesting to you, maybe Proteus will be your game. It certainly wasn't mine, but that's okay. If you're like me and you know that Proteus won't be your thing, Aria of Sorrow and/or XCOM: Enemy Unknown are excellently designed games that are boatloads of fun. Both are worth a look if you like Metroidvania style games or turn based strategy games.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

Intelligent Systems (Nintendo) - 2004 - Gamecube

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

One of my all-time favorite games. I’m madly in love with this game and I’ve replayed it more times than I can remember now. This game somehow gets overlooked and forgotten quite a bit despite the fact that it’s a Mario game. Probably because hardly anyone owned a Gamecube and even fewer of those people were into RPGs. They unfortunately missed out on a fantastic game.

The story seems kind of formulaic at first. The game begins, predictably, with Princess Peach being kidnapped, but not by Bowser. You find out shortly that she was kidnapped by a group of people who call themselves the x-nauts. The x-nauts’ leader, Grodus, kidnapped Peach because he believes there is a connection between her and opening the titular Thousand Year Door. Legends tell of a great treasure hidden behind the Thousand Year Door that Grodus becomes obsessed with finding.

The story and writing strikes a perfect balance between being light hearted and fun but also not being too childish or silly. I think the writing might be one of my favorite things about the game, I think it’s one of the best-written games I've ever played. Which sounds ridiculous considering it’s a Mario game aimed at kids, but the writing is really quite humorous and charming. It’s very self aware and often breaks the fourth wall to communicate directly to the player. The characters are well defined and are brought to life through excellent writing and exaggerated cartoony animations. Even though I've played through the game a bunch of times, I still crack a smile at some of the silly jokes and running gags.

The gameplay is typical turn based JRPG combat, but with an additional skill-based “action/timing” mechanic that can boost your attack power or defense if executed correctly. For instance, pressing the A button just before Mario is hit by an enemy will decrease the damage he takes. Or if you’re feeling bold, you can try to press the B button before an enemy attack to counter and inflict damage on the enemy, but the required timing for pressing the B button is more precise. Mario can be assisted in battle by several companions that he encounters throughout the story. Each companion has their own stats and skill set and can also be upgraded by finding hidden items throughout the game. Each time Mario levels up, you can either increase his HP (Heart Points), FP (Flower Points, required for special attacks) or BP (Badge Points). Badge points are probably the most interesting to upgrade because they allow Mario to equip badges that grant him extra abilities. For example, you could equip the Double Dip badge which allows Mario to use 2 items per turn, providing that you've already found the Double Dip badge and have enough BP to equip it.

The BP system keeps the battles interesting because you’ll constantly be experimenting with new badge setups in battle and the “action/timing” mechanic keeps you engaged trying to learn how to defend each enemies’ attack timings.The pacing is also excellent, you’ll never feel like you’re doing the same thing twice. One chapter has you entering into a wrestling tournament, while another has you solving a series of mysteries while riding a train.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Video Review

Summary:
The only drawbacks I can think of with this game are with the difficulty. It’s pretty easy. It’s more of an intro to RPGs, so if you’re used to playing these kinds of games, you’ll probably breeze through it. Also the game starts a bit slow. The first two chapters, compared to the rest, are kind of bland. But stick with it, the game gets better the father into it you get. I think it’s worth tracking down a Gamecube and a copy of this game to play it. Or if you know me personally, ask me and I’ll let you borrow my copy. If you only take one of my recommendations seriously, let it be this game

Papers, Please

Lucas Pope - 2013 - PC

This may have been the most unique game I played this year. In Papers, Please, you play a immigration clerk screening immigrants for potential entry into the fictitious country of Arstotzka. Immigrants give you their paperwork and it’s up to you to process and find any discrepancies in their papers.

At the end of the day you’ll have to choose how to spend your very small paycheck - on feeding your family, paying the heat bill, or providing your children their medicine. And you probably won’t have enough money for all of it. You’ll want to process as many immigrants as you can as quickly as possible, because you’re paid by how many you process per day. But you don’t want to go too fast or you may miss a discrepancy in their paperwork and have to pay a fine. It’s kind of a nerve wracking and depressing game to play. But I don’t mean that as a negative criticism of the game, it was clearly designed to invoke those kinds of emotions. You really get the feeling of what it’s like to be a desk clerk doing a menial but stressful job and getting paid next to nothing for it.

Summary:
It’s an interesting and unique indie game. It’s not my favorite, but it’s certainly different, which is always good.

Pokemon X/Y

Game Freak - 2013 - 3DS

This was the first Pokemon game I had really gotten into since Gold/Silver, so a lot of the gameplay mechanics were new to me. I actually played a bit of Black/White earlier in the year, and it didn't click with me, so I was a bit nervous about playing X/Y. I was also a bit nervous to play this because I just don’t like playing on a handheld system. I don’t like being hunched over staring at a tiny little screen when I could just as easily lay back on my couch and watch a giant TV. I don’t have a need or desire to carry around a 3DS with me and play games on the go, so the entire concept of handheld gaming is a bit off putting to me, so I really had to make a focused effort to play this game despite its hardware. It was actually the first handheld game I had completed probably since I was a kid, and I actually found it kind of nice to play this while watching a football game on TV and battle between commercials and what not. Anyway, back to talking about the actual game.

If you've ever played a Pokemon game before, it’s really the same basic cake, only with a lot more icing on top. If you didn't like the cake to begin with, you probably aren't going to like it now. But for people who do like the original Red/Blue cake, the X/Y icing tastes pretty good. And if you've never played a Pokemon game before, X/Y probably isn't a bad place to start. They've streamlined the battling and made it way less grindy. In terms of gaining experience, it no longer really matters who the lead Pokemon is in a battle since all Pokemon in your active party will gain experience. I found this to be a really nice change that makes the game more about strategy and less about grinding. They've also added a lot of extra layers on top of the basic rock-paper-scissors battle system. There are passive abilities, equippable items, mega evolutions and more. I know some of that stuff was added in previous generations, but it was all new to me.

They've also finally successfully integrated the internet into a Pokemon game in the year 2013, which is really nice. You can trade/battle with friends or strangers pretty easily now. They've even added a kind of Pokemon auction house, where you can ask for certain pokemon of a specific level or with specific properties or you can post your own Pokemon up for trade. I think my favorite new system was “wonder trade” where you trade pokemon with a complete stranger without knowing what you’ll get in return. It could be a pidgey or it could be a gyarados. It’s probably going to be a pidgey though.

My main gripe against this game would have to be the difficulty. I know this game is marketed for kids, but man this game was easy. I breezed through most of it without really having to think too much. I don’t remember Red/Blue being quite this easy, so I think they could have easily dialed up the difficulty a few notches. I think what could really make an amazing Pokemon game is if they actually spent a few seconds constructing a decent narrative. It’s still pretty much just go out and battle Pokemon because… because Pokemon.

Summary:
Still a pretty solid game though, and battling with 3d Pokemon models rather than 2d sprites was pretty nice.

Persona 3

Atlus - 2006 - PS2

Yeah, this was a weird one. I had never played any of the other Persona games or any of the Shin Megami Tensei games for that matter, so I had no expectations here. Persona 3 is a very Japanese role playing game - keyword Japanese - about a teenager balancing high school life by day and dungeon crawling by night.

At the beginning of the game, the protagonist discovers he has the ability to stay awake during the “dark hour”, a hidden hour that takes place during midnight between days where monsters come out and attack sleeping civilians. He joins a group of vigilantes who combat these monsters and who also have the ability to stay awake during the dark hour. The group teaches him how to summon his “personas” which are summon monsters that can be used during combat. Most of the members of this vigilante group also happen to be students at his local high school as well.

So half of the game is spent at the high school, learning and making friends with students which somehow magically affects your battle stats somehow… I don’t know. And the other half of the game is spent dungeon crawling during the dark hour. The battle system is very slow, repetitive and grindy which was annoying to me. The high school sections were… interesting, I guess, to put it nicely. I don’t think this game was quite my cup of tea. Its writing is very Japanese, if you know what I mean, and a lot of it is… just… weird and off putting. There’s a boss fight in the game where you literally battle against a monster who is just a model of a painted naked woman with her legs open. I’m not kidding! Who decided to put this in the game? It’s weird and creepy.

Summary:
The battle system was too grindy and repetitive to hold my interest, but I could see how hardcore fans may find this game interesting, I guess. I just don’t think it’s for me.