Caves, Elixirs, and Grunties

College has really murdered my game time, but I am still doing my best to get through .Hack Infection and Final Fantasy 6.

Fabuloussss!

I'm 9 hours into Final Fantasy 6 and I'm starting to warm up to it. Terra went all super sayian and now I'm trying to rescue and/or find her. My party is Locke, Cyan, Edgar, and Celes. One of my big worries is that I am going to miss out on a bunch of characters because I didn't explore enough or something. Hopefully the other characters that haven't been introduced yet are in mandatory cut-scenes or found in painfully obvious places. I've reached the city of Zozo and I think it is an awesome area for a Final Fantasy game. A derelict town full of enemies, jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper, and a cool puzzle with clocks just feels right in this game. Also Edgar's auto crossbow is an amazing ability and should be used without discretion.

This is what computer hacking looks like guys.

Where Final Fantasy 6 has been constantly improving in my mind, .Hack Infection has been maintaining the status-quo. Gardenia joined my group so now I have a long arm that I can recruit to my party. I definitely need to stop and do some grinding though. A friend warned me that if I don't farm the early virus cores now it will be hard to get them later. I'm also plagued with constant feeling that some party members are way under leveled (I'm looking at you Natsume). I should probably raise some more grunties as well but I keep getting noble grunties. For that matter, I don't understand what grunties even do. I can trade with them for some okay stuff but that's about it right? Add to the .Hack chore list Trading with NPC's as well. Somebody must want those Golden Axes I have. .Hack has a lot of nuances that I need to work on.

The real sleeper hit was the random games of Spelunky my girlfriend and I have been playing. After watching so much Spelunkin' with Scoops I looked up some streams on Twitch. One late night I found a stream with an exceptional Spelunky player Latedog. In his stream were a few other top tier players and just generally nice fellows. These guys and gals were a delight to talk to and answered any and every question I had about the game. I actually bought the game because the community seemed so nice.

My girlfriend's character of choice

Most of the Spelunky I have seen is single player, but let me tell you, if you haven't tried the multiplayer you are missing out. My girlfriend and I play with each other and we have a blast. We aren't too good yet, but we always laugh and carry on. The best part is that even when you are dead you can control a ghost that floats around setting off traps and pushing treasures down to a more accessible area for your partner to grab. That small touch makes the game consistently engaging for every player. It's a rare game that leads to multiplayer laughs and not multiplayer fights. 

Comments are always welcome,
-Chemystery

Backlogs

Everybody has tasks they want to do that they never got around to the first time. Chores to complete, movies to see, books to read, and games to play. These undone tasks pile up fast and they form a monstrous beast known as the backlog. One of the hardest backlogs to tackle is the one of a gamer.

Almost every gamer has a backlog made of games they own and need to beat and/or games they don't own but want to play. Every steam sale, Black Friday door buster, flea market, and Humble Bundle, adds to the pile a little more. As games proliferate life more and more video games are becoming easier and easier to acquire. It is so out of hand that having games you will never play on Steam is an ongoing joke. If you were to add up the average time it takes to complete the games in my current backlog it would be thousands of hours, easily. It still keeps growing.

The worst part is that the completionist in me craves the history of games. I can't just play Splinter Cell: Blacklist. I want to see the whole series, so that's another four games to play. It is not just modern consoles either, I have NES cartridges sitting on my shelf taunting me. "Do you really understand video games if you've never beat the original Mario?" they whisper in the night. These games don't have saves either, If I want to beat these old timers I really need to hone my skills. Or I can cheat and use the save states on the virtual console. Then that leads to the whole mess of how many copies do I need of these games? This one has an expansion pack for it, this one is HD, this one is on the handheld, but there is something to say about playing the original format. If you appreciate where games have come from and want to see it with your own eyes, prepare for the list of games you will "need" to play. It still keeps growing.

At the end of the day though I think backlogs are amazing. It says something very personal about you and your hobby. What you like, what you want to experience and how you play, it is all contained in that nice list of games you may never play. Whether you play them or not, it is a piece of your collection or what you want to be your collection. I'm excited to work through my game collection and beat as many games as I can. Before you start that new game, check your backlog for a moment and see if there is something you'd like to do first. Never forget. It still keeps growing.

Happy Weekend,
-Chemystery

More .Hackin' and Questin'

As another semester begins I continue my trek into .hack Infection and Final Fantasy VI. I expect my play times to be more infrequent so I've started writing down what I was doing and what was going on after each time I play. Hopefully these games will be wrapped up sooner rather than later.

I'm about 15 hours through .hack Infection and I'm really warming up to it. I was pretty upset with the visuals to begin with but I've moved past that and found a lot of mechanics that I enjoy. Most notably, I've never once been lost in the game. Despite the fact that you have to manage information inside The World and from your desktop, the game is paced and designed perfectly so you are always progressing if you want to. It shows some real skill in pacing and story management that I just have to stop and admire.

Your in game desktop

Another great little tidbit are the books of Ryu. These books track your in game stats, like chests open and amount of money spent. The best part is that while you increase your numbers you unlock items outside of The World like wallpapers for your desktop or menu music. It's not a huge deal but it is nice to see.

With any luck it will be a while until I hit the grind wall. So far it seems like there are enough things to pursue that it will be a non-issue.

I'm looking less favorably on Final Fantasy VI though. The game is really jarring to me story wise. I just finished Sabin's segment and now everyone is together preparing for the epic battle. At first I thought the concept of the group splitting up was interesting but the more I played it the more I disliked it. The segments difference in length felt awkward, like the developers had clear favorite characters. The other story part I don't understand is the random narration. Kappas tell you game mechanics, moogles select what segment you want to play, and then random words show up to tell you what is going on in the story. It feels clunky and takes me away from the story.

Why do you exist!?

The pieces are there, I guess I can understand how this would be someones favorite entry of the series, but not for me. I enjoy the characters but everyone's favorite villain Kefka seems dumb to me. Like is...it...supposed to be a clown? Also is it pure evil or humorous? If this is someone's favorite villain let me know what the point is. Actually, explain to me why this entire game is great. Right now it is missing the mark with me.

Have a good week.

                                                                                                                                                                   -Chemystery

Pokebank and Nintendo's History with the Internet

We all know where this is going. The Pokemon bank has been delayed since its original release of December 27th. Since then Nintendo has kept a dead silence about the new release date. The cause of the bank's delay was cited as the unforeseen traffic from the Christmas holiday and the release of the bank in Japan.

The "pokebank" allows trainers to store up to 3000 pokemon on cloud saves. It is the only method of getting your beloved Pokemon from your older games into your current game and has a small subscription fee of 5$ a year with the first month being free to use. By far the biggest promise of all was that the bank would stop the transfer of hacked pokemon to the new game. This was supposed to improve the Pokemon economy and force trainers to make use of the new breeding innovations.

All of these things are great for the game and meta game. The community was pretty excited for it and generally looked favorably on it. But once again, Nintendo can't deliver on their online promises. The winter break has passed for most students and the holiday rush is long gone and we still can't move our Pokemon. We should have expected this though, Nintendo and the internet don't usually get along.

It seems like Nintendo only wants to deal with the internet in the most arbitrary and difficult ways. From the difficult use of Friend Codes to the baffling gauntlet of logins to register your Pokemon account online. I can't imagine very many people happy with the current state of affairs with the connectivity of the Nintendo consoles. I can't name a single game that I have played online from Nintendo since Mario Kart 7. Smash Bros. is way too shoddy online to function and few games allow you to interact with a community that is not on your friends list. They are sacrificing fun for safety and it's alienating a large market. Even when they do go online it is just archaic and bulky There are glimmers of hope though.

With the advent of the NintendoID it appears an effort is being made to streamline things. This ID ties together the wii, wii U, and 3DS for one account and puts your wallet together across all three consoles as well. A good step forward even with the shaky execution over Christmas. Now for the step backwards, The MiiVerse. An entity I can only describe as a forum without a use. I took one brief look at it on my 3DS, saw the list of what it was and left. I doubt I will ever open it again. I can smell the irritating menus on it from here. It is just another tool to try to use the Mii and it is wholly unnecessary.

I would like to see them treat online connectivity like they do StreetPass functionality. If they can make me as enthusiastic about online connectivity as I am about StreetPass I would be ecstatic. Simple, fun, easy to use, and it actually affects my game and gives me social interaction. Learn lessons from yourself Nintendo.

One day you are going to get it together and I just can not wait for that day.

Hang in There

-Chemystery

Papers and Default

This week has been a bit sporadic in gaming for me. I typically try to follow a "two games at a time" rule but I broke that this week. I was all over the place but I had a good time with it.

The thing I played the most was the Bravely Default demo for the 3DS. I went from excited about this game to ecstatic. Bravely Default is mechanically deep in the best way. There are 24 different jobs to class your characters as and you can combine skills and passive abilities from all jobs.

The Next Best RPG

Now that is standard affair but the combat is where the game shines. Bravely Default uses random encounters but you can't just get by mashing the A button here. Combat runs off of the Brave/Default system. When your characters Brave, they spend future turns to do extra actions this turn. When they Default, they earn an extra turn to use later and they gain a boost in defense. It is a genius way to use risk and reward in combat. You can go all out on the first turn and spend the next three waiting, or play defensively to build an amazing offense. 

The demo is free, if you enjoy RPGs please treat yourself and try this game.

I also played a large amount of Papers, Please on Steam. I love studying the cold war so this game really appealed to me. The game is inherently dark, it can really make you feel oppressed and bad about the decisions you make.

You Are Probably A Bad Person

You play a bureaucrat watching the border between two formerly warring countries. Your country is communist and you get paid for the amount of people you admit into your country and penalized for ones you allow without the proper papers. Life is a constant struggle to keep your family alive with your meager wages and often you find yourself a cog in plans you don't control.

I played the game as the perfect citizen. I refused all the bribes I could and tried to follow the law to the letter, even if it meant turning away refugees to certain death. You will not feel good after playing but you will be entertained. 

 I also continued playing my two "main" games. .Hack Infection and Final Fantasy VI, but not much happened. Hopefully I can give you a bigger report on them next week.

Take it easy,

-Chemystery

Welcome To Game Alarm

Welcome! My name is Zachary, I'm a chemistry student, 21 years old, and this is Game Alarm. I originally started my blog on giantbomb.com and will probably continue posting there for quite a while. If you haven't been there, it is a wonderful video game wiki/review site. They have one of the most popular podcasts and just a great community in general.

Enough about that though, let's talk about what you will see here. This blog will be about video games, what I am playing, reviews I have, my opinion, and a little news. Since it is about my taste, it will probably be about RPGs and older games. I'm open to suggestions and would love to know if there is a topic you'd like me to discuss. I plan on updating on Tuesdays as consistently as I can. This should be fun!

Happy Gaming.

-Chemystery