So I stumbled across this piece by Amber Ahlborn over at 61 Frames Per Second, and boy did it make the nostalgia sparks start flying. It's about how she really enjoyed Tetrisphere on the N64, but never bought a copy and now regrets it.
That was an experience I'd had plenty of times, never thinking it could be universal. My parents weren't willing to spend much on my gaming habits as a kid, so I had to pick games out knowing I'd be playing them for three months. That's how my RPG habit formed. But it also meant that no matter how much I liked any title with a major multiplayer element, I was hesitant to ask for it. I was an only child and would probably end up with something I could only play occasionally. So I rented and rented and rented Super Smash TV, but never bought a copy... and boy do I regret that now. That was probably the best SNES co-op title I ever played.
Any of you out there have a "game that got away" lament to share? Something you couldn't afford, or didn't really want until too late?
With Mega Man 9 on the horizon, the idea of intentionally retro games was on my mind. I got to thinking about old RPGs I liked and now this is up at omgRPG, and now I'm curious to see what you guys have to say on the subject. Have you ever played a game that you liked better because of gameplay elements that relied on visual limitations like a 2D playfield or pixel art graphics? Have you downloaded an old game from VC you never played before and found yourself blown away? If so, drop in the comments and talk about it.
I'll start with an easy example (tangential to Nintendo, but whatever): I pulled out my old PS1 copy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night over the weekend to show someone who'd never played it. I popped it in to my PS3 and was utterly amazed at how good all of the 2D bits still looked, while the 3D... well, that was impressive ten years ago, wasn't it? This just made me realize I'd never liked any of the 3D Castlevanias as much as any of the 2D games I'd played, since the castle's look and physics just stop working right in three dimensions.
So Etrian Odyssey II came out this week. I thought about picking it up, but then realized... hey, I never finished the first one. Played very far into it, but even though it was a game I loved, but always ended up putting it down to do something else and then never picked back up. Atlus is promising Etrian Odyssey II will be the first game on "hard mode", too, so maybe this'll get my RPG chops suitably warmed up. I've already heard from friends playing it that a bunch of the broken tactics I use here aren't viable in the sequel.
So! We're gonna do a playthrough of Etrian Odyssey. This will spoil quite a bit of the original game for you if you haven't finished it, so reader beware. I'll try to keep all the spoilers under the cut. This week we'll be covering character creation and my trip through the first strata of the Labyrinth. This chapter will be a little longer than future ones since EO starts slow, but don't worry, I won't chronicle every single time I beat up purple rats.
Etrian Odyssey
I picked up Octomania on impulse when I snagged my copy of Baroque, remembering my early curiosity about how the game was played. Well, I understand that now, but there is much about the game that is otherwise baffling to me. I mean, when I first powered the game on in my Wii, this is the first thing I saw (in 480p widescreen, no less):
The only difference between this and the US version opening is localized text. The song is the same, in all its hideous piercing glory. Tako tako, takoyaki takoron, koron koron koron...
Now the game... actually, it was interesting reading Sardius's take on Yoshi's Cookie in his Virtual Console round-up, because Octomania's prime dysfunction as a puzzle game is quite similar to Yoshi's Cookie. There is a level at which the gameplay descends into ridiculous, arbitrary madness... but is actually kind of fun because of that, and weirdly compelling.
I finished the main Table Mountain quest of Shiren the Wanderer DS about two weeks ago, while taking a little break when finishing up another assignment. I don't clearly remember exactly what it was at the moment, but my memories of the battle against Tainted Insect and the ending sequence are crystal clear. It says perhaps too much about my personal priorities.
I left myself a list of notes about what levels I was going through and what happened in them, but most of it before level 30 is was so sparse that I can't make any more sense of them. So, I'm just going to finish off the diary with my general impressions of how to survive the last Table Mountain levels, and my recollection of the battle with the final boss. Aren't you excited? It all starts behind the cut.
Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
During a Brawl break earlier today, we finished up all of the unlocks of stages and characters for Brawl. I'm not "done" with the game-- are you ever really done with a party game or a fighter?-- but I feel like talking a bit about what I've played so far. Spoilers ahoy if you look at anything after the cut!
I played through the vast majority of SSE in co-op. There were roughly three levels, platform-heavy ones, where it wasn't viable at all to have a second player active. Those were solo'ed, and then the Great Maze and the final boss were defeated in co-op mode.
I was warned countless times by friends that the Great Maze was horrible and the death of fun. Actually, it's probably the stretch of SSE I enjoyed most, since it seems to be the part of SSE actually designed with co-op play in mind. Granted, we played with Kirby, Metaknight, Dedede, and Pit, and so spent most of SSE just flying over obstacles and annoying enemies.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Sorry these fell off for so long, folks. Blame old Game Boy games and Brawl. I haven't forgotten our intrepid Wanderer, though, who I believe I last left in the depths of Table Mountain.
I don't have a usual diary to share with you, because... well, remember what I said about progress becoming incremental? I've only made it two or three levels past the Stream Village, and not in any sort of fashion worth writing about. I started dying a lot in ways that weren't worth reading about. So, go read this new @Play article about newbie mistakes. It's excellent and if you're struggling, it is going to be able to tell you exactly what your mistake is. (Mine was "Kept wasting good equipment on killing Skull Wraiths in level 26.")
After getting that "Wow, I'm not playing this game right at all" feeling, I decided to go focus on a feature I'd been neglecting for awhile to try and regain focus. So I've set aside the drive to Table Mountain for awhile to focus on a feature I had previously been ignoring: rescues.
Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
I've had really good luck with this run, but I expect you guys are tuning in to see it just as it peters out. I've unlocked the all-important Melding Jar by advancing Gaibara's subquest, and gotten the restaurant at the Mountaintop Village going. My big problem is food-- while the Armor Ward is wonderful for improving survivability, I'm not getting enough in the way of Big Riceballs on this run to keep myself from starving. If the lack of food doesn't end up killing me, it's going to be taking my shield off that does.
It's a shame, because my shield now is pretty awesome. I've melded together the Gold Shield that doesn't rust with an Armor Ward and a random Wood Shield with a +2 bonus to create an incredibly potent piece of defensive equipment. I've shredded through the game thus far, but I expect that a lack of good weapons on this run is going to catch up with me as the Table Mountain monsters get nastier. Let's see if I'm right about how I'll die this time, shall we?
I thought my luck couldn't possibly have improved after the blessed run I had last time that went abruptly sour, but things actually got quite a bit better. One of the features of Shiren is that certain chains of events that you initiate tend to pay off on down the line, after a series of deaths. One of those chains of events unlocks an adventuring partner for you, named Blinding Oryu. True to her name, she can blind every monster in a room at will, and can powerfully punch her way through monsters.
I've had Blinding Oryu in my party for awhile now, and the result is that I'm sitting at level 11 and have gone through very few items in the course of picking off the enemy. It helps that I have a Polearm+5 and am carrying an Armor Ward, a powerful shield that also causes you to burn through food more quickly. At this point, the remote possibility of running out of Riceballs and starving to death is really my only worry. Anyway, let's pick up at floor 14, shall we?
Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
A run full of good luck has taken back to where I last managed to get myself Death Reaped, the depths of the Old Mine. This is a tricky part of the game that can quickly turn lethal, but usually doesn't give me much trouble. Under ordinary circumstances, I should've utterly cleaved my way through this part of the game, but... well, as you'll see, the status quo is the last thing you should count on in Shiren the Wanderer.
Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
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