Nintendo is acknowledging the thirtieth anniversary of their Famicom console, which pretty much helped put them on the map post-industry crash, and ruled 1980 and 1990s pop culture with an iron fist. They’re currently running a Virtual Console promotion that includes one title a month for the cost of thirty cents. Next week, the lauded Super Metroid will join these ranks.

In addition, Virtual Console games purchased on the Wii can be “updated” to the Wii U for $1.00 (NES), or $1.50 (Super NES).

I’d bought all of the games that were available for the thirty cents: Balloon Fight, (Mike Tyson-less) Punch-Out!!, F-Zero (I only ever played Gamecube’s F-Zero GX, but Nintendo, please make another one!), and Kirby’s Adventure. The only one I paid full price for was Super Mario World, a game I hadn’t played in well over twenty years, for a rather hefty $8.00. That’s pretty crazy to me, considering months back I bought several more recent THQ games in a single bundle for the price of $6.00.

It took me maybe two or three nights to get through it, but I still find it one of the best Super Mario games, and one of the best games in history. Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is that it also gave me a strange, new appreciation for New Super Mario Bros U.

Super Mario World released in 1990, and is as fun now as it was then. It takes us away from the Mushroom Kingdom and places us on the sprawling Dinosaur Island. We meet a new acquaintance, and a future Nintendo mascot in Yoshi: green dinosaur by day, destructive eating machine also by day, and night. He and Mario work together to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser (again), as well as several of Yoshi’s multi-colored friends (all of whom possess specific abilities). In the first or second stage, we find new abilities: the cape, allowing Mario to glide around an entire stage all the way to the exit if the area allows for it, the P balloon that allows him to expand and slowly float to higher ground. I don’t know if any of that is as exciting as it was to discover the coveted leaf from Super Mario Bros 3, but the cape serves a crucial purpose that leads to what makes Super Mario World so special for me: its secret exits, an evolution of warp pipes and whistles.

SPECIAL

Some of the locations in Super Mario World are marked with a shining yellow dot, and others are marked in red. A level marked in yellow is an indication of the area having one exit and one traditional left-to-right path. Red-dotted stages mean exploration. You go up, you go down, needing certain abilities to progress, but all that effort gets you a secret exit — a new level, a shortcut. It’s a strange, almost psychological trigger of accomplishment when you find that key and the keyhole it corresponds to. Once the key is picked up, we see the hole grow larger and then swallow Mario, and a new hidden cove is exposed to satisfy curiosity. These secrets all eventually lead us to the Star World, with its own hidden paths requiring the aforementioned multi-colored Yoshi clan that lead to the Special World. I didn’t spend too much time in the Special World, with its surfer language for stage names like “Gnarly” and “Tubular.” I decided my time with Super Mario World was done for now, and time to jump into something else.

Moving through every world in the game though put me on something of a Mario kick, so I went back to New Super Mario Bros U, one of the Wii U’s launch games (New Super Mario Bros 2 released last year for 3DS as well), and picked up from my previous save file. Three days later, I found myself collecting every last star coin the story mode had for me to seek.

I’m always willing to try out a new entry in the “New” Super Mario Bros games. I kind of go through them on a superficial level, getting through its eight worlds and calling it a day. Most of its popularity seems to stem from the series’ multiplayer modes. It seems like casual fun, though I have never honestly had that experience. The series (from the introductory 2006 Nintendo DS game) has always thrown in the star coins as an additional challenge — three coins in places that range from easily visible to requiring timing, skill, and the right power-up to reach them.

Great place for that coin!

I already liked the Challenge mode in NSMBU, which features a bunch of small objectives but requires a bit of skill for a bronze, silver, or gold medal. I initially went through the story mode with the amount of effort I usually put into the series (half-assed). Man, I really hate the 8-1 level in these games, though. In both this and the 2009 Wii game, you start traversing the hellhole-ish lava world somewhat peacefully until all of a sudden it’s raining meteors and you have to watch your steps very carefully. Imagine trying to score the star coins in that mess, although it wasn’t nearly as frustrating as getting to the secret exit! I hadn’t realized, though, that NSMBU had its share of secrets until I started looking at the chart for which star coins I had collected and which ones I hadn’t. I noticed icons representing levels that hadn’t appeared on the world map, which is arguably as diverse as the Super Mario World map, even if some areas are retreads of previous NSMB worlds.

Nabbing every star coin in a specific territory unlocks a level in the Superstar Road, which is perhaps the big highlight of New Super Mario Bros U. I don’t know if the previous games had its own version of it, but this world is like The Lost Levels for a new generation (though not nearly as cruel). There are no mid-stage checkpoints, and getting the star coins in Superstar Road will unlock a hidden stage there. My biggest nightmare was a stage called “Run for It,” which leaves very little room for error, and felt like Call of Duty 4‘s “Mile High Club” level on Veteran all over again in how this experience played out. Even after knowing the first half very well, it’s after the second star coin that the stage went to hell for me because of how fast the platforms moved.

Exploring these hidden secrets of these two Super Mario games have strangely rekindled my appreciation for the franchise, even if I consider this series an appetizer for the next big entry (Super Mario 3D Land is a fantastic game, too). I never necessarily grow tired of the Mario franchise, but it certainly seems like Nintendo keeps output of the series flowing enough that we become less excited and more somewhat intrigued. This probably doesn’t stop some of us from wondering where Nintendo will take this character as E3 makes its way around the corner.

Man, I honestly never thought I’d have this much to say about Mario.

It is the product of Lucas Pope, a developer at Ratloop. Ratloop’s output includes titles like Helsing’s Fire, an iOS puzzle game. There is also Mightier, a freeware action puzzle game for Windows. I haven’t played either game yet, but I invested the half-hour to hour of Papers, Please and have loved every minute of it.

Here is the premise, taken directly from Pope’s page (with links to the game downloads):

“The communist state of Arstotzka has just ended a 6-year war with neighboring Kolechia and reclaimed its rightful half of the border town, Grestin.

Your job as an immigration inspector is to control the flow of people entering the Arstotzkan side of Grestin from Kolechia. Among the throngs of immigrants and visitors looking for work are hidden smugglers, spies, and terrorists. Using only the documents provided by travelers and MoA’s primitive computer dispatch system you must decide who can enter Arstotzka and who will be turned away or arrested.”

You are the new immigration officer at the Grestin border in late November of 1982. The title screen plays an Eastern European-style ditty, and PAPERS, PLEASE scrolls slowly to the center of the screen in its big Soviet-era font and aggressive falcon/hawk icon. A brief introduction and a newspaper front page serve as the narrative backdrop. You sit behind a desk, and for a certain number of hours in the day, you meet a number of people desperate for new opportunities, a new life, in the glorious nation of Arstotzka. The game then explains the rules as an issued memorandum by the Ministry of Admission. On the first day, for example, only citizens of Arstotzka are allowed entry. People will come to your window and gripe about how long they’ve been waiting, and the pain-in-the-ass process of getting to the border, etc. Unfortunately, that doesn’t matter if they aren’t Arstotzkan. They’re not entering.

A small clock in the bottom left corner of the main window indicates that a workday ends around 6-7pm. You earn a daily salary, calculated I believe by the number of admissions in a day. The salary is used to pay rent, feed and keep your family warm. You can also choose not to pay for certain services and save money. On the first day, I decided heat wasn’t a necessity, and the end of the next workday indicated my family was cold, and so I turned heat back on but sacrificed a meal for everyone to save a buck (or whatever Arstotzkan currency is).

The challenge of the game’s mechanics is that the rules change daily based on narrative circumstances. Someone allowed entry can turn out to be a terrorist, attacking the immigration center and thus the MOA enforces stricter rules about admission. Now a certain nation’s emigrants are flat-out banned from entering, and now more authorization is needed to gain entry (e.g. an entry ticket one day, a whole entry permit the next). The player has a window to drag documents around as they need to, to consult the rulebook and see if an individual is qualified to enter.

Do you see a problem?

Click on a red button marked with an exclamation to enter the search process mode, which is essentially the core of Papers, Please. Search for things like mismatched names, expired issue dates, etc. Even the tiniest detail can land you a violation citation: in one example, everything checked out on a man except his gender was marked as “F.” Even if it’s a typographical error, it’s one error away from letting the wrong person into the country. The sound of the automatic typing, and that glaring pink sheet with the phrase “MOA VIOLATION” is never welcome, and will eventually affect earnings after two warnings. Just about every document you have access to, including newspapers, and even notes from potential immigrants, can be the difference between entry and denial and can impact daily narrative.

The balance of salary continues, and the rules continue to change. There are some fun surprises and some curveballs thrown your way. So far, I’ve only reached the eighth day of work. There seems to be speculation that the game will span thirty days. As it is right now, I think this game has a great concept. I love the drab, cold aesthetic that is commonly associated with visual representations of the old Soviet bloc. That it looks like something I’d play on an Apple IIe in 1983 just adds to the experience. It’s simple to play, but requires keen detection skills, an alert mind and can get very challenging. I look forward to more of this, perhaps even a port for smartphones. On a side note, I also believe Papers, Please to be a great complement to the FX series The Americans, about two Russian spies posing as an American married couple in 1981 Washington, DC/Northern Virginia.

Raider of tombs.

After almost a decade of solid output from Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider Anniversary is my favorite of the Crystal Dynamics era), we’re getting to meet Lara Croft all over again with the March 5 release of Tomb Raider. I was relatively curious about the new direction, with its themes of survival and development. We are supposedly going to see how Lara Croft became the Lara Croft we met in 1996 and idolized years on in much the way Daniel Craig re-introduced us to James Bond, Christian Bale to Batman, Bomberman to Bomberman: Act Zero, etc. I was never big on this franchise. I remember enjoying Tomb Raider 2 and 3 at most, but never actively bought into Lara Croft as the pop culture icon she is revered as. She is simply an avatar for me to explore mythical tombs, flip switches, and fight off ferocious beasts. Still, I grew heavily interested in this new Tomb Raider, and then I saw it in action. (Does anyone else notice a normal arrow causing a barrel to explode?)

You can probably tell from the title of the entry where I’m going with this. Everyone has compared it to Naughty Dog’s Uncharted games in both positive and negative connotations. I’ve enjoyed the series for two-and-a-half games. The series works less for its mechanics and more for its summer blockbuster-level writing and dialogue from its memorable characters in ridiculous situations performed under great voice direction from talented actors. They are ten-hour interactive adventures that are fun to experience, but as the years passed, I had grown tired of seeing certain designs transferring over to some games: the structural damage that forces the player to take a new path to the next objective, the camera cutting away to said structure breaking apart, the stale gunfights that drag out and appear so often that they feel almost intrusive when I’m more curious to see the next set-piece.

From the footage I’ve seen, Tomb Raider just appears to be going in the same, safe direction of padding small side activities out to keep the game “long,” and filled with “content,” the moments some would refer to as “suspense” of having the player quickly press a button in a timed event. I suppose from the developers’ perspective, the “cinematic gameplay” is a winning formula, since it worked for a blockbuster franchise that owes part of its success to this franchise. With all the hype of a mature narrative, Lara learning to survive and players experiencing what she is willing to do to survive hell, I was hoping for something… else. Uncharted can be Uncharted all it wants. I want Tomb Raider to do … something else.

Personally, I’d have loved actual tomb/ruins exploration designed as puzzles of a sort. Not necessarily matching symbols or a slide puzzle and a door opens, but figuring out how to get to the next area and objective. Portal is the closest game I can think of that is a realization of my wacky thought process. I at least didn’t think being a survivor of a shipwreck and overcoming that would include gunning down hundreds of enemies with a shotgun in the process.

I understand I’m being a bit unfair not having actually played Tomb Raider. That’s fair. However, I don’t believe that simply being positive about a product I haven’t experienced yet is any more valid than the reverse. Everyone reacts. I hope this game proves me wrong.

Spec Ops: The Line can be referred to as “Feels Bad, Man: The Game.” It does make me want to reread Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the famous work that inspired Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, and from which this title draws many parallels.

The game is a third-person shooter developed by Yager Development and published by 2K Games. On the surface, it’s about a three-man Delta Force team investigating a radio broadcast from a Lt. Col. John Konrad, leader of the 33rd Battalion. It seems the 33rd was caught in the middle of dangerous dust storms assisting in relief efforts to evacuate the denizens of city-state Dubai. Nobody except Konrad and his men knows what happened, but as the game progresses (in a short, but very eventful five-hour campaign), you discover that not everything is as it seems.

There honestly isn’t a whole lot to Spec Ops’ mechanics. The focus prioritizes narrative over game. Normally this is a big pet peeve of mine because many games tend to compromise gameplay and the segregation to plot becomes arbitrary and inconsistent. The player controls Walker (performed by famed VA Nolan North, who really sells Walker’s intensity even in light of hearing Nathan Drake), the leader of this three-man team to Lugo and Adams. He will take cover, leap over waist-high structures, aim down the sights, and fire at many enemies. His partners do their part to minimize enemy count and will happily toss stun grenades to ease typically intense firefights.

Staying in cover is pivotal as Walker takes very few hits before going down. Even his teammates can go down and the player must reach them and revive them reminiscent of Rainbow Six: Vegas. This gets somewhat frustrating if you have to replay several minutes’ worth before getting back to where you originally died. In addition, unless you’re using the default M4, ammo can get pretty scarce and could turn players off to experimentation. I did enjoy using the UMP45, which has a medium range since it’s a submachine gun. More powerful weapons come along the way which will be necessary for heavily-armored enemies.

The title screen says more about the game than you realize.

The start of the game puts you in a firefight against Middle Eastern insurgents. It not only serves as the tutorial, but helps to make the plot twist that soon follows more dramatic and thoughtful. When the trio overhears an insurgent talking to an American soldier, something seems very off. It’s there that Delta Force and the player learn that the 33rd have gone rogue, and in a plot involving the CIA, it seems American soldiers will be killing other American soldiers. Without going into specific events, the narrative overall questioning themes like loyalty, morality, ethics, choice, and even sanity. I’ve already sort of spoiled the direction of the story by referring back to Heart of Darkness. The story is actually worth experiencing anyway, as the player can then go back and pick out contextual clues that help the story make sense and still have an interpretation of the characters and what they face.

Even a moment where the developers more or less force the player to do something horrendous is open to interpretation as to whether it hurts the impact of the narrative, or employs a new theme from within. Arc words include “We had no choice,” and “You brought this on yourself.” For me, the most powerful moment in the game is when Lugo, introduced as the care-free and witty sniper, later screams in sheer fury after said event that there is always a choice. Walker replies, “No. There’s really not.”

Spec Ops: The Line didn’t sell particularly well, but received a fair amount of praise for its goal of deconstructing these modern military shooters. The story does a great amount to make up for the shortcomings of its mechanics, which aren’t even necessarily bad, just vanilla.

HAPPY 2013!

For Christmas I received two gifts: an Amazon gift card and a copy of Virtue’s Last Reward, a puzzle game for 3DS that had plenty of positive impressions behind it. At first I thought I could enjoy the game on its own merits, but the back of the game case reveals that the game is a sequel to a popular DS puzzle game — Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (informally, 999). Well, I thought, I suppose I should play the first game, and Amazon was kind enough to sell me a copy for close to $20.

The prologue shows a young man waking up in a cabin aboard what appears to be an old steamship. Along with introducing the circumstances of his presence there, the prologue also serves as a tutorial for solving the game’s puzzles. The first two things I noticed: 1) the art looked very similar to the character art for a 3DS game I had been playing called Code of Princess. I love the detail of this particular anime-inspired design, and a Google search revealed the same artist, Kinu Nishimura, worked on both games. Splendid! 2) the layout of 999 reminds me of an old NES/Macintosh game called Déjà Vu, a game I loved when I was younger. You have to look for clues among still images of an environment and use whatever is available to move on to new areas and progress the plot. Many of the puzzles in both games are based on logic. 999 also makes use of a number of numerological and mathematical puzzles that may get you to bust out that calculator.

The story seems like something out of the Saw films. Junpei, the player character, meets eight other people (including a childhood friend) brought to the ship against their will. They’re all trying to figure out why they’re on the ship, and learn the rules of the “nonary game” from the masked, mysterious Zero. One of the nine hostages attempts to go off on his own in search of an exit and dies horribly doing so, communicating to the “players” that this is a deadly game in which they have nine hours to win. The rules explain that certain people with certain numbered bracelets on their wrists are allowed to open certain numbered doors that match up with its digital root (adding numbers until getting to a single digit — e.g. 5 + 6 + 7 = 18, 1 + 8 = 9, the digital root), which helps to create plenty of conflict. This contributes to the game’s choose your own adventure path, of which there are six endings to see, including one true ending. Interestingly, the other endings aren’t simply foiler or red herrings. Each ending provides distinct information about the overall story that makes sense of the true ending. There is a reason these people were brought together. All of them are connected in the big picture. It’s just incredible finding out how.

“Jigsaw who?”

The plot is incredibly well-scripted and thoughtful, which is important since 999 is a visual novel. There is an abundance of hidden information and established connections in numerology I just hadn’t thought of until later. I loved the diverse cast and most of them are written in a way where they are sympathetic but flawed. Everyone presents differing arguments for the next move to take, and you’re always left wondering whose side you would be on and where to go to reach the exit and live. I couldn’t believe just how expansive its plot arcs are. The true ending gets ridiculous in a fun way, although I was honestly still scratching my head when all was revealed.

The puzzles aren’t too difficult for the most part. A few do require patience, and there are a few I honestly solved by luck. If you investigate something enough, the game will be happy to provide a hint or a thought that helps get your mental gears turning (I needed that for one puzzle involving dinner plates). I very much enjoyed my time with 999, though. Its assorted characters are relatable and the plot is well-written and well-paced. I love its artwork. The puzzles are well-done for the most part. A great package. Can’t give it a larger endorsement than that!

You can read my comments for these games here, but here is the quick list, ranked:

1) The Walking Dead (Telltale Games, PC)
2) Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games, PC)
3) Kid Icarus Uprising (Sora Ltd., 3DS)
4) Journey (Thatgamecompany, PS3)
5) Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (Indies Zero, 3DS)
6) Sound Shapes (Queasy Games, PS Vita)
7) New Super Mario Bros U (Nintendo EAD, Wii U)

Honorable mentions:
a) Binary Domain (Yakuza Studio, PC)
b) Tokyo Jungle (SCEJ Studio, PS3)

2011 “Late to the party” award: Yakuza 4 (Yakuza Studio, PS3)

There are a handful of titles I’m trying to give attention to, and Persona 4 Golden has gotten most of it. It’s definitely more upbeat compared to what feels like the more serious, somewhat darker tone of Persona 3 Portable. The color scheme is incredibly vivid and accompanied by great art design, especially on the Vita’s OLED screen. I’m enjoying the writing so far and even the English voice-acting. It’s the social link system, bonding with characters so you can create more powerful Personas in battle, that keeps me hooked. I love experimenting with the fusion system that allows the creation of powerful Personas. I’m 60 hours into it, but nowhere near finished.

A surprising contender for the best of 2012 is Crimson Shroud, from studio Level 5 for 3DS. Superb writing: a fantasy novel cross-bred with a tabletop RPG. Its characters are affixed to bases like game pieces, no less. The battle system requires careful planning based on various circumstances. I enjoy its characters so far and its narrative. I’m only on Chapter 2, but so far a positive experience.

I had no particular reason to be excited for last year’s Assassin’s Creed game. I felt I had my fill of Renaissance-era Italy and Ezio Auditore at the end of Brotherhood, released the year before that. In fact, Revelations was the first game in the series I hadn’t gone out of my way to purchase the day of release, and mixed reviews helped decide it would be worth it at a lower price, which it reached that Black Friday. The game is rather forgettable, with Ezio taking his silent killing talents to Turkey, a frankly awful Portal-lite game that slightly characterizes series surrogate Desmond Miles, the mysterious Subject 16, and, perhaps the game’s only highlight, gives a dignified conclusion to Altaïr, the first game’s hero.

Still, I had a particularly slow 2012, so it already feels so long ago I was watching a trailer introducing, finally, the true sequel and billed next step forward in this interesting, engaging franchise. It is set during the American Revolution, a period of history I never tire of reading about, and we’re going to meet Miles’ next ancestor to don the uniform, a Native American who goes by Connor (or Ratonhnhaké:ton, his birth name). It was developed with a new engine, and had supposedly been in development for three years. We would get Assassin’s Creed 3.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. After reading tweets of mixed impressions, Assassin’s Creed 3 would be another game I would happily wait on a lower price. Black Friday delivered, as usual, and secured a copy. I also managed to get my hands on its PlayStation Vita spin-off title Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, set in the south during the French and Indian War. The game comes bundled with the limited edition white Vita, which I’d been coveting for some time.

I’ve only spent a week with both games, and I have come to the decision to take a break from this series for maybe six months to a year, or if I have a strong desire to return. I don’t know how this series became so lazy. I’ve read people criticize Ubisoft for launching the yearly installment plan Activision infamously carries out with their blockbuster Call of Duty games. Assassin’s Creed 3 plays like a game that absolutely could have used another year in development, to fix a number of gameplay and technical problems and perhaps going against the grain and deciding a day one patch wouldn’t cut it. The game has seen one, maybe two patches since release. Its slow beginning serves no true purpose other than to show the player basic commands, and to provide a twist that means nothing emotionally since we don’t know Connor enough yet to appreciate it. Previous games absolutely had more variety in its design than having you simply follow people and maybe kill one or two of them. Its historical cameos are just those, without real contribution to the story, in a way that makes Connor the Forrest Gump of videogames.

I’ve come across one glitch that forced me to reset the game, and a number of smaller ones that kill the momentum of mission success. Traverse in this series prided itself on the heroes’ ability to utilize parkour and maneuver through structures and architecture. The downside of this is the occasional hiccup of someone grabbing the wrong ledge when you mean to go another direction, which can make enemy evasion somewhat problematic. The issue seems to double in Assassin’s Creed 3 already because it’s not a particularly complete game. I will applaud two things this game does: 1) has pretty fun naval missions, so much so that they’re more fun than the offerings of the main story 2) get me to be interested in Desmond again as he, his partners from previous games, and his father look to secure more… Apple of Eden information… seemingly in Manhattan. I have been completely lost in that portion of the overall plot, particularly since some of the story is told through separate downloadable content I have no interest in paying for.

Even when it isn’t working against me, the game is not fun to play outside the aforementioned naval combat missions. Each mission comes with secondary objectives for “full synchronization,” whatever that entails outside a trophy/achievement and maybe a new item, but the only way they’re challenging is because the game doesn’t want you to accomplish them, with controls working against you (sticking to large structures for cover is incredibly counterintuitive; you’d think the developers would assign a ‘crouch’ or ‘stick to walls’ command like many stealth action games do…), and enemy AI that will either ignore you in the open or suspect you no matter what you do.

I’m also sick and tired of cutscenes disguised as gameplay. Follow this person, listen to this conversation, etc. Why does anyone think this is a good idea? The UI in the pause menu is atrocious. Why does the weapon/tool wheel need its own screen when the real-time selection in previous games worked just fine? It’s here where I’m entering into nitpicking territory, but a game like Assassin’s Creed 3, at least for the moment, represents a number of things I dislike in modern game design.

I mentioned owning Liberation, but I believe my frustrations with AC3 are skewing my enjoyment of the handheld game, although I believe the game moves at an incredible snail-like pace. That’s not helpful, since the Vita device has a relatively short battery life per session. I’m not sure if I’m ready to say anything about it, but I’m saying farewell for now.

And for the record, I’m playing the PlayStation 3 copy of Assassin’s Creed 3. I have no idea how that compares to its other platforms, but it needed more time in the oven.

The setting takes place in the near future, a post apocalyptic Tokyo where humans have vanished, with pets, strays, and zoo animals left to fend for themselves. The entire game feels like an arcade game, where the objective is to see just how many years you can last in this dangerous world before the clock runs out. There is a large number of species that can be unlocked, a mixture of carnivorous predators and herbivorous grazers. While the predators are more focused on direct attacks and kills to feed off their prey, the grazers’ moves are tuned defensively, which means avoiding the big guys in tall grass a la Metal Gear until it’s okay to proceed to any available plants for nourishment.

This will not end well.

Feeding is essential, as the game calculates the amount of calories ingested, which affects the ranking of the animals, as well as keeping the constantly diminishing Hunger meter full. Rookies are somewhat slow at first, but reaching the highest rank Boss can mean animals run away from your character, and said character has his choice of mate: “desperate,” “average,” and “prime,” which determine how many newborns are bred, and allow for pack traveling which helps keep the lineage going. Larger packs are crucial in taking down boss animals (yes, bosses!), which are then unlocked in the next game should your current one end.

Survival then becomes key as the game throws even more challenges at you: larger animals, a possible scarcity of flora and fauna, aging with abilities diminishing, and perhaps the most dangerous one being toxicity in the air. Toxicity is probably the most damning of the obstacles, as the higher toxicity levels (ranging from 0 to 100) can have an effect on your health as well as contaminate fresh kills and plants. Polluted areas can be hard to escape as it spreads from area to area, and Tokyo Jungle‘s areas are plenty large in relation to the animal’s speed and size, so escaping an area might feel like it’s taking forever. Nightfall and bad weather can hamper your senses, so you won’t know whether there are animals or not on your radar.

Death in the game requires a restart, which any earned attributes carrying over to the newest generation of animal (think Dead Rising), as well as Survival Points that unlock clothing items and new animals. The game has been compared to the likes of ‘roguelike’ games, featuring level randomization and permanent death. I’ve seen comparisons to Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls as well although not quite there in difficulty.

Sometimes the game can feel a bit repetitive and, depending on your mood, cheap. Toxicity is both a challenge and a burden. Avoiding fights and staying full is already itself a continual task, but I can count so many times trying to find food in a toxic area as I watch the toxicity meter rise and my hunger meter fall and all I have to go on is a bottle of water (one of many consumable items that ease things just a tad). As your animal gets older in years, the game will do everything in its power to keep you from going past 100 years. Breeding is also an important process as one animal lives every 15 years.

The thing about Tokyo Jungle is that there is always an objective. It provides sets of challenges, such as consuming X amount of calories, head to this area, mate twice, etc., which earn the player attributes and new items and bonus survival points. There is never time to rest, well, unless you’ve marked territories and then find a mate. Its controls are incredibly easy to learn and respond well to input. Its “clean kill” combat system, which allows the animal a one-hit kill with a well-timed button press, is fun to watch and key to master. Its premise alone, animals running around an abandoned metropolis, has been seen as an acclamation to the kind of games Japanese studios produce, that Tokyo Jungle is not something a western studio might even attempt barring possibly independent developers. Even the Story mode, separate from the main Survival mode, reaches amusing and absurd levels. It’s refreshing, and the potential of downloadable content, new animals or even new areas, help to extend the fun. I’ve already put in countless hours, hardly ever the same experience twice. If SCE Japan took this game back to the drawing board, figure out what could be improved or expanded upon, a sequel could be incredible.

It astounds me how into this game I would be, certainly so that it has definitely made whatever top ten games of 2012 I may put together as the year closes. What I had originally assumed to be a title worth experiencing ironically is a genuinely great game.

Fantasy Zone was originally an arcade game that, going by its Wikipedia page, was ported to many consoles of the day (including the Nintendo Entertainment System, although it is not licensed and appeared under the “Tengen” brand). The Master System version is available on the Wii Virtual Console at 500 Wii Points.

Two players can enjoy Fantasy Zone, although it’s a matter of Player 2 waiting for Player 1 to lose a life before it’s their turn. Players control a ship called Opa Opa (I like saying “Opa Opa!” out loud) through eight levels in a much brighter, friendlier, more colorful version of what resembles Williams Electronics’ Defender from 1980. Shoot the enemy bases located throughout the stage while avoiding and shooting at as many enemies as possible. Defeated enemies drop coins for the player to spend at the shop that appears in the stage as a red orb. Upgrade Opa Opa’s engines for speed, wings for movement, and weapons for more firepower. In true retro gaming fashion, upgraded weapons are on a 15-second time limit which might not be useful for boss battles unless you get really lucky. Fantasy Zone has such a cute and radiant look about it that it almost seems like it uses it against you, as my friend and I came to learn that Fantasy Zone is a ridiculously hard game.

Fantasy Zone. Absurdity documented.

The only way to lose a life in Fantasy Zone is to take one bullet hit or simply touch the enemy, familiar to anybody who has played a side-scrolling shooter in the last two decades. That will seemingly happen a lot. I was using a Gamecube controller throughout my entire experience while my friend operated the Wii Classic Controller. I couldn’t tell you whether that was an improvement over the Master System controller. Regardless, Fantasy Zone is still a test of skill, some luck, and knowing where to place the pixels to avoid any kind of contact with the enemy. In our earlier runs, I was struggling, watching Opa Opa slowly fire its default beam and crashing into things I didn’t know were enemies. Then after looking at the on-screen manual, we discovered rapid fire! Rapid fire meant blazing through stages until the boss wiped the floor with us on some capacity. I very much enjoyed how surreal the bosses looked: stage one has what is basically a leafless stump version of the Whispy Woods boss from Nintendo’s Kirby games. It fires… well, we’ve decided they’re nuts — cashews or chestnuts, maybe. The second boss shoots its red nuts while shielded by blue walnuts. My favorite boss is probably the army of snowmen that come out of nowhere by round five.

The thing that really got my attention about the game is that it had a backstory that is represented by scrolling text when the main menu is left idle. In the “space year” of 6216, the “interplanetary money system” had collapsed and a group of menacing creatures is stealing money from all planets, so Opa Opa is sent to destroy these creatures who want to build an enemy fortress in the Fantasy Zone. So, somewhere in their solar system, planets are on the brink of economic collapse because of a small percentage of beings, and money taken back from these beings goes into (Opa Opa) defense spending. I wonder if the people that this affects are protesting at a park somewhere. Just kidding. Maybe Ronald Reagan was their leader! Okay, I’m done!

It’s unfortunate that I don’t have any real nostalgia for Fantasy Zone, since I was strictly a child of Nintendo in the ’80s. In fact, I don’t remember what drove me to purchase it on the Wii Virtual Console in the first place! I’m guessing my friend did recommend it to me, otherwise I might have confused it for another Master System game. Sometimes I do manage to confuse it for the Wonder Boy series. Fantasy Zone is such a great example of retro gaming. Highly recommended!

The goal to complete Xenoblade Chronicles in as few sittings as possible was not realized, and I’m not sure when I’ll pick it up again. Instead, I focused my efforts on smaller games and THQ’s Darksiders, which is faster paced than Xenoblade, although it takes the combat mechanics of the God of War games and the exploration of The Legend of Zelda and puts it in front of biblical lore, so familiarity is the appeal. I managed to see that through to the end, and ended up mostly enjoying it, but I felt as it the team behind it tried their hardest to extend the game where it didn’t need extending. It was worth the $10 I paid for it, nevertheless.

I also tried to put some time in with Final Fantasy XIII-2, which I’d been anticipating for a while despite mixed opinions from a lot of people. I’m enjoying it enough, having played for close to 20 hours. It’s fun when it’s fun. I enjoy the combat most of the time, and sometimes I think it’s too much work to find the right strategy. I don’t always feel clued in to the next objective, since the game’s plot involves a lot of time travel and allows the player to manipulate and change events already experienced earlier. I intend to see it all through to the end, but I think it’s my anticipation for The Last Story, from XSEED Games, that puts me out of focus with it.

I think the lesson I’m learning is to simply play what I feel like. It sounds ridiculously obvious. I do enjoy trying to hammer through a game as quickly as possible, but not to a point where the fun stops. It’s a twisted game in and of itself. It’s why I also went back to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, one of the best games from 2004 I’ve played through twice, and being on PC allows me to enjoy it in high resolution. I’ve also been readjusting to life in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, where my character is now the guildmaster of the Thieves’ Guild. Strangely, she still gets treated like a rookie by the others.

“Play what you feel like.” Did I mention I purchased three Shin Megami Tensei: Persona titles for PlayStation Vita? Oy vey.