Category Archives: Nintendo

I Don’t Get Home

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another ambivalent post about a Sony product.

Home (or ‘Second Home’ as it perhaps should be called) is an interesting concept and, as a game in its own right, would probably end up being similar to Animal Crossing. What I don’t get is all the comment going on about how it’s a killer app, combining the best of Xbox Live and the Wii/Mii service.

What I understand is that it’s something akin to Second Life, in which you create your likeness and have your little home, which you can decorate and play around in as you see fit. You get trophies from games that you can place in your trophy cabinet and you can invite people into your apartment to look at your stuff. Other than that, I don’t think I’d be over-simplifying things to say that it’s a GUI for the existing online service.

That’s my problem. For all the flash it’s still an online system that’s missing the fundamental features of Xbox Live. No unified friends list, no cross-title messaging or invites, etc. It unifies the system in that you can meet up with friends in Home and head over to the Motorstorm track or whatever, but that sounds like a pain in the arse next to just starting up a game and inviting your friends from a menu. When I want to start up Word, there’s a reason why I simply click it in the dock rather than come out of my virtual house and run to the Office (see what I did there?) down the virtual street.

In that sense it seems like a smokescreen for the holes in the online infrastructure. It pisses all over the Wii’s system – such as it is – and pretty much already does what we expect the eventual Animal Crossing Wii to do (minus fucking friend codes) and more, but we have a higher benchmark than that. This seems like more of an anti-Nintendo measure for Sony than anything to do with Microsoft, which I suppose might make more sense at the moment given relative sales.

LittleBigPlanet, on the other hand, looks beautiful. That was a decent announcement.

Burn! Hot Blooded Rhythm Soul!

Today is a good day. Elite Beat Agents may not have been quite as good, but with a touch of impenetrable Japanese weirdness and some more obscure J-rock I’m confident that iNiS will be able to capture lightning in a bottle again. If you still haven’t played Ouendan (or even EBA), shame on you. Atone!

My only fear is that they won’t come up with such a brilliant soundtrack – the original has been in my car CD player for months – but everyone who helped give this game such a massive cult following can pat themselves on the back. Whatever happens, they’ve outdone themselves with the title. Moero! Nekketsu Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm-Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 roughly translates as Burn! Hot Blooded Rhythm Soul! Go! Fight! Cheer Squad 2. Superb, but Ouendan 2 would have sufficed, wouldn’t it?

The Morning After

Much has been made of a recent CVG editorial, in which they ask whether or not the novelty of the Wii is beginning to wear off. I must confess to wondering the same thing.

Twilight Princess was a wonderful experience – all 37 hours of it – and I’m glad that I decided to take the risk and get the version with the prettier graphics and funky controls. Far from being an obstacle, I thoroughly enjoyed swinging my virtual sword and getting the occasional funny look for squinting down the remote to aim. Likewise, Wii Sports was brilliant and the most astute pack-in since Super Mario Bros.

What now? WarioWare is great fun for a few hours, and next there’s Super Paper Mario (another survivor of the GameCube) which should be worth a look. Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxy, and Smash Bros should – fingers crossed – make it out this year. Fire Emblem will be a buy if it’s as good as the GBA games.

Now…what links those games? Could it be their publisher? Anyone else worried that we’re heading for another GameCube situation here?

Best of the GBA

Now that I’ve got Final Fantasy VI Advance, as far as I can tell there are no more big GBA games set for release. If it wasn’t before, it’s now going to be a home for nothing but budget pap. But let’s not mourn; let’s celebrate the life of Nintendo’s little handheld with ten of my favourites, in alphabetical order.

  • Advance Wars – While certain developers continue the vain struggle to make an RTS work on any console format (although the GBC has a little-known gem called Warlocked), Nintendo took a Japan-only series from 1988 and did strategy on the GBA. Not real-time, admittedly, but I need an analogy. Regardless, this was most people’s introduction to the Nintendo Wars series and proved to be an excellent fit for the handheld: deep, moreish, and just as easy to play in quick bursts. And that’s the hallmark of a well-made portable game.
  • Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow – Choosing a GBA Castlevania is a bit like choosing your favourite child, but if I’m pressed this is my favourite. It doesn’t suffer the issues of Circle of the Moon (i.e. it was visible outside of direct sunlight). It’s also more of a challenge than Harmony of Dissonance, which was a cakewalk after COTM. Throw in the variety of weapons and the addictive soul-collecting system and the third time’s a charm for this series. Still buy them all, though.
  • Final Fantasy VI Advance – Ditto what I said about the Castlevanias. These translate amazingly well to the GBA, but FFVI gets my vote simply by being the best 2D Final Fantasy (don’t deny it). FFI/II haven’t aged too well, so they’re out. FFIV and V are both superb, though, especially V with the added customisation of the job system. The thing that this one has over them is just that little extra sheen that comes from being a later game developed on known hardware, and some real flourishes in the storytelling department that don’t come on the older, more linear games. You should still buy all of them.
  • Fire Emblem – Another perennial series that made its western debut on the GBA, think of it as Advance Wars goes to Middle-earth. Playing fundamentally the same as Wars, it brings characterisation and more story to the mix, with the unusual trick of permanently killing off characters should they fall in combat. I like it better than Advance Wars as you’re not controlling anonymous soldiers, but unique characters with enough of their own abilities to make that trick of restarting the mission from scratch if you get any of them killed difficult to resist.
  • Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap – There has to be a Zelda here, obviously. I picked this over the sterling port of Link to the Past (still a classic) just because of what a surprise it was, arriving with little fanfare and turning out to be a brilliant little Zelda game. Tons to do and featuring the charming animations from Four Swords, and presentationally let down only by the mildly annoying voice samples, it’s a slightly whimsical but no less essential take on the series. Plus it came to Europe first, showing that Nintendo only dislikes us rather than outright hating us.
  • Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga – Speaking of whimsy, this game almost defines the word. It wasn’t long ago that Nintendo kept such a tight grip on their flagship that something like this – to Super Mario RPG as Hot Shots is to Top Gun – would never have happened. It’s a great RPG in its own right, with some recognisable Mario hallmarks, but is also one of those rare games that manages to be funny. It has an Engrish-speaking boss, for God’s sake!
  • Metroid Fusion – Super Metroid is my favourite game ever, so I have to have this in here. While it tended to hand-hold – Samus now has an AI companion that tells her where to go – Fusion proved that it still works in 2D, even after the seemingly permanent shift into 3D first person. It also boasts some of the prettiest visuals on the system and brought to the table a truly threatening bad guy. Or girl. Castlevania has done it twice, so can we get a 2D Metroid on the DS, please?
  • Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival – Street Fighter II shouldn’t work so well with two face buttons, but this has been one of my most consistently played GBA games since I got it in 2001. In fact, this summer, when I was tragically limited to my Micro and one game, this is the one I chose. Since the GBA lacks a puzzle game as perfect as Tetris DX, this is my next best thing.
  • WarioWare: Twisted! – How many of these games have there been now? However many, this is probably my favourite, even up against the original. The use of a twist sensor is ingenious and the team of course comes up with a couple of hundred inventive ways to use it. For a new twist (ba-dum tish!), play it by spinning yourself, rather than the GBA, in circles.
  • Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 – The 2D platformer to rule them all, even twelve years after its release this game still looks and plays wonderfully, and will continue to age better than the early attempts at 3D of its contemporaries. It’s testament to how much talent was poured into this game that even with essentially the same components and art assets, a less able team couldn’t make something nearly as good as the original. For more on the game, read my retrospective.

Unless you want it to die, don’t forget to lobby Nintendo for an English-language version of Rhythm Tengoku. It’s a top game that hardly anyone’s heard of, and the GBA deserves to go out on an original title rather than a SNES port. Even if said port is one of the finest RPGs ever made.

My 360: 2nd December 2005 – 9th February 2007

Stranger by the roadside, do not smile
When you see this grave, though it is only a 360’s,
My master wept when I died, and his own hand
Laid me in earth and wrote these lines on my tomb.

It was a matter of time, but my 360 has finally joined the millions of others that have croaked as what must be one of the most unreliable consoles ever made. And since it’s costing me £83 for a new one I’m going to be more than mildly annoyed if the rumoured HDMI version appears imminently.

After the early faults appeared I enjoyed a week of play without issue, both on Psychonauts and assorted 360 games. Then, last night, it froze in the Crackdown demo and again when playing COD2. Restarts brought the dreaded three lights, so now I’m just biting the bullet and getting it replaced. That has to be better than constantly playing in fear of the inevitable failure.

Since I’m going to be without a 360 for at least a week now, the bright side is that I’m going to use the time to work through some of my PS2 and DS backlog. I intend to finally finish Ico and God of War, and then crack on with Hotel Dusk, Dawn of Sorrow (still haven’t finished it), and Phoenix Wright 2. Every cloud…

Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Looks like we’ve got another sleeper hit for the DS on our hands, in the same vein as Phoenix Wright and Trauma Center. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 has been getting fantastic reviews (one guy gave it a ten in EGM) and some momentum behind it, but by all accounts has had a miniscule print run and is barely being stocked in some places. Buy it while you can.

Think of it like a detective novel, not least because you hold it vertically like Brain Training or, perhaps more traditionally, a book (remember those?). The touch screen is used to interact with people and objects, and to write in your notebook by actually writing, which is a smart little touch (no pun intended). The majority of the game involves conversing with characters that famously look like they’re out of the Take On Me video. It almost looks like a pulp graphic novel, and plays like something akin to Phoenix Wright.

It’s more sophisticated than everyone’s favourite defence attorney – this was built from the ground up for the DS rather than ported from the GBA, after all – but the fundamentals are similar. Only this time you’re in 1979 as a hard-boiled ex-cop (presumably alcoholic; isn’t everyone in noir?) on the trail of his dead (or is he, etc?) partner in a run-down hotel, rather than a lawyer who only seems to hang around with 16 year-old girls. But let’s not go there.

What it really shares with Wright is its reliance on strong writing to carry the story, here enhanced by characters that appear to constantly move and really emote (it uses sporadic colour to convey emotion) rather than cycle through their canned angry face, sad face, and so on as required. I’m hoping that the puzzles won’t be too reliant on dubious leaps of logic that almost seem to be an endemic problem with the genre. Unfortunately it also suffers from an annoyingly common problem in text-based games and a pet peeve of mine since I have a reading age of more than six years old: slow text scrolling speed. How hard is it to let me press a button to jump to the end of the line?

For now I’m going to crack on with it and enjoy it as a classic adventure done in a fashion that would be impossible on anything other than the DS. It’s some great eye candy and the latest in the line of unique and well-made DS games.