“I’m not psychic, but I am a psycho!”

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I’m playing KoF’99 on my newly-operational Dreamcast. I’m actually using the Psycho Soldier team, which is unusual for me; it’s that I want to play through with each team at least once (and twice, I guess with the Psycho Soldier team — as Kensou has his own special ending).

So the rock falls on Krizalid. Everyone goes running.And then someone comments that they’re trapped. The next line I see is this:

    BAO: AS SARTRE SAYS, “NO EXIT!”

I mean, I know SNK’s translations tend to be a bit on the daffy side, but.

Ignoring everything else, why would Bao be reading Sartre? I would peg Iori (or, actually, K’) to be a bit closer to the idea that “hell is other people” than a goofy kid who chases butterflies…

Well, hey. No Exit only has four characters in it. It could be played by one team easily enough. The entire play takes place in a drawing room, so it would fit within a single stage. Maybe we’re onto something here. Once Playmore is done making games for the Neo-Geo, it can become the newest platform for Existentialist theatre!

Why did I never think of this before?!

Of course, on second glance, perhaps King would be better suited for the part of Inez…

Dreams once cast…

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Okay. Experimented a bit. Tried throwing in Vampire Chronicle, thinking it was possible that for some bizarre reason this drive liked Japanese discs instead of US ones. Seeing as how it couldn’t really recognize GDs at all in my earlier tries, this seemed unlikely — and indeed it didn’t work.

But get this. I mentioned that CDs work, right? I stuck in the Game Shark, and it booted just fine. The GS is, of course, on a normal CD rather than a GD. So things will boot. It’s just that the drive doesn’t know what to make of GD discs.

Meltdown

  • Reading time:1 mins read

It seems my DC’s drive motor has gone kaput. It just won’t spin up discs anymore. I can’t say I’m too surprised with the abuse I’ve been giving it over this stupid game, but darn it…

I’m leaving it alone for a while, hoping it will heal itself in time. If not, new drives appear to only be $33.00 from NCS. Of course a whole new DC is only $50.00, but I don’t want a new DC. This is my Dreamcast. And besides, my PSO characters would be useless with a new system. No, I must keep this system alive.

I suppose that’s not too expensive. I can probably deal with that. But I hope I don’t have to. Hrm. Poor thing.

I’ll make it better, somehow.

“Ore ga kowaii no ka?”

  • Reading time:12 mins read

Just using training mode, it would theoretically take 4.51 days straight to gather enough points to unlock the remaining characters in Capcom vs SNK beyond what I’ve already done, and to make both Morrigan and Nakoruru playable. This is ignoring the fact that I’ve not yet faced Gouki. Buying his stage, his character, and the other modes which he unlocks would raise the total up quite a bit higher. Beyond him, there are still a few features left ungathered.

Of course, one can only gather 999 points at a time in training mode before it has to be reset — and one can get around 400-500 points simply by playing through arcade mode (not even doing especially well), which takes far less time than the forty to fifty minutes which would required in training. Also, had I the DC link cable, I do own copies of both Card Fighters Clash and Match of the Millennium for the NGPC. So I’m sure I could get some points out of this business, if I just had a method to transfer them. But I don’t, and cables are rare and expensive — they were even when the NGPC was still alive.

Averaging 500 points per game, I’d only have to play through 130 more times in order to get enough points. Averaging a more sensible 400, I’d have to play through around 162 times. On the other hand, I could leave it in training mode again — for an hour and forty minutes each time — around 65 more times.

Just in order to finally purchase Nakoruru (I’d rather Morrigan, but I’ve mostly been ignoring the Capcom characters — so this goal is pretty far off (ah well; at least Nako’s sprite is new and pretty. unlike the grizzly artifact from 1994 or so which Capcom is still using for Morrigan)), I’d only have to play the game through (at 400 points per game) 57 more times. That, or leave the Dreamcast soaking in training on 23 further occasions. It would only take 38 more hours.

Oy. Capcom, in the future could you please be a little less annoying? This isn’t terribly reasonable. Especially given the difficulty level of the game (even when set on the easiest notch) and the extent to which you’ve torn apart my favourite characters, you’re really pushing your luck here.

Take a hint from Namco. Soul Calibur is I think the one instance I’ve personally seen where this process is done /right/ — where it’s actually *interesting* to unlock new features; where there is motivation and interaction through nearly the whole process. It took a few months for me personally to unlock everything possible (including buying up all of the final not-entirely-necessary art pieces and getting the “cleared” title screen), but it rarely felt like work.

I certainly wasn’t just leaving the game to sit without me, waiting for it to steep. I was eager to play through with each character (rather than seeing it as a chore), because the game was actually fun to play. The two-on-two mode which I’ve recently unlocked in CvS does seem quite a bit much more enjoyable and fair-feeling than Arcade mode could ever hope to be, but there are still some big inherent problems with balance.

Something else which is recently making the game more enjoyable is that some of the EX versions of characters manage to either fix the necessary moves which Capcom inexplicably crippled in the characters’ normal variations, or at least provide alternatives which make them a bit more competitive and interesting to use. (Worse are the cases such Terry, Mai, Kim, King, and Yuri. where a character’s standard set of moves are dismantled and spread across the normal and EX versions of the characters — and even worse are those such as Iori and Ryo, in which critical moves and elements of character control are either removed or altered drastically enough to make them feel like other characters altogether.)

Combine these with the much-desired original soundtrack which I’ve unlocked, and a few other cozy features, and things aren’t as annoying as they used to be. But the thing is, the unlocking process is a separate chore. One accumulates points at such a slow pace, and so many are needed for even the simplest features, that it takes forever to seem to make even a dent in the game. Further, when the process of collecting points is separated so much from one’s actual in-game activity (unlike the mission mode in Soul Calibur, where one accomplished specific tasks for specific rewards), then one feels no personal attachment to the process of unlocking. It doesn’t feel like accomplishment. It doesn’t feel like anything’s been earned. I took pride in completing Soul Calibur, as everything I accomplished I did by my own power. With Capcom vs SNK, the only thing required (indeed, the only thing which does much good) is an abundance of patience.

Again, this would not be a huge issue if other factors were not in the way. I can be a very patient person, as evidenced by the fact that I’m actually bothering to do all of this and I’m not complaining overly much about the process. It’s what’s required, and so I’ll do it simply because posterity so dictates. But one must wait for a very, very long time and the game simply isn’t enough fun on its own (due to the overall result of its design) to motivate a person to do so.

Ugh.

However, it seems Capcom have (sort of) been learning a bit from their mistakes. While they pulled this stunt in a few high-profile games they released in 2000, Capcom vs SNK 2 has only a couple of unimportant things to unlock. I’m not sure whether this is the right route to go either, as it always is nice to throw in a few extra things here and there outside of the normal and default game experience.

The typical pedantic hardcore mantra is that secrets and extra features are “fluff” and irrelevant. A lousy game isn’t made good by throwing in extra busy work and toys, and it’s supposedly annoying to hide the “good stuff” even in a good game. In message boards and newsgroups, people go on and on, tooting their own horns on the issue. Ideally these people would be having black boxes for sprites (no pretty character design and animation to distract them), with short “beep”s as audio cues. Those might even be seen as a luxury.

I’ve further read people scoff that any game would have unlockable features, as obviously the first thing anyone does is to download a completed save file so he can just play the thing unperturbed by the false barriers supposedly thrown in by marketing in order to increase play time.

I think it’s safe to say that I am not a hardcore gamer. Furthermore I hope not to be a hardcore anything.

Capcom vs SNK is a perfect example, however, for their primary point — which is a valid one, up to its own particular degree. (As with anything else, there is a need for balance.) It is a so-so game which is simply made annoying through its preponderance of locked material — much of which is not simply “extra” material (as I would consider Nakoruru and Morrigan’s characters, since they are obviously extraneous to and fantastical within the context of the game as a whole) but which is needed in order to make the game feel somewhat complete. However, even with this extra data there’s still an irritating amount left omitted simply by the game’s design — and no amount of extra hidden material could ever make up for this fact.

Soul Calibur and Dead or Alive 2 are other interesting examples of how far the concept can be taken in each direction. Soul Calibur is one of the most excellent fighting games which has ever been made, and it happened to be matched with one of the best systems of extra features (most of which were truly “extra” in one way or another) and methods of discovery which has been in any game of its sort. Soul Calibur is a great game, but the added value of its surplus of surrounding material and the engaging way of gathering this material makes the game all the much better.

The game’s world is gradually enhanced, and through mastery of the game and exploration, the single player is constantly rewarded. Even though it’s just a fighting game, Soul Calibur is one of the deepest and most satisfying games I’ve ever played. Without all of this surrounding material, it would merely just been fun to play. And there’s only so long you can play through arcade mode on your own, and still have fun doing it.

Dead or Alive 2 came quickly afterward, and seemed to promise stiff competition for the best 3D Dreamcast fighter. The game itself is entertaining enough. In some ways it’s deeper than Soul Calibur, while in others more shallow. It has its own feel, and it’s an adequate one. The real problem is that this is all there is. The game has a very solid engine and is reasonably fun to play, but there is nothing more to be done with the game once you’ve tinkered around with arcade mode for a few hours.

One can learn to use all of the characters, and play against other people (if one happens to have friends), and that’s fine; that’s a large part of the core point of a fighting game. But as a home game, and as a complete package, it is severely lacking. There isn’t even the complex plot one finds in Soul Calibur — nor are the character designs anywhere nearly as interesting. The character models are a bit more complex, but they all look like plastic blow-up dolls with different hair and clothes. They have no particular personality. There’s literally nothing to unlock, aside from the hidden ability to restore that nude Kasumi scene in the intro. (I suppose that would be enough to satiate the people who would find Kasumi interesting enough to be attractive.) No extra characters (not even the last boss), no extra rounds, no extra modes, no art gallery, no extra music, no extra options, no extra costumes, and certainly nothing original and creative.

So it’s an okay game, which one plays for a few hours and then, once everything interesting has been studied, puts away forever, at least in terms of the game itself. There’s no reason to keep playing, and as a complete game it really suffers. Again, the game is reasonably fun. If it offered something engaging which simply could not be found elsewhere, then maybe that would be enough on its own. But it’s just another fighting game — a very pretty one, with a sort of interesting system. The same way that Grandia II is a very pretty RPG with a sort of interesting system. It’s simply not original enough, and doesn’t have enough personality, to stand on its own — as solid as its underlying structure might be.

While it might not be true that a fundamentally bad game can be made worthwhile by the addition of bonus fluff, and while an amazing game doesn’t particularly need any filler, it’s exactly this sort of game which suffers for a lack of it. The game is capable and well-made, but there is nothing particularly unique to hold one’s interest for an extended period. If there were a handful of extra elements with which to toy around, if for nothing else than to break up the monotony, then it would reflect back on the existing material, making what is already there all the much more captivating. If enough of the right notes were hit in its presentation, the game could become something really memorable. Maybe not quite good enough, but at least substantial enough to be one of the elite.

Capcom vs SNK 2, from what I hear, is more than complex enough to hold one’s interest for quite an extended period even despite some continued niggling issues carried over from its predecessor — and this is good. My real point, however, is that I hope Capcom isn’t simply going from one extreme to the other and missing the point entirely in the process. It really helps a lot to have some extra material in a fundamentally shallow sort of a game such as this (as infinitely complex as the internal mechanics and the actual process of mastery might be). Otherwise, the game just becomes a toy.

It’s been shown that nearly any type of game has the potential to be far more than that, and it would be nice to see if they’ve come to understand this principle. They certainly have the talent, and occasionally one sees where they could have the heart. There are only so many worthwhile developers out there these days, and the good ones (Sega, SNK, Treasure) always seem to be in the worst shape. Capcom are in a better place than most to carry on the ideal, and it’s irritating to see themselves constantly missing the mark by just enough that it’s obvious they simply weren’t trying hard enough.

Hrm.

Anyway, there’s that.

Certainly it existed

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I downloaded the intro to MotW off of IGN DC the other night, and have rewatched it over and over, despite Edgar’s reluctance to play movies very well these days. The thing is directly emulated off of the Neo-Geo cartridge, and knowing this, the real-time (as such; sprite-based as opposed to being a movie file) intro is especially impressive. For eleven-year-old hardware, that system really can still hold its own. All of those people who actually bought one back in 1990 must have gotten their money’s worth by now. I wouldn’t at all mind having a Neo-Geo around, but I could probably buy the moon if I had that kind of money sitting within reach.

I played the file over and over, for nearly an hour. As much of a dork as I felt, I found myself giggling wildly, unable to control my glee, each time the movie ended. For the first several times I played it, my eyes even began to mist up a bit toward the end. I’m not sure why; it’s not like I was ever really very big into the Fatal Fury series until just very recently. But it felt similarly to my seeing the intro to Sonic Adventure for the first time, or watching that original “You’re not the only Hero” trailer for PSO — only even more so! Even stranger, I now get a similar sort of feeling every time I hear ESAKA played.

Why is this? Why did SNK’s series make such a huge impression on me, so quickly? It seems odd that my brain would be making as big a deal about this as if I were watching the intro to a new Streets of Rage.

Imprecision

  • Reading time:1 mins read

I thought maybe it was just me. but It has seemed like a lot of the commands I press in CvSNK just aren’t registering — however, when I beat the game just now (using a team of EX Sakura and Rugal), my controller went entirely dead. Now it’s acting like my VGA box — if I keep the wire in just the right position, the controller will accept that it is plugged into the system. If I move the cord at all, the controller will cease to work at all.

I like this controller, too. It’s purple, and it’s large enough for my hands.

I have only had two controllers ever fail on me before, in all of my years of gaming, and both were MadCatz DC pads. Maybe this says something. I mean, I try to take care of my stuff.

Socking on the new day

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Last night I played Capcom vs SNK and Panzer Dragoon until nearly dawn. I suppose I could have been doing something more constructive, but I’ve got a lot of groove points in the former case, now — almost enough to purchase EX Iori. And it keeps me focused on something, at least.

Headhunter is out in Europe now, and I’ve only seen a single review for it so far — and I don’t believe I’ve seen a more generic, content-less, undescriptive review for a game in my life. Still, it does look interesting — and I think I trust a Scandinavian game developer much more than I would most Western ones. And Shenmue II should be out in Europe soon, meaning my order should be filled in a couple of weeks.

I only today noticed where Mai stores her endless supply of fans. Yes, it’s exactly where you’d imagine. I’ll have to check some other games with her in them, now, and see if that was just Capcom’s addition or not…

Thanksgaming

  • Reading time:2 mins read
  • Luigi’s Mansion, as I’ve commented before, is a lot more fun than it looks to be. I actually really dig it at this point.
  • I’ve not played with Wave Race at all since getting back here
  • Mars Matrix isn’t the best overhead shooter ever (that’s Fire Shark for me; Radiant Silvergun for the people who’ve actually played it), but it’s solid, it has a heck of a lot of replay value, and it’s actually a two-player co-op game! One red ship; one blue! Amazing!
  • Capcom vs SNK is… okay. It’s got nice new sprites for the SNK characters. Okay music. Nice interface. A lot of extra features. But it’s hard as hell, the SNK characters have been (as reported) stripped down appallingly (leaving Terry as one of the few who can actually still be used properly — he’s okay!), there aren’t enough stages, and I’ve serious issue with the groove point system. In theory it’s nice, but it makes it hard to get anywhere, especially when combined with the ridiculous difficulty of the game. When Ryu is the character in the first round of the first fight, I can consistently be defeated by him when I choose any SNK character other than Terry, for the most part (though I’ve now gotten more used to how cheap the AI is). This is a big problem.

Out of everything, I’ll probably be going back to Mars Matrix the most.

So much to find.

  • Reading time:2 mins read

All these fighting games I have, now. Recently I’ve been studying KoF98, and have noticed a bunch of details and subtleties that had gone completely passed me by. And then earlier today I decided to pull out Vampire Chronicle For Matching Service; something new I noticed — besides that I don’t seem to have actually played in arcade mode with a lot of the characters (any who aren’t amongst my favourites I guess I tend to just fiddle with in training) is that the details in the background vary considerably depending on which “mode” one chooses (Vampire, Hunter, Savior).

When I played the Saturn version of Savior I had wondered about a couple of the stages, particularly Brazil and the one on the side of the skyscraper. There seemed to be many more things going on in the background in the Saturn version than in my copy of the game, including a lizard being chomped on in the former and helicopters and coloured lights in the latter. Also, many levels of scrolling seemed to be missing in my version. I thought it was a little cheap that Capcom left some of these elements out of the game, as Chronicle was supposed to be a compilation and combination of all of the previous games, into one. As it ends up, though, it all relies on what one sets the game to emulate.

I suppose I’ve mostly been playing in “Vampire” mode, making it play the most like the first game in the series. I just earlier set it to “Savior”, and the backdrops were suddenly quite alive. Also, the music was different (and in places more appropriate).

This is very interesting…

The end of the end of the end of the era

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Okay. A method has been announced to theoretically convert a Shenmue US save file to a Shenmue UK save file. I knew people would be jumping onto this.

Now all we have to do is hope the game actually gets released in Europe. A few sites are saying it’s doomed there as well, but in general the word seems sound so far. As odd as it might sound, I think I do believe it will be released there. SoE, during this last stretch, seems to be picking up everything SoA is abandoning. I’m not sure what’s gotten into them, as traditionally SoE has been by far the lousiest out of the three branches — but as long as I can get versions of Shenmue II and Headhunter, I’m not complaining. I think Rez can be imported from Japan with less difficulty, seeing its genre, and SC5 Part 2 will undoubtedly stay in Japan, when one notices how much work had to be put into dubbing the first game in order to get it released in the West. So I guess that’s where that one’s coming from as well. Again, for a game like SC5, I doubt it will be too much of a sticky problem.

Oy. I can work around these things.

Only five games left…

For the honor of Dan Star!

  • Reading time:1 mins read

I do like Bangai-O. Here’s a conversation which broke out in the middle of a nerve-wracking battle in a round filled with explosives which get set off in a chain reaction with one false shot:

Mrs. M: The legendary space fruit.
There are 5 types of
the huge Space-Fruit.

Mrs. M: Mandarins, apples,
Bananas, pineapples,
Water Melons.

Mrs. M: The Points rise
according to the series.

Riki (stressed): Points!?
What are the points?

Mrs. M: I do not know. Ask
The points counter.

Riki (calm, anticipatory): Is there no civet fruit?

Mrs. M: What? You’d like them?
But they stink!
Anyway there aren’t any!

Riki (freaking out): If there is no civet fruit,
then I don’t want to go on!

Mrs. M: I don’t know whether there
are any. Go and buy some
Somewhere else.

Deep Bang Blade

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I finally got a chance to play Bangai-O and Last Blade 2. Both were quite worth grabbing hold of, in their own particular ways.

Bangai-O is essentially everything I thought it would be, only more addictive and weird.

Last Blade 2… I really wasn’t sure what to expect here, but I got more than I was looking for. The animation is very nice, and the voices are some of the best I’ve heard in a fighting game. I’m actually liking some of the characters who I hadn’t noticed before (though the names aren’t sticking just yet), and I think I am going to like the fighting system. It’s quite complex in theory, but somewhat simple in execution. The characters also have a nice sort of a feel to them — more limber and mobile than the SF/KoF style and somewhat tighter and easier to deal with than the likes of Darkstalkers. The game’s minimalistic use of music in favour of background noises is quite interesting as well. I think I’m actually going to spend some time learning how to play this properly. It’s not often I think this about a fighting game.

On the way home I saw The Deep End, a smallish film I’d been wanting to see for a while. If I can do the research to refresh my brain on peoples’ names, I’ll talk about it some more. As it is, I’m feeling a bit dumb saying much. It was, however, something to see.

ODCM, RIP

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Okay. When ODCM folded, the subscription was supposed to switch to NextGen. Instead, Lan got PSM. And it seems I get… Gamepro.

Nice. Gamepro says that GunValkyrie is “based on the popular anime of the same name”.

Oh, neat. and they print salient, up-to-the-minute secret “codes” here, too. For instance, if you stick your Sonic Adventure (1) disc in a CD-Rom, you get hidden artwork. Cool, huh?

Of course they don’t actually give the developers for Sega’s games — just “Sega Corporation”. Hum.

And I don’t think I’ve seen a review in this issue so far which has understood the point of the game in question.

Fixing the hole where the ghosts come in

  • Reading time:3 mins read

I’ve moved the stereo cabinet upstairs now, and it seems to fit the hole in my wall decorations (which I had put up around the stack of boxes) quite well. I was wondering at first what happened to the glass door which should be on the front of the cabinet — and then it hit me. This is that stereo cabinet.

I could have sworn I wrote a short piece on the thing a few years ago, but I can’t find it to link to. Ah well. Never mind — it just has to do with poltergeists and glass-based explosions. Nothing worth getting into here.

The transportation of my consoles to the cabinet went quite neatly. Though I wasn’t knowing initially what to do with the cords and controllers, I found that winding them up and tying them neatly with twist-ties is the best solution. If I want to get one of the consoles out, I just have to pick it up and grab the right cables and pads/sticks from directly next to it. Of course in an ideal situation these would all be permanently wired up to a decent TV — but I’m not in an ideal situation, so neat and respectful storage is the best I can do for the moment.

Having this cabinet here also gives me an object against which to neatly stack my game magazines (which had taken to sprawling all over my room wherever they saw fit). My issues of ODCM (a complete run, sans issue #1 — and I almost got it at the time! Stupid me!) are on the bottom shelf, next to my poor old SMS.

Lacking space on my shelves still, I put my stack of Saturn games on top of the cabinet, accompanied by my “overflow” Dreamcast case, containing such things as the original Planetweb browser, the Space Channel 5 sampler, various burned utility discs, and so forth. Non-game material, which I only tap into on occasion.

Now that my desk and a large part of my floor are freed, I will be able to further organize things the next time I get a burst of energy. My printer can come off of the floor and go on the desk. My computer books can go back on the floor under the desk, where they belong. I also moved one of the shelves on one of my bookcases down a couple of notches; I had a couple of NES games which were drifting around without a place to rest, and doing this has not only made room for them along with the other games but has allowed me to put my game genie, book, and NES cleaner back with the rest of the cartridges.

Very slowly, things are shaping up around here. Of course I will be leaving here for school in a matter of days — so I’m not sure why I’m putting so much effort into things. I suppose if what I am doing were actually useful, however, I’d never get around to doing it.

Ah me.

Oh goodness!

  • Reading time:1 mins read

I am no longer the #1 Space Harrier player in the state of Maine! Since I last looked at the records, I’ve been shoved all the way down to #2!

The horror! The shame!

… I’m hungry.