Thanksgaming + Winter controller break

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD was on sale for $10, and I have almost no experience with fringe FF games. It's definitely a relic of its time, with cutscenes upon cutscenes of emotionless dolls that pepper little bits of action. The game was originally a PSP title and is structured for short play sessions. I might be used to new games that tell you everything about where to go and what to do, but I keep getting lost in the middle of missions because I have a short attention span, and this game is just not sucking me in. There's a main cast of 13 characters, all named after poker cards, and you can swap them in and out in groups of three. I might eventually develop a taste for this, but there are more pressing games to complete.

My wife has been plugging away at the Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far, which is a 9-game anthology. She's beaten two of nine so far: Kingdom Hearts and Chain of Memories, which has shuffled cards into the action RPG mechanics. Weird. She's now onto KH 2. This one has lots of Disney IP including Tron, Pirates of the Caribbean, and 1950's Mickey Mouse Land (or whatever you call it) . The characters have more variety to the sounds they make during combat, so hearing Wifey play while I do other things is a lot less annoying.

I have slowed down a bit on my favorite smaller-developer game of the year: Dead Cells. I'm not sure yet if the hardest trophy is the no-hit boss trophies, or beating the game on the hardest difficulty. I'm trying to do as many as I can because the game is about to have an overhaul patch that will make profound changes to gameplay. UPDATE: you can quit out in the middle of boss fights and the game will save, so I cheesed 3 of the 4 no-hit boss kills. I can definitely say that the harder difficulties are the harder trophies.

Dead Cells also came to the Switch, along with no other original titles. I think I'm mostly underwhelmed by the Switch because I have the Wii U and PS4. I think someone who missed out on the last 5 years of games has every reason in the world to get one. Me? Call me when Metroid Prime 4 rears it's gorgeous blonde head. No, really. I emailed a distress beacon to Samus Aran. One of my coworkers brought her Switch and Smash Bros Ultimate to the holiday party, and it was off the chain, so there's that!

Moving on, I started Gravity Rush 2, which has quite an amazing color palette. I don't know what to call it, but it uses magenta as its reference point and it's gorgeous. The game's maps used to feature several connected cities that you could fly/fall through, and in this sequel, they've added another axis. The result is that cities are now in different levels of the atmosphere, and it makes exploration vertical and horizontal.

Yall couldna added a brotha in this?

December was pretty much the month of Dragon Quest XI, which is the epitome of a JRPG. Silent protagonist to save the world plot, eventually ending up at a boss in space that takes up more than the whole screen? Check. Overcoming battles via brute force grinding? Darkness as the protagonist without explaining what's so bad about darkness? No black characters? Triple check.

JRPG/anime tropes aside, the game delivered on everything I wanted with one exception: the music is sub par. Instead of recorded orchestra with a proper punch and full range, you're treated to some corny synthesized trumpets and boring percussion that all has a childish feel to it, and it's all super repetitive over this 100-hour journey. Most games have the decency to have a few regular battle themes, a sub-boss theme and a boss theme, at the very least. This game has that count, but it's also almost three times as long as your average, and the boss music is bad.

Even nuns gotta get loose in Lonalulu

There's some variety in the towns, which are each based on a real-world culture. The beachtown, Lonalulu, has a kahuna and NPCs greet you with mahalo. Hotto, at the foot of Mt Huji, has citizens that all speak in haiku. Citizens of Gondolia all speak broken English that is peppered with ma bella, ciao and bene. Also, characters drink and are drunk, including nuns, and there are some side stories of loss and grief that are well done.

Visually, DQ XI is playing in a living, breathing anime world designed and colored by Akira Toriyama. It is absolutely gorgeous, and both this and Dragon Ball Fighterz are two strong entries for best art direction of 2018, both from the same original artist. Toriyama likes to put characters' eyes close together, and I'm not sure what the intended effect is, but it's hard to take the game's more mature plots seriously. All the men look like their names are Cody, and I'm sorry but a cross-eyed dragon isn't scary. The women in this game, however, are all ridiculously hot. Like, problematically gorgeous. There's something in the water in the world of Erdrea. There's a subquest to 'get puff-puff' in every town from a beautiful woman, and one of your characters gets multiple suits of questionably-effective bikini-style armor. I think the cherry on top was that to get the game's true ending, you beat a dungeon and are granted a choice of boons, one of which is to marry your best friend. Like...a genie has to make that happen?

Krystalinda, cast your spell on me!

To its credit, DQ XI doesn't waste your time with clumsy romance, and there are at least as many...dudesels...as there are damsels in distress. Also, the two top damage dealers in your party are women, so there's that.

Games Since October

One of the free November games is called Burly Men At Sea, which features a branching story with 4 major choices that can be be completed in about 20 minutes per cycle. There isn't really much to do besides read how the story changes. I'm guessing it's based on Nordic folktales, but the presentation is minimal, unique and overall pleasant. Even the audio effects are some dude making sounds into the mic. 3-hour Platinum GET!

While we're outside my usual genres, I got my hands on an old favorite: Lumines Remastered. In this game you match tiles to the rhythm of a flow of levels. Each level has its own music and rhythm of the sweep that clears your blocks. It's visually and aurally amazing, and one of those games where the music will put you in a trance and muscle memory and quick reactions will keep your sessions longer than you might have planned.

Picture Mode was fun!

Next up was a rental of my second favorite Uncharted after the second game: The Lost Legacy. This episode features Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross, one treasure hunter and mercenary who kick ass and take names. The game has your signature Uncharted stuff: gorgeous scenery, lifelike characters, ridiculous climbing physics, and some anthropology and history along the way. You meet Chloe in the second Uncharted game, a good bad good thief who works her charms on Nathan Drake, and this game flushes her character out as a physically capable badass. You get to find out that she's mixed Indian and English, and that ends up playing into the storyline, as the antagonist makes a point about the prized artifact being for 'pure' bloods only. This of course blows up in his face cause racism sucks, but Chloe wasn't gonna let him get away with that shit anyway!

Nadine is from Uncharted 4, where she beats the snot out of Nate in a few fistfights before Sully buddies everyone up. The path to platinum is a little more than half as long as a usual Uncharted game, but I thought that was a good thing. As the 5th game in the series, I was ready for something short but sweet, since they're not about to drastically change the gameplay.

Also, shoutout to Naughty Dog (developer) for the accessibility options in this game. I'm a fan of turning button presses to hold for the quick-time events.

 Last but not least is a game that was gnawing at me for the last few weeks since I'd returned the rental: Dead Cells. The longing got the best of me and I ended up buying it. It's one of those games with procedurally-generated levels and progress is made by unlocking access to certain items spawning and certain permanent abilities unlocking each run. One life can last a few minutes, or if you git gud, one life can take you through to the end boss in about an hour. But you will die. So. Much. The gameplay is fast-paced, and you can strategize your approach: throughout the levels you find scrolls that upgrade 1 of 3 stats that affect: melee damage, ranged damage, or defense. The level of each stat makes that weapon do more damage, and you get a % of health with each scroll found, but the enemies also get more difficult. There are a few no-damage trophies as well as beating this game on the hardest difficulty, which would make this game probably a 9 or 10/10 for difficulty, but it's so fun to try.

Also, until Thanksgiving is a quietly huge sale on most of Square Enix's titles from the last 5 years on the Platstation Store. If you like RPGs, head over and get you some! The sale is for everyone, not just PS+ members.

Spend less green, BE more green!

If you're outside of Washington State, you might not know that we had a carbon fee initiative that failed to pass on Election Day 2018. Regardless of how you vote(d), I think being environmentally friendly is something most people can get behind. This is where some frugality practices can help you minimize your carbon footprint. I'm going to limit these suggestions to my own habits that I currently practice.

(By Kevin Schoenmakers) This lady figured it out!

Let's start with a seasonal favorite: hot beverages. They double as hand warmers! If you've been here before, you'll know what's coming. Make. That. Shit. Yourself! Hot beverages are super easy to make. They're tastier than cold beverages by default because they're not dulling your tongue! Milk, some kind of sweetener (honey, sugar, maple syrup), and a flavoring (cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, vanilla). I get the hand warmer part, but folks are going to that place with the green mermaid/Statue-of-Liberty-ripoff and spending $4 a pop! You can raid your pantry for the makings of a hot beverage. For $.50 a cup, you can drink some of the finest coffee available to the middle class if you make it yourself. I alternate between LaVazza (more like $0.20 a cup) and Kirkland Signature (which is Starbucks, minus the label. $0.11 per cup).

A trip to the cafe or McDonalds means you've commissioned TWO people to do the work of one, albeit amazingly efficiently. However that wad of napkins and fistful of sauce packets you throw away every spring is just plain irresponsible. Sit-down restaurant? The host, the waiter, the cook and the busser. I completely understand the convenience of having an expert prepare your food, but another way to shrink your carbon footprint is to cook for yourself. Or invest in some great pre-assembled entrees. Either way, you're going to create less waste, spend less green and likely eat healthier.

No recipe needed. Seriously.

In addition to cooking for yourself, eat oats and vegetables! Actually, for the last month, I've added 3 cans of different beans, some dry lentils and sausages into a crockpot. For about $4 of ingredients, I get lunch for 4 days. A friend of mine who has a high-paying job as a software engineer still lives frugally. Once a month he buys two big ass bags of rice and lentils that works out to something ridiculous like $0.10 per meal, except on those decadent days where he adds an egg, skyrocketing the cost to $0.40 per meal. Washington Post gives a chart on just how much of a reduction of greenhouse gases you make if you choose veggies over beef! Of course, frugal people like ourselves opt for chicken, pork and tofu anyway.

It hurts to dryyyyy...

I am one of those weirdos who uses his dishwasher as a drying rack and hand washes everything. Green. I also air-dry my laundry. In addition to living in Asia where that's till normal, a 25-year-old me once saw a friend's gorgeous blue dress that I thought was brand new. Turns out she'd had it for 10 years and just doesn't use a dryer. The only drawback of hang drying is crusty towels that don't get fluffed by the dryer. There are also weeks where it's just too damn cold and humid so I concede to the machine.

Public transportation. Use it. Be green. Airport run? Take the light rail. Read a borrowed book from the library or read this blog on your phone instead of being accident-fodder!

One of the stats is that skipping beef once a week is equivalent to switching 12 incandescent light bulbs to LED, which is the first thing I did when I moved in August. If you live in Washington State, LED bulbs are subsidized and you can get ~20 bright-as-day bulbs for $15 at your hardware stores (significantly cheaper than buying online, where the store likely can't pass along the discount.)

Recycling is pretty obvious, and buying secondhand accomplishes a few things: it generally avoids wasteful packaging, it proves the item itself is durable enough to survive the first owner, and you aren't economically supporting the manufacturer (if you have ethical issues with them.) Full disclosure: I struggle with this because as much as I love to save money, my favorite game developers miss out on my cash when I buy their games used.

Just because the law doesn't (yet) push you to be green doesn't mean you can't be green yourselves! All of these require more time than simply paying for the various services that most others use everyday. One thing that shocks me is how much time I spend washing dishes for just me and my wife. We clear the sink after every meal and still spend a good 20 minutes on weekend days cleaning dishes. Air drying laundry means your skivvies won't be ready for up to 2 days. Making your own coffee robs you of 2 precious minutes, but the way I see it, you can do these things yourself, or you could earn the income to pay someone else to do it: you're investing time and energy regardless.

October opus: Sonic Mania Plus...

Sonic the Hedgehog is 28 years old this year but has lived more than half his life in shitty games. Our blue friend had a home in 5 great speedy platform games in the early 90s. Then, some bigger changes in technology and some really terrible direction lead SEGA to produce poop for the next 20-odd years. Nintendo has always taken new tech in stride and implemented it in the titles quite well. Think of each system's new Mario or Zelda game and how well it uses its console's gimmick: Mario's movement in Super Mario 64, Z-targeting in Ocarina of Time, Link's Master Sword moving 1:1 in Skyward Sword via the Wiimote Accelerometer, and more recently, using the Wii U's touchpad to sketch blocks in New Super Mario Bros - nTh iteration.

And still better with the 2d D-pad.

Sonic...hasn't received the same treatment. The SEGA Saturn title used an isometric view and analog controller for Sonic 3d Blast to go with the new CD-quality audio. The music worked; the rest was awkward. Then while Mario was messing around on Sunshine Island (Gamecube), SEGA decided Sonic needed vocals and we were treated to unskippable, poorly-acted, awkwardly paced and stupidly long cutscenes in a game with only a good first level. This trend of underwhelming Sonic games with only good first levels repeated for years. But even with the music, there's been a prominence of guitar-heavy rock music with lyrics in most of the titles since Sonic Adventure that were hit and miss.

THEN, a few years ago, a fan updated/remade a few Genesis-era Sonic games. This all culminated into Sonic Mania, a return to roots with a blend of the only 5 Sonic games that matter: Sonic 1-3, & Knuckles, and Sonic CD. Sonic Mania blends these so thoroughly into a great shiny package and hits on almost everything great about the series. For example, two desert levels Oil Ocean (S2) and Sandopolis (S3) have been conceptually blended. In the original Sandopolis, you were inside of a pyramid that consistently got darker until you activated light switches throughout the level. In Sonic Mania, you're running through an oil extraction site that gets hazy until you activate fans to blog away the smog. The blends manifest themselves in the music, aesthetics and functions like the haze mechanic I mentioned. There are so many stages that Eggman Dr. Robotnik has gone the way of Bowser and recruited the Hard-boiled Heavies to harangue the heroes in different boss forms.

The devs balanced speed and running really really well. The levels are loaded with springs and sequences that don't screw up momentum with obstacles. There are even those parts in the game where you're running so fast that Sonic almost moves out of the frame, and they're used sparingly enough for you to really appreciate them. Past titles have suffered from poor camera controls, camera tracking, or the simple fact that touching the controls during the speed sequences could kill Sonic. A lot of the titles may have only had one of these sins, but Sonic Mania doesn't commit any.

Sonic Mania is the most fun I've had in a while. The game is gorgeously colorful, the remixed soundtrack is amazing, and I'm considering buying it for the appeal of a playable soundtrack. Have any of you played a game again for its soundtrack?

Hang on, Geddy! Ohh wait-shoot em!

I actually started the month with a title called Owlboy, which is heavily inspired by Kid Icarus from the original NES. The game has a neat aesthetic and in true sci-fi nature takes its world of sentient owls, stick bugs, penguins and spiders as established; there's no irony there. The story has to deal with capture and pirates and stuff...and I was just playing the game to experience vertical platforming. I really liked the music and artwork. Even towards the end of my 14-hour journey to the platinum, I forgot controls occasionally since they were just a bit awkward.

Ohh my! Yes, yes. Quite riveting!

After Owlboy, I was waiting for Sonic Mania to arrive in the mail and discovered just how awesome one of the previous free PS+ games was. The game is called Foul Play, and the title card is a theatre curtain. I figured it would be some murder mystery or otherwise dialogue-heavy slow-paced game. It turns out that this is a beat-em-up game where you play actors in a series of Vaudeville plays, beating the snot out of baddies for the audience's enjoyment. Get combos, dodge, pop the fist-fodder into the air, whack, sock, evade and chuck enemies into stage objects to applause and a great soundtrack. One fact is that October has seen three fast and fun titles with great music and unique aesthetics.

Katamari Forever: a profile

I am one of those people that uses the word perfect subjectively. I think something is perfect if it does what it's intended to do and nails all the details along the way. I abhor smoking but can tell you cigarettes are a perfect product. The addictive factor has been refined through decades of testing despite the obvious signs of damage to health. Cigarettes are so good that skipping 5-10 minutes of work every hour or two is socially acceptable, as long as you're harming your health. Try that shit with a 5-10 minute break to read a book or blend some smoothies in the break room and report back to me. Anyhoo, cigarettes are a perfect product to me, and the Katamari Damacy series is also perfect.

This guy is hilarious, annoying, the most important entity
in the Katamari universe...and that bulge is amazing!

If you haven't heard of Katamari Damacy [~Clump Soul], the story goes that your father, The King of Cosmos, [got drunk one night and] accidentally destroyed the planets, and it's your job to roll up enough items to form new ones. This story is told through surreal 10-second animations which were just as random in original Japanese. Also, to reach back to the title, it doesn't make sense in Japanese either, and the creator said it randomly popped into his head. This is a relief to me, as there are some really stupid anime titles that had to have been conceived similarly. Bubblegum Crisis and Cowboy Bebop come to mind, but I digress. Anyway, the bizarre opening sets the tone for the whole experience.

The game has a bright, cartoony palette and features everyday objects that the Prince of the Cosmos collects into a ball as he rolls through living rooms, backyards, train stations, and eventually the Solar System. This can be explained with a picture. What can't be explained is how the game sounds.

Each game features a peppy, poppy and eclectic soundtrack that stands well on its own. The music is good and the composer knows it. The PS3 title that I'm currently playing, Katamari Forever, is a blend of the first and second title, with a story to link all the chaos. The entire soundtrack is a remix of these two games as well. From the Katamari Wiki: "Miyake employed the help of over 20 other Japanese artists and remixers to help the soundtrack, which was designed to act as part of a "musical trilogy" with the soundtrack to Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari. This was accomplished by choosing tracks from those games that were either fan or staff favorites and having them remixed by both Japanese and non-Japanese artists, though Miyake notes that the majority of the artists were Japanese as he did not know many non-Japanese musicians, the same problem that kept non-Japanese artists out of the first two soundtracks of the "trilogy".

I'd argue the most popular song of the series is not the main theme, but Lonely Rolling Star. The first gets its own version in each game, and the second gets a dubstep remix in the PSP title. One of my favorite tracks from the first game, Cherry Blossom Color Season, is a very poignant track about a summer memory with school kids doing vocals while a boy takes the lead. In Katamari Forever, it's done by a peppy 80s soft rock female vocalist. Both versions nail the sense of nostalgia, even without knowing what the lyrics mean. The remix that most blew me away in the same game was the second game's J-POPpiest song Everlasting Love being both mashed up with You Are Smart and translated to English (Everlasting Love + You).

For sound effects, objects are picked up with a plop or plunk that gets deeper with larger things. You start out picking up thumbtacks and batteries and once you get to animals and people, they let out screams and other strange noises.

The aesthetic, sounds and music combine to create an amazing experience, and the controls fit perfectly. Your rolling is controlled by both thumbsticks and little vibrations tell you when you pick stuff up. Although titles in the series are on other platforms, the controls make the most sense on the Dualshock controllers, as the sticks are side by side. The latest titles are on Android and iOS which makes me wonder what they did to the controls. There's a remake of the first Katamari Damacy coming to the Switch at the end of the year, which fits the theme of the Switch being a GREATEST PORTS platform with almost no original titles. Either way, the Katamari Damacy series is highly recommended and you should give it a roll!

Where the hell have I been?

It turns out working full time, wrapping up a graduate degree, owning a house and doing marriage paperwork takes a lot of time.

School: I'm currently in a class about how to choose, create and make the most of materials for ESL learners. Basically, true/false and multiple-choice questions are dogshit for actually learning language, but garbage sells. It's a lot easier to sell shit that's easy to grade to the non-teachers who are in charge of curriculum and budgets, so inefficient and superficial language learning prevails!

Even Abe is sad I can't buy stock...

House: mid-August to now has been me coming home from work with some kind of project to address: replacing the kitchen faucet, garbage disposal, installing the bidet, making a noise-and-temperature window insert, and exploring my new neighborhood. Traffic is pretty loud and I still hate motorcyclists. What are they revving their engines for in a 30 mph zone, anyway? My new neighbors, on the other hand, understand the concept of not being noisy at night, parking where they should park, and training their animals not to be douchebags. This is a massive improvement to my quality of life for an amount I can afford with some concessions...LIKE INVESTING *dramatic crying*. No more monthly deposits into Vanguard for the time being. It sucks, but building equity is like investing...just gotta cut through that thick block of interest first.

Spoiler: not the last time. This is at the beginning of the game

With all that, it's not like I wasn't gaming at all. Septemper PS+ owners got God of War 3, a game where you play as a complete asshole. Like, wow. Kratos spares nobody. In terms of trophy hunting, this game is pretty quick and easy. This game still keeps the fluid and responsive fight controls, though platforming requiring double jumping and gliding sucks. This game has your signature smooth combat with lots of blood, a protagonist who doesn't have a whole lot of motivation in this title, and the occasional boob!



Before that, I had the express pleasure of Cosmic Star Heroine, a 16-bit-ish action RPG that is heavily inspired by Chrono Trigger. You can see and avoid battles, there are battle abilities that resemble single / dual techs, and the soundtrack is quite awesome. Also, the game is hilarious and has some personality. Even if the plot is so-so, the characters are pretty entertaining, and the NPCs even more so. I scooped it up on sale for <$10 and it was a sweet playthrough and worth it! Go, small developers!

Other than these two Platinums, I have been logging the other half of playtime plugging away at Overwatch, Star Wars Battlefront 2, and Guitar Hero Live. I just shacked up with Gamefly for their $10 promotion for a single disc rental for 2 months and my first crack will be OwlBoy.

Gaming in August 2018

Hey Folks, nothin much going on but the rent. PSYCH! I got married on the first of August and started a mortgage two weeks later. So, 'ain't nothin going on but the mortgage.' Now begins the paperwork to get a work permit for my beautiful wife. Once we let her loose on the American work force, she's going to be the breadwinner by far. I'd like to think that this means I'll have more time to play video games, but that'll likely mean more housework!

The death music in this game still triggers me

Speaking of video games and my wife, while between quarters and waiting the on paperwork, she found herself with an abundance of free time. Earlier this year, I'd gotten an SNES Mini and the game she chose to start with was Super Mario World. Now, I've had 30 years of experience with the franchise, which has barely changed its controls. Folks, I watched her walk right into enemies or right off of pits over and over and realized that I am a really terrible backseat gamer. At least there are short cords on the controllers, meaning her ability to rightfully huck the controller at me is limited. Turns out SMW is a pretty hard choice to be your break-in to game. Progress is slow, but man is she persistent!

This fight took a couple attempts

In June, she started Chrono Trigger after seeing how excited I was to add the ROM to the system. She absolutely loved CT and saw at least 3 endings. Next was Final Fantasy IV. It was pretty awesome to hear the soundtrack as I did whatever I do around the house that isn't playing video games while she hauled arse. In August, she completed A Link to the Past. Her biggest challenge was a room in the final dungeon with a collapsing floor and 4 torches to light. It came down to the coordination of an action button + a direction. I don't know if she should burn through all the classics or start getting into some of the less-polished games. She's not a fan of current-gen controllers with 20+ buttons, so we'll likely stick to the SNES mini.

Pissed off bantha

It has been great seeing her enjoy something she used to just think was for 'boys.' Since she mostly plays when I'm asleep or at work, I get to hear her new experiences of games I've known well. I don't think she'll be playing Overwatch and cursing Hanzo alongside me any time soon, but in 2018, she's played 4 of the best games ever made and doesn't show any signs of slowing down--now she's playing Final Fantasy VI.