Red Dead Redemption 2’s tale of the outlaw life is one that fans absolutely will not want to miss out on. Action, exploration, and danger is always in your peripheral.
Yearly Archives: 2018
NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER – Defense Class Type
In today’s Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker video, VampyBitMe, FBAfterMath,ItsSoSunny, Afrosenju and calebcity talk about how to succeed as a defense nin.
Retro Review: Final Fantasy 1 (NES)
by Jason Parker (Ragachak)
Though I grew up in the 80s, I actually didn’t play Final Fantasy on the NES until the mid-90s, despite owning a Nintendo since it came out around ’86. I remember the moment quite fondly, too. There was a retro/used video game store right across from my neighborhood, and I went there anytime I could convince my Mom or Grandmother to take me. Other times, I’d just ride my bike up there. I saw a copy of Final Fantasy 1 and wanted to try it, and wound up spending close to a half hour picking a team, naming them, and doing some leveling up outside of Corneria. I begged and pleaded (every year) to get them to go buy it for me. This was before the price of NES games really began to skyrocket, and the collecting scene had not really grown to the level it did in the 2000s. In fact, I didn’t get to play Final Fantasy 1 until well after I got out of High School. I played more of Final Fantasy 2 and 3 (4 and 6) than I did of 1. I eventually played several playthroughs of the NES version, completing some of the more difficult challenges (four white mages, for example).
Final Fantasy 1 was a real achievement for consoles, despite the many (many) loopholes, glitches, bugs, and problems the game had. A single-player RPG where you had a party of characters that you selected the class for, went on a difficult but rewarding journey, upgraded their classes, traveled back in time and did battle with an ultimate evil? Sure, Might & Magic came out before Final Fantasy, but that was an entirely different kind of turn-based RPG. It was more like a PC RPG (since Might and Magic is a PC franchise mainly), and Final Fantasy 1 was its own beast. It changed RPGs forever. A turn-based RPG where you got to see your characters and the enemies, and incorporated a lot of the then-current AD&D rules, like initiative, armor class, spell slots, armor/weapon types, each character needing specific types of spells and equipment.
There are so many options for Final Fantasy parties, where your four characters can be a Fighter, Black Belt, Thief, Red Mage, White Mage, and Black Mage. During the Bahamut portion of the game, you can undergo a rite/ritual to upgrade to Knight, Master, Ninja, Red Wizard, White Wizard, and Black Wizard. This will drastically change some characters, like Knight being able to cast some spells, as a prime example. First-time players could very well miss it though if they don’t find Bahamut and his castle. This is one of the first games where you really needed to talk to everyone, and many times that could not be enough. Nintendo Power was the MVP though, having the free Final Fantasy strategy guide, for subscribers. It was one of the several free strategy guides they released, and it was definitely a driving point for me wanting the game since I had the guide and would read it obsessively.
Your first goal is just to save the princess of Corneria from the rogue knight Garland. Once the strongest knight in Corneria, for reasons unknown he kidnaps the princess and leaves, fleeing to the Temple of Fiends in the Northwest. He’s not really that strong, but you’re a team of heroes and he’s just one sinister knight. Easy, right? You bring her back home, but you better not forget to talk to her again. That useless item she gives you is the key to getting to the last dungeon. Now you’ve learned that the world is slowly dying. The seas are slowing, food isn’t growing. The land is growing hot and unbearable. The crystal’s power is weakening (if not gone) and it’s up to this squad of colorful badasses to go fight the four fiends and recover the Orbs. Lich, Kary, Kraken, and Tiamat are the four henchmen of Chaos, who has trapped the world in a time loop. Peace won’t happen until Chaos is bested once and for all.
It’s a nice, long RPG (unless you’re speedrunning), and it’s key to talk to everyone to figure out just where you’re going next. Despite it being a very linear game, you do a lot of globetrotting. It’s not easy though. It’s frustrating and tedious to level and grind unless you know the right spots to do it, like the Penninsula of Power. That’s a spot on the map where enemies much stronger than normal appear, and it’s one of the best early grinding spots in the game. In the NES version of the game, Mages felt almost impossible to use without items that cast spells, because you have very limited spell slots. The Black Belt class was bugged and borderline useless in the early game too. These were both corrected in the GBA version (Dawn of Souls). Then there are the wealth of enemies that can instantly kill you with death spells, death attacks, petrification, etc. This is before the time of Phoenix Downs, and you only had a few Life spells per rest period. No ethers, either! So you had to go back to Church. Few things were more frustrating than losing two party members mid-dungeon, having to trudge all the way back to town and fix the problem.
While the actual game is frustrating and difficult, it’s not all bad. Visually it was the first of its kind, and it has some of the most memorable music any RPG. It’s the first of a franchise that is still going strong today, and there are some pretty easy-to-exploit things in the game for exp, like Chest Bosses. Some treasure chests have a boss in front of them or an encounter that triggers. It will be triggered every time you step on it that tile, so with knowledge and preparation, you can grind these spots for tons of exp and gold. This is also the first RPG with a “Superboss”. A Superboss is typically much stronger than the Final Boss and is hidden somewhere in the world. In a lot of games, these are also in the post-game, but there’s only one spot you can find the Warmech. It can cast the strongest damage spell in the game, and it, like most bosses in the game, it can murder your whole team. Warmech, which has an incredibly low encounter rate on the last path of Tiamat’s Flying Fortress.
Garland Might Knock You All Down: 3/5
Final Fantasy was truly the first of its kind in the West, and kickstarted my love of the series, despite my first real exposure being a Nintendo Power magazine featuring Final Fantasy 2. It’s filled with bugs, glitches, and the NES version feels frankly unplayable once you’ve played the GBA or PSP versions of the game. But it was bold, it was fresh, and it was something we had never seen before. It was a colossal undertaking and was the first RPG I played that really felt like an epic, nearly impossible quest. It felt far more difficult than Final Fantasy 4, and my first playthrough of that took 80+ hours. Despite having one ending, and one linear path, it had replay value in the challenge of trying different party combinations and different approaches to party makeup. It’s not even in my top five Final Fantasy games of all time, but I have fond memories of it. I had memories of this game before I even played it, which is a testament to how strong the pull was. Final Fantasy 1 unknowingly led me down this path, and though I played other RPGs first, this one made me smile so much more.
Re-Spite Team
Re-Spite Team
Resident Evil 2 (2019)
You’ve never played Resident Evil 2 like this! 4k graphics, new engine, and a modified story breathe new life into this classic and revered fan favorite of the survival horror genre.
Features:
Breathtaking 4k graphics: The blood and gore… it’s just so beautiful.
3rd Person: As requested, no longer limited to first person views.
New Story: You might think you know the story, but surprises await.
The Settlers (2019)
The legendary franchise returns to its origins in Ubisoft’s reboot of The Settlers, due Q3 of 2019. This is more than just a visual remake, however, as many systems are improved and new ones are added.
Features:
Co-Op: Play through the campaign or various side missions with friends!
New Food System: Feed those peasants
Motivational meta-game: Creates a unique gameplay experience for multiple plays.
STONE Review – Hip-Hop Stoner Noir?
by Jason Parker (Ragachak)
Okay, I’m going to be honest: When I heard “Hip-Hop Stoner Noir”, I was thinking Heavy Rain meets Wayne’s World or something to that effect. I expected something irrelevant and stupid, but still entertaining. STONE is really something special, especially for the price of the game (15 dollars~). It was made by Convict Games, and they have really done something special here. It’s not a very long game, as point-and-click style adventure stories tend to be on the short side. There’s at least one replay in it, by making different decisions in how you treat other people in Oldtown. In the press release, they said that “STONE may not be for everyone” and that’s certainly true. It’s surprisingly liberal with how the characters are portrayed and without spoiling the story, it’s pretty deep and tells an important life lesson that some of us probably need to know, or needed to know earlier.
So we know the “genre” of STONE. It’s a Hip-Hop Stoner Noir. Noir titles are typically detective stories with lots of twists and turns, and this game is no exception. The story is about a Koala Police Academy washout-turned Private Investigator. His “Chookie” Alex is missing mysteriously, and he’s woken up by a call that Alex is gone, his life is over and they’ll never see Alex again. Stone can’t remember a single thing about the night before, thanks to being blackout drunk. So he does what any good P.I. does: Takes a leak, messes with his Drum Pad, has a smoke, and sets out to figure out whodunit. Well, maybe that’s just how I did it. It’s a pretty linear story, where you go from scene to scene across five Acts, each with several chapters of their own. Each character is fleshed out and interesting in this furry Australian world. As you move from bar to club, to the cops and more, you’ll have two choices on how you approach people: “Hard Ass” and “Soft Touch”.
Private Investigators are known for that “Hard Boiled” style of interrogating, where they go in, being a belligerent, aggressive jerk. It’s popular in a lot of fictional media. But that’s not always the right way to approach a problem. I honestly picked which to use depending on how I felt about the current character and what they were telling me. Sometimes you need to be aggressive, and sometimes you need to lay the charm down on people or lie your way out of a situation. Stone himself is a rude, selfish, alcoholic jackass. Over the course of this story, he grows a lot in a short amount of time, and you learn through flashbacks what happened to Stone and Alex. He trips a little, sees things, has weird dreams, and through these things, Stone learns more about himself, about Alex, and about what exactly has happened to cause them to be kidnapped or disappear. I won’t spoil the story and how it ends, but I really didn’t see it coming.
It’s A Long Road to Recovery: 4.5/5
As you play, you’ll open up a map that lets you visit other locations and relax between story locations, in case you want to unwind. This story gets pretty deep pretty fast. You have the club, where you can listen to amazing techno music, you can play Rock/Hip-Hop at the bar, or you can do my personal favorite side-activity, you can go to the movies! They have a nice variety of public domain films to watch: What Happened to the Kelly Gang?, The Night of the Living Dead, Haxan: Witchcraft through the Ages, and more at this cinema. Stone’s flat also has a MIDI pad to make music on, if that’s what you want to do. Back to that soundtrack, there is a nice variety of artists, and I loved every track I heard. Ryan LIttle, Ilkka S, Color Dolor, Noah Kin, Warchief, and others. Personally, Warchief and Color Dolor were probably my favorite artists in the game. The only real gripe I had was that hideous purple/pink banner for all of the text/dialogue/etc. The game itself is visually smooth, but that was pretty jarring.
The game itself is fully voiced, has colorful, interesting characters, from Foxes, Mice, Koalas, various birds, Alligators and more besides. The game itself is only a few hours long at the most, but for what they are asking for, it’s more than worth it. I went into STONE thinking that it was going to be a weird comedy about a bumbling idiot P.I., but by the end, I definitely had changed my mind. I had gone on a wild rollercoaster of emotions, and learned a little about myself. Frankly? That’s a good thing. None of us are perfect, and if we can learn a little something at the same time? That’s a pleasant bonus. I don’t really play many Visual Novel style games, but I love them as a concept. STONE is definitely one that gave me hope that the genre is as strong as it’s ever been. Convict Games made the game “they” wanted to make. They told the story they wanted to without reservation, and I respect that. I highly recommend STONE as a story that an open-minded story fan needs in their life.
Note: A game key was provided for review purposes.
Dragon Ball FighterZ: Free Update Trailer
Dragon Ball FighterZ released a new update for free, which has the new Galactic Arena, and new levels for Ranked Matches and much more.
Valkyria Chronicles 4 – Europan History in 5 Minutes
There’s a lot to take in in regards to the history of Valkyria Chronicles and Europan history. So today they brought in an expert to give the details. Join noted Europan Historian Douglas Welch as he dives deep into the history of the First and Second Europan wars.
Namco Museum Arcade Pac Now Available for Nintendo Switch
Bandai Namco released a collection of some of their classic arcade games from the 1980s today in the NAMCO MUSEUM ARCADE PAC. This collection is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch, and comes with games like PAC-MAN, GALAGA, and DIG DUG. Friends can also duke it out in Score Attack mode or go one-on-one against a giant boss in the madness of PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2 PLUS. This, SPLATTERHOUSE, THE TOWER OF DRUAGA, ROLLING THUNDER, SKYKID and TANK FORCE are also in this collection.
“NAMCO MUSEUM™ ARCADE PAC™ brings together over 30 years of gaming into the palm of your hand on Nintendo Switch,” said Abelina Villegas, Associate Brand Manager for BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc. “From the traditional classic arcade experiences like PAC-MAN and GALAGA to the more modern multiplayer experience of PAC-MAN Vs, and hyper kinetic look and feel of PAC-MAN CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION 2 PLUS, there’s something for players of all ages!”











