Into the Traveler's Gate

To Make a Mark in History

2011-04-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. I haven't updated anything lately. But I have an excuse! Listen to me, now, I have an excuse!

(Hint: the video is my excuse!)

So, while my gaming hasn't been spectacular whatsoever, I have been making perler art. Yeah, so what there's a billion geeky craft blogs now? That's not what my blog is about. I'm just telling you that I've been making them. Well, if you ever went to my deviantART (I don't know why you would, since it's connected to this very page at the bottom), you'd see my later stuff, too.

What have I been playing? A little of this, little of that. A friend of my husband donated a fully functional NES to us, and I demanded some RPG for it so I could make use of it, too. The RPG chosen? Only the very first console style RPG in the history of gaming, Dragon Warrior! You know, that game is actually slow, the action is all text based, and you have to spend days grinding to do anything, but holy crap on a stick, I love this game.

Wait a Tantagel minute, though. I covered Dragon Warrior before, right? Yeah, the GBC version, and on a ROM no less. This is an actual cart - that keeps saves all these years later. Playing it with that square controller that will put bumps on your hands after a while, pressing that A button almost all the time, never having enough gold to buy all the equipment you find in the last town until you have to buy something three times as much to survive the grind to get the gold for the current equipment. You want that Magic Armor? Well, you're gonna earn it. In fact, you're gonna earn everything in this game, including a marriage you may or may not want.

This is where it all started, ladies and gentleman. This is where the entire subgenre of "JRPG" or "console style RPG" was born. That has quite a bit of power behind it, considering the industry giant that the RPG genre has become in today's gaming. In my attempt to study the History of the Evolution of the console style RPG, I'm compelled to play and beat this game in its original format on a TV set to channel 4 with a square controller. Not doing so is... well, it's just something my Gamer's Heart won't let me get away with. If I'm gonna make it a point to study these things, I have to bury myself in the history by playing what was made back then, since there's no way to travel to that time period and experience the rush of these games coming out as they were brand new. My husband tells me of the days when he believed that Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior were going to be cutting at each other's throat for dominance in our hearts, that it would be as epic as Star Trek vs Star Wars with the nerds, that each and every game would only try to up its competitor and we'd all relish in the awesomeness that was now available for play. I would love to journey to an alternate world where that is the case. It would be better than Square and Enix merging, putting Dragon Quest on the back burner, and dumping all of its money into a dying franchise. The two epic companies behind greatness like Chrono Trigger on one side, and Robotrek on the other. My personal opinion of this merge isn't exactly the best, since all Squeenix has managed to produce is things like Unlimited Saga, Kingdom Hearts 2, and The Bouncer. Every now and then, they manage to eek out a glimpse of hope, like Dragon Quest IX, but when you put the vast amount of crap on the scale against the games that Squeenix has managed to make that is actually worth playing... I think you see where I'm going with this.

Enough of my rant. Dragon Warrior was made before all of that. Before Final Fantasy even was conceived in Hironobu Sakaguchi's mind. It inspired a whole genre. A whole genre that has captured the hearts of millions around the world, be they casual or hardcore. Hard to believe that when Final Fantasy was in creation, they thought "we have to be better than Dragon Quest. we want more characters in a party, more weapons, more spells, more armor, more monsters, more dungeons", isn't it? While Sakaguchi wanted to tell a story, he did make a great game and people everywhere thought so, too. There have been numerous sequels and spinoffs of Final Fantasy. Dragon Quest hasn't the same amount of sequels, however, it's my opinion that there's a greater number of better Dragon Quest games and spinoffs that are great games, as opposed to what's got the Final Fantasy name slapped onto it just to boost sales from fan-twats.

I'm gonna be bold here for a minute, gamers, and tell you right now that if you claim to be an RPG fan, you need to do the same. I understand not all of us have NES consoles anymore, and we may have too modern of a TV to even play with one anyway. Then play it on the GBC or even on emulator, the way it was meant to be played. No save-states, no fast-forwarding. Experience the game the way it was meant to so that you, too, may experience a piece of gaming history.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go kill some Goldman enemies to get some gold for my magic armor. If I can survive that area of the continent, that is!

Thanks for reading!

Much love,

Suzuri

Suzuri's Thoughts: Gaming of Today

2011-04-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

Gaming friends, I must apologize for holding out on you for so long. No, I haven't forgotten about angelslime.blogspot.com, after all, I only tell everyone I know repeatedly to come and check it out. Turns out that either no one gives a random two shits about my gaming adventures in games that are over a decade old, or I'm horrible at being a gaming columnist, or some other criteria I haven't noticed yet that seems to keep people from being actually engaged by what I write here. Not like I do it for anyone else, right? I thought it was just going to be for myself - but since I realized my readership was so low, I haven't wanted to show back up here at all lately. Not like I've made any discoveries in the world of gaming these last few months anyway. I've had things to do, like celebrating my daughter's second birthday.

Instead of reporting on the gaming I've done the last few months, I'll instead go into stuff that I'm looking forward to finally getting a chance to play. I'm broke (it happens when you have kids) and so I haven't had a new game since... since... my copy of HeartGold I got a few years ago. Wonderful, right? I'll admit that there's nothing on a current gen system that I want to bite my teeth into, save Tales of Vesperia (I know, I haven't played that one EITHER). That game's a few years old.

No, right now, I want to play very few games that are brand spanking new. Give me Dragon Quest IX, Pokemon Black, Golden Sun DS, or Tales of the Abyss' remake on the 3DS. On my "list to be played" that's about it. I want my JRPGs, and I freakin' want them now. No Call of Duty, no Resident Evil, just some straight up anime lookin' characters leveling up to beat bosses that eventually save the world. I'm stuck in my little gaming niche, and I like it in here. I've spent most of my life either slashing my sword in a Legend of Zelda title or level grinding to beat a boss in Final Fantasy so long that I don't mind. And while there's a heaping lot of it out there today, damn it, there's so little I want to invest my time in.

New games come out every damn day, and I still want to only play six games (I didn't mention that I actually want to try Final Fantasy Dissidia for some stupid reason, did I?) - some of which are a few years old all ready. What's happened to the state of gaming lately? The more I think about it, the more I want to go to Japan and curb stomp some developers. Even people who don't follow the same stuff I do (mainly Pokemon, Dragon Quest, and Tales of) complain about the lack of originality, creativity, and even COLOR in a lot of games. Who the hell takes colors away from gaming? Apparently, people who play FPS titles only like seeing worlds made of shitty brown, boring gray, and various hues of those two colors with a splash of red blood every now and then, unless you're German, then you'll see green. What happened? It was Mario who saved the industry from taking a nose dive into just being a fad instead of actually being a mainstay within the media, and my girls are still dazzled over how colorful the game is now. The shiny cold coins, the glowing Starman, the fireworks at the end of a level... things used to be so simple, and now, it seems like things have changed. Even for the genres I love.

Okay, I've written about my love affair with Final Fantasy that took place during my junior high years here on this blog before, and I'll be honest, I still like the series quite a bit. FFIX is my favorite of the numbered installments, Tactics is my favorite overall, and the Crystal Chronicles series always makes me come back and see what else they're up to. Well, now, this year they put out both Final Fantasy XIII and XIV. You'd think that I'd jump on that like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat, and if the games were anything like they were on the PSX days, yes, I would be. Even with FFVIII's numerous flaws. I accept them and move on with with my life. But FFXIII took the series in a whole new direction. What's this "if your one character dies in battle it's game over" bullshit? How come that dipshit Snow can't use a phoenix down on Lightning like I would have Tifa use on Cloud if he got KO'd, for example? Does no one see all of the changes made, as if it were being... dumbed down? No? FFXII made me believe that after the travesty that was FFX, the series could recover and we'd go back to lighting the crystals with no problems whatsoever. Something's missing both from gameplay and narrative of the new FF games and people keep buying them hand over fucking foot. Why? Well, the game's graphics are stunning to say the least. I won't deny that at all. But there is a problem with that.

Here's a little thing to think about. We consumers tell the media what we want when we buy things, and whatever sells is what will be mass produced. If we want more dumbed down, shiny graphic-y games, then we put money in the hands of developers and let them make more of it. If we want more colorless, bland, generic FPS titles, then we should just keep buying them. I don't like what I see, save a handful of titles, out of the entire industry, and I don't like to think I'm being picky - I like to think that I'm being honest with myself. If games I like stop being made, will I cease to be a gamer? Hardly, I have tons of games from over 10 years ago that will keep me happily entertained as I have been the last few years being broke and all. I'll just have to be retro-exclusive, though I don't believe that you can call a PSX title retro no matter how old it gets. Tell me that Star Ocean 2 is retro, and I'll tell you to go look at freakin' "Ultima Exodus: The Quest for the Avatar" on the NES for a retro RPG, okay?

I have so little income to work with that I have to know whether I'll like a game before I buy it, and I can't afford to plop down $40 to see if I'll like something new. When I spend, it has to be something that will give me tons of replayability, or a very long ass quest, or something to keep me engaged for months. I guess that's why each time a Pokemon game comes out, I'll slap down the money to get it. I'll play it for a year without getting tired of it, and now with bonuses like trading online or even voice chatting. I'm even more interested...

*sigh*

Thanks for reading,
Much love,
Suzuri

Whisked away to Expel

2011-01-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

You wouldn't believe the gaming festivities I've had since the turn of the new year. No, I haven't had any new games bought for me, however, I seem to have a new symbiotic relationship with the website www.emuparadise.org with all of their available titles for download. Sure, my state-of-the-art (last year) computer isn't capable of running Tales of Symphonia or any other Gamecube title, however, it is fully able to emulate Playstation titles, which may very well be the finest generation in all of gaming history.

I say this because of the wide variety of games available for the Playstation, especially in the RPG category. I can't really call myself a gamer completely as there are some genres I don't play at all and avoid with a passion - FPS and survival horror in particular. But if a game stars a blue haired hero stranded on a new world with a sword then damn straight I'll give it a shot. I don't promise it'll be good (I'm looking at you, Star Ocean: Til the End of Time), but I'll give it a shot.

This brings me to a title that I wish I had the chance to play when I was a kid. Star Ocean: The Second Story. In the very start of the game, you choose to play one of two main characters. Claude Kenni is a boy from Earth who is a student at a Space-based Military Academy. Rena Lanford is our blue haired heroine who lives on the planet Expel gifted with the ability of healing. I know what you're thinking, that this is going to be one of those anime-based games where all the characters are very cliche. Actually, it's not that bad on the cliches. You just have to keep an open mind, really.

The story is different based on the hero you decide to play as, coming down to which characters may or may not permanently join your group. When I played recently, I chose Rena, so I didn't get to see how Claude was whisked away to the world of Expel or the kind of technologically advanced society he comes from.

Rena lives in a little country village called Arlia on the fantasy-like world of Expel with her mother, every day going into the nearby Shingo Forest for a walk. One particularly average sunny day, Rena goes for a walk and she's attacked by a demonic ape of some sort, and Claude rushes in with his space-age technology to save her after being blasted from a planet far on the other side of the galaxy to there. Seeing the beams of light from his gun and the alien clothing he wears, Rena believes that Claude is a "Warrior of Legend" who has come to save their world from all its ails. She decides to lead him to town, wondering about the place called Urth that Claude says he's from, and telling everyone important in her life about how he saved her with his "sword of light". Claude doesn't buy it for a minute, of course, and the mayor of Arlia tells Claude about the Sorcery Globe which crash-landed on the faraway continent of El. This ball of technology seems to have made all the animals turn to monsters, caused stress among leaders of the world leading to wars, and has destroyed the lives of countless citizens. The people of Expel have no way of understanding it, as they are still in the times of swords and sorcery. After saving Rena from a possessed childhood friend, the pair set out in the world to discover what exactly the Sorcery Globe is as Claude believes it may be his only chance to get home.

After this, the game opens up to the player. What would you like to do? Level grind? Explore some dungeons? Cook up some tasty meals? Pick the pockets of every person you find? Gain affection points with characters? Look for new characters to add to your party? Build your own weapons and armor? Yep. While linear in narrative, you can stop that narrative pretty much any time you want to do whatever you feel like doing. You can walk out of a dungeon you're fed up with and spend the day having your characters write books that will affect the relationships between themselves and other characters if you feel like it, provided you have the talent and the skills you need to do it.

Skill points come to a character every single time they level up, which you can spend on various skills learned by reading text books or buying books from the nearby skill guild. You might not think that the skills "Kitchen Knife", "Good Eye", and "Recipe" would be handy for going on a world saving adventure, but if you learn all of these skills, you open up the command "Cooking" and if you have ingredients on you, you can attempt to cook. While you may have cooking available to you, however, if you do not have the talent "Sense of Taste" then your cooking will always remain unsuccessful and you won't be able to make anything edible - however, if you keep trying, the talent can open up for you, depending on how well the character is able to adapt to that sort of talent. (This isn't just for cooking, but for any other talent based skill, too.) Cooking is not only useful to sell your dishes to stores for a profit, but each and every character has a favorite food that acts as a personal elixir for them outside of battle. It also increases their mood, so if you feed a character their favorite food, then do a private action with them, more than likely you'll get positive affection points between those two characters. This is just one of the many options open to the player at any time he or she feels like going about it.

Another is building your eight character party the way you want it to be. Out of the cast of eleven playable characters, you can only have eight. Aside from Claude and Rena, the rest of them are completely up to you. Do you want Ashton, the dual sword wielding gentleman with two dragons on his back; or do you want the busty blonde alien chick, Opera, who uses a bazooka? If you go get Opera, do you also go and get her handsome whip-slashing boyfriend Ernest, or do you want to win her heart for your own? Do you want to have the family-oriented herbalist Bowman, or the teenage mechanical genius Precis? Sometimes when you get a character, you can't go and get others. If you play as Rena, you have a chance to get her childhood friend Dias, but if you play as Claude, he will not join the group at all. Instead you'll get the little boy who invented the Lacour Hope, Leon, who looks up to Claude like a brother. To see all of the story, you have to play a multitude of times, which really adds to this game's replayability. My last playthrough, I had the party of Rena, Claude, Celine, Opera, Ernest, Bowman, Dias, and Chisato. When I play again, however, I want to have Ashton instead of Opera, Precis instead of Bowman, and Noel instead of Chisato. Just to see what those characters can do and how they affect the character development.

Oh, and one other thing, this game has an astounding 87 obtainable endings. Personally, I don't know any other game with that many endings. By doing private actions and increasing affection points, you can have any character get with any other character. Some are much harder than others, but if you want to have an ending where Ernest marries Rena instead of Opera, for example, it's possible. But if you want to have an ending where Ernest and Bowman get together, that's also an option. It's very open-minded and progressive that way, out to please every single type of fan who might pick this game up.

Simply put, Star Ocean: The Second Story may not be perfect, but it's easy to get lost in. The character development as the story progresses is very nice, and all the things you can do in between dungeons can take up so much of your game time, you'll be surprised. If you like games that have a lot of options for the player, then this is one for you, even if you don't like RPGs. And the combat system is NOT Final Fantasy-esque turn-based combat either. It plays like Tales of Destiny but on a completely 3D battlefield. It's fast, it's intense. It doesn't completely bog you down.

Trust me. I highly recommend this title for anyone who likes RPGs, or customization. Though it may be hard to get a hold of without getting it via emulator. Last I checked it went for $110 on Amazon. However the game was remade for PSP as Star Ocean: The Second Evolution, which contains much of the same features and some added extras.

Play it. You won't be disappointed.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri

Nostalgia Gamer? ...I don't think so.

2010-12-07T23:03:00.000-08:00

Alas, yet another period of spotty gaming to be had with me lately, until I finally got a hold of one of those games that drives fandoms wild. The type that splits fans apart, y'see. This game was talked about by the mega-popular V-blogger TheSpoonyOne. Yeah, you know which one I'm talking about. Final Fantasy VIII.

You must be asking "why the hell were you playing that god-awful piece of crap?" Because when I first played this game back when it first came out, I loved it to death! I must have been, what, 13 years old. My raging hormones, fangirlism for Sephiroth, and daily watchings of Digimon had yet to be stopped - and when my dad realized I loved FFVII completely, he brought home FFVIII.

We all know the story here. Squall Leonhart is a student at a military academy called Garden, where he's not very talkative and only really does things to get by. He gets into a training battle with his rival, Seifer, and they both get scars across their respective noses. Squall is preparing to take a test - and passes the test, obviously. He goes to a party, dances with some chick he's never met before, tells his teacher to talk to a wall, and gets assigned to go on a mission with his other new SeeD graduates to help said chick liberate some town out in the middle of nowhere, they get thrown out of town there, end up in another Garden, told to assassinate the sorceress but they fail. And that's all of disc one. Yeah, I know.

One thing I noticed while replaying this game is that I liked the supporting cast. Zell Dincht is a very passionate young man who knows many things, but he's seen as annoying because he tends to over-react to things. Quistis Trepe, once an instructor of Squall's, is an intelligent woman who is very afraid to expressing her emotions openly and hides that at one point she thought she was in love with Squall. Selphie Tilmitt transferred to their Garden right before the story started and is in Squall's homeroom class. She seems so ditzy, but she expresses exactly what's on her mind and when she gets to meet the children she used to take care of in her old Garden, she reveals how supportive she really is. Irvine Kinneas seems to be an annoying playboy on the outside but he puts up a front that hides his deep, quiet nature. He falls in love with Selphie early on and is always there to support her in the end. I liked these characters. I really liked Laguna, Kiros, and Ward more than the main group, Laguna's loyalty and charm really pulled me in. His sense of humor and sense of justice are both on key, and Kiros and Ward are great supporters to him.

That leaves the two main characters, Squall and Rinoa. I have to admit it. I hate them both. I understand where Squall is coming from, but I hate how he goes about it. He's just a jerk to everyone at first, especially the chick he seemingly falls in love with when she falls into a coma. Then when he realizes that the one person in his life who actually tried to be nice to him is isn't there, he all of a sudden turns into a nice guy and does anything he can to bring her back to her true loving nature. Even though she admits early on in the game that she was in love with Seifer at one point, and every time Seifer's name is brought up she acts like she still wants to be with him until she understands that now Seifer is a bad guy and Squall is the good guy. Does this sound like a real romance? Do you see why I can't stand either of them? The romance feels so forced, and that's supposed to be the focus of this story.

....Now the romance between Laguna and Raine seemed more plausible.

Here's a Final Fantasy love story comparison for you. Did the romance between Celes and Locke make much sense to you? I think it made plenty of sense. Celes, beaten and locked away both physically and emotionally, is unlocked through Locke's caring. Celes supports Locke through his quest to revive the lady he once loved. The two of them grow with each other gradually. Or, hey, what about Dagger and Zidane? Zidane "kidnaps" her on a whirlwind of an adventure where Dagger learns how life is for normal people and the attachment grows little by little from the time they meet until the end of the game. The writers at Square can write love in a way that feels natural. (Cecil and Rosa, while they weren't falling love but were together before the story started, doesn't count in this instance.)

The junction system seemed like a great idea, with a way to control each and every single stat a character has without the use of equipment, but comes across as a micromanaging frenzy that must be meticulously set correctly to get the best possible stats. If you're really into games where you manage each and every single detail about your characters, then it might be for you. If not, then it certainly is not. It's very complicated, and as with other Final Fantasy games, there are many diverse spells and items to work with, so you literally have to go through each and every option to see what works for you. When compared to the very simple systems of yesteryear, it seems very overbearing, but it does allow for complete customization of your characters of you're willing to devote time into it. It certainly is not my favorite of the FF character development systems, however it is not the one I hate the most. Sphere Grids in FFX made even less sense to me than this!

As for battles, they all revolve around how your characters are junctioned. Like in Pokemon, you can only have four battle commands at a time, based on which Guardian Forces you have junctioned to you. The only problem with that is it doesn't seem like the humans have any unique powers of their own. They can't even use items without needing a GF to help them. It's a lot like FFVII that way, where you need to have what you want equipped on you, however, at least in FFVII you could play without materia equipped and be able to use items at least... >.> It's nothing like earlier games like FFVI where each character had the magic they learned through the help of the Magicite, and their unique ability. Setzer's slot machine, Locke's steal, Edgar's tools, etc. etc. In FFVIII, none of the abilities are unique to the characters except their limit breaks. That was also a complaint about FFVII I had, too, but it felt less obvious there than in this game.

I loved this game when I was a teenager because I was a teenager. That's who this game was targeted to, the age group that would want a story not about a couple that's been together for years like Rosa and Cecil, but one that's just started as they would be experiencing themselves. Changing emotions, not understanding who they are, graduating school and moving on with one's life... those kinds of things are very typical for kids that age to identify with. Now that I'm over the whole "in love" stuff and I've moved on with my life, I see how juvenile the overall story is. I think if the characters were, one, more around 13 than 17 it would make more for the emotional turmoil they all seem to be in. I don't see the story in the light I used to, but I still wanted to play it again. I don't know if I wanted to visit that time in my life again, as it seems I've done a lot lately with watching Digimon Adventure and listening to Robyn again. Either way, it was a good way to reflect and see how much I have changed since then.

It also opened up my eyes to how well my gaming memory can be, as I hadn't touched FFVIII since at least four years ago until three days ago when I decided to give it a go again. There are things I didn't know I still knew and remembered, secrets and sidequests and everything just stuck with me in a corner of my brain until I decided to use it again, I suppose... I surprised myself with how much I remembered - even coming down to what monsters where carried what spells for drawing, where all the hidden draw points were without needing the ability to see them. Then I wonder if/when I finally get to play my beloved Tales of Symphonia ever again, if by some chance I'll be able to do that with it.

I have no idea what I'll be playing next. So I can't give you a heads up.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri

My gaming as of late

2010-11-30T11:43:00.000-08:00

Before I start my newest entry, I want to thank the few of you who follow this blog. The whole four of you. I realize I'm not writing really to an audience yet, I'm more writing to practice writing for an audience. xD Thanks either way, though.

Well, I promised last time that I would continue my exploration of the Digiworld with the Digimon World PSX video game series. Truth is, I played very little of Digimon World 2 - only enough to learn that it's just a Digimon-themed Mystery Dungeon copy ala Chocobo's Magical Dungeon and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. When I realized that, I kinda just facepalm'd and left it alone. I have, however, spent quite a bit of time working on Digimon World 3, but nowhere near the hardcore hours I'd put into a game that I've really got my heart into. I guess what I'm saying is that the DW series really hasn't done it for me, making the anime much better than any of the games I've had contact with. If I could recommend a game, I would tell you to play Digimon World 3 for its fun and immersive leveling system. I do love the sprite based graphics, and the training scenes are cute. Does it deserve a whole post on my blog, though? Hardly. I doubt I'll ever finish it, and that makes me sad. However, I have never played Digimon World 4 on Gamecube OR the Digimon games for DS, as I've heard they have good reviews. Also I have Digimon racing on VBA, which is just a Mario-kart wannabe with Digimon characters which makes Patamon suck. D:

As for my gaming lately, it's been kind of spotty. It's been hard to stick to just one game because it seems like Chime has something against me. Every time I play FF5 Advance, which I've really learned to love, after a few hours it'll freeze and throw me back three hours worth of playtime, no matter how much I saved to the battery or savestated. This pissed me off. I had to leave the game alone. I was like, okay fine, you proved your damn point all ready.

So I went to go and pick up a childhood favorite, Legend of Dragoon, which would freeze in each and every bossfight if I went into Dragoon mode, which is the ENTIRE POINT of that game! I managed to play around it until the final boss on the first disk, Dragoon Doel, and the bastard now freezes regardless of WHAT I do. There's still three more disks, and I swear if I find out they play perfectly I'm going to kill someone. I had to walk away from that, too.

I thought about it for a few days. What was I going to play? I ended up reading one of my little brother's status updates on Facebook about him playing Lunar 2 Eternal Blue, which I have to admit is one of my favorite games ever.

AND NOW, Just for your reference!
My most favorite games ever...
in no particular order!!
-Tales of Symphonia
-Grandia 2
-Lunar 2 Eternal Blue
-Dragon Warrior 3
-Zelda Link to the Past
-Pokemon Crystal
-Final Fantasy Tactics
-Suikoden
-Shining Force: Legacy of Great Intention

I was looking at that, and going through my ROM folders to find I had Lunar Legend downloaded. I owned Lunar Legend in high school, and for the life of me I can't remember why I got rid of it. It's actually a remake of the original Lunar: Silver Star Story on the PSX and the Sega Saturn before that. Either way, I decided to go back to the world of Lunar. I loved it too much, and I was feeling nostalgic for it. I love that world as much as I love Alefgard, Sylvarant or Hyrule.

The game's main protagonist is Alex, a young man wishing for adventure like his deceased hero, Dragonmaster Dyne. He is followed by his constant companion, a white flying cat looking creature named Nall and the girl his family adopted when she was found in the village named Luna. One day, Nash comes from Vane on a mission to look around for something and Alex decides to lead him through the nearby woods to show him around. In the woods close to home, Luna and Alex solve a puzzle when they come to a wall which is adorned with a picture of the Goddess Althena, and they find the cave that the White Dragon Quark lives in. There Nash reveals he wishes to be a Dragonmaster and wants to take the trial. Alex, since he's there, also says he wants to take the trial. Quark takes them both to the room of their souls and interviews them both, but in the end, neither become a Dragonmaster, and Nash leaves to report to his guild. Alex decides to leave home to meet the other four dragons and Luna admits she wants to accompany him. Thus the next morning, they leave to the port town and continue their adventure.

The battles are very simple and usually come completely at random while in any map that isn't a city. Each character can attack with their equipped weapon, use skills unique to them, defend, use items in the party's bag, or try to run away. The turn begins with the player putting in commands for each character present, and the actions go in order of the highest speed stat down for both the heroes and the monsters. Each character is very unique, not in just how he or she looks, but with their skills, also. Luna is the only character who can use songs in battle, while Alex flings out flashy but cool sword skills, but Mia has very powerful magics like Blizzard. Nall is a part of the battle by being the cursor that the player uses to pick options, and throwing out free revivals out of the goodness of his heart.

This game is very level based, and you must be a certain level to learn certain skills. Bosses can be very hard or very easy depending on your levels, which makes for level grinding sometimes. Some people love the grind, as I mentioned with my trek through the beginning Dragon Warrior games, but some people, especially the modern new crop of gamers, do not. I believe the level grind is not as terrible as many older games, however, the grind does exist if you aren't careful enough. If you don't run away from monsters in normal fights, you should level just enough to make it without difficulty, so be careful about how you chose to play.

As for an old school RPG, this game is solid, with lots of equipment and accessories to play around with to see how they affect the characters in battle. The sprite based graphics are lovely at all times, and the every-now-and-then anime cut are pleasant. They aren't animated as they were in the PSX games, which is to be expected. Lunar Legend was one of the GBA's first releases (as in it was the 808th game to come out for a library which would have eventually thousands) and I think it was really under loved.

My only real complaint about this game is the music. God, this music sounds nothing like the epic tunes I heard playing Lunar on the PSX. It doesn't catch my ear or hold my attention like the games on the PSX, and that is disappointing. However, it's such a minor complaint that I wouldn't worry about it very much. For the most part, you might want to provide your own soundtrack while playing the GBA version.

The characters are fun, even if the story is cliched, and if you don't mind a twenty hour romp in a classic gaming world, this is a good title for you. I started it night before last, and I'm about eight hours into it. I haven't had many complaints thus far.

I would tell you where my gaming travels would take me next, but right now, I have no idea.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri

Hey, Digimon! Hey, Digimon! Monster friends to the boys and girls!

2010-11-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

Ah.

Nostalgia is one of those feelings we all get, especially once we've grown up and become adults that have to take care of bigger things than just playing around and going to school in our daytime. I have come into contact again with a series that has always been near and dear to my heart: Digimon.

I hear what you're saying now. "DIGIMON?! SERIOUSLY?!" Yep! When I was in my pre-teen years, Digimon was almost my entire life. It was the first anime that I'd seen, and coupled with the game Final Fantasy VII, I started taking a real interest in anime at the time. Well, no, the very first anime I'd ever seen was actually Dragon Warrior: Legend of the Hero Abel when I was extremely little back before any of us outside of Japan even knew what anime was. But I wasn't at a very coherent age at the time, so Digimon feels more like my first anime.

I hopped along for the ride watching Digimon Adventure O1, starring Tai and his friends on their quest to save the Digital World from the Dark Masters and Apocylamon. Then, I watched Digimon Adventure 02, set four years after the first one, starring Davis and a newer crop getting advice and help from the older kids. I always thought that the game would make a great setup for an RPG. You've seen it all before. Get sucked into a strange world, gather party members, and battle your way home. Along the way you get power-ups, new abilities, new characters, new places, hell, Digimon Adventure both 01 and 02 was perfect. So when I ran into the Digimon World video game series, of course, I was excited!

I originally found the Digimon Adventure title on the PSX at my local K-mart. That's how you know it's old, ha! It wasn't as pricey as most games out there, which worked in my 13 year old favor. The game stars a hero being sucked into one of those toy digivices after having a very small personality test to determine your starting partner. If you like the daytime, you start with Agumon and if you like the nightime, you start with Gabumon. From here, based on how they are trained, they can literally digivolve into anything. Not that it makes a lot of sense.

Digimon Adventure didn't feel anything like the show. You weren't a Digidestined. It was like a pixel on polygon pseudo 3D version of the old box-shaped Digimon keychain toys, complete with feeding, scolding, praising, and even taking your pet to the local potty. Sometimes it feels more like babysitting than a game about battling monsters, and beware, if you poop outside of the potty, your virus contamination will go up and you'll end up turning into a digimon made of poo named Numemon. Especially if you are playing data types, which are weak to viruses and virus type digimon. However, even if your digimon is a virus-type, this still happens to it, and there are nowhere near enough outhouses in the game to warrant such torture.

If you're asking if I like Digimon World as a game, I can't lie. It's a frustrating mess most of the time. How do you predict without a walkthrough how your Digimon will Digivolve when it comes time? Yes, it's timed. Each Digimon has a lifespan based on the game's internal clock. A baby digimon will digivolve to an in-training digimon after 6 in-game hours. Not real life hours, but in-game hours. It takes about a day for a rookie to go to a champion, and during that time, if you aren't bulking your stats just perfectly, then you don't know what you'll digivolve into. My favorite digimon from the show was Patamon. Of course, I wanted one in my game to have for my very own. But as many times as I played this in my youth, I never got one, ever. I never knew how. And that made me a very sad fangirl. Eventually even if you get the digimon you want, they will "die" and get reconfigured into a brand new digimon for ya instantly, making you having to start ALL OVER.

Now that the internet has all these walkthrough databases like GameFAQs, there are walkthroughs for every type of game out there, this game included. I bet if I really followed one of those guides I could have a Patamon in my game, and maybe even then get an Angemon! Hold on, though - any legitimate gamer out there would be insulted even considering that kind of offer. You know that, right? Well, I'm here to confirm that is the truth with me. I want to be able to figure it out on my own, both as a fan of Digimon and as a gamer. The digivolution path for Digimon World is just outrageous and confusing, plus the game won't tell you how to get any of it.

When I was a kid, I ended up trading this game in after a few months of trying to figure it out. I put the trade credit with Game Exchange to getting my own copy of Final Fantasy VII, as I had been playing on my grandpa's shop's copy for a while. I had given up hope on that game. Just this week, I picked it up again for my PSXfin on my computer in hopes of finding something that would make this game appeal to me as an older gamer with more experience. It's true that I find many games much easier now than when I was a kid, so I thought I'd give it another go out of my undisputed, unrivaled love for the Digiworld. Sadly, the copy I downloaded freezes up whenever money is obtained after a battle, so it looks like I'll never be able to find out.

However, this week has also been the first times I have tried playing both Digimon World 2 and 3, and I have to say that the first game gave me so much to desire that I'm bound to love either one of these in comparison.

I'll get to going to Digital City with my Digi-Buggy next time in Digimon World 2.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri

PS: I am very sorry about not continuing the Dragon Warrior part of my gamer's blog. I have only played part 4 of the Zenithian Saga, and until I can get my hands on parts 5 and 6, I won't go into them. I don't want to break apart the look at the whole saga in general. Alefgard may be safe now, but there's another world for heroes to save in the World of Dragon Warrior.

Smile Slime PART FIVE

2010-10-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

Part Five: Loto and His... err... Her? Merry Men
Started: October 20, 2010

Considered by many a fan to be the finest hour in the entire Dragon Warrior saga, the third game details the story of Loto, the first Dragon Warrior, as he conquered over the Demon Lord Baramos and started a lineage of heroes that would continue saving the world, as detailed in DWI and II. Of course, by now, I've heard quite a bit about this Loto. When I found out that Loto was the hero of III and would start the entire story that I'd been experiencing thus far in my Dragon Warrior venture, I was excited. Here I was going to meet the hero who started a great legacy...

Booting up my Visualboy Advance, the game presents a nice intro about the hero Ortega having to leave to defeat the Demon Lord right after the birth of his baby. Poor kid. Poor Mama, too. Anyway, Ortega is given a special horned helmet, then the King's men give him a great send off, and he ventures into a volcano where it seems he had cornered the Big Bad after all. In an over-the-top battle, Ortega manages to take him down - but falls into the mouth of the volcano with his nemesis.

On the eve of the hero's sixteenth birthday, he is treated to a strange dream where a voice is asking him a series of questions to figure out what kind of person he's talking to. Here is where the player takes over. You play as Loto him... or herself. Yep. You could come all this way and learn that Loto was a girl, should you decide to play as a girl. The way that I see it in my head, yeah, Loto could very well have been female, but legends of great warriors that pass down generations turned her male in the imaginations of all the descendants. And, as we all know, I'm female myself - so my experience is that way. Excuse me. But the mysterious voice asks you several questions to figure out who you are, and all of the questions lead to a different scenario, depending on how you answered. Once the man in the sky tells you what kind of personality you have, then you find yourself waking up to your sixteenth birthday.

For your awesome sweet sixteen, you get to go meet the king and tell him that you want to finish the job your father Ortega started. The King says that's an awesome idea, hands you some gold pieces (referred from now on as G), some weapons and some basic armor - telling you to go to Rudia's Tavern and find some companions. So just a hop, skip, and a jump away, the hero goes to the tavern and can make his own friends upstairs. I don't know if that guy up there is God himself, but if you give him specs on a party member you want, he'll just write them down for you, and then you can go to Rudia and have them summoned to join your party. Those are some cool scrolls! There are a nice number of classes you can make your members into, and you can choose male or female for any of the classes available. Once you distribute the stat seeds to a character, God will give them a personality also. I decided to go with a fun combination: myself, a warrior, a dealer, and a cleric. After creating friends out of nothing, the player can go out into the world!!

Dragon Warrior III doesn't seem very linear, as you can take the game at your pace, but things do have to be done in certain orders before other things open up. For example, your first task is to get the Thief's Key from Najimi Tower. Without it, you cannot get the Magic Bomb which will open the Traveler's Gate which will take you to Romaly. Why do you want to go there? That's the direction Ortega went, and our hero is trying to find Papa's nemesis, that's why.

After getting to Romaly, a whole new continent opens up to you, but you have to be wary of where you walk at all times. If you cross a bridge, the enemies will get significantly harder than on the side you were on before. That tends to be a Dragon Warrior staple as a warning for players to keep an eye on their levels. There's a host of problems over here to solve. The crown of the King was stolen by bandits, there's an entire town cursed to sleep forever, the elven princess seems to have vanished... and it's up to you to solve each of these smaller problems of the world to get experience in battle and artifacts which will further your main purpose.

Eventually, our hero and his... her party will find the Demon Lord Baramos and defeat him, but... wait a minute. There's more shit to do. Looks like Daddy wasn't after the true enemy. Zoma has stepped up to the plate causing a ruckus, and since you're still the appointed hero, guess what?

While the story may seem cliched and overdone, the GBC Dragon Warrior III is a joy to play if you don't mind it. The character creation system makes the game more than replayable, as every player gets to have their own experiences while playing it. When I talk to my friends who play this game about how the game went for them, they tell me of their unique cast of characters and their ways of having to defeat the enemies which differ from my own. Unlike a lot of other JRPGs out there, both good and bad, the only character set in stone for this game is your hero, and using the personality system, even that could be very different. Once I played where the hero was a better spellcaster than a swordswoman, and I've got a friend who's hero is the strongest person in their party overall. There are lot of games, such as Final Fantasy IV, where the party at any given time is always set in stone. At the end of FF4, you always have Cecil, Rosa, Kain, Edge, and Rydia. That's all. Cecil attacks, Rosa heals, Kain jumps, Edge throws crap, and Rydia summons. No matter what version of FF4 you play, Rydia will always learn Meteo at level 68. This isn't the case with DWIII, and I love it for that. My hero can be whatever I built her to be, my partners are what I made them. Yes, each class will learn spells at set levels, however, using them may be a different story based on the personality types that your characters will have throughout the game. Yeah, that Cleric has healing spells, but what if her INT isn't high enough to heal as well as the hero, for example? What if the Cleric has more Vitality than anyone else in the group, and can act as a tank better than a Warrior? It's achievable here! While your story is set, your characters are not, and this is more than wonderful.

What really gets me is how your created characters will also have a great impact on the story. Your dealer will leave to start his or her own town. A member of your group will willingly give up their life to help the hero's party when stuck in a trap. Who will it be? Who knows?

Sadly, Dragon Warrior III was the last chapter set in this world I'd grown to love. Loto's saga is now at rest. When we look at the many chapters of DW4 next time, the new Zenithian Saga will begin.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
Suzuri

RPGs - JRPGs, WRPGs, and tabletop: Thoughts to share.

2010-10-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

So, hi there, kids! It's time for another edition of Suzuri's Inner Gamer's Thoughts! Today we have a question asked by someone on GaiaOnline.

"Can one call themselves an RPG fan if they have never played a Final Fantasy game?"
(excuse the grammar, folks, I'm just giving you the original question as it was posted)

After I read this question the first time, I was a little bewildered at the fact someone would ask something like this. Not only is FF not the only RPG out there, it's hardly the Ur Example of RPG or even the JRPG subgenre. I have friends who love RP to death, but they dislike FF with every inch of their gamer heart.

Let me put it to you straight, friends.

JRPGs are those video RPGs like Dragon Quest, Tales of, and Final Fantasy. Y'know, those types of games where the player isn't able to really control a lot of the story and most of the characters have a set personality and background all their own. This is even more true with modern gaming on newer consoles with titles like Final Fantasy XIII. You don't really roleplay in FFXIII - you just sit and watch a story, walk in a straight path upwards, and in this game you don't even control your characters in battle. Earlier FF games, especially the first game on the NES, was a game that had more roleplay in it than games after FFIV.

Personal Opinion: I have a taste for these games, as I see them as an interactive visual novel with more depth than most Choose-Your-Own-Adventure children's books. There are a lot of people who do not have a taste for them, as the name "Japanese RPG" is rather a misnomer. It would be more accurate to call them "Interactive Stories" (except in the case of FFXIII, to which I just call a movie with a controller) than actual "role-playing" games. I got into role-playing simply because I love reading. To be able to take part in a story with your own character has a lot of appeal to me as a person who enjoys reading. I believe this is also an aspect of appeal to countless other players as well, and why this genre has such a big corner of the RPG market in general.

WRPGs, aka Western RPGs, are things like Diablo, Knights of the Old Republic, and the classic Ultima. They're less about the overall narrative, more about the character themselves developing uniquely by the choices of the player. They tend to be more on the gritty story side, unlike the JRPG which always seems to have an element of cuteness which doesn't seem to be present in the Western genre. The combat in Western RPGs tends to be very detailed and has many minute nuances, conversely the JRPG has a very simple menu based combat system most of the time, and fans of the WRPG tend to be very critical of the simplicity.

Current and quite possibly sidetracking thought: Though generally the Western RPG doesn't tend to appeal to my taste of cuteness, my obsession with Etrian Odyssey and its sequels cannot be denied. One of the rare instances where the Japanese creators do not focus on an emotionally driven storyline but on the exploration of the Yggdrasill labyrinth and development of your custom created characters. The characters are drawn in Atlus' signature manga style which was popularized by cult-classic Disgaea, which has to be one of my favorite aspects, even though every character only gets a single picture to depict what they look like. They don't talk, and the story does not really reflect the characters themselves but refers to the player as the name of the guild established in the beginning of the game. Etrian Odyssey is a challenge and a half, which harkens back to the days of role-playing when it wasn't about some wussy spikey haired prick with personality disorders bitching about killing a man he used to admire to the point of obsession because that ex-hero of the land skewered this girlfriend (Yes, Cloud Strife, I mean you!). I don't mean to go on a diatribe about how much I adore the EO series, but as a breath of fresh air in the middle of the rampaging debate about whether JRPGs or WRPGs are really RPGs, I couldn't help but think of it.

Back on track~

Now, all video RPGs have something in common no matter what sub-genre they belong to. That is the simple fact that they were inspired by the tabletop RPG. A lot of newbies in gaming tend to forget that imagination was the main component of roleplaying. Be it the great D&D, the popular Warhammer, or the comic strip inspired Hackmaster - stats, dice, and imagination are the main ingredients to play. The essence of roleplaying is taking on the imaginary suit of a character in whatever world there is set up, and playing as that character.

My point? YES, You can be a fan of RPGs and not like Final Fantasy. You can be a fan of the JRPG and not like FF. Hell, you can be a fan of the WRPG and not like Ultima. Guess what? I'm a fan of JRock, but Gackt is not the bestest one there. The only thing you can't be if you don't like Final Fantasy is a fan of Final Fantasy.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri

((Will be cross posted to my gaming blog, "Into the Traveler's Gate"))

Smile Slime PART FOUR

2010-10-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

PART FOUR: A Sequel of no Equal
Started October 6th, 2010

Direct sequels never, ever seem to live up to the originals. I’m not just talking about the world of video games, either. Movies, books, manga, video games, everything we come to love about the originals just seems to go all wrong when companies try to rework it to sell it to you again. And you, as a fan, go out and buy it, even knowing how disappointed you will be when you get your hands on it. This happened to me very recently, actually, and it’s not just about Final Fantasy XIII, either. Everyone that knows me knows of my rabid fangirl love for possibly the only decent RPG in the entire Gamecube library, Tales of Symphonia. I adore that game with every inch of my gamer’s heart. Then, they decided that the Wii needed to see some more sales and my love was preyed upon when Namco released the travesty that is Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Some new wussy emo kid named Emil is on a journey to kill Lloyd, the hero of the first game, because he’s got some summon spirit stuck in his head or some weird ass shit. Every time I think about the combination of monster collecting in my Symphonia world, I think some of my brain cells die on me. I know, I know, I love Dragon Quest Monsters - which is something very strange. Monster collecting was a part of the main series as a side quest, and when that was popular enough it became its own game series. Monster collecting has never been a part of Tales. And neither have wussy emo heroes that give Squall Leonhart a run for their money, more personality disorders than Cloud Strife, and more whiny than Tidus ever was. My point is that this sequel hurt that part of me that trusts gaming companies to never let me down. Every new Tales game that comes out, I feel the sting of Dawn of the New World’s butchering of one of my favorite games ever - and I haven’t bought a brand new game from Namco since. When my husband explained to me that Dragon Warrior II is a direct sequel to the first DW game, I groaned. Oh dear Lord. This was going to hurt, wasn’t it? I mean, even if you don’t play Tales, I’m sure you know about how different Final Fantasy II is from FFI, so much so that people actively avoid FFII for being so different. Or what about Legend of Zelda II: Adventure of Link? It’s considered the “black sheep” of the series. My gamer’s heart all ready worried that it would start to doubt Enix, too, I booted up my Visualboy Advance yet again to see what became of the world I’d grown to love.

The game starts out by explaining that once upon a time, a hero came along and saved the world from the Dragonlord. He took himself a bride, and roamed around the world over the rest of his lifetime. Each of his children founded new kingdoms, and he would leave for another land. Peace was abundant in the world for a while, until…

One nice, happy, sunny day, in the garden of Moonbrooke castle, the king was talking with his daughter. Then out of nowhere, monsters appeared! Guarding the exit with his body, the king told the princess that she had to inform the neighboring kingdom of Cannock and enlist help to stop the monsters from destroying more. When she reached the staircase, her father made a bold final move to buy her time to escape. Of course, this ended with the Princess being scarred forever after seeing her father die by being burned alive. Wow, game, that’s… pretty intense. One lone soldier from the castle was able to escape to the closest castle he could think of, where he climbed up the stairs to find our hero and the king. The wounded man told of Moonbrooke’s fate and how Princess Nina was missing due to a monster attack. The king, not being the type to overreact about emergencies, looks to our hero and says “You have the blood of Loto in you! You can defeat the evil starting to make its way through our world.” Not “I have an army and we will help you revenge Moonbrooke and save Nina” or anything like that. The hero goes downstairs where his father lets him have a Copper Sword, a shield, and an herb. Then he says “Go on your journey, my son! I have faith in you!” First thing I have to say is at least this king gives his son a sword. Thanks, Dad. But what I don’t get is why the man charges me 8 GP to sleep in the castle. Don’t I have a room somewhere? Did you rent out my room or something? Am I the prince or not? Ah, well.

Our first quest is to look for help. After talking to a few townsfolk and gaining a few levels, the hero decides that he’s going to search for the Prince of Cannock, who happens to be his friend anyway. It turns out to be a wild goose chase from town to town to town for a while, but when you get him, he’s a redheaded magic knight. Nice! I can live with that, hahaha! Hey, cool, the world map theme changes when you have friends. That’s awesome! With the aid of someone who can FINALLY cast spells, the two of you venture out to save Nina from the bad guys. This is another great improvement about DWII to I. Nina, once she’s saved, does not decide to hide in a corner somewhere and help rule the people. She joins up with her two prince cousins and decides that she’s going to help avenge her father. Good show! Thank you, Enix! Now, if she could actually take a hit at some point, it would be great, but her motivation to actually help out is what counts.

By now, I realized that I’ve seen some of this land before. That’s right! Half of the world of DW2 happens to be the world of DW1! Expanding the world was a nice touch. Battles are a bit more fun having characters to help each other. While there were many different kinds of spells in DW1, there’s many more in DW2. Since Nina’s the white mage of the group, she tends to be casting all sorts of spells. The redheaded one wields his swords and his attack spells, too. Then we have the hero, who just swings swords at whatever happens to be in the way. Yeah. I know, it’s weird having a hero who isn’t The Mario, huh? Especially when you look at other Dragon Warrior heroes later on.

This brings me to my point. God, this game was like taking Dragon Warrior and leveling it up a few times before going back to it. There’s much more to do, more characters, more spells, weapons, and while Loto’s Sword was the strongest sword in DW1, now there’s even more powerful weapons to find. Enix did a great job creating an actual sequel that… holy crap, is better than the game before it. In fact, I venture to say that Dragon Quest Monsters also manages to do this, but I did play Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 before I played the original, so maybe I’m a bit biased.

The GBC remake of Dragon Warrior II was packaged together with the first one. Two RPGs in one cart was an awesome idea, but to have a good game and then put it together with a game that puts the first to shame? Oh, sign me up for that baby. I was so impressed with DWII’s improvements that eventually would lead to the greatness of later games in the series, that when I had saved the world again, I was ready to take a leap into the third game without even stopping. Hell, I was excited to play the third game.

My husband grew up on Dragon Warrior. He’s eight years older than me, so he got to really experience the NES and SNES at a more coherent age than I did. While I remember select NES titles that were particularly memorable, he remembers a large library’s worth. I wish I could say I knew more about the NES library than I do, but I really started upping my gaming ante with the SNES. Whenever I have a question about the history of Dragon Warrior, he’s always my go-to man, just like if he ever has a question about gaming in the handheld market, he comes to me. After finishing with DWII and being very impressed with it, I stopped to ask him a few questions about the third. He got that big smile on his face that just spoke of the nostalgia he was experiencing when he started to talk about it. A prequel to DWI where you make the cast of characters yourself. You name ‘em, you pick their class, everything that Final Fantasy I wanted to be, just more of it. You play as Loto?! Oh now I was really, really excited! I couldn’t help myself! I picked up that awesome GBC remake of Dragon Warrior III to continue my journey in a world that I was becoming very engrossed in…

Loto - the hero who saved the world, who had so many heroic descendants, who was the original Dragon Warrior - will be talking to the king for the first time in our next installment.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
Suzuri

Smile Slime: Part Three. Loto's Progeny

2010-10-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

PART THREE: Loto’s Descendant
Started October 3rd, 2010

Dragon Warrior Monsters is much like Final Fantasy’s Crystal Chronicles series, as it has a unique feel all its own and sometimes doesn’t need the name of the main series to give it “oomph” enough to sell it. Sometimes, the spin-off games get me more than the real series. In my case, this is very true for Final Fantasy’s Ivalice Alliance. The world that FF Tactics established that is carried through in the other games in the Ivalice Alliance keep me coming back, hungry for the world and the characters in it. Dragon Warrior Monsters has done the same thing to me. Don’t get me wrong. I love the main Dragon Quest series. The games are always well made, carry a wonderful story with memorable characters and the music is always extraordinarily beautiful. Here, I want to start my own personal journey, where I take a deep breath and dive again into the World of Dragon Warrior.

One bright, happy, sunny day, a young man stands in a castle before a king, who explains that an evil Dragonlord has stolen the Orb of Light from Tantagel Castle along with his daughter, Princess Lora. He tells the young man to go forth and fight against this evil, then gives him a torch, a key, and 120 gold pieces. That’s right. The King of this place wants you to rescue his daughter and some precious artifact, but only hands you 120 GP, a key which you have to use to unlock the throne room to get out of it, and a torch which you probably won’t use for a few hours lest you want Spooky and Dracky to eat you alive out there. Well, that was a rude awakening, huh? Yeah, well, let’s get our heroic butts in gear and get the F out of here. Outside the castle, there’s the little Tantagel Town, where supplies are ready for a price. Y’know, I get the feeling that our hero is Lawful Good, what with going out to kill monsters to make money unarmed just to afford to buy a sword, so he can go kill better monsters so he can level up enough to defeat the Dragon at the bottom of a labyrinth to save their Princess. Sheesh.

Well, anyway, Dragon Warrior on the GBC is a nice remake of the original NES game. I have never played the original NES version, but in high school, I enjoyed the GBC game with my little brother not knowing about the older version. I remember Ralph complaining about it, “There’s not five letters! What are we gonna name the hero?” And we decided on “Ralf”. I know, I know. He was ten and… oh, whatever. Anyway, now that I’m playing on my emulator, I’ve named all my files where I play as a boy “Gaby” or “Gabriel” if it fits, and as a girl, my name is Suzuri. Either way, I’ve always enjoyed this game be it a remake or not, because I just like RPGs. Games where saving the princess is part of it, I’m usually on the uptake. I suppose that’s why when a game like Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure comes along, I love it - as the prince is the one being rescued for a change, hahaha! I think I’m missing the point, though.

As always, a friendly familiar face is always there to welcome you to the game, in the form of a blue tear shaped slime. I’ve always found those happy little things so friendly, and wondered why they look so cute if they’re fighting against you. Of course, our friend is only worth 2 experience points and 1 GP. I hope you went to the Item Shop in Tantagel to take a peek at their wares, because if you bought nothing yet in the way of armor or herbs, you still have a ways to go before you can afford the Copper Sword. That thing carries the hefty price tag of 180 GP. Your first real weapon upgrade, and you’ll have to level a few times without being armed with anything to be able to afford it. Ah, well.

After hitting about level five, which might take you about two hours or so, you can brave the cave up north where you’ll find out a bit more of the story. Are you ready? Well, take your one torch the king oh-so-graciously gave you, and hike it, buddy. I certainly hope you bought a Copper Sword before you attempt this… either way, it’s okay. Located in a small circle of desert, there’s a cave. Go in, and it’s pitch dark. This is why you need a torch, see? Light that baby up, and it looks just like it would if we were in a cave with a torch. For a game so light on the graphics, it does a good job of conveying atmosphere. Surprisingly enough, we don’t find enemy encounters in here. The mysterious music accompanies you down to a huge gravestone where the hero Loto leaves a message to his descendant, aka you. He explains that there are three treasures he used to defeat evil, and that he gave them to three wise sages, oh, and that it’s your job to go find these sages, wherever the hell they might be, and go get those treasures. Yep, that sounds like something I’ve seen in every single JRPG I’ve ever played. Ah, Yuji Horii, why’d you do it like this?!

Well, my only complaint about the game is that you are your only party member. That’s right. You have the hero and his pointy horned helmet. It’s okay, though, since you do get to learn some spells of all kinds, but it’s sad that you only have yourself to rely on. I realize that as the first game in the series that it gets some leeway, but one of my favorite aspect of other Dragon Warrior games is always the other party members. To date, my favorite characters are the Prince Princeton of Cannock in II, Torneko Taloon from IV, Gabo and Keifer from VII, and the loveable plump cockney speaking Yangus from VIII. My other favorite characters in the series come from the games where you create your party members, specifically III’s Goof-off turned Sage and everyone in IX.

So, I don’t mind playin’ alone for this romp, it just makes level grinding more of a grind than it usually is. Don’t forget that Dragon Warrior games are most definitely the kings of level grinding, and the standard was set from the get-go. If you aren’t level 20, do not attempt the Dragon Lord. To reiterate here, let me tell you what a friend of mine did once. He used a Game Genie to make it where his hero would always get a critical hit, every single time. Then, he went to face the Big Bad at level 19 because the grind from 19 to 20 was just getting on his nerves. Every single hit that landed was a critical hit, but it only did 1 point of damage. Everything else in the dungeon before that purple fat-ass Dragon Lord fell to Loto’s Sword with ease. But not the Dragon Lord.

I might seem like I’m complaining or even nitpicking about the Father of all JRPGs, but I don’t mean to. As the game is difficult and can get a bit repetitive due to level grinding, it’s still a classic and should be played by anyone who calls themselves a fan of the JRPG genre. Dragon Warrior caught the hearts of Japanese gamers and inspired so many games since its debut in 1985. Enix accomplished quite a bit with their feat, inspiring games like Final Fantasy to find their way in 1986. The Americans were indeed late to the party, but the Europeans didn’t see a single Dragon Warrior game until after the games started to be called Dragon Quest! The first game in the series which was able to even hop across the Atlantic was Dragon Quest VIII, and they didn’t even give it a number. That happens to be the case with all the Dragon Quest games I’ve found in Germany thus far, be they for the DS or the PS2’s Journey of the Cursed King. In the US, Chapters of the Chosen was labeled as Dragon Quest IV, with the subtitle. In Germany, it’s just subtitle. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

There’s a part of my heart which will always wish that Enix and Square had kept separate, because now that I’m older I’ve been able to see that Enix makes wonderful games which puts a lot of what Square does to shame. The spin-offs for Dragon Quest tend to be just as well thought out and well loved by fans as the main series, unlike the spin-offs for series like Final Fantasy. Hey, I loved Crystal Chronicles, but most of the world doesn’t see them as well as I do. Enix made games like Robotrek and Evo: Search for Eden, which are both very unique and beautiful. Square put out games like Mystic Quest and Bahumut Lagoon. My husband, a true gamer at his very core, stated that when he was younger, he always hoped that Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy would be the two biggest rivals in the entire video RPG market, and that this would motivate them to keep making better and better games. Now that Square and Enix merged, it seems like all the money goes to games with the prettiest graphics in all of Gamerland, with maps in straight lines, with bad voice acting at a $60 price tag. Yeah, that’s right, I hated FFXIII with a passion and if it weren’t for Dragon Quest, I’d have dropped following Square altogether because of that over hyped piece of shit.

But as for Loto’s Descendant, he saved the princess Lora and made lots of babies who founded new kingdoms all over the world - and it’s the great-grandchildren of Loto’s Descendant that happen to star in the sequel, Dragon Warrior II. We’ll start on the adventure to defeat Hargon next time.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri

PS: Please note that I played the GBC remake for Dragon Warrior. In the original game, the princess' name was Gwaelin (yes, the same name as my Umbreon, that's where I got it from!)

Slime Smile - PART 2

2010-10-12T01:22:00.000-07:00

PART 2: The Starry Night Tournament
Started October 1, 2010

You guys may have noticed while reading my inner thoughts here that I have said both “Dragon Quest” and “Dragon Warrior” in passing. Most video game fans know about how the original Japanese name is Dragon Quest, but due to name issues in the United States release the first game was called Dragon Warrior and it stuck for a while. Now that the name for Dragon Quest also belongs to Square Enix, all of the games now released are called Dragon Quest. Japanese purists and those who got into the series in the later days call the series Dragon Quest. Those of us who have been into it since before the change still call it Dragon Warrior with fondness. It’s hard to refuse those nostalgic feelings, y’know. Anyway, my venture into the Traveler’s Gate has yet to end. Not by far.

After spending a long while with Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara’s Adventure, I became curious - a friend of mine on Facebook kept mentioning his love for the first Dragon Quest Monsters game so much that to this day, he still owns his old Gameboy and DWM even after the rest of the world has surpassed the GBA and moved straight on to the awesomeness that is the DS. I had to see exactly what it was that kept fans coming back, even with newer monster games running rampant these days.

I once again booted up my Visualboy Advance to find out.

In Dragon Warrior Monsters, you play as a little boy who lives with his big sister, Maya Lou. One night after Maya Lou falls asleep, you sneak out of bed and go to the living room, when all of a sudden, monsters pop out of the drawers in the corner! One comes up to you and asks if you're Maya Lou, and they figure out that you aren't, then dash to the bedroom to kidnap your sister into the drawers! In a moment of shock, another monster comes up to you asking who you are and when it finds out that it's too late to save Maya Lou, it asks you to follow it. The drawers take you to a place in the Starry Night Temple, where
the Master Monster Tamer tells you that if you compete in the Starry Night Tournament held here in GreatTree, then you'll be granted a wish. Thus begins your quest to climb the ranks of the Battle Arena to qualify to compete in the Tournament. The king gives you a single slime named Slib and sends you into a
randomly generated dungeon through a Traveler's Gate, where your first quest is to find his pet Healer and take it home.

Of course, going against a Healer with just a level 1 old ass slime by himself really isn’t going to cut it. I mean, the thing’s got HP and healing spells (considering the name) up the ass for its level, so the player has to find himself a few new friends on the way. Using the treasures picked up as the journey goes along, you can try to get some monsters to join you by offering them food, like in the sequel game. Monsters sure do like their meats, and they tend to be picky about them. Don’t expect for every monster in the game to go gaga over a single piece of Beef Jerky, my friends. Sometimes, a monster will come up to you after battle to ask if it can join your team without being bribed. It’s a low chance, but if you’re so broke you can’t afford some treats, which you will be when the story first gets started, then you can’t really refuse. When on the way to find the Healer, personally I got myself a Dracky and a Slug to accompany my slime, and we were about level 5 when we got to him. Afterward, Hale the Healer joined my team instead of going back to the King, and I booted the Slug out of my party, as he was doing nothing but soaking up hits anyway.

That party lasted me a long time. I didn’t breed them until they were at least in their upper 30s because I liked them. Slib, Flap (my Dracky), and Ring (what I named the Healer). I saw so many monsters that reminded me of my quests in the normal Dragon Warrior games. The plot didn’t feel so forced once I really picked up the dungeon exploring pace. Eventually, I had recruited so many monsters that I was running out of places to put them, and I would go back to breed at random to save space and keep the eggs tucked away so I could get more. As much as I liked my team, Slib, Flap, and Ring were starting to get obsolete after the first five boss battles - as I had never made any compound monsters with them. They are very common monsters that are well known mascots of the entire Dragon Warrior franchise. Who can say no to a team of smiling cuties like them? People who want to move on to new dungeons, that’s who.

Sadly, Dragon Warrior Monsters forces one to make new monsters if the player wants to keep up at the game’s pace. This is not the case with just the first game, but all of the Dragon Warrior Monsters games out there from the first to Joker. Depending on the monster’s parents, the new babies can level up more and learn more skills than a monster you just catch in the wild. I suppose you could say that their skills are in their DNA or something like that, but whatever the case is, it’s possible for my favorite monster in all of the entire series of Dragon Warrior called the HaloSlime (later renamed as the Angel Slime) who’s description explains that only the slimes with the purest of hearts can become one - can learn a very powerful dark based Evil Slash - because one of the possible ways to get one is by marrying a Slime of high intellect with a zombie that learns Evil Slash naturally. HaloSlimes are supposed to be the epitome of purity. This doesn’t make much sense. It’s like you had to kill a slime to get a slime’s soul… Creepy.

Well, there’s not much else to talk about the first DWM game. The huge amount of monsters, the creative if somewhat nonsensical style of breeding, the randomly generated treasures and dungeons, and the excuse plot are all nice things. For a Gameboy game, the graphics are very nice. The best part of the graphics are the monster images themselves - for your status menu and in battle. They are nicely detailed. My favorite thing, besides the wonderful game play and potential for multiplayer action, about all of the DWM series is the music. This stands for all Dragon Warrior games from the classic start on the NES to the recent ninth installment for the DS and all of those in-between. Koichi Sugiyama is considered the Grandfather of Video Game Music, and that title is well deserved. The music doesn’t sound like a sloppy last-minute phoned-in soundtrack provided for a spin-off. (I’m looking at you, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology!) The unique pieces are great, but there are also lovely remixes of old themes from the main series, too.

It didn’t take long for me to want to jump games again before completing one. I’ll admit, I haven’t really beaten many of the Dragon Warrior series myself. I didn’t have the NES games. My first DW title was Dragon Warrior VII on the PSX, which was given to me by my father when I was around 16 or so. Later, about a month or two after that, I picked up DW 1 and 2 together for Gameboy Color. It’s not a series I grew up with, like Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy. However, at this point in my life, I find myself closer to Dragon Warrior than I do with either Zelda or FF. Am I missing something here?

I felt my heart opening more and more to this world, with much more to be discovered. In fact, it was in a dungeon in DWM that I started to think about all of my DW experiences thus far. What tipped me off was getting to the end of one of the dungeons to find a princess standing next to a sleeping Dragon. Not just any Dragon, but that green, kneeling, wingless Dragon that served as a boss in the original Dragon Warrior guarding Princess Lora. I talked to the Princess, who asked if I would carry her home. Of course, the boy that serves as the player avatar for this game is about eleven years old, and wasn’t able to pick her up. So she just said she’d wait for a stronger man. Oh, come on, lady, Princess Zelda didn’t demand that I CARRY her when I saved her, y’know, she actually walked on her own two feet behind me, but whatever. Just then, the dragon stirred in his slumber and my monsters had to step in and save my little hind end. After beating the dragon to a pulp, when I talked to the Princess again, she said she liked me because I was strong, but that I wasn’t the youth she’s waiting for. I wish I could have told her, “Hey, I killed the Dragon. You don’t have to stay here in this dungeon anymore.” After going back while leveling up, she’s still there, waiting for a particular youth. Yep, same princess. Hell, even the dungeon room was shaped the same as the original’s. It was a great way to have an allusion to the Ur Example of the JRPG.

Which brings me to my next point. Dragon Warrior Monsters would not be without Dragon Warrior. Just for fun, I think I’ll hop a traveler’s gate and see what I can find around the town of Tantagel.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri

Smile Slime - PART 1

2010-10-12T01:17:00.000-07:00

Smile Slime: My Days in the World of Dragon Warrior
By Suzuri Heinze, aka KawaiiRanChan.
Gabys.girl@yahoo.com

PART ONE: Rediscovering a Lost Love
Started September 28, 2010

With my situation in life as it is right now, I've had a bit of trouble getting a hold of money. Not just for buying new games, but for, y'know, living expenses. Thus, my hobby of gaming has made a new home on my personal laptop computer named Chime - with the internet as a partner in crime, I overloaded myself with emulators and countless ROMs. Why? Even as a broke mother of two, denying myself my hobby when my girls are in bed would be rather stupid. After all, what is a gamer without a game, right? With so many "new" games to play, at first, I found myself digging into my GBA stuff and pulling out Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team. I had a fling with that for about three days, until I went online to look up other good monster raising games. I picked up a Digimon World game, and I enjoyed that. When I didn't want to raise my Patamon, I would just turn off my PSXfin and load up my Visualboy Advance to rescue lost Pokemon as Eevee and vice versa. Neither game was bad, but neither held my attention for long periods of time. Neither game made me want to stay up way after my usual bedtime, causing me to lose vast hours of sleep just because I was compelled to play. I thought that maybe I was losing my gamer's touch.

There's a special feeling you get as a gamer when you have that one game you're into at that moment. The one game that almost drives your entire existence while you play it. You can't help but think about it, it drives you insane as you don't have the time to play it. That one game which cements your soul into the gaming world, the bond that makes you a gamer. Until I realized that it wasn't Patamon or Eevee that really needed my love, I kept with them. They get a lot of love from fans of both of those franchises, myself included - but my monster raising heart felt like something was missing here.

Going over to Zophar's Domain's ROMs, I found myself looking at the Gameboy section. I looked at a few of the Dragon Warrior games there. I had the GBC remake of Dragon Warrior 1 and 2 in high school. It was a fun game, so I got it to add to my pile of GBA stuff. Then I was like, ah, what the hell. I like all the Dragon Warrior/Quest stuff that I've ever played thus far, I'll just get the whole damn stack. I went on GameFAQs to look up some information about the games I hadn't played yet. I was really feeling like diving into the World of Dragon Warrior, but Torneko The Last Hope wasn't really calling out to me. I then found the box covers for both versions of Dragon Warrior Monsters 2.

There's Cobi's Journey and Tara's Adventure versions of DWM2, akin to Pokemon's colored sets Gold and Silver which were released around the same time. Ah. I played some Dragon Quest Monsters before on the DS. DQM: Joker was astonishingly beautiful, had great music, and a nice setting - but it suffered in length and variety of monsters you could have. I thought about playing DWM2, but what I remembered of Joker didn't stick with me. I wanted something I could really sink my teeth into. Joker lasted me at maximum 20 hours, and most of the length was in just level grinding. But I had invested so much time in monster games thus far, and I can't turn down that little slime smile once he's got me.

Here I go. I was booting up my Visualboy Advance with Tara's Adventure, getting introduced to the Island of GreatLog, which is just across the ocean from GreatTree, the country where the first Dragon Warrior Monsters is set... and the first thing I thought was "wow, this town sure is small". Then I found the adventure's hook where the Kingdom's Prince and his partner get into mischief and drag me into it with them. The first little quest that I got from my mama was to go to the Vault and get a package from my grandma. Well, Prince Kameha and his little Watabou decided that they wanted to eat it because it smelled good, and stole it out of my hands! I go chasing' them down a well to watch them fight over the package, when Prince Kameha falls over and knocks the seal off of the GreatLog tree! See, GreatLog is a town built into a huge tree in the middle of a vast ocean, and that seal kept in all the life-force. As the seal came off of it, the life force started pouring out and the land begins to sink. The Prince, scared of being punished for his screw up, runs out - but his partner jumps in the whole and clogs it, proving he's not just a little purple bat shaped prick. Then he comes and asks me to find something, anything, out in the world that can act as the GreatLog's seal again. Me? But I'm just a little bitty girl. I can't go out by myself... well, since my parents run a monster farm and I have the ability to talk to them, I guess I should go and take my monster friends out there. Woot. Thus begins a very interesting adventure.

The plot seems a little juvenile, and it is, starring a barely ten year old girl (or eleven year old boy - Cobi does appear to be older than Tara) that gets to go world hopping with a team of monsters she either convinces to join her by bribing them with food or breeding on her family's farm. Typically, unless you're really into monster raising games, the plot probably wouldn't hook you. But you forget, I am a monster raising game fan, and I don't need much more than an excuse plot to find ultra powerful pets. I downloaded and started my Adventure on a Thursday night. I couldn't put it down. The next day, all I wanted to do was keep playing...

I was hooked from the get-go, and the more keys I found to more worlds, the more I was loving it. The random treasure system found in the other worlds was a nice addition. I realize that all of the maps in the first DWM game were random, as well as the treasures, and there are plenty of random maps to work on in the second games. You will receive keys for doing various things like clearing a dungeon or completing a quest and these keys will react with the Great Door in each world's Door Shrine. The ones that are all ready named will take you to worlds where the story will continue. The Desert, the Pirate, the Ice, and the Sky worlds are the first examples. Unnamed magic keys, once taken to an appraiser, will take you to random worlds based on the name that he assigns it. The names will always give you a hint at where the keys will take you, but those worlds are randomly generated. Trust me, after going through about ten different worlds, you'll notice that the NPCs in those worlds start saying the same things like "You're a little kid that trains monsters! Interesting!" The randomly generated towns there always have a normal item shop and a priest to revive, uncurse, or cure your poison as usual...

But you don't go to the randomly generated worlds to converse with the townsfolk. In fact, one doesn't play a monster raising game to converse with the townsfolk. You go for the monsters! Every Dragon Warrior Monster I've ever known is in this title, from the happy Slime to the elusive Metaly to that very dodgy Dracky and even bosses of previous Dragon Warrior games like Estark, Pizzaro, and Dragonlord. Dragonlord? That name used to make us RPG fans piss our pants, and we get to tame one? Where do I sign up?! Oh, yes. You can sign up, but it'll take a bit of tweaking with the breeding system before you'll be able to find Dragonlord. Boss monsters, of course, are very hard to get a hold of, but as you can expect from a monster game, those bosses are very powerful. I'd venture to say that they are akin to the Legendary Pokemon ala Mewtwo. I'm sure that anyone could beat the game easily with an Estark named Bob on their
team. Just as much as I don't like Legendary Pokemon, I don't like to use the Boss Monsters of Dragon Warrior on my team either. People have asked me time and time again, "Why don't you use the powerful guys? I mean, I beat that creepy ass Demon Lord with my Estark, LOL" and my response is simple. It takes
no skill to win with super-special-awesome critters that have more stats than God himself. I mean, yeah, it takes skill to GET one. And I suppose having it around is nice to show everyone what an awesome breeder you are, but I don't like that. I'd rather beat the final boss with a tricked out WalrusMan, HaloSlime, and a SkyDragon because I like them and I spent hours with the breeding tree to get the exact skills and stats I want on them. To me, the ones you work the hardest with and spend the most time with raising are worth more than random boss monsters that can kill anything without any effort. Oh, wait, I forgot to add something. I like playing with monsters that I like - regardless of how useful or powerful they are or aren't. This is something people have forgotten how to do. I'm looking at you, SMOGON. I don't care if
Dragonlord has great stats. I think he's ugly when compared with a SkyDragon, who looks like an Imperial Chinese Dragon with that cool long mustache and the shaggy mane, you know what I'm talking about. Then I spent upwards of thirty hours of real time playing with him in my team and he saves my team's ass
during hard battles of course I get attached to him! That might make me crazy, not wanting to get rid of a monster that I hand raised and had with me so long, but I don't think it does.

With a great set of monsters and a vast set of worlds, Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara's Adventure had me playing so much. The first weekend I had it, I spent 70 hours on it. I didn't even notice when I was hungry or that I needed to sleep at some point. It's longer than Final Fantasy XIII and Kingdom Hearts II
combined. And this comes from an image of a Gameboy Color cart! You want to know the best part of this whole thing? I'm not even finished with the game yet! I haven't done side quests yet! This game has more playtime and flexibility in it than over 75% of games made today for bigger and more powerful console
games.

I finally had a game that was compelling me to play during my free time. But after finishing Sky World, I got kinda curious. The second game in the Dragon Warrior Monsters spin-off set the bar way higher than Joker ever did. My venture into Yuji Horii's wonderful world of Dragon Warrior had not come to a close. I
wanted to see how the series all began! What monsters were there at the start, and what was it like? Where did it all happen, and how did the story unfold?

Well, I’ll get to that next time.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri