No Lives Left

If there is one thing you can count on when you start a jRPG, it's a long adventure. It doesn't matter how the story is structured, as long as there are sidequests and a leveling system, jRPGs can easily span 50 to 60 hours without even trying. At least this gives a good return on investment in term of content. The one big mystery, however, is if it's worth even delving into at all. Final Fantasy XV (FFXV) has enough good things  in it that make it worth the price of admission, if only slightly. SquareEnix did an incredible job on bringing the world of Final Fantasy to the next gen console systems. The graphics are great, there is quite a bit of enemy variety, and the ending is actually pretty epic despite being a bit obtuse. But there are just a few flaws on a fundamental level that make me really hesitant to recommend the game. Instead of doing a full on review, I'd like to discuss some key points of my time with the game  (Ah, heck it's pretty much a review...

Oh, Nintendo. You've done it again! And not the good "You've done it again!" This presentation was of typical Nintendo fashion: Confused the audience, show some really awesome games, then show the audience you don't understand the audience, and then end. Nintendo, you spent quite a bit of time telling me and millions of others about the Joy-Con controllers but you failed to sell me on  why  I need them. I mean understand that those little itsy, bitsy dongles that have all sorts of bells and whistles are important, but I'm still more confused than ever as to what it means to games.  I mean, what is "HD Rumble" and what does it have to do with ice cubes? Why did you show the Joy-Cons detecting different amounts of ice cubes? On another note  they look too tiny to hold in my hands. Plus they are freaking expensive . I know they have a lot of technology in them, I just didn't see much application during the presentation. Nothing about these con...

Since I am not a professional reviewer, I always have to wait until I finish a game to review it which can take anywhere from a week to months after the game has been released. But thankfully, due to being a games backer on Kickstarter, I was able to receive and beat a game early so that I can review it when it's still relevant! So while I'm still waiting for my amazingly shabby blog to take off, I'm going to be reviewing Shantae: The 1/2 Genie Hero! I haven't been a fan of Shantae for a long time. I originally found Shantae: Risky's Revenge and Shantae: The Pirate's Curse on the 3DS eShop a few years ago. The games were on sale and described as Metroidvanias which I thought would scratch my Metroid itch. Though both games were relatively easy, I enjoyed the gameplay immensely. Once I found out about Half Genie Hero on Kickstarter, I immediately backed it. Then waited...and waited...until finally this past week when I got the steam code for early access....

It's no surprise that video games have been a major influence in my life. They may be my single greatest passion. And to me, very few things come close to popping in a new game into any system and beginning a new adventure. One of my fondest memories was playing Final Fantasy VII back in 1999. My best friend had a Playstation at the time and brought it over to my house so that we could play his games. After beating a couple of games that summer, my older brother was generous enough to buy us a new game back when EB Games was still around (Gamestops have taken them over now). Being huge Megaman fans, we saw Megaman Legends and immediately purchased it. But after a few hours of playing we decided that the game wasn't our cup of tea and different controls made it hard to enjoy. Being young, all we really wanted was another game that played like Megaman X and Legends was drastically different than its cousins. So we returned it and after some deliberation returned home to st...

So it's been a while and it's mainly because of work but I also am trying to make videos of the games I'm currently playing. I have all the software for capturing and editing, but finding the time and motivation is really  hard. I could talk about the election but I only want to allude to these things with comic/pop-culture/video game parallels and metaphors, so I won't. All I can say is that it was close and it was interesting. Anyways, the video I have here today comes from Telltale's Batman series. I decided to go silent Bruce and Batman at all times and instead of mysterious, it just borders on awkward turtle. I'll try to make more cuts, but I wanted to just test the waters. The editing is still really shaky but I'll try to get better, I promise. The jump cuts were meant to be, I promise! Here's the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-iDnGIS9Sw In other news, I did watch Marvel's Dr. Strange this past weekend. It was a good, solid mo...

Hopefully you all have not been living under a rock and saw the announcement for Nintendo's new console. But if you've just now come out of your bomb shelter ( The 2016 election is near GO BACK IN!), then watch the video  here  and come back to this post. Let me tell you a short story. In 2006, Nintendo launched a system that changed the gaming industry as we know it. Selling out in all stores, the Wii was able to capture the casual gaming market. It had a cheap price point compared to the other consoles and had fun party and multiplayer games. I remember standing in line for a whole day at my local Wal-Mart to get one and feeling relieved that I did since the system was sold out for months . Nintendo tried to double down on the casual market in 2012 with the Wii U, but the company fell flat on their faces. Due to terrible third party support, not having the same cheap price point, and terrible marketing strategy (honestly, there were no commercials  for this thing!)...

Sometimes you find that even when you're a part of a community, you can still feel alone or part of a smaller group of people. The video gaming community is probably larger than it has ever been. I mean the accessibility of gaming now encompasses not only PC and gaming consoles, but also mobile devices as well. But even with the ever expanding community, there are still small groups of gamers that are isolated because of what types of games they like. Even though gaming is my passion, I still have my likes and dislikes. Those likes and dislike don't really jive with the majority of gaming community. Somehow, unless it's a Nintendo title, I don't really like the most popular games out there. I don't play Candy Crush Saga, I stopped playing Pokemon Go, I never got into Call of Duty or Battlefield. Growing up, I loved Japanese RPGs and to this day, I still do. Remember the technicolor frog? Pepperidge Farm remembers... While JRPGs were supreme during the SNES a...