Playstation 2 #1- Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

Well, here's another game from this century and from a system that is still being produced albeit in much smaller numbers than it was a few years ago. Jak and Daxter sure doesn't feel that new anymore though. It seems like since then the characters have been in dozens of games and have moved on to the venerable mascot phase. How old am I that Jak and Daxter doesn't even feel new anymore? They were the hot new game characters back about ten years ago. They even replaced Crash Bandicoot as Naughty Dog's main property. It's similar to what happened in 1991 when Sonic replace Alex Kidd as Sega's mascot. That's a real thing. You can look it up if you don't believe me.

I noticed a couple of interesting things about this game. The first one is that nobody that I talked to liked it. What's the problem with it anyway? I mean, it's not Banjo-Kazooie or anything, but it's a pretty good 3D platform game. Is it because Daxter is annoying? If this is a problem you can turn off the hints and shut him up for the most part. Besides, isn't it nice that Max Casella, aka Vinnie from Doogie Hower, is getting paid? I always liked that guy. Maybe in the super violent world of Playstation 2 this game just isn't adult enough. Of course I spend most of my time playing old kid friendly games, so it's not much of a problem for me. I'd sure like to know why everybody hates this game so much when every publication I read loves it.

The next thing I noticed is also my biggest complaint with the game. This game is too easy, and it goes by way too quick. I don't mind an economical story line. This one's pretty simple, although it doesn't always make sense. The main villain is voiced by Dee Snider, but he's only got about 10 lines in it. You'd never even notice him if you didn't read it in that awful fold-out map style manual. I don't know why they didn't just get some generic Naughty Dog employee to do it if the character was going to be in it so sparingly and with so little promotion. Did everybody know this 10 years ago? I sure can't remember

The real problem, however, is that the game is just too easy. The only real danger in it is tripping over all those power cells you're going to find. This is the main goal in the game, and they are simply everywhere. There are different tasks for finding them, but they mostly boil down to walking along a path until the power cell shows up. There are some that are more difficult to get, but they are easily skipped if you want to beat the basic game. You only need 72 out of 100 to make it to the final level. Also, when you die you start back at the nearest entryway with all the things you collected still intact. This is likely to be the favorite part of many people out there, but it just seems a little too easy for me. If you're going to do this why have a life bar at all? It seems like there should be consequences for death. At least there are a few difficult boss fights in it.

I would say that I beat this game in about 10 hours, which was a shame because I was really starting to get into it. I like how it plays like one big world instead of a bunch of individual levels connected to a central location. On a whole the voice acting is good, and I like the Mark Mothersbaugh music even if it's not quite up to the caliber of the old Crash Bandicoot games. The good certainly outweighs the bad in this one. I just wish that it was more of a challenge. There's a roll jump in this game that helps you get to far off ledges. I had no idea this existed until after I beat the game. I had to skip an entire level because of this, but I still beat the game easily. That's gotta tell you something.

Now if I know game series than the sequels are probably harder. They should also be easy to track down since everybody buys these games, but nobody seems to like them much. Also this is 2011, and just about any Playstation 2 game can be found for 5 bucks or less. They're cheaper than most Atari games. I guess now would be the time for me to start building up my PS2 collection. Let's see, I've got 13 of them. I guess that only leaves me about 2000 more to get. Looks like I'm well on my way.

Sega Genesis #4: Shining in the Darkness

I remember last time I was on here I said I was going to go easy on myself with my next game. Well as it turns out I completely lied. Instead of playing through another old Disney game or some archaic sports game that only requires you to beat the computer once I decided to play through Shining in the Darkness. This game is a largely unheard of game today, but is it a very interesting Genesis game. It's also quite long. It's not much shorter than Dragon Warrior 3, and it has much less variety.

So if you were a big fan of RPGs back in the early 90s than you probably remember the Shining Force games. This was a series of strategy games that got released on a few different Sega systems up through the Saturn. The first two were on the Genesis, and they are two of the greatest games ever produced for it. In fact, Shining Force 2 is my personal favorite Genesis game. Well Shining in the Darkness is the little known predecessor to these games. However, the gameplay is completely different. Where the Shining Force games were turn-based strategy games, Darkness is an old fashioned dungeon crawler. In case you're too young to know what that means, it's sort of like that old 3D maze screensaver. Or are you too young to remember that one as well?

Here's that screen saver that always distracted you during math class.


And here's Shining in the Darkness poorly cropped to hide the fact that I just found this picture on someone's site.

So it has that impressive for 1991 3D scrolling effect, and that's really about it. There is one town, one castle, and one big ol' dungeon that will keep you busy for weeks. It doesn't sound much like that other games in the series, but there are some hints of Shining Force games to come. The similarities mostly come in the form of graphics and sprites. The menu screens are very similar, and I'm fairly sure the priest is that same one that's in later games. It also starts out the same with a person telling you a story that leads to the game select screen. Other than that there's not much resemblance, but the roots certainly are there.

I already mentioned that this game is mostly your characters moving around in a big dungeon with brick walls and floors. The whole game takes place in a small box in the middle of the screen, and if you look closely you'll notice that only the walls move while the floor stays the same. It sound boring, but I actually had a very good time playing this one. As you know, I love a game where you start out weak and slowly get stronger. Darkness did this at a very good pace. Levels never took too long to gain, and you could always tell a difference when you gained one. It also had three very useful party members. Often these games will have one guy who is completely useless. Also, unlike most of these old 3D games where I instantly get lost, I was able to make it through this one without cheating and looking up a map. In fact, the only time I got lost in the maze was when I thought I had missed my save point and checked it on a map loaded up on my computer.

Alright well let's tally this one up. On the downside it's a very drab looking game with little to do besides look around the dark dungeon. There's only one town that you move through too slowly, and one castle that you will probably forget about by the time it's actually useful. On the plus side I found it surprisingly engaging. Every time I went back in the dungeon I was able to make it a little bit farther. I usually couldn't wait to get back in there. The fighting system is very user friendly and fast-paced, so the game never seems to drag. Somehow they managed to make tedium seem fun, which is that main goal in this type of game.

This game only gets so-so reviews online, but I would say that this one is worth checking out, especially if you're into those old Shining Force games. It's interesting to see where the series got its start. I think I will close this one out before it starts to sound too much like a review. I promise next time will be something a little less involved. Spring break's coming up, so that would be the perfect time to play through some old platform games. Or maybe I'll start a game on Dragon Warrior 4. Either way I will try to update more than twice a month.

NES #34 - Dragon Warrior 3

Oh Dragon Warrior 3, where do I even begin? This is one of the biggest and most amazing games that I’ve ever put inside my NES. I can’t believe that they were able to make a game so massive and detailed on such and old system. This is back in the days when RPGs usually lasted around 10 hours and only had one or two characters. I would estimate that this game took me at least 30 hours to complete, but it was probably even longer. This game also drove me absolutely crazy more times than I can count. There were times when I wanted to retire from gaming altogether and start writing a novel. The only problem was that I could only think about dragons and medieval knights. No, I had to get through it if I was ever going to regain my dignity.

First of all, I love these old RPGs where your characters start out so weak that you can hardly take two steps out of town. I love to play a game for at least an hour before I stop walking in a circle around the first village. Dragon Warrior 3 not only does that, but allows a person to do that as many times as they want to. Other than the main character all the party members are created by the player. That means endless possibilites as long as you don’t mind only having a few character classes to choose from. I of course love this because it allows me to bypass the prototypical wizard. I really hate black wizards in these old games. They are always so stingy with the MP that wizards are only useful when fighting bosses. I hate to waste MP on any of the regular monsters because I’ll need enough for the boss. Why can’t they have MP restoring items anyway? Instead I went with a soldier, pilgrim, and merchant until I’m able to turn the merchant into a sage.

So that’s what you can think about before you even start playing. The gameplay is that familiar old Dragon Quest style. If you’ve played any of the newer games in the series than this one wont’ be too surprising. Actually it almost feels like the first game in a whole new series because most of the innovations in it later became series standards. Basically you go from town to town slowly getting stronger and slowly going through elaborate dungeons with plenty of tricks and secrets. Did you notice that I said slowly twice in there? There is a reason for that.

This game is slow! It’s one of the slowest paced games that I’ve ever played. You walk slow. That boat is damn slow. The phoenix is even slower. It takes a ridiculously long time to save up enough money to buy equipment for everybody. Not to mention the high level you have to obtain to fight that final boss. If this was any other game than I would call this a deal breaker, but for a Dragon Warrior game it’s all part of the experience. In fact, I would go so far as to say it was better because it moved so slow. This allows you to be fully immersed in the world. Because it goes by so slow you are able to appreciate everything the developers spent so much time putting in there. This might be why I’ve played through this game but never made it through Phantasy Star 4. That game just flies by to where I hardly even feel like I’m playing it. Of course my girlfriend will probably chuckle at this paragraph a little bit because she had to spend two months listening to me complaining about the game’s slow pace from the other room. I guess you appreciate things more when they’re over.

This game did take me about two months to complete. I would play it for an hour or two after work almost every day. I can’t imagine how long it would take without the internet to help me. Although the game came with detailed guides in the box so I guess they knew this one was gonna be trouble. This game is also one of the earliest I can think of that had a genuine fake ending. I seriously thought that I was fighting the final boss only to find out that I had another dozen hours or so of gameplay left. If you like random encounters than you’ll love the underworld. You’ll get into a fight almost every third step. Also, it looks a little familiar down there. Where have I seen that overworld layout before?

So I better stop this one before it runs on too long. Dragon Warrior 3 truly is a remarkable game. I got it at a time when I thought I had played through all the great NES games. It completely took over my life for a couple of months there, and I wasn’t really sure that video games could do that to me anymore. It was truly a worthwhile experience, and I’ll never forget how I felt when I finally beat it. I guess now I need to play through Dragon Warrior 2, but I might put that one on hold for a while. I just can’t take those trees that have that instant death magic. I guess that’s another story for another entry. Maybe I’ll go easy on myself and my next game will be a simple action side scroller. (Don’t worry, it’s not.)