You ready for one more lap?

An important side note, I read a handful of reviews from other sites, specifically Destructoid, so when Jim Sterling gave his impressions of Mario Kart 7, effectively waggling a disapproving finger and deciding it was underwhelming, my first and only reaction was overreaction, claiming, “Well he just doesn’t like the series! There’s no way he’d give it a 5 out of 10 if he were being fair and actually knew what he was talking about! Hurdy gurdy bur!” This was all internal of course, but now I can say, very politely to Jim, “I disagree…to a point.”

Mario Kart 7 is a fine game. It’s a fine Mario Kart game. It’s a fantastic game for the 3DS and demonstrates its capabilities wonderfully. And it is indeed a franchise that’s showing its age in places, which I’ll get in to momentarily. But before I nit-pick and complain, I’d like to cover what the game did right.

Graphically, Mario Kart 7 again proves that the 3DS looks great and plays smoothly. Everything looks technically sound as you peel around corners and select through menus. The controls are tight and driving feels good. However, as a protip, make sure you’re aware that you can use both the L button and the X button for items. It took me a while to realize that X works just as good, so I’ve had quite a cramp in my hand from holding the system awkwardly.

I keep hearing over and over again that the real stars of the series are the tracks, and once more they don’t disappoint when it comes to new environments, for the most part. The coolest new addition is the use of sectional tracks rather than just circuits, meaning instead of just going around three times, you move through three checkpoints until you cross the finish line, allowing for a much greater sense of variety within the same race. I love that, but it sadly only happens three times. I would have gladly taken more.

This would work in real life...right? Please say yes!

Also new is the ability to hang glide at certain points, a welcome gameplay change that just feels right, plus a propeller that kicks in once you’re submerged that controls slightly differently than the other two kart forms. I found myself enjoying the underwater portions just as much as the rest, though they won’t be for everyone.

Finally, the new items are worthy of the game and mix things up appropriately. There is a fire flower powerup that allows you to hurl a bunch of fireballs at opponents, similar to Mario and Luigi’s signature weapons from Double Dash!!, as well as the tanooki tail, a powerup that takes some getting used to but that fits right in and works great in the harder races where everyone’s neck-and-neck.

But things aren’t all perfect. Despite the fluid controls, fun tracks, pretty graphics, and outstanding online modes (all there is to say about them is that they work just as well as the Mario Kart DS’s online modes worked), there’s a lot to be desired. Mario Kart 7 feels rather short, even though it’s the same length as the other Mario Kart games. It has eight cups with four tracks each, totaling 32 tracks, 17 characters, dozens of kart pieces to customize your play style, six battle maps, and four gameplay modes, but something still feels extremely lacking, and it may be because the title touts the fact that it’s the 7th game in the series.

See, when playing the new tracks, I thought, “These are great, but sadly there aren’t enough to really sink in.” While there are some standouts, such as the aforementioned sectional courses, we still waste time with the usual simple circuits early on or the uninteresting throwaway levels. But then you play the cups that revolve around tracks from past games and scratch your head, asking “Why this one?”

And why can't this tail make me fly?

I’m greedy, but I don’t think it’s unfair to want everything and more. I want a Mario Kart game with every previous track on it, every playable character, every item, every possible bit from the past. Why no more two-player kart action? Why no more bikes? Why only three new battle tracks and three fairly dull returns? Why not more, more, more?

But the biggest, most broken aspect of the games is the Blue Shell. I debated with myself on this one since it’s such a staple of the series, but now it’s just become a problem. Leading a race way out in front is not enjoyable because you become such a target for cheap shots from the computer. You’ll be absolutely killing in a race, zooming past the competition and just playing great, when all of a sudden you’ll hear the painful sound of the Blue Shell flying to get you and you’ll just get annoyed because there’s nothing you can do to avoid it short of stockpiling a Starman powerup, which you’ll never get if you’re in 1st place.

I get that the purpose of these super items is to allow other players a chance to catch up, or give you the ability to really stick it to the computer in the event that you’re losing, but the Blue Shell, the lightning, the Bullet Bill, all happen far too frequently to really feel like a hail Mary. Instead, they just come off as the computer punishing you for playing well. Nothing is worse than closing in on the home stretch, only to be blasted by a Blue Shell, then hit by lightning, then bumped off the track by other racers, and ending up going past the finish line in last place when you’ve been solid in 1st the entirety of the race. That’s broken and it should have been fixed by now, or at least given the option to turn it off.

That may be the heart of what I want here: I want a Super Smash Bros of Mario Kart. I want the ultimate compendium with races, battles, challenges, and full player control. I want options to nix certain items, or even build custom courses. When will we get that game? Perhaps not for a while, and that’s a shame.

At least there's more motion controls, which is what we were hoping for...

To cap this off, I’ll give you a rundown of the order I place the Mario Kart games. Way out in first is Mario Kart DS, followed closely by Double Dash!!, then Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart 7, Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Kart, and finally Super Circuit. I suppose that means I’d place it right smack-dab in the middle of things then, huh? It’s not the best, it’s not the worst, it’s just there. Mario Kart 7 is a placeholder until something better comes along. Here’s hoping we won’t have to wait forever.

Don't let that nose fool you; Link is a stone-cold badass here.

I got Skyward Sword at the end of November as a birthday present and since then I’d expect to be utterly finished with it, what with it being a month removed from my first getting it and it being a highly-anticipated Zelda game. And yet, for some reason I’m not playing it tonight. To be frank, I haven’t played it for over a week, and I’m not even half way through it yet. Instead, I took a two-week diversion to replay Zelda II on my 3DS thanks to the Ambassador Program.

For a Zelda game, the plot is actually somewhat original compared to other entries. Not only that, but no Zelda game since has replicated the gameplay style. Instead of the top-down perspective seen in the original Legend of Zelda or A Link to the Past, Zelda II is an action sidescroller. Link gets an item in each temple, but it can’t be used other than on the overworld map to break boulders or see in caves. The items are actually just pretty unimportant other than a means to access the next temple.

The whole game here revolves around a very simple combat mechanic. Link can stab with his sword while standing or crouched, plus can learn an upward and downward thrust attack. Beyond a few basic magic spells (you’ll get really friendly with Heal pretty quick), that’s about all you’ll need to know, but mastering the combat is a trip that’s vastly rewarding.

And you'd better master it quick or you're going to get rawked.

It’s all based on the risk/reward system, perpetuated even more by experience points. For the first and only time ever, Link can level up, thus getting more health, magic, or sword strength, but in order to level up you have to earn enough points before running out of lives. Lose all your lives and it’s game over, meaning you lose all the experience points you haven’t banked. So then, should you press your luck and fight through some Darknuts in the next temple, or play it safe and level grind in the woods on weaker enemies?

Going back to that plot, things are kind of strange here. Ganon is dead and only makes an appearance if Link gets a game over as Ganon’s followers are trying to resurrect him using Link’s blood. I mentioned how dark that was a while ago, yes? Okay. The point is, there isn’t even an ultimate villain that’s trying to kill Link or threatening the land. Princess Zelda, the original that the legend is based on, is asleep and needs to be awoken via the Trifoce. Link has the Triforces of Power and Wisdom as collected in the previous game, but the Triforce of Courage awaits him at the end of this one. Stranger still, Link doesn’t pick up a new piece or gem or medallion or anything when he beats a temple. Rather, he places a stone into a statue, effectively making this the only Zelda game of knowledge where the point is to leave the temple with less than you took in.

I really like the idea of the whole game not being a quest to defeat a boss character, but an extended metaphor for showing courage and conquering one’s own dark side. The clencher is the final temple known as the Great Palace, probably the single hardest Zelda dungeon ever designed due to the sheer brutality of it all. After slogging through the toughest enemies of the game, you finally reach the bottom and fight the terrifying Thunderbird, the guardian of the Triforce of Courage. Upon destroying it, you move into a room where a little man, possibly the Old Man from the first game, separates you from your shadow. And Dark Link is born! The fight is unbelievably difficult, especially after just coming from a boss fight and the death march through the Great Palace (unless you know the trick of crouching in the corner and stabbing at his knees).

Trust me on this one: The combat is solid and if you're dying too much, it's your own fault. And because Zelda II is stupid-hard.

Only after defeating his literal dark side can Link possess the entirety of the Triforce and awaken Princess Zelda. Think of the annoying fetch quest for the Triforce shards in The Wind Waker but elongate it into the entire story and remove the annoying fetch quest part. Making the plot essentially feel like a side quest from another Zelda game actually makes this more enjoyable for me since it’s so far outside the norm. Hey, variety is good sometimes.

Seeing as how this is an NES game made by Nintendo, you have more than enough methods to currently play it. If you don’t have access to the original cartridge, which itself is easily found for under $10, you can download it from the Wii’s Virtual Console, try and find it on the GameCube’s special Legend of Zelda Collector’s Edition disc, snag it on the Game Boy Advance, or most recently unwrap it via the 3DS’ Ambassador Program (perhaps you’re a member and just haven’t downloaded Zelda II or played it yet). So many ways to play it, no excuse not to.

And that’s really all there is to say. It’s a challenging title since it was built back in the days of Nintendo Hard, so don’t expect to get very far without some basic skills and a walkthrough. Beyond that though, don’t miss out on this gem just because you keep hearing it’s the “bad” Zelda game. It’s not. It’s one of the better Zelda games. Now Phantom Hourglass, boy, there was a bad Zelda game. Discuss.

Now to start this, we need a big fish to put on the hot seat, and I know just the one.

Disney: Bring Back Animation

Disney, I’m sure you’re having fun with all your Live Action Fairy Tale Remakes, Tron reboots, Pirates sequels, CGI Chihuahuas, and the fact that you get to call the biggest superhero film of the year one of your movies because you now own Marvel, apparently, but for the love of Fantasia stop killing the hearts of all the [now grown up] children that willingly gave you their hearts in the first place so that you could build your empire to what it is now! What hurt the most was how you tricked me into wholeheartedly believing you were finally back on track two years ago with The Princess and the Frog. I loved that film. And then you showed me a teaser for your next project, Repunzel, and it looked awesome. Then out of the blue, it turned into Tangled, a derivative wannabe-Dreamworks-film that wasn’t nearly as good as Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon, releasing earlier that same year. Then you sort of did try to make a comeback last summer, but it was in the form of a Winnie the Pooh revival, which you obviously didn’t intend anyone to see in the first place, seeing as you released it the same freakin’ weekend as the last freakin’ Harry Potter movie, as if you were too freakin’ embarrassed you made it in the first place so you didn’t bother giving it a release date where it could make so much as a splash of publicity.

To get to the point, Disney, return to form, and make us another hand-drawn animated hit already! I don’t care if The Princess and the Frog didn’t make as much money as you wanted it too. The people who saw it and liked it really really liked it, and if you kept up that throwback style in your recent films (i.e. kept Tangled’s original art concept, followed by another animated movie last year that WASN’T an old school revival and DEFINITELY NOT releasing side by side Harry Potter 8) more people would eventually have caught wind of the trend and these movies would be making so much more in the long run. Am I making any sense at all?

Oh, and while you’re at it, don’t force the only Computer Animation studio under your belt who knows what the Hades they’re doing to make sequels of their weakest movies just because they happen to be the most marketable.

Funimation: Bring One Piece Unto the People

You know what I’m sick of? That One Piece, the worldwide greatest and bestselling Anime of the current generation, isn’t even playing on any network, standard or cable, in American Television. Meanwhile you have shows like Naruto and Bleach, which do the exact same thing this show does but not as well (while replacing Pirates with Ninjas or Samurai Grim Reapers respectively), and they have 200+ episodes each fully available for instant stream on Netflix. WTF Funimation? You even have an entire cable network where all you show is Anime you licensed, yet you can’t find anywhere in your busy schedule of rerunning Samurai 7, Claymore, and Shikabane Hime over and over again to give One Piece one decent slot of the week? The only way Americans can watch One Piece legally now is by either scavenging for the very rare very expensive DVD collections, or through your website, which would be fine if you had every single current episode available, but you don’t because you only have a chunk of the beginning of the series, a chunk of the end of the series, with a ton of mid way sections simply not available, not to mention your online video player is of the lowest quality. I want to support this series properly, but I’m stuck having to pirate my anime about pirates from pirate torrents, whom, by the way, also happen to be infinitely better translators than you. [Pranger's Note: Oh snaps! You just been told Funimation!]

Oh, what’s that? You guys finally got the license to dub Season 4? Awesome, now you’ll only be five seasons and 300 episodes behind the Japanese run of the show, congratulations. Of course, none of it will matter unless you make One Piece available stateside to begin with. Here are two simple things you can do: First, spare a single half-hour slot of the week on your TV network for the show, and not some throwaway one either but a good one, like Friday evenings. Second, put at least the first two seasons on Netflix for instant streaming. I want to recommend this show to people and give it more viewers, but I can’t because there is no accessible way to watch this show. Change that Funimation. I’m counting on you.

One more thing. While you guys are busy dubbing Season 4 as we speak (ideally), please please get new refreshing voice talent to play each of the CP9 agents. Seriously, these are some of the strongest and most iconic villains the Strawhat Pirates will ever face, and they deserve justice. I’m sick of hearing the same 20 voice actors you use for side characters being recycled over and over and over again.

Parker and Stone: More Musicals Please

Any of you seen The Book of Mormon yet? Of course you haven’t. It’s been sold out on Broadway every showing since its incarnation, though you may have heard the music and Holy Crap it may very well be the greatest thing I’ve ever heard. I already have a handful of Theatre friends agreeing to all go see the show together when it goes on tour.

The two people responsible for this divine piece of theatrical genius are none other than South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. How’s that for a twist? My hope is that with the success of The Book of Mormon, that they continue in this business a bit longer and make more awesome musicals.

A friend of mine recommended The Book of Scientology as a sequel, and if I wasn’t so fearful of their lives by doing so, I’d second that in a heartbeat. In reality, these guys have probably the biggest imaginations in the world, and if they can come up with another clever idea that wont earn them another hundred thousand death threats, I say go for it.

Sony Pictures: Show Me The Lizard

So far, all the buzz on this summer’s upcoming Spider-Man reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man, has me, more or less, underwhelmed. I know Andrew Garfield is a good actor and was awesome in The Social Network, but I just can’t stand seeing Peter Parker with Edward Cullen’s hair style. It also doesn’t help that every shot we’ve seen him in so far he has the same dark emo look on his face like he constantly has a picture of dead puppies ingrained in his head. It’s not the silly campy kind of angst that we got from Toby Maguire’s performance either; it’s just dull and depressing.

Though after nitpicking it for several months now, I’m willing to withhold any more judgment until I see the final product. After all, this film will finally give us the movie debut of The Lizard, one of Spider-Man’s oldest and most iconic antagonists. I am very curious to see how they pull him off. My hope is that he looks like the lizard from the classic 90’s cartoon that wore the torn up white lab coat, had a seven foot long tail that that could smash stone walls, and where he could speak, but very little, and only to people close enough to him where his humanity is able to temporarily take control.

And unlike the photo above, I want to see a full-blown reptilian head. It’s not suppose to look remotely human.

Beenox: Make The Amazing Spider-Man game Amazing

Spider-Man movies are just about the only instance when I will get excited about movie-tie-in games these days. This is thanks mostly in part to Spider-Man 2 The Movie The Game becoming just about the best Comic Book Superhero Sandbox Game to date. (Before any of you start screaming how much better Batman Arkham City is, yes, I’ll admit it has better combat, story, voice acting, visuals, mission variety, combat again, and just about every other element, but when it comes to free roaming, Spidey’s web swinging still takes the cake.)

Spider-Man games these days are under the supervision of a somewhat newer development team called Beenox, and I just so happen to have played both their two latest Spider-Man games. While I did miss the open world aspect of the previous games, 2010’s Shattered Dimension was a ton of fun. Great level design, simple but intriguing story, awesome voice work, and I was into the combat. 2011’s Edge of Time however, not so much. Rule Number #1 of making Spider-Man games: DO NOT set an entire Spider-Man game in a single building where every room looks exactly the same and is connected with narrow hallways. That was a horrible idea.

The Amazing Spider-Man game, however, looks like a different story. Given the teaser trailer we received during the Award show a few weeks ago, it looks like a return to form, by which I mean open world Manhattan. Beenox already has a pretty decent combat system. All they really need to focus on is creating enough to do in the sandbox and giving us a good variety of villain characters we may not have seen yet. While not a ton of detail about the game has been released, one enemy they have shown are these massive mechanical spider bots, which immediately make me think of the Spider Slayers from the 90’s cartoon, so you’ve got my interest there. Make this one a winner Beenox. Please.

Microsoft/Rare: Make Banjo-Kazooie 3

Okay, by now you all know me. I’m the Sony guy, not a Microsoft guy. I do not own a 360. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want the company to do well. I wish I could say that there are things on the 360 I desperately wish I could play, but honestly, I can’t. I have no desire to try the Kinect, and I am more than content not playing the most recent Halo and Gears of War titles. Besides that, everything else the 360 has of value can also be found on the PS3.

And yet, Microsoft has probably my second favorite game developer under their belt, Rare Software. When they announced a brand new Banjo-Kazooie game back in 2008, that was probably as envious as I have ever gotten of people who own the console. Of course, said game turned out to be Nuts&Bolts, and that envy quickly faded away as I started playing through Little Big Planet. As of now, Microsoft has Rare working on Kinect Sports titles, which honestly I think is a waste of their talent. This is the company that almost single-handedly created the golden age of 3D Platforming two generations ago. Compare that to what they’re doing now and it’s embarrassing.

Yeah, that’s right, I WANT to be jealous of my friends who own 360’s. Rare, you have the power to do that. Go back to the drawing board, write off Nuts&Bolts as a non-cannon spinoff, and make Banjo-Kazooie 3 properly. If not that, than how about a sequel to Conker’s Bad Fur Day? Or even Kameo Elements of Power, you know that 360 launch game that no one remembers except me? I bet if you made a sequel and advertised it well enough, that would help the original sell better.

Nintendo/Retro: Make a Sequel to DK Country Returns

Speaking of Rare, the franchise that introduced me to the company was Donkey Kong Country, a trilogy of some of the best looking 2D platformers on the Super Nintendo. Unfortunately when Rare got bought by Microsoft ten years ago, the Nintendo owned franchise had been long abandoned. Then in 2010, it was picked up by Nintendo’s American company, Retro Studios, who gave us Donkey Kong Country Returns.

While I have my gripes about the plot (namely how the series’ central antagonists, the Kremlings, were completely absent), the game itself was a much welcomed treat. While it was an overall critical success, it wasn’t exactly the big holiday seller Nintendo was hoping for (debuting in 3rd place in Japan and 6th place in America). Despite that, I do hope Retro decides to stay with the franchise a bit longer. If they made a sequel with a much more in-depth plot that brought back the Kremlings and other side characters like Funky Kong, Candy Kong, and other classic animal characters besides just Rambi the Rhino, I’m sure it would do a ton better.

Currently, Retro Studios is working on a secret title for the Wii U that is, quote, “A project everyone wants us to do.” My best guess would be a statement like that most likely means it’s an HD Metroid Game, as it was the Prime Trilogy that made the company famous in the first place, and fans seem to generally like their work on the franchise. My hope, however, is that they really are sticking with DK for a while. Though I could be wrong on both counts.

Nickelodeon: Give Legend of Korra a freaking Release Date

We’re coming up to two years since the first announcement of The Last Airbender: The Legend of Korra. The more I think about it, perhaps Mike and Bryan may have shown this ahead of schedule simply to wipe the bad taste the movie left in our mouths. (Yes, I am done trying to massage the idea that the movie wasn’t as bad as it really turned out to be, okay? Okay. Moving on.) While I definitely appreciate Nick releasing post finale comics while we wait (The Promise Part 1 comes out in February and Part 2 in June), and there was certainly a ton of information given on the series’ characters and plot threads in the last Comic Con, but they failed to give us that one thing we want more than any of that, which is a confirmation date.

Not long ago, there were some troubles with the opening segment of the show being leaked online, which the creators humbly requested to have taken off the fan sites. Normally I’d be on any leaked footage like a pack of rabid rabbitwolves (God knows I was during Book 3), but these days, I have learned to conserve my anticipation and wait for a proper reveal.

More than anything, I would choose being given a solid release date over any new footage during this years Comic Con. You know, because I got premiere parties to plan.

World: Don’t Die

Okay, so this technically doesn’t have anything to do with the entertainment industry, except for the fact that the media has had more than its fair share of fun poking at the 2012-Doomsday-Apocalypse-as-Predicted-by-the-Mayan-Prophecy marketing campaign. For those of you still thick enough to buy into this propaganda, please permit me to quote the following:

“The world is not coming to an end in 2012. The Mayan calendar does not have **** to say about 2012. It does not say the world is going to end. The Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar just sort of stops there. Other calendars from the same period and the same people have nothing of **** to say on the matter. It’s just bad new age numerology combined with a misreading of an old stone tablet.”

Dr. Punchy Wright____Idiotologist

And with that, I give the easiest resolution in my entire list: Planet Earth, do not die. When December 21st comes along this year, under no circumstances are you allowed to just start spontaneously combusting. In addition, for that one day, you are  not allowed to have any encounters with asteroids, alien invasions, or nuclear wars. Don’t act like you have no effect on human behavior. You shape us more than you know.

But you know what, as important as it is for the planet to survive, it will mean absolutely nothing if a certain someone does not. And so for that, I have something even more important, and even easier, than the earth not dying, and that is…

Eiichiro Oda: Same thing

One Piece, the most popular manga in the world, has officially entered its 15th year of serialization, with a current count of 651 chapters. Oda sensei was a year younger than I am right now when he published Chapter one in 1997. That puts him roughly in his late 30’s now, which honestly isn’t that old at all. He could probably keep this up for another 15 years if he wants to, and whatever his further plans are, I wouldn’t stop him and make him go a quicker route even if I could.

The point is we are in an age where there are people passing away in Japan, and their tomb stones have written on them, “I wish I could have seen the ending of One Piece.” That alone is sad in more reasons than I care to count, but if Oda were the one to pass away, before any of us get to see Zoro surpass his rival and master Hawkeye, before Nami completes her map of the world, before Robin discovers the mystery behind the 100 year void in history, before Brook is reunited with Laboon, before Monkey D. Luffy defeats Blackbeard, finds One Piece, returns the straw hat back to Shanks, and finally becomes the King of the Pirates, THAT would indeed be the biggest tragedy to ever befall modern mythology.

I could continue to go on about the plot threads and loose ends I wish for Oda to cover over the next year, but at this point, I trust his judgment 100%. As long as he’s alive, both physically and motivationally, and keeps doing his job, (i.e. continues making One Piece, thus making me and millions of other fans across the globe happy in the process), then I’m happy. By the end of 2011, Oda managed to all but close up the Fishman Island Arc. With Luffy challenging Big Mam, one of the four Pirate Emperors, for the control of the undersea kingdom, it appears the journey across the New World has barely begun. The tide’s only gonna get rougher from here, so stay tuned.

And with that, I give you the 2012 New Years Resolutions that are too much awesome for their own good. Some may be a tall order, while others are practically no brainers, but I have high expectations for all of them, so off you all go. Your clock to reach these goals started… yesterday. Good luck.

Nintendo’s Heavy Hitters

It was pretty clear which titles Nintendo was leaning so heavily on this year.

The hardest part about rounding up everything for the Wii, 3DS, and DS systems this year is that Nintendo really didn’t try to outdo themselves whatsoever. Yes, there are some big exclusives, but overall things felt a little…barren. The year has now finished with Skyward Sword, Super Mario 3D Land, and Mario Kart 7, but other than Pokemon Black and White Versions on the DS in March and perhaps Ocarina of Time’s remake during the 3DS launch, there hasn’t been anything to really go on about.

Still, I should give the briefest summaries of the largest titles, starting with Skyward Sword. I’m up to the third dungeon and finding myself hard pressed to find time to play, not necessarily because I’m too busy but because my motivation to play is low, thanks entirely to Fi, the constant tutorial system that’s brought the game down from a solid recommendation to a cringe-worthy affair. Don’t misunderstand though, the game controls wonderfully and looks fantastic, but being forced to hold the game’s hand for so long, despite being a seasoned vet, is painful.

Super Mario 3D Land is an entirely different story. I can’t recommend it enough for Mario fans, platformer fans, or people with a 3DS and no clue why it’s so great. Super Mario 3D Land proves that the 3D function of the 3DS can truly be something special and walks that perfect line of fun and difficulty. As a Mario fan, I was able to complete the game 100%, but I know that such will not be the case with many other players. If you don’t have this game by now, then you must not have a 3DS.

Mario Kart 7 is much he same. I’m still waiting to get my copy, but that’s only because I had to wait until Christmas since there was a high chance someone was planning to get it for me. The consensus out there is that if you’re not tired with the Mario Kart formula, then Mario Kart 7 is one of the best games in the series with some of the absolute best tracks and an enjoyable hang gliding mechanic, whereas if you’re not really a fan or want something more advanced than Mario Kart DS, you’ll be disappointed. I loved Mario Kart DS and want its excellent wifi multiplayer back with a simple handheld game, so I’m set. Judge for yourself accordingly.

Pokemon Black and White Versions turned out to be predictably good and yet stagnant as always. I found myself sinking my teeth in once again and really finding a connection with some of the new faces, but still, it felt like the same old song and dance that we’ve seen before, and yeah, I’m getting too old to be catching them all again. Give me a new incentive, one that doesn’t require trading with half a dozen other versions and waiting for event-specific Pokemon to complete the central driving force behind the game. Still, I discovered that Black and White Versions make great companions when on exercise bikes. At this point exercise bikes should just come with Pokemon installed in the handlebars.

The Quieter Releases

Does it make me boring to actually like this game?

It’s not all high profile games with Nintendo, but the smaller, quieter titles are quickly forgotten in the rush of things. For instance, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, a great return to form for the franchise at last, has all but been forgotten now that the rest of the holiday releases have arrived. Kirby fans decided that Return to Dreamland was a nearly perfect game, and after playing the demo at PAX I can easily see why they’d think that. It’s fun, the controls are tight, and there’s flawless drop in/drop out multiplayer.

A title that’s been getting hammered a bit though is Fortune Street, a game I played at PAX and actually really enjoyed. The easiest comparison is to Monopoly, though add in Mario and Dragon Quest characters for good measure. Criticism has been leveled stating that the game is slow, boring, and looks shoddy. I disagree on all accounts, mostly because it’s not like Fortune Street is being billed as a competitor to Skyrim or Skyward Sword or something like that. If you love Monopoly and the concept of trading property and stocks, then yeah, you’ll absolutely love Fortune Street. If you’re looking for an engrossing single-layer experience, then you’re just being stupid.

And speaking of Dragon Quest, the DS got the remake of Dragon Quest VI, wrapping up a string of really great remakes from the Super Famicom era. I just recently acquired the title for my birthday but haven’t had a chance to plow through it yet, though it’s high on my list since it’s a gorgeous game that shows how to do sprite work on the DS, all while being a solid RPG, as the pedigree would suggest.

Launching the 3DS

The sooner you attach Ocarina of Time to something, the sooner I'll be pleased.

Nintendo’s only big stumble this year has been the launch of the 3DS. Billed as a revolution to the handheld market with 3D capabilities and graphical power that competes with the GameCube, Nintendo decided to go with a $250 asking price, a move that, combined with a pitiful launch library, resulted in abysmal sales to the point that every gaming journalist was quick to ask, “Is this the end for Nintendo?!”

Well, no, it wasn’t. After listening to customer complaints and realizing bold action was required, the price was slashed to $170, which is when I grabbed it. However, those who bought the system before the official price drop day were given a bonus in the form of the Ambassador Program, essentially giving early adopters 10 free NES games and 10 free Game Boy Advance games. The NES games were pretty standard with Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid standing out as some of the better titles, but it was the GBA list that made me most happy with titles like Wario Land 4, Fire Emblem, and F-Zero: Maximum Velocity.

Ocarina of Time’s remake is perfect in essentially every way, and Star Fox 64 3D is a near-identical recreation of the N64 original with the added bonus of the 3D graphics. Between those two, Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, I’d say the 3DS has a pretty strong launch year library with a perfectly accessible price point and tons of great games expected in 2012, such as Kid Icarus: Uprising, Paper Mario 3D, Luigi’s Mansion 2, and Animal Crossing 3DS. I’m happy, so why aren’t so many others?

Why I’m Still a Nintendo Fan

I really doesn't take much to make me happy, and Nintendo knows this.

It all comes down to one simple program: Club Nintendo. In a time when just about every single game company is struggling to find a way to cut out the used games market and force gamers to buy new, Nintendo is the only company that’s thus far doing it right, all thanks to a simple concept. With most games, I’m punished for purchasing used. With titles on Nintendo systems, I’m rewarded for buying new. See the difference? Subtle, but effective.

Let me explain a bit better. If I were to purchase Battlefield 3 for either the Xbox 360 or PS3 used, I’d be unable to access the multiplayer features without buying a pass that unlocks them, whereas if I bought it new I wouldn’t have to worry about features being absent. Inversely, when I buy Mario Kart 7 this week, I will get a code that can be entered at my Club Nintendo account for coins, which can then be saved up and redeemed for items such as Wiimote holders, decorative fans, Game & Watch games, Mario-themed washcloths, amazing poster sets, or most recently, select games appearing on the Virtual Console and eShop marketplaces. At this moment I can snag the original Super Mario Kart on the Virtual Console for a cool 100 coins, or roughly two Wii games worth of coins (a poster set is 400 by the way, of which I have three).

I can’t stress enough how effective this simple tactic is to encourage me to purchase my Nintendo games new every single time. If there were a similar rewards system for Sony or Microsoft or individual companies, I’d be hard-pressed to buy used ever again because I love incentive programs. To my knowledge, only Nintendo has figured out this reward over punishment concept. Funny how that works.

Besides just loving Club Nintendo, I’ve found that I love my 3DS. I haven’t had an issue with the battery because I do a lot of my gaming in small bursts in bed, at the gym, or just hanging out. Sure, on a long trip I’d be frustrated, but I’m not enduring any long trips with my 3DS (and can’t due to motion sickness). I’m having fun with my system, and already I’ve bought two (soon to be three) killer games for the system, quickly beating my DS’s first year lifespan. That actually makes it more useful to me than my DS thus far.

Looking Ahead to 2012

Of course I'm already setting money of to the side; like I wouldn't?

Nintendo’s lineup for next year on the 3DS looks promising, as I’ve already mentioned, but their Wii showing is nearly nonexistent. Rhythm Heaven is lovely and Xenoblade Chronicles will come out to underwhelming sales (prove me wrong, you know it’ll have a terrible launch), but beyond that what is there to look forward to?

Oh right, the Wii U, Nintendo’s next console. The controller looks pretty crazy and the system is supposed to be Nintendo’s first HD console, but beyond that we don’t know anything else besides a launch window of possibly right around E3. As usual, I’m cautiously optimistic, so we’ll have to wait and see if another risky console gamble pays off.

And that’s it for Nintendo. There’s a lot to love here, but it’s Nintendo, so sometimes it isn’t obvious right away why they’re still in business. But enough from me, what are your thoughts? Did Nintendo have a good year? Or are they indeed doomed? Go ahead and leave a message while I go snag Mario Kart 7 really quick.

Is that another Link? I want to know!

I’ve been ready to have my mind blown from the very second I started the game up. Every fiber of my being loves Zelda and since this wasn’t a DS Zelda game (which I haven’t particularly enjoyed), but rather a mixture of the best elements of The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, my expectations were incredibly high. That would be my first mistake since the game can’t decide if it’s been built for a lifelong fan or a completely new player.

Immediately out of the gate we’re reminded that this is Zelda’s 25th anniversary. We know this because the game comes packaged with a handful of orchestrated remixes from the franchise (wonderful by the way), the little stamp on the box, and the intro screen reminding us. And if it wasn’t hammered home enough, within the first few minutes of playing we learn that the characters are about to celebrate the 25th anniversary of something important. “Okay,” I said, “This is clearly for me.”

But then the wind changed and something horrible happened. After a painfully long introduction period where I learned what I thought were all the new rules, I met the single worst character a Zelda game has thrown at me thus far. Worse than Tingle, worse than Navi, Skyward Sword’s know-it-all companion is named Fi, a physical embodiment of the Goddess Sword and a feature I wish desperately to be able to shut off.

Gah! Shut up already! Where's Navi when you need her?

To explain why Fi is so obnoxious, I have to give some examples. Thing is, she pops up every time something new has happened, something that is excruciatingly obvious to me as a longtime player. For instance, I grab some rupees and hit my wallet’s max, which is 300. I know that I’ve hit my max because I had previously checked my inventory and learned that 300 is where things get tapped out. I also noticed that after grabbing a large rupee, my total stopped at 300 and changed color, indicating I’m at capacity. I know this as the game has allowed me to learn this by myself. However, at the moment when I reach that max, Fi pops out of my sword and tells me, “Master, you have hit your limit of rupees. You cannot carry any more.” Yes, thank you.

Hey, another example! I’m in a forest looking for Zelda and encounter a little kiwi/penguin/shrubbery thing and save it from some red monsters. It freaks out, thanks me, and mentions that it thinks it saw the girl in pink being chased by more of the red monsters. Fi once more leaps out of my sword and says, “Master, my calculations indicate a 97% chance that Zelda is still in danger.” Uh…yeah, I just heard that, too. Plus, adding in percentages just sounds entirely wrong and out of place in the Zelda universe. The themes are clashing and it feels like Link has a computer in his sword, which constantly rips me out of the story and the game’s immersive capabilities.

Fi aside, there’s a ton that I’ve really enjoyed thus far. As soon as I acquired a sword I was sold on the motion controls. I’ve very rarely had a game feel so perfect when it comes to motion controls, but Skyward Sword works just as well as it promises. I haven’t experienced a single lag or miss-swipe with my sword, including forward thrusts (the bane of the Wii’s existence). Even my shield is responsive with a flick of the nunchuck. I’ve actually found myself just swishing the sword for no good reason, purely because it feels good.

Even getting owned by this guy, I'm still loving it!

However, there’s a little drawback to the sword slashing that doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. Twilight Princess added the ability to move while slashing the sword, something that greatly improved the game as a whole because it made the tedious grind of grass cutting feel much less obnoxious. Skyward Sword takes a step backward as you’re grounded firmly in place once you start swinging your sword, once again making grass cutting feel more tedious than it needs to be. I can understand the need to make you stop moving as there could be some wonky control issues if you made Link turn around at you or something while swinging, I guess, but overall it felt like a regression.

Another example of a regression has to do with the rupees yet again. Twilight Princess had a new feature that stopped you from emptying a chest full of rupees if it would exceed your current max. I really liked this as it prevented me from wasting some big prizes while searching for dungeon keys and heart pieces, but Skyward Sword once again just lets those go to waste, and once again I haven’t found a good use for rupees yet. I’ve hit the limit for what I can purchase far too quickly and have to wait to collect more materials in order to improve my shields and items, a feature I do actually like. I’m assuming that things get far better later on, but right now I’ve blew some big rupee caches for no reason and it’s a problem.

I can safely say now that after the second dungeon, this is the Zelda game I’ve been waiting for. The first dungeon wasn’t anything spectacular, but that’s to be expected as every first Zelda dungeon is typically the tutorial dungeon, allowing you to figure out how this particular game is going to work or differentiate itself from others. Oh, and a nice side note, the map and compass have been combined into one, which is great since that always felt pointless to separate the two.

No, it’s by the second dungeon that things really start to pick up. The layout is fun and flows perfectly, the boss is one of my new favorites, and the story elements even feel particularly strong. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I can say that my initial hope for characters I really care about has come true with gusto. I like this Zelda. I like this Link. I like this new villain and I like the new side characters that are just around for the heck of it.

Definitely my favorite version of Zelda to date, and that's saying something.

The only problem is still how much the game wants to hold my hand. Is Skyward Sword for new players? Well, I’m informed by my stupid sword companion that my hearts are low and that I need to find some despite my hearts blinking and the annoying “Holy crap get some hearts dude” beeping droning on, so it can’t really be for me, can it? Hold on, it just may be as the chief of Skyloft is a man with owl-like features whose name is Gaepora, a clear reference to the owl named Kaepora Gaebora from Ocarina of Time and other games. I’m incredibly torn so far, but I very much want to find out more.

So the real question is, can I recommend Skyward Sword? Honestly, yes, I can. It just has an annoying amount of hand-holding in the early stages of the game (and sadly, from what I hear, that lasts the first half of the game), but I’ve hit a point where my interest is climbing and the good is outweighing the bad. And from what I’ve read, it only continues to get better. Certainly give this one a good, long chance. Just, you know, after Skyrim.

Hey those guys have trees growin' out of their heads. What the heck am I playing?

Let’s set the stage for why some people just weren’t happy with Mario’s GameCube outing. The year is 2000 and people are excited to see what the GameCube can offer. During a tech demo, and if knowledge serves me correctly it was the same tech demo that showed what Link and Ganondorf could look like on the ‘Cube (please don’t quote me on that!), a video detailing a supposed game called Super Mario 128, the proposed sequel to Super Mario 64, was teased. Being the usual characters that gamers are, our first and only assumption was that the tech demo was a definite statement of the game’s existence, showing over a hundred Marios running around, traversing spherical platforms. Naturally, we were confused when we instead got Super Mario Sunshine.

To quell some fears regarding Super Mario 128, while the game was scrapped, the concepts certainly were not. A number of other games were born from the ideas it created, such as Pikmin, Twilight Princess, and Super Mario Galaxy. And also, according to Nintendo, Super Mario Sunshine, a game that couldn’t actually run on either the PS2 or Xbox due to the amount of colors its graphic used (fun facts!).

Man, we really need to stop obsessing over tech demos already.

The basic plot of Sunshine is actually a lot different than most Mario games. No, not so different that Peach isn’t kidnapped and Bowser isn’t the Big Bad once again (that never changes), but the overall game is a drastic shift away from any other Mario game to date and stands alone as something wholly unique. All Mario games include the usual grass levels, water levels, snow/ice levels, fire/lava levels, sand levels, and underground levels, plus perhaps a castle, fortress, or haunted house for good measure. Sunshine, thankfully, does not include any of these as we know them.

Instead, Sunshine gives us a tropical village, a beach, a harbor, an amusement park, a scenic waterfall, a hotel, a village suspended by gigantic palm trees, and a resort island as the hub world. Can you catch the theme here? Everything takes place on the vacation hot-spot Isle Delfino and revolves around that one unified theme. It’s like Mario just went on holiday and we all got to join him.

I absolutely love this concept and need to stop and let it sink in. Mario is one of those characters that people whine on about never changing his formula, never switching things up or doing things different. Sunshine was a very clear attempt to try something different than every other Mario game, both with the setting and the gameplay mechanics themselves, still completely unique again to Sunshine. People forget that everything was different- not bad different but just different- and as a result Sunshine was one of Mario’s least successful adventures. Why would anyone wonder why Nintendo hasn’t taken any real risks with him since?

You're darn right!

Speaking of that gameplay, this time around Mario is joined by a sentient hydropack named FLUDD that dispenses useful information while also acting as a spray nozzle, a hoverpack, a jetpack, and a propeller. Water and graffiti are at the center of everything as Mario is mistaken for someone who’s been painting the island in sludge, easily cleaned with a few squirts of water. The platforming is drastically different than most Mario games thanks to the hover feature of FLUDD (no longjump here), but that doesn’t mean the game is easy.

Oh man, the highlight of the game comes when you encounter your first secret level. Each stage had one or two, placed in a cave or open doorway or some such, and when Mario jumped inside he’d be teleported to a place that can only be described as Platforming Hell. FLUDD would be taken from you (eliminating your hover feature safety net) and you’d be expected to get to the end of some of the most difficult Mario stages in his long history. Each level would be just a series of elaborate challenges suspended over insta-death that’d push you to utilize Mario’s primal skills with triple jumps, flips, wall jumps, and careful timing. These challenges were just straight up hard, and they’re worth the price of admission all by themselves. Plus, a snazzy a cappella version of the Mario theme plays during these stages, and who doesn’t like that?

Still, the game isn’t without some drawbacks. For one, this is the only Mario game that contains a fully voice-acted script, meaning that Peach, Toadsworth, and sadly Bowser all have full speaking voices. Bowser Jr is cringe worthy, but when Bowser chimes in with what sounds like someone doing a mocking parody of the character, things go from uncomfortable to just plain painful. At least there isn’t a whole lot of this going on, so it’s by no means a deal breaker. I’m just saying Bowser sounded better in the Super Mario Bros Super Show.

Also frustrating are Blue Coins. In all other Mario games, Blue Coins are just coins that count for 5 coins or something similar, but here you must collect 10 to get a Shine Sprite (the Power Stars of this game). There are 120 Shines Sprites, just like Super Mario 64 had 120 Stars, but 24 of those Shines come from these Blue Coins, which are hidden everywhere in levels to the point of being ridiculously difficult to find. Some are hidden in obvious places, but then others pop out when you spray random objects, forcing you to spray everything like you have OCD. That was a bit much, but yet again, not enough to ruin the game for me.

Have you ever seen Bowser so sad? I think it's because you weren't playing the game.

Even though Sunshine gets a bad rap, a lot of Mario mainstays come from the little island including the Piantas, the Noki, Shadow Mario, Petey Piranha, Toadsworth, and even Bowser Jr. You can see the influence reaching to the Paper Mario series, the Mario Kart series, and even into some of the sports titles besides continuing trends set up here in the Galaxy games. Nintendo certainly hasn’t just abandoned the memory of Super Mario Sunshine, despite what many may believe.

Were I to come up with a hypothesis as to why Sunshine has such a bad reputation, I think it would come down to two reasons colliding head on. The first is that this was the Mario game on the GameCube, a system that only Nintendo hardcores seemed to love (such as myself, which is why it’s my favorite system). The second is that the game breaks away from so many Mario traditions that it’s a bit jarring at first. I mean, neither Koopas or Goombas even make an appearance, or a large handful of other classic Mario enemies, so longtime fans may have felt like this one didn’t technically “count” or something, especially owning to the cornerstone of the game being FLUDD and cleaning pollution from the game.

If the water backpack mechanic was broken then I could understand the frustration, but it was awesome, so what the heck was the problem?

I think it was just unfortunate timing as the game is gorgeous to look at, even by today’s standards, has a soundtrack that’s severely under-appreciated as well, and was bold enough to try something very new in a series that’s been and still is regarded as formulaic to a fault.

Don’t let this absolute masterpiece go to waste. You’ve got a perfectly serviceable GameCube built into the Wii, so head out and find Super Mario Sunshine at a used games store. It can’t possibly be too expensive. Go play and enjoy. Besides, are there any other Mario games where Mario wears shades and a Hawaiian shirt? I didn’t think so.

Bright? Colorful? Mario? Sold!

Mario, while quite the versatile mascot, has always been best when platforming. Personally I’ve rather enjoyed his 3D games better as it takes longer to complete each, plus when you’re really moving, man does it feel good. Super Mario 3D Land takes cues from everywhere with a play style similar to Super Mario 64, an art style similar to Super Mario Galaxy or New Super Mario Bros, the return of the Tanooki Suit and Boom-Boom from Super Mario Bros 3, and the combined efforts of all previous Mario games to squeeze something in for good measure. In the simplest terms, this is the sum of all Mario games as viewed on a handheld device.

Thankfully, for a handheld everything is pretty smooth. My biggest complaint with a lot of Mario’s handheld adventures has been the size of the screen as it can restrict just how much of the area I can see while platforming. Super Mario Land made Mario smaller so that more level could appear on the screen whereas Super Mario Land 2 made Mario bigger and slower with less level on the screen at one time. Super Mario 3D Land has a good balance as I never felt Mario was too big or too small for the purposes of the game, plus everything just looked so nice that I didn’t have time to worry.

Oh that looks nice. The levels may not be huge, but they're certainly fun.

It’s amazing that this wasn’t a launch title, or rather it’s a shame it wasn’t as it would have moved quite a few more 3DS systems due to the graphics and the 3D effect alone. Finally, there is a 3DS game that must must MUST be played with the 3D slider on in order to fully enjoy the experience. For some reason you even have the option of making the game’s 3D even better, which is essentially just a button you leave turned on at all times. The use of 3D is great and makes every level pop out in such a way that you stop outwardly noticing by the end of the first level, though you never forget it’s there. That’s hard to do but that’s the true goal of 3D.

Everything comes down to the controls. Does Mario control well? This is where I’m starting to see some faults. I got used to Mario, but he’s starting to become a bit slower in his old age, at least a little bit. You have the standard 3D Mario platformer moves such as the long jump and the backflip, but you won’t need to make much use of either. Part of this is because Mario cannot grip edges, something that will take quite a bit of getting used to and result in more deaths than you’d prefer.

The real star here is the Tanooki Suit. It doesn’t play quite like it did in Super Mario Bros 3, but it’s still just as awesome. You can control your decent in the air, making it easier to time jumps and make precise leaps, specifically the final flagpole jump at the end of every stage (and it’s important to hit the top in every stage as the game keeps track that you’ve done so in every level). The Boomerang Flower is a welcome addition as it grants Mario the ability to retrieve coins and items from a distance, and the Fire Flower is a classic standby, but the Tanooki Suit will take preference over all others, which makes sense as the entire loose plot of the game revolves around Bowser stealing all the leaves off the Tanooki Suit Tree, or something like that, resulting in enemies having Tanooki tails. It’s remarkably charming to see Bullet Bills with tails or even Bowser himself sporting the ringed addition to his backside.

Now if we could just get Mario's cape back, everything would be gravy.

As far as difficulty goes, I can’t really say. I’m good at Mario games, there’s no getting around that, so when I tell you my progress you have to assume that’s from someone who knows what they’re doing. After two days playing at a relaxed pace, I had beaten the entire main game (Worlds 1-8), including obtaining all possible Star Coins (three per level) and hit the top of the flagpole in every stage. By the time I had beaten Bowser I had accrued over 200 lives.

Thing is, lives are dished out like candy, so you can easily die three times in a level but finish with a total of ten for the stage. I’m very thankful that lives do not top out at 99, instead continuing into the hundreds. Oddly, this does in fact make me care more about then since I want to have as many as possible, if only for bragging rights. There will be some later stages where beginner players will desperately need some extra lives, and the game offers a fairly generous help system of giving a random power-up after two deaths, a Super Tanooki Suit (Tanooki Suit plus Starman) after five deaths, and a P-Wing that instantly beats a level after ten deaths. I was never given the Super Tanooki Suit, but many players no doubt will want to make use of these simply implemented aides.

Thankfully, there isn't really anything big and scary enough to make you freak out, but this is afterall a Mario game.

One thing I will say about the game is that I’m extremely pleased with the finale against Bowser this time around. The last three 3D Mario games haven’t really captured the feel of a full-on fight with the Koopa King, so when I found myself with sweaty palms and a panicked stare attempting not to die at the last second, I was very pleased.

Also, the game may feel short at first, but upon completing the first eight worlds, eight new worlds appear as variations of the first eight. These Special Worlds as they’re called take elements from each level and tweak them a bit to increase the difficulty, and while I’ve still yet to find any unbearably difficult by the second Special World, I will certainly say that they’re harder, so I’m enjoying myself. Plus, Luigi gets unlocked and plays like he has in the Super Mario Galaxy games, so who can be unhappy about that?

Naturally, you'll get your retro throwbacks sprinkled in, so no complaining there.

And that’s really what you can take away from all this. I really am enjoying myself, despite some frustrating deaths at the hands of Mario’s slow momentum or the weird tricks the 3D can play on you. You just can’t get that mad at deaths when you have 200 lives I suppose. I fully recommend Super Mario 3D Land to anyone with a 3DS, and especially to anyone considering purchasing a 3DS any time soon. This is the software you were waiting for, so it’s time to finally adopt.

Low prices doesn’t have to mean low quality

I’m a cheapskate gamer. My attention span for video games is often too limited to invest a lot in a game. Sixty dollars for a video game is a lot. Fifty dollars for a game is a lot. Heck, if you ask me, $30 for a game is pushing it. Thankfully today’s gaming landscape offers a ton of ultra-cheap entertainment, and even though I have a computer and a smartphone, I’ve invested more on Xbox Live Indie games than any other platform.  I have more than 30 indie games in my library, and most of them cost less than $5.

It’s unfortunate that there’s been a lot of news lately about game developer’s abandoning Xbox Live Indie games (XBLIG). Most reports talk about how hard it is to make money on the platform, but their biggest complaint, which is not hard to see, is the lack of support from Microsoft. Microsoft doesn’t do much to promote indie games or give them exposure, which is not only unfortunate for those trying to make money but also for gamers because there are a lot of good games out there that don’t cost a lot.

I admit that it can be extremely hard to find quality games on XBLIG because there is a lot of crap out there as well. For every decent game worth a dollar there are a dozen avatar games and back massagers. Wading through the XBLIG library is a test of patience and requires a lot – and I mean a lot – of trial and error. You also have to put aside some of your retail game standards and expectations when it comes to indie games. Indie developers obviously don’t have the resources to make huge games, so you’ll often find things like graphics and sound to be kind of lack luster. But if you can get past that you’ll find some really good games that are worth far more than the few dollars you’ll pay.

Thankfully for you, I’m here to help. In no particular order, here are five of my favorite Xbox Live Indie games that won’t disappoint. Five games for less than a dinner for two.

Protect Me Knight, $3

This is one game that is hard to find, not because of Microsoft, but because of the title. The game is called Protect Me Knight in English, but the game is listed online under its foreign name, which is a bunch of Japanese characters, so it’s not easy to find even alphabetically. However, this is one game you don’t want to miss because it’s a lot of fun.

Protect Me Knight, once again trying to save a princess.

Not unlike tower defense games you’ve probably played, like Plants vs Zombies and Defense Grid, Protect Me Knight pits you against oncoming hoards of monsters, but unlike all those other titles this game gives you complete control over your character. You pick your character class, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, naturally, and then do you best to protect the princess from being captured by waves of trolls, ghosts and cyclops. The game is made in the retro 8-bit style and it works wonderfully. Pixel games like this is what indie games do well. When indie games try to do 3D graphics or anything “modern” it just looks hacky and old…retro pixel art will always look good when it’s done right, and Protect Me Knight does it right.

Protect Me Knight is incredibly hard playing by yourself, but thankfully it has local 4-player support and if you can get one or two friends to join in, it is a lot of fun that will take you back to your late night Nintendo days. This game kept me playing solo for hours and days on end, not only because it hit a great nostalgia nerve, but because it was just a lot of fun. It’s a somewhat unique game that seems simple but provides a lot of challenge. No matter which way you throw your ax, Protect Me Knight is well worth the $3 price tag.

Vorpal, $1

One of my favorite game genres is the arcade shooter, first popularized by Space Invaders. However, shooters have come a long way since those early arcade days and Vorpal is wonderful title that will challenge even the most experienced shmupper. I’m not going to lie, Vorpal isn’t a Ikaruga, Gwuange or even Space Invaders Extreme, but it’s not trying to be.

Vorpal is a bullet hell style shooter that is all about dodging bullets while trying to shoot the bad guys. In this case, you’ll be fighting only one bad guy at a time. The game’s story is set up as a head-to-head fight between characters, and you’ll have to go through several bosses to finish the game, though it won’t be easy. The bullet patterns are challenging, the visuals are solid, and the music sets the mood wonderfully.

Vorpal might not be flashy but it shmups where it counts.

You won’t find a lot of depth in Vorpal, but hey, it’s a shooter, what do you expect? What you will find is a great little shmup that will give you hours of play for only a dollar. That’s right. One dollar.

Wizorb, $3

One of the first games I fell in love with was Arkanoid, a popular Break Out-style game released in the arcades and on Nintendo. Since then, Break Out games are a dime a dozen and most of them aren’t very good or even interesting. Wizorb breaks the mold a bit by putting in a few more chips in the pot.

Use your magic to keep the ball bouncing in Wizorb.

As the name might suggest, you’re a wizard and your quest is to save the kingdom from peril, and the only way to do so is to keep your magic ball bouncing. To help you keep things going you’ll get a few magic spells and items, all of which must be used at just the right time…and of course, your magic power is limited so you can’t go crazy. Like any good Break Out game, in addition to keeping your ball in the air, you also have to collect power-ups that fall from the bricks, but in Wizorb the power-ups are needed to help rebuild the kingdom. I’m hesitant to call this an RPG mechanic, but there’s actually a little story going on here and that makes Wizorb stand out amongst the rest.

Also helping Wizorb stand out are some very well done 8-bit graphics and an equally impressive chiptune soundtrack that will satisfy any retro gamer. Wizorb is a good challenge that will keep you working for hours and remind you just how much fun games like this are. And did I mention Wizorb is only $3? That’s less than a can of Red Bull.

Soulcaster, $3

Soulcaster puts another spin on the tower defense genre. This time you’re a wizard that can cast different types of characters anywhere on the board in efforts to stop the attacking monsters. At your disposal is a pretty typical spread of offense that includes close range, medium range, and long range attacks. What’s great about Soulcaster is that there is more than one way to survive and pass each level.

Soulcaster is pretty straight forward and doesn’t really provide many surprises, even the retro graphics aren’t what they could have been, especially in the company of other games in this list. But the game mechanic of casting “souls” where you want to defend yourself is pretty interesting and plays out really well. You’ll play through Soulcaster pretty quickly but it’s a title that will keep you playing until you’re done. Even with its minor flaws, it’s well worth the admission price of only $3. And hey, if you finish and still want some more, you always got Soulcaster 2!

Crossfire, $5

Crossfire, taking you back to the arcade.

This is another arcade shooter that comes from developer radiangames, one of the more successful developers that you may also see on the PC and iPhone store. The studio has several Xbox indie to its credit, and they’re all really good, but none of them hooked me quite like Crossfire.

The unique mechanic in Crossfire is the ability to warp to and from the top and bottom of the board. The Space Invader-ish bad guys sit in the middle and do their best to shoot you but they rotate, requiring you to carefully navigate north and south to survive. This might not sound like much but you’ll find the challenge builds quickly and the speed at which the games moves really keeps you on your toes. And if you want some real arcade action with Crossfire, hook up your joystick and you’ll feel like you’re right in the middle of Flynn’s arcade. At $5, Crossfire is one of the more expensive games on this list, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a more true arcade game in the indie library.

Good games at great prices

With so many gaming options out there, it’s great to have a resource as deep as the Xbox Live Inide games marketplace. I’ve talked about five games here but believe me when I tell you there are dozens of great games out there that will keep you gaming for hours on end for only a few dollars. Sure, you can spend $60 on the latest big box game and it’ll be fun for a weekend or two until you finish, but then what? Was it really worth your $60? Maybe…maybe not…but many of these indie games will keep you gaming for a lot longer, and for a lot less.

Oh boy, that looks exciting! ...Why isn't it?

Ever since the Game Boy days and the very first Pokemon versions, Red and Blue, fans began speculating where the series could go. What new Pokemon would be right around the corner? Would they ever make new types of Pokemon past the original 15? New attacks? More complicated battles? But biggest of all, we wanted to know when Pokemon would show up on the consoles.

At the time of Pokemon’s rise to popularity, the N64 was poised to be the perfect system for us to get our fix. Games began releasing as if to taunt us, such as Pokemon Snap, a great title that was sadly only about taking pictures of Pocket Monsters and limiting the creatures in-game to roughly 60 or so. Then Stadium and its sequel came out, though those titles were largely about the novelty of seeing the once pixilated characters in full 3D on the TV screen, fighting with elaborate battle animations and such (“elaborate” being relative for the time).

Eventually, when Nintendo Power started showing bits about the GameCube Pokemon games, specifically that they’d have a full story and everything, you couldn’t help but get excited. Sadly, that too would be a letdown as you couldn’t catch all 386 Pokemon at the time in either game since there were no random battles, somewhat eliminating the point of the open-ended world with limitless team combinations. Still, they weren’t awful as they packed in a lot within that simple story, so it wasn’t a total cop-out.

Alright Piplup, I've got high hopes. Don't fail me now!

No, that would happen when the Wii got its first Pokemon game to tie in with the release of Diamond and Pearl versions on the DS. At this point in time, a 3D Pokemon game needed to be more than any of the previous installments. It needed to impress us with amazing graphics, excellent sound, and a rich, full experience to justify a purchase or even really a rental, though really, if a Pokemon game is doing its job correctly a rental will never suffice.

Needless to say, I stand before you a disappointed Pokefan. Why is that? Because those three things I mentioned before –graphics, sound, and completion- were severely lacking with the new update. What we wanted was a version of the Game Boy/DS games for the Wii. What we got was a mild update to Stadium, which is pathetic considering the title called it a “battle revolution.”

Revolutionary!

Now it wouldn’t do any good to just say that the game was a disappointment and leave it at that. No, I’m going to hit those three points and explain what they needed to do and how they were lacking. So are we ready for a closer look? Well too bad because here we go.

Since the very beginning, Pokemon games have stuck to a very basic formula where there are hundreds of monsters but each creature only has four attack slots. Battles are always turn-based and consist of a simple battle animation for each attack, so a jet of water shooting at the opponent or seeing a shadow flung upside-down and dropped. When it came to the 3D games the same rules applied for some reason, so despite being in 3D, when a Pokemon performs an attack like Headbutt the animation still stops them from making physical contact with the other side of the arena.

This total disconnect always bothered me. The anime showed us these elaborate battles with Pokemon leaping around and dodging and performing amazing maneuvers in real time. The games however were slow and somewhat archaic by comparison, but it was understood that there were certain limitations due to graphics and memory restrictions and such. Those restrictions are no longer an excuse, so why haven’t we had more dynamic 3D battles?

Revolutionary...?!

Here’s my suggestion for how the game should look: Imagine the arena is set up like normal, perhaps with rocks and hazards and such, then the two Pocket Monsters are released and they size each other up while you decide to give them their first move. From there the attack phase goes normally with the Pokemon directly contacting each other with character-specific interactions and damage animations, so that if for instance Pidgeotto used Sky Attack on a Machamp, you’d see Machamp recoil from the hit and act accordingly as it looked up and saw the attack coming. After that first turn, the in-between phase would look like the two Pokemon battling back and forth essentially bouncing off of each other and dodging out the way or blocking or circling around or such without any damage being dealt until the next round of commands is issued. The goal is to make combat more dynamic without sacrificing the basic formula. Wouldn’t we all be happy with a more exciting presentation instead of seeing Pokemon jog toward the screen, punch, and then see the reverse shot when the opposing Pokemon falls back?

Next we have the horrible sound, something that’s still an issue even though we’ve moved so far past the humble Game Boy beginnings. For some reason that I can’t figure out, every Pokemon has a distinctive battle cry when they come out of their Pokeball, during certain attacks, and when getting knocked out. However, Pokemon from the original Blue, Red, and Green versions have had their voices entirely unchanged since the beginning, and all new Pokemon have to hold back what they could sound like in favor of something that more closely resembles the 8-bit chippy bleeps and screeches.

Wow, for a battlefield full of powerful legendaries, that sure looks pretty relaxed. Maybe the revolution is all via debate?

We’re past this by now; we have to be. The Wii isn’t the most powerful system out there, but it’s a heck of a lot stronger than the N64, and even that had games with fully spoken dialogue such as Star Fox 64. Heck, the GameCube had a vast number of games with tons of spoken dialogue beyond just RPG’s. Take Smash Bros for example where there are hundreds and hundreds of character grunts and sound effects. All I want is a Pokemon game where each Pokemon has a unique battle cry similar to what you’d hear from the anime, so that’d be around 649 different battle cries, plus perhaps maybe three variations of each, so we’re looking at 2,800 3-second voice clips? That doesn’t seem unreasonable really. Remember, the hope is to someday bridge the gap between the show and the games so that they seem one-to-one instead of seeing Ash do so many awesome things and devise all these brilliant strategies, only to then play the game and feel like something’s lacking.

So the graphics and sound have been taken care of, but that still leaves us with the story. I’ve complained enough about the handheld games and their insistence on retaining the same formula over and over again of “get starter Pokemon,” “collect eight Gym Badges,” and then “defeat Elite Four.” Oh, and of course “Catch ‘em All!” Despite my desire to see something new, (and nothing like the Coliseum games, please), at the very least what I and many others would love to see is a 3D Pokemon game that has those four aspects present. So far we’ve been able to battle trainers and Gym Leaders in Stadium and catch a few of the exorbitant number of Pokemon in Coliseum, but when Battle Revolution came out we were given only the bare minimum with generic battles and that’s it. At least Stadium gave us mini-games and a means to store and trade Pokemon easily from one version to the next.

Wait, is he actually doing something? I can't tell.

What Battle Revolution should have been was a fully fleshed-out version for the consoles. Nintendo and Game Freaks could have played their precious game of releasing two matching versions with exclusive Pokemon between the pair if they really wanted, but we deserved to see these games in 3D. Who wouldn’t want an open-world map where you can actually see the creatures wandering around, waiting to be battled and caught? The technology is there. The demand is certainly there. Where is this perfect game?

There are three simple ways to improve Battle Revolution, or rather the next console Pokemon game. But what do you think? What are you most wishing for in terms of a console Pokemon game? Were you pleased with Battle Revolution? Leave a comment and let me know. In the meantime, I think I’ll just go back and play Stadium some more.

Could there possibly be anything left for me to enjoy on yet another playthrough?

Currently the 3DS’ flagship title, Ocarina of Time 3D is my favorite game of all time remade with a graphical update, some tweaks to make controls simplified, and overall the addition of 3D. How can any of that not sound like a winner?

I’ll start with the graphics, since I’m pretty sure that no one needs a refresher course on the story here (Link must save Zelda and by extension also Hyrule from the evils of Ganondorf, there, happy?). Of all the things to get caught up in, I am genuinely surprised that the graphics ended up being my biggest purchase justifier. I’m just not a graphics person, I can’t be when I support Nintendo for so long and so adamantly, but I can’t help and just stare at the screen, seeing how the landscapes I grew up with have been carefully retouched to include smoother textures, more detailed features, and overall improvements.

For example, the ivy in the game used to be flat to the background as it was simply a bit of wallpaper to add detail and let you know that the wall was climbable. However, in the 3D remake, the ivy pops off of surfaces. Plus, and I may be mistaken, I think Link climbs faster this time around. Maybe I’m just way off?

So it looks nice, but what about the music? Is the music still great?

While the graphics became more powerful, the soundtrack was left entirely unaltered, save for a recomposition of the credits theme right at the end for the sake of the remake’s extra credits. I don’t quite know what to think of this. On the one hand, it’s nice that the original tracks were able to stand for themselves and show that they’ve withstood the ages as excellent songs. On the other hand, I’m a huge fan of revamped soundtracks and wouldn’t have minded the update to the sound one bit. Oh well, at least the music didn’t suffer at all, but wouldn’t it have been great to have something akin to Overclocked Remix’s excellent recomposed Street Fighter II soundtrack but for Ocarina of Time?

The controls though…well those didn’t suffer either. Everything is just about how you remember it with the touch screen only adding where necessary, not replacing what isn’t broken (thankfully). Now, instead of having three active item slots, you have four. Two of those are touch-based, which are definitely less responsive than the buttons, but letting them act as an item that doesn’t require constant use, like Deku sticks or the trading quest item, just shows their practicality.

Along with the touch screen comes some shifting around of the menus, so now the Ocarina is firmly located in the lower left of the screen and boots are no longer part of the equipment screen but rather actual items, allowing you to quickly take them off or put them back on with a single button press instead of navigating the pause menus. It speeds up the Water Temple a whole hell of a lot and for that I’m at least appreciative.

Success!

I will say this about the Ocarina playing though: Getting used to the new button layout will take a lot of time. I played Ocarina of Time on the N64 and then again on the GameCube, but here the buttons seem to be shifted 90 degrees. It’s not a deal breaker, but it’s somewhat frustrating to have to relearn the Ocarina after all these years of being a pro.

But does the game justify the need for 3D? The majority of reviews online tend to suggest that the 3D is a wasted feature that needs to be promptly switched off the second the game is loaded up. As I’m somehow immune to the “sickening effects” of the 3D, somehow, I left it on the entire game. As a result, those lovely graphics exploded even more into my face and rocked my socks harder than expected. Yes the 3D feature works and it is amazing. I didn’t feel like it was a gimmick and I didn’t feel it did anything except make the game look even more amazing. Full recommendation there.

I will admit to shutting the 3D off for these horse sections for some reason though. No idea why but I did.

However, I’m not so blind to nostalgia that I can’t see some flaws in both the remake and the original game. Replaying it now, I’ve gotta say, the bosses are so incredibly easy that it’s ridiculous. Perhaps I’ve just grown so used to them, but I didn’t once face a challenge here. I’m proud to say that I don’t have a single death recorded throughout the game, but I am a bit bothered that the death counter has been removed, so I can’t even prove it.

The game is beyond simple at its core. There’s little mystery and while you can explore here and there, the incentive to do so isn’t very high other than collecting rupees, a currency that loss all meaning about halfway through the game, and Gold Skulltulas, which ultimately reward you with the worst 100% complete gift ever of maxing out your rupees (which as I just said loses all meaning halfway through the game).

But, all of this is coming from someone who’s played the original game more than any other game. I know where everything is, I know how to defeat every enemy and boss, and I know exactly what’s going to happen next in the plot. I’m at an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time.

But what's new? What else have you got to get me to buy?

Thankfully for me there’s one part of Ocarina of Time 3D that I haven’t experienced yet: The Master Quest. Upon completion of the game, the Master Quest is unlocked, also known as the harder version of the game with a mirrored world and rearranged dungeons. I’ve never played the Master Quest before, and I didn’t particularly feel like purchasing the GameCube version since I already owned the Anniversary Collection, which includes a GameCube version of Ocarina of Time. The sad part is that you’re forced to play through the entire game to unlock the Master Quest, meaning that while I’ll play it eventually, I don’t have the energy to restart the game immediately from the beginning.

Honestly, I would really have loved some more content for longtime players such as a new dungeon or a new weapon or a new minigame or something. It’s nowhere near an aspect that’d push me away, as I was entertained the entire time and enjoying myself, but after getting all the Heart Pieces, upgrades, and beating the game, I was just sort of hit with a hollow feeling.

How much harder can this really be though? I welcome the challenge!

When it comes right down to it, Ocarina of Time 3D is worth every cent purely for the graphical update and the 3D functionality. The improved menu system only further adds to the title. Basically, if you’ve never played Ocarina of Time before for some reason, now is the absolute best time, and if you’ve played it as many times as I have but need an excuse to go through it one last time, here’s your chance.

But that’s of course just me. What have you guys thought of the remake? Did you love it or would you have preferred to pass? Leave a comment and let your voice be heard. Meanwhile, I have a Master Quest that needs my attention. Now if only we could get Majora’s Mask onto the 3DS…

Power.

Courage.

Wisdom.

Long ago, the three virtues of Hyrule held the world together in harmony.

Then, everything changed when the Demon King Ganon attacked.

Only the Hero of Time, Master of the Triforce of Courage, could stop him,

But when the world needed him most… he vanished.

A hundred years passed, and my crew and I discovered a new Hero of Time,

A Wind Waker named Link,

And although his wind waking skills are great,

He has a lot to learn before he’s ready to save anyone.

But I believe Link can save the world.

Unlike my editor, I am a relatively new Zelda fan. Sure, I have been familiar with the franchise for a long time, but it took a while before I actually sat down and gave it my undivided attention. I played all the way through my first Zelda game, Ocarina of Time, during my freshmen year of college five years ago. Immediately I was hooked. Instant classic. Soon afterwards, I moved onto my second game, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Despite all controversy surrounding it and how it quickly became known as, how my old college buddy Kevin put it, “The freak of the series,” the transition from Ocarina to this felt perfectly natural to me.

[Sidenote: Don't get my friend Kevin wrong, as he loves this game. Likewise for his then-girlfriend-now-wife Alexz, who is an amazingly stunning artist in her own right. Both wonderful acquaintances of mine that celebrated their first year anniversary just yesterday, and more relevantly, helped fuel my love for this game long after I completed it.]

Ironically enough, Wind Waker opens with a retelling of the events of Ocarina of Time, where upon rescuing the land of Hyrule from Ganon and being returned to his childhood (where the events of Majora’s Mask will take place), Link disappears from the future timeline, leaving the world defenseless upon Ganon’s inevitable resurrection. Fast Forward a hundred years and the land of Hyrule is completely submerged under water, while the legends surrounding the Hero of Time have become just that: Legends. People’s only reminder of a time and land long forgotten is a small tradition of forcing young boys to dress in the Hero’s trademark tunic and cap upon their thirteenth birthday.

Enter our protagonist.

So if I’m to understand this correctly, the dark, serious, badass Link from the Ocarina/Majora era mysteriously “disappears” just as the world re-enters peril, and in a hundred years, once Hyrule has gone to compete hell (or in this case, Davy Jones’ Locker), his duty as the world savior is inherited by his future life, who just happens to be some random light-hearted carefree boy who is handed this destiny before he could have ever conceivably been ready for it. Oh, and he can bend air. Yeah, that sounds awfully familiar to a… certain favorite show of mine, eh?

Now, I fully understand longtime Zelda fans’ desire to continue the series down deeper more mature routes. With the exception of Metroid, Zelda is Nintendo’s only other dark franchise, and while I have not played all the way through Majora’s Mask yet (one of Chris’ favorites) I am aware that the themes and tones it established set up the series to go down some strange and scary places. But for today, I should really only speak for myself, and personally I loved this new Link. He was cute, funny, expressive, when we first meet him he’s got like surfer dude hair and beach clothes, and he lives with his family in one of the only two remaining human populated towns on the surface. In Ocarina, Link started off already a bona fide woodsman, as well as an outcast, and his events are set in motion because… a glowing ball with wings and a talking tree told him to. In Wind Waker, Link’s adventure sets in motion because his little sister gets taken away. I myself am the oldest of four, so that I can totally get behind.

The two complaints everyone has heard a million and one times about this game are about the visuals and the sailing. To start, I am in the middle of my second playthrough now, and still, five years later (eight if you count the games’ actual release) after I got my bright shiny Blu Ray system on my Dad’s Plasma TV, this game still stands as one of the best looking games I’ve ever played. Visually, Graphically, Aesthetically, however the heck you want to put it, this game has aged better than any Zelda title to date. Honestly, I do believe we have the stylized cartoony art style to thank for that. A huge aesthetic flaw in many last-gen games was that the more they tried to look realistic, the more the graphical limitations of the time showed through, and the more they looked fake. Wind Waker is just beautiful to look at. The colors are so rich and vibrant and little things like how ocean waves and explosions are depicted are so pleasing.

Now for the second complaint. Despite micromanaging the wind being a little tedious, I got really into the sailing of this game a lot. The scale of this game’s world is grand. You’d see a small dot on the sea’s horizon and watch as it got bigger and bigger; it was so addicting. I could spend hours searching across the ocean for stuff to do, goodies to unearth, sea monsters to fight, and getting every square of my map marked off. And once you were done, you could learn a tempest move that could teleport you anywhere just a league away, if not instantaneously.

So in essence, the two most frequent negatives concerning this game aren’t really negatives as far as I’m concerned. Not only that, once those two hurdles are overcome, the rest of the game is pretty much familiar territory. The controls from the N64 era were translated to the GameCube almost seamlessly. The dungeons are all unique and varied and there are side quests galore. Your sidekick comes in the form of your animate ship, the King of Red Lions, who is just about the most perfect combination of Navi and Epona. He tells you what you need to do once, then trusts you to get there on your own time, all the while serving as your transportation. It’s also cool how he can take certain items you find on your quest and give them a second function by attaching them to his sail.

Which brings me to another love of mine, the game’s supporting the cast. Other Zelda titles I’ve played, I meet maybe one or two side characters that I really care about and the rest just feel kind of bland. In this game, it felt like everyone I met was bleeding with personality. The dialogue was genuinely funny too. The Ritos in particular, the Bird-people of Dragon Roost Island, became one of my all time favorite species of the entire Zelda mythos. There’s even a few dungeons where Link gets to “possess” some of the side characters whom you get to momentarily play as and use their abilities to help solve the dungeon’s puzzles. I also like how this is the first game where Zelda actually fights in the final confrontation with Ganon. Yeah, they totally played up how Shiek was suppose to be this badass ninja in Ocarina of Time that would fight along side you, but in the end, all she did was show up right before every dungeon, dump some exposition, get her ass kicked once by the shadow boss, teach me a new song that will teleport me to a place I’m already at, then disappear again before I even start the dungeon. Kay thanks.

The overarching story of Wind Waker, while primitive and somewhat juvenile compared to other Zelda titles, feels at least consistent with a nice sense of progression. Both the Master Sword and Link’s musical instrument were weaved into the story excellently (two facets that ended up feeling very forced in the plot of Twilight Princess, as if they had to shoehorn them in somewhere because they are a requirement). Another strong point in the story was how they put effort into giving Link actual motives and reasons to traverse each dungeon, beyond just “look for such-and-such mcguffin.” All joking aside, I truly stand by the parallels I made to my favorite show, Avatar the Last Airbender. Both stories open with a dark melancholy intro of the world’s predicament. They then proceed to begin the adventure on a fun, lighthearted tone. Slowly but surely their plots thicken and grow more perilous over time. By end, each story gives us an epic and satisfying conclusion that proves just because something is made for children doesn’t mean it can’t be deep, moving, and just as fun for an older audience. And while this does not segue at all, it’s worth mentioning that were it not for Wind Waker, my all time best character on Super Smash Bros. Brawl would not exist. So thanks for that.

For someone who owns just about every console Zelda game in some form or another, several of which I still have yet to complete, it says something that of all the games, the one I chose to revisit in preparation for Skyward Sword is undoubtedly the black sheep of the series. [Pranger's Note: The officially sanctioned "Black Sheep" of the Zelda series has been designated Zelda II: The Adventure of Link according to Gaming History. Carry on.] My rational behind this is that while Skyward Sword is technically classified as a prequel to Ocarina of Time, its brightly colored cell-shaded art style and game play mechanic of flying birdback across a sea of clouds to small islands scattered throughout the sky make it sound more and more like a spiritual sequel to this game. How much the final product will actually feel like that when it’s released to us this November, only time will tell.

Until then, there you have it. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the Zelda adventure that launched its own cult following. Why not go play it in the meantime?

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword:

This could very well be the best Zelda if all goes well.

The biggest title Nintendo had showcased and the one that I’m most excited for is Skyward Sword, the next Zelda title, currently scheduled for the Wii this November (specifically the 20th). I saw this a while back at E3 where it was touted as the first Zelda title to really be made from the ground up as a Wii exclusive, complete with Wii Motion Plus controls (for better or worse).

Getting to play with the demo a few times, I’m happy to report that while the new controls will take a lot of getting used to, the game itself is exhilarating. Probably the greatest addition to the controls is the most insignificant to many players, but when I discovered that Link can now sprint when the A button is held, I was ecstatic. The only real downside to the controls is that the learning curve will look far different than most Zelda games as, just like you used to do when you were a kid, half of the difficulty will be in learning to play the game. Actually, scratch that, that’s not a downside whatsoever. Excited!

The graphics also shine far more in person than I expected. I was hesitant when I first saw trailers, but now that I’ve seen the game in motion, everything fits wonderfully. It’s simply a gorgeous game, pure and simple. And while visually it shares a lot of colorfulness with titles such as The Wind Waker, the tone still has some rather adult themes to it. A boss encounter with the Big Bad of the game was surprisingly sexual in a very subtle way. My full recommendation goes out to Skyward Sword at this point.

Mario Kart 7:

After Mario Kart Wii, I'm ready for something a bit more my style. Hopefully.

Another title I’m now more than pleased with, Mario Kart 7 has a lot riding on its shoulders. Mario Kart DS was the first title I bought for the DS and remains my favorite Mario Kart game, but now that I’ve played a few races of Mario Kart 7, there’s a chance that grand spot may be usurped.

It all comes down to hang gliders. Adding hang gliders and submarines to the series sounded rather strange, but they integrate seamlessly. When going off of jumps and such, gliders will instantly pop out of your kart, allowing you to fly a short distance back to the track and possibly zoom ahead of the competition. The same is true for the submarine propeller which appears whenever underwater. Both just feel like they’ve always been part of the series, or at least always should have been. This one is a definite Day One purchase for me.

Super Mario 3D Land:

How can I ever say no to a new Mario platformer, honestly?

Sure, this is a strange name, but the gameplay is perfectly in line with the Mario franchise. The level I played reminded me of a nice combination between parts of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and parts of New Super Mario Bros Wii. I made sure I picked a demo stage that featured the Tanooki Suit, and thankfully it’s a welcome return, even if it is sans full-flight. Just being able to flick the tail and lengthen your jumps is a great homecoming.

I did notice that the game felt incredibly slow, as in Mario’s running speed. He just never feels like he’s in a great hurry to get anywhere, evedespite there being a stage timer again. Even so, the platforming works great and the 3D is subtle enough that it works, making for another Day One purchase on my end.

Kirby’s Return to Dreamland (full preview via The Escapist):

Easy isn't always a bad thing.

I didn’t really expect Kirby’s Return to Dreamland to appear at PAX, but thankfully it was off in its own little area, just waiting to be tried out by anyone in reach. Myself, my wife, and Kyle and his soon-to-be wife all hopped into a game and started playing. Immediately things feel smooth and like a real return to Dreamland, as Kirby has his inhale/copy ability back at long last. Also, no artistic gimmick, for better or worse. Just straight Kirby action like we grew up with all those years ago.

However, the twist here is the four-player simultaneous play, much like New Super Mario Bros Wii. Except here since everyone is capable of infinite flight, you don’t really have the risk of causing other players to simply fall to their death. Unfortunately, with four players the game also becomes faceroll easy. We were able to just rush through the stage mashing the attack button as fast as we pleased and nothing stood in our way, though it was only the first level, so who knows how hard the rest of the game will actually be.

Fortune Street (full preview via Destructoid):

There's not a bit about this image I don't fully endorse.

The biggest surprise from Nintendo’s playable demos was Fortune Street, a title that’s apparently number 7 in a long line of games native to Japan. Square Enix and Nintendo are taking the chance and giving the US a taste of the series, which feels like a perfect mixture of Mario, Dragon Quest, and Monopoly. Most people walking by thought it was a new Mario Party title, actually getting kind of mad for no good reason, but it certainly isn’t a Mario Party game as there are no minigames to speak of.

Instead, the goal is to go around elaborate game boards and collect properties, then improve them in order to increase your assets and overall money, ultimately gaining enough to be determined the winner of the match. It’s incredibly simple despite the finer points (which are more complex, such as dealing with the stock market and making deals with players), and oddly enough my wife and I found ourselves addicted to the game’s charm. Somehow it tapped right into a nerve that made both of us want to dump money into properties we owned on the chance that the other would randomly land on that space and give up a ton of cash. Oh that’s sweet when it happens.

I really hope Fortune Street does well here in the US. It’s not going to be a big seller, partly because it’s just a strange game and partly because I doubt anyone’s heard about it (I’m a devoted Nintendo fan and I didn’t know it existed until I saw it with my very own eyes). Still, I wish it the best and want a copy for Christmas.

And that’s everything I sampled personally at Nintendo’s booths. I didn’t get to spend much time with Star Fox 64 3D (though it’s basically Star Fox 64 with better graphics), and Kid Icarus: Uprising got lost in the hustle and bustle of the show floor, so I can’t really comment much on either of those, nor can I say anything about Kirby Mass Attack on the DS other than they were giving out cotton candy when you played the title, so the line was too long to bother with.

The bottom line for Nintendo is that this upcoming holiday season is going to be great. I’ve still got my Wii primed and ready for the Christmas titles and my 3DS is trained up and expecting a glut of new titles every month, so I am about as happy as one can really be. But these are just my interests. What about you? What are you looking forward to from Nintendo? Or what are you disappointed or skeptical about? Leave a comment and let me know. In the meantime, I need to go freeze myself in a glacier until November. See you in a few months!

Those of you looking for an example of the video game Master Class, look no further.

I don’t feel I’m spoiling anything by giving away Ocarina of Time’s ending, so I’ll just go ahead and do that. Once Link successfully seals Ganon away in the Sacred Realm with Zelda’s help, he’s teleported back to the past before everything even happens in the first place. Upon arriving in the past, Navi, his companion for the entire game, says nothing and mysteriously flies out of the Temple of Time’s window (side note, this means that the Spiritual Stones wouldn’t really be needed to gain access to the Master Sword/Sacred Realm as you could just, I don’t know, go through the open window?). Finally, Link meets up with Zelda again, just as before, but no one says anything as the screen freezes and says “The End.”

Majora’s Mask picks up essentially right where Ocarina leaves off. The game mentions that Link is in search of an old friend, and while the friend is never explicitly named, it’s implied that he’s looking for Navi. Also, he’s a kid again, which just adds to the strangeness. And beyond that, he’s riding Epona, something that’s truly baffling seeing as how he couldn’t ride her in Ocarina of Time while he was a kid.

His search for Navi is halted by the Skull Kid, and thus begins the first reason why Majora’s Mask is so great: It is able to appropriate characters from Ocarina and flesh them out far more than they were originally portrayed. This is the main reason that, looking back, I’m just amazed at what Majora tried to pull off. The characters from Ocarina were wonderfully detailed and full of personality, but so few of them were ever used for anything more than just little NPC’s in towns to make them feel a bit fuller. Shopkeepers are simply shopkeepers with no story or history to them whatsoever. But story is where Majora takes over and shows the entire series how it’s done.

Hey Skull Kid, I'mma break that smug mask of yours if you touch my horse and ocarina again.

Just about every character has a story that Link can discover. Character models from Ocarina of Time appear in Majora’s Mask with actual motivation and, at times, tragic stories to tell. Anju, merely a character present to ask you to collect her chickens in order to earn a bottle during Ocarina, now has a story that lasts the entirety of Majora where her fiancé has gone missing and her life is spiraling into depression as a result. You can almost tell that Ocarina’s development team liked this batch of characters so much that they decided to set MM in an alternate dimension just so that the characters could be used again in a game that let them breathe.

However, we can’t talk about Majora’s Mask without mentioning the aspect that a lot of people can’t get past: The whole game is on a time limit. The Skull Kid, being in possession of Majora’s Mask, is causing the moon to slowly fall. That gives you three days to stop it from crushing Clock Town and destroying the land of Termina completely. During gameplay you can see a little clock at the bottom of the screen alerting you to how much time you have left, though it is possible to control time a little bit using the Ocarina of Time, which Zelda has given to you since you left Hyrule. You can play the Song of Time to go back to the beginning of the first day, play the Song of Double-Time to jump ahead 12 hours, and the Song of Reverse Time to slow the clock down to a crawl.

As a result of the clock being ever diligent, the game feels that much harder, plus, you can’t just save wherever you want, another aspect that adds to the difficulty. A certain amount of planning must be taken to accomplish anything in the game, especially side quests, a Zelda mainstay. Instead of just deciding to go exploring, you have to be aware of the time to ensure that you won’t have your adventuring cut short unexpectedly. Hunting for Rupees is great, but if you don’t have enough time to get back to the bank and deposit your money before teleporting back to dawn of the first day, then you’ve just wasted your efforts (item quantities and story-specific items are stripped from you whenever you go back in time).

There is, however, no escaping this guy. He will kill us all in our sleep.

Thankfully, the game gives you a handy journal that lists 20 different people around the land that are in need of your help, along with time-specific plot points mapped out so that you know when and where to be. Some of these are rather simple, such as just being in the right spot at the right time in order to meet someone and get a new mask. Others, like Anju and Kafei’s plot, require the entirety of the three days to resolve.

Oddly, while one of Majora’s strength is taking aspects of Ocarina and going further with them, another one of its strengths is doing away with Ocarina’s conventions entirely. Actually, a lot of Zelda conventions get thrown out the window with the main game consisting of just four dedicated dungeons rather than the standard eight or Ocarina’s nine (counting Ganon’s Tower). This means a lot of time is spent in between the dungeons learning more about the world and the characters involved. Also, neither Zelda nor Ganondorf play important roles at all, with Ganon being entirely absent. And despite this smaller number of dungeons, it still takes me longer to play through Majora’s Mask than Ocarina of Time.

The truly quirky thing about MM is how all of the wonderful things I’m saying would probably be false had OoT not preceded it. Majora built upon everything Ocarina started. They’re really just a continuation of one another, but the saddest part is how the core of the story- Link searching for Navi- is never resolved. In fact, The Wind Waker goes so far as to say that Link never returned to Hyrule, suggesting Link failed in his task.

Oh God failure!

Everything about Majora’s Mask is steeped in darkness, but not the kind of darkness that feels spooky for the sake of spooky. Nope, Majora’s Mask has the ability to be just a bit “off” to the point that the subtle creepy things are that much more powerful. Also, FREAKING GHOST CARTRIDGES!

There are a number of ways to play Majora’s Mask at this very moment. It originally came out on the N64, but it was ported to the GameCube in the Legend of Zelda Collections’ Edition disc and is also on the Wii’s Virtual Console. I’m still hoping for a 3DS remake, but I’ll get into that more once my full review of Ocarina of Time’s remake is completed.

And in the meantime, creepy stuff like this will be happening.

And there you have it; I’m all done with Majora’s Mask. Have you played this one? And if so, did you like it or not? Leave a comment and let me know. Otherwise, without friends, someone might go a little crazy and try to crash the moon into a city, and we all know that someone is me.

Have I mentioned yet that there is a 3D remake of Ocarina of time on the 3DS? I probably haven't yet, have I?

I got my 3DS just about a week ago today from Best Buy. I was aware that the price was ready to drop from $250 to $170, but I also knew that if I got it now I’d get 20 free games, something I can’t easily turn my back on. Still, I’m not stupid, so I checked with multiple employees and got them to confirm to me that I’d be able to actually get the difference refunded to me as long as the price drop happened within 30 days (it happens on Friday). With that in hand, I headed over to Costco to snag Ocarina of Time 3D. Those without a Costco membership or a friend who has one, you are definitely missing out as instead of $40 I paid less than $35.

At this point in time I’ve had a chance to play around with all the features of the 3DS except for actually playing Ocarina of Time. I know I’ll be sitting for a while and so I haven’t had the chance to devote the proper amount of time just yet. Despite that, I’ve messed with the Augmented Reality cards, Netflix, Pokedex 3D, the Mii Creator, Nintendo Video, and the shopping center feature. All of that compiles together to give me a pretty good idea where things are headed.

First, let’s talk about the 3D functionality of the system. I am notorious for getting motion sickness without much provocation whatsoever. I can get sick sitting in a parked car. Just last week I started playing Bioshock 2 and had to stop after three minutes because my head was spinning. There’s just no telling with me. Despite hearing the complaints about the 3DS’ 3D function giving people headaches, I haven’t had any problems at all. I’d go so far as to say that I’m genuinely enjoying the feature, and I didn’t expect to like it. It’s comfortable for me and I really like the depth-of-field that it’s adding to certain aspects.

And in the features included in the hardware, they’re really pushing this, too. Just the slightest hint of a raised menu header goes a long way to make me, unexpectedly, smile just a bit. The place to really see how far the 3D can be taken is in the Nintendo Video section, an extremely puzzling application that makes some sense, but yet no sense at all. The Nintendo Video channel is a constantly rotating selection of 4 videos that take advantage of the 3D the system can generate. The big star is the Ok-Go music video, which goes a long way to demonstrate how cool a 3D device can be. But partnered with this is a video from College Humor about a guy who has adventures in Pizzaland or something, a trailer for The Smurfs, and a really short explanation of what Nintendo Video is supposed to be, i.e. that it will remove old videos and put in new ones at random times. It seems that one of these slots will always be for a 3D movie trailer, something I couldn’t care less about, and the video about the pizza guy was cute but showed most definitely that live-action scenes look strange in 3D.

Pizzas and robots? Okay, I can get behind that.

This sort of crops up again with the 3D camera. The system has two cameras on the back that let it take pictures in 3D, and while the 3D is nifty to see, the camera itself is pretty low quality. The only way to get excellent results is to be standing in a desert at noon, because I can have every light on in my house in the middle of the day and the image still looks, frankly, like crap. Even so, I got my wife to swoon just a bit when we managed to get a picture of our dog since it does look cool to see him popping out of the screen a bit. This is all a novelty, like the Game Boy Camera (including stickers and junk to clutter photos with), but if I could see the enjoyment of the Game Boy Camera all those years ago, I can see the enjoyment here, now.

Speaking of novelty, the AR Cards are something that’s worth looking at in terms of where the future could be going. Setting down these special cards will make little things pop out of them when viewed through the 3DS, such as target boxes or a dragon or things like that. After playing with it a few times, I was finding both the fun and the severe limitations of the hardware. For example, fighting a dragon that’s supposedly popping out of your table is something that’s really cool, but in order to achieve this effect you have to keep the 3DS close enough to the card and keep the lighting conditions good enough that it doesn’t stop suddenly and need to recalibrate. This wouldn’t be so hard if you didn’t need to physically move around while pointing the 3DS at the card, and of course moving the 3DS out of that slim window where the 3D works perfectly just sort of lessens the point.

This is simple now, but just imagine what it could be in the near-future.

All that aside, I can see where Augmented Reality can go and I like it. Implementing more and better games into the real world is cool and is the next step toward virtual reality, something we’ve been crying out to become real for over 30 years now. How this can be implemented into games is something I’m not clever enough to know, but I have confidence that some indie developers will come up with some really creative games to show us how best it can be used.

Creating a Mii is still as simple as it was on the Wii by the way, except now you don’t have to mess around with the mostly imprecise Wiimote, instead navigating with the stylus. I want to note there that so far the touch screen has been bugging me pretty badly as I don’t really like pulling out the stylus all the time and just want to quickly tap with my thumbnail or forefinger. What makes me really ticked is that most of the time this doesn’t work, so I have to keep tapping progressively harder until it decides I’ve pounded sufficiently hard enough before responding the way I want it to. Calibrating the touch screen seemed to lessen the instances of this, but it still happens on occasion, at least when going through menus. Then again, I may just be holding back because I’m afraid to damage my system.

Anyway, the Mii Creator is actually a bit better than the Wii version since there are a bunch of new pieces to play with. Granted, it’s still lacking clothing options like the Xbox 360 dashboard offers for your avatars, but the new facial expressions and head shapes are a good addition. You can take a picture of yourself with the inward-facing camera and let the 3DS try and make a Mii for you, but those usually need some reworking. As of right now I haven’t used the Street Pass feature, so my Miis are just sitting around doing nothing until further notice.

This...this is not me by the way. It still demonstrates the simplicity of the system, but it's not like it screwed up and made that face for me. It's not that loose with interpretations.

I’m pretty excited for more applications to appear though. Having Netflix on the 3DS is great for me because I have the option to watch TV shows and movies while snuggled up in bed next to a sleeping wife without fear of waking her up due to noise. This app is exactly just Netflix on a handheld, so there’s not much to say here other than I’m happy to have this.

And since I’m such a stupid Pokemon fan, I had to have the 3D Pokedex application as well. It’s a strange piece of software as it’s really just a Pokedex that happens to display 3D Pokemon. I’m a bit sad it only includes the 150 or so Pokemon from Black & White versions, but with luck it will update to include all of them. What keeps me most addicted to it is the fact that you don’t start out with all the Pokemon. You start with 16 and get new ones periodically throughout the day. I just got Timburr by the way. It’s something small, but it keeps me engaged and returning to my 3DS to see what the new update will be.

That's right, now Snivy be big pimpin'...in 3D!

Finally, we come to the biggest letdown of the console: The shopping channel. The best way to describe it is “claustrophobic.” I heard from a few places that the shopping interface was pretty confusing, but complaints like that usually don’t hold true for me as I’m tenacious about understanding things and play with other features until I’m satisfied. When I got there though, man was that fear confirmed. The Wii’s shopping channel worked just fine for me with games split into the Virtual Console side and Wiiware titles, then the option to just search alphabetically from there, which is what I usually took. On the 3Ds the categories are extremely random and feel sort of dumb, to be blunt. “Sequels Baby!” is just embarrassing. And having a category just titled “Mario” is almost insulting, especially since there’s not a lot to offer yet that features Mario. And there’s no master alphabetical list!

This shames all of us, even me.

Even worse, the price of some of the games is just way too high. I want Shantae, but I don’t want to pay $12 for it. Donkey Kong on the Game Boy for $4? Not bad. And Link’s Awakening DX for $8? I suppose I can live with that. The problem is that the console needs people to first be able to afford the downloadables, and then secondly be easy to navigate.

The up side to this is that both of those requests are easily doable. Nintendo is willing to make tough business decisions, such as lowering the system’s price, so if they get enough feedback regarding the 3DS as having a poor interface and trying to sell games at too high a price, they’re in a position to fix both with a simple software update. I’m just curious how long it will take before that happens.

At this exact second, this moment frozen in time, I am happy I have a 3DS. I’m excited for the new games coming out even as early as next month. I’m eager to start downloading some older titles when I get the chance. I can live with a low battery life as I play most of my games sitting near an outlet anyway and I also have no problem buying an extended battery pack from another company (since they apparently work really well). I’m looking forward to how much enjoyment I’ll get from my 3DS, lovingly named Lulabell, even if the console doesn’t make it very far overall.

Maybe I'm so happy because I know this is just right around the corner.

But what about you guys? Who out there has a 3DS right now? What are some of your impressions? Leave a comment and let me know! I just might not be getting back to you so soon since I have an Ocarina of Time to go fetch.

All my best friends in one easy place. How can I not be happy?

It has never been a secret around here that I am very attached to Nintendo and generally prefer their systems and games over any other systems or games. For full history (and I’ll try to keep this short), we go back to when I was only 2-years-old, roughly. It was my dad’s birthday, so my mom decided it would be fun to get him a Nintendo Entertainment System. Neither he nor I knew that the system would really turn out to be for me. I sat and played Super Mario Bros endlessly. I’d rent and borrow any games that people would loan me. I played as much as possible (somehow avoiding most of the games the AVGN hates to much, except TMNT, which is awesome if you know how to play it).

When it came time for the next generation of consoles, back then being something completely new, there was the choice of the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo. I couldn’t afford either, so I waited and waited and waited. Finally, probably half way through the SNES’ life, my cousin decided to sell his SNES to me, a system that he had modified to play Super Famicom games (who knew I’d eventually want to play Dragonball Z games on the system?).

I received a Game Boy not long before that as an amazing birthday gift, and then a Game Boy Color when my cousin decided he needed to get rid of that, too. From there came the N64, another system that I had to wait painfully long to finally buy, eventually snagging one when Mario Kart 64 came out, bucking the trend of buying my cousin’s hand-me-down systems. He would taunt me about purchasing Ocarina of Time Day One, implying how much better he was than I. It pained me but my parents refused to let me blow the entirety of my money on the one game. They forced me to rent it instead, then borrow it from a friend under the assumption I might not like it. Little would any of us know that it would become my favorite game ever, regardless of how clichéd that is to say.

Finally remaking this was just begging me to spend every cent I had.

That was the final straw for me before I had a steady flow of disposable income to call my own, so the GameCube was a purchase I made as soon as it was available. The Game Boy Advance was bought a little later just because I felt like it and had some money that was burning a hole in my pocket. That system lead to a number of impulse buys such as Advance Wars and Golden Sun, risks that definitely paid off. My GameCube would get the most love of just about any system in my house over the next few years as Super Smash Bros Melee brought about a competitive streak/pettiness inside of me that no game since has matched.

Flash ahead to the DS cropping up, a system I wouldn’t have the money for just yet, only to be rewarded for my patience with a system under the Christmas tree that same launch year. The Wii, however, I bought instantly and never looked back. That was my blow-by-blow for Nintendo systems. I never owned a Virtual Boy, didn’t buy a Game Boy Pocket or Advance SP (until only a few months ago for my wife) or a DS Lite. Each and every system has been played to the point that the money spent was well worth it.

That should set the stage for where I am now with Nintendo. I’ve been through it all. I was there in the early stages, the rough patches, and the recent successes. I’ve seen how the company handles itself in good times and bad and most importantly I’ve seen the progression of gaming, not just small snippets here and there. All of this leads me to say as follows: Nintendo has a history of people just plain not getting them.

I can point to this very much during the GameCube era. I was labeled as “Nintendo Boy” by my drama teacher in high school, a hardcore Xbox/Halo fan. I was never really sure what to do with that, whether I was supposed to feel guilty (as it as always meant to be hurtful when shouted by my teacher and his followers), or rather if I should feel proud of my loyalty through the roughest times.

And the GameCube era really was the roughest of times for Nintendo, at least in the public’s eye. Nintendo and its system were labeled as “kiddie,” a completely pointless and just blatantly ignorant observation based on the fact that the GameCube did not have Halo or some such pew pew shooter. To explain the kiddie moniker, Nintendo, especially during the GameCube lifetime, were all about fun and accessibility over something adult for the sake of adult. Games were becoming more realistic and trying to prove that graphics were absolutely everything, whereas Nintendo was making games with as many vibrant colors as possible. Guess who loved Super Mario Sunshine? This guy right here.

I'd gladly clear graffiti off buildings with a water pack that doubles as a propulsion method. Go chew a mushroom and get off my back.

I argued with more people than I care to remember regarding the GameCube’s “kiddie” attribute, each time having to point out a short list of games geared toward older players such as Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness, and even Metroid Prime. Speaking of Resident Evil 4, it was supposed to be an exclusive, and I was proud to say it was exclusively on my system, as were Nintendo. Of course, Capcom being Capcom decided to do what they always do and said “Hell with it, let’s put this on the PS2 with more content.” In fact, one of Nintendo’s supposed biggest faults in this current generation is their lack of support toward 3rd party developers. I say that you can look to Capcom’s actions here for a solid explanation as to why Nintendo looks out for Number 1 more than the 3rd parties. They touted this exclusive title and Capcom broke their deal. Shame on Nintendo for basing things on the honor code.

Granted, Nintendo weren’t always the nice guys, as Sony can tell you regarding the PlayStation. The NES era, while packed full of classics, was also packed full of garbage. Overpriced garbage I might add. Back then Nintendo had zero competition and could decide on prices and quality, and they picked “high” and “whatever gets this out the door” as the only qualifiers.

Still, currently, Nintendo does have far less of a hand in promoting games on its system unless they’re 1st party titles like Mario and Zelda. I can argue here that this is all because Nintendo is only a game company, unlike Sony and Microsoft who just have relatively small game divisions compared to their massive size. They can take bigger risks and throw money at any situation. Nintendo, historically, has been unable to do that.

This doesn’t mean that Nintendo has been penniless though. A lot of people kept saying that Nintendo was about to go out of business and become the next Sega when it became clear that the GameCube wasn’t outselling the Xbox and PS2. However, “not outselling” and “failing to perform” are two very different things. During the GameCube/PS2/Xbox cycle, Nintendo was nowhere near flopping, even if the GameCube was a complete failure, which just wasn’t the case (a complete failure means discontinuing before the next console, not getting integrated into it). See, Nintendo’s always been more or less bulletproof thanks to their handheld market, which they’ve never lot a grip on.

Mario usually helps with this quite a lot.

That is until now. As soon as the 3DS was announced, fans were clambering to find out more. “What games will be on it?!” “When will it come out?!” “How much will it cost?!” That last part is what did a number of the usually eager fanbase. $250 is a lot to spend on a portable system. It’s one of two reasons I never had an interest in a PSP. The other was an entire lack of excitement for the games on the system, which the PSP and 3DS also have in common for me. Launching the 3DS without any immediately significant games is no good, but it’s once again not without precedence. More on that in a moment.

First, I want to talk about another aspect of Nintendo that a lot of people, specifically now, are feeling. There is the assumption that Nintendo does not like its fans, does not want their money, and does not want to learn. People got mad when the GameCube was released without a DVD player in it (awesome, it kept the price down and I already had a DVD player). Then the same thing happened with the Wii (awesome, kept the price down and I already had a DVD player, and ironically I watch Netflix on my Wii as I don’t have to pay for a Gold account to do so, which I had to do on my Xbox 360). Operation Rainfall is a great example of fans demanding something from Nintendo and getting, essentially, told to shove off.

But why?

The motivation behind Operation Rainfall is to get Nintendo of America to release three Japanese RPGs here in the United States, two of which have already been localized for the UK. Despite demands, despite petitions, despite being a generally great gathering of like-minded gamers, Nintendo has said the usual “We don’t have plans now, but wait and see someday.” A lot of people see this as Nintendo being just downright stupid as there are thousands of gamers wanting to give their money to Nintendo but being refused. Just hold on though, because there are two parts that make rational sense as to why Nintendo has hesitated here.

I'm still all in favor of fans getting their way.

Let’s talk Earthbound. Why? Because I love Earthbound. You probably love Earthbound as well. A lot of people love Earthbound. Except most of us all loved it after the fact. It was a colossal failure on the SNES and has been the main game people can point to as to why Nintendo aren’t willing to try something new on the RPG front here in the US. Sure, we whine and complain a bunch, constantly wanting more games to be localized, but then comes the other half of the equation we always, ALWAYS seem to forget: Fans of geek culture never turn up when they’re supposed to.

Take a moment to think about Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Great movie, right? Oh yeah, I loved the hell out of it. I saw it in theaters twice and then bought the DVD. Guess what other fans forgot to do? Go see it and buy the DVD. Scott Pilgrim ended up getting completely trounced in the box office for no good reason as hundreds of thousands of geeks said they wanted to go see it. Kick Ass was the same deal. Simple fact: We’ve proven that we can’t be trusted to show up when companies take risks on us doing just that. Want some game-related anecdotal evidence? How about No More Heroes or Mad World or Zack and Wiki or A Boy and His Blob? All great games, all applauded for coming to the Wii, none sold enough to matter much. Oops.

So when Nintendo says kindly that they have no immediate plans to release certain games in the US, remember that there’s a precedence already set. Do I want the Operation Rainfall games to show up in the US? Absolutely. Will I buy them? Not a chance. Does that make me a bad gamer? I don’t really think so.

Now we’re back to the immediate state of Nintendo. The 3DS hasn’t been selling amazingly due to the high price and the lack of AAA games for the system, games that Nintendo has announced but hasn’t given us yet. Thus far we have Ocarina of Time 3D (I bought that one, in case you were wondering), and soon Star Fox 64’s remake, a new Kid Icarus, a new Mario game, a new Mario Kart, a new Paper Mario, and a new Luigi’s Mansion. And of course a new Smash Bros somewhere down the line. I couldn’t be happier with that line of promises. Best of all, those titles will be staggered just enough that even I will be able to afford them. Happy day indeed.

C'mon, you can make this happen, I believe in you.

See, another thing to learn about me, I never understood the constant complaining of people saying that the Wii had no good games. I can disagree completely there. I can come up with at least 10 games on my immediate shelf that felt entirely worth the system’s existence, all released at a staggered pace. I got the most time out of Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and Smash Bros Brawl, but Donkey Kong Country Returns, No More Heroes, Metroid Prime 3, and Super Paper Mario were all great to me as well. And the best part is, my collection isn’t done yet. There are still a handful of Wii games I’d love to own soon, like Masamura: The Demon Blade, A Boy and His Blob, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn. I just haven’t had the money yet to buy any of them. Most of my games come secondhand from my Xbox 360 relatives, and from that system I can only count about 5 that I own and really loved with a handful of others that are on my “buy if they’re cheap” list. And I still have Skyward Sword to look forward to this year.

“But Chris! I don’t like Nintendo games!” Yeah, alright, what’s your point? Then don’t buy a Wii. I don’t like Modern Warfare and yet people everywhere love those games and flock to them like moths. And I can understand exactly why, but I don’t get mad because the Xbox 360 is flooded with similar titles. I just get happy playing what I feel like.

Back on the 3DS, the price suddenly drops by $80 and everyone rushes to point fingers and ridicule. By Nintendo dropping the price they’ve effectively signed a statement reading, “Yup, we’re getting desperate so please buy the system.” In all reality though, would we rather they slash the price of the system to encourage new buyers, or would we rather they acted too proud to see when something needed change. They’ve already announced the games we want, now the system costs something we can all get behind. And if you bought the system early, you get 20 free games from the Virtual Console as a thank you for supporting the initial launch.

I still don’t understand the hesitation behind the 3DS’ eventual library of games. Systems never launch with strong titles anymore. The Xbox 360 had pretty much nothing that made me want the system immediately and the PS3 still doesn’t have anything that can convince me I need the system right now. Remember, Nintendo is just one company, so they can only make so many games at one time. They didn’t make Capcom release crap like Resident Evil Mercenaries or watered-down versions of whole games like Street Fighter IV. And they didn’t tell Ubisoft to remake Rayman 2 and pump out more Rabbids games. Let other publishers take the blame for stupid and frankly lazy choices, not the company offering the platform. Do we applaud Apple for Angry Birds? Hell no. Do we boo them for flashlight apps? Hell no.

To refresh you, I got a DS the Christmas season it came out. I didn’t have a single game for it until Mario Kart DS came out. I bought that, Animal Crossing DS, and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time all within a month of each other nearly a year after actually getting the system. New Super Mario Bros would follow a bit later as well as Metroid Prime Hunters and Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. I just think it’s a shame they pushed Pokemon Black and White onto the DS instead of holding them back for the 3DS. That small move and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Let's try for another one like this, eh?

My point is that I know the best is yet to come. I know the good games are on their way, even if Capcom doesn’t like Mega Man fans anymore. I know that Nintendo still knows what they’re doing. Cutting the price doesn’t look like a company getting desperate; it looks like a smart company being aggressive with their risks. Nintendo president Iwata doesn’t sound like someone who isn’t listening to fans. On the contrary, he sounds like he’s more than ready to work with them to make the 3DS a success.

I bought a 3DS today along with the Ocarina of Time remake. I’m ready to buy the next game that comes out on that short list of first-party games up there. And then the next. And so on. I’m excited for the Wii U. I’m optimistic about Nintendo’s future, even if so few people seem to remember where Nintendo’s come from. Here’s to you Nintendo, for all those years together. Let’s make it many, many more.

5. Link’s Name Is “Zelda”

There, legitimate proof what his name really is.

It’s pretty simple, and it’s mostly a relic of the ages, but for those not aware, The Legend of Zelda is a video game about a boy named Link on his quest to find all the pieces of the Triforce of Courage in order to defeat the evil Ganon and save Zelda, the princess of Hyrule. So to recap, Zelda is the princess, Link is the hero. In Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, we actually learn the indisputable legend of the princess Zelda, the original princess, as she sleeps in the northern castle of Hyrule. Every so often I hear someone complain about the title of the series, saying, “Why is it Zelda’s legend if Link does all the work?” Simple, why is Sleeping Beauty titled after someone who spends the majority of the story unconscious instead of the prince who slays a dragon? The Legend of Zelda was a story about finding Princess Zelda, but with the sequel it only made sense to continue with the title for brand recognition, similar to what the Final Fantasy series has done.

4. The Games Are Too Kiddie

Oh that silly Nintendo, always making the jokes for the kiddies, what with the demonic moon falling and all.

Throughout the GameCube’s life, thanks to The Wind Waker, I had to explain to people that the Zelda series was not in fact made for children. Sure, The Wind Waker was bright and colorful and filled with what can only be described as “whimsy,” but it also had a very tight story to it filled with some pretty tragic themes. Oh, and the ending where Ganondorf gets a sword to the face, but we already knew that. In fact, the Zelda games have always had a fairly dark undercurrent to them. The second game’s plot tasked Link with waking Princess Zelda, but Ganon’s forces were trying to resurrect their dark lord by way of using Link’s blood. Furthermore, check out Ocarina of Time or Majora’s Mask for some incredibly macabre stuff, such as the Shadow Temple or really the entire plot of Majora’s Mask (expect a list of some of the most disturbing things from Zelda games in the following months). Zelda games aren’t made exclusively for kids by a longshot, but people mistake content enjoyed by the whole family for being exclusive to the youngest members. Gus knows this all too well with Avatar. But just think, Toy Story was made for kids, yet is enjoyed by everyone. The Zelda series is just like that.

3. The Games Are Too Dark

Shown: Brooding seriousness.

Though that’s not to say the series is supposed to be all about dark, brooding themes and horrific symbolism. Far from it really as Miyamoto create the first game to reflect his childhood memories of exploration and pretending to be on adventures, a trademark that’s persisted throughout the games with heavy emphasis on leaving the beaten path to go find secrets. Beyond that though, silly things happen all the time in the games, even as far back as the first game where things were “a secret to everyone.” Strange things are everywhere but become far more noticeable as the games mature a bit. Ocarina of Time wasn’t without goofy, lighthearted moments, like Talon being woken from sleep and rushing back to Lon Lon Ranch for fear of making his 11-year-old daughter mad, or King Zora’s paaaaaaaaaaaainfully long scooching, just to let you pass so that you could be eaten by a giant fish named Jabu-Jabu. Serious games, really dark, brooding, “grumble-grumble no one understands me but the darkness” type games do not have moments like that. Fans need to remember, for as much as we loved Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and Twilight Princess, the series is still supposed to be about lighthearted fun and playful adventuring. This is never more clear than with the next thing on the list…

2. Nintendo Has a Plan for Where They’re Going

That's cool, we got this timeline thing under control Miyamoto, you just keep being silly.

With how elaborate Hyrule has gotten and how much history the land has acquired, it’s just sort of assumed that Nintendo or someone close to the series like Miyamoto or Eiji have some idea what the timeline really is, where it begins, and where it will ultimately lead to. Coming up with timeline theories is a blast and really turns into a pastime I can get behind. But the fact of the matter is, Nintendo, as a whole, and especially Miyamoto, have no set timelines in place or any idea what’s coming next for the series beyond “exploration and whimsy.” It’s best to think of a lot of the games as a retelling of the core story between Link, Zelda, and Ganon. Miyamoto himself has said on multiple occasions that Ocarina of Time was essentially a 3D remake of A Link to the Past. If it really bothers you that much, Eiji has been making a conscious effort to tie each of his games in closer to the overall stories, anchoring them in the timeline by referencing previous games (usually Ocarina of Time). Just enjoy the games for what they are, though that does compound into the last item on this list…

1. Every Game Is The Same

I don't really have anything to add to this, I just think this art by Jush Dunbar rocks.

The assumption is that every game is just the same game as before. A Link to the Past was just The Legend of Zelda on the Super Nintendo, Ocarina of Time was just A Link to the Past in 3D, and every game since has been trying to recreate Ocarina of Time. And I don’t think anything gets a Zelda fan riled up quite as quickly as when someone just handwaves every new game as being the same game. Naturally, this happens every time Zero Punctuation mentions the Zelda franchise, and, being a regular viewer, I have no choice but to keep my mouth shut and let Yahtzee do his thing with the expressed knowledge that he never liked the Zelda series and never will.

Time to break things down game-by-game. The original Legend of Zelda had Link go out and save Zelda, pretty bare bones. Zelda II is entirely different from any other title in the franchise partly due to it becoming a side-scrolling action game. A Link to the Past is a somewhat reimagining of the first game, but with a fully fleshed-out story involving Link’s uncle passing the task of saving Zelda on to him and introducing the Dark World. Link’s Awakening has Link shipwrecked on an island with the goal of waking the Wind Fish. Ocarina of Time has time travel with Link as both a child and then an adult trying to stop Ganondorf from gaining the power of the Sacred Realm. Majora’s Mask sees Link, a child once more, head to a land similar to Hyrule that’s moon is falling in three days, a mechanic the game plays with constantly. The Wind Waker places Link further down the timeline when Hyrule is covered in water and includes a lot of sailing. The Minish Cap is all about shrinking and size differences. Twilight Princess involves a Twilight Realm and Link transforming into a wolf. Phantom Hourglass has Link out on the open sea again trying to rescue Tetra (Princess Zelda) from a pirate ghost. Spirit Tracks puts Link in a train in order to fight a demon train. Every game is similar in theme (Link must go save someone or locate something in order to progress), and typically has the main three characters of Link, Zelda, and Ganon, but are they all the same game? Not even close. That’s like saying every game Valve makes is the same because they typically involve physics puzzles and those are always the same. Each Zelda game is unique in presentation and style. Saying otherwise couldn’t be further from the truth.

So there you have it, just a few things that people get wrong about the Zelda series all-too-frequently. But enough from me, did you have a few Zelda-related things that you keep having to correct people on? Or do you just disagree with what I’ve written up there? Go ahead and leave a comment to let me know. Besides, if I don’t like what you wrote I’ll just place it in Timeline B where you never existed in the first place.

Want more Zelda lists? Check these out:

-My 10 Favorite Zelda Music Scores

-My Ten Favorite Zelda Characters

-My Ten Favorite Zelda Enemies

Sony

Due to recent misfortunate events, CEO Jack Trenton was obliged to do some damage control at the beginning of their conference. After assuring us of the PSN’s resurrection and despite the fiscal damage the company has suffered that the PS3 is still keeping strong, we were given quick reminders of just how awesome things are to come. Uncharted 3, check. Resistance 3, check. Twisted Metal, check. Ico Collecition, check and mate. [Not to mention Infamous 2 literally releasing the same week as the con. More on that game another time.] AWe’ve known about all of these for some time, but probably their biggest surprise for me, game wise, was this:

Don't be so sly, Cooper. I'd recognize your shadow anywhere.

For those of us who played through the Sly Collection, we were treated with a little teaser, but this is the first time it’s been official: Sly 4 Thieves in Time is on the way, and while Sucker Punch no longer has the reigns (given to Sanzaru Games) it looks to be shaping up pretty well. There were, however, a few other surprises. For the online crowd, Warhawk is getting a successor called Starhawk, which has found a unique way to blend Action with RTS elements and make it visceral and fun. Another collection called God of War Origins is an HD/3D remastered version of the two PSP games, Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta, which I guess is nice for guys like me who never bought the PSP.

Into the second third, it felt like Déjà vu as Sony continued to demonstrate the new uses of the PSMove (which I still haven’t bought). To be fair, the games they showcased this year were slightly more effective than last year (though I’m kind of confused what happened to Sorcery, the one use of Move they showed last year that intrigued me.) Medievil Moves, despite the disappointment that it wasn’t a revival of the classic Medievil franchise from the PS1, did demonstrate some impressive use of weapons. NBA 2K12 for the Move was Kobe Bryant approved. Even Bioshock Infinate (which is just awe inspiring in its own right) is getting the optional Move treatment, which is impressive when you consider creator Ken Levine openly opposed the idea of the peripheral when he first learned of it but has now openly admitted to embracing it. But enough of the Move. Let’s get to the main event.

It wins in the name category. PSV. Clean.

The whole final third of Sony’s conference was focused purely on the new peripheral, the Playstation Vita. So far, we got close to all the information on the system I was expecting when they first announced it. It has a decent name that’s easy to pronounce and we also got a price: $250 for the WiFi only version and $300 for the 3G powered by At&t. I was expecting the worse, but the lower price puts it at the same cost as the 3DS. So far the the games they displayed look great, the big one being Uncharted Golden Abyss, which, all kidding aside, looks just as good as its console counterparts. Capcom introduced a brand new crossover fighter, Street Fighter vs. Tekken, in which Infamous’ Cole McGrath makes a guest appearance. Easily the most “shocking” (sorry, I couldn’t resist) development of the game. Another impressive feature comes from a new Action RPG called Ruin, which showed off the ability to transfer games from PSVita to your PS3 and play the games on your big screen in full HD.

Call me cautiously optimistic on this one. If Sony can launch with a decent library, they just may be able to hold their own in the handheld market for once. (It will also help if they get rid of that annoying as hell kid).

Microsoft

Much like Sony (minus the PSN Outage damage control), Microsoft opened right up with showing their biggest hardcore titles first. Now as much as I want to avoid flashing my obvious Sony>Microsoft bias, I can’t help but point out Microsoft chose two 3^rd party games to open their conference (CoD Modern Warfare 3 and the new Tomb Raider reboot) while Sony opened with exclusives (Uncharted and Resistance). The games indeed looked great, but I’m just saying, those will be on the PS3 as well. Perhaps a further look into Gears of War 3 with Cliffy B. and guest appearance Ice T declaring he’s bringing Body Count back together to do a song exclusively for the game should more than make up for that.

And yet again, we revert the focus to motion controls.

Congrats. You have officially replaced Guitar Hero as the "Greatest Party game Eva."

Since the Kinect launch, Dance Central has become its biggest hit, so naturally a sequel is already underway. The Disneyland exploration game and Tim Shaffer’s Once Upon A Monster looked… cute. I’m absolutely certain they will sell great to the casual and family audience. What impressed me was Fable the Journey and its use of improvised spell casting. Mass Effect 3’s use of voice command to lead your squadron I’ll also give kudos too. I wish I could say I was more excited for the Star Wars Kinect but the force is not with me on that one (I honestly think the Move would have been much more fit for a Star Wars game [Pranger's Note: Agreed]).

And that was pretty much it. I guess you could count the Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary, but that’s a remake of a game we’ve played a dozen times. In the wake of their competitor’s new hardware, the 360 needs something that will pop and keep their audience’s attention.

Me and my big mouth.

Just when I thought Microsoft was out of ideas… they prove me right. The way I see it there are four kinds of gamers: 1.) Gamers who’ll love Halo forever. 2.) Gamers who can’t stand Halo anymore. 3.) Gamers who love Bungie and think this game will suck because it’s not made by them. 4.) Gamers who hate Bungie and think this game might be an improvement because it’s not made by them.  [Pranger's Note: 5.) Gamers who couldn't care less.] If this were five-to-seven years from now, than I can see this teaser being epic beyond belief. Yet regardless of where you fall in the above list, announcing a whole new Halo trilogy not a year after Bungie completed their run of the series with Reach just feels like the most safe, cheap, and uninspired thing they could do.

Nintendo

For the third time in a row, we start with some Déjà vu: Nintendo opens with Zelda. But wait, this isn’t about Skyward Sword, a game that was suppose to release last January, oh no. Nintendo announces in the wake of the series 25^th Anniversary that the Zelda orchestra will be performing in concerts across the world. While this is definitely a treat (because as we have discussed on this site before, Zelda music is AWESOME!) I just wish we had a confirmed release date for the game. We’ll just have to settle for “sometime this holiday” for now.

Then it was on to some 3DS news. After the portable’s lackluster launch library, Reggie introduces a whole batch of games that are certain to come by the end of the year, including Star Fox, Mario Kart, the new Super Mario (Tanooki! Yay!), Kid Icarus Uprising (Multiplayer! Yay!), as well as the surprise return of an infamous GameCube launch title that took a whole decade to get a sequel.

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I'm curious. How many people asked for this series' return? [Pranger's note: I did!

Besides those, as well as confirming that Skyward Sword will in fact be on the Wii, that’s really the only games Nintendo showed this year. By now, we’ve all heard the rumors of Nintendo’s new upcoming console, and even before this convention started we all knew it would be the biggest news of the whole Expo. With that, Nintendo pulled the curtain on the console that made us all question if it was even a console: The Nintendo Wii U.

Cue the hoards of Kung Pow references.

I almost don’t even know where to begin. Yes, it is an actual console, even though Nintendo focused strictly on the controller, which in-and-of-itself is an impressive piece of hardware. Yes, the console is backwards compatible with the Wii and can allow the Wiimote controller to interact with the screen on the new controller. Yes, it is an HD system running on 1080p. Yes, third party developers are already jumping on, bringing hardcore games like Batman Arkham City, Darksiders 2, and Ninja Gaiden 3 to the system. All this is great news.

BUT, there is still far too much left in the dark. Besides the third party support, there were no actual games confirmed for the system yet, with trailers showing only tech demos. (They did slyly throw out the name “Smash Bros,” but they have to show me first. THEN they can have all my money they want.) With controllers this huge and complex, how expensive will they be? For all we know, this system could still be over a year away from launch, but they hardly showed us any new Wii games to keep us busy until then.

Once again, Nintendo has demonstrated yet another piece of tech that could very well change the gaming industry, yet since we’ve had that exact reaction when the Wii was first unveiled and have since seen how that turned out, forgive us for being a little more cautious this time around.

And That’s Not All…

Link, Kratos, and Master Chief can duke it out all they want. Meanwhile, there are so many amazing third party games that it’s hard not to please anyone this year, thanks to stuff like this absolutely gorgeous side-scroller from Ubisoft:

How have I never played this series? I will definitely change that.

• Elder Scrolls V, Skyrim: An absolute show stealer. Those dragons look outstanding.
• Assasins Creed Revelations: Honestly do not know how those games get better every year.
• Star Wars The Old Republic: Still no launch date. Sad day.
• Batman Arkham City: Get to play as Catwoman? Sweetness!
• Bioshock Infinite: Sometimes, the best sequels are ones that forget they’re a sequel and do their own thing entirely… like going from the Seaworld to Skyworld.
• El Shaddai, Ascension of the Metatron: The demo is available online. I command everyone to download it from Xbox Live or PSN IMMEDIATELY!

With the exception of the last one, none of these were real surprises, though they’re all shaping out to be great. But lets go to something that was actually a new development. Insomniac Games, who worked exclusively for Sony for the past 16 years with the distinction of never, ever, EVER making a bad game, announced last year that they would be working on a whole new property with EA Partners to go multiplatform. Even though they already had both Resistance 3 and Ratchet and Clank All 4 One set to release this fall, they somehow made room to announce a third game: A four player co-op super-spy adventure with a great sense of style, personally, humor, unique weapons, and stellar writing the company is known for.

Thanks Insomniac.

And with that, I am officially exhausted. So tell me, what are you all excited for?

Want to talk about games? We got you covered:

-Five remakes we should have seen at E3

-Ten Games That Changed Everything

-Top 10 Things About E3 I’m Sick Of

Big games in a little package

In this case, I’m not talking about the few arcade games that were mentioned at E3 this year, it’s the arcade games that weren’t announced. In fact, I’m going to talk about the arcade games we might never see but should. The console arcade platforms are the perfect place to update classic games and there are a ton that still deserve another time to shine.

Rampart: Part Tetris, part tower defense, all fun. Ripe for a remake.

Rampart

I first played Rampart on the NES and it was responsible for many lost hours in front of the TV. Rampart was a game that combined the puzzle aspect of Tetris and frantic-yet-strategic gun play of Worms and Angry Birds. You had to place your castle wall pieces to surround your home base which would then give you real estate to place your cannons. Then it was all out war as you try to blow holes in your opponent’s walls, hopefully severe enough that they can’t rebuild.

Rampart was played best with another player and XBLA or PSN gamers would benefit grossly from a modern version…and I’m not just talking about a port. Rampart was only a two-player game but imagine the fun of four players building and defending their castles while trying to attack each other at the same time. Toss in some power-ups and special attacks and you have yourself a night of good old fashioned, new arcade fun. Dear Atari, for the good of gamers everywhere, please remake Rampart. I’m telling you, it would work and work wonderfully…and a $15 price tag would be even better.

Motorcycles and weapons, a great combination.

Road Rash

There’s been some rumors flying around that a Road Rash update was coming to the current generation of consoles but I have yet to read anything that confirms it. That being said, we need a new Road Rash and we need it now. In a world of puffy and cute Mario Karts, it’s time we get to enjoy some racing brutality. Road Rash was a Genesis game that had you riding your crotch rocket motorcycle while fending off other bikers with weapons like crowbars, bats and chains. Not bad.

Road Rash had a lot of sequels over a short period of time, the last title being on the Playstation. However, with today’s high end consoles and connectivity, Road Rash just lends itself to super online play. We’re talking motorcycles here so having no less than eight opponents at once shouldn’t be a problem. But one thing a Road Rash remake doesn’t need to be is open world. We already have Burnout for that, so please stick to the Road Rash roots – linear roads and lots of weapons. Just think Mortal Kombat on motorcycles.

Trap Gunner

Trap Gunner is most definitely the one game on this list you’ve never heard of or played. Trap Gunner was a Playstation that, for lack of a better comparison, was a lot like Bomberman. The goal of the game was to kill your opponent by laying different types of traps and bombs around the board. However, unlike Bomberman, the levels in Trap Gunner weren’t simple grids and boxes. Trap Gunner stages had bridges, hills, sewers, clock towers and a bunch of other environmental pieces that played directly into your strategy. Trap Gunner was also a little unique in that it had distinct characters, each with strengths and weaknesses. I like to think of Trap Gunner as a Bomberman for serious gamers. It’s unfortunate more people haven’t played the game and that’s why it needs a reboot in the arcade space. Honestly, I’d even take a straight up port at this point.

Skate or Die

I first played Skate or Die on my friend’s Apple II computer, then later rocked the half pipe on my NES. Skateboarding may not be as hip as it once was, but it still lends itself to some great, in-your-face gaming. Skate or Die had a lot of solo challenges, but we all know the most fun was in the pool facing Lester with some American Gladiator-style pugil sticks.

I’m seeing a Skate or Die reboot that focuses more on fighting than the single-player downhill challenge, although using those challenges as ways to improve your character for online battle would be pretty cool. This new version of Skate or Die would serve everyone. You’d have your trick challenges and timed events for the leaderboard gamers and the hand-to-hand combat for everyone else. Heck, even throw in some of today’s real life skating stars and then we can have some licensed skating fun!

A purple mohawk? We all know mohawks are supposed to be red.

Blades of Steel (and others)

I have to admit that I’ve been watching the Stanley Cup finals, thus hockey is on my brain, and when I think of hockey and video games my mind always goes to Blades of Steel. I’m not a big sports game guy but there was a time when I couldn’t stop playing them. In the days of Blades of Steel, Tecmo Bowl and RBI Baseball, gameplay was simple yet fun and extremely cut-throat. Many an NES remote was thrown out of frustration thanks to these games. One problem many current sports games suffer from is extreme complexity. Between the Madden and 2K games, you need a degree just to swing a bat or shoot a puck.

Tecmo Bowl was remade for XBLA a while ago and remained true to the original. I shouldn’t complain about that but I think these games need and deserve more than just some minor updates. However, while I say that, I also don’t want to see these games turn into cheap, power-up play like the 3 on 3 NHL Arcade or Madden Arcade versions. We need modern-looking games with classic style controls (and real teams). I want to be able to enjoy a quick game of baseball without it being too cute or too complex. With a fun and balanced game like Blades of Steel in the arcade, I’d be back playing sports games daily.

It’s not about nostalgia, it’s about good games

We have 30 years worth of modern video games to look back on, and while many complain about the rehashing old franchises, if they’re handled properly we could have some really fun games to play. In the end it’s not about the name on the front of the box, it’s the game on the inside. No one seems to be complain about the minimally updated Mario game released every year, so why should they no want other well made classic reboots?

Brian is a freelance writer and life-long gamer that blogs and tweets about the good old days.

Want more articles on games we’d like to see made? Check these out:

-Top 5 Franchises That Should Get a LEGO Spinoff

-Five Games I’d Like To See On The 3DS Without 3D

-Top 5 Franchises That Should Get An SSB Spinoff

Am I crazy? How could a game this good actually be bad?

A little backstory is required here (as is usual), both for myself and for Square Enix as a company. First, we’ll deal with Squeenix. It didn’t used to be Squeenix. Before Squaresoft merged with its biggest competitor, Enix, it was the creator of some of the most amazing games ever to grace the Super Nintendo including Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and Final Fantasy III (really VI, we’ve been over this). The entirety of my contact with Squaresoft was through Mario RPG, so when a friend forced me to play Final Fantasy III on the SNES, telling me it would change my life, I was skeptical. That skepticism faded rather quickly, giving way to such a deep connection that I could in deed be hurt by plot twists meant to hurt the gamer’s emotional status.

Little did I know, all safe and snuggly with the knowledge that Squaresoft was responsible for some of the best games ever released on a Nintendo console, that Squaresoft and Nintendo had parted due to Final Fantasy VII, purely because the game made more sense being on a disc-based medium due to storage constraints. I stayed loyal to Nintendo, snagging a GameCube when the next console cycle hit, but in doing so I was aware that there was virtually no chance of seeing any good RPGs on the system, least of which from Squaresoft.

We’ve finally reached a point where the story reaches to Crystal Chronicles as one fateful day I read through my monthly issue of Nintendo Power and learned that Squaresoft, now Square Enix, would be releasing an RPG for the ‘Cube. But not just any RPG! A Final Fantasy RPG! Such elation would be rare for me, so with a key eye to every new detail, I was ready to purchase the game Day One. This is where the trouble begins.

Sweet, easily fixable trouble.

Let me be clear before this article progresses any further, even though I’ll still inevitably get a hateful response somewhere down the road: Crystal Chronicles is not the worst game ever, nor do I even feel that it’s a particularly bad game. To be honest, after I gave it a second chance, it certainly grew on me. But it could and really should have been a lot better, based upon the various well-reasoned points I’m about to me. So let’s start the hate train with the most obvious fault: Multiplayer.

Multiplayer in an RPG is a wonderful concept, but it is hard to find an RPG that meshes with other players. Usually, this cannot be achieved with the standard turn-based RPGs as those involve too much micro-management to remain fun for all players. Real-time RPGs though, such as Secret of Mana or Tales of Symphonia, work fairly well to balance the need for constant engagement by all players at the same time. Crystal Chronicles was sold primarily as a multiplayer experience, hinging the majority of the design on the need for up to four players actively playing at once. And in theory, this should have been great. Except it wasn’t.

Everything fell apart due to a simple design flaw: Every player was required to connect a Game Boy Advance to the GameCube in order to play the game. While you could play in a single-player game with just a GameCube controller, multiplayer refused to give that option. The point of the GBA controller was to offer each player with more than just what was on the TV screen, with some players having a map displayed on their GBA, some having the conditions to unlock better rewards at the level’s completion, and stuff of that nature. Extraneous information meant to improve the teamwork, somehow, by enforcing the need for all players to share what they had at their disposal. Again, in theory this makes sense. In practice it just doesn’t work.

My main complaint rests with how rare it was for me to encounter friends that met three critical requirements to play Crystal Chronicles with me. Number one, I knew very few people with their own GBA. Number two, I know even fewer people who had a GBA/GameCube game link cable. Number three, I knew absolutely no one who had even the slightest interest in playing Crystal Chronicles for any sort of length of time, being it a one-day thing or until the game’s completion.

It may shock you to learn this, but this isn't me and my friends. I'm just using the image for a point of reference.

Simply having the option to use the GameCube controllers during multiplayer sessions, rather than the GBA game link mess, could have alleviated much of my stress. I could conceivably convince friends to give a random GameCube game of mine a try as long as it didn’t require an investment from them beyond time, but to ask them to have a GBA and the link cable, an item I think I’d used with a total of four games (Metroid Prime, The Wind Waker, Animal Crossing, and Crystal Chrinocles), was just not happening.

I did manage to persuade my cousin to try it out with me, just once, leading me to understand another aspect of the multiplayer: It isn’t meant for anything less than three people. Besides the frustration of my GBA being non-backlit and trying to play in a darkened room, and even besides the technical difficulties of the link cables getting disconnected frequently, what really ruined our good time was an even simpler design mistake: The Crystal Chalice.

I’ve got to explain the story of the game before things will make any sense from here on out, so let’s take a break and just listen to what’s framing the game itself. Crystal Chronicles takes place in a world covered in a poison called miasma, staved off only by special crystals. Each town has its own crystal, but said crystals are powered by myrrh, something that’s produced only by myrrh trees. To completely recharge a crystal for one year, three drops of myrrh are needed with each myrrh tree giving a single drop every three years. You collect the myrrh via your crystal chalice and once you fill it with three drops, you travel home and save your family and friends for another year. Should you fail in your mission to collect myrrh drops every year, your hometown will die. It’s a simple premise but within it comes huge, HUGE problems for gameplay, all because of the crystal chalice.

Given the option, I think I'd just stay home nere the town crystal, thanks.

Since the world is covered by miasma, you will slowly die if you aren’t being protected by a crystal. Your hometown is free to roam about, as there is a giant crystal protecting all of it, but as you travel to different parts of the world your only protection is your crystal chalice. And that’s where the trouble begins as you have to carry that stupid chalice everywhere.

In a single player experience, a small flying Moogle will carry it for you, dragging it along. Sadly, this Moogle isn’t usually fast enough to keep up with you at a full sprint, meaning you’ll quickly outrun him. For some reason, to alleviate this annoyance, Squeenix decided to make the Moogle get fatigued if he’s made to carry the chalice for too long, meaning he’ll complain and ask you to carry the chalice so he can regain his stamina. If you don’t help him, he’ll lag way behind, leaving you to rush into the poison gas and slowly chip away your health.

However, in a multiplayer game, you don’t have a friendly Moogle helping you along. Rather, one of the people playing will need to carry the chalice for the party. The direct purpose of this seems to force players to stay in close proximity to each other, stopping a possible hang-up when playing with more than one person on a single screen. Still, it becomes incredibly frustrating to have to lug that stupid chalice around everywhere and ensures that there can be no swift dodging maneuvers. For example, if you have two characters and are fighting a boss, you’d assume the best strategy would be to drop the chalice between the two of you and fire off some magic attacks and bum-rush with everything you’ve got. But if the boss happens to be mobile, you’ll need to get moving fast, something that isn’t easily possible as it takes time to pick up the chalice and start running, hopefully coordinating between your partners the proper direction to run.

If only these characters weren't chained to a giant bowl, things would be wonderful!

When my cousin and I tried playing we soon hit a massive roadblock that killed our enjoyment of the game. We’d been playing for a few hours and ran into no real difficulties beside the tedium of barring the chalice. Then we hit the mine level and made it to the level boss, a boss that moves around and leaves very little time open for attacking. It had downed my cousin, leaving me to run around and try to revive him in between avoiding attacks and dragging the chalice with me. I’d set the chalice down, try to revive my cousin, fail, and eventually have to give up as the boss was too swift in trying to kill me. But I couldn’t attack it as dropping the chalice, attacking, and picking up the chalice again took too much time, resulting in a severe hit from the boss. Eventually I just couldn’t do anything to avoid the attacks and died. We figured we’d be punished with a repeat of the boss fight or something. Nope, turns out death here is just like the usual Final Fantasy games: Back to your last save point, in this case all the way at the beginning of the game. We shut the game off and never tried playing as a team again.

Again, I actually really like Crystal Chronicles. The world is full of really interesting histories, the graphics are stunning, the music is amazingly beautiful, and playing levels over and over to grind up your character is strangely enjoyable. But Crystal Chronicles wasn’t built to be a single-player game, or at least it didn’t want to be. Its selling point was the multiplayer experience, an experience severely lacking due to logistics. Yes, it’s possible to assemble the proper group of people, a group that all have Game Boy

Advances, link cables, and a willingness to play, but it is not very likely that everyone, or even a majority of the gamers who bought the game for that matter, actually could assemble the needed parts to get the most of the game. I sure couldn’t. D & D is an activity a group of people need to give a lot of time and devotion to, but it’s not something just anyone can really get into because of that same required devotion. Crystal Chronicles is similar, but it didn’t have to be.

Two simple fixes and things would have been perfect. First, lose the GBA-only controls for multiplayer. Sure, keep the option, but don’t force it on everyone. Secondly, include a tireless Moogle in multiplayer, and send him to the single-player game as well if he gets the chance. Crystal Chronicles is a bad game because of the promises it made and failed to keep, something that’s almost worse than a bad game that never tried to fool you in the first place. I can see exactly how great the game could have been in the right circumstances, but instead it’s merely an oft-forgotten gem on the GameCube, a system that couldn’t afford for any games to be forgotten.

At the very least, take heart in the fact the series is still going in some form or another.

As usual, that’s just my opinion talking. You can disagree all you like and you won’t be wrong. If you loved Crystal Chronicles, every single aspect of it, regardless of the faults I saw, nothing says you didn’t enjoy every bit of the game. Like I said, I was disappointed with it but I still loved the hell out of it when I gave it a serious chance to prove itself. Enough out of me, did you love Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles? Or were you just as frustrated as I was? Leave a comment and let me know. Sadly, if I don’t get at least three comments within the year my village will die of a horrible poison. You wouldn’t want that, would you?

Want more Bad Games That Should Have Been Great? Check these our:

-Bad Games That Should Have Been Great: Metroid: Other M

-Bad Games That Should Have Been Great: Super Smash Bros Spinoffs

-Bad Games That Should Have Been Great: Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled

5. The Scientists Are Morons

Tell me that's not true.

In the real world, the majority of scientists strive to better the world through experimentation, research, and invention. We have phones and medicine and basic knowledge thanks to the work of scientists. But in Pokemon, every single scientist is focused on one thing and one thing only: How does this relate to Pokemon, or how can it eventually relate to Pokemon? Pokemon are studied so exclusively that it’s sickening. Disease? Meh, we can probably cure that with Pokemon tears somehow. World hunger? Can’t we just figure out how to make Pokemon feed us? Every scientific breakthrough is reliant on its relation to Pokemon. Naturally, the most respected professors are scientists like Profesor Oak, a Pokemon researcher. Yet in every single game, Oak and his regional equivalents always hand a Pokedex to a 10-year-old and say, “Go find information about every single Pokemon ever…which happens to be about 150 or something.” The Kanto region is located East of the Johto region, a region that contained another 100 Pokemon that Oak had apparently never heard of. That means that either the scientists are too stupid to turn their head to the mountain regions to their left, or no one has thought to invent a region-to-region telephone. “What? You got Pokemon over there, too? That be all crazy, yo!”

4. The Terrorists Wear Kiddie Gloves

"Careful or we'll attack you with HUGS!"

Each new generation insists on hinging the game’s plot on a group of terrorists hell-bent on snagging rare Pokemon, specifically the Legendaries of the game, for no reason other than to rule the world…or something. But despite all their resources, each organization is brought down by none other than a 10-year-old kid with a Pidgey. Why is it that every single encounter with Team Rocket/Magma/Plasma/Whatever consists of a henchman spouting some line like, “You’ll never stop our might,” then a Pokemon battle where you find out the majority of henchmen only have like two or three Pokemon, all the same species or type (usually Dark or Poison because those are “evil” I guess), and when they lose they just yell “No way, how did you beat me?” In the real world this is what would happen: “Hey kid, get the #&%@ out of the way! (Sound of gunfire)” Seriously, these are the bad guys of the world, and yet they have no concept of a gun? Just look at Blastoise! Dude’s got two big ol’ guns mounted to his back! The idea’s right there! I mean I suppose if the scientists haven’t even invented guns yet I can’t blame the terrorists, but losing all your Pokemon in a duel doesn’t mean a rock to the skull wouldn’t be just as effective for getting your way.

The evil plans also seem absurd, even in the world of Pokemon. Take Diamond Version. The terrorist organization wants to capture Dialga, the Pokemon god of time, so that they can control time. Control time. Thankfully they’re defeated and instead Dialga is captured and placed in the hands of…a 10-year-old child. And no one else has a problem with that?

3. The Gym Leaders Don’t Understand Pokemon

Half of these Gym Leaders look more natural asking for spare change.

Considering the world of Pokemon is hinged exclusively on Pokemon, you’d assume that the Gym Leaders of each town would be the most experienced and skillful trainers in the region, correct? I suppose that’s true, but only because everyone else tends to be brain dead. Regardless, every time you enter a gym, you face a few Gym Members before coming up against the Gym Leaders themselves. These should be the end-all beat-all Pokemon battles where your only hope of winning is hard dedication to the craft. Instead, every Gym Leader battle can be won with the simple knowledge of type advantages. Facing a Grass-Type Gym Leader? Oh, one Pokemon with Flamethrower can take care of that. Water-Type Gym? Thunderbolt’s got you covered. Rock-Type? Surf that sucker. None of the Gym Leaders even have a full roster, instead having between two and four Pokemon of the same type. Even the stupid 10-year-old kid has a full roster by the type he reaches the second Gym. Are the Gym Leaders so inept at their own sport that they haven’t bothered to go snag a Rattata as insurance? You know, just to balance things properly? That’s like a Little League team playing against one Major League player. It doesn’t really matter how good that one guy is, he’s not going to be able to beat that entire team by himself. However, a lot of the ridiculousness of the Gym Leaders is explained by the next point on this list…

2. The Pokemon Live According To The One Main Trainer

It's nice that the world is both small enough for a 10-year-old to traverse and also shaped in such a way that he can see everything in one big loop.

No matter which game you play, there is one constant: The wild Pokemon’s levels will be comparable to the levels of your training. This means that by the time you’re near the third major city and have level 18 Pokemon, the wild Pokemon leading to the city are all around level 18 as well. No beginning Pokemon trainer starts in a town surrounded by level 80 Pokemon for some reason. Beyond that, every other character lives their lives according to the path that this one seemingly insignificant 10-year-old child will take, allowing his progress to advance perfectly on schedule. He’s never going to meet a trainer in a city whose Pokemon are 20 levels stronger than every other trainers’ Pokemon, nor will he ever encounter another trainer with a full party except for his rival.

The Pokemon themselves tend to do their best to help the new 10-year-old trainer reach the top of the league as fast as possible. How? By placing themselves by type-advantage right next to the city with a gym that’s weak to their type. Heading into a tough Electric-Type gym? There’s a good chance you’ll find some Ground-Types living nearby. In White Version I discovered that the Gym Leader of the second gym specialized in Normal-Type Pokemon. Low and behold, two different species of Fighting-Type Pokemon, the only type with an advantage over Normal-Type, were living in the grass right next to the town just waiting to be caught.

With the way the world of Pokemon works, it’s not so much that the 10-year-old kid is so special as the rest of the world has decided to make things incredibly simple on him. All of this is possible due in part to the last reason…

1. No One Has Any Other Hobbies

I suppose it'd make sense if you lived under the rule of an oppressive dictator who was obsessed with Pokemon, but that's a stretch.

One of the greatest aspects of the real world is the diversity of cultures, languages, tastes, ideas, activities, etc. You can travel from city to city experiencing a whole range of sights and sounds, meeting fascinating people every step of the way. This isn’t the case in the world of Pokemon. Every single character, no matter how big or small, is obsessed with Pokemon. No one can have a conversation without mentioning Pokemon in some way. Even complete strangers are compelled to tell you every little thing about their life as it relates to Pokemon. “Man, it’s raining today. Did a Pokemon use Rain Dance or something?” “My wife left me. Maybe I shouldn’t have said she looks like a Jigglypuff.” “Aren’t you just sick of hearing about Pokemon? Not me though, I love Pokemon. They’re my favorite.” It’s entirely unrealistic that everyone in the world is fanatically of one mind about Pokemon. People in the real world like animals, but not everyone walks around talking on and on about why they think lions are just super cool. At least, not usually.

What confounds this dedication to one subject and only one subject is the lack of any real skill behind the training of Pokemon. As mentioned before, Gym Leaders don’t know how to make a balanced team, random trainers never figure out the importance of stocking a full team, and no one has seemed to hear of traveling abroad in order to catch more exotic Pokemon from far away lands. The only person in the entire world who “gets it” is the 10-year-old kid who the world has decided will inevitably have the best chance of succeeding, going a long way to emphasis the importance of where you’re born and the opportunities that opens to you (being born in Pallet Town is seriously like being born into Old Money).

Pretty much, Pokemon is one series above any other that exemplifies the adage of “It’s fun to visit but I’d sure hate to live there.” The world, despite being filled with fantastical creatures, is pitifully boring. The people who inhabit it are idiots. Even the most interesting parts of the world can only really be interesting for so long. Once you catch your tenth Legendary Pokemon, it sort of loses its charm. I’m perfectly content visiting Pokemon through a portable screen every so often, but it can stay right where it is in the fantasy realm.

Of course, that’s just me. Perhaps you would have no trouble loving the world of Pokemon every single day of your Poke-filled life. Leave a comment and tell me why that is. Or leave a comment and tell me another reason why you’d hate living among the Pikachu. You might as well start talking about Pokemon already. I mean, it’s not like we have anything better to talk about.

Want more Pokemon lists? check these out:

-The 10 Best Pokemon Moves Ever

-10 Pokemon You’d Rather Not Evolve

-My Top 10 Greatest Pokemon Related Achievements