Game Time - May 2013

You know what? I don't have an introduction for this week. I played two older games and a newer PC release. I enjoyed all three. How much you ask? Well let's find out together. It's game time!

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Now that Ace Attorney 5 coverage has been picking up my urge to play more Ace Attorney has picked up as well. Last month I finally finished Apollo Justice, but it just wasn't enough to whet my appetite. In order to relieve my insatiable hunger for more Ace Attorney I picked up the final US release of the series Ace Attorney Investigations. It's slightly different from the normal Ace Attorney Formula, but only very slightly.

This isn't just your run of the mill Ace Attorney title. It's all about investigating crime scenes as prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. It may as well be called Ace Attorney: CSI Edition. I expected playing as a prosecutor to be far different than playing as a defense attorney, but sadly that is not the case. This is still essentially the same game it was before, except you never truly go into the courtroom. Somehow Edgeworth gets mixed up in a series of murders. Obviously as a big time prosecutor he must get to the bottom of what exactly transpired in each given scenario.

You can walk and run around small environments!

Yes, you do the exact same thing in the normal Ace Ace Attorney Games. You check out the scene, gather evidence, and talk to people. The main difference is that you get to walk around! I know, it's a mind blowing change that would lead you to believe that it adds to the game overall. Surprise, it doesn't. Even though you can walk around the crime scene you still aren't allowed to leave until you find everything you need to. The only benefit walking around conveys is that you can walk to other pieces of interest instead of navigating a menu, which is equally effective. Although I assume drawing out full sprites for every character takes much more work.

Edgeworth is a smart dude, so he can use logic. Examining things sometimes allows him to deduce things about the scene or crime at hand. These deductions are added to the brand new logic menu. In the logic menu you can fuse two pieces of logic alchemy like into a piece of evidence, or another piece of logic. It's not anything mind-blowing, but it is different.

Kay is great and I hope she's in Ace Attorney 5

It's cool to see Edgeworth in the side of the Ace Attorney franchise that we never see. However, I would have preferred something a little more different than the main series. It would have been a cool spin on everything if you actually did have to go into the courtroom as a prosecutor. Proving someone is guilty would actually be quite different than trying to prove their innocence, plus every person you defend as Phoenix or Apollo is innocent. Sadly this ends up being more of the same with a few minor changes.

Even though it's more of the same I still love it. It's nice to be able to learn more about Edgeworth and Gumshoe firsthand. The new characters they introduce are actually quite well done too. I really hope that Kay the lovable ninja/theif makes a guest appearance in Ace Attorney 5. The story is still quite good, although I don't think it's quite on par with the rest of the series. What sucks is that this game didn't sell well when it was released although I can kind of see why. Due to that fact, the second Ace Attorney Investigations may forever be a Japan only release.

Super Metroid

For years I've  heard about the greatness that is Super Metroid and now that it's been released on the Wii-U virtual console for a whopping 30 cents I've finally gotten around to playing it. At first I was afraid that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, because people really like to talk it up. Thankfully this is one of the times where the game actually lives up to the hype. It's one of the most atmospheric 2D adventure games I've ever had the pleasure of playing. It's easy to see how people look to this game and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night when they try to explain games of this ilk and their quality.

Super Metroid hasn't been all fun and games so far though, it has also been quite sobering. It's a common complaint that modern games hold the hand of the player a little too often. After playing a few hours of Super Metroid I can now say that modern games have made me soft. Games today are chock full of tutorials and hints to get you through difficult spots and let you know the game mechanics. This game is nothing like that though. Samaus is more or less dumped on planet Zebes and then you're left to your own devices. Sometimes upon picking up weapons and power-ups there will be instructions on how to use them, or what they do, but that's not always the case.

I love the title screen for this game.

You have to figure out where to go all on your own. There is nothing there to hold your hand. There are no magical bread crumb trails, or pop-up hints when you're taking too long. There were multiple times where I came to a complete stop, because I literally did not have what I needed to advance. I've had to backtrack on multiple occasions and gotten completely lost, even with a map. What's weird is that Super Metroid is a product of the era when I started playing games. It's not like I'm unaccustomed to games of this difficulty, it's just that I'm not used to having to figure things out all on my own anymore. I'm actually glad I'm having trouble finding exactly where to go and what to do. I actually enjoy banging my head against the game until I make progress. It's not like the game is impossible to figure out, it's just that it takes more than one look to figure out exactly what you need to do.

For fun I decided to hit up the Miiverse to see if anyone else was having the same type of experience that I was. People weren't exactly having a sobering epiphany about how modern games like to hold your hand and stroke your ego. Instead I saw countless posts about people getting frustrated, because they couldn't figure out what to do in any capacity. More often than not people were taking screenshots of where they were to ask for help. It's crazy to think that there is a whole new generation of gamers out there who might not like this type of game, because it doesn't spell everything out for you. Thankfully I still like figuring things out for myself, so I'm going to continue playing. Sometimes working to figure something out is more rewarding than getting it immediately on your first try.

Game Dev Tycoon

Many moons ago I bought my first android phone. At that time I entered the world of mobile gaming by purchasing Game Dev Story. As you may have surmised it was a game about game development. The goal of the game was to make the best video games you possibly could. In order to do so the game required you to hire and train employees in game making. They would all toil away by putting points into your game, which would then be reviewed and make you money or completely tank. The cycle would then continue until you either got bored, or lost all of your money. Most of the time I got bored, but that didn't stop me from buying Game Dev Tycoon for the PC this past week.

I know what you're thinking. Game Dev Tycoon sounds almost exactly like Game Dev Story. Guess what? You're right, they are almost the exact same game. In fact, they're so similar it surprises me that there is no type of legal action involved. While the games may be very similar I still find what Game Dev Tycoon has to offer appealing to a certain extent.

Get ready for a lot of bars and sliders.

You start off all by yourself making games in your garage. At first you can only develop games for the PC and G64, the cleverly renamed C64. You choose a platform, genre, and topic. In my case I always start by making Fantasy Rpgs for the G64. Once you choose what to make the development process starts for "real". Three different colored bars with sliders will appear. There will always be three bars, each one representing an area of focus. Sliding each bar will determine how much focus you put on that specific aspect of the game. Once finalized different colored bubbles will fly from your characters head. Design and Technology are what you want a lot of to make your game succeed. However, bugs and research will also be created. Once the game is finished you can push it out for release immediately or give yourself some time to fix the bugs. Shortly after release you will get four reviews from "famous" gaming publications. The reviews will dictate how well your game sells. After the review roundup it's time to make a new game and start the cycle all over again.

As your company makes games you'll gain money to put towards even better and new games. You'll eventually be able to research new technologies, design custom engines, hire employees, and market your games. New mechanics get rolled out at a regular pace to keep mix up the gameplay and keep it exciting. I use the word exciting liberally, because in reality this is a game about watching numbers count up and progress bars fill. There's something about it that's oddly satisfying to me though and I got pretty sucked in the first few times I played.

I always lose the game shortly after I make it to this office...

While the game is still enjoyable I kind of ruined it for myself. My first few play sessions I would make it up until the Super Nintendo era of gaming before my company would completely tank. The games my company was releasing were getting terrible reviews, even if they were technically better than the previous releases of the same type. After failing a couple of times I visited a wiki to discover what I was doing wrong. Apparently if the games you create aren't at least 20% better than the previous one of that type then they totally bomb. Knowing this totally broke any connection I had to the game, because now I can only think of the numbers. Yes the game is mostly just numbers anyways, but before it was masked by a sense of discovery.

Since I purchased the game I have received several emails from the developer. These emails seem to acknowledge the fact that the game can be pretty unforgiving at certain stages. They're planning to fix those issues in order to accommodate other play styles. Hopefully one of those play styles is mine. I'm going to wait until the new version of the game comes out before playing any more, because I really don't enjoy exploiting the system.

Get Hype For E3!

Now that we know a bunch about the PS4 and Xbox One it's time to start getting excited for E3. Since it's the dawn of a new console era it's sure to be exciting. We'll finally get to see a whole bunch of next generation titles, which are hopefully as awesome as I'd like them to be. Maybe we'll even catch a glimpse of the ever elusive Final Fantasy Versus XII, but only time will tell. I'll probably have a whole bunch of thoughts and opinions about E3 as it's happening, so check back in a few weeks to see all that good stuff.

In terms of games June is actually going to be pretty big. I thought that the summer dry spell had already started, but turns out that was just a brief respite from my extreme spending habits. Even though I've been hearing nothing but negativity surrounding the futuristic Remember Me. I still decided to pre-order it anyways. Hopefully that's good. Then you've got Animal Crossing New Leaf and Project X Zone for the 3ds, which I'm super excited for.

Maybe I'll even break down and buy The Last of Us, because every time I see a new trailer for it my brain tells me that I need it. Do I really need another zombie game though? I don't know, but stay tuned to Game Time to find out.

100 Hours and Counting: A Journey Into Monster Hunter

For years the question "Why do people like Monster Hunter?" has burned in my mind. There's a certain stigma associated with the franchise in America. It's become well known for rough camera control, a steep learning curve, and ridiculous amounts of grinding. Yet, despite all that the series is somehow a system seller in Japan. I don't claim to know how Monster Hunter is truly received there, but the general consensus seems to be that people go crazy for the game over there. I'm inclined to agree, just because the PSP sold far too much in Japan for that not to be the case. In some cases it seems that people have a Monster Hunter addiction. Hell, I've read articles about Japanese pop culture icons having played hundreds of hours of the series.

Why do people go crazy for it? I tried to find out the answer a few years ago on the PSP, but I just couldn't do it. Camera control on the PSP was what killed it for me almost immediately. Hacking away at a monster for 30 minutes seemed more like a battle with the camera than it did with the monster. I ended up playing for a few hours before stopping in frustration. Realistically the camera wasn't the only thing that stopped me from playing. The fact is that I didn't understand anything that was going on and I wasn't having fun. The game took absolutely no steps to educate me on how to do anything. That's not exactly how I like my video games. It didn't click with me, so I dropped it.

I really don't like playing what should be dual-analog games on the PSP

Despite my distaste for the PSP entry I played years ago, something about Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for the Wii-U and 3DS piqued my interest. The question of why people go crazy for this franchise reared up in my head again and I just had to know. I decided before even playing the demo that I was going to purchase the game for the Wii-U and give it a shot. Partially to answer my question, but mostly to have any new game to play on my dusty Wii-U. I ordered it on Amazon and then decided to play the demo. They let you choose one of the 16 different weapons to fight either an easy fight, or a hard fight. Going through the weapons I ended up choosing dual-blades and the easy monster called Lagombi. For the next 40 minutes I was locked in a struggle with a crazy ice throwing rabbit-koala. When the creature finally died the demo ended and I didn't know how to react for a minute or two. In fact, I was kind of scared. It's difficult to explain, but during the epic struggle I felt a rush that I don't feel often when playing games.

Over the course of the fight I learned the patterns of the Lagombi. I knew when it was going to slide on its belly. I knew when it was going to throw chunks of ice at me and I knew when to dodge. Each dodge allowed me to sink the dual-blades into the monster and cause some damage. The struggle was legitimately exciting, so I needed to let all my emotions sink in during the aftermath. That's when it hit me. I had felt a little bit of why people like Monster Hunter, which made me immediately both excited and terrified. What if Monster Hunter sucked me in? Would I finally understand? I didn't know, but I desperately wanted to find out. Knowing that the game had a poor tutorial I began to look up beginner guides for the series to prepare.

This Lagombi gave me my first taste of why I like Monster Hunter. 

When the game released officially I started out by playing a few hours each night. It's weird, because for the first ten or so hours I was kind of just fumbling along. I wasn't having fun, but I didn't dislike what I was doing either. One thing that helped were the guides I had looked up in the weeks prior to playing the retail release. Specifically I watched the podcast called My Fair Hunter. It's a weekly video series created by a Monster Hunter "expert" (Roy) in which he teaches his trainee (Sarah) how to play Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii from the ground up. I learned a lot of the games basics from them and I think that's the reason I ended up sticking with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. It's not the exact same game that they're playing on the podcast, but it's fairly close. The things I learned from them made it so that I didn't feel completely lost. It definitely helped soften the learning curve. 

I can't pinpoint exactly when it was, but somewhere after the ten hour mark I truly started to enjoy playing the game. A few of my friends bought the game for 3DS and we began to play quite often. As of writing this post I have put around 180 hours into the game and I still play at least one mission on a daily basis.

What's the appeal?

Now that I know I'm into Monster Hunter I've been trying to think about why that is. In my mind there are many parallels between this series and Phantasy Star Online, which I played for a very long time. You get into groups of up to four people to go the same areas over and over to get items you want or need. That sounds super reductive, but it's true. To me they're both partially about the loot grind and character advancement. They also both have incredibly low drop rates on certain items, which can be infuriating. That's where the similarities end though.

Monster Hunter is much more about skill than most other games I've played in recent memory. Instead of leveling your character up and having them gain strength they're always going to stay the same. What's going to change are your weapons and armor. Killing or capturing monsters allows you to get parts from them in order to craft new and exciting gear. The gear will make it so you can survive a bit longer and hit a bit harder, but you're eventually going to have to get better at the game. What's great is that the game gives players a lot of options in terms of how they want to play. There are 16 weapon types all of which play very differently. Animation priority can be a turn off for a lot of people though, because committing to every single attack isn't always fun. However, there are a few weapons like the dual blades though that move much faster.

Don't like animation priority? You should try the dual blades.

Each monster can be likened to a boss encounter. They behave a certain way, which you'll eventually learn. This is cool, because it makes every single mission an epic battle. You're going to get hurt and knocked down. You might even die a few times. To me that's what makes it all so exciting. Most games are all about making you feel like a badass at all times, while Monster Hunter goes out of it's way to show you that you're not. It's very much about delayed gratification. There are no health bars on the monsters. You just have to know when they're ready for capture or about to die. You have to learn a monster's patterns in order to do well against it. Then you'll most likely have to fight it a ton more in order to get the items you need from it.

I guess you could say it's the thrill of the hunt that draws me in. I like going into a fight with no idea what's going on and just observing to see what I'm up against. It's a great feeling when you realize a few fights after that initial observation that you're crushing the monster you found so difficult earlier. That feeling has kept me going for 180 hours now, which is far more than I play most games before getting tired of them.

Hitting enemies with a great sword is very satisfying. 

What's upsetting is that the game is so obtuse. The beginning of the game doesn't explain nearly enough to get you prepared for the later hunts in the game. You'll be sent to gather a bunch of resources and shortly after fight your first big monster. The first monster is easy, but the difficulty spikes quite a bit after that. I'd recommend doing what I did and looking up beginners guides or getting a posse of friends together to help you out.

I definitely know that this type of game isn't for everyone, but I wanted to share my experiences and insight into what the deal is with the series. It has eluded me for so long but now it has sunken its addictive claws into me. There aren't very many franchises like Monster Hunter out there and I'm glad I gave it a chance.

     -Manny