Adventures of a Mega Drive VarietyJosh embarks once again on a nostalgic adventure with the Sega Mega Drive. Frustration Cometh.
As the sun shines on the Mega Drive, I realise the modern joy of RF cables and dodgy AC adapters
Occasionally, I find it pretty cool to dig out a console I may not of played for some years, and go on a nostalgia bender. Sure, most of the games will be poorly made, poorly chosen and poor to play, but back then, I was poor (that was really poor writing and I apologise). In this case, I dug out (literally, I had a lot of boxes) and found two Sega Mega Drive II machines, so I did a random pick and set it up.
Now Sega released a few versions of the Mega Drive II, which itself was a new version of their original console that looked a little bit like some sort of kitchen appliance turned to the dark side. Some people are very picky over the Mega Drive II, because some version were released with a sound chip that was not as good as the previous models, and those with that were missing out. I may or may not have one those, I’m not entirely sure, but I do know one thing, after a quick blow in the ports (not as bad as it sounds), it was alive again.
My plan for this is that I’m going to go through and play some, if not all of the games that I’ve found along with the console and attempt to review them, which for some reason, perhaps the one being I was about 4 years old, I never did when I originally played through. I’ll be as fair as I can, because some of these games are old, but sometimes, you just know when a game is being played that it was no better at its release. The good thing about many of the games on the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo is that they actually age better than the N64 and PS1 era games, as polygonal games have moved onwards in the world quite a lot.
So anyway, I’m going to tune my TV to the RF channel and try to tune the console itself, then will get on to playing some games.
Why Chrono Trigger is Timeless15 years old, but still the finest example of a JRPG
No matter how often or for how long you have played games, there are some you miss. I will never quite understand some of the love people hold for games that appeared on the Atari 2600 for example and many games throughout the 1980′s and early 90′s just didn’t apply to me, wasn’t the right age.
Some of these I’ve had the chance to go back and play, such as a lot of the Super Nintendo games and build some kind of background knowledge of a lot of classic franchises that were born in this era. But one particular game, despite it appearing on many of the ‘top 100 games ever’ lists, that I never really encountered. Chrono Trigger.
So whilst I may be guilty of over-dramatising this slightly, Chrono Trigger is an anomaly when the world was obsessed with Final Fantasy, random encounters and all the familiar tropes associated with Japanese role-playing games. It was created by what became known as the ‘Dream Team’, a collaboration between Square’s Final Fantasy team, and Enix’s Dragon Quest team, before their official merger some five years later.
A 2D battle perspective? Chrono Trigger wasn't afraid to try something new.
The Square team cited that the Enix team brought not only a more dynamic style of the design of the game, but allowed more elements of humour, which simply wouldn’t be possible in a Final Fantasy game. The Enix team said that the Square’s team knowledge of the Super Nintendo hardware as well as their experience in scripting gave an aura of quality around Chrono Trigger. In many ways, the stage was set.
Of course, you can put a fantastic team together, but the game struggle to meet expectations. Of course, I missed Chrono Trigger first time round, around 1995, instead playing the DS version in 2010, after it was released in 2007. In a way, it makes it even more difficult to judge whether it is actually such as classic or not. Perhaps one of the clearest examples is the nature of the port to the DS.
Each time, when it was ported to the PS1 and then the DS, very minor changes were made to the look of the game. Whilst there were some UI and performance tweaks to both, there was no level of Final Fantasy III and IV re-make to enhance the visual appeal so that the polygonal generation would be able to digest it. No such change in Chrono Trigger, sprites, good-looking ones at that remained the same.
When I first played Chrono Trigger, it took a while. It felt so different to someone who was used to Final Fantasy games of that generation. As a bit of a background, in Chrono Trigger, it uses an Active Time Battle system, with the majority of enemies you encounter already on-screen, with some jumping in from off-screen, but there are no transitions to a ‘battle screen’. You use Tech’s to perform attacks against one or multiple enemies, which can then be used with double or triple techs to combine the characters powers.
Of course, the battle system is a key component, but the game wouldn’t be viewed in such as good light if it didn’t have a great story backing it up. The basic concept is pretty simple. Chrono, the typical spiky haired silent protagonist, and an eclectic bunch of characters, ranging from a rebellious princess, a sword wielding frog and an articulate robot, end up travelling through time in order to stop the world being destroyed in an apocalyptic mess following the year 1999. Yes, there is the typical evil parasite, world destroying monster in the form of Lavos, but there are so many layers of minor characters, all linked through the time eras, that you can kind of pass over the stereotypical super-monster.
How about a bit of Mode 7! CT had a bunch of mini-game style quests for you to try your hand at
If time travelling and essentially 4 different types of world were not mind-boggling enough, the fact that the path to completing the game is un-linear must have been massive for a SNES RPG, with you being able to choose whether to battle Lavos at several points throughout the game. You could probably cut out about 7 hours of my play through that I spent doing side-quests, gaining better armour and weapons, as well as simply leveling up enough that the final boss wasn’t a challenge.
I mean, it probably wouldn’t matter too much if it made no difference at the end of the game. Thankfully, there are a bunch of different endings, all depending on some of the minor choices that you make in the game, as well as things as straightforward as the way you decided to attack Lavos. One particular ending, known as the ‘Dream Team’ which is also viewed as being one of the hardest to get, can only be got after completing the game again using “New Game +” which kept your weapons and levels etc. The Dream Team ending had a bit of fourth wall breakage, containing members of the production team who asked, for example “Want to see a Chrono Trigger 2″.
Another thing I can say about Chrono Trigger is that it feels very complete as it finishes. Unlike quite a lot of the Final Fantasy’s I’ve played, when the credits rolled, I felt I’d resolved the story, reached the end of the arc for each characters, which in a way was more rewarding than the endless speculation that accompanies games with more open-ended endings.
One of the scenes that really sticks with for some reason is towards the beginning of the game. You think your slowly making progress through the story and getting back to the present day, but Chrono finds himself getting arrested and put on trial for kidnapping the princess. Now, whether you are guilty or not depends on your actions in the carnival at the beginning of the game. Did you help find the missing cat? Did you fight the robot? The game will play you a clip of the offending action, and use it as a judge of character, with the different members of the jury making a decision based on this. Whilst the outcome is the same either way, leading you to have to escape out of jail, it added a greater impact on the player onto how your actions could alter the course of the game, without you even realising it.
The PS1 version added anime cut scenes, not crucial, but didn't really detract from anything either
From the musical score to the character development, I find it very difficult to criticise Chrono Trigger, because a fifteen year old game managed to charm the hell out of me. It’s sometimes difficult to pick up a game of that age which you have no nostalgic re-collection and enjoy it. So perhaps, the fact that Chrono Trigger managed to suck me in for 23 hours, the first time a game has done that for quite a while, perhaps is the most impressive thing. Yes the sequel of Chrono Cross for the PS1 was also well received, Chrono Trigger remains the one of the few Super Nintendo classics, that will remain playable in years to come.
It's a PSP don't you know, it occasionally is sold in some places
Apologies for the atrocious wordplay, I’m still nursing a bit of a fever. I thought I would take a bit of a look at the “PSP Go!”, Sony’s second stab at rejuvenating the sales of their handheld, by taking away the disk drive, giving it a bunch of memory and a slide up screen. They haven’t particularly done very well at pushing the PSP Go into peoples minds and their hands, with the PSP 3000 still retaining the “If I want a PSP, I’m going to get one of those” title.
I liked the idea of the PSP Go, but then kind of deep down knew it wouldn’t work, and so far, have been proved right. Whilst it would be wonderful for Sony to be able to control the way content was distributed from their network, thus getting rid of piracy and increasing their margin on software sales, since when have things really gone well for Sony’s entertainment department recently. I don’t even think the PSP Go looks particularly bad, but then, it doesn’t really look good at all. All in all, why is the PSP Go simply not selling.
Welcome to the UK, where it can be the coldest winter for a million years, yet you still emerge with satsuma skin
Don’t judge me. Just because I’m sitting inside on a day where Britain is, at last, pushing the temperature boundary of Rio de Janeiro (I don’t understand this global warming stuff), I’m sitting inside writing a blog post. To be fair, I’m perhaps being rather conscientious and following the health guidelines which say “Hide away from the evil fireball of doom in the sky between these hours, or you’ll be burnt to a crisp”.
Apart from the past few days been a permatan’s worst nightmare, losing their individual orange glow as everyone who hasn’t had a risky experiment with chemicals suddenly change their shade, it’s been a time when I worryingly haven’t had chance to play many games. It’s been a busy old-time, restricting me to Chrono Trigger sessions on the DS, but I have got chance to play a few games, and think about a few as well.
Captured the brooding, yet essentially confused, look of Ethan Mars. "Where's my kid gone?"
Nope, no pull string that whips out some classic Heavy Rain lines such as “JASON!” or “JASON?”, but the people over at Tomopop have found this Ethan Mars action figure. When I thought today “what’s in the news today”, this wasn’t the thing to spring to mind.
Ok, some other stuff may be happening, but none of it is particularly interesting when compared to the discover of an Ethan Mars action figure. It was created by this chap, Baker009, a pretty talented dude who has a knack for making custom action figures. You can either check his deviantart page, or the blog post that featured it. There is a very slight spoiler, but lets be honest, if you are reading this, you’re either very bored or really interested in an action figure.
Things are not going well for Mr. Wake on his annual holiday this week
Man, It’s already the 10th of May. Time is going damn fast nowadays, not that it has really gone any faster than it ever has. But this is not a morning for theoretical physics, instead, let us take a look at some of the new games which are coming out over the course of this week.
It's kind of like the Legend of Zelda. Ish
3D Dot Game Heroes
Platform: Playstation 3
Publisher: SouthPeak Interactive
Atlus USA
Developer: FromSoftware Inc.
Silicon Studios
Release Date: May 11th 2010
It’s a bit of a weird one this one. Basically, imagine the Legend of Zelda, in quasi 3D, with a character made out of four animation frames and a random selection of custom made pixels for each. Whilst it contains many of the familiars of these types of Adventure games, houses filled with dead or dying developers is just one example of the strange meta-game going on behind the scenes. If you’re looking for a retro based title with an interesting premise that is every so slightly insane, make sure you think about checking out 3D Dot Game Heroes.
What a strange mix...
The gaming world is an interestingly dull one when you think about it. Yes, that is a bit of an oxymoron, but allow me to digress a little bit more. I’ve got a feed reader set up that draws in a load of stories from all over the web. How many interest me? I’d say around five a day, possibly less than that, but I get about 200 plus stories fed to me a day.
There is always a lot happening I’ve worked out, but none of it actually means anything. I’m no journalist, possibly so I can afford to hide away from websites such as “Games Journalist Are Incompetent Fuckwits”, a perhaps embarrassingly honest look at what is actually covered by many of the so called “Game News Sites” on the internet, if a tad harsh in some respects. This site and it’s author have a pretty relentless dedication to ripping the shit out of people who write what they call news. Some of it is just dodgy spelling errors, or weird web design choices, but a lot of it focusses on the content of these sites. Now you often expect this from low rent sites, such as ours and many FanBoy esque sites, but they are not the main targets.
Perhaps "Boobs not Bullets" was the aim of the campaign
The last time I was looking at Japanese buses, it was a kindergarten Pokemon bus. This however, probably won’t be making its way to children’s schools in Japan. Shin Koi Hime Musou ~The Legend of the Moé Commander~ is being released in Japan on the 23rd of July, and thus, they are advertising it on a intercity bus in Akihabara.
In order to build up anticipation, they have covered buses in rather, colourful, decals of characters in order to build up anticipation for the title. No, I don’t know what they heck the game is about (other than perhaps the obvious), but for a game three months away from release, it’s getting a good load of advertising.
If you would ride this bus when it came to town, take a look at the image gallery below, with even more detail on what it currently travelling around parts of Tokyo…Erm, Enjoy!
Last seen in the distance exploding in Modern Warfare 2
Whilst this could turn out to be a seemingly dull and long-winded post, the contents could have big implications for many gamers in the USA, and possibly serve as precedent abroad. The Supreme Court (in the US) have decided to hear a case about the criminalisation of the sale of violent video games to children. It sounds simple enough right?
The background to all this is simple if we look at it on a surface level. It all started when State Senator for California, Democrat Leland Yee, who also happens to be a child psychologist, wrote a bill which criminalised the sale of violent video games to children. If you have a bit of time on your hands, you can read it here. It was signed into law by State Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but was blocked, preventing courts in California from using it as an offence, and this was back in 2005.
An issue that always bats into my mind is the immense contradiction that I live with. I’m a Free (libre) society advocator and yet I am heavily tied into the world of video games – an inherently closed medium.
Before going any further, it’s time to look into what libre is and how it is different from gratis. I layman’s terms, libre means free as in freedom and gratis means free as in free bear. The idea behind libre freedom is that people should be allowed access to previous ideas in order to build upon them and create new ideas: In terms of video games, this means the source code.
