20.05.11 / Capcom, Nintendo DS, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: ghost trick, time travel
After giving up on playing Ghost Trick several weeks ago, I decided to skip the frustration of playing it and find out the story through Youtube. I watched chapters 3-17 in quick succession, but it took another 2 weeks before I watched the final chapter and “finished” the game.
Not because it’s bad or anything, but just because Ghost Trick is one of those games where the journey is more interesting than the destination. The process of finding out is fun, but what you actually find out is like, “Hmm. Okay. I see. Thanks for telling me.” Rather than “OMG I can’t believe this is what really happened OMG!!”
Part of it is the character motivations, part of it is the timelines. “You stole my life! So I’m going to just chill for a couple of years, then I’ll do something bad, then I’ll chill for another couple of years and then I’ll do something bad again.” …Excuse me?
Actually it’s the characters themselves I don’t like. Sissel is cool, I like Sissel. Lynne is boneheaded, pushy and annoying, a terrible combination if there ever was one. And her constant dying got old after the second time. Jowd is…EGAD BAD DAD. I like him, but he’s an idiot. Cabanela? Eh, I don’t see what the fuss is about. The only thing going for him is his dance moves, and Bailey’s got him beat there. Go Bailey! Oh, and Missile. I like Missile, he’s a funny dog. So they were a mixed bunch, all in all. Memorable though. That’s got to count for something.
If I had to pinpoint an exact moment when it all fell apart, I’d say it was chapter 16 and 17 that killed my enthusiasm. First the stupid meteorite zomg alien powers plot twist (BUUUULLLSHIIIIT, BUUUUULLLLSHIIIIITTT) then all that time spent in the stupid submarine fiddling with torpedoes and rising water levels and more torpedoes instead of progressing the story at a critical moment. It was B-O-R-I-N-G. As far as climaxes go, this was more like a speed bump than like Mount Everest. It’s weird that I can accept manipulation powers and time travel but that meteorites and submarines just pissed me off, but that’s life for you.
Still, I’m glad I watched it and found out what really happened, even though it wasn’t that exciting. It ended fairly well for everyone, especially? except? Sissel, so I’m happy? not happy? for him. His fate left me with extremely mixed feelings. The whole 10 years ago, Ray, waiting-it-out thing didn’t make a lick of sense to me, but I’m tired of thinking about time travel plotholes, they only make my head hurt.
I’ve got to say this, though: Thank goodness I didn’t keep playing! If I had, by now I would hate this game and all its characters with every fiber of my being. Those puzzles are crazy! How does anyone ever figure them out?! From reading comments and reviews, it sounds like I’m the only one on the planet who had trouble with any of them. Maybe if I kept doing them over and over again I’d figure out the correct answers in the end, but can you imagine the pain and the torture? Besides, the hourglass cheats! I checked the videos against the clock and it isn’t always 4 minutes, sometimes it just jumps to 3 seconds left after barely a minute. No fair! I couldn’t handle that kind of pressure, no way.
So thanks to Zslyzer who uploaded those videos to Youtube for me to watch, pain-free. Now I can move on with happy memories.
28.03.11 / Capcom, Nintendo DS, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (2)
Tags: final fantasy xiii, ghost trick, puzzle game, saga 3, sakura taisen, the kayou generation
This is probably the fastest I’ve quit a game in a while, but it’s just not fun any more. I’m really interested in the story, but to get at every bit of story I have to jump through 50 different hoops. Sometimes it’s obvious what to do, and sometimes it’s not. What I really hated what having like 5 seconds to make a certain move. If you missed that time window you’d have to rewind and start again. I really don’t have that much time to spend on a puzzle game. Even a FAQ didn’t help much. Trying to memorize the steps was exhausting, and looking up and down just made my neck tired.
Redoing puzzles was hard on me mentally as well. In the beginning it was like “I’ve gotta save Kamila!” but then after the 4th or 5th time it’s more like “Do I have to?” And that dog Missile was cute at first, but after the 20th time he barked, I wanted to muzzle him and drop him in the fish tank. That made me realize that if I kept playing, I would rapidly end up detesting the characters I was trying to save, and would probably end up hating the game in the end. So I thought it wise to quit early while I still had some love for it.
Luckily the magic of Youtube came to the rescue. What did I ever do without it? Thanks to Youtube, I can sit back and watch some other sucker kind, gentle soul playing the rest of the chapters for me. Of course, what I was really hoping for was a detailed summary of the story, so I wouldn’t have to watch the whole thing, but beggars can’t be choosers. I’m really grateful to the people who put this stuff online. Their suffering means I don’t have to.
Speaking of suffering, I watched someone play the first 16 minutes or so of FFXIII on Youtube the other day. Since I don’t own or plan to buy a 360 or a PS3 it’s not a game I was planning to play, and watching it in action did nothing to change my mind. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but the ‘fantasy’ part has always been a strong selling point of FF for me. The other games to date have had middling to high amounts of fantasy but I don’t know what to do with FFXIII‘s Star-Wars-meets-Blade-Runner futuristic setting. Sure I like sci-fi and all, but in my FFs they have to be toned way down. Just as well I wasn’t going to play it anyway, huh? Especially since practically nothing happened in those first 16 minutes. Oh, and the characters were annoying (snap judgments strike again!).
Enough about that, I haven’t been up to much else lately. I gave up trying to get Gold Stars in The Kayou Generation, and I finished all the puzzles in Color Cross except one. I’m also a few hours into Saga 3, which is a decent enough game. I’ve been playing so many time travel games these days, it’s been messing with my enjoyment of other media. I watched a drama a little while ago and when a character died, I didn’t miss a beat: “No problem, they can just go back in time and make it so— Oh @#$%…”
In other news, I’m almost done with my second playthrough of Tactical Guild. I just need a final push of motivation to go wipe the floor with the final boss. Since I don’t have much else going on, I’m thinking of starting a new game as well. I put Dramatic Dungeon: Sakura Taisen on my R4 the other day, but then I spent 20 minutes listening to the stupidly catchy opening theme instead of actually playing it. I always loved that song, even though I’ve never actually watched the anime. All right, I’m clearly starting to ramble now. Back to work.
25.03.11 / Capcom, Nintendo DS, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: ghost trick, puzzle game
I couldn’t sleep last night (in fact I finally got to sleep at 9am) and none of the games I’m currently playing were working out for me, so I decided to try something new. In hindsight, playing something entitled Ghost Trick at 3am in the morning may not have been the brightest idea, but luckily it’s not that creepy. Lux-Pain was creepier, I couldn’t stand that game. I hate creepy stuff, but Ghost Trick is surprisingly upbeat and even a little funny despite the title. I’m enjoying it.
I haven’t gotten very far though, just started chapter 2. The premise is that you’re someone who just got killed and you have one night to find out whodunnit and why before you vanish in the morning. Somehow you find out that you’ve got special powers that enable your soul to inhabit and operate inanimate objects, so for example you can turn a fan on or roll a tyre, and this helps you save people’s lives and find clues about your life. You press “Ghost” to go into the ghost world and possess something and “Trick’ to use whatever ability that thing has.
It’s an interesting dynamic, but it’s very stressful sometimes. That’s because when you have to save a life, there’s usually an hourglass counting down the minutes until they get snuffed. I see the need for one. There’d be no tension at all if you had all the time in the world to make your move. But I still find it stressful because I’m a laid-back kind of gamer. I don’t like to be rushed in any way (which is part of the reason why I don’t like RTS and Action RPGs). Plus some of the puzzles involve an incredible string of coincidences like those machines… Rube Goldberg machines?… I’ll have to check wiki. Anyway, that thing where one object hits another, which rolls onto another, which startles a mouse so it drops cheese onto a trap, which triggers X, which triggers Y, and then it all works out in the end. It’s great fun and all but I still go “Good grief!” at the end.
In any case, I’m only an hour or two into it, so it’s still fresh and somewhat funny. I like a good whodunnit mystery, and I like the fact that neither the hero nor the villains take themselves too seriously and the dead people don’t come over all weepy and depressed. I’ve got like 4 other games going on right now, but I’ll probably drop FFCC: Echoes of Time and give up the second playthrough of Tactical Guild and possibly pause playing Saga 3 in order to focus on this. It shouldn’t take long.
02.11.10 / Capcom, Nintendo DS, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (2)
Tags: ace attorney, apollo justice, miles edgeworth, quercus alba, review
Or, in short, “Quercus Alba is an idiot.” Obviously, endgame spoilers follow. Nothing wrong with the game itself. Just like all the previous game, the last two cases dragged on tremendously, but the bad guy was gotten in the end and there was much rejoicing. This is much better than Apollo Justice and the third PW game, at any rate. Kay >>> Trucy > Maya, and Agent Lang >> Klavier (especially since you get to put paid to him in a most satisfying manner). And of course Edgeworth = Phoenix (ooh, it’s a real toss-up) >>>>>>>> Apollo, so it’s all good.
But more than any of the other bosses before him, if this last boss had just kept his head down, stood his ground and DENIED EVERYTHING, he would have walked away a free man. There was no reason for him to cooperate with them at all once they’d caught Shih-na, ‘cos he was in plenty of trouble at that point. Deny, deny, deny, man.
Huh? My plant sticks were used as crossbows? Oh, how horrible, who would do such a thing to my poor flowers? Please find the real killer at once!
Huh? Mask Demasque II? It wasn’t me.
Huh? Loading a pushcart with a body? If someone did that, shouldn’t the suspicion be on the Steel Samurai and his staff? Anyway, it wasn’t me.
Huh? Putting the cart in the reservoir, etc, etc, etc? Shih-na and her mystery accomplice must have done that by themselves, I’m just a weak old man. Anyway, it wasn’t me.
Huh? A knife in my bouquet? Why, so it is! Or the handle, anyway. Please have the florist and my staff investigated at once, or maybe the Steel Samurai snuck it in when I wasn’t looking. Anyway, it wasn’t me.
Huh? Me and Manny in the car together? Okay, you’ve got me, I was there. But that doesn’t mean I knew anything about a so-called smuggling ring or the murder of that poor, poor girl. I was just hitching a ride with Manny to go to the doctor, what with my bad back and all. Anyway, it wasn’t me.
Huh? The fake Primidux statue somehow found its way into my office? What would that have to do with me? I have no motive, and you can’t prove I knew the counterfeit plate was inside. Seeing as Manny was the smuggling boss, maybe he or Ambassador Palaeno did it to make Allebast look bad! Anyway, it wasn’t me.
Huh? “Early Summer Rain Jab”? What can I say, I snuck a peek in the dressing room because I’m such a big fan of the Steel Samurai. Big deal.
Huh? My blood on a box of samurai dogs? Well, you can prove it was my blood, but you can’t prove it got on the box while it was in the dressing room, or that it wasn’t planted there. You say you got this from the Pink Princess? I suggest you investigate her and the Samurai one more time, their timing is especially suspicious. Anyway, it wasn’t me.
Basically you guys have got nothing on me except a bunch of wild guesses and random speculation. You can’t detain me because I’m not going to stick around long enough for you to get my diplomatic immunity revoked. So long, suckers!
Oh, and by the way: It wasn’t me!
