Reminiscing: The Original Spyro Trilogy

[Reminiscing is a series I’d like to start doing as a way to remember all the games I’ve played over the years. These aren’t reviews, but remembrances - memories of my experiences. A long time has passed since I’ve played some of these games, so I don’t think I can be as detailed or perhaps as accurate as I would like, but I hope this turns out well.]

It’s been a long time since I last played the original Spyro games. Like, 2-3 years or so? I loved playing the games, and I even got to 100% completion on all of them! The games had a certain magic that just couldn’t be compared to, say, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (the only Crash game I’ve played in the original PS1 trilogy). Not to say that Crash Bandicoot 2 or the Crash Bandicoot series in general isn’t good, but it just didn’t hook me or affect me as much as the original Spyro trilogy did.

My love for the series as it is now is interesting in that in the beginning, I didn’t like what I played. Spyro the Dragon was the first game I played in the series when I was around 10 years old, and at the time, I remember not understanding what was going on all that much and being a bit confused as to what was going on. Chasing after dragon eggs didn’t really appeal to the me who was used to adventure games like The Legend of Zelda or roleplaying games like Final Fantasy IX (my favorite Final Fantasy of all time, by the way) and Pokemon. I think I was too young to really get and appreciate what was there at the time – a good beginning to a great trilogy.

It would be a couple years later, when I was 13-15 years-old, when I would decide to try Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage! on PSN. This was the game that got truly me hooked to the Spyro series.  From the exciting worlds you could explore, the abilities you could unlock, the great boss battles you had, and the excellent humor and charm, it was just good times. The final battle with Ripto was slightly less awesome than I would’ve liked it to be, though, because…

[SPOILER WARNING] though it was exciting and fun, the issue with the fight was that it relied less on Spyro’s own abilities and more from the energy balls or whatever that you could pick up and use on Ripto. [END SPOILER WARNING]

Otherwise, Spyro 2 came off to me as a really amazing game. I had to play more.

I picked up Spyro: Year of the Dragon (basically Spyro 3) afterward on PSN. I was excited, and I went in with high expectations. If Spyro 2 could be so good, Spyro 3 had to be amazing, right? Listening to some of the music pumped me up, too. It sounded FANTASTIC! I was so hyped.

In the end, I left mostly satisfied. It was a great game! The worlds were great, the characters were funny and interesting, the different missions were fun, skateboarding was awesome, and the gameplay of most of the new characters were entertaining. However, there were 2 frustrations I had with the game and one disappointment.

This first frustration I had with the game was purely my own fault. Remember when I said that I managed to get to 100% completion on all of the Spyro games? Well, while I was trying to get 100% completion on Year of the Dragon I was constantly frustrated by my inability to complete certain missions. It drove me crazy! I just wanted to completely finish the game, you know? I really thought I could reach that 100%, and eventually I did, but trying to complete it all the way almost ruined the game for me.

The second frustration I had was with the gameplay of one of the characters: Agent 9. I’ll be honest, I was frustrated by some of the shooting segments featured in Agent 9’s levels (though the music was so rad). I absolutely grew to hate these sections. They would have barrages of enemies coming at you, and I would be completely overwhelmed at times, which meant I had to play that section over and over and over again. It just wasn’t that fun.

Lastly, if there is any disappointment of the game I remember having, it is regarding the endgame boss fight with The Sorceress. In the last battle, the song from the very first hub world, Sunrise Spring, plays, and if you don’t know what that sounds like, it’s like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XisEmbOZo_Q (posted by yearofthe)

This is completely inappropriate for a final boss battle! The feeling of challenge, of danger, of excitement, of tension is completely lost with this song. And it ruined the boss fight for me. What made it worse is that the actual song for this battle sounds like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmHScpFsD_0 (posted by CrystalFissure)

That is glorious. And depressing that it didn’t play in my version of the game (it only plays on the Greatest Hits version of Year of the Dragon, while the PAL version features the song “Spike’s Arena”, which is also heavy with tension and more appropriate than frickin’ “Sunrise Spring”). The extra boss fight after endgame is great, but it just couldn’t make up for the terrible mistake that final boss battle had.

I went back to the game that started it all and picked up the original Spyro off PSN too, since I had lost the original PS1 disc while moving to a new neighborhood. It wasn’t as annoying or confusing as I had originally remembered it to be. It was a really fun experience, and it was quite a charming game, but it lacked some improvements or worlds that made its sequel so special to me. The bonus world was great fun, though.

In the end, I’m left with a very good trilogy of games with a few flaws, but what game is perfect? Insomniac did fantastic work, and I left the trilogy feeling impressed and mostly satisfied with the comedy, the fun action and platforming, the awesome levels/worlds, the addictive music, and the good times that were had.

My Experience with: Yakuza 3 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 is where the game really starts to open up. There were no barriers blocking me from exploring Downtown Ryukyu this time, and there were many things to see and encounter. Being more expansive, Chapter 3 took me 3-4 hours to get through.

The theme of family is again present throughout this chapter, from the main stories featured in the chapter, to the sub-stories that I experienced while exploring the city. It’s great, really – it can definitely get very emotional at times. There are scenes between the kids where I just had to go “Awwwww” again. The feels, man. The feels.

I took fishing for the second time, equipped with 3 worms to use as bait. I managed to catch 2 things, this time – a coral branch and a porcupine fish. Success! I managed to adjust to the fishing system – which is pretty natural; it’s similar to what you’d do in real life, I would think (don’t let the line slack too hard, but don’t let it get too tense, either), and the music that plays when you catch something on your fishing hook definitely pumps up the action.

I also got to play virtual golf, which is actually part of the main plot in this chapter. I would probably describe the gameplay of golf to be a more sophisticated version of the golf game from Wii Sports, in that there are bars to measure how much power you put into your shots, different golf clubs to use depending on the distance, etc. I like the fact that there’s no music while playing. The ambience felt very nice and somewhat calming, but it would be frustrating when I kept hitting out-of-bounds. I wasn’t too good at playing golf – I would often have to redo my shots, which you’re allowed to do. Maybe it was because I wasn’t that good at it, but I just felt like the golf game was okay. Not amazing, just decent.

Like I said before, I had access to most of, if not all of Downtown Ryukyu, and took a lot of time exploring the stores and side-missions. There was a side-story where I encountered some con men (I didn’t fall victim to their tactics, of course!), and one where I rescued a street musician.

There was an interesting side-story where I met a girl named Mika while going to get a bite to eat at a fast-food restaurant (and recover my health), Smile Burger. It was interesting, as she asked me on a date. I ended going up on 2 dates with her – one to a restaurant and one to a karaoke box. When you do karaoke, you play a rhythm game. I’ll be honest, I was pretty terrible, and I had 2 tries (I did better later, though). I remember two things: “Tone deaf”, and “Are…are you all right?” Enough said. Anyway, after fighting her family bodyguard and finishing her story, we faded out of the sidewalk and faded into the outside of the “Casual Hotel” Urban Castle…  

Then I got an appreciative message from her. Yes! Totally worth it for the message!

Of course, I got into more battles, but by this point, I’m sure you have a good idea of how it went. There was actually one really funny moment where one guy who stops me while I’m running goes and tells me he’s been having a pretty bad day. And so he says, “Do you mind if we take out our aggression on you?” before he and his pals gang up on me. Really? Oh well.

The most notable battle was the boss fight, which was actually pretty hard; the dude kept blocking. And the boss used weapons this time, which made him much more difficult to defeat. I ended up using half/most of the food in my inventory to heal myself, which had to happen quite often as I receive some brutal beat-downs. It was tough, but I made it.

By this chapter, you should have a pretty good idea of what’s going on, and how it ties in with the prologue. Things are getting more and more interesting… Anyway, you’ll hopefully know what to expect in the early parts of Yakuza 3 by this point, and this is a game I definitely recommend playing. A review might be written in the future when I’m finished with the game, so stay tuned!

5 Reasons why Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix Should’ve Had 358/2 Days Playable

I was hooked from the moment the first Kingdom Hearts started playing, and the series has been a part of my life ever since.

I’ve managed to play most of the Kingdom Hearts games in the past few years, from Birth by Sleep all the way to Kingdom Hearts II, though I’ve missed a few games such as Dream Drop Distance. It’s hard to keep up with a series that gets around to so many consoles, and I think that’s an issue that the series has, especially when the story progressed a bit on many of these spin-offs (Chain of Memories is a prime offender in that regard, if it’s considered a spin-off, since you NEED to know what happened in that game to get a better understanding of what happens in Kingdom Hearts II).

This new HD collection of Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix, sounds awesome. It’s got the never-before-released-in-the-US Final Mix edition of the original game, which will let me walk down memory lane, and Re: Chain of Memories, which I never played (though I did play the GBA version), and have always been interested in playing. I’d love to pick up this collection one of these days. It’d be great to play these two games, but…

Why did 358/2 Days, the third “game” in the collection, have to be just HD cut-scenes? In all honesty, the package would have been so much better and much more appealing if the game had been playable, and here are 5 reasons why:

1.       Gameplay  - Obviously, being made into a collection of cut-scenes, you lose the gameplay aspect of 358/2 Days – basically what makes this a game. You couldn’t just conclude that, “Hey, 358/2 Days is like the gameplay of Kingdom Hearts, so I’m not missing much”. You lose so much by not making this a game. You lose the customizability that 358/2 Days offered (the Panel System was great, allowing you to upgrade yourself with panels, or customize your Keyblade, etc.), you lose the missions you could’ve completed (with or without friends – a point I’ll bring up later), you lose the boss fights you could’ve played, you lose the worlds you could’ve explored in, and most importantly….

2.       Interactivity – As cut-scenes, you lose the interactivity that you would have playing a video game. You lose something that would’ve made you feel like you were a part of the story more. There’s a disconnect between you and Roxas now; you’re separate people. He is no longer your avatar into the world of Kingdom Hearts. How else can you feel the exhilaration or difficulty facing enemies such as the Heartless or bosses? Plus, You wouldn’t be able to feel as connected to characters who you fight together with in missions in the game, like Xion.  

3.       Multiplayer – By removing the gameplay aspect of 358/2 Days, you’re also stripping away one very enticing feature – multiplayer. How cool would it have been to play Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days with friends? Finishing missions together, fighting bosses together, etc., etc. The appeal is apparent. It would have been really cool, since there are only 2 games I can think of in the series that features multiplayer (358/2 Days and Birth by Sleep).

4.       Revision/Expansion – The problem with making 358/2 Days into nothing but cut-scenes is that you also take away to opportunity to make better and expand upon what was already there. You could create longer, more exciting missions (removing the potential issue of missions being too short, coming off from a handheld game) or maybe add onto the backstory and characters that 358/2 Days already had. You could even add more to the multiplayer, like PvP, or make new mini-games like in Birth by Sleep. So many opportunities…

5.       It’s a game, not a movie – Lastly, there’s the fact that you buy a game collection to play games. Doesn’t this sound obvious? Why would you buy Kingdom Hearts to watch a movie when a big part of the fun is the great gameplay? 358/2 Days would be so much more appealing as part of a “game” collection, which would make the collection 3 games total, not 2 games and a movie.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that it would have taken more time and effort to make 358/2 Days more than collection of HD cut-scenes; they would have had to create new assets and everything in order to make a faithful translation to the PS3 from the DS (and I heard about how they had to remake the original Kingdom Hearts from scratch - http://www.destructoid.com/kingdom-hearts-hd-s-graphics-rebuilt-from-the-ground-up-257161.phtml). Maybe the pay-off wasn’t worth it, since people were probably going to buy the collection just for the first two, regardless.

Some people didn’t like 358/2 Days, and I’m okay with that; maybe it’s easier to watch than to play for those people. But still, the overall package would have been so much greater for those who did like the game, who did want to play rather than watch, who did want a "complete" collection.

My Experience with: Yakuza 3 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 starts off 6 months after the end of Chapter 1. It was a pretty short experience for me (30 minutes – 1 hour). Kiryu-san has already begun running the orphanage in Okinawa, and taking care of the kids living there.

I forgot to mention this before, but the theme of family is prevalent throughout the game, from what I’ve played – from the prologue up to where I am now, Chapter 3. There are stories in the game that are often family-oriented – a dad’s acceptance of a relationship, a foster father doubting himself as a parent, a girl being depressed about not having a “real” mom and dad, etc. It’s both saddening and heartwarming at times, and I’ve gone “Awwwwwwww” quite a bit.

I also got to try fishing one time during this chapter. I got a worm in front of the orphanage (it always sounded weird every time the screen said “You got a worm”) and used it as bait, it didn’t save my fishing skills. In short, I sucked. Hard. I will defeat this beast called “fishing”, mark my words.

The main conflict in Chapter 2 is that Kiryu receives an eviction notice. Obviously, Kiryu won’t accept this, and goes off to stop the owner of the land, the head of the Ryudo family, from evicting him and the kids from the orphanage. 

This ends up involving a lot of punching and kicking. I end up in one random fight on the street, where oddly, people gather and cheer. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it happens every single time I get into a fight. Anyway, I also get into a fight with Rikiya, the “Fighting Viper” of Okinawa, and the lieutenant of the Ryudo family. The 2 fights I got into are, as expected, a step-up from Chapter 1’s enemies, though it’s not too difficult.

I didn’t tour as much of Downtown Ryukyu as I should’ve, or got to, but it was still an entertaining chapter. I explore much of the city in the next chapter.

My Experience with: Harvest Moon - Hero of Leaf Valley

I’ve been a fan of the Harvest Moon series for many years (and its awesome spin-off series Rune Factory), though I haven’t played any of the newer games like A New Beginning or The Tale of Two Towns.

Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley is the most recent game I’ve played, released back in 2010 in the US. I personally like it a lot.

It’s got some seriously addictive gameplay. I’ve stayed up way longer than I should on some nights just playing this game and telling myself, “I just gotta go mining one more time, and then I’ll be done…” 2 hours later, I’m still playing, watering my crops, taking care of my animals, doing miscellaneous jobs, again telling myself that I’ll go do this thing or that thing one more time and then I’ll put the game down. But I won't. I'll keep playing. It’s a terrible, vicious cycle. But it’s fun.

Being an expansion of Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland, Hero of Leaf Valley’s story is similar. A town is being threatened with renovation for a theme park, and so you have to raise 50,000G in 2 years if you want to stop it.

In actuality, there are many different paths that you can take to stop the development of the amusement park – you don’t have to just raise 50,000G. You can experience different plotlines depending on who you interact and become friends with, which encourages you to make friends with everybody if you want to experience everything. Or, if you wanted to play the game a second time, you could make friends with people you never did before, and have an wholly new experience than when you played the game the first time. This is pretty awesome.

The basic farming gameplay returns, where you raise and harvest your crops; some (potatoes, for example) you can only harvest once, and some crops stick around (tomatoes, breadfruit, rice) so you can harvest them multiple times. It’s definitely a time and energy consumer, but if you stick to it, you’ll definitely profit doing it. And isn’t that the focus of the Harvest Moon series? How putting in a lot of time, dedication, and hard-work into what you do pays off?   

There’s also animal-raising, like in past games. You can take care of a dog, a horse, chickens, and cows. Like caring for your crops, raising your animals is a lot of hard work, but it pays off in the long run. Nurturing your dog and horse is especially important, because they do two things for you, respectively: increase your stamina meter and allow for fast travel.

Besides the socializing, farming, and animal aspects of the game, you can also work at various places in the town. At first, there’ll be at least 5 jobs – taking care of horses and cows, cooking, taking care of chickens, cutting down trees for lumber, and mining. 2 of these jobs – cutting down trees and mining – will go away after you work them enough times, but then you’ll be able to get certain resources – lumber and ores. Overall, these part-time jobs are enjoyable, though it can feel like a chore at times. The mining activity – which involves solving puzzles – is probably the most entertaining of the bunch.

The music is nice and calming, and definitely has an appropriate nature-ish tone to it. It can repetitive, I’ll admit, but it’s decent, and so are the sounds.

In terms of graphics, the environments are nice, and the characters look appealing. This looks alright for a PSP game, though I personally preferred the cel-shaded art style of Save the Homeland.

All in all, this is a good game. It’s pretty delightful and addicting. I’d recommend this to anyone interested in farming games.

My Experience with: Yakuza 3 – The First Chapter

[My Experience with is a series of posts detailing, well, my experiences with games. They're kinda like previews or quick-sees that I have and want to write about.]

Full disclosure: I’ve never played a Yakuza game before. I heard about it, I watched some cut-scenes and gameplay, and I read some reviews about how it’s a pretty good series. But I never played it myself, so I never got to get into the story, and I tried to keep it (mostly) spoiler-less before playing for the first time.

I started off the game on the Normal difficulty, and as of this post, I’ve played about 6 hours in the game (excluding the time it took to go through recaps). It’s pretty fun and interesting.

So far, after watching through the recaps of Yakuza and Yakuza 2, and playing through the first three chapters of Yakuza 3, I have a decent idea of how the series is. Today, I’ll just cover the prologue and the first chapter, which for me was about 2 hours long, but it really depends on how long you spend in the city.

I would recommend that you play the first two Yakuza games first, just to get a more detailed background on the main character, Kazuma Kiryu’s past adventures, and just who everybody is. Though the recaps do a pretty good job of getting you up to speed in a little over half an hour, it can be a bit confusing or difficult to remember everything.

The prologue, which is purely cut-scenes, starts off in an interesting way. Fish are caught, yakuza are attacked, and the dead come back to life… It definitely hooks you in the beginning, though you might not know who some of the newer characters are. You do get a gist of what is going on, though.

Chapter 1, you’ll find, actually starts BEFORE the prologue, and that’s when the game really begins. You play as Kazuma Kiryu, a man who plans to quit the yakuza life, going to Okinawa to run an orphanage. You gain control of Kiryu in Kamurocho, a town with bustling streets and stores, to say good-bye to close friends and associates.

I spent about 2 hours in this chapter mainly exploring what places I could with my adopted daughter, Haruka, and increase her trust level. It took a long while to actually level up my trust with her, as you can only boost her trust level by having her stop at certain stores she wants to enter and satisfy her wants, like buying food and toys. I have to admit, it was slightly irritating having her follow me around, as she ran/walked pretty slow, and in a big area, I wanted to run around and get where I wanted as fast as I could. I just couldn’t leave her behind, though. I would feel so bad if I did. But if I went too far away, she would constantly call out to me before catching up. It was definitely a minor annoyance.

However, this did let me see what Kamurocho had to offer. I saw many different places like stores, restaurants, and an arcade. I had to enter the arcade in particular, called Club Sega, to satisfy Haruka’s intense need for a stuffed calico kitten. And I ended up playing one of the most boring, frustrating mini-games of all time.

It was a crane game called “UFO Catcher 7 MAX”.

You know, playing crane games are fine and all, but a simulation of a crane game just doesn’t cut it for me; you don’t get any of the interactivity that comes with playing a crane game in real life, but with all the frustration that can come with it. I pressed one button twice and let the claw drop. That was it. Yet it was so annoying to constantly try over and over and over and over to capture just one calico kitten! I lost 3000-4000 yen trying to get it. It took me 30 minutes- 1 hour to succeed in my goal.

This is how they getcha. You get so close to getting that one stuffed animal, and it falls off the claw. And you hate your life. I pondered what I was doing with my life while playing. “Oh yeah, I’m playing a virtual crane machine mini-game.” Sigh.

After playing that terrible game, I promptly went around the arcade trying to find a better, more enjoyable mini-game. And I happened upon a game called “Boxcelios”.

It’s a side-scrolling shooting game where you play as an indestructible fighter ship. You get 30+ seconds to defeat enemy ships as fast as you can and as many as you can. It was an incredibly fun, amazing, and enjoyable experience. Plus, I loved the music. It definitely made up for the crane game.

Besides exploring, while following the story, I got into fights with some street punks. This is where the combat section of Yakuza 3 comes in, and it’s quite enjoyable.  You kick and punch the enemies’ hard and fast, and though they can block, you can often get some shots in. You can also use objects in the environment as weapons, too, and bash your foes with them.

I also got into a one-on-one fist fight with a man named Majima Goro. I’d consider this a boss fight, since it was certainly a step up in terms of difficulty from the punks before. But this wasn’t too hard, given that this was Chapter 1. All in all, the fighting is pretty sweet.

Before I’m finished, though, I have to mention the 2 things. First, there’s the sound. The sound effects are realistic and appropriate. The music is nice when it plays, like during battle sections, though I do like it when there are simply the ambient noises of the city and its people. It makes me feel more immersed in Kamurocho.

Second, the graphics are quite nice for a game that came out in 2009. Though it could be better, it’s acceptable. The graphics are much more vibrant during the cut-scenes, where there’s more detail to character expressions, and actual, well-done voice acting.

The start of Yakuza 3 is a good one. It definitely got me hooked and I wanted to play on to the next chapters, which I'll talk about in later posts! 

Welcome!

Hi! Welcome to the Postscript Gaming Blog, a place where I'll write about my thoughts, experiences, and reviews on games! I'm planning on posting some new content soon, so stay tuned!