Twilight Princess

Saturday, December 30, 2006 »

In general, I'd say I'm enjoying The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. After the infamous first couple hours of boring chores around the village, the game starts throwing dungeons at you, all filled with classic Zelda puzzles and bosses (although the bosses seem a bit easier this time around). Also for the first few hours I couldn't help but miss the cartoony, colorful graphics of Wind Waker (probably my favorite game in the series after Zelda III). I've mostly gotten over that, but I'm still hoping the next console Zelda will return to that style.

Something that never ceases to amaze me is how every other puzzle has the most obvious solution possible, but because of the vast arsenal of tools and tricks available I always try pretty much literally every other option before just throwing a bomb or rolling into a wall and feeling like an idiot.

The wolf parts are really bugging me, though. They remind me of all the random demon spawning in God Hand in that they don't add anything interesting and they completely interrupt the flow of the game. In fact, I was thinking of playing a little before writing this but then I remembered I had saved right before a wolf section and I'm not looking forward to going back to it just yet. Midna almost makes up for it, though. She's got great dialogue and is definitely preferable to the whiny fairies of old.

Animal Crossing Wii ideas, part 1

Thursday, December 21, 2006 »

As promised, here are some things I'd like to see when Animal Crossing comes to the Wii. Some of these are meant to address shortcomings in Wild World. Others are things I think would help a sequel better capture my interest, since I've effectively seen and done everything on the DS. This is the first of two parts, and focuses on ways you'll interact with the town and everything within it.

The first and potentially most major addition is bigger towns, and by that I actually mean the entire game world would be bigger. There'd be a central village area, about the size of the one in Wild World, that would hold all the important buildings and houses. Then, on the outskirts, there could be more forest, rivers, mountains, etc. This is inspired from what I know of the Harvest Moon series; nothing too expansive, but enough to provide some variety and contrast with the town environment. Some bugs and fish will only live in certain regions, and you might have to venture to a mountain spring or forest clearing in order to find some uncommon plant. There may even be a few villagers who live on the outskirts instead of in the central village. What's more, the map will be too large to completely explore during a smaller, casual session (provided you're stopping for interactions and not just running around madly). This will add to the sense that you're living in a vast landscape, opposed to the confined feeling created by ACWW's walled-off villages.

"But wait," you say. "Won't all my flowers die? And that neighbor who lives all the way off in the corner will move away because I couldn't make it over there to talk to them today." Don't worry. Flowers, and other types of foliage, will have intermediate stages of health, between "healthy" and "withered." The decline will be gradual yet still noticeable so you'll know which need attention, but (if you're a gardening freak like me) you won't have to panic about tending to each one every single day. And you can relax about villagers skipping town, too. You'll be able to create a special gift item to designate several animals as favorites to prevent them from ever moving.

Wait, create an item? That's right, you'll be able to collect materials to use in item creation. What's better at churning out endless gameplay hours than the ability to make your own stuff? Balance will be important; I'm thinking there will be a relatively small amount of ingredients in order to keep things simple, especially compared to those of MMORPGs. But, you'll have to wander all around to find some of these, and of course (in most cases) it'll take time for the supply of each to regenerate. Some won't be available in your town at all, although you might be able to change this by visiting elsewhere and bringing back seeds to plant.

With the right components, you'll be able to make tools, clothes, furniture and more, instead of having to buy it from the shop. (Some items will remain shop exclusives.) The pattern design system will be taken a step further, allowing you to design custom furniture, which can be shared online. And, finally, you'll be able to place furniture outside. (That always bothered me about some of the ACWW items. Who has a tiki torch or inflatable pool in their house?)

What good is a backyard full of furniture if you can't landscape it, though? A popular ACWW activity for anyone with their hands on an Action Replay was tearing up the grounds of their randomly-generated town and laying out rivers, trees and buildings exactly the way they wanted. With the help of item creation and a new landscaping section of Tom Nook's store, you'll be able to do some terrain editing of your own. However, these items will be fairly expensive. Don't expect to be able to relocate entire mountains and beaches, either. (Though, bridges and buildings may not be out of the question.)

That's it for part one. In part two, I'll discuss the new ways in which you (and Nintendo) will interact with other players over wi-fi, as well as with the game itself via an improved Wii interface.

So how about that Wii

Tuesday, December 19, 2006 »

Now that it's been available for a month, what does everyone think of the Wii?

My feelings are mostly positive. The current software offerings are excellent. Wii Sports is easy to start up on a whim and offers a good variety of games, although some are more enduring than others. Excite Truck is excellent. And Zelda is still fresh out of the shrinkwrap (I had to restrain myself while finishing off Final Fantasy XII), but has anyone ever not liked a Zelda game?1

The release schedule for the next few months is worrisome, though. With rumors that major first-party titles have been delayed, the highest-profile games out in the beginning of next year are Wario Ware, Wii Play, and Mario Party 8, which are all minigame collections advertised as taking advantage of the crazy Wii control scheme! And of course there are a ton of ports. Come on, guys! It reminds me a lot of the DS's early life, where there was nothing interesting available and everyone had written it off as dead. I'm hoping that after everyone gets over the launch hype we'll start seeing some new, more inventive titles that go beyond, "Look! The controller is a tennis racket/sword/gun!" and all that. I eagerly await the Wii's Kirby: Canvas Curse and Ouendan. (Not literally.)

Then there's the whole online issue. One component, the Virtual Console, is off to a questionable start. So far they've been trickling out a lot of obscure, older titles for the Genesis and TurboGrafx, rather than fulfilling everyone's [far-fetched] wish that launch day would see a huge catalog of classic Nintendo games available for immediate download. It's a smart strategy that earns these overlooked games a lot more attention (and downloads), but based on a lot of fan reaction I've seen online, people are disappointed that Nintendo hasn't released a single Super NES or N64 game in the last month. I think they can afford to be a little more generous with the triple-A titles in their back catalog, considering that (barring titles with licensing issues, like Rare's) they have over ten years of gaming history at their disposal.

The other component of the online support that's lacking is: the rest of the online support. No online games at launch (Nobody cares about trading maps in Elebits, sorry.), a clunky Wii code system, and now Each Wii Game Has Its Own Friend Code?? Plus they've got this whole WiiConnect24 thing that they've said would deliver demos and updates from Nintendo while we sleep? So far, they've sent one message. How come we still have to rely on blogs for word about stuff like new Virtual Console games, the forecast channel, and the Opera browser beta? Why couldn't they have sent out something on launch weekend that was like, "Thanks for trying out our new system," just to prove they remember the capability's there? It's not instilling a lot of confidence about Nintendo's devotion to online gaming. I know the infrastructure is there (at least partly), now let's just put it to use.

If this has taken a seriously negative turn, it's definitely not because I have low hopes for the Wii–it's completely the opposite. I'm loving the games I have for it now (and looking forward to trying out the available VC catalog soon), and I can't wait to see what developers start coming up with once they get over the novelty hurdle. I just want to see Nintendo see the payoff for the pioneering they're doing with the Wii, and it's going to take a lot of hard work.

1 shut up i love zelda 2

My year in Aliahan

Saturday, December 16, 2006 »

It was one year and a day ago that I moved into Aliahan, my Animal Crossing: Wild World town. If I had known at the time that it was going to be such a long-term and enduring game, I would have better documented things like game progress, but also impressions about playing style, the community, my perception of Aliahan's virtual world, etc., because it's all been very fascinating (at least to me).

For instance, in the beginning I'd play several hours a day while trying to discover what there was to do in the town. The game had that same feeling of being overwhelmed, just like logging into a new MMORPG for the first time. Eventually I realized that the game was best played in smaller but regular sessions. I currently only play for maybe 15 or 20 minutes a day, which is enough to do my gardening and talk with any special visitors. I remember reading an interview where one of the game's producers said one of his goals was to make a game people could keep coming back to day after day, so I'd say he was 100% successful. I actually haven't missed a day for an entire year.

Of course, there have been a few lulls where I've thought about putting it away. The game does introduce new bugs and fish to be caught every month along with seasonal events, but the basic daily activities get repetetive after a while. So, I started thinking more about longer-term goals, like creating a hybrid flower garden. That turned out to be a good plan; although I'm no longer excited to see what the store has on sale every day (since I've bought most of the items), it's still fun to walk around town and look for new, rare flowers that have sprung up. My remaining goals at this point are to find the last two paintings for the museum, and stow away 100 million bells (Aliahan's currency) in the bank to get the associated reward. (There's also a 1 billion bell prize, but considering how long it's taken to get this far, I don't think I'll be up for that one.)

So, the conclusion of Animal Crossing on the DS has gotten me thinking about the upcoming Wii version. I have a few ideas of what I they could do with it to make it even better than ACWW, including fixes to problems with the DS version, as well as steps to make it just as accessible and easy to return to, despite no longer being on a portable. I'll share those a bit later.

Elite Beat Agents

Thursday, December 14, 2006 »

Being somewhat of an Ouendan purist, I had all this pent-up, pre-release hatred for the Americanized Elite Beat Agents. However, all was forgiven when, during the "YMCA" stage, the agents actually did the YMCA.

But with that said... Let the post-release hating begin!!

All right, it's not really hatred as much as total lack of interest. Yes, tapping all those circles is still pretty fun, but what really keeps me interested in a music game is the soundtrack. Despite Ouendan's soundtrack including a bunch of Japanese bands I'd mostly never heard of, I'd keep going back to it I loved playing along with all the great songs. (I've since listened to the soundtrack in the car an embarrassing number of times.) EBA's soundtrack makes playing some of the levels almost like a chore, and there's definitely no desire to go back and try for a higher grade. (Plus there's no way Cher or Ashlee Simpson are getting anywhere near my iPod.)

I also noticed the difficulty seems to be way down compared to Ouendan. I was able to breeze through normal mode up until the last song without too many continues, whereas after the first three or four songs in Ouendan's normal mode, the game became a furious battle. Higher difficulty definitely would have added to the replay incentive, because the tracklist sure isn't doing its share.

EBA does have some nice new features due to it being v2 of a game, though. For instance, I definitely would have liked to be able to skip that 30-second intro to Ouendan's final stage during the countless times I had to replay it. And although I'll probably never use it, I'm sure the saveable replay option will be popular among the YouTube crowd.