Outdated Review: The "Denpa" Men: They Came By Wave

OK. There's a free demo out there for this game, so I won't waste my time telling you why you should get this game. Just play the demo.

I, however, want to tell you why you should get the demo. Denpa men is a JRPG in the classical sense, a dungeon-crawler if you will. But at the same time it's a very interesting experiment.

[insert flashback sound effect here]

Back in the day, when games were about gaming and not about story, RPG's (now known a JRPG's, before the gaijin ruined the genre) were the exception. These games were meant to be more of an interesting interactive story, inspired by classic western table-top RPG's (circle closed). Somehow one of the tropes of the genre was that battles had to be strategic, and turn based. Whenever a game broke away from the formula and added action, it was demoted to an "adventure" game.

The thing was, that the general impression was that if you wanted a really good story, you wanted an RPG, and usually that meant muscling through hours of tedious grind. You had to work HARD for your story (or you could just buy a book). Anyway, my point is, the 16-bit era was tough. WE had it tough. Kids nowadays get all kinds of cool stories even with the dumbest of first person shooters.

Curious thing, though, is that many of us eventually got used to the grind, and learned to appreciate it. Denpa Men is all about this. The turn-based combat. The strategic building of a team. The dungeon crawling. The story? Meh. You won't be buying this game for the story, sorry. But bear with me.

They took all the fun things about JRPG combat and streamlined it all the way. For example, when an enemy hits all your guys, you're just told how much damage they received in average (their individual gauges in the lower screen show HP in detail, still). When you set all your guys to attack, the animation shows them just rushing and ganging up on the enemy, then you're told the total damage made. Your party is made of 8 guys, so imagine having to wait for all of them to attack! If you've ever played a JRPG, you know most of the time you just set all of your party to attack! But you know what they did? They made an "everybody just attack" button! Oh, sweet, glorious grind! Sure, sometimes you need to do other stuff, and those get their own animations, but it's still pretty smooth. All commands are given at the beginning of the turn, Dragon Quest style, so you can use your touchscreen to give the specific orders, then when you're done, hit the "all attack" button to set everybody else on attack mode.

They even threw in an auto mode, so everybody attacks unless their "Antenna Power" is useful. You gotta approach this one with caution. It may make things a bit too easy. The AI for the auto is pretty meta, this means anybody with an attack or debuff power will use it unless the enemy is impervious to it and, healers will only heal when necessary. So it makes exploiting the enemies' weaknesses a bit to easy. Unless you do what I do and spend your day fine-tuning your powers and equipment into a deadly, fail-proof, auto-mode machine.

There's the added gimmick of HOW you find the Denpa Men. Somehow the game reads radio waves around you and generates Denpa men from them. The game's backstory is that Denpa (literally "radio waves" in Japanese) reside in radio waves, so basically they reside in actual locations. You will find specific Denpa men on your living room whenever you scan it, then some more at work. They each have a name, color, face,  personality and are attached to a real-life location, so you will find yourself recognizing them, even if you don't catch them. These personalities would be more amusing if they spoke throughout the game, but they only speak when you chose to talk to them. Yes, they totally acknowledge you as the player, and their strategist.

Anyways, the game is an interesting experiment in which they made a JRPG that's all about the grind and not really about the story. And it works. The monsters are adorable, dungeons are pretty neat, and music is super catchy, so you find yourself grinding for fun.  Buy it, it's only ten bucks. Get the demo if you don't believe me.

Cool story, bro

Ever since the creation of this blog, I've been talking about how gaming just sucks nowadays. I've written  about the "core" wars and the deep Nintendo hatred that has poisoned this generation of gamers, and other alarming facts. 'Tis true, my friends, gaming has taken an ugly turn ever since the PlayStation days. And I think I've figured out one of the main reasons.

"I only care about the story" - some jerk

Ever since the advent of the CD-rom, gaming somehow changed. I've talked before about how it destroyed video game music as we knew it, by making it linear instead of interactive. But, if you think about it, didn't it destroy everything else in the same way? Let's talk about cutscenes. In the 8 and 16-bit eras, games would have dramatic cutscenes every once in a while designed merely to add some depth to the in-game storytelling. These consisted of still images and scrolling text, or maybe some simplistic animation. Similar techniques were used for "attract mode" displays in arcade machines, again, to add a bit of "story telling" as well as some visual flare to an otherwise ugly-looking game.

But was the game ever about the cutscene? WAS IT?!?!

Cutscene in Pac-Man: Actual gameplay experience may vary.

Will someone explain to me, then, why games in the 21th century are all about the non-interactive parts? Crack open a video-game magazine, look up a gaming blog or one of those hideous TV shows about gaming, and look at how the review, even approach games. They will try to sell that shit to you like it's a fucking movie. I'm not making shit up. Open a new tab and go for it. It's disgusting.

ProTip: Don't let your hardcore buddies see you crying.

For comparison's sake, let's bring out Gamepro's classic rating scale. Remember that? Back in the day, video game magazines had their own rating scales, usually judging different aspects of the game separately, occasionally bringing up an average. These were usually:

• Graphics, covering how the game looked, not just the graphical power, but the general artistic direction. Keep in mind these magazines would rate games on different consoles with different processing power.
• Sound, focused on sound effects quality as well as music.
• Control, or how well the game reacted to your input, bad control can ruin the best games.
• Gameplay, or how much fun it actually is. Often labeled as the most important aspect.

Nope, I don't recall any specific situation in which "Story" was weighed in, but I guess it might be a factor in some publications. The main reason story was not a big deal, was because only certain genres were about the story.

OK, now back to contemporary game journalism. "It's a game about some characters who have to save something important from something bad."

That's it. That's all you get. A goddamned movie synopsis. Because now that games are fucking mainstream, somehow they thought it would be appropriate to treat them like movies, because that's what mainstream media understands.

They might throw you a "Great graphics!" bone every now and then, but who gives a damn when all games look the same? What they're rating is the console's graphic processor, not the game's "realist" (AKA non-existing) art direction. If they were rating the game's art direction, games like Skyward Sword and Monster Hunter Tri would be high above all the first person shooters. Naw, they just care about counting hairs and sweat drops. Then you have the average hypocritical gamer who says they only care about the story, but also evade the under-powered consoles like it's the damned plague.

Enough with the "graphics" tangent. My point is this: Games are not movies, and should not be judged as such. It's not about the story and the special effects. Sure, you want good graphics and a solid story, but games have a lot more to offer, because they're freaking GAMES. If you just want a good story with nice special effects and little interaction, go watch a movie and leave my video games alone!

Haters Gonna Hate

Hey kids! Today I’m going to cover a subject I have mentioned before, so to avoid repetition, please peruse the following links for context.

• Softcore
• Revenge of the (hardcore) Nerds
• My lawn, and why you should get off it

Based on recent events, and the links provided, if you have been following this blog (and by “you” I mean “nobody”) you might have seen this coming. I want to talk about the WiiU announcement on the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Regarding the other brands, I saw many of the other presentations, and only a handful of games caught my eye, but in the end it’s all just sequels and software with very few innovations. Sure, the games look sweet, but that’s the standard nowadays. Oh and a handful of WiiU Gamepad imitations.

As an out-of-the closet Nintendo fanboy, I watched the pre-E3 presentation on Nintendo Direct and watched the actual presentation live on TV. What I saw blew my mind. I immediately went on to the Interwebs to discuss this with my peers. What I found made me not want to live in this planet anymore.

I tried to show the videos to my friends and most just flat out refused to watch. That’s right; many just rejected the concept before even knowing what it was. Kids on various social networks kept bitching that Nintendo stole Microsoft’s XBOX 360 controller design. Do you seriously think Microsoft made that from scratch?

Many criticized the Wii’s lack of third party support, probably the only true argument on the hater’s side. And while, sure, it’s a known fact that Nintendo did not play well with others, at the same time, no big budget game developer is going to waste time re-designing a game to make it playable on a system that is so different. With the new classic pro controller, developing games for the WiiU is going to be the same as the other systems, and you can tell because many developers have already brought their franchises to the WiiU. You see? They just wanted it easy, and it looks like this time around Nintendo is making it easy.

I’ve defended as well as criticized Nintendo’s decisions before, but you know what? I’ve decided I don’t need to anyway. Nintendo is a corporation, and what corporations do is make money. It is wiser to sell affordable entertainment to the masses than to sell expensive toys to a loud minority. That’s right, the “hardcore gamer” demographic is a puny, pathetic little niche in the market, just look at the sales figures.

As the meme goes, “Haters gonna hate”. I’m done defending Nintendo. The only way the “hardcore” crowd would have approved the WiiU is if Iwata had stood on the stage, pointed at a picture of a piece of hardware and said “It allows you to play Call of Duty on your Xbox360 while your mom gets you more pizza rolls”.

I know the WiiU will be successful and I will buy one as soon as I can. I know the gamepad will bring much innovation to game design, as well as practical ways to use the console on a daily basis. In know high sales figures paired with more familiar controls will bring more third party games. I know the MiiVerse will be the ultimate gaming social network. I know that by the time Sony and Microsoft announce new hardware, WiiU will already have dominated the market, and I now that developers will still continue to develop for the WiiU, 360 and PS3 long after this next generation launches (Did you know game stores still stock Playstation2 software?) It’s going to be an awesome experience, and it’s sad that I’ll have to share it with strangers
instead of my friends. But, oh well, haters gonna hate!

My lawn, and why you should get off it

Greetings my fellow downcast gamers! I know I have been away for a while, but I only did it so you would appreciate me more when I came back! Right! Let’s do some blogging!

First, quick update, I owe you a handful of reviews for some new games I’ve gotten since I last posted here, namely Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, Pushmo and VVVVVV for the 3DS. I also want to write a bit about Star Wars: The Old Republic for the PC. So if you’re interested in any of these games I suggest you subscribe to the RSS.

Right now I just want to go on a little rant that started as a conversation and almost ended in an Internet argument. I’m well aware those are pointless, though, so don’t worry, but an important point came up that I’d like to bring here: People harassing those playing with their 3DS in public. I’ve heard it from others and it’s happened to me. Those snarky comments “oooh aren’t those for babies” “myeh did you steal your kid’s toy” and “I’m stupid” among others. They're practically forcing us DS enthusiasts to only play in private.

I wonder, why do people get the impression Nintendo games are infantile? Why will the “hardcore gamers” (AGAIN WITH THE HARDCORE GAMERS! …I know) instantly discredit any Nintendo console? I have a hypothesis.

When I was in sixth grade, all my classmates, including me, would swear like a sailor that just stubbed his toe, thinking it was the “mature” thing to do. I don’t swear a lot now, especially not in my native tongue. I find it immature and unnecessary (unless I stub my toe). Then everybody would talk about the horror movies they saw the night before, and mock those not interested. I was one of them. I have never found it appealing to watch others suffer, even in fiction.

When I started college, I remember most kids my age would pick up smoking and heavy drinking as soon as they legally could. Possibly thinking it was the mature thing to do. Many also picked up promiscuity.

It is human nature that the kids will want to do what they think older people do. That’s how we grow. The problem is when they get a wrong impression and start doing stupid things. One day one of my sixth grade teachers stopped me in the middle of the hall and taught me the meaning of a word I had been using at random intervals. That’s when I realized I was not acting like a grown up.

Video games today have become very complex works of art. The bleeps and blorps that amused me as a kid have turned into voice acting. The pixelated villains that would blink out of existence once knocked out have become realistic thugs that bleed all over the place. Games have grown with us, and our children have seen this, and they see this as adult behavior. They crave these deep storylines, the competitiveness, the thrill of the kill. Things kids don’t understand, because the game was not meant for them in the first place.

On the other hand we have the old gamer. The Nintendo generation is now in their early thirties. To us Mario is what Mickey Mouse is to our parents (it was never considered immature for an adult to own a Mickey Mouse watch). This generation is facing hard times, economically. That paired with starting to raise kids of our own.

This generation is split in two. We crave these new generation of games because, well, they’re freaking awesome. But we also want to revive the good old days. That’s when Nintendo comes in. For the last few years Nintendo has made a business out of making family oriented games, casual games, and milking their old franchises as much as they can. Can’t you see? They’re making games for adults!

Nintendo knows these principles about their target audience: we love Mario, Link and Samus, we wish our kids knew about them, we barely have time to play, and we’re broke. This is why they’ve kept such a tight grip on the handheld market. They’re feeding us Mario games in cheap, portable packages!

And they’re just getting started! Have you taken a look at Super Mario 3D land? The game is a love letter to the Nintendo Generation! First, it plays like a 3D game would play when I imagined it as a kid. Second, they’ve crammed the game with obscure retro references people under 20 will miss. And finally, they’ve ramped down the difficulty level so we can share with our kids, and then snuck in some super hard challenges because that's what retro games are all about.

Virtual console, casual puzzlers, and big budget Nintendo games. It fits in my pocket and I can play it on the train or during my lunch break because I don’t have time to play consoles anymore. It has family oriented material I can share with my kids, and the cutesy art direction serves as a palate cleanser after spending a day watching people do horrible things to each other. No, this is not a kid’s toy. This is entertainment for the discerning adult.

Endgame Review: Nintendogs + cats

I got this coupon in the mail for a discount on a used game, and they didn’t have much used games in store so I grabbed a copy of Nintendogs +cats.

Seriously, though. That was my choice. My reasoning was that I wanted a game I could pick up and put down at random intervals, mainly so I could play at work. My daughter had the original game a few years back and I found playing with the puppies to be quite relaxing.

How do I go about describing this game to you? Well, in layman’s terms it’s a virtual pet. You feed it, bathe it, walk it and play with it, then it gets hungry, thirsty and dirty and you start over again. The game relies on touchscreen controls, as well as the camera and microphone, so in essence you can touch and talk to your puppy, and it can see you and recognize you as well, this makes an ever greater bond between you and the virtual canine (you can also use the pedometer to “walk with your dog”, but the rewards you get aren’t that great and it has the frustrating habit of rounding your steps DOWN by the thousand). I still smile when my pup turns to face me when I call her name, or notices I’m staring. It is all very relaxing, almost therapeutic, and the puppies are just delightful to watch. Nintendo really knows how to exploit the ages-old bond between homo sapiens and canis lupus.

Now, in gamer’s terms… meh, it’s hardly even a game! Everything in the game is so organic I was never certain whether I did something wrong or my puppy was having an attitude with me. Did I lose the race or did the dog lose it? Did I mispronounce the command or was the puppy distracted? This doesn’t ever get to the point of being frustrating – I mean, c’mon, puppies! – But it does make me wonder. You can teach your dog tricks, which is really cute. However, you need to say the commands out loud, which, even if you’re not embarrassed to do in public, isn’t feasible because it won’t hear you over the slightest background noise. Playing outside is the reason I bought a handheld system in the first place! Also, when you first take them for a walk they start off with a lot of bad habits you can gradually break by tugging at the leash and giving them a treat if they settle down, I mention this in the videogame part because you really need to pay attention while on these walks (or else your dog will do horrible things like rolling in puddles, chasing birds, humping your leg and eating roadkill). Not as relaxing as I wanted.

The most game-like portion are the competitions, there’s flying disk, lure chasing and obedience trials. You need to practice with your pup at home and it needs to gradually get better. So no matter how good you are at flicking that disk off your touchscreen, reeling the lure in or how well you enunciate your command, your pup will suck for a while. And when it’s gotten good, sometimes it just fails (again, you never know if the game’s not responding or if your puppy is trolling you). As a reward for winning a competition you are granted access to a more advanced competition, when you beat the last one you get an item your pup can wear, like a cheesy-looking crown or a medal, nothing awesome. This can only motivate you so far.

I also want to discuss the use of AR cards. You can use them to watch your dog and take pictures of it, and if you print an AR card image enlarged to fit a letter-sized page, the dog will be pretty close to the size of a real dog, which is really neat. Too bad you can’t do much with the dog in this game mode. The obedience competitions force you to play in AR mode, so not only do you need a quiet place so your pup can hear your commands; you also need a bright place to place your AR card and plenty of room to move around. I haven’t gotten any far in these competitions simply because it’s such a hassle.

Everything else flows too organically. Progress in general is measured in “trainer points” you gain when you take care of your puppies, which you have to do anyway, so in the end it’s only a matter of time until you start unlocking things, like accessories, toys and more breeds to adopt. In addition your pup will constantly pick up junk on walks that may be recycled and exchanged for rare items (that you unlock with trainer points). I hadn’t even beaten all the competitions and I think I have all the endgame content.

Speaking of endgame content, besides the fact that you get it for practically no effort, it’s not really gratifying. There’s a secret breed that is actually a robot puppy. Now there’s a dog that does everything just like every other breed, but is made of shiny plastic! Great job at holding the suspension of disbelief! Ugh. Besides, it’s ugly. There’s also a sci-fi house that also makes everything look fake. After I spent a fortune on it I went and bought back the default home so it feels more like pets in a house instead of cartoons.

The game puts the StreetPass and SpotPass features to good use. Whenever you tag someone with the game, their mii and pets come over and show up on your game on occasion, you can also share pictures from the game, but since AR pictures are also allowed, gratuitous penis shots are always a possibility. They also send special guests over SpotPass on occasion, normally former US presidents and their pets.

The graphics are amazing and the dogs have great detail, the backgrounds are pretty plain, but get the job done. The menus are very elegant and intuitive, except at the beginning after you choose your first puppy, then you have to wait until it gets used to your house before you can do anything with it. ANYTHING! When I bought the game, before I wiped the save, it had a mangy, dirty dog running around that hadn’t even been named! Apparently the previous owner got tired of waiting for a menu to appear. The sound isn’t great though, some of the breeds’ barks sound like adult dogs instead of puppies, and the Siberian Husky has a weird echo to it. Other sounds like panting, drinking and eating (generic to all breeds including robopup (I know, weird, huh?)) seem to have been captured in a studio using props, and while they do the trick over the speakers, they sound awful on headphones. The music is definitely Nintendo-grade. My biggest issue, though, was battery usage. Apparently since this game constantly uses every single piece of hardware on the handheld (well except the motion sensors), my battery would last, say, about half as much as with other games!

The verdict: Buy the game if you’re into virtual pets, time-wasters, or want to fully exploit every feature the system has to offer. Don’t buy the game if you are expecting challenging gameplay, any kind of rewards, or can’t devote time to it. Also, the game is definitely not for little kids, it requires patience and dedication.