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Mar 6th, 2008 at 04:33:01 - Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (Wii) |
Gameplay:
Near the middle of the Fire world, the difficulty suddenly leaped up. The star rating, which tells you difficulty, between two levels went from around 4 to 9. The level took me forever to beat, and I had to start over nearly 50 times. But I slowly whittled away at it, and finally beat it. I don't think I ever felt smarter for solving a video game puzzle than I did at that moment.
After another level on an airship and through Barbaros's haunted mansion, it was time for the final confrontation. And after a few days of poking at it in different directions, I finally beat it.
Unfortunately, games are never that easy. It turned out that Barbaros, once I freed him, was an absolute douche. I probably should have seen it coming from a mile away, but I've developed a skill where I can suppress myself from seeing obvious plot twists. (I was surprised by the twist in Dragon Quest VIII, too) So a few more levels, this time ones that really pushed it to the limit, and finally the real final level.
The final level is 5 times as large as any other level in the game. There are monsters patrolling every walkway. There are things to kill you anywhere you turn. You don't have Wiki (again...:() and the only thing you can do from the very beginning of the level drops you onto a bed of spikes. No friends, no grander solution, no hope in hell. But I pushed on, and each piece slowly fell into place. By the end of the level it was all a finely tuned machine, I knew what each cog did, what it was for, and how it worked with other cogs. It was like looking back at a long book I've already read and saying "wow, that was a really good book." Compared to how I felt at the beginning, it took a lot of level-design ingenuity to carry me from point A to B.
One of the ways I judge a game is by how many endings there are. An ending is whenever I say "This is the last level, I'm almost done" and truly believe it. At the end of Killer 7, after it showed me the third credit sequence and "The End" screen in the game, I literally laughed until I cried. Might be a strange response to a game, but whatever. Why is that important? Because after this immense level, this behemoth of a level, that took more than an hour to complete even when I knew exactly what to do, there was another level. This was the third "last level" in the game. Part of me was upset, but a part of me was happy that I still had more to play. Beating a level put me on an intellectual high, and I knew that the end was coming. I was mostly just glad I had a little more to play before I had to put it away.
Design:
The level design of this game is really top-crop. Every puzzle in the game felt brilliant and simple, a complex mess when you started it and a well oiled machine when you were done. I think this is due to a few things: First of all, the objects never change uses. Even if a puzzle makes you use an object in a novel way, they never outright change its nature for a certain circumstance. It's always worked that way, you just never looked at it like this before. After designing an adventure game myself, I can appreciate how hard it is to work within these constraints. It would be so easy to just make an object work completely differently in order to come up with a puzzle, but it takes real skill to take objects with set parameters and make a working system with them. It's almost as hard, if not a bit harder, than solving the puzzles as the player.
Secondly, everything is completely logical. Albert Einstein once said that insanity is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." I can think of a few LucasArts games where the way to solve a puzzle was by doing something multiple times and one of the times, something randomly changing and the puzzle being solved. I hate those kinds of puzzles. You feel cheated afterwards, because there's no way you could figure it out by yourself. In Zack & Wiki, every step is influenced by the step before it. Again, it takes a lot of hard work and creativity to get a puzzle like that.
The reward system in Zack & Wiki is interesting. You can break jars or rocks to get coins, and shake the bell or click on them to pick them up. These are standard short term goals, coins you get every few seconds. Then there's the HQ. Hirame Q, which is a pun that didn't carry over from Japanese, is basically Creativity Points. Every time you do something right, you get a musical jingle, a flash of color, and a number over another number. The bottom number is the total possible HQ you can get for a certain step, and the fewer tries it takes you to figure it out, the more points you get. And then finally is the big payoff: where everything falls together, you breeze past the last booby trap, the boss gets impaled through the head, and all that's left is to ring the bell and get the treasure. The treasure is the longterm goal, and ringing that bell is so satisfying, I probably would have thrown the wiimote through my TV if it hadn't been securely fastened to my wrist. The treasure chest is always visible from the start, though. So the real goal isn't the treasure itself, it's the calm before it. When you can finally walk up to it without anything in the way; the music stops, all you can hear is the rippling of the pond or bubbling of lava. Everything that stood as a threat before you is gone, and all that's left is the final navigation to the treasure chest. And the bell.
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Mar 6th, 2008 at 03:40:53 - Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (Wii) |
Zack & Wiki is a point-and-click adventure game for the Wii. In it, the Pirate Zack and his golden monkey Wiki travel the world solving puzzles to get treasure. The player uses items by holding the Wiimote how he would the item, and he can also turn enemies into items.
Gameplay:
I first heard about this game when there was an article on Kotaku that said simply "Go buy Zack & Wiki right now or you will regret it for the rest of your life." There was no way to argue that, so I went out and bought it. And as it turned out, Kotaku was right. I would have regretted it, because Zack & Wiki is currently one of my favorite games of all time.
When I first picked it up, the first thing that struck me was the humor. The characters were all unique and a little goofy, which was reinforced by the somewhat cartoony graphics. The introduction introduced the main foe of the game: The pirate Rose, who has her lackies jump out of airplanes for her and draws pirate scars on her face with lipstick. It also introduced the main goal of the game: The pirate Barbaros has been cursed and broken into pieces. Zack has to travel the world collecting the pieces until Barbaros is whole again. Wiki's blatant disregard for Zack's safety made me laugh aloud, although it was kind of annoying that he kept telling me what to do in the introductory level. But as soon as that level was over the game left me to my own devices.
The game has an interesting mechanic: most of the enemies you see can be turned into items for solving puzzles. All you do is shake the wiimote and Wiki turns into a bell, the enemy shakes a little, then POOF. It added a really interesting level to puzzles, because you might have to coax animals out of hiding or turn them back into enemies in order to complete the level. Also, at the end of every level you have to shake Wiki to remove the curse from the final treasure chest. I just think it's an awesome game mechanic to have the player, after all that brain-busting puzzle work, just shake the crap out of the Wiimote. It really enhances that feeling of "holy crap I finally beat it."
The first few puzzles weren't that tough, but at the end of the second level the difficulty shot up. But the great thing about the game is that every puzzle has a completely logical solution. I never once said "Well how the heck was I supposed to figure THAT out?" I figured out every puzzle by using my own wits, a little trial and error, and one, ONE hint. And after every puzzle, I felt really smart. It felt like the one Legend of Zelda puzzle where the solution is so elegant and everything fits together so perfectly that you can't help but feel like a genius afterwards. Multiply that by 25, and you get Zack & Wiki.
But something strange happened on the Boss level of the second world. Part of the puzzle is that Wiki is trapped by the boss, and you have to continue the level without him. And you know what? I really hated that boss. I hated Rose for getting him trapped, I hated myself for not being able to free him. Not only was Wiki trapped, but every time you messed up, you had to watch him freeze to death. "I'm so cold I'm crackin' up..." "I can see a bright light..." "I feel so sleepy... Thank you for everything Zack..." Every time I watched him die it made me angrier at myself. I actually had to take a break and calm down before I could actually think logically about it and solve the puzzle.
I was trying to come up with an analogy to Ico at the time; a character you're always with and can't solve puzzles without is kidnapped and you feel like you have to do everything to protect her. I freaked out quite a few times while playing Ico, but not nearly as much as here. I don't know, maybe I just really like monkeys. But come on, http://psychomax.fobby.net/Wiki.png ,how can you not love that ;-;
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Feb 21st, 2008 at 05:07:47 - Kirby's Adventure (NES) |
Gameplay:
As I got further in the game, the levels started getting a lot harder. It was nothing I couldn't handle, but there were a bunch of secrets I walked right past so I could finish the game. :( I'll need to go back and get those now.
When I did fight Meta Knight at last, I noticed that he didn't attack me until I picked up a sword that was flashing "GET IT!" in the middle of the room. I thought back to the other games I'd fought him in, and how that sword had been there every time. I never noticed the implications of this. Suddenly, his character became clear to me: his dialog with his crew in Super Star, his seemingly contradictory roles: Meta Knight may play the role of a bad guy, but he isn't really that bad of a person. Sorry if I kind of went off on this, but that was a real "whoa :o" moment for me in the game. Also, you get to see his face when you beat him, and that's always cool. :D
Anyways, after beating all 8 levels and getting the last piece of the star rod, (and watching a funny cutscene) I got to fight NIGHTMARE, a new entity to me. I honestly didn't see him coming, either, I guess I was still expecting the game to do something wrong. It disappointed me in that aspect. :D
Design:
So, I beat the game, and had a great time along the way. But what makes it so great?
The move arsenal is huge. While most of the extra moves seem like they're making up for an inability to change dynamically (throw and backflip were two different abilities, even though they could have been one) but they did make for a good reward system! One of the reasons I kept going was to see what all the different and new abilities were. And getting a new one was always exciting (especially UFO, I wasn't expecting them to have that yet)
The controls are great. This game is really unique in that Kirby can jump infinitely, so in the level design it's important to find ways to lure Kirby back to the ground. You really need to keep a lusory attitude to stop yourself from just skipping over a level sometimes, but having that option makes it hard to get stuck.
The puzzles, although short, are pretty ingenious. In one level, I think Orange Ocean, there was a boss I had to fight in kneedeep water; too shallow to swim in and too deep to inhale in. The only way to get the freeze ability was to inhale this miniboss, or get it from a different level and bring it all the way back. The only plausible way to get the freeze ability and get to the switch was to get the sword and kill it with that, throw the sword away and suck up the miniboss. This struck me as particularly cool. With so many different abilities and combinations of abilities, it holds the potential for some pretty cool, if short, challenges. I think Kirby used that potential pretty well.
This is probably one of the better Kirby games, which was surprising to me since so many NES games don't age that well. Not only was it great by itself, but it set the mythos and gameplay for all the Kirby games to come. i <3 kirby :D
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Feb 21st, 2008 at 04:37:09 - Kirby's Adventure (NES) |
Summary:
Kirby's Adventure is an NES game staring Kirby, a little pink puffball that inhales enemies and absourbes their powers. Kirby's Adventure is actually the first game in which Kirby can aquire the powers of his foes; in his first game he could only inhale and spit. King Dedede has stolen the star rod, the device that allows the people of dream land to dream, and broken it up to give peices to all his friends. It's up to Kirby to retrieve all the peices and save Dreamland's dreams! Ok yeah, so it's a weird, childish story, but Kirby more than makes up for it with incredible gameplay and mood.
Gameplay:
One of the things that struck me about this game was how it didn't feel like an NES game at all. I played the SNES games, the N64 game, and the Gameboy Advanced game, and Kirby's Adventure was right up there with the rest of them in quality. The controls, the abilities, the graphics even, nothing felt dumbed down. There were even more abilities than the SNES games! Now that's just downright impressive.
I just beat the fourth level: Grape Garden. And yup, Kracko is still as annoying as he is in all the rest. Man, I hate that guy. It is kind of annoying that I'm already more than halfway through the game, but I don't go to Kirby games for a challange. The game "overworld" has a few minigames that can get you a few extra lives, although you can only play them once. The crane game and quickdraw were pretty fun. The levels themselves have all been straightforward, and I'm pretty sure I've been finding all the secrets.
Also, I was kind of hoping to find out more about Meta Knight in this game. In Superstar he's evil, in Magic Mirror he's good, and in Adventure? ...wtf. He jumps out of nowhere and gives me Magic Candy (nom nom nom) then in the next screen sics his henchmen on me? Now I'm even more confused. He'll probably be the boss of the eighth world. Speaking of bosses, these have been especially fun. Yeah, you can just beat it by beating the crap out of it with an ability, but if you actually try to go at it without any powers, there's a well thought out strategy to beat each boss. It's much more rewarding to beat it like this.
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Psychomax has been with GameLog for 16 years, 10 months, and 12 days |
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