A look back at: Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya

Yep, I never thought I'd go back to the Game Gear and its primitive selection of games, but here we are. This is the second of three Gaiden games for Shining Force, and sadly I couldn't play the first one. Unfortunately, all this really offers is a new plot, as the gameplay mechanics are completely intact, with the only real difference is a lack of exploration in between battles as that mechanic isn't here. As a result, this game is obviously not any better than the original Shining Force, and I didn't enjoy much of that.

Heck the only real things that would be interesting are tidbits here and there. At one point Natasha has to command the ground army while Deanna has to command the boat army, which has some flair to it, but not by much. Enemies dropping very important items are also cool, and having a key character be available for the final battle is cool in a way too. This unfortunately is compounded by basically all the rest, the stuff I never did enjoy in Shining Force, and again the issues of certain characters falling behind is quite easy to occur.

A look back at: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

One of the Gamecube's treasures was Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. Basically, take the original Paper Mario and make it miles better. That's what this is. Still a very easy RPG, chapter-based, action commands to use, and the usual Mario-style humor. The storytelling is a little better, the interludes add Bowser to the mix and make him seem like a fun joke as always being behind, and Luigi even gets to have his own adventures while Mario has his. Fun, isn't it? You get newer abilities, changes to old ones, the always wonderful badge and level up system, riddles and puzzles. The Crystal Stars are basically the Star Sprites from the previous game in function, and their specials are far better so long as you use them properly. I guess the Pit of 100 Trials is something too, although I'm not in the mood for it right now.

The partners are so much better too. In the previous game, I felt Goombario fell out of favor later in the game, while Lakilester didn't have good abilities and was acquired too late. Bow had trouble with enemies with defense, and apart from Tidal Wave Sushie wasn't that good overall. Here, we don't see too much of trouble. The first member, Goombella, when upgraded, can give Mario extra turns. Flurrie is often hated, but has a good niche as a healer and lots of HP. Bobbery has the best overall attack, and the Yoshi is incredibly versatile. Koops is a better Kooper, and Vivian is versatile and can pierce defenses. Ms. Mowz probably falls out of favor, being a bit like Bow and also being an optional recruit, but also having a healing move and can steal too. It's all helpful.

Well, one thing I'll be happy to no longer see are the battle stage mechanics. They're annoying. You've got audience members who are dweebs and like to interfere. Random items just fall on combatants, as well as the stage background. The stupid sprinklers do nothing but annoy, and THAT FOG. I hate it so much. It's no wonder Bobbery is a godsend when you get him because you can remove the fog with a bomb attack. Now that I think of it, what is the deal with having an audience for every battle? It's so strange. All in good fun though, this is far superior than other games in the Paper Mario series and I'm glad to have played it.

Doom Musings: The playability of the IWAD maps

For the seasoned WAD player of the Doom community, they've played all the good stuff, all the stuff that had been inspired by the IWADs and then some more. But then again, it doesn't hurt at all to revisit the old IWADs made by id to get re-acquainted with old nostalgia and design, something that most people either love to criticize yet continue to play or just love and continue to play. This post deals with the overall playability of these original Doom levels.

What exactly do I mean by this? Well, most players actually play Doom in singleplayer. It's more or less made for a single player to go alone and get rid of monsters in each given level. Straight and to the point. Wolfenstein 3D was built on this practice, and it was the only game mode there, so id decided to make it multiplayer compatible. Thus we have co-op and deathmatch, allowing for either players to cooperatively defeat monsters together, or to just kill each other together on maps. Now, taking a look at the individual maps is what this is about, how well they play in regards to all three game modes.

By now we know every single level can be completed in singleplayer and was made for that purpose. Co-op for the most part tends to be the same, just with extra things (monsters, items, weapons) around to assist or hinder the journey. I can't recall if a few of the maps are not playable in co-op (some examples would be those with one-time-only doors or switches, but I can't name any off the top of my head). But then we get to the deathmatch part of things. In my opinion, id did a good job ensuring that most of the maps in Doom and Doom II work well for deathmatch. MAP01 Entryway is quite a classic, despite its cramped inner hallway the map is still the most played map for deathmatch. MAP07 Dead Simple is a simple arena and is almost perfectly made for deathmatch gameplay. Almost all the city levels in the second third of Doom II have the sandbox quality for wide-open deathmatch. And Ultimate Doom? I'd say these maps fare pretty well too, even a few gimmick maps like Fortress of Mystery seem pretty fun for deathmatch for some.

I've made a few maps for 32in24 projects, and having to figure out what makes what tic with deathmatch basically amounts to overall movement flow (am I gonna run into a dead-end or is the hallway too tight), weapon availability, hot spots (well these can be anything but usually pertain to chaotic centers of the maps), but overall the flow of how a player can go through a deathmatch session without getting stuck or dying far too often is without a doubt the single most important. I would say that the two maps that are outright terrible to deathmatch with would be E3M1 Hell Keep and E3M9 Warrens, owing to the complete linearity of both and that stupid corridor that would have demons in it. Basically if a map requires you to go through small corridors it's gonna be much worse for deathmatch than the others. Most of the maps are fairly okay, as either they have at least two corridors going through two rooms, or just big hallways. Both do fine, and the best part is that id seemed to know what they were doing overall with making the maps friendly for all game modes.

As for Final Doom? Well that's quite a mixed bag. Quite a few maps probably work out less for deathmatch, particularly in Evilution. MAP05 Hanger has all these corridors that suck, as does MAP08 in a way. The huge expanses in Drake O'Brien's map mean just finding players is a chore. Plutonia does way better in the three modes, and I can't really pinpoint a sore loser out of them deathmatch-wise, even Hunted fairs fairly well for a mazey situation.

A look back at: Pokemon Victory Fire

Well, I gotta say, I think this is a fairly underrated rom hack. I can see why it's hated, the selection in the beginning definitely has problems, and the difficulty curve is actually quite high, even going as far as to make the Elite Four have level 80+ mons right away. And then there's just more and more challenges. A total of 505 battles is what it took for me to plunge through this one, I did lots of backtracking, trying to get everything because I personally am writing the detailed walkthrough for this very hack, and hopefully I got it all. At many points this hack is finished, and yet I still think there's plenty of room for improvement.

I mean, ease up on the rivals please, there's one too many, and there's always at least one encounter, sometimes two, with them. The scale of certain areas is eschewed as well, this is notable between Marble City and Volcano Town. Navel Path is way bigger than its size dictates, and then you go through Heat Passage and Jade Pass before it. It's ridiculous. The lack of Water types besides Buizel is another issue, you don't get a Good Rod until you get Surf, and there's no Old Rod or such. And for god's sake, fix the spelling, it's hilariously bad especially with every instance of canyon being "cayon".

But it does the freebies better than Light Platinum did, and making a black market where you can buy evolution stones and held items is also a plus, alleviating the challenge. Some might say it's not a good thing but for those that have been on the grind it helps a bit. Then you can buy every single TM at Halfleaf City, which is also good. Mega evolutions are neat to experiment with, and the Alolan forms of Vulpix and Ninetales ended up being top notch mons for my team. I can definitely see some room for improvement, in the meantime, have a detailed walkthrough to look over.