A look back at: Pokemon Adventure: Blue Chapter

 Just four days from my previous look back and I am already done with the next hack. Granted, a beta, but still. In any case, the Adventure X Chapter games, I do plan to indeed check out all the side chapters as beta as they are. Yellow was already done, so I decided my next one would involve Blue. The romhacking scene sure does love making tributes to all sorts of characters and such, and I feel like Blue/Gary doesn't get nearly as much coverage as he should. Being the son of Oak, you'd definitely feel eager to know about his adventures, how he got through everything and managed to be the champion before Red did. Playing as Blue felt quite nice.

At least until you see what he goes through. Of course, Blue is as arrogant as ever. He loves his family, and wants to keep the pride for his family going strong. While I'm not too familiar with the Pokemon Adventure manga, I can definitely see the Oak family being a line of champions (because Prof. Oak himself was one). I can also see Koga being a Team Rocket member, and Agatha being an old acquaintance of Oak's. There's not a whole lot of actual substance here. From what I played in Red Chapter, I do know he tries, and fails, to catch Mew. Interesting that this time it's from Blue's perspective, who got there first, but with Red's loss now in a cutscene. There was a weird little sidequest too, and you can come back to get a Pikachu of your own after it. But there were some odd references as I went along, with the herp derp kid, the old man who does a Sailor Moon reference, and Ash's family apparently being in the game. Furthermore, there's no catching of Pokemon as the game ends early before you are able to do any of that. No Pokeballs, you just get your Scyther in the beginning, a Charmander from Oak, and if you remember where it was, the Pichu (now a Pikachu). That's it. You battle your bully Mike, Koga of Team Rocket, the Mew (not winnable), and also a Machoke that was after the old man I mentioned before.

Real shame that these other chapters were left unfinished for years. There's a ton of potential you can probably salvage from it.

A look back at: Pokemon Blazed Glazed

 What exactly does Blazed Glazed even mean? Should've probably made Blaziken into its mascot with that, but nah, it's more or less a refurbished version of Glazed. Air quotes on "refurbished" however, I gotta say, there were a few things that were...questionable. I enjoyed the new spriting of the mons in the original, plus the holdover voices that were given. Those were actually not in Blazed Glazed. There were some mons, like the prominent ones like Charizard and such, that got new sprites, but most got the regular sprite treatment. The cries are recycled and you can tell what replaces what in the dex this time. It honestly felt like Blazed Glazed was the prototype instead of the other way around. And the plot? It was entirely the same. No real differences whatsoever. The good news is that the plot of the original Glazed was decent enough that I can overlook the shortcomings, I enjoy the gym fights, the return to Johto, the crazy villains (including the church guy) and how everyone has some sort of ulterior motive. Plus the thing that allows you to hear Pokemon talk, and the fun dialogue with legendaries and that scarved Pikachu among other things.

Blazed Glazed only has one strength, and that's the better-used mons. There's a few Gen-6's added to the mix, while others got shuffled around. Some, sadly were rendered inaccessible (I don't believe you can get Wynaut, as there's no Lax Incense I can find that can breed a Wobbuffet with properly). Also some rather strange moments with wild encounters, like for example, Sylveon replaces Qwilfish, but you can encounter them while surfing in New Bark Town for instance. Surely enough, it's hard to say that Blazed Glazed would knock out it's apparent predecessor out of the water. It only really improved on new mons, new movesets, and that really was it. Everything was untouched or somehow made a little less great. Since Glazed is one of my favorite ROM hacks, Blazed Glazed doesn't fall too far behind, it was just, well, not as much of the improvement that I thought it was.

A look back at: Vandal Hearts

 

Heh, I finished this game almost an entire year ago. Only due to my stupidly annoying schedule and that I wanted to get other franchises out of the way, I put the review for this one aside until later. In any case, Vandal Hearts is Konami's own Final Fantasy Tactics. Or perhaps their own Shining Force? There's not a whole lot I can really say about it all, it's an isometric tactical RPG, but in this case both sides get their respective turns instead of whenever their turns show up, so it's a lot more basic. The standard equips are there, and the battles play as tactical RPGs go. The class changes are quite nice, but the big thing here is that the monk and armor classes are HUGE losers in the long run, so it's important to figure out the best choice for mages and knights beforehand.

Then there's the whole deal with all the hidden stuff. Besides the squares for getting hidden items and such, there's those trials of Toroah for getting the Vandalier class, and good lord, is that thing overpowered. I would almost say it shouldn't be that way, though having to worry about Kain's Plasma Wave spell early at the start of the final chapter does even things out slightly. The Vandalier class has access to all spells including that one, but I'd be damned if that thing didn't cost me a lot in terms of party. Thankfully this game has no permadeath, despite all the blood that gets spewed from kills.

The plot certainly has that Final Fantasy Tactics feel to it, a hero is sort of fallen because of his own father's status, while another villainous person likes to spit in his face often. He at least has the help of many others who will do whatever it takes against the tyrannical oppressors. Yet despite their efforts, the tyrants do get their way before their demise, they slaughter any sort of opposition when necessary, and it gets even worse when the bigwigs start backstabbing each other. Lust for power, this is a big issue in a lot of video games and there's always that political intrigue that loves to show face.

A look back at: Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen

 

It's the same! But different. But still same! Yeah, gotta find some fun in the Might and Magic series either combining games, or letting you import characters. Certainly more of that medievalness going around...wait that's right, there's a lot of tech stuff incorporated too. As well as familiar faces all around. Might and Magic IV+V, World of Xeen, keeps to the formula of the third game, while having a double dose. There's really not much different in the gameplay department, and characters can be imported. Music is basically the same more or less, but if there's one thing gameplay-wise that needs checking, it's this: imported parties have a much better time. Yeah, freshly starting is going to be a little harder than usual, and that sucks. Apart from that, veterans of M&M will see this as something similar to an expansion, with a few things to catch the eye. Like, say, a floor set up like a freakin' crossword puzzle.

So what's the deal with Sheltem and Corak and why do we have to hear about them all the time? Wait, Sheltem we know is a bad guy, and Corak is a good guy. Sheltem has been around. The party from back in M&M3 journeyed with Corak to battle Sheltem as he ran away, as M&M3 was a game without a proper final boss. But now we get to see some things. First off, Sheltem naturally is our big bad, impersonating King Alamar and making life a living hell for people on Xeen after Xeen himself has passed. However, he's an android? And Corak too. It was an interesting info dump to read all the stuff that was in the ship logs that both Corak and Sheltem had, and the fact that they both had memory banks that kept them where they are. Sheltem, of course, doesn't want the upper hand taken away from him, and basically ambushes Corak at whatever chance he gets. The party in M&M5 really just take the role of bystanders who basically turn the tide of things simply by fetchquesting, without much in the way of battling Sheltem, because Corak decides to activate a MUTUAL SELF DESTRUCT system. Personally it's quite hilarious that they both have it, and I guess it only works if the two were together. One seriously wanted to live and be evil, that was his goal.

And then there's the weird wedding where you have to save the bride and groom in different dungeons. And what's with the Dragon Pharaoh? Totally weird characters and weirder stuff. I'll continue to mess around with this franchise, hoping there's some more interesting plot stuff like this. It was quite the adventure.

A look back at: Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen

 

As I continue to play this series, I really should be expecting more of the same thing. The deal with most, if not all, franchises has to be how they always end up playing out a lot like their predecessors, unless they really are going to twist things. Having been playing these computer RPGs for some time, there's bound to be subtle changes added to just about anything. Which hey, I'm down for that. Sometimes I can handle a game that just sort of feels like an expansion mission pack to everything that happened in a previous title (in this case, Might and Magic III). And then V comes after this, wait, what?

So Might and Magic IV and V are pretty darn complicated, considering you can actually combine both games into one. Eventually I would finish the first half, which is IV, glad to have done it so quickly. Then again, this was shorter and easier overall than any of III. Being a two-parter game may have contributed to that. What's really new though? Well, fancier character portraits, voice acting (not entirely bad either), interesting sidequests, a few changes to the menus. Just adding more and more without retracting from the overall formula. I still appreciate dungeon crawling, the occasional run-into of the overpowered monster, and the character customization. Xeen, the villain, though? Kind of a Skeletor ripoff, just a skull-wearing overlord who has to watch over a land with his name on it and making it terrible. Xeen's not that great. But interestingly, both games in the World of Xeen revolve around him, so I bet he'll be just like Sheltem, an overarching presence. Speaking of which, what even happened to those adventurers that went after Sheltem? I sure missed my old party. Oh, Might and Magic, if you were like Wizardry and allowed the importing of previous parties, I would have loved you far more.

A look back at: Pokemon Polka Aqua

 So far, so good this month! I recently got back into the RPG groove, continuing the Might and Magic series, and I finally finished this up. So yes, another LatiosAzurill hack, having done two Grass ones and the Fire one, it's time to check out the water in Polka Aqua, and there's a sequel on the way too. Welcome me back to this after I somehow took three months off to focus on Doom stuff, welp. Indeed, as I did with the others, I had a walkthrough going, and I'm sure glad to have saved it. Many, and I mean, many of the things here really felt like Scorching Scarlet, but sort of an expansion and such. Some towns like Chicago weren't there before, and I also appreciate the fact that the map is now showing the other towns properly (sadly you cannot fly to any of them that don't replace the vanilla Pokemon towns).

As for the gameplay, if you already know the drill, the author likes high-level trainer battles, up to the ubers with Lv100 teams and everyone seems to have 255 EVs, some with held items that do things, plus the Eric-like trainers will for some reason always have shinies. Wild encounters, well, there's nothing bad about most of them, and the key highlight I found is that the starters can all be encountered really early on! Great! In wild grass, but these are in certain early towns like River City and Stars Hollow. Quite fun. 

When it comes to legendaries, some were in bags, most required me to finish all the post-game plot stuff, but the two that really sealed the deal were for some reason Volcanion and Meloetta. One required you to "prove yourself" with a 50-win streak at the Battle Tower, the other requires five paintings in the Art Museum (so lots of contests). Both tasks are also tasks that change the trainer card color, and are hugely difficult and time-consuming in the regular game. Sadly, for two more legendaries Cosmog and Necrozma, you must complete the PokeDex, so you gotta get those two, as well as everything else, Safari Zone Pokemon, other one-time only legendaries, a few freebies here and there that can be hard to find (having to sleep in random beds to get Cresselia and Darkrai is creative, but certainly not something even savvy players would think of, yes, you can sleep in any of the white beds and it's a way to heal too). Really am not a fan of Wingull/Azumarills blocking the way to places either, but I guess it's to keep from certain premature entrances into places from occurring. And I still hate that Neverland maze and Infinite Forest. Real hard! But it's all still entertaining to play a "Hoenn but not Hoenn" hack, with all those sitcom and movie people all around playing in a strange crossover of sorts. Glad I didn't forget about this, huh?

A look back at: Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra

 

Well it's certainly been a while since I played an RPG of some sort! I focused heavily on platformers for the tail end of last year, but I did get a bit of a start playing Might and Magic III at some point. I just put it off for months to do Dooming and platforming and what not. But hey, I never want to leave a stone unturned, and I got right back into the swing of things. Though I did need to refresh myself somewhat, since it's been a while and this game like the others still remains quite hard.

The good news? Well, things are far more convenient. Menu options are done much better so that I can get my spells easier as well as getting experience and saving, more conveniences makes the challenge much less but sometimes it's appreciated. To offset this, there's no number values visible on the screen for HP and what not, you just get character portraits (still an indicator of their status) and color bars (a less-than-adequate way of indicating health). Thankfully there's still the menu options which are a godsend coming off the heels of the previous game. So Might and Magic III, your gameplay improved greatly and I'm starting to ease into the series a bit more and more as we go along. Indeed, the gameplay and the character customization are still the strong suits and remain strong.

The weak suit, of course, is the plot, which, well, hey, the franchise has so far been quite primitive in storyline and there's not much to really go by. But this one in particular is a bit more confusing. So new setting, that's nice, but the adventurers of Terra that you recruit and use aren't really connected to anyone in particular. They're not the same ones from the previous game, as they live on Terra. They just somehow get caught up in the whole Corak vs. Sheltem conflict. And there's no endgame boss to speak of, Corak just pursues Sheltem with your party pursuing both. And I hear somehow that the party loses their way and ends up in a distant sequel as opposed to the fourth game, according to the Wikipedia article? Seems strange. I think Wizardry does better with the storylines compared to Might and Magic, but I'll still see just how far Might and Magic can go with its craziness and maybe there's some interesting stuff later on.