Music of the Week #512

Almost there

Sekiro is finally up and I’m still in the process of writing the next piece. There’s only one more after that so we’re nearing the end of my period where I can liberally play games for hours on end without other factors getting in my way. Hopefully I can finish another title within the next few weeks before things get busy again.

Come to think of it, snow locales in Paper Mario games are in short supply. A similar environment exists in the sequel but the set-piece only acts as a preview for the actual dungeon and primary location later on. The path to the Crystal Palace is definitely something with more pleasant memories than what the Thousand Year Old Door has you doing but we’ll get to that in the appropriate time. For now enjoy as we get close to the end of Paper Mario

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice- Now with four old people to kill

Even in the earliest of Souls games, active defense was more optimally achieved by the dodge roll. It universally costed the same amount of stamina for a roll than it would be to block an attack and 100% reduction shields or specific attacks would require a bit more effort to find and upgrade than simply rolling through enemy attacks. Certain bosses would be way too much on the stamina drain for a proper offense to be mounted ala Fume Knight so by Dark Souls II, the message was for players to start rolling more often. Out comes Bloodborne that did away with shields all together, even making fun of the idea, and added quick-step dodges when locked on. The emphasis on aggression, offensively parrying with firearms, lack of equipment weight and rolling penalties, and even healing HP lost with the rally mechanic all pointed towards a refinement given to the combat system. Dark Souls 3 kept some of this design philosophy with an increased invulnerability to the rolls, a mechanic that’s a far cry from Dark Souls 2’s rolling invulnerability tied to the Adaptability and Agility stat. 

So how does Sekiro push the envelope in its design philosophy?

Music of the Week #511

Delayed again

How many times have “delayed by pictures” been a thing now? Turns out these past two games, hell even the third in the pipeline, have been instances where I try to take as many screenshots as possible for memorabilia, situational macro-edits, and for good shots for these posts. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish another big title before my schedule shifts completely by the second half of August here but we’ll see what happens when we get there. I’ll try and get that next post up before the weekend.

Oh I love this one, Cold Reception in Shiver City is one of my favorite town themes from the game and a locale that we see often but not so much in Mario RPGs. Not only does this penultimate chapter feature a city of Bumpties, the penguin enemies in other Mario games, but also later feature a village with star kids and ninjis. Since I was young when Paper Mario came out, this being so far into the game meant that dumb kid me could only make it so far into the game on his own savefile without the help of my brother and reaching this area in the game is something I remember very well thanks to this tune.

Music of the Week #510

So many to choose

So my next game recap is written up but once again, picking images ends up taking up a lot of time since I can only use so many and it turns out like I have over 150+ images to choose from. Too bad most of them were mostly environmental shots for comparisons because of the changing game states/time of day system the game has which means I can only use so many of them.

Huff n Puff is the bigass Ruff Puff boss which are basically enemy clouds. I wondered if they were just evil versions of the Lakitu clouds but they never really bring them up but there’s an obvious resemblance especially due to the fact that Chapter 6 of Paper Mario introduces a Lakitu as a partner for Mario. Me and my brother always used to fight Huff n Puff with Bow’s ultimate fan slap ability because it just looked really funny but apparently Lakilester was the go-to choice as per “chapter introduced partner is the optimal way to beat the chapter boss” shtick. For some reason he never stuck with me, or maybe it’s because his basic attack didn’t feel satisfying to land. Beyond that, Huff n Puff has potential to be a very tough boss for dumb kids who don’t prioritize mitigating Huff n Puff’s mechanic of spawning more Ruff Puffs when hit since they can have a turn to pummel Mario and also have Huff n Puff heal himself by eating them. I’m pretty sure this was one of the earliest memories of letting my brother beat the boss because I was too dumb to do it myself.

Music of the Week #509

Not bad

Turns out the write-up for the next game didn’t take all that long so it should take much longer to get it up and running. Pictures are in decent supply since I made sure to take them because I really did enjoy the game to try and take a lot of pictures AND because I played through the game four times for that Platinum trophy.

The objective of Flower Fields is to destroy the artificial cloud machine that Bowser’s goons had set-up to bring back sunshine to the area. Upon doing so, the overworld theme changes to a more fittingly warm place filled with flowers. I actually forget what you had to do in between clearing the clouds and then climbing the stalk up into the clouds themselves to fight one of my other favored bosses, with its own awesome theme.

Yakuza 3- American Black Ops tourism

Kiryuu’s out, or so he hopes.

Yakuza 3 HD came as part of the Remastered Collection featuring the HD rereleases of 3, 4, and 5, the games preceding Yakuza 0 and 6’s release. I adamantly stated that by starting with 0, I would set myself up for disappointment down the road and I tried to go by the games chronologically and try to understand that 0 has spoiled me in multiple ways. In some ways, I think I’m starting to see the cracks present in the series and why many would have had that sentiment as to why starting with 0 might devalue the rest of the series. 

And honestly? It’s just the story that makes me feel this way.