Music of the Week #534

Moving along.

I watched the first couple episodes of Stone Ocean and felt like most of Episode 1 was mostly anime original alongside reusing certain parts of Jolyne’s flashbacks but overall it’s been smooth sailing. Damn, they didn’t skimp out on Johngalli’s ass.

We talked about the similarities with Petalburg with Koopa village a couple weeks back but you do end up coming back to this place around 2-4 more times if you bother to do some Trouble Center requests as well as the main story requiring you to come back here for the infamous General White questline.

Music of the Week #533

Switched up.

I got some posts out, now I’m going to relax before struggling to write up a game I played nearly 4 months ago. The time to binge Part 6 is nigh for me so I better get prepared. I’m free but there’s so much I want to do and so little time to do it.

I got ahead of myself last week and skipped over this song, one that I particularly like. Acting as what the Shooting Star Summit was in the first game, you need to come back here after every chapter to let your map be updated to show you the location of the next Crystal Star. The theme is appropriately very foreboding and unsettling and the Pit of 100 Trials is right next door too. I really like this theme for its atmospheric dread since I’m always a fan of giving you a preview of the endgame early on and constantly reminding you that you’ll have to deal with this issue when it’s finally time.

Yakuza 5- Bigger, Meaner, Cooler and Dumber

5 Characters, 5 Cities, and a shitton of minigames across each one and a side-story, Yakuza 5 is easily the most ambitious Yakuza title that trumps even 0 and the kiwami titles in the amount of content you are free to explore. 

Yakuza 5 is the last chronologically released mainline Yakuza game before the advent of Yakuza 0 and the Kiwami’s and part of me really wants to do a recap on the series so far and how my statement about starting with Yakuza 0 might color my opinions on the series as a whole. We’ll see, but first we still have one big ass game to get through.

Music of the Week #532

Moving right along.

So Yakuza 4 is up but Yakuza 5 is going to take a bit more tuning up, hopefully I can get that done by today. The reason Yakuza 4 took so long is because I didn’t have good shots of the finale because I saved a video of it, didn’t move it to a USB, and then my PS4 data got wiped. Thankfully I only needed to redownload Yakuza 4 and play the last couple cinematics before it was ready.

The staple in any Mario game, the grasslands stage. Petal Meadows is really no different from the Koopa Village section of Paper Mario 1 except you get your Bob-omb partner way later down the line. I was also about to say TTYD doesn’t have Fuzzies getting in your way but then that entire section with the small fortress and the Fuzzies in the sewers reminded me that the sequence of events are pretty damn similar to the first game.

Yakuza 4- Squad Up

In Kiwami 2 there was a sidestory where Kiryuu runs into a movie director working on his 4th movie in a running series of yakuza films but has doubts he can make the 4th entry good as his work on the 3rd entry was not as well received. I heard somewhere that this story ran parallel to the series proper as apparently 3 wasn’t the most well-received in the series and many doubts were had with the series’ direction. To me, my opinion on 3 was purely story related as I didn’t find either the plot twists or its final villain all that strong compared to the weight behind Nishikiyama and Ryuji’s stories despite other elements impeding them. 

Thankfully, I think 4 was a bold new move forward.

Music of the Week #531

Time to write

While I’m currently sick, I’ll try my best to type up what I can now that I finally have some free time to myself. Part 6 will also be binged come the weekend. So for now, I can probably get two games out of the way before I start writing one from the ground up,

This week’s tune deals with the Cursed Black Boxes you run into to progress the story. The entities inside the box “curse” you to give you paper based maneuverability abilities and try and act evil. The explanation for these things adds to why I like the Paper Mario series for the first three games. At certain places, usually underground, you can enter a bar and listen to stories from the bar keeper about some legends and myths that took place in the universe. This being an RPG, any myth automatically becomes true history and in TTYD’s particular case, a green mouser akin to Moustafa in the original Paper Mario shares these stories with you if you find him by the rooftops of East Rogueport.

Music of the Week #530

A bit late again but oh well.

Next week’s post will also be a bit delayed because I’ll be the busiest I’ve been working towards the weekend. Part 6 is out and I only managed to get a couple screenshots and the opening for it. The OP is definitely Jojo in visuals but it’ll take the bit for the song to grow on me.

This week’s tune is the main battle theme for TTYD, and it’s catchy opening always brings back some good memories. I couldn’t tell you which regular battle theme I prefer between the original Paper Mario and TTYD but the latter does have the benefit of having way more mechanics available to you between stylish moves and audience interactions that made combat way more engaging. Stylish moves in particular really changed up the game for me while the audience interactions were more random, at least to my knowledge, whether or not they throw rocks or items at you. There were also the stage lights dropping, the stage’s sprinkler, fire effects, and mist machines that can cause ailments, and the dreaded jackpot system that had the potential to fuck you over around too.