Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus (PS4) Review

Not knowng what to expect with Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus (it wasn't a game that was really on my radar), I was almost immediately hit with a massive wave of nostalgia as it started.  The look of the intro was heavily influenced by the Legend of Zelda, which honestly, is a great source of inspiration.  The backstory of the game is presented in a great way, by chunks of text scrolling up the screen.  If you ever left the original Zelda game run its demo/attract mode, you will know what I'm talking about.  The backstory is much longer than I would have thought though, and gives you a good idea what's going on.  Then, it pretty much drops you into the action.

I will say that visually and aurally, Chronicles of Teddy is very charming.  I love the sprite look of the game and the animations.  There are a lot of little details in the environment, especially buried in the ground.  The world has its own story, and I would love to know more about it.  The music is good too.  It really should be, since they have such musically-based puzzles and even an invented musical language.  The look and sounds of the game are easily the high point for me.

The comparison to the Legend of Zelda doesn't end with the intro, though.  Chronicles of Teddy is a side-scrolling action platformer that has a striking similarity to Zelda II.  That could go either way, depending on your feelings for that game.  The main character's attack range is ridiculously short.  So much so that it is a massive hindrance to combat.  You have to get so close to enemies to actually hit them that you will likely get hit as well.  This might be passable, but the hit detection is also off.  Meaning together, you have an even shorter attack range.  It's...just not good, from a player standpoint.  I've found the best attack is the downward thrust when jumping.  However, there are several enemies that are all but immune to it.  Of course.  At least there is a fair amount of health pick-ups strewn about the areas.

The look and awkward combat aren't the only things like old-school games.  Chronicles of Teddy also slavishly devotes its lack of tutorials to the games of yesteryear.  You quickly get your weapon, and the game shows you how to dash with a nice stone in the background.  Then...nothing.  You have to figure out everything else.  As I've said before, I don't want a game to hold my hand, but I don't want them to offer nothing.  That's just as bad.

You spend a lot of time wandering through the areas, trying to find out where to go to proceed.  You encounter a lot of puzzles, usually based around the musical language, and have to figure out what to do on your own.  While others may solve puzzles and get a sense of accomplishment, I tend to get annoyed if the answer takes too long.  The two biggest grievances I have with the non-existent help is the store and the final dungeon item.

Players encounter the store very early on, but there are no explanations as to what the items are.  I have to assume the sword and overalls will give more attack and defense.  I'm sure the sword does, but I'm not convinced on the overalls.  There's also a ring.  I had no idea what it did for 90% of the game.  I think it affects the meter that the final dungeon item uses, but I'm not sure.  There's also a heart container you can buy, but you won't know that until you buy it or find another during your adventure.  The most expensive item in the store is a spider coin.  I had no idea what they did until near the end.

The final dungeon item is a scroll.  It allows you to break a specific type of block.  Trouble is, they have no explanation of how to actually use it.  Eventually I figured out that I had to double tap down when in the air.  Would it really be so hard to put another stone in the background that showed that?  Why make me annoyed for no reason?  The item is a scroll, that the main character apparently understands, but can't communicate how?  That doesn't even make sense!

The game sure does look nice.

Then there's also the puzzles.  Many require you to play notes on your instrument, and mimic the notes you hear.  I'm not very musically inclined, so it's much harder for me to do some of that stuff.  Also, turn down the music volume in the options so it's easier to actually hear the notes and not the extraneous sounds.  There are doors that require specific words to open.  Problem is, the word changes.  I don't know why...the doors look the same.  There are clues to some puzzles, and many of those are obtuse.  There are either written in the background or vaguely referenced in a picture.  It might not actually be as hard as I make out, but there are at least a few that I really disliked.

The flow of the game follows a very predictable pattern.  You find a book in the library, go into the book, find a way into the dungeon in that area (usually past a guardian), find the dungeon item, then beat the boss.  Rinse and repeat.  There's nothing wrong with that, as I always looked forward to getting the dungeon item so I could explore more areas and get more treasures.  There is a fair amount of backtracking, as some required items are in previous areas.  It's pretty much par for the course for the genre though.  My biggest complaint is the save system.  You start at the start of the area or dungeon wherever you save (or die).  I realize that's the way it works in Legend of Zelda, but that was due to limitations at the time.  You are actually allowed to make the game player friendly instead of a chore!

Since the game is modeled after old-school games in many ways, it shares that old-school difficulty.  It's not insurmountable, but there are a lot of hard parts to the game.  Part of that is the large hitbox the main character has, which leads to a lot of unfair damage.  Some enemies are a massive pain to deal with, and some of the bosses are just as painful.  A few platforming sections later in the game are brutal and require pinpoint accuracy.  My personal most hated spot is one part at the end of game where you have to do crazy platforming that revolves around bouncing off of enemies and their projectiles.  It's stupid hard, but at least it's optional.  Therefore, I skipped it (after several failed attempts).

It took me about 12 or so hours to get to the final boss, but I did a lot of the optional stuff (not all the fireflies, though).  If the game were straightforward, it would be less time, but they want you to explore and sit around trying to figure out what to do, which obviously eats up more time.  Trying to do completion would run a few more hours, unless you had a guide of some sort.  There is a new game+ option, which I'm always happy to see.

While Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus looks and sounds charming, it is devilishly unforgiving.  The game offers little help for any puzzle, has really annoying enemies and platforming segments.  There are fun parts to the game, they just are buried by the overly annoying sections.  It tries so hard to get you to stop playing it, which is a baffling choice to be sure.  Fans of Zelda II or maybe even the Dark Souls crowd might get a lot of enjoyment out of Chronicles of Teddy.

____________________

The Good:
The game looks so charming and cool.  Even if I'm not musically-inclined, the music-based language and puzzles are thought out and kinda neat.

The Bad:
The combat.  Hit detection is not good and your range is abysmal.  The game offers no real help whatsoever for anything in it, which is annoying.

The SaHD:
Zelda II really should have been a much better game.  Chronicles of Teddy does a lot to improve it, but is held back by trying too hard to ape it.

(Review code for Chronicles of Teddy was provided by the publisher)

Rodea the Sky Soldier (Wii U) Review

After nearly five years and a rocky road of development, Rodea the Sky Soldier has finally been released as a Wii U and 3DS game.  Originally conceived of as a Wii game, that version is included with first run copies of the physical Wii U title.  Sadly, the digital version (which I got a code for) does not include it.  It would have been fun to contrast the differences.

The story of the game isn't too bad.  You play as Rodea, a mechanical bodyguard for Princess Cecilia.  Her father, Emperor Geardo, is attempting to invade his neighboring country for resources, since it only passes by every 1000 years.  It's not a groundbreaking plot, but it works well for this type of game.  While the story scenes are ok, there is no option to advance through dialogue quickly.  You have to watch it all or skip it all.  Ugh.  The world of Garuda is a 3D world that Rodea can explore.  It reminds me a lot of 90s platforming action games.  The environments are whimsical and filled with muted colors.  Since Rodea can fly, there are a lot of floating structures to travel to as well.

Now we move on to how the game controls.  Well, simply put, the controls are awful.  You aim where to fly with the control stick, which makes sense.  However, to get the reticle to appear, you have to either jump and enter "pre-flight" by pressing the jump button again.  Then, you have a limited time to aim Rodea and press it a third time to go toward your destination.  That alone is overly complicated, but it's not going to get better.  You have to actually aim at something to fly, since Rodea can apparently only fly at things.  Did I mention if you don't pick a target quick enough Rodea will just being flying toward...somewhere.  Yeah, because that would be really helpful.  There is only a certain range you can aim towards, meaning you will have to chain flying at different objects to get anywhere.

This sky soldier must be malfunctioning, since he can only fly for so long before needing to land.  While not a good choice (to put it mildly), it's not the worst one made for the game.  Rodea also flys really slowly, making the game slightly more tedious than it already was.  You can upgrade his flight speed, but he then uses more "fuel", so the efficiency remains the same.  So even though you can fly faster, you don't go farther or longer.  What?

When you finish flying to a destination, Rodea just stops and drops like he's on fire.  You have no air control unless you aim at something to fly.  So if you jump, or stop flying and need to move just a smidgen over to land on a platform, no deal.  You have to basically aim at the ground and fly to it.  There's no reason for that to be the case.  Being able to do small adjustments in the air would go a long way in making the game playable.  Otherwise, you end up falling down the thing you were trying to fly to.

Why not fly up then?  Well, you get an ascending move that goes up a bit, but you can only use it once per jump/flight it seems.  And since you can't just fly, but have to aim at something, the best way to fly up a cliff side is to fly at it, bounce up, rinse repeat.  So instead of flying straight up, you are bouncing yourself up a wall like a ping-pong ball.  It's not only stupid, it's counter-intuitive.  The flying being fundamentally bad might be excusable if the whole game wasn't about flying.

The B Button is used to attack, and drains a chunk of the flight meter if done in the air.  You can hold the button to travel further.  If you hit an enemy or breakable object, you will bounce up and...back.  Yeah, it should be straight up or maybe somewhat forward, considering the game wants you to attack again during this time to combo enemies.  Moving back is bad for when you are trying to break objects, and near useless when hitting enemies.  If there are multiple enemies nearby, you can combo them by attacking again.  Trouble is, you only have a second or two to hit the button again to do so.  There is somewhat of an auto target, so you have to rely on that to hit the next enemy, since you don't have the time to slowly aim at them.

Rodea can attack on the ground, too, but he goes much farther if you don't hit anything.  It's way too far in my opinion, making it a pain to control it if you miss.  The ground attack is also inconsistent at breaking objects, as it may just go to the side of it or roll up over the top.  Even if it does break it, launching up and backwards doesn't help you break the rest of the group.  I ended up just trying to avoid attacking things unless I needed to.  It's just a pain to do so otherwise.

Early on in the game they also give you a gun to use.  At first I thought it was some joke on making the game more familiar to western audiences, but I'm pretty sure it isn't.  It also doesn't fix the problem with attacking enemies.  You only have your reticle while flying, so you don't aim the gun.  Yes, you read that right.  It auto aims the shots, so you just have to select it and hit the button when vaguely aimed at your target.  There may be some actual use for it later in the game, but it just feels like a waste of time to even have it.

Sorry, but we still aren't done with the terrible controls.  Aiming the reticle and moving the camera are many times linked together.  Trying to aim at a specific thing (like a quick enemy or star pick-up) is near impossible when the camera and reticle are moving at the same time.  That isn't to say that the reticle moves fast, as it's still very slow.  You just can't aim at a small thing well at all.  There are sadly no options to change the speed of the reticle or even allow inverted aiming.  The camera also re-centers itself if you move it around.  Add these all together, and you just get a terrible camera all around.  It's slow, no option for inversion, and won't let you look around.  It makes exploration painful.  That wouldn't be so bad if it was always clear which way to go.  Sometimes there is a marker, but other times it's just a vague notion of "go this way".  If you have to find specific objects, which happens at a few points, those aren't always marked very well and looking around for them can be headache-inducing.

Rodea has an upgrade-able health meter, and a stock of lives.  Grabbing enough yellow star things will give you an extra life.  Levels also have a few checkpoints in them that you will go back to if you die.  Pretty standard for a game of this type.  Assuming you can stand playing it, there is some decent replayability in the levels.  There are collectibles to get and ranks for different aspects of the level, like highest combo and damage taken.  The collectibles do actually help out, since some are used to upgrade Rodea's abilities, and some will unlock some additional content.  You are also timed on each level, which is supposed to help encourage you to speed run.  As a person who doesn't do that, it's just another thing the game ranks you on as you struggle to move Rodea how you want.

However, maybe all of this is just me.  Maybe it just doesn't click with me and the game is actually fun to somebody.  After seeing me play, my son wanted to give it a go.  He liked the story and enemies, but not the bosses and the flying.  He thought the game was hard because he had trouble aiming at the correct places to fight the bosses.  At least he enjoyed it more than I did, but I wouldn't say he liked it much, either.

Rodea the Sky Soldier starts out okay, but quickly gets aggravating and tiresome.  The setting and look of the game are the high points, while the controls are easily the low point, to the extent of ruining the entire experience.  I'm sure there is someone somewhere who can not only tolerate the game, but actually enjoy it a little, but it's not me.  Whenever I finished a level, my facial expression told the story of disgust, anger and sadness that I had.  This is no Pixar movie, though, as there was no joy to be found.  I've heard the Wii version is somehow better, but there is no way for me to verify that with the digital version.  As it stands on its own, Rodea the Sky Soldier for Wii U is not an experience I would want to repeat.

Shovel Knight (Wii U) Review

Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, Shovel Knight has been released on the PC, Wii U and 3DS.  It is very inspired by old NES platformer games, which has taken root in the looks, sounds and gameplay.  The visuals are a wonderfully animated sprite display, and I very much like it.  The music is also really good, and feels like it was ripped out of old Nintendo classics.

After the initial stage, you will have a world map that will allow you to move to various places, and gives you some freedom in the order to tackle stages.  The look of the map itself is reminiscent of Super Mario Bros. 3, and I really like the little bit of freedom it gives you.  It's easy to replay stages and get more money or find collectibles or power-ups that you may have missed.  Beating each set of bosses unlocks new areas to continue your quest.  There's also a town that allows you to purchase relics, health and magic upgrades, and one that allows you to get shovel power-ups and new sets of armor.

While the controls are pretty tight, they aren't perfect.  Sometimes it doesn't seem to register my shovel pogo, and walking near ledges can be tricky.  If you stop pressing left or right in the air, though, you will stop moving that direction, which takes a little getting used to, as usually games have a little bit of momentum to directional jumps.  I felt the attack range of the shovel was just a bit too small, as I misjudged it several times, leading to unnecessary damage.  Using the game pad was ok at best, but the classic pro was the best bet.  The normal Wii remote held classic style was a close second, but the small d-pad was a hindrance.

When you hear "old school platforming", you probably think "ridiculous difficulty", and that's an accurate thought.  Overall, the game has a decent difficulty curve, although the game got really mean near the end.  The last few stages have some very unforgiving parts (lots of instant death nonsense), and just before the final boss there's a very clear homage to the Mega Man games.  Too bad the bosses don't have counter weapons to make that section less painful.  Death results in some money loss and being sent back to a checkpoint.  There aren't any lives, so you can keep retrying as long as your patience holds out.  The game is slightly less stressful than the games that inspired it in those regards.  There are ways to make the game harder if you're a masoch-- I mean, itching for a challenge.  Destroying checkpoints gives money, but then they cannot be used as checkpoints.  You can actually beat the game with no relics, and you don't have to pick up any health or magic upgrades.  So while the game has a growing difficulty, you can make it more challenging if you so choose.

There are 11 stages (8 bosses plus 3 others) for the main story of Shovel Knight.  There's also several extra stages and boss fights to extend gameplay.  Depending on how much you die, it can take awhile to make your way through the game.  My first run was about 8 hours, and of course there are people boasting much less.  The game also includes feats, which are basically achievements.  While you can speed run the game (there's a feat for that), you can also go for full completion by tracking down all the relics, completing every extra stage and buying all the armor and shovel upgrades.  Definitely a good amount of content for the money.  Supposedly, there's DLC coming down the line that adds new playable characters.  Sounds like a good way to get some more hours out of the game to me.

Shovel Knight is a good example of a retro game.  It has the right looks and sounds, while still having several modern upgrades.  It's a great mix of old games, like Castlevania and Mega Man, but for a modern audience.  While the difficulty near the end was very off-putting, I still consider it a good game.  If you enjoy old-school platformers or a good challenge, definitely pick up Shovel Knight.

Bonus Tip:  Make sure to leave the game pad charging or at least nearby while you play (since you shouldn't be using it to play the game), since if it runs out of batteries, the game will freeze.

PAX Impressions: "Might Monday": Part 3

Bayonetta 2

I enjoyed the first Bayonetta (not on hard difficulty, though), so I was anxious to see how the sequel is shaping up on the Wii U.  I really don't like her with short hair, but the game was really fun.  I was definitely very rusty at getting the Witch Time dodge at first, and the normal grunt troops were hitting me a lot.  After a few of them it was time for the miniboss, which I did much better on.  The demo ends with a gigantic boss fight, and the whole game was very flashy, as you might expect from a Platinum Games game.

The controls were responsive, and I really like that getting hit does not completely deplete the magic meter like it did in the first game.  When it's full you can activate Umbral Climax mode, which will make your attacks very powerful and hit a very wide range for a limited time.  I stood in line for 3 hours, and it was pretty much worth it.  I was apprehensive about the game heading to the Wii U (before I knew why), but it plays really well on it, and I hope it supports the Wii U Pro controller, since I recently picked one up.

Bayonetta 2 also has a touch screen play style, where you can play the whole game just using the touch screen.  The guy in front of me tried it out, the brave soul.  First thing I noticed was the massive health bar.  At least they give you lots of leeway, and it made me question just how accurate it all was.  Sliding the stylus around the screen would move Bayonetta, and flicking it up would make her jump.  Sounds good in theory, but games like that have had spotty platforming because of it.  You can tap on enemies to unleash stylish combos automatically, so I imagine it's better if you would rather watch the game than play it.  Dodging was done by flicking the stylus away from the enemy.  I had trouble getting the timing right when I could push a button, so trying to time that would be a nightmare unless they were very generous with the timing.

While the demo sometimes had Jeanne (from the first game) fighting beside you, the demo assistant was tight lipped about her being playable in the main game.  Either way, I'd like to try the release version, as the demo was fun.  Now if only we could get a costume for Bayonetta that makes her look more like the design in the first game...

WWE 2K14
The graphics appeared better than last year, but I thought last year's game looked fine until Chriz aka The Mole showed me some comparison pictures that highlighted just how bad they were.  The game was pretty fluid, but felt as fast as WWE 13.  Supposedly they were going to slow it down, but wrestlers still got up from moves quickly, which admittedly I prefer earlier in the match.

The match I played was from the "story" mode, 30 years of Wrestlemania, and it was the Undertaker vs. HHH match #2 3 (Hell in a Cell).  Thankfully I was the Undertaker.  If you have played any historical matches in any of the Smackdown vs. Raw or WWE games, you know that you are given a laundry list of things to accomplish besides winning the match, all in the name of accuracy.  Just like previous years, you don't have to do them all (but will likely get a bonus for doing so), and some of them are probably hidden.  The first two were visible, but the rest came out as the match went on.  Unfortunately, when fulfilling one of them, getting HHH to moderate damage, caused a cut-scene that also put me in moderate damage.  Yeah, not fun there.  Pretty much all of the bonus objectives I did would result in a scene of some sort, like last year's game.  I still managed to win, but I had to work for it more than I wanted to.  The match I did was pretty fun, but the "story" match reminded me of last years, which wasn't my favorite (but should have been).  We will see how the final version is later this fall.

EDF 2025
I really liked EDF 2017, and even kinda liked Insect Armageddon.  2025 goes back to the style of 2017, and played really well.  Pale Wing, from the PS2 EDF, returns and we get another "class" in the form of the Lancer.  He has a mechanical apparatus on his head/shoulders that allows him to wield heavier weapons.  It also makes him really slow.  The weapons I saw him use were a big hammer and two shoulder-mounted vulcan cannons.  Pretty cool looking, but probably not ideal for every mission, and likely best with another player to help you out.

Each demo station was set for co-op, so some random dude and I jumped on.  Since I really liked the jet armor in IE, I wanted to try out Pale Wing.  I didn't read the weapon descriptions thoroughly enough.  I though I was picking a rapid fire weapon and a grenade launcher, but I ended up with a single-shot rifle and a grenade.  The rifle was ok, but ate through energy quickly if I fired it quickly and the grenade...sucked.  I tried it a few times, but it flew really slowly toward the target.  After helping up my partner (he set it to hard, sigh...) I flew to the top of a building and tried to throw a grenade down on the ants/spiders below.  The grenade then proceeded to fly backwards and destroy the building I was on and kill me in the process.  Thanks, I hate you too grenade.  It was funny to watch my poor soldier fall down 300 feet while flailing her limbs around and crash onto the floor.

After waiting a bit to get help, we tried to wade through the enemies.  It didn't go so well and my partner was quickly overrun.  The problem is, the spiders were all over his body, so I couldn't rescue him.  They flooded toward me and it was soon over.  Oh well, it would have been much better on a different difficulty and if I had read all of the weapon's stats.  One cool thing I will also mention is the larger enemy spiders.  They will still shoot webs at you, but if one hits you, they will slowly drag you toward them.  It's a small thing, but pretty cool.  I imagine it will be annoying after it happens a lot, but still pretty neat.  I'm looking forward to the release of EDF 2025 since 2017 was lots of fun and this is more in 2017's style than Insect Armageddon.  I'm sure my buddy DTJAAAAM is looking forward to it as well.

E3 2013: Nintendo Direct Impressions

Ah, Nintendo Direct.  I'm a fan of these, since to me, it shows that the current E3 is not really the future of the game industry getting out its message and previews of new games.  That aside, Nintendo opted to have another Nintendo Direct in lieu of a huge stage conference.  They had some really good trailers in it, too!

First off, we got some new info on the next set of Pokemon games, Pokemon X and Y.  They now have a release date, October 12, which is always good news.  In an effort to balance out Dragon type Pokemon, they are adding another type- Fairy.  Yeah, I know...  Well, dragons did need to get knocked down a peg, since they made ice types harder to get, and the ones from Pokemon Black and White were just terrible and ugly.  They showed the first 4 fairy types, one of which is...wait for it...a new Eevee evolution.  Who didn't see that one coming?  The rest are: Jigglypuff (might be useful now? ...No, I doubt it), Gardevoir (awesome Pokemon, even if I can't spell it's name correctly) and Marrill.  I'm not sure how a water balloon is a fairy, but whatever.  There's also a mode that allows you to play with your Pokemon like Nintendogs.  I don't think this is necessary (or wanted by the older fan base), so hopefully I can ignore it entirely.

A few other games were shown: a new Mario or two, Pikmin 3 and some of the two "new" Legend of Zelda games.  I don't really like the Mario games, including the new Mario Kart (shocking, I know, considering how much I loved the first Mario Kart), and I still haven't gotten around to trying Pikmin (I have one of the remakes on Wii).  As sad as it is, I don't like the Wind Waker art style and I'm not really a fan of the 3D Zelda games, so I'm not really excited about that.  The re-imagining/ sequel to A Link to the Past does look really cool, as that is my favorite Legend of Zelda game.  A day or so after their Nintendo Direct, they talked more about it.  It seems Link now has an ability to make himself a 2 dimensional cave drawing looking thing and travel along walls.  I have no clue why in an actual 3D game, the hero has a power to make himself 2D.  Almost seems counter-productive.

Before I get to the final awesomeness of what all they covered, I want to talk about the new game being made by the team that made Xenoblade.  It looks similar, but you can also summon a "doll", or giant mech suit that you can pilot in battles or even while moving around the map.  As a robot fan, and fan of the team's other works, Xenoblade and Xenogears (currently my third favorite game of all time), I want to play this game.  If I don't have the Wii U by the time that game comes out, I will probably get it.  The game is right now just called "X" (which looks a lot like the Xenogears/ Xenoblade "X" in the titles), so hopefully it gets a real name soon.  Maybe Xenodoll?  Oh, and at least one of the mechs you run around in can transform.  I can't wait to roll out, even though the game appears to have multiplayer.  As long as I can play the whole game solo, I will be a happy camper!

Now to the star of the show...Smash Bros!  Being developed by a team at Namco Bandai (whom I affectionately refer to as "Bamco"), there were some trailers released that showed three of the new fighters.  First up (in reverse order of excitement) is the nameless Villager from Animal Crossing.  Yeah, I don't care either.  Next up, the generic Wii Fit trainer girl.  She'll likely be a joke character, like Game & Watch, so I don't mind her, even if there were much better choices for a character (the princess from Archaic Sealed Heat?  Anyone?)  However, all other character reveals shall pale in comparison to the character I was pulling for last game.  The one, the only, super fighting robot...Megaman!  Yes, the Blue Bomber, in a 3D-ified version of his 8-bit self has finally come to the world of Smash Bros!  He's a perfect addition.  They showed several of his moves, but I'm still hoping he has a similar mechanic to Kirby, but he copies the move of the last opponent he killed.  The only sad part is Nintendo (or Bamco) is picking up Capcom's slack.

Since some of Nintendo's games from the show floor were also playable at Best Buy stores, but curiously not in the area near the Nintendo of America headquarters, I'm sure some of these will be at PAX Prime so I can get some first hand impressions.  Check back in September!

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Demo Impressions

The demos for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate have been up for a week or so, and I've had the chance to check them out.  I had to try the Wii U version at my friend's house, but I at least got to try it.

3DS
As it is with most action games on the 3DS, the 3D looks nice but isn't practical at all.  If you can keep your hands 100% steady while dodging and smashing the monster, more power to you.  For the rest of us, I recommend turning it off during the fights.  The game does look pretty though.

Honestly, I don't like the touch screen camera control d-pad.  Most buttons I go based on tactile feedback, so I always had to look at the screen to make sure I would touch the correct part.  It definitely makes me want a circle pad pro, but too bad Nyko cancelled their awesome one (it was also a shell and extra battery).  According to the demo, the circle pad pro isn't compatible with it, so you would have to wait for the full version to try it.

Other than that, the game was great.  I wasn't sure how to get the lock on button to work though.  Since, my good buddy that you may know as "Mark" from MH Tri told me how to use it.  Anyway, it was fun and controlled really well, the camera notwithstanding.  So far, it transitioned to the small(er) screen really well.

Wii U
The first thing that was really throwing me was how little I knew the Wii U controller.  The second stick is above the buttons, not below, as I'm used to, so I kept missing the face buttons.  After a few minutes, I had adjusted and it felt good.  The controller is a bit big, but didn't hinder me after putting some time into it.  I didn't use the touch screen at all, since I am used to playing Tri, where there is no touch screen.  It might be more helpful to use it, but I don't know yet.

The game looked so good, though.  I really like the HD in Monster Hunter.  Maybe I've just been playing it on my blurry capture unit, but it really did look a lot better than Tri.  The time limit on the monsters is not fun, though.  I imagine for new players, it's even worse.  I had the Plesioth limping, but then ran out of time.  Yeah, there were a few swear words, I'll admit it.  At least I know he's not as bad as he was on the PSP games, so that in and of itself is comforting.  Although, I don't think they should have put it on the demo.  I think just about any other monster would have been a better choice, given how much players hate the Plesioth.

All in all, the demos were a good way to hold me over until the game(s) release later this month.  I am really, really hoping to snag a review copy so I can bring first had impressions of the actual game.  Now to just get a Wii U of my own...somehow.

[Update]
I just tried out the lock on feature and I really like it.  It's like Phantasy Star Online, so I adjusted to it pretty quickly and it was a lot better for me than the touch screen d-pad.  I think I'll use that if I don't get a circle pad pro by the time I get the game.

What Makes A Game System Worth It?

When talking to my friend recently, I said I was tempted to get a Wii U since it is only $300 at Costco.  He replied with "I would, it's totally worth it".  My first thought was, "of course you would, you don't have near the amount of expenditures that I do", since he isn't sliding into poverty 11 months out of the year like my family.  What I did say was (my second thought) was "but there's nothing to play on it".  I know that's not technically correct, there are games for it, but it's still new and I don't actually want any of the ones out for it.  I'm willing to try Zombie U, but really, I'll get that cheap later or just borrow it from my friend.

No, the first game I want to play for it is, of course, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.  It comes in March, so I would like to get a Wii U soon, but I don't know how it's going to happen.  Between her job cutting her hours and things not magically getting cheaper, it's going to be hard to squeeze that in.

But I digress (and use "but" at the beginning of a sentence).  To me, what makes a system worth it is the games on said system.  Otherwise, what do you do with it?  Sure you can do some other stuff, but primarily it is to play games.  Having DVD playback was great when the first system did it, now I don't care since I have 6 or so things that can play them.  I play games on them, and that's what I judge its "worth" by.

I'm not sure my friend does.  There was one time when I did buy a system, at launch, because of what I thought it could do.  What kind of experience I thought I would have.  That system was a Nintendo Wii.  I still regret getting it when I did.  There's a few good games on it, sure, but it's just like the Gamecube and N64.  I didn't buy either of those at launch, but when they had good games on them.  I saved some money and was happy with the purchases.

Not so much with the Wii.  It's collected lots of dust, save for the Monster Hunter Tri binges I so enjoy.  I didn't need to buy it at launch, since most of the games for it are just terrible.  I should play it more to actually enjoy the ones I have, but it's still not a great system.  The motion controls are just terrible and sadly the best games (to me) don't even use them.  Also, my launch system died on me and I lost over 120 hours in MH Tri because of Nintendo's terrible ideas and fear of online.  Reading things about the Wii U shows me they haven't fully learned their lesson.

So that's why I'm not really eager to buy the Wii U.  Well, also the 3DS price drop.  That still bothers me, but that's a different story.  I honestly would be content waiting to get one, but I want to play MH3U with my buddies Mark and Jyrokk, since playing with them is really fun.  It's also worth it, but will the network even let us play?  We've had some trouble connecting on MH Tri, and there's nothing we can do about it but hope the next is better.  So, that would be worth it, but how to afford it?  It's crazy to think that the game is coming too soon, which isn't how most gamers think about games they are looking forward to.  I'll just have to see what happens.

It's a Hard Lock Life

My friend recently picked up his WiiU preorder, and wanted to play Nintendo Land with him to try it out.  He at least updated the system so I didn't have to sit there for 5 hours while that happened.  On a side note, the "menu" screen looks like an absolute mess.  It's safe to say I'm not a fan of that.  Anyway, he popped in the disc and we...proceeded to sit there for another 20+ mins while that updated.

So we booted up the game and....sat there while the ever helpful "Monita" talked in small, slow sentences so we could understand her and told us all about Nintendo Land instead of letting us pick a game to play.  After that was done, my buddy wandered over to the Metroid mini-game so we could get started.  I figured he would start with the Legend of Zelda one, but I guess he wanted to be nice and try Metroid first.

We accidentally did the ship vs. people multiplayer, so after a round of that, we quit to do the co-op one.  After going through the controls again, we started it up.  While hard on my wrist (my friend puts his sensor bar in a terrible location), it was kinda fun.  After 3 rounds we decided to switch ship and ground so we could try the other.  Right as we went to start the round...the system hard locked on us.  Yeah, buzzing sound and all.  Ouch.  Since I'm sure something as basic as this was tested (despite only really promoting their friends there, yeah, still bitter), it must have been the system.

After unplugging the machine to get it to reboot, we again started Nintendo Land.  Again Monita came around to ensure we couldn't just play the game we wanted and explained about the train that would I guess take us around the 1 screen park.  I say "I guess" because I didn't really care and just wanted to skip her talking to me.  As I had the gamepad, I just started jumping while she was showing the train.

Can you guess what happened next?

Hard lock.  Again.  So...we assume the WiiU/ Monita doesn't want us to actually play the game and called it a night.  I think they obviously hired the wrong people.  My wife thinks they must have partnered with Bethesda.  Either way, not a good way to show off your new system, especially when it has barely been out a week.  Why did I want one of those again?

Oh, right.