All posts by Pike

The Android's Casting Magic Missile (RPG), The Android's Favorites, The Android's POG Collection (Retro)

The Long-Awaited Super Mario RPG Post

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I’ve dropped hints about this game before but never actually dedicated a post to it. I didn’t even do a Classic Video Game Monday about this over at Clockwork Hare because I wanted to wait until the time was right, and then I never got around to it.

Okay then. Here, I’m going to talk about my favorite RPG game of all time, my favorite Mario game of all time, my favorite Super Nintendo game of all time, and my favor– okay, do you see where I’m going with this?

The only game I like more than this is SMAC. And that’s saying a lot.

It’s hard to pin down what, exactly, makes this game special for me. I can give you an idea, though. Think of mid-to-late-90s Squaresoft. This game is the epitome of that. Now either you know what I’m talking about here, or you don’t, so here’s a quick rundown, in case you need a refresher:

  • Music that can be beautiful, haunting, or fun
  • Characters with real personalities, stories, and motivations
  • A long and convoluted storyline that takes you all over the world and has you visiting a variety of cultures
  • Minigames
  • Hundreds of random items that you may or may not need during the course of your game
  • Final bosses that have two or three different “forms”
  • Magical attacks that look like they should wipe out everything on the screen but actually only do seven hit points of damage to this one guy in the corner

And so on. But, above all, I think, you have that story. THAT STORY. This was the first RPG I ever played. Back then, I had never, ever, seen a story this deep before in a video game. And it left an immense impression on me.

A small sampling of the characters you will meet on your journey.

In other words, it was all that old-school Square quirky charm combined with a solid story and characters that really drew me in.

Okay, now I’m going to tell you about an optional boss in the game, called Culex. Culex is hard. Really hard. He’s like the equivalent of Mewtwo in Pokemon; he has nothing to do with beating the game, but you go after him as an extra challenge.

Culex has this whole mysterious presence going on that really has nothing to do with the rest of the game, and so he’s a bit of an anomaly. He’s a self professed Dark Knight with a a bunch of Elemental Crystal companions; he’s certainly nothing like we’ve seen in a Mario game before.

…that is, of course, the point. Culex gets a special boss battle theme that you don’t hear anywhere else in the game. It goes like this:

…sound familiar? No?

How about now?

Yup.

That’s not all Culex gets. You get a special victory fanfare when you beat him (three guesses as to what that fanfare is), and you get yet another special song after that. It is at that point that Culex breaks the fourth wall and says “Thank you, brave knight. I will treasure this memento of my journey here. Perhaps in another time, another game, we may have been mortal enemies… Let us part as comrades in arms.”

There are a lot of theories as to what Square was trying to say here, ranging from Culex being a reincarnated Final Fantasy enemy to simply being a mere fun homage. Well, I dunno about you guys, but the whole Culex thing and his conversation at the end always just gets to me. There’s something touching about it. It’s Square giving you this whole special enemy and boss fight because they know it’s what you want. It’s their one last huzzah before leaving Nintendo for years to come– this was the last game they produced for Nintendo before hitching up with PlayStation. It’s a genuine thank you from the game developers to the players, a respectful handshake between both– all done through the interface of the game itself.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Who knows? It still gets to me, though.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie proves that she would be the ultimate Final Boss

Now Super Mario RPG came out to largely rave reviews toward the end of the Super Nintendo’s lifespan and then promptly disappeared and no one heard from it again. There have been no sequels (beyond its spiritual successors in Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi), there have been no rereleases except for one on Virtual Console, and most of the original characters made for the game also have not been seen since. The typical explanation is that Square and Nintendo have some sort of weird copyright drama preventing either of them from really doing anything with it in the future.

Perhaps it’s better that way. Super Mario RPG is a relic of a different time: a time when RPGs weren’t about who has the fanciest cutscenes or who has the most photorealistic hair or who has the most immersive fantasy world. Rather, they were about traveling from weird town to even weirder town, beating up random enemies for gear, and saving the world. No nonsense. Just beating the big bad guy at the end with all of the epic loot that you had to cross the universe to find.

Oh, and Geno is the greatest character of all time.

I wish this too.
The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

In Which Video Games Make Me More Productive

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Anyone who knows me at all will know that I write a lot. Writing at least one novel a year– for NaNoWriMo— is standard for me, and this year I decided to bump it up a notch and write TWO novels, so before November hits this year I am plinking along in Camp NaNoWriMo.

Between odd work schedules, the possibility of moving (again) and the way writers’ block loves to time itself so it hits when I actually have time to write, it’s been slow going. I’m a good five thousand words behind or so– not a thoroughly insurmountable gap, but still a sizable one. Anyways, I was really having a lot of trouble motivating myself to do anything, but then I hit upon a brilliant plan. Basically, I’d force myself to write a good sized paragraph (or the equivalent of it, should I be writing dialogue or something), and then I’d reward myself with ten turns of Civ.

…I was not expecting this plan to work as well as it did.

I think I’ve written more in my current book since implementing this plan than before I did, and I just started doing this a few days ago. I’m knocking out a thousand words an hour– a very high rate for me– and that includes spending a good chunk of time in game.

Playing Civ like it's my job.

The best part is that once I really get going with writing, I don’t have much trouble continuing. This is something I learned back in the day when I used to trick myself into writing by setting a “one sentence a day” goal, knowing full well I’d write more than a sentence. The same thing is happening here; I’m frequently writing two or three paragraphs in between my ten turns of Civ. But the one rule remains steadfast: I must write at least one paragraph before I let myself play more Civ. You wouldn’t believe how fast the writer’s block dissolves when I’ve got Civ an alt+tab away.

I feel really good about this. What’s that you say, world? Video games are a waste of time and are keeping us from being more productive?

Come back and talk to me about it after video games help me motivate myself into writing a novel.

Well, I’m off to do more writing and Civ’ing. I eventually plan to extend this to other turn-based games as well, should I tire of Civ. I’m excited. I can’t wait to SMAC and write.

The Android's Distracted Boss (Casual/Flash)

Depict1

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It’s Friday and I know a lot of people are antsy about the weekend and wanting to get through their day, so today I am here to tell you about a brilliant little flash game called Depict1. It’s an action/puzzle game, and the entire thing sort of gives me Portal vibes (in the form of the game’s “theme” and its quirky narrator), but there is a pretty big twist to the game that takes it from being a run of the mill flash game and makes it very clever: basically, it takes every typical gaming convention you know and turns it on its head.

Hint: You don't actually use the arrows keys to move.

The game requires thinking outside of the box and breaking the gaming-fourth-wall in order to advance, and every puzzle is built in such a way that it requires just a little bit of knowledge from the previous level to succeed. And the best part is, it’s quite short. It took me about, oh, forty minutes to complete it the other day on my first playthrough, including the “secret ending” (which I highly recommend taking the time to find). Just now I did it in about 15 or 20 minutes, now that I’ve got the puzzles down pat.

Go take a look at it if you have a half hour to kill and want to have fun with a quirky and clever little game. It’s definitely one of the better flash games I’ve played in some time.

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned from Video Games

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Sometimes I’ll be driving down the road in town and I’ll see a sign outside an area that’s being developed. It’ll say something on it like “2 acres, zoned commercial.”

And I know exactly what they’re talking about. I mean, why wouldn’t I? I’ve played SimCity.

In fact, 99% of what I know about city development and planning comes directly from SimCity.

Just like everything I know about Europe in the 15th century comes from Europa Universalis 3. They don’t teach you about this sort of thing in school– not here, anyway. You get one year– nine months– of “World History” and they have to cram everything from pre-history to the present era in those nine months. Do you think they have the time to tell you about a bunch of dinky little countries in Europe that have since disappeared or merged into larger ones? They don’t.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is responsible for the rest of my knowledge of pre-19th century European History.

Now, some games, of course, expressly set out to be educational. Some of them succeed, and some of them don’t. The Oregon Trail is one of the ones that succeeded. Thanks to that game I am expert on dozens of landmarks dotting the midwestern US, as well as several other interesting tidbits, such as: how to use 19th century first aid to treat a variety of illnesses, when it is appropriate to ford the river or caulk the wagon when crossing a river, and how to identify a wide variety of poisonous plants. Whether or not any of these skills will come in handy some day remains to be seen, but one can only hope.

Strategy games have taught me a good deal about war through the ages. I can’t claim to be at the same point that Mister Adequate is (the chap actually has a master’s degree in this sort of thing, thanks to an interest in it that was sparked by video games), but where else would I have learned about various types of war doctrines or crazy sounding terms like “amphibious invasions”? The History Channel, maybe.

Next up, on the History Channel!

Actually, I was recently flipping through a coffee table book my mom had lying around; it was called “The 100 Most Important Ideas in Human History” or something. Reading it was like reading an enhanced version of the Civilization tech tree. I mean, you literally could have released this book as an addon to a Civ Special Edition package or something and no one would have questioned it because the game and the book cover the exact same material.

You know, I could go on and on with sort of thing all day. Just like all other media, video games teach us things and mold us into who we are. Sure, we all love to relay that infamous Pac-Man joke:

This one.

…but somewhat lesser known is the fact that surgeons who played at least three hours of video games a week made 37% fewer errors in surgery simulations. Or that kids who played a math game over the course of a few months saw their test scores increase by eight.

Glad to see I’m not the only one who learns from games!

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical), The Android's Mother's Basement (MMO)

Playtime Confessions!

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Yesterday I officially joined the 300 club in Civ IV.

This isn't counting about a dozen hours of vanilla Civ IV before jumping up to BtS, nor is it counting about a dozen hours of a particular mod that Steam wouldn't track properly.

Ahh, it feels good. I love statistics like this. I love them to the point that I have been known to buy games on Steam that I already own just so it can start tracking my playtime. (It’s like Gaben really knows how to reel us obsessive-compulsives geekwads in!)

A few other games I played a lot tracked your time as well. I was really close to 300 hours in FF Tactics Advance. I’m also relatively sure I was close to it in my original Pokemon Red file, before it was inadvertently deleted.

Of course, MMOs deserve to be in a tier all to themselves when it comes to playtime. If I recall correctly, before quitting, I’d clocked up about 220 days played in WoW across all of my characters.

That's well over 5000 hours!

I think over half of it was spent on my main, Tawyn the Night Elf Hunter. As time went on and Blizzard bumped experience rates and made questing and LFG more streamlined, and as I got more experienced at the game myself, I’d spend less time on an individual character. For example, I think my resto druid had a mere 12 days or something similarly miniscule for her /played, despite the fact that I got her to (then) endgame and was raiding with her for a little while.

So yeah, I doubt any other single game I’ve ever played could come close to what I dumped into WoW. Like I said, MMOs deserve their own tier in this “game”.

And I still wish I could see an accurate playtime counter for everything I’ve ever played. That would be fascinating.

Okay, lay it on me. What are your most played games, gentle readers?

The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Because There’s Nothing Like a Clean Slate

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Guys, I have a terrible disease.

I can’t keep a Minecraft world or a SimCity city going for more than a couple of days. Or even hours.

I don’t know why! It’s not like I CAN’T keep a city in SC going for a while. Actually, one time I had one going for a really long time. That was in SimCity DS, which only allowed you to save one city at a time, and I played that particular city religiously over the course of about two or three months. I enjoyed the micromanagement and little improvements I could make to an already developed city, and the only reason I finally stopped was because I got to a point where my entire city inexplicably decided to become a fire hazard for no reason, and no amount of fire stations would solve the problem, and I just couldn’t be bothered to fix it. So I quit playing.

Actual blurry phone picture I took of my city when I was in the middle of that marathon a couple years back. It has a weird colorscheme for zoning: yellow is residential and red is industrial, if I recall correclty.

For some reason, that was the last time I’ve really been able to “get” into a single city like that. I’ve been playing a bit of SimCity 4 here and there over the past few months. And you know, I know how to set up a good city. I know where to put the zones, the power plants, the roads, and everything else you need, and perhaps most importantly, I know how to actually make money in the game.

But, every time, I’ll get to a point where I’ve played ten, maaaybe twenty in-game years and then get bored and delete it all and start a new city.

It’s certainly a change from the aforementioned SimCity DS, where I played that one city for something like 150 or 200 game years.

I’m not sure why this happens. It happens in Minecraft, too. I start a new Minecraft world… well, I was going to say every couple of days, but truthfully I really only play Minecraft a few times a week. So I’ll start a new Minecraft world every week or every other week or so. I honestly have no idea why. There’s just something so very enticing about a fresh slate.

(Terraria, on the other hand, has had me hooked in the same world for weeks now, so maybe that’s a sign that my attention span is actually lengthening now!)

Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me?

The Android's Repair Shop (Meta-blog)

Feedback Time!

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The Android’s Closet has been open for a little over four months now and I think we’ve been doing well; we’ve had a lot of great comments and discussions and Mister Adequate and I continue to be flattered that people actually like to show up and read what we cough all over the screen. We are both aiming to be People Who Write for a Living at some point in the future, and so this is great practice for both of us.

Now this is sort of a cop-out post, but… oh who am I kidding? This is a cop-out post. Anyways! Basically I want to know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to hear about. I know that this blog tends to orbit around a pretty steady rotation of a handful of specific games, but when you combine both of our respective gaming experiences we’ve played a LOT of games through the years so if you want to hear about something in particular, lay it on us in the comments. There’s a good chance at least one of us has messed around with it.

I’m also curious if there are any specific types of posts you’d like to see more of. More Let’s Plays, like my Civ one? Reviews? Videos? Some sort of *gasp* podcast? We’re all ears!

At some point soon I’ll be looking into getting a dedicated email for the blog so you can email us these sorts of requests anytime you wish. I’m also considering getting a dedicated Twitter account for the blog. Currently, my own personal Twitter auto-tweets everything from the blog, but I think that causes some confusion because a lot of people assume that Mister Adequate’s posts are my own and, while flattering, I want to be sure he gets due credit.

To make up for the lack of video game content in this post, have Fluttershy playing FFVI.

The Android's Bunker (Strategy)

Drats, Foiled Again!

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Okay guys, gather round and I’m going to tell you a story about a Civ IV game that Mister Adequate and I played. It went something like this:

Starting as early as I could I built up this massive, massive army over the course of several in-game centuries. I wish I could tell you exactly how big the stack was, but I can’t remember the details, only that it was huge and contained dozens of catapults and at least a score of swordsmen, axemen, and crossbowmen. It was just ridiculously imposing.

I then spent 80 turns sending the freaking thing across the map to Mister Adequate’s base. 80 turns, because for whatever reason the map we were playing on was completely covered in mountains so it took forever to get anywhere.

Eventually, though, my massive military was parked outside of one of his outer cities. At which point I informed my dear partner over voice chat that if he didn’t give me all of his tech, I would destroy his city.

He was quiet for a while, I think out of utter shock, and then asked to see my army so he could make an accurate assessment of the stakes. I agreed and inched my army a bit closer to him.

This is where I noticed two things. Firstly, he was playing a Protective-trait leader, so he had extra defense built into his cities by default. Secondly, the march across the map had taken SO LONG that he’d just finished researching Feudalism by the time I got there and was upgrading everyone to Longbowmen, which– for those of you who are not familiar with Civ IV– are incredibly effective defensive units well into mid-game.

And I made a big mistake here. A BIG mistake.

Namely, I voiced my dismay at these two facts. In other words, I was betraying a bit of insecurity on my end.

So you know what Mister Adequate did?

He said, and I quote, “Come at me, bro.”

Just like this.

I quailed here. I could hear a bit of panic in his voice, and so the thought crossed my mind that maybe he was bluffing, but then I got scared. He did have longbowmen. He did have a Defensive leader. The city I was standing next to was on a hill. And the guy I was playing against does actually have a master’s degree in this sort of thing. (No, really, he does.) And the game’s built-in combat odds estimation wasn’t telling me a whole lot, either.

And what if he had his own massive army, hidden in wait somewhere? Waiting to strike once my own army was demolished?

So I… said never mind and backed off. Actually, I had a new plan, because I was researching gunpowder at that point and figured that soon I could upgrade my units and try again. But we quit the game for the night not long after and I never got to that point.

That’s when he laughed at me and told me that he had been bluffing and I probably could have taken at least a couple of his cities easily.

Drats. Foiled again. :(

I’m not the only one who has made stupid mistakes like this, right? D:

The Android's Casting Magic Missile (RPG), The Android's Favorites

Re-catching Them All

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Like everybody else, I played Pokemon as a kid. (Well, as a 13 or 14-year-old, because that’s about how old I was when it came out.)

I played Pokemon Red, the first in the series, religiously, and then when the second generation came out I played Pokemon Gold just as religiously. I loved those freaking games, and I imagine that I don’t have to go into much detail here because I’m sure most of you loved them just as much.

Something happened then, though. When the third generation of Pokemon came out, I had just started attending university. And it’s not that I grew out of Pokemon, because I certainly didn’t. And it’s not that that I didn’t have time for video games, because if I recall correctly that was the year I was pretty dang addicted to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. As in, I took my GBA to school and played it between classes and then doodled moogles on my notes.

Anyways, I think that maybe I just had too much on my plate. Eventually, I did buy Pokemon Emerald, and I messed around with it, but it never quite “clicked”. I’m not sure why. I quit playing after the first badge or something.

And so I didn’t play anymore Pokemon after that– with the exception of FireRed, which doesn’t really count because it’s basically just a graphical update of the original.

That changed last summer, though, when I went road-tripping for a family reunion. I’d be spending hours and hours on the road, and I wouldn’t be driving, so I’d need to do something to make the time pass.

So what did I do? I pulled out Pokemon Emerald, which I hadn’t touched in years. I didn’t even glance at my old save file, I simply started a new one.

As a matter of fact, I DO like them! Thanks for asking!

What happened next was magical. I merrily spent hours running through tall grass, catching Pokemon, training them, and battling trainers and gym leaders. I stopped keeping track of Pokemon after the second gen, you see, so I had no idea what the new species were, what they evolved into, or what they learned. Every time one of my Pokemon evolved, it was a surprise. Every time I ran into a new gym leader, it was a challenge. I didn’t have access to any sort of help websites or guides while on the road, so it was just me and my Pokemon. I was 26 years old and it honestly felt like I was 14 and playing through the original game for the first time again. It was sheer magic.

All things come to an end, sadly, and soon the road trip was over and I was thrust back into the adult world of working and paying bills. I kept playing Pokemon for a bit even after, but for some reason it wasn’t quite the same. Obligations kept pulling me away. So I never did finish that magical new Pokemon file. My Pokemon are all sitting pretty at level 38 or 39 or whatever I left them at. Waiting.

I look forward to my next road trip.

The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World)

Terraria, aka I’m Bored of Digging, Let’s Go Dig In Another Game

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I think I may have offhandedly mentioned this in a previous post, but in case I didn’t, I’ll relate it again here: I was recently gifted a copy of Terraria, and I have been playing it more than I initially thought I would.

For those who haven’t heard of Terraria, well… saying it’s 2-D Minecraft both is and isn’t fair to the game. Here, let me delve into this a bit:

Minecraft and Terraria have a lot of similarities. A lot of them. They’re both about digging, mining, and building. They both have a day/night cycle. They both involve crafting by way of mixing various ingredients together. They both involve avoiding monsters. Moving from one game to the other is a pretty smooth process.

Behold my derpy little Terraria house. I have since added a basement.

I’ve noticed a couple of differences, though. Aside from the big obvious one (Minecraft is 3-D, and Terraria is 2-D), I think Minecraft puts a lot more emphasis on the building side of things and Terraria on the survival side of things.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of survival in Minecraft or a lot of building in Terraria. But let’s talk about the monsters, for example. Not only are they more abundant in Terraria (and more difficult to sequester yourself from), but you’re actively encouraged from the start not just to avoid them, but to fight them.

Take the torch, a common and necessary item in both games. In Minecraft, you make a torch by putting coal on a wooden stick. Both of these ingredients are farmed from harmless things on the map– trees and mountains. In Terraria, you make a torch by combining sticks and gel. Gel is something you obtain by fighting slimes. You want light? You gotta kill monsters.

This difference in the game’s “mindset” is also seen in their respective methods of health regeneration. Minecraft has auto health regen (on sandbox mode, anyway). Terraria doesn’t. You restore your health by drinking potions that you craft out of materials that you have to find by wandering the big, scary, monster-filled world.

The mining and building is still a big part of the game, of course, but it’s all much quicker to accomplish and the crafting is more streamlined, as if the game is telling you to get on with it so you can get back to killing monsters.

Anyways, those are my first impressions of the game. I’ve really only played three or four hours of it at this point, mostly just poking around, so there are probably a lot of things I haven’t covered. In the end, I wouldn’t call this game either an evolution or clone of Minecraft– rather, it’s the same concept, but taken in a different direction. And it may not be Game of the Year material, but it’s certainly worth a look if you’re fond of this “genre”. And I do have to give props to a sandbox game that I frequently jump into directly after getting bored with a Minecraft session. Bored of digging? Let’s go dig some more!