There's been a lot cut out of Kingdom Hearts. This guy is in fact a minor miracle.
The first game was originally going to end with Chernabog (as either THE darkness or a personification of the Darkness) attacking Sora. Sora would fight his way up Bald Mountain and then the light from Kingdom Hearts would vanquish Chernabog like how the sun/God defeated him in Fantasia.
Lack of time, memory, and system power kind of squashed that idea. Which is a pity, it sounds AMAZING. However, they HAD finished the Chernabog model so it got thrown in as a boss fight in the last world. But, you just flew around and attacked. It was still cool, primarily because of this:
I'm still very surprised at the list of PS All Stars Battle Royale characters. Cole, Sly, Ratchet, Nathan Drake, Jak, etc. Those were no brainers. Raiden making it in over Snake was interesting but understandable. He has a game coming out. Big Daddy is a very happy pick. I adore Bioshock and he is the best option.
Except for Evil Cole (another character could have taken his spot) and a lack of female and PoC characters, the line up is pretty good.
So, why are some series lacking?
Lighting (and Final Fantasy) Have a few new games out, but so far we haven't seen Lightning, Tidus, or Cloud anywhere in the game. Cloud is their symbol, Final Fantasy X is being remade, and Lightning has FFXIII-3 coming up.
No one from Silent Hill or Resident Evil made it in. While the games are cross system, they debuted on the Play Station. Jill, Leon, Wesker... all would have been interesting concepts. Admitedly, all three also fought in Marvel Vs Capcom 3, but I don't know how much effect that would have had on the game now. And Pyramid Head from Silent Hill is always open. He might have been too similar to a Big Daddy though.
Atlus has it's own fighting game, but the Personas didn't make an appearance either. Neither did a stage from Catherine.
J'eanne D'Arc, Rayman, Street Fighter, Sonic, Tekken, WildARMS....
These are all Play Station branded games that would get some play. Why aren't we seeing them in the game?
At least we have DLC. Best of luck to Emmet and Kat.
When Luigi debuted on the NES, he had one role, he was the second player in a two player game. He was a palate swap, an option for friends to play together.
As time went on, he evolved into so much more.
Super Mario Brother's and SMB2, Luigi begins the first attempts to differentiate himself. His sprite is a bit more different and this begins his long standing twist of being able to jump higher while having less traction. This generally was his only role.
Until the Paper Mario series started. In the first game, Luigi keeps a diary. While he doesn't go on any of the adventures, he does talk about them, and how he's scared of ghosts.
That one line has had a dramatic effect on the rest of his characterization. Mario RPG was on the 64. The first game for the gamecube was "Luigi's Mansion" In it, Mario is captured and Luigi captures ghosts in order to save him.
The game was very good, if a tad repetitive and short. It also was the first Mario series game to let Luigi take a starring role. (Yes, we are ignoring Mario Is Missing) And, in it, we do see that Luigi may be braver than Mario. Mario has no problem with going into pits of fire to save Peach. Luigi is terrified of ghosts and still does it anyway.
In Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, we see glimpses of him having his own adventures, that he continually lies about.
In Super Paper Mario? He's an outright villain. Okay, he was brainwashed, but he still attacked the heroes and was part of the final boss. The reason why he was the perfect host for the final villain was never said... but Super Smash Brothers has a few hints.
But before I get there, there is one other aspect to Luigi. His job in the Mario and Luigi series is to provide a comic relief. However, in doing so, he also reveals various aspects of his personality. He is either a heavy sleeper or is completely unfazed by Bowser. He will try to save his brother. He doesn't like it when he is lied too (though, again, he does lie himself) and he has some sort of dark secret in his past.
Now, onto Brawl.
While Luigi debuted as a palette swap of Mario in the first game (with his normal jump higher/less traction schtick) , his skill set in Melee grew a bit more diverse. In Brawl, he only has the basic Mario moves, he is faster than Mario, and his Final smash involves weaponizing "The Dark Side he embraced in his brother's shadow." Yep, Luigi has an evil side and he CAN conciously use it to distort reality.
So, to recap, we went from "a bit taller than his brother while jumping higher with less traction" to "A comic relief character with a penchant for lying, who will face his worst fear in order to save his brother, has become a villain at some points, and can distort reality through the power of his evil side."
Makes him a bit more awesome, BA, and frightening. Doesn't it?
What goes unmentioned is how PC gamers need to pull that off. Namely, they have to invest in higher end PC's or build their own. While I have no problem with that, I do have a problem with the continual investment. In order to play games so they look their best, you must always have the top of the line PC. And this level is constantly increasing. When I bought Psychonauts off of GOG for my laptop, it was unplayable due to my processor not being up to snuff. 4 years later, my standard House PC can play it fine. There's no stuttering, the images are smooth, and I can finally enjoy it.
With a Console, you make a one time investment. Okay, you could upgrade every six years or so, but at that point things will have improved dramatically. Here is Castlevania on the NES:
Here it is on the SNES:
Here is the N64:
And now, I'm skipping to the PS3/Xbox:
Will the PC version look better? Probably. I'm not denying that point. Do I play PC games? Yes. I love GOG.com and when I can bust out steam, I do.
But, in the end, does the particle effects truly effect the story? No. Will it effect your ability to play the game? Nope.
Someday, I may invest in building my own PC that I can upgrade. Steam and GOG has quite a few exclusive games I do want to try. I learned how to play chess thanks to Lego Chess, which has no Console equivalent. The mods for PC games can be fantastic and it's a lot easier to find deleted content with a PC than it is with a console.
But until then, I'll be quite happy with my portables and my consoles. It gives me exactly what I want to do at a less, overall, cost.
Specifically, how it relates to "The World Ends With You".
TWEWY was an original property developed by Square Enix. It was developed to help them understand DS programming for "Kingdom Hearts 358/2". Honestly, I think it's better then 358/2. We have complex characters, fantastic artistic design, an amazing story, changing relationships, and that's not even mentioning the gameplay.
But, moving on, what's more interesting right now is the revived interest in the project by Square Enix.
SE had casually brought up the game before, but no one new the severity until a recent Tokyo Game Show. Why? Because the KH3D demo had Neku in it. As time went on, Joshua, Shiki, Beat, and Rhyme all appeared. Tetsuya Nomura (the director of the Kingdom Hearts series and character designer for TWEWY) was asked about this, and he implied that the voice casting was for a future project. (Shiki, Joshua, Beat, and Neku had a few lines in game, but most "speaking" was done through text)
Well, KH3D was released, the TWEWY fans were very happy, then yesterday the SE PR department twitter tweeted out a link to the above website.
We know very little, but between the "Calling" background music, the style of the timer, and the Shibuya style background, it appears we are going back to Shibuya for another game set in TWEWY universe. (If you want a sneak peak, adjust your date on your computer. The art and music assets up to day 2 have been preloaded onto the site).
So, what is next?
Well, nothing until that timer hits zero. Tokyo Game Show will finish in the next few days so the timing is rather odd. Why is the timer set to expire AFTER the game show? If something was to be announced, why not set the timer for earlier? Is it a set up for the Square Enix Production Department show? But they should be focusing on the Final Fantasy's 25th Anniversary party.
Sorry for the massive delay you guys! I'm apart of Operation:Rainfall (as in, I'm helping with the website, articles, etc.) And was very busy up to and during E3. I'll try to get some analyses up later this week. What was your favorite announcement during E3? In the mean time: Tomb Raider!
I have never played any Tomb Raider Games. I'll have to change that.
Etrian Odyssey is a 3D dungeon crawler created by Atlus.
While you listen, I just want to muse a bit about E3, or rather the prerelease.
E3 is in a few weeks. Every company is gearing up for the show. Some companies, such as Nintendo and Playstation, are going to have halls full of people. So, why are they announcing their products ahead of time?
One of the earliest official release of items was the Kingdom Hearts 3D English Trailer. With E3 only a short time away, people believed the trailer would be hid until then. However, the trailer was released last week.
PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale was announced before that, but that should have been held off until E3. It's a big deal. We still don't have a trailer for it. We have a partial characters list, we have video of battles, we have a rundown of how the released characters fight.... but we don't have a trailer.
Why didn't Sony wait until E3? Why didn't Square Enix wait for the KH3D trailer?
The KH3D trailer is 10 minutes long (No, I'm not kidding) so Square Enix may have released it early for that reason, but Nintendo could have shown it off at E3. Kingdom Hearts is a big property and the 3DS is still looking for games. And the time would be more manageable if they cut out the battle stuff in the middle.
But Sony has no excuse. The game is big. The game is a fanboy/girl's dream. Why not wait until E3 to surprise everyone? Where they afraid of being scooped? Is it not good?
Or do they have something bigger planned? Sony is announcing 20 games at E3, what are they? Where they afraid the game would get lost in the shuffle?
I'm just not sure. Why do you think they released it early?
I won't focus on the basic puzzle room. A white box with implements to open and close doors is scary, but not overtly interesting.
I'm talking about the bits and pieces that make up the room. I'm talking about walking into Chamber 16 and seeing the wall propped open by Cubes. I'm talking about entering the viewing chambers while escaping and finding them completely empty. I'm talking about the cheerful announcer over the destroyed and rusted rooms.
Specifically, I'm talking about the places in between tests in the middle of Portal 2. (Spoilers)
After Wheatley is corrupted by GLaDOS' harness, he sends Chell and POTaDOS (GLaDOS' mind in a potato battery) down into the sealed off sections of Aperture. Once they arrive down there, Chell begins to go through the tests in an attempt to get back up to Wheatley since it is very likely he is going to destroy the facility. As she goes through the old tests, she triggers radio messages. The messages, along with various "Set Decoration" help explain Aperture's history.
When we first arrive, Chell must make her way through unidentifiable ruins. Railways have fallen down with age, doors have been sealed off, fires burn, and as she makes her way through what appears to be a fallen silo she (and the player) see signs that say "Keep Out". Clearly, things have not gone well.
As time goes on, we enter into the first segment of the game. Cave and Caroline (The CEO and his assistant) starts talking, and the areas look very nice... for the fifties. Awards are displayed (notably, Aperture continually gets second place. It's hinted they lost to Black Mesa) the floor is marble, there are some prototypes for computers and the subjects are all heroes who are volunteering for a charity. It looks great! Until you actually get into testing. While it is still maintained reasonably well, Cave is clearly being haphazard with the science... like how he gives his test subjects tumors in order to see what would happen to the tumors. He also flagrantly ignores normal science procedure by talking about the control group and laughing over how someone got hurt. It's a good way to set up the dichotomy that is Aperture.
When we're traveling between the areas we notice some signs. The sign I wish to bring your attention to is this one.
Apparently, they put anti matter in with Allergens. They were advanced enough to get antimatter without destroying everything but... they apparently created people who were allergic to it. Or they could have considered their blowing up to be an allergy. Either way, some science issues there.
When we go on, Cave Johnson has gotten older, and the company's monetary value has significantly dropped. Instead of having war heroes do it for charity, they are taking hobos from the street and paying them 60 dollars. Cave is very obviously dismissive of them. Most importantly, the chairs have been downgraded to plastic. They do not have the money to keep it going anymore. They simply wish to test and go on. To emphasize, here is a sign seen in the entry and exit rooms:
Finally, we reach the latest testing area. It looks modern, functional, and Cave Johnson is dying. He's more then dying, the company is broke, employees must "Volunteer" for testing, and he seriously campaigns for his and Caroline's brains to be put onto a computer. The test chambers are purely functional now, and they are blank. The chambers are so empty it is actually creepy. When we finish, Cave rants about lemons and we move on. This is the sign of the era:
We see the fall of Aperture in the fate of Caroline (forcibly turned into GLaDOS), the finances, and the quality of the subjects. It may have experienced a brief resurgence later - they obviously had the money to make GLaDOS and perfect other items- but then GLaDOS was activated and she killed almost every scientist. The one who did survive- Doug Rattmann- has been hallucinating inside Aperture ever since.
None of this is ever stated in game. We can simply tell. Cave explains a lot of it, but signs about robot bosses contrast heavily with the plush chairs and thanking war heroes for participating in the test.
Valve excels in the subtext. And that is all that is needed to show how a once great company fell.
