Nier

The Short


Pros
- Dark, exceptionally well-crafted story that transcends most JRPGs and games in general
- Does something rare in that it doesn't ham-fist you ever piece of information, saving most of its mysteries only for those who dig deeper and actually immerse themselves in the story
- Has probably the best "pull the rug out from under you" moment of any game I've ever played
- Four endings, and the "New Game +" actually adds new content and cutscenes that connect with my previous bullet point
- Excellent script and voice acting throughout
- Characters feel three-dimensional and act like real people; their banter is some of the best in the business
- On that note, Grimoire Weiss might be my favorite video game character of all time
- Best soundtrack for a game this generation
- The soundtrack isn't just great, it is used well to compliment the on-screen emotion
- Draws unique (and often bizarre) inspiration from a variety of genres but somehow manages to blend it all together well
- The amount of side content is staggering, even if lots of it isn't great
- Bosses are fantastic
- Self-referential humor and in-jokes actually work, despite their fourth-wall breaking
- Has a unique theme and art style it sticks to throughout

Cons
- Side quests, aside from providing entertaining dialogue between Nier and Weiss, are often boring
- The fishing "side-game" is horrid and the instructions are flat-out wrong
- Game is too easy, even on the hardest difficulty
- Parts of the game can be a bit melodramatic, which especially stands out considering the rest of the game is so damn well told.
- Recycles dungeons and content, which is disappointing
- Weapon upgrades are a pain in the ass, so it's lucky they aren't necessary
- Kaine's foul mouth might turn a lot of people off
- First hour to hour-and-a-half is monotonous and give a very poor first impression (though I still love it for reasons explained further)
- While I think the graphics are fine, many will be put off by it's PS2-era looking visuals
- Every ending to this game is depressing. I'll just warn you right now.
- Combat isn't particularly deep, and once you figure out which magics are the best you'll hardly need anything else

You'd better go get a drink. This review is going to be a long one. 

The Long

Let me be as blunt as I can when I say this: Nier is my second favorite JRPG of all time, with only Final Fantasy III/VI rocketing ahead, and that's only because Final Fantasy III/VI is my favorite game ever. Yes, I like Nier better than Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII, any of the Tales games and even the god-like Super Mario RPG. Commence the hatemail, but this is my review based on my tastes (which you may or may not be questioning right now), so before you blow a gasket at least read the rest of the review then proceed to call me a moron because I think Cloud's melodramatic adventure is a bloated piece of narrative nonsense. 

Nier is a game I'd been wanting to play for a long while but never got around to it, mostly because it has received a full spectrum of reviews mostly angling towards the "negative" side. It wasn't until a certain group of friends started singing its praises on Facebook that I finally took the plunge. 

And, as you can guess, I was blown away to a level where I'd tout this middlingly rated, forgotten game over the time-tested greats without fear of losing all my readership. Ok, I do sort of fear that, but if it really offends you then you can pretend it doesn't exist and go replay Final Fantasy VII to feel better about it.

I've been putting this review off for several key reasons, but the first one was I was afraid it would just be me gushing like a fanboy over it for several thousand words, which nobody wants to read. I will do my best to balance my irrational fanboy gushing with actual objective facts, but again: this is my blog so you kind of get gushing with the territory.

But enough of me feeling like I have to justify myself to an imaginary audience, and let's get on with this review. 

Nier has a weird fondness for wearing underwear on his head during the second half of the game

Nier follows the story of a single, aged father, beginning in what appears to be a modern time. His daughter is sick, and when they are attacked in what appears to be the snowy remains of a 7-11 by monstrous black creatures (Shades), he calls upon the power of a magic book because whacking the beasties to death with his pipe wasn't quite doing the trick. He managed to succeed in defending his daughter, Yonah, but she also seems to have touched another magic book (which is bad for a currently unexplained reason), causing Nier (my name for the aged father) to freak out.

Cut ahead 1300 years.

Now we are situated in a more traditional JRPG setting. Nier (a guy who bears a striking resemblance to our 7-11 defending Nier, though he has ditched the emo hoodie for a more medieval JRPG armor set) also has a daughter named Yonah (who looks exactly the same except she's wearing...you get the point). Yonah has a curse called the Black Scrawl, which slowly overtakes her body and currently has no cure. Nier, who doubles as the defender of his village from the still-existant Shades, is heartbroken about this and goes off on a quest to try and save her. It is during one of these expeditions that he unleashes Grimoire Weiss, a sentient flying book with the same voice actor as War from Darksiders. Weiss claims that he could save Yonah, if Nier can recover all of the Sealed Verses, pages torn from Weiss by an unexplained foe. Nier, obviously, decides to embark on a quest to find these pages, and that encompasses the brunt of the first half of the game's story.

Which also involves massive Shade genocide, of course. 

Before I go any further about the story there are two other characters that must be mentioned. First you have Kaine, a lady who Square-Enix touted around about how she was a hermaphrodite (because I'm pretty sure they had no idea how to market this game, so they focused on what they thought would make the beast headlines) though it's never fully confirmed in-game. She's a foul-mouthed bitch (for lack of a better word) who wants nothing more than to murder every Shade on the planet, while housing a skyscraper full of inner-demons of her own. She also has a completely ridiculous outfit that is more lingerie then actual clothes (go JRPGs!) but I am completely willing to forgive because Weiss is constantly making smart-ass jabs about how stupid she is for, quote "battling monsters in her undergarments." At least the other characters noticed how dumb she looked, which is a rarity for JRPG costume design (Kingdom Hearts and your infinite zippers, I'm looking at you). 

The second character that tags long is Emil, a young man born with the unfortunate birth defect of being able to turn people into stone on sight (ala Medusa). Something happens at the start of the second half that changes into Jack Skellington from A Nightmare Before Christmas, though honestly I think he looks a lot better. He's optimistic almost to the point of being obnoxious, but again: since the other characters just sort of smile and nod at his attempts to be cheerful in even the most dire situations, I'm willing to forgive it. 

Yeah, Emil. You are better as a floating skeleton puppet thing.

So anyway, back to the story. You and your trio of do-gooders (or at least "doers") are all working towards a common goal: save Yonah and get rid of the Shades, lead by the powerful Shadowlord. I will be completely honest: parts of this game are bananas and make no sense in context (though most things are smoothed out after playing to the second ending). But there are several key things it does so well that I can't help but overlook it's goofy Japanisms.

First off is subtlety. Now, this game has a good helping of melodrama in it. It's a JRPG, so that comes with the territory. But even though it does have lots of characters moping around with vacant expressions on their faces in what is supposed to be a touching moment of self-reflection (mostly Kaine, surprisingly enough, considering she's a hardass), it makes up for it by being brilliant all the rest of the time. The story is one that is both extremely complex and simple, combining a broad, post-apocalyptic narrative along with more personal character stories. There's a lot to ingest here, and to be completely honest if you only run through the game once, skipping most of the dialogue, you won't get it. Plenty of it is buried in small side conversations or even conversations coinciding with side-quests (and the quests themselves are pretty mediocre, but more on that later), meaning only those who really want to get the story will. Considering 90% of video games' stories (especially JRPGs) bludgeon you over the head with every bit of premise, codex, plot, and world-building over and over again, the fact that Nier gives you so little to work on but still works is ingenious. I cannot count the times when something suddenly clicked in my mind (I had that happen to me just a few weeks ago, months after beating the game) that I hadn't gotten before, and I both felt like a genius for figuring it out and stood in complete awe at the game for presenting it (or not presenting it) so perfectly. It is rare that this happens in books - which one could consider to be the most "refined" storytelling medium - and never in a video game, so that's something.

Second is the twist. There are lots of twists in this game, but there is one massive, enormous, unforgettable one that happens right near the ending of your first playthrough. This is the best twist in any video game I have ever played in my entire life. Yes, it is better than Kefka actually destroying the world halfway through Final Fantasy VI. It's better than the ending of Braid (probably because it makes more sense). It's better then...wait, do any other video games have twists in their stories? Not really? Well, whatever. Nier pulls the entire freaking rug out from under you. And the best part is that it isn't just with the story, but with the gameplay as well. I can't say it without spoiling it (and I accidentally ruined it for one of my friends who saw a scene during the second playthrough that sort of gave it away), but it takes both genre trappings and gaming's core monster-killing-centric goals and completely turns it on its head. The fact that you then get to replay the last 1/3 (or maybe 1/4 would be more accurate) portion of the game with both added cutscenes and the knowledge you've obtained turns the entire experience into a heart-wrenching event. It's bloody brilliant. 

I will go on record to say there are only two scenes in my entire history of interacting with visual media (be it movies, books, or video games) that actually made me cry. Scratch that, the scene from Enslaved was just me tearing up a little. Nier's second run through the final boss and subsequent ending is the most damned heart-rending moment in a game for me I have difficulty even rewatching it on YouTube (don't go watch it now; you'll ruin the game). I legitimately shed some tears. Now I sound like a big wimp (but remember: this was the only time. Ever.) but it says something that a game could invest me this deeply in its narrative considering what a cold-hearted bastard I am most of the time. 

I warned you this would be long. You can go get snacks if you want; I'll wait. 

I haven't even gotten to what might be my other favorite part about this game: the banter between the characters. Now, characters chit-chatting isn't a new thing. Both Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 did this, with varying results. I genuinely enjoyed the Dragon Age banter (though I didn't like the game that much) even though since your character was a mute I never felt too involved in it. Mass Effect 2 did it a little better, but for some reason Shepard was chatty when in a dialogue tree but completely silent on the field, which always irked me. 

Nier takes this idea of chatty characters and ramps it up to a whole new level of awesome and hilarity. This is probably because every character in this game has a massive amount of depth (which is only further realized after running through the game a second time after the twist). Nier is our obvious hero, his intentions of saving his daughter noble, though he's also such a do-gooder the other characters (Weiss especially) get irritated he keeps taking side-quests to find lost puppies or what-have-you. Kaine is a rude, loud-mouthed jerk and Weiss (who has quite the ego) knows exactly how to push her buttons. Emil plays foil for Kaine's rudeness, though his over-optimistic gushing seems to get on people's nerves just as much as Kaine's hatred for everything that stands in her way. And then we have Weiss, the egocentric novel who constantly orders people to call him by his full title (Grimoire Weiss), speaks eloquently while spouting out witty insults and generally being the Gandalf to this story if Gandalf thought himself better than every other being in creation and wasn't afraid to say it. 

"Ah-ha! I KNEW this was a trap! Curse my brilliant intuition!" - Weiss

Since each of these characters is fleshed out based on their personas (I can't really say realistically in a game where we have floating talking books, lingerie wearing hermaphrodites, and flying Jack Skellingtons) their banter as you progress is charming, hilarious, and also serves as getting to know them better. Nier quickly becomes more bloodthirsty as the frustration of failing his daughter completely consumes him. Kiane softens up after finally finding people she can be with without being shunned, but she can't show it or else everyone will perceive her as weak. Weiss learns to humble himself in his own, ass-like way, realizing he actually depends on others to succeed. And even Emil, who I'll admit has the weakest character arc, manages to come to terms with what he is and his place in the world. 

The script for this game is flat-out brilliant, and is presented perfectly by its cast of extremely talented voice actors. Half of the time I'd avoid continuing the plot just so I could hear the end of random conversations between the characters. It goes a very long way into getting you invested, and paired with the excellent story (and storytelling) makes every part of this game's story a joy to experience, even multiple times.

Plus, the game is genuinely funny, and not on a "oh man, this translation is so awful" funny. It's actually witty, and frequently so. And I probably don't have to tell you how rare that is in a game. 

On to something besides the story, please.  

So beyond that, what about the meat-and-potatoes portion of Nier: the gameplay? What do you do in this amazing mosh-pit of blabbing characters and convoluted-yet-clever plot points? Well, a lot, actually.

Nier steals a good deal of its gameplay from other games, while never really reaching to the heights the others did. It has a good deal of Zelda in it with a touch of Devil May Cry, fused with the odd choice of...bullet-hell shooters. Yes, you heard me right. Nier has as much in common with Ikaruga as it does with Zelda. Oh, and there's two text adventures in here as well. Like, actually part of the game. 

Yep. 

The game's structure is very much Zelda-esque. You are given a hub-area (your village) which you can then travel to a variety of dungeons that you must clear by killing a boss at the end before recovering the next Sealed Verse. You then can return to the hub and move on to your next dungeon. The game mixes it up by adding a lot of stuff to do in the in-between areas (the "Hyrule Field," if you will) as well as some set-piece points that take the fight home or elsewhere. You can buy weapons and upgrade them, you gain experience by killing Shades which ups your magic and life, and so on. Simple.

It's when you hit the dungeons that things get weird. Enemies start out as straight-melee but quickly become (as do most bosses) bullet-sprayers, who shoot tons of magic red orbs at you. You'd be surprised to know that this (like the Portal Gun in Darksiders) actually works. You can attack the orbs with your sword, block them (though you'll be immobile), or counter them by attacking with magic. It's weird, but it adds some crazy insanity to the bosses and regular enemies that you don't find in other games. 

The bosses in this game are nuts, in more ways than one. 

Tying this (loosely) together is the combat, which consists of a combination of blocks, rolls, and a single button press for melee attacks. You can charge your weapon (though I never found reason to), as well as equip a variety (small swords which are fast, spears which do high damage but not area damage, or massive slow double-handed swords), though in truth I just used the basic attacks with basic swords throughout. You can go directly into a roll to a melee attack, which is appreciated, and it makes the game have a lot of seeing enemy's projected attacks and rolling aside to land a back-attack.

It mixes it up with the magic. You have a handful at your disposal (they unlock the more Sealed Verses you get) ranging from spears that spin around you as a shield, small projectile shots which have a variety of uses, a duplicate of yourself to attack enemies, and the Ultra Hax Spell (aka Dark Lance). The Ultra Hax Spell slows time to give you a target, letting you charge multiple bolts for a massive blast attack, and essentially makes the game a cakewalk. Considering it's the second spell you get, this means you probably won't use any other magic in the game, which is too bad. 

The gameplay isn't bad, though some people might argue otherwise, it's just...not particularly great. Bosses are an absolute blast, forcing you to use your handful of different magics to employ unique strategies to take them down, but the basic enemies are cakewalks. It's a lot of button-mashing combined with rolling, which isn't an awful thing but it does feel a bit uninspired. 

Still, it got the job done (I was never frustrated with the controls or bored, though that might have been because this game is crazy easy, even on Hard) which is more than enough. I'd put it as "above average," with the bosses being "exceptionally above average." It's still a fun game to play (and several moments wil have you going "Ha! That's really clever!"), though it won't blow your mind. 

I wasn't kidding about the "bullet hell."

The game also has loads of crap for you to do. Want to plant a garden and make flowers or food to sell? Yeah, you can do that, based on a real-time clock for watering and harvesting. Want to go fishing (you don't; fishing in this game sucks) like every other Japanese game adds for some inexplicable reason? You're set; there's tons of places to fish and lots of fish to catch (you can even "level up" your fishing). Want to do a bunch of really useless sidequests? Oh, this game has that in spades. All the sidequests usually consist of running somewhere, pressing "A" (or "X" on the PS3 version) on something, and running back. Brilliant game design, that. I'd say it earns you money, but considering if you just save up you can buy the best weapons pretty easily, you probably don't need the cash unless you are an Achievement hunter. The one good thing about these side-quests is it means loads more Nier and Weiss dialogue, which is hilarious. So they are worth doing for that, I guess, but only after you've played through the game once (ignore them all the first playthrough. Trust me. And ignore fishing, for the love ignore the fishing!).

Nier just wants to be a good father. 

The presentation of the game depends a lot on personal opinion. Technically, this game looks like garbage. Ok, that might be a bit harsh, but it certainly looks like it left the PS2 train to the next generation and got stuck in a layover somewhere in the middle. The effects are flashy and look great, but the environments and character models aren't exactly awe-inspiring. The art design for the Shades and the various areas you explore fit a certain aesthetic, but it only just makes up for the technical shortcomings. The game looks pretty awful at first, but I was so engrossed in the story (and finally playing a game as an older man instead of some effeminate boy, as in common in every other JRPG in existence) that I was willing to completely forgive the graphical shortcomings.

The music in this game...oh man. It is so, so excellent. Easily my favorite soundtrack this generation, maybe my favorite soundtrack since Final Fantasy VI. The tracks employ lots of background singing (in a made up language, thankfully), but it uses a lot of both piano and guitar to make the softer songs all the more potent. But what is probably the most important part is how they use the music. The people at Cavia clearly knew how to use music to invoke an emotional response, as they do it nearly perfectly throughout the entire game. There is one particular moment during the final boss fight (which has an awesome battle song), where after landing two blows and preparing for the (usual) third and final strike, the battle song completely transforms into something...different. I won't spoil it here, but I will say that when I was on my second-playthrough (and thus knew the game's big secret) and that song kicked in, I had to pause the game and set my controller down. I had such an emotional response to the music I literally could not continue playing. This is masterful, and is something games rarely can pull off, so kudos to Cavia for making this work.

Absolutely haunting. 

Now that I've gushed, what else is bad about the game before I continue into my over-excited conclusion? Well, most of the side stuff they give you (sidequests, fishing, gardening) sucks. There's only about six dungeons in the game, and you have to repeat them multiple times before the ending (though they have changed, though not significantly enough). Weapon upgrades require picking up a large amount of randomly-dropped items, which also involve you digging through the "shiny" spots around the world in the hope of finding what you need for your next level of spear. There's a lot of running about (no fast travel here) which is fine in Zelda because for some reason everybody is always willing to forgive that series' massive refusal to evolve, but might bug some people with Nier. 

Probably it's biggest flaw is its slow start. I personally loved it because it was a relaxed build, setting a tone that is rarely presented in games: peace. Usually you are too busy slashing things or shooting things to take a breath and simply do errands. But I do errands in real life, Nier, and the last thing you want is the player's first impressions to be defending a 7-11 and then dinking around town for an hour and a half. If you just sort of lie back and not over-analyze it the long boring intro sort of becomes tolerable (and during subsequent playthroughs I was on the lookout for plot hints/clues), but for a first time it'll almost make you want to completely give up. So don't, just know it gets a lot better after.

The view goes to diorama when you enter buildings, which is a cool touch. 

Lastly, this game is depressing. Every ending is depressing. It's worth noting that the final alternate ending  involves completely deleting every save you have on your console. Yes, including the ones that aren't tied to that character. All of it. Gone. Forever. (though you could back it up on a USB stick I guess). The game gives very good reason to do this, and I applaud them for trying something unique, but it also is a major jerk move. Regardless, right when you think this game will have a happy ending it turns it to a bittersweet one, and once you think it's a bittersweet one then you dig deeper into all the implications of what you've done throughout the game and you realize some awful truths that make it depressing.

I loved it. Kudos on them for making your characters gray. But I understand not everybody thinks Game of Thrones is one of the best fantasy stories ever due to its moral ambiguity and realistically flawed characters, so if you prefer stories with happy endings where everything turns up violets and sunshine I'm sure there are lots of other JRPGs out there to fit that need. 

You're getting more Nier music, because it all is great. 

So you probably can guess what my conclusion will be regarding this game. Is it flawed? Absolutely. It has tons of problems, from its ugly graphics to mis-mash gameplay formula to bad side-quests and repeated dungeons. But if you can get past these few minor niggles you'll find a game that far exceeds the sum of its parts. Nier is an experience I will not forget anytime soon, one of the best games I've had the pleasure of playing in years. As I've said, it's rare for me to continue finding out truths about a story months after finishing it, and even as I was researching for this review I found out new things that pulled more of the story together and left me in awe. 

Nier is a masterpiece. An overlooked, ugly, abandoned, forgotten masterpiece. It's sad we are in a world were bloated, big budget games like Final Fantasy XIII survive solely because they look beautiful and are forgiven their 30 hours of warm-up time, while actually unique titles like Nier are ignored, shunned, and their studios closed. So the next time you go out and buy Final Fantasy XXXVII and wonder where all the good JRPGs have gone, I want you to remember this review and Nier. Because it offered something different, and we all ignored it.

Or you could just go buy it and I'll forgive you. Hell, it's less than $20 on Amazon. I'll even link you to the 360 version.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go play this game again. 

Five out of five stars.  

"What's wrong? Did you forget all your strength in your other pair of panties?" - Weiss

Week in Review for 3/4/2012 - Favorite Games Ever Week

Pokeweek has come and gone, and it has left with us a buttload of reviews about the little pocket critters. If you hate Pokemon and stepped away from the blog for this week, then welcome back! I'm pretty much Pokemoned out, so you don't need to worry about that for a while.

I blew through a whopping 15 reviews this week, pushing the total up to 92. Which means we are dangerously close to 100, people! What will the 100th review be? Who knows? That's a lot of reviews for only having done this for a month and a half!

I'm going to do something different this week. It was originally going to be RPG Week, but I think I've changed my mind. I'm going to be doing a mix of two things: Requests (specifically Saints Row the Third, Super Mario Bros 2, and some others) and what I like to call Nathan's Favorite Games Ever. From this week's splash image you can probably guess what I consider to be the single greatest game ever made, but there are plenty more where it came from (including that long-owed Nier review).

Due to the fact that these are my favorites, the reviews will probably be stupid long, which means I'll commit to only one a day this week as my minimum. I probably won't get to all my favorite games, but I'll be sure and get the key ones. Who knows, you might learn something about what games I like.

Also, I've already done some games I'd consider "favorites ever" (Persona 4, Lords of the Realm 2, and Silent Hill 3 comes to mind), so they obviously won't be re-reviewed or an such nonsense. I think their reviews speak for themselves, so we'll leave them there.

Anyway, here is this week's gym-badge filled, pokeball caught roundup.

Pokemon Blue/Red - 3 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Yellow - 4 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Gold/Silver - 5 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Crystal - 5 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Pinball - 3 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald - 3 / 5 Stars
Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen - 4 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum - 3 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Trading Card Game - 2 / 5 Stars
Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver - 5 / 5 Stars
Hey You, Pikachu! - 1 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Dash - 0 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Black/White - 5 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Puzzle League - 3 / 5 Stars
Pokemon Snap - 4 / 5 Stars


Thanks for reading!

Pokemon Snap

The Short


Pros
- Unique photography game set in the world of Pokemon
- Courses have a hefty amount of replay value, even if there aren't a lot of them
- Photo grading is fun, leads to upgrades, and can prove addicting
- Seeing the pokemon in their "natural habitats" is fun, in a sort of weird, voyeuristic way
- Graphics look quite good
- Used to be able to print out the pictures you took as stickers at a "Pokemon Snap Station"
- On the Wii Virtual Console

Cons
- Only has 63 pokemon. They should have at least added one more since this is on the Nintendo 64
- Only seven locations to visit
- "Pokemon Snap Stations" used to be in Blockbuster Videos, and we all know what happened to both of these things
- Can beat the entire game 100% in only a couple of hours

It's time to play poke-photographer

The Long

Pokemon Snap was the first Pokemon game to take the jump to 3D graphics. After playing Red/Blue and the whole series exploding, those of us with Nintendo 64s were excited to finally get to play a 3D Pokemon game. 3D battles! 3D training! It's gonna be awesome!

So when it was Pokemon Snap, a lot of people were disappointed. You don't battle, you just...take pictures? It's on-rails (in the most literal sense), so all you do is point and shoot while it moves on its own? Only 63 pokemon? What is this?

If one can cast aside the initial disappointment (and subsequent disappointment because Nintendo still hasn't made a 3D Pokemon game), you'll be pleased to find that Pokemon Snap is actually an excellent game, especially if you are a fan of the Pokemon series.

Getting Charizard to show up can be tricky

The premise of Pokemon Snap is simple. Your goal is to take pictures of pokemon for Professor Oak, and to do this you'll be put on a safe cart thing (kind of like the on-rails cars in Jurassic Park, only with less people getting eaten) and shuttled through one of seven locations. While you are there your goal is to quickly take as many pictures as possible (with a 60 picture limit per trip), and after Professor Oak will grade your pictures and reward you accordingly. 

You'd be surprised to know it actually works well, and can be quite addicting. As you progress you get special items (apples, pester balls, etc.) that you can throw out into the world and influence the levels you've ran through before. Doing this will reveal a whole new batch of pokemon to photograph, giving this game a sort of adventure game discovery aspect to it. It's pretty cool to finally figure out how to get one of the legendary birds to show up, for example, and then take a killer picture of it. 

Zapdos! Quick, grab your pokeball...I mean camera!

It's a simple game, but one that works well, especially if you are a fan of Pokemon. The grading system is pretty accurate, giving you incentive to learn how to take better pictures to earn better scores. The seven stages are all unique as well, and each holds their own secrets, to playing through them again provides a new experience each time. It is also cool to just see the pokemon running around doing their thing in the "wild," which at this point in time we'd never seen before except in the anime. 

Back in 1999 there were some other cool things you could do. You could actually take your cartridge to a Blockbuster Video and plug it into a "Pokemon Snap!" machine, and then print off your photos as stickers (they were like $3 each, but whatever...it made Pokemon REAL). Unfortunately these things don't exist anymore, but the Wii's Virtual Console version allows you to email the pictures to yourself or post them on a message board, meaning you can print them out. That's a...surprising amount of dedication from Nintendo for a re-release, considering how they usually just phone it in for most of their reissues. So good on them!

I want to own one of these

The game looks good, which makes sense considering it's a game about taking photographs. All the pokemon are well animated and are well realized in their polygonal renderings, and the environments are all varied and fun to traverse. It's clear that, despite this being a Pokemon photography game, Nintendo put some effort in to make it not suck. And it worked: Pokemon Snap doesn't suck. It's actually pretty good.

I love how it says "THIS IS A GAME PAK. NOT A CAMERA." right on the back of the box. You know, just in case.  

There really isn't any game like Pokemon Snap. Dead Rising tried to incorporate it's photography rating system in with the rest of the game (zombie mashing), and Bioshock did a similar thing with its camera (giving you bonuses against enemies you took good pictures of). You'd be surprised, but it also stands up against the test of time, proving to be just as fun and addicting now as it was back in 1999. It's weird, because when I first heard of this game I really wanted to hate it, but after playing it then and replaying it now, I can't help but think it's a blast. Especially for kids who like Pokemon, this game is both charming and fun. 

It runs for $10 on the virtual console, which I think is an excellent price, especially with its increased functionality. If you are a Pokemon fan and ignored this game, check it out! Once you get past the somewhat odd premise you'll find a game that is wholly unique and a joy to play. It's a short lived experience (maybe 3-4 hours at most before you "Photograph 'em all") but a good one, so it comes with my recommendation.

Four out of five stars. But if you don't like Pokemon, you can probably cut 2-3 stars off that rating. It's still a good game! But the Pokemon aesthetic is really what sells it.

Now make a sequel, Nintendo! With Wii-mote support!

See ya, Snorlax

Pokemon Puzzle League

The Short


Pros
- Apes the Tetris Attack formula perfectly, creating an addicting experience
- Lots of options, people to battle, and puzzles to...puzzle.
- Basically this is Tetris Attack with a Pokemon skin. Hard to say much else about it.

Cons
- Only two players (instead of four)
- Voices of characters from the anime are extremely obnoxious
- Not much here that hadn't already been brought out in Tetris Attack back on the SNES

Get ready for some puzzles in a league of their own!

The Long

Tetris Attack is a pretty good game. I first played it on its Japanese iteration Panel de Pon, on a Virgin Atlantic flight to and from London. They had SNES's installed in the seats (yeah!) and for some reason had this Japanese game on it. It was a 12 hour flight, and I'm pretty sure I played it almost the entire duration. It was that addicting.

The US version (Tetris Attack) replaced the underaged fairy girls (oh, Japan) from Panel de Pon with Yoshi and other Mario characters, which isn't too surprising. Then, when 2000 rolled around and the N64 and Pokemon where hot topics, they released a skinned version of the game for the N64. Thus, Pokemon Puzzle League came into existence. 

Ash has that expression every time he earns a badge. I first thought it was stupid, now it's weirdly hilarious. 

I should probably have reviewed Tetris Attack before this one, but it's too late now, so whatever. Tetris Attack...er...Pokemon Puzzle League is a fairly simple puzzle game. You are given a grid filled with colored blocks, and you can switch two at a time horizontally (as many times as you want). Your goal is to get sets of three (or more) to clear out space. If your blocks reach the top, you are done. Pretty easy.

One of the big differences between Tetris Attack and Pokemon Puzzle League is that in Tetris Attack's main single player mode your goal was to simply clear down to a line. As you progressed the blocks would keep coming up, and after a while a line would appear and if you got rid of all the blocks above that line you won.

Not so in Pokemon Puzzle League. Here you are battling your way through the original gym leaders of Pokemon Red/Blue in an attempt to be the pokemon master. Which makes sense I guess, but I'm sad to see that other mode isn't the main attraction this time, as having a single player that's primarily competitive in a puzzle game is a bit...weird.

This isn't the Pokemon I'm used to. 

So how do you battle? Well first you pick a pokemon (and which one you pick seems to have no effect on how the game goes, elemental weaknesses or otherwise) and then you start swapping blocks. If you get four or more in a row or make combos, you'll drop big blocks on your enemies. They then have to make matches near these big solid blocks (something like 2x4 or bigger, etc.) and then they'll turn into regular colored blocks and can be erased by puzzling. That's it. It's pretty simple, and all that really changes is the speed increases until the end. Failing can be based both on skill and luck, with luck being the key factor in the end levels. 

It also has two player multiplayer, but for some reason they didn't add four player multiplayer (which, honestly, was the reason I got this game even though I already owned Tetris Attack. I should wiki these games before I buy them for very specific feature inclusions). Dr. Mario 64 added four player multiplayer just fine; what gives? Without it, there isn't any fundamental improvement over Tetris Attack, because Tetris Attack had a VS mode too. There are no bonus features here at all, aside from the Pokemon skin.

Oh, and speaking of that...

There's that face again. 

Every time anybody talks in the game I want to punch them. Tetris Attack had a few voice clips, but most were just "Stop!" if you stopped the timer or a "Yeah!" when you won. In this game, people won't shut up. It's like they realized the N64 had more space on the cartridge, so they crammed all the voices from the anime. If you or an enemy make any match, expect them to shout one of three canned phrases. And since you only play as Ash, you'll hear all his lines after about the second battle. Considering their voice acting isn't exactly...good, this is really, really, really annoying. 

"RAWR I'M ASH RAWR LOOK AT THAT HEART RAWR"

The graphics also haven't seen much of an upgrade. Honestly I think it looks worse, and I like Pokemon. It's muddy (like all N64 games) but they don't use any of the power to add new effects or change things up or anything. Even the backgrounds are more soulless, mostly just showing the same generic Pokemon arena, while in Tetris Attack the backgrounds were bright and colorful. It's a step down, to be sure.

"RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRRR"

It still works as a game, because the core formula is so extremely strong. There's a reason I played it for 12 hours nonstop (and not just because I was trapped in a plane and my GBA SP's battery died). It's a puzzle game that's extremely easy to pick up but gets difficult very quickly, making it perfect for when you have a few hours to burn. 

However, if you really want to play this type of game, I'd suggest any version aside from this one. Or you could turn the volume off on your TV, which would fix 90% of the problems. Yeah, you should just do that. 

I still like this game, but since this N64 version has literally no improvements over Tetris Attack on the SNES (and only takes things away in terms of awful Ash Ketchum voice screeching at me constantly), I'll probably just always play Tetris Attack instead. AS SHOULD YOU.

Three out of five screaming Ash faces. 

"I WILL EAT YOUR SOULS."

RAWR

Pokemon Black/White

Pokemon Black/White

The Short

Pros

- All new adventure with 152 new pokemon

- You won't see any pokemon from previous generations during your initial adventure through the game world; all new pokemon

- Battles are presented in pseudo 3D for the first time, with the pokemon being fully animated throughout

- Excellent graphics and music

- Day/Night cycle as well as a monthly seasonal cycle

- TMs can now be used repeatedly

- Story plays a much bigger role, with more characters and variations on the theme than any other Pokemon game

- Excellent music

- Marked as a "new" Pokemon game, it certainly feels much different than its predecessors, mostly for the better

Cons

- Despite having "new" pokemon, they are all still very similar to previous generation's

- Still 2D sprites, which means when they zoom in on the new 3D plane they look kind of...bad

- Bottom screen is replaced by the C-Gear, which uses wireless features that the causal player will probably never use

- No new region to visit after the game, though it does have a lot of post game content

We are coming to the (current) end of our Pokemon journey

The Long

It's been a long time since Pokemon Red/Blue started this whole mad craze. The obsession has died down a little, though the series still pulls both the dedicated fans and newcomers with every release. Game Freak and Nintendo have managed to do well keeping with the same formula, despite calls to change it over the years. After rereleasing HeartGold/SoulSilver, fans had been wanting something new from their Pokemon. Seeing the remake really made people (myself included) see how much has stayed the same, and we were ready for not just another rerelease (like Pokemon Diamond/Pearl)

So here we are, with Pokemon White/Black, the latest in the Pokemon franchise. Nintendo made a big deal saying this was a brand new take on the Pokemon series, with more changes than you can shake a stick at. Does it live up to fan expectations?

Battles look quite good.

Well, there are certainly the laundry list of changes and improvements here. Let's blitz through them, shall we?

Improved Graphics - Probably one of the biggest pushes, the battlefields are now in actual 3D, meaning you can zoom in and out, pan, and do all sorts of other crazy things to keep the action fast. While it looks good, the battles still take place in Gradiantland, and the characters are still pixelated sprites (albeit animated ones). this means when it zooms and pans around them, when you get close they look kind of...bad. High resolution pokemon probably would have helped them look less bad. But I still think it's a good start, and the ability for the game to provide camera control spices up the battles in ways that we haven't seen before. 

Other improved graphics are the overworld, which has again seen an overhaul. There's much more 3D in the world this time (though again: you are still a 2D sprite). Cities can be spun around, and you aren't locked to a simple "overhead" view in every situation. It looks really good, so kudos to them for that. As it stands, this is probably the best looking Pokemon game yet, if you can get over the pixelated battle graphics.

City graphics look loads better, and give a better sense of scope

Day/Night and Seasonal Cycles - The Day/Night thing is back, though it's even better in this one (the cities at night, as you can see above, is really cool), but as an added bonus there are seasons now. They don't follow the actual seasons, but change on a monthly (real time) basis. This is really cool, because it also switches up which pokemon are available when, as well as changing the way the entire game world looks.

Musical Changes - The music in this game is really good, but they've done some tweaks that make it better. In battles, if your pokemon run low on health the battle song will fade into a more intense, stressful song until you put out one with more life. And when battling bosses (Gym leaders), when they are on their final pokemon the song also changes to a more victorious one. It's a little thing, but a good one. 

Team Plasma's song is caaaatchy.

Better Story - The Pokemon games have always been very sparse when it comes to story, and for good reason. It works because you are meant to carve your own path and use your own imagination. Diamond/Pearl tried to do a balance of both telling you a story and making you "choose your own adventure," and it worked ok but not great. Pokemon Black/White, however, actually has a really well crafted story that provides the perfect balance between player investment and the game telling you what is going on. The "Team" (aka the bad guys) this round are Team Plasma, who aren't trying to conquer the world or blow anything up but rather are fighting for pokemon rights. It's a really interesting setup (considering the moral ramification of capturing animals for the sole purpose of making them fight forever for you), but they never get very deep with it, probably because it's still a kid's game. The lack of depth is a little unfortunate, but it is still the strongest and most interesting story in the series. 

You also have two "rivals" in this game, who leave with you and both take very unique paths on both pokemon training and careers. It's neat to see how other people in this world aren't all just wanted to be pokemon battlers. 

This game has a unique story, which is a good step forward for this series

All new pokemon - Unlike the previous games, where it was sort of a mis-mash of every pokemon from every single game, Black/White only has the brand new 152 pokemon until you've beaten the entire game, meaning you won't see any repeats your first run. While this is actually really cool, the "new" pokemon are almost carbon copies of the old ones. Geodudes are replaced with Roggenrollas, which are the exact same type, level at almost the same level, and evolve the same way. So they are new pokemon, I guess, though the promise of the experience being wholly unique isn't entire accurate.

Some battle changes - Now there are triple battles (which are exactly what they sound like), and rotation battles (where you can switch between three to fight one-at-a-time). It's a fairly basic change, but a decent one.

Pokemon Musical - This isn't a pro, though it did replace the awful contests. Now they can be in a musical! That sucks too. Done.

The new pokemon are some of the best

Those are the basic improvements, and they are complimented by an improved UI, a faster-paced battle system, and some of the best looking new pokemon since Gold/Silver's batch. I'm pretty picky and jaded against my pokemon, so seeing new ones that actually look good and have that needed mix of "unique" and "kind of insane" that first the series well.

People complain about Vanillish, but I think it's awesome, in a sort of stupid way

The music in this game is also a return to form, with some of the best songs in the series. The boss/Gym songs are all excellent, the Team Plasma battles (as you can hear above) are great, and it even has a remix version of that kickin Cynthia song from Pearl/Diamond/Platinum that's even faster and more intense. I'm glad that song finally got a good game.

The new final boss song is also excellent.

While I still stand by the fact that Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver are my favorite on the DS (and perhaps favorite ever), I will openly admit that Black/White is technically a superior Pokemon game. While it isn't exactly the alleged revolution to the formula that Nintendo claimed, it still makes enough major improvements and refinements to help this game feel more modern than ever before. It's a hard call whether to recommend this game or SoulSilver, so I'll just tell you that you should buy both, and play SoulSilver first. Because for all my nostalgia, it's hard to go back to any other Pokemon game after playing White/Black. It's a large step in a right direction, and here's hoping Black/White Version 2 continues with the improvements. 

So you should go get this game. Right now. Five out of five stars. 

There are a LOT of pokemon now. 

Pokemon Dash

The Short


Pros
- Has 25 tracks, and you can import tracks based off your pokemon from Ruby/Sapphire or FireRed/LeafGreen
- Has a fair number of pokemon in it

Cons
- Is a full price, glorified, branded tech demo for the Nintendo DS
- "Gameplay" is nonexistent, and they didn't even bother to try and mix up their awful formula
- Graphics look awful, even for an early NDS title.
- It also sounds awful. Bonus.
- Why does this game exist? It's nothing but a trick for mothers or little children who want Pokemon, but then they get it for Christmas and after playing it for five minutes realize it's a trick and swear revenge against this world that has so betrayed them, and next thing you know they are committing arson and knocking down mailboxes. So basically this game is the cause of school shootings.

They really are trying to get me to hate Pokemon, aren't they. 

The Long

So listen: I like the DS, and I like Pokemon. I don't mind spin-off games if they are still ok games (even though I bagged on Hey You, Pikachu! it isn't offensive to me, just poor). This game, Pokemon Dash, offends me. It offends me as a Pokemon fan, it offends me as somebody who has to earn his own money to buy games, and most importantly it offends me as a gamer. Pokemon Dash is utter garbage that shouldn't exist, and the fact they pawned it off at full price as an early Nintendo DS game (when the system was in dire need of some games) just makes this whole thing worse.

Now that that is out of the way, here is my completely unbiased, objective review of Pokemon Dash.

Oh my gosh this game is so horrible.  

So the point of this game is to race Pikachu against every other pokemon in existence, and by every other I mean like a few dozen at most. Pikachu runs in a stright line and you have next to no control over him, besides motivating him to go faster. How do you do this? By scratching the bottom of the screen as fast as you can with the DS stylus. Yes. That is literally the entire game. You quickly swipe in a direction, Pikachu goes that way (faster if you swipe Fast) and then you either win or you lose. Most of it is automated. This is the whole game.

The whole top screen is completely useless. There's a "radar" which is useless, a current ranking (which could have been done on the bottom screen) and nothing else. The bottom screen is filled with ugly, awful graphics as you watch Pikachu from your observation chopper, ordering his every move. There are a few mixups, like certain terrain requires you to pick up an item before crossing them or else you'll slow to a crawl, but other than that you just...swipe. That's it. 

This is one ugly-ass game. 

You have 25 courses, and you can import your pokemon from the GBA games and it'll make races out of them, which makes me wonder why they didn't just include them in the game, since there aren't a lot of tracks here anyway. Instead you have to own both games, and if you own a GBA pokemon game and have it in your DS you should probably just be playing it instead of this crap.

The pokemon sounds are all annoying. They aren't as bad in an actual Pokemon game because you don't hear them all that often, but you hear them all the time in this monstrosity. The graphics, as I said before, look completely awful. I'd rather play Hey You, Pikachu! from start to finish than boot this awful thing up again.

Wow, Pikachu, I never realized you were such a Warrior Poet. 

I don't want to talk about this game anymore. There is nothing redeemable about it. It's essentially just a DS tech demo, and they should have given it away for free. Or better yet, just not released it. Instead they put it out with the Pokemon logo, inspiring false hopes that it might actually have something good inside of its plastic box.

It doesn't.

Zero out of five stars. 

"Mewoth, that's right!"

Hey You, Pikachu!

The Short


Pros
- Can talk to Pikachu and make him do things
- Actually has a lot of stuff to do
- Looks ok for an N64 game
- Is probably good if you are a kid. And live in 2000.

Cons
- Pikachu is either an idiot or hates me because he never does anything I say
- Required microphone only works for this game and another game released in Japan. Useful!
- Lots of games, but most aren't particularly fun
- The definition of "crappy cash-grab spinoff"

This is going to be awesome.

The Long

So Nintendo has this thing for releasing crap to go along with their consoles. I think this probably stems from back in the NES days, where they marketed it more as a "toy" than a "video game console" due to the stigma following the great video game market crash. In an attempt to make the NES appear more like a "toy," they unloaded a massive amount of garbage for it (or allowed third party people to do it) such as the R.O.B. robot, the Power Glove, etc. Most of these crappy add-ons were expensive, annoying, and only worked with one or two games before they were swiftly abandoned.

Nintendo has continued this practice to this day, though it took a slight break during the SNES period (Super Scope, anyone?). The N64 was graced with a memory card, a rumble pak, an actual RAM expansion (that became required to play some games), a CD-Drive (that never made it out of Japan), and this microphone. In fact, now that I think about it, they had a microphone on the Gamecube too, for that one game...Odama. I think that's the only game that used it there, too.

Oh, and Wii Speak, for the Wii! That worked in...uh...Animal Crossing? Was that it? I guess you could voice chat in like The Conduit, but who would want to; it was a thing that sat on your TV (like my Kinect, only somehow dumber). The DS and 3DS also have microphones, but they only use them on early DS games to blow on things (usually for minigames or in Zelda: Phantom Hourglass) and...that's it. 

In a world where Siri is actually pretty brilliant, and Microsoft is making their Kinect toy more and more powerful, it's weird to look back and see that Nintendo had a piece of that pie, but instead of eating it or selling it they sort of left it in the fridge to get moldy. But this isn't a post about Nintendo's pie aversion, it's a post about Hey You, Pikachu! a game that aspires nothing more than to be mediocre, and succeeds heartily. 

Yeup, there he is. 

Hey You, Pikachu! is essentially a collection of minigames on the Nintendo 64 which are all Pokemon themed. There are about seven actual activities in all, ranging from keeping a bunch of Caterpie's awake so they can evolve, searching for treasures, and so on. The gimmick here is that you don't directly control Pikachu (your proxy into this mad world) but have to issue him voice commands instead. And this works exactly as well as you'd think based on year 2000 voice recognition technology.

Yeah, you suck. 

I would yell, whisper, articulate, and try everything in my power to get Pikachu to understand what I was telling him, but it only worked maybe 25% of the time. The rest of the time he either completely misinterpreted or just ignored me. Which, if this were real Pokemon, would be about the time I forced him back into his Pokeball and replaced him with another one who can understand me.

The biggest problem might be the microphone itself. That warning on the box that says "For Ages 12 and under" isn't a coincidence; the microphone is made to better detect higher-pitched voices rather than all of us who've passed puberty. So even if you have a high voice for an adult male (which my tenor-singing self will begrudgingly admit) odds are your words just aren't making it through the mic, much less into Pikachu's tiny brain. Why would you limit your technology like this? Was it too hard for actual voice recognition? 

The game looks decent for an N64 game. Too bad it isn't fun at all. 

This might be ok if the minigames themselves were fun, but most are just boring endeavors that focus heavily on yelling at Pikachu to do things for you. I won't elaborate further than that, though I will give it a bit of the benefit of the doubt by saying they'd probably be ok for kids, though kids these days are much more video-game adept than I was as a kid and can recognize a bad game on sight (usually. Angry Birds still sells for some reason.) so maybe it won't even be good for kids either.

Why is Pikachu on my bed? Giving me a "come hither" look?

Graphically it actually looks pretty good. It's polygonal and blurry but that's all N64 games, so we can't fault it for that. The music is just a bunch of poppy, boring songs made to be background noise, and you probably won't hear them over your repeated yelling at the screen trying to get Pikachu do to one simple task, which he will then ignore you and just play around by himself. Hey, it's like having a real pet!

I imagined the Zelda "Got Item" sound when I saw this picture. 

I'm more than willing to forgive a spin-off game if it still is a decent game (see Pokemon Pinball).  I'm even willing to forgive a movie game if it is still a decent game (see Saw). But this game, either by the limit of its tech or being just plain rushed, falls flat in nearly every aspect. When it does work it's actually pretty fun, as fun as ordering an electric rodent around in minigames is. But the fact that it only works half the time (if that) kills it, especially since the people playing it in this day and age will probably be in their twenties and have too low of voices for the microphone to even work.

So, you get one out of five stars, Hey You, Pikachu! You might have been more forgivable back in 2000, but since I remember seeing you as a kid in the height of my Pokemon obsession and still thinking you looked idiotic, I'm guessing no.