Nathan vs Perler Beads Part 3: Square RPGs

Time for round three of Perler Armageddon! That's...not what I'm actually calling it, but whatever. 

Today we're gonna focus on what was once one of my most favorite developers ever (and sadly is not really anymore) that made some absolutely gorgeous and fantastic video games back in the NES and SNES era. I'm, of course, talking about LJN.

Ah, nothing but quality games out of these guys. 

Wait...my mistake, they were the exact opposite of what I just said! Ha ha ha, how did I mess that up? No, I was talking actually about Square (or Square-Enix now).

Or Squaresoft...you know what? Whatever. 

Anyway, Square(soft) was pretty freaking great back in the day. Aside from making 3D World Runner, which I love, they also made tons of RPGs on the side I guess? And now you know I'm just messin' with ya. Let's get on with the sprites. 

FINAL FANTASY

Suck it, Garland!

The first picture is a bit zoomed out, but you get the point. Garland is the first boss in FF1, and thus I figured we'd have our team fight against him. It's worth noting that this ISN'T the team I usually pick; I'd have a fighter in there and probably no thief. 

A wizard did it!

Fighter and Black Mage are instead confronting Sarda in a tribute to 8-bit theater. Seriously, that comic is hilarious (and actually ended, which is amazing).

Next up...FINAL FANTASY 4!

...

Uh, ok, so I actually haven't done these yet. I've been meaning to make a full party and a Fat Chocobo (and maybe a Garland once I have enough beads...) but I just haven't had the time. Maybe they'll be next on the roster? I did make Tellah but I don't have a picture yet...so let's move on.

On to my favorite game ever...FINAL FANTASY 6!

I have a lot of pictures of these, so bear with me. 

I LOVE Final Fantasy 6's sprite work. From the characters that convey so much emotion despite being so small to the absolutely gorgeous enemies, this is probably my favorite game in terms of pixel art. While I'll admit it isn't as straight up artistic as games like Chrono Trigger or the later Secret of Mana games, it has a style I just love, and making the sprites was fun.

What's tricky with perlers is having to modify sprites based on the colors available. For example, there are very few shades of dark gray, meaning making Shadow was almost impossible. Also Kefka, Banon, Celes, and Gau's hair is technically a sort of gray-blonde in the game, but since there was no way to properly do that we had to variate with different shades of brown. 

Let's take a look at them closer up.

Emperor, Kefka, and Magitech armor. 

The Magitech armor was tricky because, again, we didn't have the proper colors. I ended up ditching the original brown/tan scheme for a sort of gray/cream variant. This was because if I didn't there wouldn't be any contrast between the soldier and the armor he was in. Kefka's hair was also tricky (I switched out the colors probably six or seven times before finally coming to that conclusion) but it boiled down to the gray/blonde colors available didn't blend well and thus made the sprite look bad, so I ended up with a darker brown. Took ten years off Kefka, let me tell ya. 

And I want to make another with his fists up going "IDIOTS!" but I had to do the iconic laugh pose first. 

Esper Terra, Cid, Leo, and Banon. 

This is sort of the "Misc" group (and will be with the Chocobo when I finally get around to doing it). Esper Terra is probably my favorite sprite out of the bunch, despite being the simplest. She just looks...badass. I never really cared for Cid so I made him dull, and Leo didn't really have a lot of poses. Banon, again, should probably have grayer hair but whatever...blame Perler. 

Terra, Locke, Edgar, Sabin, Celes, Interceptor and Shadow, Cyan, Gau, Setzer, Strago, Relm, Mog, Umaro, Gogo. 

Nerd test! I put the playable characters in a certain order. Can you figure out what that order is?

If you guessed "order they were acquired" you would be correct! You win...points? I don't know. I was going to put them in order of my personal favorites, but scrapped the idea after it didn't look very good. 

Regardless, I tried to find a varied mix of poses for them all. Edgar is suave, Terra is distant, Locke is freaking out, Sabin is ready to go, etc. I really wish I'd done a better pose for Mog, but he was the one I did first so...it happens. Maybe I'll gift him to somebody and make another one...

That isn't it from FF6, because about half way through I lost my mind. I realized I wanted to do my favorite enemy from the game (aside from Kefka's final boss sprite) so I got on it...and this is what happened. We'll give you the step by step of...ULTROS!

A "dud" version that I eventually recolored. 

First off, that's SIX perler trays, so you get a sense of size here. Second, he is VERY tricky to do. Remember when I said I do outlines first and then go from there? Look at the black beads on this guy. There's no rhyme or reason behind it. It's super tricky!

The biggest issue, though, is the fact that there are only TWO actual purple shades in all of perler-dom. Because of that on my original run I tried shaded in too soon, meaning I ran out of colors that worked well together. I did an experiment on that colored-in tentacle to try and find a color scheme that worked, but it just looked awful. So what did I do? I went insane.

After I fixed him. 

I took out all the dark purples and replaced them with dark grays. Every. Single. One. With tweezers, one at a time, while staying true to the original sprite. I then replaced all the light purples with dark purples. I also experimented on the tentacle to try and find a better color mix and it ended up being much better. Just to point out: Ultros has something like six shades of purple, and I have only two shades of beads (and only three that really work well together). Because of that, some colors had to do double duty, so the sprite isn't as color detailed. It basically boils down to what shades best and still looks like the original sprite, which I'd like to say my background in actual pixel art helps in deciding. 

I love his teeth. Sorry this one is blurry. 

So you can see I used considerably less purples here. I also had to compensate for lack of teeth colors as well, as there's really only two shades of yellow and an off-color "creme" that I never use for anything. 

All finished! 

I ended up shading the purple into a purple-pink and then to a pink and to a white because it seemed to blend best. The pink still "pops" a little much, but it's the best you can get. The dark grays were actually dark purples in the sprite, but they really just make the shadows a little deeper when I'm fine with. I think he ended up looking really good, and an accurate representation of the original sprite. 

The famous opera scene. 

And this is him finished on the wall, with Maria/Celes. I really like the Celes sprite too. Ultros is pretty dang big, about as long as my forearm, and I had to use some clear on the curving back tentacle. He was also a mess to try to iron but my wife managed to pull it off. From a distance, he looks fantastic!

View of the wall leading to the video game room pt 1...

And from a slightly different angle. 

Alright, enough Final Fantasy 6. Let's quickly run through some other Square SNES games...like SECRET OF MANA!

By "quickly" I mean "one picture" 

It's a well known fact based on my review that I don't think Secret of Mana has aged very well. However, I still think it's a pretty game, and I have nostalgia for it. My wife actually made most of these sprites (I just did the princess/girl), but I really like the hero's hair and headband. I think the shading on that is just awesome.

Next up, what might be the best RPG ever made, CHRONO TRIGGER!

Some ironed ones, some in progress. 

These are also some tricky ones due to color schemes. Ayla ended up with some interesting hair shading (I wanted her to be blonde but didn't have enough yellows so some brown gets in there), Magus' cape and pants are actually a pretty lazy bit of pixel art (though I love his hair), and making Chrono's sword stand out when it's sheen is basically the same shade as his clothes was tricky. However, I think we ended up making it work out!

The finished circle of destruction. 

I love Ozzie from Chrono Trigger, if only because he's so absurd. I also love the cat sprite (as you can see we made one looking on) so we had to throw him in too. I figured we'd have everybody attacking poor Ozzie (who is in a jam) and that would be perfect. I really like Marle and Frog's sprites especially. 

Now I just need a Gato...who has metal joints...beat him up...you know where I'm going with this. 

That's currently it for Square RPGs! Hopefully I'll be back in the future with some Final Fantasy IV and maybe a few other games along the way (though I'm not sure which...) but for now, that's all I've got! So tune in next time for the penultimate reveal: Castlevania, Pokemon, and...some other stuff!

Nathan vs Perler Beads Part 2: Metroid & Zelda

Time for the next batch of perlers! This one, for the Metroid series, we have something nifty: a step by step walkthrough of me making both these sprites!

And by "step by step" I mean like two steps. Yeah...you'll get over it. Here's how I do 'em.

Metroid!

Can you tell who this is from just the black beads?

I don't use any grids or anything when doing the sprites; I just look at the original pixel art and go off it from there. In nearly every situation, I start by doing the black outline, which gives me a stable framework to design off of. In some cases, especially the SNES sprites, the entire outlines aren't just black. This can be a little trickier, but usually the next color in is just a dark gray or something. 

I also have to determine the sprite size before beginning. All trays a 29x29, so you'll have to do the math accordingly.

As you can see, Samus had some orange outline pixels. 

And a finished Samus. My math was off; I actually didn't need the upper right corner grid. In the original sprite there were something like four shades of gray for her arm-cannon. Since there are only two gray shades in perler (light and dark), you have to consolidate sometime, usually with the SNES sprites. You really can't tell, however, unless you put the perler side-by-side with the sprite.

And yes, you do have to put each bead down individually. It can take a while. I usually go color by color (black outline, then work inward), as this makes filling in easier. 

I put the SNES cart in for scale. 

In this one's case, I did the mouth part first, then did a dark green outline. This sprite had a lot of green shades, which meant I had to just use the greens I had (there's about four greens that blend good together). For those wondering, that's nine trays, which is 87x87.

Symmetrical ones like this are easier but kind of boring, as once you do one half you just mimic it for the other side. That's when having a good podcast or movie on helps. 

There's actually four shades of green here, even though it can be hard to see. 

Sometimes you don't know which color to use, and in that case I usually do a limited amount of the sprite in two different shades and see which "blends" better. I'd like to say my pixel art days helps me figure out which colors best substitute, but sometimes it's just random guesswork. If you do that you have to carefully remove every wrong colored pixel and replace it, which can be a pain. 

Finished Metroid!

This isn't actually finished yet; I filled in all the empty spaces with clear beads. If you don't, when you iron it the pieces will frequently break off, which sucks. I only use clears in rare instances, since they aren't completely clear. A project like this Metroid was done in two chunks, and was around four hours of work. 

Brain-sucking!

The finished metroid, sucking out all my life. Look how big it is! This one we couldn't sticky-tack to the wall; we had to actually nail 'em in. 

There's the Metroid ones! Now, next up we have another iconic Nintendo franchise...

You know, the one with that housecleaning mini-robot!

Zelda is a tricky one to perler, as a lot about those games are the epic environments. However, we still got a few done, and got a timeline thing going on!

Looks empty, huh? Zelda's a lot about the environments. 

We have a good representation from the first NES Zelda game, though I wanted to make a dungeon entrance to bump up the scenery. From Zelda 2 we have the iconic "P Bag," Link, and Error. I was going to make an "I Am Error" text box, but that would have taken something like 600 black beads so...maybe some other time.

Link to the Past, aka the best Zelda Game. 

Link to the Past's sprites look a lot cooler, though I swear Zelda looks mini. But not as mini as Minnish Cap Link! I think Minnish Cap Link is probably my favorite of all the Link sprites. If you haven't played that game you are REALLY missing out; it's absolutely beautiful and we are going to make more sprites from it. Seriously, really gorgeous game. 

That's all for today's installment! Tomorrow, we'll delve deep into what we have the most of: Square RPGs! Stay tuned!

Nathan vs Perler Beads Part 1: Mario Bros

So my wife and I, aside from playing a lot of video games, secretly enjoy doing crafty stuff. Or rather, she enjoys it, and I just sort of watch and dictate what she makes. For example, she was really good at crocheting stuff, and so she made a bunch of Mario themed crochet projects. They were pretty nifty!

And a Psyduck, because Psyduck is awesome. 

But it wasn't for a while later when a friend introduced us to Perler Beads. Yeah, beads. For reals. Basically it's arts and crafts for people who suck at arts and crafts. You get several trays set in the shape of grids, and then you just stick beads into pins in designs. When you are done you iron them and the beads melt, sticking together, and viola: you have a...thing. It's like magic. 

It's fun for the whole family! Especially the crafting impaired!

Well it turns out there's a whole sub devision of people these days who buy perlers just to make video game sprites out of them. Seems that it's really easy to translate 8 and 16 bit sprites into real life bead creations, translating single pixels into single beads. It's tricky, seeing as you have a limited pallet of bead colors (and have to buy them all to have a wide enough range to do more complex stuff) and some sprites get astronomically big, but seeing as I had a background in pixel art having made indie games before, I just couldn't resist!

Several hundred dollars and tens of thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) of beads later, and our apartment has turned into a video game themed shrine. 

We stick them to the wall with poster tack (also known as sticky tack) so our landlords won't get mad and we can rearrange them easily. But since we've made so much stuff over the past few months, I thought it would be fun to do a brief series on all the crap we've made, going by theme. So, without further ado, here is day one of Nathan (and his wife) vs Perler Beads.

Part One: It's a me! Mario!

First off we'll start with the most iconic gaming guy ever: Mario. To be honest, my wife did most of the regular Mario stuff, though I'll go into details as we get further in. We wanted to have something that showed Mario's evolution throughout the 2D platforming days: from Mario 1 all the way to Mario World and Yoshi's Island. So, after much creation, we made the "WALL OF MARIO!" (tm).

First up: Super Mario 1. 

We started with something everybody would recognize: original Super Mario Bros. My wife did everything except Mario himself and the flying goomba, and I'd say she did a good job! I especially like the fish coming up from behind.

Mario 2 is a real Mario game, ya jerks!

Then we move on to Mario 2, one of my most favorite games of all time. I did scary face mask guy and jumping bird faced guy, while the wife did all the rest. I especially like Birdo, with he/she in his/her iconic pose. And of course we picked Peach; does anybody pick any other character when playing Mario 2? 

Mario 3, aka that one with the BOOT. 

Mario 3 is also great, and we basically just picked all our favorite stuff from that game. The angry sun, the flying goomba, the fire piranha plant, and of course...THE BOOT. Viewers with a discrete eye will notice it's the Super Mario Allstars version of Mario in the boot (in 16 bit, while the rest is 8 bit) but hey...it looked better. I also didn't do any of these. 

Super Mario World: Still awesome. 

And lastly, Super Mario World, another big favorite. I absolutely love the Wiggler here. This one's a bit cluttered because we kept wanting to add more! We just love Mario World! Also, 16 bit sprites look way cooler than 8 bit ones, but we love them all the same. 

Savin' the best for last. 

And finally, Yoshi's Island, a game my wife hadn't even heard of until we bought the SNES cart. Arguably the best Mario platformer ever, we can at least all agree it's the best game starring Yoshi. I absolutely love the art style in this game, and the flower-headed shy guys are just too hilarious to not make.

A shot of the wall in (most) of it's glory. 

And finally...

The DYNAMIC shot! 

So there you have it: all the Mario 2D games from Mario 1 to World and Yoshi's Island, all in a row. Looks pretty awesome, huh?

So that's all the regular Mario 2D platformers we made...but wait! There's more! A lot more!

And now "Fever" is stuck in your head. 

I am awful at Dr. Mario. My wife, on the other hand, completely crushes me every time. It's...a thing, I guess. Anyway, this Dr. Mario was a joint effort, though she made the good doctor and I made a virus and a pill (the blue one, who is lookin confident). For a sense of scale: the doctor is about as long as my forearm, with pill. Those little pills ain't gonna beat those fat viruses, I can tell you that much. 

The evolution of Yoshi. 

We also had some misc Mario stuff we didn't know where to put it, so we just plastered it nearby. The shell was from Mario World but was too big for some reason, so it got separated. We also did the evolution of Yoshi, which is awesome. I still think baby Yoshi is adorable, with his cute smirk. 

"

Toad and Bowser cartin'. 

My wife's favorite Mario Kart game is Super Mario Kart, so she made a collection from that! I only made Yoshi...who you'll see shortly. 

Yoshi always beats Mario, because Yoshi is the best! 

The tongue later broke off and we had to super-glue it back on...

Koopa! Why didn't he make it to Mario Kart 64?

Peach has seriously evil eyes in this picture.

And the whole batch, racing around the corner of the Retro Room!

Donkey Kong won! Yeah, like that ever happens! Plus he was smaller then the rest for some reason...but oh well, it works. 

Lastly, we have some from my favorite Mario game maybe ever. Here's a little spoiler of a work-in-progress photo I took...

Power from his pants. And ignore the two on the left; they are spoilers for future episodes!

You got it, Mario RPG. I attempted to use a limited color pallet of beads to pixel-sprite sprites that were originally 3D rendors compressed down for the SNES. Sounds tricky? Well...it was. But guess what. I did it. I won the perler. 

Booster is still my favorite Mario villain ever. 

Aw yeaaaah! The whole gang is here, with Booster of course. They are placed between the Yoshi chain and Dr. Mario, guarding the closet under the stairs that leads to all the Rock Band crap. All I can say is Booster's about to get his world rocked. 

And that's it for this installment of Nathan vs Perler Beads! Check back in tomorrow (or whenever I get it up) for the next installment, where we'll be looking at Metroid and The Legend of Zelda! Here's a teaser!

More like a spoiler, but whatever. 

Mark of the Ninja

The Short

Pros
- Excellent, empowering 2D stealth game
- Wide variety of options lets you be both deadly an silent (hur hur)
- Multiple scenarios and suits let you play as either a killer or a pacifist
- Story is told through awesome cutscenes, and actually has a pretty cool twist
- Perfectly paced, structured, and balanced
- Challenges on each level add another level of excitement
- Liberal checkpoints mean the game is never overly frustrating
- Beautiful graphics

Cons
- Story itself isn't particularly thrilling or engrossing
- A few cheap enemies
- "Scoring" system feels out of place
- Ends too soon, but the New Game + mode helps rectify this

Can you spot the ninja in this picture? Of course not. 

The Long

I must confess: I love the idea behind stealth games, but I have yet to play very many that I actually enjoyed. The Metal Gear Solid games have a bit of their own thing going for them, and while you can learn the mechanics it still had that "fail and reload a checkpoint two years back" thing. Deus Ex: Human Revolution was the same way: play for stealth, but if you screw up once you're totally jumping back fifteen minutes. Honestly, I can only say the old Tenchu game on the PS1 as well as the older Thief games really stuck out to me as fun stealth gameplay. Mostly the issues lies in something simple: it's hard to determine when someone will see you and when they don't. And if the game screws up that, the whole stealth element sucks.

Luckily, Mark of the Ninja doesn't fall into this trap. In fact, the only ones that are going to fall into traps are the bad guys. Ninja death traps. Because, even to a stealth game snob like myself, Mark of the Ninja is pretty dang close to being perfect. It is easily the best game I've played that made me actually feel like I was a badass ninja of the night. And that's saying something.

The spider and the fly. 

Mark of the Ninja tells a story of a ninja clan that is the last of its kind, hidden away in modern society. That is, until a bunch of jerks with guns and lights show up and start gunning them all down. You play as some sort of uber-ninja, marked with a mystical red paint taken from ground up magic flowers. These give you some crazy ninja powers (mostly just so the game can give a plausible reason as to how you can see soundwaves of footsteps and use psychic powers to see through walls), but also drive you insane, leading to hallucinations and other nasty things. Point being: this is gonna be your last mission, one way or another.

As a story goes it's told through beautiful cutscenes (these are the dudes who did Shank, after all), but the story itself isn't really that compelling. It does have a pretty clever (if a little predictable) twist at the end, as well as two endings, though both are unsatisfying. Either way, the story is unimportant, because the real joy of Mark of the Ninja is spent lurking through its vents, suspended from its ceilings, and luring guards with the corpses of other guards only to grab them and string them up from a lightpost. 

This game's sense of style is fantastic, if the game is REALLY dark. 

Where Mark of the Ninja works is in its absolutely perfect stealth gameplay. Each level is basically a massive map, with buildings filled with rooms, vents, lights, and doors to traverse. The game guides you to objectives, but never blatantly tells you where to go. In most games the concept of "multiple paths" usually just ends up being one or two scripted alternatives, but in Mark of the Ninja there are really dozens of ways to approach each issue. I remember being stuck in one room at the very end of the game. Try as I might, I just couldn't sneak past this room of snipers and an invincible big dude. After several tries I realized I could actually climb outside the skyscraper, scale the whole building, and sneak in through completely the other side through a vent and assassinate that stupid sniper who had caused me so many problems. Could I have done it the other way? Possibly. There were about four I could see just in the room itself. But the fact the option was there and worked so well really sold me on this game's linear yet nonlinear style of gameplay.

This sense of being a badass ninja is presented to you right from the start with the game's way of showing you everything you need to know right in the world. Most stealth games just sort of throw you into a room, letting you figure out what the field of vision is (or isn't) for enemies and hoping for the best. Mark of the Ninja, however, knows what makes stealth games frustrating and avoids it completely. All guards have a very obvious line of sight in front of their face, which is extended when they search with a flashlight. If you are hidden in the shadows your ninja will be black and blend in, while when visible his colors change dramatically. You have actual field of vision, too: you'll only see based on the direction your ninja is facing and what is available. If he loses sight of an enemy a slight mark will appear where he was last spotted, but you can also see sound waves, so you can watch his footsteps and know exactly when to pop out and nab him. Sound waves play a key role in the game, actually, as you can distract, bait, and see enemies almost better with sound than actual vision.

Lights are your enemy, but the sound of them shattering can be a great distraction. 

The game trickles in this information at a near perfect clip. The first level is essentially a tutorial, but not a boring one. You learn how free you are to traverse, how you have a plethora of ways to distract people, and how killing is easy but not necessary. You also learn how fragile you are: remember in Batman: Arkham Asylum where if you screwed up you didn't last long? Well, double that for Mark of the Ninja: a few well placed bullets and you are done. This adds even more incentive to be sneaky, and makes the kills all the more satisfying. I really felt awesome when I managed to evade a pair of snipers, swing around the ceiling behind them, distract them by breaking the lights above their heads with bamboo knives, and stab both in the back. It's incredible how smooth it all is.

It's hard to say anything further without sounding like a broken record, so let me end this segment with a blanket statement: this is the most accessible and empowering stealth game I've ever played. Everything, from your heightened senses, to the art style, to the clever assortment of enemies, to the powers you can choose to best match your playstyle, to the traps and tools; all of it combines to make you feel extremely able and yet still fragile enough that you have to be careful. The game liberally checkpoints, meaning if you do screw up a reload takes just a few seconds, though that only really happened when I was sloppy or generally un-ninjalike.

Leap down and stab him in the back? Shoot the light and get him in the distraction? Hide beneath him and throw him to his death? Curl up behind the door and wait from him to be just on the other side? So many choices for just one guy. 

The controls are near-perfect with only one very minor issue. Often time "A" is used for both jump and drop, depending on how you point the analog stick. Sometimes he'd drop down when I just wanted him to climb down to a nearby handhold, resulting in me leaping like a moron in front of dudes armed to the teeth. Needless to say, they turned me into ninja swiss cheese. I only very rarely had this issue and, since the on screen HUD was so incredibly well designed, often times it was my own fault for not paying attention. Aside from that, controls work masterfully. Time freezes when preparing sub weapons, and it indicates exactly how much sound will emit from a device and who will hear it. Your ninja sneaks at a decent enough speed (I hate "sneaking" slowly in stealth games) and can run, but people will hear it. There's also a fair amount of speedy platforming required in the later levels, which makes me think this game could have also been an awesome platformer, had they wanted it to be. 

For longevity, Mark of the Ninja is actually a fairly lengthy game. I'd say the first run could last you anywhere between 5-10 hours, depending on how much of a perfectionist (and checkpoint abuser) you are. After you beat it you get New Game +, which is super fun awesome mode because you no longer see sounds and the guards are both smarter and tougher. It's a great playground to use all your power-ups you've been accumulating. There are also a bunch of challenge rooms hidden throughout the levels that test your platforming skills, though to be honest I never really did them because they interrupted the flow of the main game. 

I really hate these freaking dogs.

As stated, Mark of the Ninja is made by klei, who also made the beautiful Shank. The well animated and cartoony style is present here, though to be honest you don't see much of it because 90% of the game is in the dark (but it's never too dark to know what you are doing, which is nice). The cutscenes are pretty and the voicework is pretty solid for an indie studio. There is next to no music unless you set off an alert, but what there is works fine. I like the song that plays during the final stage in particular. 

Don't mess with a ninja. 

There's more I didn't mention, such as the scoring system (which gives you a bonus if you make it through a level undetected or without killing anyone) that earns you upgrades, and the fantastic challenge system that unlocks both upgrades and new suits. Essentially in each level you have three unique "challenges" to accomplish in addition to your main goals, and doing them unlocks new ninja uniforms as well as points for power-ups. It's a nice metagame over the main one, and some of the challenges are really tricky.

Anyway, the point of all this is that Mark of the Ninja is downright masterfully constructed. It's a real shame that this game was released on a Friday (?!) to XBLA with no fanfare and no announcement whatsoever. I didn't even know this game existed until Twitter went all abuzz over it. Then I booted up the demo and was sold after the first minute. Seriously, we are looking at one of the best crafted stealth games ever made, and it's getting looked over? For shame, Microsoft!

Luckily you are reading this blog, though, so you know about this game and how incredible it is. Mark of the Ninja was one of the funnest experiences I've had on my Xbox 360 in recent memory (trumping even the joy that was Dust: An Elysian Tail), and the minute I beat it I started running through it again to beat leaderboard scores and experience New Game+. Usually I balk at $15 price tags for XBLA games, but they seriously could sell this as a $60 disc game and I'd be all over it. Here's hoping it sells enough to earn some DLC, because I cannot get enough of this game.

Masterfully done, klei. Five out of five stars. 

You'll have to forgive the Naruto, but this song is too funny to not post. 

Rock Band Blitz

The Short

Pros
- Fast paced, Frequency or Rock Band Unplugged style of gameplay
- Play a bunch of awesome music without having to buy all the plastic instruments!
- Comes with 25 songs that can be exported to Rock Band 3 for free
- Utilizes all your DLC library from Rock Band, ramping up the replay value tremendously
- Easy controls and a variety of powerups encourage variation and unique playstyles
- Horrendously addicting
- Facebook/Rock Band World integration makes it a blast to compare scores

Cons
- "Coins" system seems a little out of place, especially considering how easily they are obtained after the most recent patch
- Some powerups are completely useless; there's usually one or two main builds that are always the best
- The algorithm that converts your old songs doesn't always do the best job across the board
- With only 25 included songs, those who don't have a Rock Band library already will find the experience a bit lacking
- The disconnect between the game and Facebook kind of slows down the competitive spirit
- Only like three of my friends own this game! Get on the ball, people!
- So addicting it sucked up almost a week's worth of my evenings already. Wonder where the reviews from me have been? Now you know.

Every day I'm Blitzin'

The Long

It's pretty well established I'm a huge Rock Band fan. From Green Day to Beatles I've played 'em all, and compounded a 600+ song DLC library to boot. But after a while you get kind of tired of hauling out the plastic instruments, the guitar track from Dreamchaser by Amberian Dawn is pretty much burned into your mind, and you start wondering what else you can do with all these songs you have lying around.

Well, Harmonix must have read my freaking mind, because here comes Rock Band Blitz, a new game from the music game masters meant to breath new life into their DLC market and your DLC library. You thought rhythm games were dead? Well, they might be struggling a bit, but Rock Band Blitz is easily the best reason for this genre to see a resurgence. It's fast, fun, addicting arcade action with a plethora of side features that are just icing on the cake.

This game is an ADHD person's dream come true. 

So what exactly is Rock Band Blitz? At first glance it looks a heck of a lot like Rock Band: Square notes moving towards you down a highway (and it's a literal highway this time. Harmonix, masters of humor) that you gotta smash up for points. However, things are different here. Rather than playing just one instrument, you are tasked to keep the whole band in line.  How do you do it? By maximizing multipliers. Seriously, that's really the key part of the game.

Essentially you start with a multiplier range from x1 - x5 (a six point range). As you play well in lanes their individual multipliers for that specific instrument rises up until you hit max. Then you shift to a different lane and do the same (or shift inbetween, if you are a skilled crazy person). Why max these out? Because at various intervals throughout the song you'll pass "gates," where whichever instrument has the lowest multiplier will become the new minimum, and the max multiplier will increase. For example, if all my instruments were at 5x except vocals, which were at 3x, then the max would be increased to 7x. Whereas if I'd played good and gotten all of 'em at 5x, it would have jumped to x9, and so on and so forth. 

It isn't as complicated as it sounds. Goal: PLAY GOOD. 

This means that by the end of the song you can have some crazy multipliers, like up in the 20s, so playing good throughout and boosting that multiplier means crazier scores. But since tracks don't consistently have notes, this means you have to switch frequently to keep those multipliers up. Add in a "Blitz" mechanic, where playing a bunch of notes without missing (including when you do a lane switch) gives a fickle score boost, and you've got yourself a crazy ride. Do you switch over to grab a certain lane now and risk losing your Blitz, or do you ride it out for a safe pause? It's a very simple mechanic that goes a long way.

And we haven't even talked about the powerups. Before songs you can purchase with "Blitz Coins" a variety of powerups. These range from simple things that blow up notes, score multipliers, etc. all the way to crazy stuff like using your lane-selector to bounce a ball ala Breakout, or chasing down runaway purple notes. These powerups mesh nicely together, and because they are unlocked gradually they encourage you to experiment before fitting into a groove. 

That, in a nutshell, is the core idea behind Rock Band Blitz. So let's hit some specifics, shall we?

This game is stupid addicting. 

The big "hook" for Rock Band Blitz is the fact that it utilizes all your previously purchased DLC songs to add to the song roster. So the Rock Band faithful will jump into this game with a massive song count to play through and enjoy. It's a great idea, except for the people who don't own any Rock Band songs. While Blitz on its own is a great game, no doubt, one of the appeals comes from having a lot of songs to play. The 25 included are a nice variety (though they seem a bit heavy on the pop-rock), but not nearly enough to quench the thirst of a hardcore player. I guess that means Harmonix are actually evil geniuses because now we'll spend all our money buying more songs, but just be warned going in: if you don't already own songs, plan on buying some to really enjoy Blitz. 

The other hook is Facebook integration through the Rock Band World app. This essentially lets you go into your Facebook and sign up for goals, challenge friends to score wars, and generally compare yourself to all your buddies. While the challenges are great (and worked awesome in Rock Band 3) the fact that they require Facebook kind of...sucks, honestly. Since there's the obvious delay between when you play the song and when Facebook realizes it, that can really pull you out of the addictive spirit to have to wait. Also, if you lose connection to Rock Band Central during the game (or just don't have a constant internet connection) your scores won't save and you can't use powerups. So buy only if your Xbox/PS3 is always hooked up to the net. 

The Jackpot powerups is a great way to ramp up score, assuming you don't screw up. 

The UI in game is fantastic, letting you know exactly on the track where you have to play a particular instrument in order to bump up the multiplier. Really my only complaint is that it doesn't show you (or tell you) when the multiplier gates are coming up. A little line on the side showing your progress would be helpful for those of us really trying for that "perfect run," but I guess memorization is the name of the game.

Another weird UI thing is the song list. Rock Band 3 introduced an awesomely dynamic method by which to sort songs. Rock Band Blitz for some reason is back to a very basic sorting structure that is downright archaic in comparison. Plus it is missing the absolutely most necessary sorting method: Sort by songs that your friends have higher scores than you on. Seriously, considering how hopelessly addicted I am to leaderboard climbing and crushing the hopes and dreams of all my Facebook friends, not being able to sort in that way really hurts the experience. 

Pinball looks cool, but it's a stupid powerup, honestly. 

Let me be honest here: all those complaints are really minor, because when you are actually playing the game you couldn't care less about freaking menu sorting. Seriously, Rock Band Blitz is an absolutely fantastic game regardless of how you slice it. It's fast, fun, and surprisingly difficult. Those naysayers who came off of Frequency and Amplitude and complained because there's only two note options per lane (vs 3 from those games) and that "simplified" things need only play this game for a few songs before realizing this game is chaotic as crap. In order to be good you have to switch lanes like a madman, hunting down the purple notes and white notes while trying to stay in blitz, use power-ups, and lane manage. You feel like a total badass when you get good at this game (or at least I do), as sad as that may sound. It's stupid satisfying, even if the learning curve might be a little overwhelming for those not ready for the stimulation overload.

Regardless, Rock Band Blitz is a fantastic rebirth of the music genre, and a great arcade-style experience in its own right. While it might be somewhat of a lesser experience to those who don't own some Rock Band songs already, it's a game worth investing in for those who preserver. Before you know it you'll be leaderboard-stalking and constantly refreshing Rock Band World to see if you are still #1 on that Amberian Dawn song and THAT JERK CAME BACK AND KNOCKED ME DOWN TO #2 BY 300 POINTS I'M GOING TO KILL HIM!

Anyway, four out of five stars, but if you have any love of Rock Band or have exported from even a single disc (and thus have a DLC library) tack another star on this sucker. It's seriously the most addicting game I've played in a long while, and I show no sign of stopping any time soon.

Plus I can gold star most songs on my first try now. That's how bananas good I am at this game.