Earthbound

Alright! March is here, so now my bandwidth limits are lifted. This month will see the completion of the Battletoads playthrough guide. But because college was getting in the way, I don't have any videos ready to upload right now. I should have three more up by the end of the weekend. So today, in honor of over 600 blog views, I wan't to talk about one of my favorite games: Earthbound.

Mother 2 in Japan. I can actually tell you who all these people are.

Pyro Guide (3 of 3): Advanced Tactics

This is the last bit about how to play Pyro. This one will be shorter, because in depth tactics are fewer than standard skills. But these are probably going to be the defining skills. Any pyro who can perform these moves is deserving of the term "advanced player".

Pyro Guide (2 of 3): Class Match-ups and Pairings

Wells, its time for the second part of this guide. This one will focus on how the Pyro interacts with other classes, in combat and teamwork. This is team fortress, very rarely should your actions be occurring in a vacuum. Always consider what your team needs when playing seriously. If instead you are derping around, feel free to ignore my advice.

I wish I could credit this image.

Pyro Guide (1 of 3): Basics & weapon break down

Though I know I don't have many readers, I am still going to explain this. I am still working on the battletoads videos, but I have encountered bandwidth issues, so no video uploading for this month.

I have spoken of the pyro of Team Fortress 2 several times, but this time I am going to actually be helpful. I am an excellent pyro who would like to see more people play the pyro well. What prompted me to write this was that VALVE HAS ALMOST PROMISED THEY ARE FINALLY RELEASING THE MEET THE PYRO VIDEO!!!!!!!!! (REJOICE!!). They haven't promised this in words, but a picture on the website all but guarantees that it is so.

The evidence

Battletoads Playthrough guide (1-3)

Having recently discovered new video recording options with my emulator. My first thought was to make a guide for Battletoads. Its a wicked hard game and describing a walkthrough in words is really tough. So I am just gonna film myself going through the levels. I will have some notes embedded in the video, but most of the details will be in this post. I am emulating this and it will be done with save states. I have beaten the game in a straight run with no saving, but for filming convenience I won't be doing that this time.

Level 1:

Ok, first of, you have to be real quick to reach that portal in the beginning. It takes you to level three, which is really hard, so I would not take it; the first two levels are a good place to build up lives. You can pick up the walker's legs to use as bats, but its not worth as many points. If you have two players, one can throw the head and the other can hit it: toad baseball. If you jump on the dragons while they are on the ground, you can ride them. They breathe fire and kind of fly, but you receive no points for kills on their back, so not worth it. The dragons can kill you instantly if they grab you, so take caution.

Level 2:

This is the level you can build a lot of bonus lives if you are good. Hitting the birds multiple times after they die will get you lots of points and eventually a bonus life. This wasn't my best attempt, but you can usually get three. The ones with the long beaks can kill you instantly. The wrecking ball attack has an interesting mechanic. You can activate either by sitting still by the wall and attacking, or by holding still near an enemy and attacking.

Level 3:

Level three is the level where most players gave up. The speeder bike section is legendary. I got through it without dying, but that took me weeks of practice. Not much to say you can't see. The space invaders steal your health straight from your health bar; kill them and take it back. When jumping with the speeder bike, try not to move up or down, you can actually move beyond the screen and kill yourself. The portal at the end is really hard to hit and not worth it. I will be showing the best way of getting through this game, including which warps to hit. The last post will cover the levels I skipped if you really want to see them.

Duck Tales

A good old fashioned platformer with a legendary reputation on the NES. Based on the exploits of Scrooge McDuck, he travels all over the place stealing treasure, killing natives and selling the land he conquered. A bit dark in retrospect, but it's lots of fun.

Once again, Capcom gives you a stage select screen.  

It controlled oh so smooth. You can walk around, use your cane as a pogo-stick, jump, and use your cane as a golf club. The pogo bounce is the best move in the whole game; it kills most enemies and will bounce you over most obstacles. I often bounced non-stop for parts of the levels. And the developers were aware of the pogo's awesomeness; certain obstacles will only hit you if you are dumb enough to bounce into them. It worked sooo well.

except in the snow.

But you really have to play it to see the greatness that is duck tales. So here.

That was the moon level. If you liked the music, you aren't alone. That tune was on ScrewAttacks top 10 video game music themes. Also, brentallfloss did a "What if _____ had lyrics?" for this song. Its quite hilarious.

Difficulty (2)

I think I may be obsessed with difficulty. Well, this will focus on modern games. Buckle in because it's gonna be a long ride.

Game difficulty has seen a resurgence of late. Most games are still being designed so younger gamers have a chance of beating them (Nintendo is guilty as hell of this), and the result is that older, more skilled gamers feel a little sidelined. But many games include options to turn up difficulty and some just un-apologetically kick your ass. So I am going to break down how different genres make themselves difficult and accessible at the same time.

Ebay

Yesterday, I won a bid on Ebay for a copy of Jet Grind Radio. It cost me 13.50, including shipping. This is the first time I have ever bought anything on Ebay, let alone a game. It prompted me to post about what I think about buying old games and clarifying my position on emulators.

I've mentioned this one before

I've never owned a Dreamcast, but I played this game at a friends home. Now I've said before that I never owned what would be considered a "classic" console; my first system was a Playstation. If I wanted to play old video games they way they are meant to be played, I would have to spend several hundred dollars buying the systems and accruing the games I want to play. And that's just the basics, some more popular games can run several hundred dollars by themselves on Ebay. The guy I bought Jet Grind Radio from was also selling a copy of Earthbound for roughly $200.

It's a great game, but not $200 dollars great. I mean, look at it.

So for the most part, I prefer to emulate old games. Emulation is, by definition, illegal. It's downloading copyrighted games for free. But when you consider that most of these games are not for sale anymore, it becomes obvious that you aren't stealing anything; it wasn't being sold. Some have been remade on virtual consoles, but not nearly all the classics. And its the classics that demand outrageous prices on Ebay. When I emulate, the only people I am stealing money from are the people selling the games on Ebay. I don't feel sorry for those people.

The reason I had to buy Jet Grind Radio was because the Dreamcast emulator I got failed to work correctly. I looked at the price of a Dreamcast on Ebay, but it was more than I was willing to spend at the time. Fortunately, I have a way of borrowing one for free.

Batman

I don't like explaining myself, but half the reason I haven't been posting is that I got a lot of new games over Christmas, which don't go in this blog. The other reason is laziness.

Batman is one of the better heroes in comics because he lacks any powers. He relies on his brain and his (admittedly huge) resource pool. Since the release of the Dark Knight, he has seen a resurgence of exposure and quality. The Batman Arkham games are of course fantastic (have them), but that's not to say earlier games didn't have any batman. Batman on the NES is an excellent hero game and very high quality game on its own merit (but the addition of Batman makes it better).

Already Looking Good

A shout out to the fellows at Screwattack.com for bringing this game to my attention. It's a good quality action platformer featuring a totally recognizable Batman. In fact, the graphics overall were quite excellent for the NES; sprites were well defined and the level changes feature cut-scenes. (Spoiler Alert!)

Those are big spoilers

The game was released around the same time as the first batman movie (By Tim Bourton) so it was meant to be a tie in. Fortunately, the game makers avoided the rookie mistake of sticking to closely to the movie. They did there own thing while making it a decidedly batman game with a few nods to the movie thrown in (The Joker wields a comically over-sized pistol). The game plays and controls well and batman has some nice moves. He can wall jump, which is necessary for some really ingenious platforming, and can attack with four different weapons: the Batarang, a missile launching pistol (?), some kind of shuriken launcher which isn't that useful, and BATMAN. That's right, when you run out of ammo (which happens, your weapons draw from one ammo pool), you BATMAN your enemies to death. It's really just punching, but it's Batman punching. It's actually a useful move since attacks stun the enemies and you can attack while jumping to an occupied platform.

Punching and wall jumping

Batarang, second best weapon.

As I was saying (before being distracted by Batman) the game controls well. If you take damage, it is usually your own fault. Some of the enemies do come at you unexpectedly, but you can remember where those ones are. The game can be difficult, but most of that difficulty is reserved for the boss fights. The normal enemies don't present much of a challenge. Notable exceptions: these mutants who bounce around like toads and never leave you alone, and these robot spawners attached to the ceiling where you can't hit them. Other than that, the game is pretty fair; no insta-death pits and no floating Medusa heads. You get infinite continues, which is always good, and the check point system is pretty forgiving. Batman is a rock solid NES title that let you feel like Batman way before the next gen games did.