Nintendo Okie

A review by Josh Beebe

I’m a big Final Fantasy fan.  I love the stories.  I love leveling up.  I love fighting bosses.  I even love collecting equipment.  I’ll go ahead and boldly say that FFX was the best in the series, topping even the monstrous FF7.  However, when you think of Final Fantasy these days, it just isn’t the same as it used to be.  You used to lose hours upon hours of time and were punished heavily for not saving.  The difficulty was drastically increased back in the 8 and 16-bit days, and this game is a direct throwback.

The 4 Heroes of light goes back to Final Fantasy’s original roots.  Traveling the top down world, you will eventually meet your fellow party members, in which you can have up to 4 at a time.  You equip these party members with the best equipment that you can find and go out to save the day.  Nothing new here; combat will also feel familiar.  It’s very traditional turn based combat where you select an action for each character to perform, then the battle plays out.  I have one huge complaint here.  Generally, you can always select a target for your action.  If you want to attack an enemy, you would select the enemy to attack.  If you wanted to heal your comrade, you would select the comrade to heal.  For some reason it was decided to leave this option out….WHAT??  Yea, it can get frustrating.  The game will auto-pick your target.  It does an okay job of selecting the right target, but there’s the occasional “well that’s just great” moment.  Sometimes you feel as if you could have won the battle if you had the option to target correctly.       

The battle system; the staple of any Final Fantasy game.  It’s different every game, and always interesting to say the least.  The system implemented here is a crown and AP system.  You essentially equip different crowns to change your abilities and statistics.  It feels a lot like the job system.  It is pretty cool when you get a new crown though.  To gain new abilities, you equip these crowns with different types of gems, which are found by defeating enemies.  And apparently, wearing different crowns changes your entire outfit.  AP is what you use to perform an action.  You have a total of 5 AP.  Each turn you gain AP, and you are even given an option to boost your AP at an expense of a turn.  It’s not much, but it works.

One thing to note about this game is that it’s difficult.  I found myself anxiously looking for a save point and usually dying before I found one.  Even at the first boss, I felt that I was severely lacking something, but I wasn’t quite for sure what that was.  After roaming around and beating a few baddies, I eventually triumphed.

Overall, this game doesn’t bring anything new to the table.  But is it fun?  Sure.  If you like traditional turn based battles, this will definitely occupy your time.  For me, the best thing it has going for it is its old school charm.

Final Score 3/5
Review copy provided by Square Enix

No more worries, Okamiden has been offically announced for North America for a 2011 release date.  I don’t think there was much concern the DS exclusive sequel would make it to stores stateside, but Okami fans will probably sleep a little easier tonight. 

Like it’s predessor, Okamiden will see you through an adventure as you restore color to the world around you.  The art from this game is reason enough to buy it.  But if that doesn’t get you, just look at that cute, little wolf god.  If that doesn’t melt your heart you might be a robot.  And if so, that is awesome!

Also, Capcom’s puzzle adventure Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, has been given a winter 2010 release date.  Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective plays just as you would expect.  You are a ghost that uses tricks to detect things.  In other words, you have to solve crimes as a ghost.  Sounds like fun.

Majesco has announced a deal with Martha Stewart to produce games based her home and garden exploits.  I imagine this will birth several casual games based on matching curtains with throw pillows.  That kind of sounds like a Mario Party mini-game actually. 

Although no specific plans have been talked about yet, you can take it to the bank the games will be released for Wii and DS.  Maybe a Natal game will come about at some point.  I don’t plan on buying any of these games but the potential for sales seems pretty huge.  A few commercials during The View or Oprah and we may have a million seller on our hands.

7-Eleven has a history of breaking street dates for big game releases.  Now they are moving into the used game business.  They have announced a partnership with the game distributer Game Trading Technologies, Inc.  In September, 7-Eleven stores will start stocking used games under a “Great games below $20″ program. 

This doesn’t do much for us Tulsa natives, but other parts of the state will soon be able to get a jumbo Icee and a copy of Elebits in one convenient location.  I wonder what kind of return policy they will have.  Would you be able to return the game and exchange it for a couple honey buns?

Atari has sent over a trailer highlighting the new team captains for the next installment of the Backyard Sports franchise, Backyard Sports Sandlot Sluggers! There are nine new captains for this years game including Tony Gianni Delvecchio, Keisha Monet Phillips, and Pablo Ramon Sanchez.  The game is being developed by HB Studios and is scheduled for release on May 25th, 2010.

Monster Hunter Tri launches today and alongside it at many places it has been bundled with Nintendo’s new Classic Controller Pro.  Nintendo has also announced that the controller will be available for purchase seperately for anyone wanting to get a new controller for many of their games.  The Classic Controller Pro is available in both black or white for $19.99.  The form factor for the controller has been changed somewhat.  There are now handles on the bottom of the controller for better grip.  The Z buttons have been  moved from the akward position they were in to a more traditional second trigger position.  The wire leading to the Wii Remote has also been moved from the top of the controller to the bottom.  If you’re interested head on over to any local retailer that carries Nintendo products to pick one up for yourself.  I know I’ll be getting at least one.  It’s a sharp new controller.

I own a DS, one to be exact.  I wouldn’t mind having another but I really don’t need two.  I must be in the minority.  Doesn’t it seem like Nintendo has sold about twice as many of their handheld as the world has people?  This month was no exception.  Thanks to the good people at Gamasutra we have learned that the DS sold over 700,000 units last month.  141,000 of that was the DSi XL alone.  

I guess the announcement of the 3DS isn’t going to slow DS sales down any.  It actually seemed to help since this has been the best month for the DS in quite some time.  I am almost starting to feel guilty that I am still rocking my Electric Blue DS “Phat.”  Almost.

It’s been a while since we have got a new Star Fox game.  But it isn’t from a lack of volunteers.  Hideki Kamiya of Platinum Games recently expressed on Twitter his interest of making a new Star Fox game. 

“I want someone from Nintendo to come to Platinum, point a gun and say, “You people make the new Star Fox game.”

Seems a little extreme to me but who am I to argue.  This guy does seem to have some sort of obsession with guns though.  I can let the whole witch with guns on her feet thing slide but now he wants Reggie to force him to do a barrel roll at gunpoint.  That’s devotion right there. 

I still think Nintendo is going to announce a Star Fox game for WiiWare soon.  I guess we will have to wait till E3 to find out.

This game looks really cool.  I’m going to have to get you guys some more info on this game.  It’s called Robox and it’s from a small Spanish developer known as Dreambox Games.