Imageby Bluetenbin

After a brief break, we return to the final installation of the series. On the cusp of the new year, we visit a game I've been enjoying a lot as of late, though only recently starting. Strap in for a write up on a game that probably entertains as much as it frustrates players. This one's reaaaalll long. I added a little write up on the classes and my party build after the divide at the end of the post proper. I'd be happy if you read it, because it gets into the more strategic part of the game and one of my favourite parts of it. Definitely consider reading it if you're considering playing it, or just getting started.

Etrian Odyssey is the 4th installment in a series of RPGs harkening back to the days where you played games with a pen and pad of paper. If you've watched Sword Art Online or the older Tower of Druaga, Etrian Odyssey games follow a similar progression: you progress through stratas of the world. In the case of EOIV, you travel from the Outlands, towards the center where the World Tree is.

Known for it's unforgiving difficulty, the Etrian Odyssey series is, in essence, the Dark Souls of the portable console. All characters being KO'd (which is very easy) sends you to a game over screen. Getting shot out of the sky by various enemies on the overworld will result in a game over. Enemies and especially FOEs (I'll explain later), always pose a threat, and with no way to recover TP (basically MP) other than using items (which are actually really difficult to get) or finding rest points, your Medic might find him or herself stretched thing keeping your party alive. New to the series is the Casual Mode, described as being slightly easier, with battles being easier, and replacing Game Over screens with being taken back to Tharsis. Certain items also won't be expended, meaning that you'll have more money to spend (potions will still be used). Difficulty can be changed at anytime, so if you're having a tough time, or find it too easy, try switching to the other difficulty and see what happens.

In terms of visuals, EOIV boasts colourful designs and some pretty beautifully drawn backgrounds. Enemies are animated with 3-D polygons, though recolours are a plenty, as typical of most RPGs. Every dungeon introduces a new monster or a few, with usually at least one new (as in not recoloured) enemy. Your own characters aren't shown in battle, though you see their portraits when choosing their actions. It's a stylistic choice that keeps with the series' old school vibe, like the older Dragon Quest games. The portraits aren't too shabby either. Not 3-D like enemies, but they have a unique art-style. Most characters are like the models in Fire Emblem Awakening - where are the feet? Their drawn to have little feet, be it because of the angle of their leg in the portrait of what, but they've generally got little feets. 

Starting off with characters, your party of 5 is completely customizable. You choose your characters' names, class (7 initial classes, with 3 unlockable ones), gender, portrait (5 choices, two colours) and initial skills (5 points initially). Classes are pretty standard RPG jobs, each with multiple builds. I really like the idea of building a party that is able to cover it's weaknesses and build up strategies. For example, my Dancer's build focuses on chasing as many attacks as possible, while my Landsknecht is a link build, meaning that she also is built to chase other character attacks. My Sniper is built to bind (disable) enemies so that my party can avoid taking a lot of damage, while doling out attack after attack. I'll save my party build for the end because it'll take some time to explain. Further complicating thing, you'll eventually be able to assign Sub-Classes to your characters, letting them use most skills from a second class. The possibilities are endless!

Etrian Odyssey's game play is unique in it's intricate map making mechanic, coupled with the old-school-esque RPG elements. First thing you'll notice playing it is that the main town, Tharsis, is essentially seven different menu items. There really isn't a city for you to explore save for the 7 locations given, and even the locations are only 1 NPC save for the Dancing Peacock (the bar). It's kind of like what you might get if your D&D map has a town and the DM reads out a list of locations in the town you can visit.

EOIV is the first title in the series to feature an overworld which you traverse via airship. Previous titles had you leave your hub location (Tharsis in this case), and go directly to your destination strata. The overworld is broken up into lands, each land being unique, having it's own theme, monsters, and harvestable items. 

Story progression takes place in the main dungeon, though each land usually has another 3 optional dungeons for you to explore. The dungeons of the earlier stratas are relatively straight forward, while the latter introduce more puzzle-y elements, like limiting how many steps you can take or ice sliding puzzles. You have a first person perspective traversing the dungeons, mapping it as you go along. The side bar on the lower screen allows you to draw your map, adding as many details as you need. There are icons for numbers (which I use a lot), gathering points where you collect materials, a variety of symbols and even markings for a really neat feature, the auto-pilot function. Put these marks down on the path your want autopilot to follow, hit play and the game will travel along the indicated path until there's either a battle or your indictions stop. It's useful for level grinding, or for when you're constantly dying against a boss and need to get back to it quick. 

In the dungeon (and on the overworld), FOEs roam the map. Standing for some silly 3 three word Latin thing, they're tough "mini-boss" monsters that wander dungeons and the overworld (overworld ones tend to be tougher). They have their own models which are visible on the map, and will chase you if you walk into their vision range. 

FOEs, along with normal monster, typically have very obvious weaknesses. Fauna, flora, and insects are typically weak to fire, while birds, other flying creatures and machines are typically weak to lightning. Unlike other RPGs, like maybe Final Fantasy, you don't typically factor in what element is strong against what. If it looks like it'd be weak to fire, it probably is. If it has flames, hit it with ice. If it's ice, hit it with fire to melt it. Monster names also tend to denote it's weakness, like Cold Watchman, which is weak to fire. In addition to the three magic elements (fire, ice, lightning), you also have three melee types, Slash, Pierce and Strike. Like the magic elements, monsters will often have melee weaknesses - plants to slash, flying things to pierce, etc. Once you've defeated an enemy, it goes into the Codex, which you can access mid-battle (a super great feature), to view details on the weaknesses, drops, stats and skills of a monster. 

The story is nothing to write home about, but it's interesting to see a story about rediscovery. Through your missions, you slowly discover, or in world, rediscover the history of the world. It's got some interesting points, but is generally not the game's strongest point. 

Street Pass, like in Monster Hunter, allows you to collect Guild Cards from passing by players. It has Medals the player has collected, as well various stats about the player's game, like enemies defeated, steps taken, item discovery, etc.

Guild Cards usually come with a treasure map, which is a set of coordinates leading to hidden treasure, as well as a hireable character of the player's choice. It can sometimes be useful just to see how another player has built their character, though out of context, it can be hard to understand why a character is built the way they are. Street Pass isn't quite as integrated into the game as it is in say Monster Hunter or Pokemon (few games are up to the level of Pokemon), and the game, being as niche as it is, doesn't get pinged often.

Etrian Odyssey 4 is a strong titles for the 3DS, satisfies that craving for a deep strategically built RPG. Watching an anime like Log Horizon, and watching Shiroe command his party using each classes strengths is really what this game really plays to. Mapping dungeons is oddly really satisfying too. Heading back into a dungeon to complete a side quest and having every square of the dungeon mapped, with all of it's resource points and hidden routes mapped gives me a sense of accomplishment, and makes these side quests infinitely easier than re-exploring the dungeon. Brings out the inner perfection drive cartographer in everybody! I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a fun and challenging title on the 3DS.

Etrian Odyssey 4 was released in North America, February 26, 2013 and is only available on the 3DS. (I think it was on sale at the eShop not too long ago, and still might be!)

* * *

As a post script, I thought I'd talk about the classes as well as my own party build.

First, the initial 7 classes.

Landsknecht - Front Line Attacker

With rounded stats, the Landsknecht has basically two different purposes. You can either have them be your heavy hitter, possessing skills that boost their attack as well as powerful weapon skills, or having the chase the rest of your party's attacks with elemental attack skills (links). Links are difficult to use early on because of TP restraints and low stats, but once you're further in the game, link damage can add up to devastating amounts.

Fortress - Front Line Tank

Your tank character. High in defense and possesses many useful defensive skills, from protecting your party from attacks to pulling aggro, Fortresses make keeping your party alive easier by taking hits for the team. They're no slouches in attacking either, wielding powerful maces and weapon skills. Generally, you can go full support, pumping skill points into tanking and defending the party, or focus on pumping defense and attacking.

Sniper - Back Row Attacker

Your ranged character. Even from the back line, your Sniper can hit enemies in either line. Though they have lower attack than the first two, as an Attacker, they're range and skills make them highly valuable in battle. They can specialize in scoring critical hits, dealing massive damage to enemies with Pierce weaknesses. Build-wise, they're typically built to either hit multiple enemies with one attack using weapon skills, or disable enemies with various binding skills. Leg binds dramatically lower the Evade stat of an enemy, allowing you to score hits much easier. Arm binds lower ATK, as well as disable enemy skills that might use the arm. Head binds stop skills that use the head, like bites or breath attacks. 

Dancer: Front or Back Line Attack and Support

A highly versatile character, Dancers can weild either a Sword or Bow, allowing them to be on either line. Their dances have various effects and effect the line they are on. Some dances allow the dancer to chase line member attacks, while others decrease the amount of TP expended on skills. They don't have high DEF, but can get really high AGI and evade stats, allowing them to dodge many attacks.

Builds for this class vary, but differences are generally what dances they have.

Medic: Front or Back Line Support

Medics are more or less essential in this game. You don't heal as you walk or after battles (unless you have a medic), and enemies could easily take your party members out. Medics have all sorts of support skills, from healing to curing the various inflictions enemies can dole out. They've also got the nifty ability to heal the party a bit after battles, ensuring that you're good to go for the next one. They can wield staves (everybody can), daggers and most importantly, maces, and can deal out a hefty amount of damage with their weapon skills. Builds typically vary which healing skills they possess as well as whether they have weapon skills or not.

Runemaster: Back Line Special Attacker

Your standard mage - low phyiscal stats, with high TP and MAG stats. Mages are essentially for punching through enemies with tough physical defenses, and with their magic buffing skills, can dole out huge amounts of damage. They have the nifty ability to increase elemental resistance for your party, and decreasing enemy resistances at the same time, meaning that if an enemy doesn't have a weakness, you can give them one. Builds generally differ based on element, but most passive skills remain the same.

Nightblade: Front or Backline Attacker

Your assassin type character. Low defense, high AGI and ATK. They wield swords and daggers, and have a range of ailment inflicting weapon skills. They'll be your DPS character as an early skill is available that allows them to attack twice when equiped with two weapons. Builds differ based on what status effects are inflicted as well as the ratio between those and the attacking skills. 

Here we get to the 3 unlockable classes. I don't know a lot about these classes because I don't use them as main classes, but I can see the general gist of them.

Arcanist: Back Line Special Attackers

A mage type character who specializes in magic that debilitates enemies. They can bind, inflict status ailments, deal damage and heal. Versatile, but difficult to integrate because of their overlap with snipers and mages. Their main stat is LUK, which impacts the effectiveness of their magic. I don't know much about the builds for this, but I'd say it differs based on which status effects you choose.

Bushi: Front Line Attackers

Heavy hitting warriors. With high ATK stats, Bushi can deal incredibly high damage off regular attack. They're essentially the Berserker or Barbarian class, and can sacrifice HP with the skill Blood Surge, allowing their already high ATK to be boosted even higher. Their weapon skills aren't too shabby either, with access to a number of different elemental and powerful skills, some hitting entire enemy lines.

Imperial: Front Line Attackers

Heavy hitting warriors that can deal incredible amounts of damage in a single strike. This class relies largely upon it's weapon skills, mainly the Drive skills, as they easily do some of the most damage in the game. The only drawback to their sheer power is that after the Drives, they enter a cool down period, where they'll be unable to use them. They're equipped with skills that lower the cool down, as well as skills that can eliminate them all together for a brief amount of time. They also possess poor AGI stats, meaning that they'll more or less move last. Just as an example, an Imperial I had did roughly 1700 damage against an enemy with a fire weakness when using the Blaze Drive skill.

Aaaaand now my party. It revolves around two characters, the Landsknecht and the Dancer, and it's strategy depends on the ability to constantly pelt the enemy with attacks. It'll get complicated as I go into specifics of the skills, so it's mainly players who will understand, but I've tried to explain it to the best of my abilities in layman terms.

I'll abbreviate each class by the bolded first letter of it's name, and sub-classes in parenthethese "( )". 

L (R) M (F) D (N)

S (A) R (M)

Landskneckt (Runemaster):

Main skills: Improved Links, Elemental Links

Primary Passive Skills: Link Mastery, (Runic Guidance), (Runic Flare)

The idea around my Landsknecht is to power through battles spamming Links. Setting Improved Links up allow Links, which usually chase the next immediate attack, to chase many, many more attacks from everybody in the party, even those using skills to attack. Link Mastery powers up Links progressively as they hit. Each Link is slightly more powerful than the last, which can result in some scary damage. The two runemaster skills power up the Landsknecht's Link skills. Guidance increases damage when attacking using an enemy's weakness, and this includes melee weakness damage (which is really nifty). Flare powers up elemental power, and is not tied only to the Runemaster's spells. All elemental attacks, including the Imperial's Drives, Landsknecht's Links and maybe even weapon elements are effected by it. 

Dancer (Night Blade):

Main Skills: Chase Samba, Trick Samba

Primary Passive Skills: Sword Dance, (Blade Fury)

The second half of my party strategy revolves around my Dancer. Chase Samba lets her follow up a line member's attack with an attack of her own, while Trick Samba has her line mates following up her own attacks. Blade Fury allows her to attack twice when two weapons are equipped, and Sword Dance allows her to attack again up to 6 times after the first attack. See the strategy yet? I'll explain. 

The entire idea around this build is to attack as much as possible, thus triggering as many Links as possible. Blade Fury + Sword Dance means that, she can attack a total of 12 times, each time triggering a Link from my Landsknecht. Each Chase Samba attack also draws Links. Trick Samba hits don't trigger links, but can be added to each Sword Dance attack. If everything goes in my favour, she'll attack 12 times, each attack chased by one from each of her line mates, bringing the total to 36. Each of the 12 hits is chased by the Landsknecht's Link, bringing the total to 48. The Landsknecht has to set up the Link, adding one attack. The medic's attack would be chased by Dancer via Chase Samba, drawing another link, bringing the total to 52 with the front line alone. Add in the two more attacks and two more Links, and you've got a total of 56 attacks.

Sniper (Arcanist)

Main Skills: Binds

Primary Passive Skills: (Ailment Boost), Chase Bind, Bullseye

The Sniper is on the team to reduce as much damage the party takes by disabling the enemy. Binding head and arms means that the party is safe from some of the most damaging skills FOEs and bosses can throw, allowing them to spam their chases. It also buys time to heal and set up the skill necessary to pull off the flurry of attacks that my party really depends on. Ailment Boost increases the likelihood of successfully binding an enemy, though the success rate still isn't super good. Chase Bind seems pretty useless initially. It allows the sniper to follow up a successful bind by party members with an attack. Unless you have Binding weapon enhancements or an Arcanist, this skill seems pretty useless until you realize that it applies to the Sniper as well. This means that my sniper will use the bind skill (which does damage), and follow up her Bind with an attack for some extra damage. Bullseye increases her crit rate to maximize damage output.

Runemaster (Medic)

Main Skills: Runic Gleam, Rune Spells

Primary Passive Skills: Runic Flare, Runic Guidance, Rune Mastery

My Runemaster easily does the most damage in the party and I rely on her to be a consistent source of heavy damage. Her main purpose is to blast the enemy's weakness with powerful rune spells, and  to maintain resistances. The basic rune spells (Fire Rune, Ice Rune, Volt Rune) boost party resistance and lower enemy resistance to the element. Setting an enemy with neutral resistance to be weak to fire means that the Landsknecht's Blaze Link will do increased damage, including all the chasing Links. It also means that her own Rune spells will do more damage, boosting her spells to sometimes devastating levels. Sublass is there simply to provide another source of TP boost, though I'm considering whether Arcanist would work.

Medic (Fortress)

Main Skills: All healing skills, (Holy Blessing), (Rampart)

Primary Passive Skills: (Iron Wall), (Knight's Boon), Auto-Heal

My medic's purpose is to keep everybody alive to ensure that the links and chases keep going. When he's not healing, he's drawing Links and chases. Simple as that. The Fortress sub-class allows him to beef up his defense, ensuring that he doesn't go down before the others. Not nearly as "specialized" as the Landsknecht or the Dancer, but an integral part of my party.

Pretty complicated but really cool at the same time, huh? There's all sorts of crazy parties people have made, and while there's really no wrong answer to your party make up! Just make sure you have a general idea of what build you want for your characters early on, or things will get a bit hairy.

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Ah Pokemon. The game that literally prints money for Nintendo. For years it's been the handheld juggernaut, rivalled only by Monster Hunter and more recently, Puzzle & Dragon. The latest title in this beloved series brings big and welcome changes to the game, streamlining and simplifying some aspects, and adding in new features for that extra little fun.

Pokemon is one of the only game franchises that I've seen from beginning to the present. I began the game back when Red, Blue and eventually Yellow were out. I didn't have a GameBoy back then, but my cousin had a Colour (GBC) that we played Pokemon on. Then came Gold and Silver which I played a bit of, but again, lacking a GB, couldn't really join until later. Once I got my GameBoy Advanced, I jumped on Silver (I didn't have Gold), and then Ruby and Fire Red when they were out. By the time Diamond and Heart Gold / Soul Silver were out, I was dedicated to the PSP, spending my time on Monster Hunter and other games. Missed out on those games, but I picked the series back up at Black-White, and have stuck with it since then. 

 

Throughout the games, Game Freak has continued to evolve the series, albeit at a cautious and very slow pace. Each game introduces one or two new ideas or features. Gold/Silver brought (limited) colour, Pokemon gender, berries, time of day and external device connectivity, as well as the only example in the series of travel between different regions (though there's a very good reason as to why that is the case). Ruby brought a whole slew of changes, bringing many of the features we know today, like weather, abilities, the EV/IV system, etc. Diamond brought online functionality, move designation (special, physical or none), gender differences in Pokemon, among others. Black-White brought more changes, like the Entralink and more animations to the battles. 

 

X-Y brings about the largest visual change to the series, moving from that familiar 2D sprite on a 3D rendered world to a beautiful fully rendered 3D models. Character models are detailed and diverse. Cities are the usual, with the small beginning town, and the huge, expansive central city, except now they're beautifully rendered in 3D, even better than the cities in Black-White which looked great. Pokemon now have fully animated 3D models, the first time they've been 3D in a main game. Attack animations have gotten revamped, with more individual graphics, though models still remain in their little section of the screen. 

EV training is streamlined, giving you the option of doing it the old way, or using the Super Training function, which allows you to do the EV training via mini-game rather than the old battle grinding. This shows the Pokemon's base stats, as well as stat growth on a graph, making it considerably easier to track your progress in training. Training comes in doses of 4, 8 and 12, with punching bags as additional rewards allowing for extra training in similar doses. IV remain the same, and are still as hard as they were to get all the "right" ones. 

 

Ever think to yourself "I wish I could actually play with my Pokemon!"? Well now you can! Pokemon-Amie lets you do just that. You can pet and feed your Pokemon as if they weren't enormous creatures, many with the strength to crush every bone in your body to a fine powder. Petting them helps increase affection, feeding them fills a hunger bar and playing the minigames, simple little tapping games, increases their enjoyment bar. They all add to how much the Pokemon like you, and is an easy way to increase happiness. Playing the minigames nets you Poke-Puffs which you use to feed your Pokemon. How some Pokemon eat is beyond my comprehension, but it should be noted that Shedinja, the discarded husk of Nincada, does not have a hunger bar and thus does not eat. 

 

Other Pokemon from passer-bys and near-by's will come into your Pokemon-Amie screen and have a chat, usually leaving you with a little gift of a background or a furniture which you can use to deck out your Poke-Room. 

Returning are the double, triple and rotation battles from the previous titles. In the wild, you might find yourself up in "group" battles, called Hordes, which pit your lone Pokemon against a group of 5-6 wild Pokemon. It's a pretty neat battle type, though I'm still waiting for full 6 on 6 mayhem battles. Another new battle type are Sky Battles. Only flying Pokemon and ones with Levitate can join these, and even then only ones that can actually fly make the cut. Sorry Doduo! The Sky Battles also prohibit a bunch of moves that wouldn't make logical sense in the sky, like Body Slam, and Spikes, so many of the competitive strategies won't work in these. Unfortunately, I don't think you can challenge other players to Sky Battles, which is a shame because it would have brought a whole new competitive "class" to the game. I'm hoping water battles are next! It'll be applied to all swimmers in the ocean and will prohibit the use of Pokemon that don't have levitate, or aren't Water or Flying Pokemon, with some exceptions. I never understood how I could send out Venasaur out in the middle of the ocean.

 

The newly added "Mega-Evolutions" give the series a completely new mechanic, allowing certain Pokemon to briefly gain large stat boosts, new abilities and typings. Most of the Pokemon are some of them most popular in the franchise, like Scizor, Gyarados, Blaziken and Mewtwo, while others are less used Pokemon and gain more utility, like Mawile maybe Ampharos? I originally thought Mega-Evolutions would work like X-Factor in MvC3, but it's more like a buff than a "last restort" kind of thing. Unfortunately, it does nothing to remedy the very clear hierarchy of Pokemon, with obvious top tiers and even more obvious "do not use because they're more or less useless" ones (almost anything cute is useless). Pokemon like Garchomp will continue to dominate the ranks, as their mega-evolutions only serve to increase their already impressive stats, making it difficult to take them down. 

 

The addition of fairy types shakes up the typing metagame, giving the powerful Dragon type another weakness, while making the unfortunately terrible Poison type slightly more viable (only slightly). A lot of the fairy types moves have terrible names, like "Play Rough" and "Baby-doll Eyes", though "Fairy Wind" and "Moon Blast" aren't bad. While the new type does certainly make running dragon types a bit more difficult, most fairy types have pretty terrible stats, perhaps balancing their resistances, though generally makes them harder to incorporate into competitive play (mainly against those pesky Garchomps). 

 

Mobility is a lot better in this game that previous titles. I've always wanted to move faster in Pokemon games. Getting around can be a real hassle, but this title remedies that by giving you running shoes at the beginning, and roller blades not long after that, letting you zip around the world like never before. And just wait until you get that bike - you'll be a speed demon! 

 

Customizable player avatars! To start, you can choose gender, and skin colour, which can't be changed. However, hair, eye colour and clothing can all be changed at a whim in game, allowing you to really personalize your character. You unlock more clothing and hair styles the further into the game you get, as well as by completing certain objectives. 

You can show off your character and Pokemon in the newly added Movie Maker, where you can make short promotional videos which are shared on the network. You can make neat little clips to show off you and a Pokemon or two, and it's packed full of neat looking effects, shots and sounds to help you do that. I personally just have a bunch shots of Bisharp's sillhouette laughing like a hearty laugh like a cocky super hero or villain. It's pretty great.

Unlike the previous games, X and Y introduced very few new Pokemon, 69 to be exact. My guess is that they spent a lot of time modelling the previous 649 Pokemon that adding another 150 new ones wasn't feasible for Game Freak, which isn't a very big studio. The addition of the PokeBank at the end of December would have given the developer much needed to time to finish modelling the remaining Pokemon not included, and allows players to gain access to their Pokemon from previous games as well as those not obtainable in X and Y.

 

The story of the game (who plays Pokemon for the story anyways?) isn't nearly as "good" as Black-White's, but it's a heck of a lot better than the older titles. Essentially the same as previous titles, Team Flare is up to no good, and similar like Black-White's Team Plasma, are in it for self-righteous reasons (the reason is actually pretty similar to Plasma's). Az brings some mystery and touching moment after the story part of the game wraps up, but the story remains fairly one tone, playing out kind of like a Scooby Doo story. Another nice touch is that you are joined by a group of characters throughout your journey. Story sections of the game will often bring all of the trainers together, before dispersing them throughout the general area. You battle all three of them, but only your actual rival (the opposite gender model) will pose much of a challenge. Of your friends, Sana brings the most emotional impact, with little touching moments dotted throughout the story. 

 

There's also a pretty good post-game quest, involving a certain detective who makes a return from the previous titles. I don't think it's nearly as meaty as Black-White's (not BW2) post-game Sage witch-hunt, though it's brings a bit more narrative to the game.

Pokemon X-Y brings some of the best integration of Street Pass in any game. Street Pass tags aren't super useful, as they'll just get you PokeMiles, which can be exchanged for little items in game. However, the coolest part is that you can see anyone playing nearby (so long as their WiFi is enabled). You can send nearby players O-Powers, power ups that effect various things in your game, like increased rewards from battle, increased EXP rates, or brief stat boosts to anyone nearby on the game.You can also challenge them to battles or even trade with them this way. I've used this feature a bunch of times on my commutes to my university and it always impresses me how well the 3DS's wireless systems work for this game.

 

The online functions, using WiFi, allow you to trade and battle anyone in the world, as the game is compatible with all regions (world wide simultaneous release). Your "Friends" list is split into three categories - Friends, Acquaintances and Passer-Bys. Friends are people on your 3DS friend list with the game, Acquaintances are any players you've traded or battled with, but aren't on your friend list. Passer-Bys are any players on the network. They'll often quickly scroll by, usually with a little speech bubble saying something like "Hello!" in various languages. If you're not connected to WiFi, Passer By's shows any player nearby. You can give anybody online O-Powers and vice versa.

 

The Wonder Trade is a new addition to the games and can be a fun way to find new Pokemon. You're essentially trading with random players on the network, meaning you could get anything. You'll usually get low level, extremely common Pokemon, though every now and then you'll find something worth keeping. 

Pokemon X and Y are probably the best games in the franchise, combining all the classic elements of the games with a gorgeous new look and innovative uses of the 3DS's wireless systems. With the story and characters in this one, you could say that X-Y is the most RPG-ish of any of the main Pokemon titles.

 

I'd recommend it whether you're a new comer, long time player or just coming back to the series. It's streamlined to be more accessible while still keeping all of it's appeal in the number crunching for competitive play.

Pokemon X and Y were released October 12th, 2013, and is only on the 3DS.

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The big mashup of Capcom, Sega and Namco-Bandai has it's turn in the spotlight! 

 

Essentially a love letter to their fans, Project X Zone takes some of the most well known characters from each company's vast library of games and throws them all into a single game. With 60 "playable" characters, and a total of over 200 characters in the game, fans of these company can more or less be sure to recognize a good number of these characters.

 

 

Project X Zone is a triple-threat (Capcom, Namco-Bandai, Sega) cross over strategical rpg. The battle system, which I'll cover later in the post, is really unique and is an interesting take on the combat system. Most major franchises of each company is covered, though there are a few exceptions. Not including enemy characters, each company has 12 playable characters and 6 non-playable characters. Characters are paired into units, sometimes from similar games, sometimes not. The additional 6 from each company are solo characters, free radical characters that can join a pair to give passive effects, skills and assists during battle. 

From Capcom, the main games are Street Fighter, Dark Stalkers and Megaman. 

• Street Fighter: Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, Juri
• Dark Stalkers: Morrigan, Hsien-Ko, Dmitri
• Resident Evil: Chris, Jill
• Megaman: X, Zero, Tron Bonne & Servbots
• Dead Rising: Frank West
• Devil May Cry: Dante, Lady
• Rival Schools: Batsu
• Ghosts 'n' Goblins: Arthur
• Cyberbots: Devilotte 

From Namco-Bandai, the main game is Tekken, though other franchises are represented.

• Tekken: Jin, Xiaoyu, Heihachi, Alisa B.
• Tales of Vesperia: Yuri, Estellise, Flynn
• God Eater: Soma, Alisa, Lindow 
• .hack: Kite, Black Rose
• Xenosaga: KOS-MOS, T-elos
• Endless Frontier: Haken, Kaguya
• Namco x Capcom: Reiji, Xiaomu, Saya
• Super Robot Wars OG: Sanger
• Valkyrie no Boken: Valkyrie
• Yumeria: Neneko/Neito

Sega brings mostly characters from many of their older games, as well as some characters from their much more recent games.

• Valkyria Chronicles 3:  Kurt, Riela, Imca
• Resonance of Fate (End of Eternity): Zephyr, Leanne, Vashyron
• Sakura Wars: Ichiro, Sakura, Gemini, Erica
• Virtua Fighter: Akira, Pai
• Shining Force EXA: Toma, Cyrille
• Space Channel 5: Ulala
• Dynamite Cop: Bruno
• Zombie Revenge: Rikiya
• Fighting Vipers: Genghis Bahn III

I'm sure most people who have been playing games for long enough will know that there are probably better characters than some of those on the list. From Capcom, how about Onimusha or Breath of Fire? Namco-Bandai with no Soul Calibur? Sega...sega...I don't know what else who else they could have thrown in.

The battle system really sets this one out from the average S-RPG. Battles are done on a 2D fighting game-esque screen, akin to something like Street Fighter or Dark Stalkers. Each unit has 5 different attacking skills which are imputted using 2 button commands. Enemies will be launched into the air, or bounced off the wall (side of the screen), allowing you to chain your attacks together and build up your combo (and damage) as well as an ability meter which is shared by all your controlled characters. Commands are simple button combinations, A+D Pad right, left, up, down or neutral. Moves can have special attributes which you'll want to capitolize on. Poison, Stun and Down all will come in extremely useful when in combat. Hit the enemies just before they hit the ground, and you'll score a critical hit, doing significantly more damage, breaking guards and building more meter. It's something you'll want to get good at, because it'll help take out enemies much quicker than regular attacks would. A nearby unit can join the battle as an extra assist, breaking guards or building meter.

The battles are beautifully animated with detailed 2D sprites harkening back to the days of sprite animated fight games, like the older Capcom and SNK fighting games (think SNES era). The characters comically fly and bounce around the screen when hit, and your own units (the pairs) will bounce around together as a single entity which is pretty funny to watch. The "supers", skills useable only once you've topped off your special bar, are always a treat to watch because of all the animations.

While the visual aspects of the game are great, the story is nothing to write home about. It's to be expected, considering they've taken characters from all over and thrown them into once game. It's actually impressive that they've managed to construct a story that somewhat logically (suspend your ideas of logic for the time being) connects and brings in all the characters.

Another flaw of the game is it's difficulty curve. Rather than making the AI better as you progress, they throw more enemies at you, to the point where you're often outnumbers 4:1. It makes stages go by unbelievably slow, as you'll often be cutting through some 20+ enemies units. The enemies are simple enough. The standard enemy unit might have a shield you have to punch through, but most don't. Low level enemies won't use any skills, but the higher level ones will. These higher level ones can take a long time to whittle down as they can fire off skills with their own meter, and have as much HP as some bosses do. On the topic of bosses, these enemies have ridiculously huge amounts of HP. You can typically expect to deal about 20-25 thousand damage per unit attack if you're lucky. Bosses, especially towards the end, have upwards of 120,000 HP, making taking them down a long battle. Each chapter also is more or less structured the same way: you begin with an objective, and half way through that objective will change, bringing another wave of enemies in. The battles, which were really interesting and fun earlier in the game become tedious as you have to punch the same commands in over and over to grind your way through a stage.

Flaws aside, it's a good and fun game, especially for those who are fans of these companies. I don't recommend marathonning it, or it's repetitiveness will catch up to you really quick. It's combat system is easily it's best feature, but does make it a difficult game to play on the bus. Combat can be paused, but catching an enemy after unpausing is a feat in itself.

Project X Zone was released June 25th, 2013 and is only on the 3DS.

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Going in an almost chronological order, we come to the latest installment of Animal Crossing. The game that everybody and their cat was playing at one point. In fact, a lot of the people I street pass are still playing it. 

This was the first AC game I've played, missing out on the previous titles (GameCube, DS, Wii), and perhaps the perfect time to jump in on the franchise. It's the best rated of the series and saying that everyone has it wouldn't be too far off. 

Animal Crossing is a great example of Nintendo's fun and simple game design. There's nothing complicated about Animal Crossing, and it's accessibility makes it a great game for just about anyone. There's no combat, no timer you're running against, no quest to save the world or a big bad enemy to defeat. You just go about your everyday life in your town - and the game gives you loads to do.

Beginning with visuals, the game has a fun, bright and vibrant colour palette that's very easy on the eyes. Your town is full of colour - green grass, blue sky and ocean and a variety of flowers. Your citizens come in a variety of colours - how about a purple and blue frog? The 3D for this game helps bring out the depth of the world, which is designed cylindrically. To get an idea of this, it's basically like walking along a really wide log. Things roll up from out of view, which is kind of neat. 

In New Leaf you play as the Mayor, giving you the additional stresses of having to choose what buildings and town projects get done. You also can choose your town's flag and the town tune, which plays when interacting with your citizens, going in and out of buildings and at the hour. 

Gameplay wise, there's lots to do in your town. As you purchase items from Timmy's, you can do more stuff in your town. There's fishing in the river and ocean, digging for fossils, and tending to town flowers, just to name a few things. You'll eventually unlock the tropical island where there are minigames you can play with friends, or exploit the island for hundreds of thousands of bells, which you'd use for either town projects (which can get really pricey) or expanding your house, which will cost a ridiculous amount towards the later expansions. The stuff you can find around town, like fruits, bugs and fish change with the season, so if you want to collect everything, you'll have to come back to it every season. In addition to stuff in the town changing with the season, the seasons have an effect on your town. Winter brings snow and Christmas themes to your town. The summer brings nightly firework shows, and those god awful mosquitoes. 

 

There always seems to be something to do in New Leaf. One week it might be a bug catching contest, the next could be a fishing contest. The most impressive thing about the game is how alive the town feels. Your townspeople talk to each other and do their own thing. They'll have their own problems, and who gets along with who. Some of them will move out and new ones will come in. The game gives an incentive to coming back to it often, and characters will talk about how you were gone for a while if you take an extended leave from the game. 

The game has a large roster of possible townspeople, and if you wanted, you could make citizens move out until you were happy with the population of your town. Characters fall into personality types, which effect their behaviour and how they'll interact with you and the other townsfolk. It leads to a wide variety of character possibilities in your town.

For me, the biggest motivating drive in the game is getting the coolest house possible. Racking up thousands of bells to constantly expand and customize my house while filling it with the coolest furniture (which I'll explain in a bit). I'm making my house to be as realistically livable while being outrageously extravagant and quirky. 

 

Finding cool clothing and designs in the stores and from QR code you find online is a lot more enjoyable than it sounds and you'd be surprised (or maybe not) as to what kind of designs you'll find around on the net. 

 

On to street pass. Passing other players registers their town in the HH Showcase, where you can see how other people have done their houses. You get to tour their house and order most furniture you see on display in the houses. It'll be where you'll primarily find cool furniture for your house. 

 

Multiplayer (via WiFi) will let you visit a friend's town or have them come over. Once you're together, you can run around the town, or head to the island and play the games (which are easier with more people). Once you have the dream suite built, you can pay a visit to an "offline" version of a random person's town. Like most of Nintendo's online play, it's not perfect. It saves when you activate WiFi, it saves when a friend comes over or leaves. I understand what it's doing, but all that time spent watching the save animation go round adds up.

Overall, Animal Crossing New Leaf is an excellent game for any age of player and for any kind of player. It's simple controls and systems make it a great game to relax to, and great for something before bed. It's fun by yourself (never alone with your townsfolk with you!) and a great time with friends. Plus, if you're in an area that gets a lot of streetpasses, you'll probably have a lot of passes on AC, because it seems that everyone was playing it, and a lot of them are still playing it.

Animal Crossing New Leaf was released June 9th, 2013 and is only on the 3DS.

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Continuing with this series, I should note that I'm only covering games I've bought and played. It's felt like I've been playing a whole lot of games, but looking at the actual list, you could count it on your fingers.

I'm a huge fan of the Monster Hunter series, starting out on the PSP's Freedom 2 and continuing through every iteration on the PSP before it's jump to the Wii and 3DS. I'm by no means a fantabulous Hunter, but I think I'm decent enough.

Monster Hunter is a franchise that I've given at least 600 hours to over the course of five games. The grind for better equipment is always on, and it rarely dull. The hunts are loads of fun and highly addictive.

MH3 Ultimate is the latest game in a long franchise of games dating back to the PS1. This particular one is an "enhanced port" of MH Tri that was released for the Wii, with updated weapons and monster lists. For those familiar with the series, it's taken most of the monsters and weapons from 3 Portable on the PSP, and stuck it into the existing setting and systems of Tri.

Visually, the game looks great - that is to say that it doesn't look much different from the PSP iterations. I feel like it might run faster on the 3DS, because movement seems...nippier if that makes any sense. Movement seems more fluid and runs faster. Aside from that, it doesn't really have any additions to the PSP's graphics. Many of the same features remain from them, including the flat textures on things like shrubbery, trees and grass. It's nothing major, because if you're paying attention to things like that, you're probably getting trampled on by the monsters.The 3D function adds little to the game, and I recommend not using it as it'll probably be easier to play if you don't have to keep it within a small range of movement (to keep the 3D effect in focus). The cut scenes are gorgeous, perhaps even nicer than on the PSP. The 3D effect during cut scenes gives a lot more visual depth to the scene, bringing out the foreground-background effect.

Game play wise, like the visuals, not much has changed from either the Wii's Tri or from Portable 3rd.For those coming from the PSP games, the button layout is exactly the same. Both systems have the same buttons, meaning that the switch is pretty much seamless. The second screen on the 3DS opens up a world of convenience, allowing you to customize what panels are on it and where they are on the screen. The most important panels you'll probably want to have are the item bar, the map and the monster target. The item bar panel makes it much easier to manage and access your items, as the item bar is now just a tap away. The monster target locks your camera onto large monsters. It comes in handy, especially for when you lose track of where a monster jumped to.

From Tri, the underwater battles return and are as frustrating. They're easily my least liked element of the game. Perhaps it's because I never got used to it, but I found the movement to be sluggish and the addition of the vertical axis of movement made it difficult to chase down monsters (most of which move a lot faster in the water than you do). It's not a bad addition, just that it didn't work for me.

Also returning is the Free Hunt. It replaces the full farm that was in the PSP games, where you could forrage for free materials. The farm in 3 Ultimate is limited in that you spend Resource points, a separate currency returning from Tri and gained by successful free hunts or converting items, to gather farmable materials. The Free Hunt gives you unlimited (there's no timer) access to the Moga Woods, and initially spawns large monsters according to the forecast. Monsters that you've hunted for the village quests that were on the Moga Woods / Deserted Island map will spawn in the free hunt. I believe it's a continuous spawn, and you could technically just hunt one long string of monsters if you wanted it.

The game supports the Circle Pad Pro attachment, which adds the ZL, ZR buttons and an additional analog nub. I haven't played the game without it, but I hear it plays just fine without it. I prefer the attachment because it makes the 3DS (original) more comfortable to hold, and the Z buttons are a lot easier to use than the 3DS LR buttons. The Z buttons and the extra analog control camera movement, with the Zs controlling it on a horizontal, and the analog giving manual control. It's most useful in the water where you have more than just the horizontal plane to worry about.

The street pass functionality allows you to collect and exchange guild cards via street pass, allowing you to register passing by hunters to your "card list". Street Passed hunters can then be hired and sent out on quests, which seem to be chosen for you, while you do your regular business. The hunters have odds of successfully completing their quest, and you can raise these odds by sending more of the street passed hunters (up to 4). The more hunters you hire, the more it'll cost you (in zeny), but they'll bring back drops from their hunt once they're done. If successful, the hunters can help in either making zeny or gathering little bits of material from here and there.

Monster Hunter's great fun and highly addictive. You're always driven to either do better on the next hunt, or gather materials for inproved weapons and armour. The game really shines in multiplayer, as monsters are tougher to accomodate for the additional players. You could plan your hunting party to be balanced, with range, support and attackers, or throw caution to the wind and charge the monster with a party of 4 hammers. Easily one of the best games for multiplayer on the 3DS.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was released March 19th, 2013 here in North America, and is only for the 3DS. Monster Hunter 4 (3DS) is out in Japan, with no word on when or if it will make it to this side of the Pacific (I'm really hoping it does).

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Just popping back in to do a little writing, something I've been doing a lot of in my English-lit classes, and not enjoying any of it. 

These might run a bit long, and likely won't follow the usual styles I use because change is nice. Plus, I'm gonna try to run these a bit longer than usual, so sit back with a mug of your favourite tea or coffee, get your red pens out to correct my numerous errors and prepare for the worst.

Most of the games on this list will be for the 3DS because that's pretty much the only thing I've been playing on this year. My 3DS game collection went from a handful of games from this time last year to probably more than double that. It's been a good year for the 3DS and I thought I'd run through the ones I played.

 Awakening is the latest entry into a long series of strategical-rpgs by Intelligent Systems (and Nintendo). In Japan, you can trace these games all the way back to the Famicom days, while here on this side of the Pacific, you'll find the earliest ones on the Game Boy Advanced.

I regretably missed the DS game. By the time I realized it even existed, no store I looked carried it. It came out during my Monster Hunter days on the PSP, and to me, no other game really existed. 

Anywho, I've been a fan of the series ever since it's GBA days here in North America. It's a great game - the strategical side of it isn't too easy, and usually isn't frustratingly difficult. The relationship system between the characters is a charming and adds a lot of personality to your characters. It's a great way of developing the characters into "people" we can get attached to, rather than just pixels and names on a screen.

Awakening takes everything I love about the series and polishes it, taking it to the next and new level. Pairing characters up has much more of an effect on the battle than just pulling people out of harms way, as it was in the previous games. The relationships, especially in the higher difficulties, are vital to your success.Everything comes together to make this one of the best games on the system.

And on to the finer details now.

Visually, the game is gorgeous. The movement screen remains generally the same as the games before it, with the little unit sprite that you move around. The battle animations are fully animated with polygons, though those 2D sprites of the GBA games were charming and pretty cool in their own right. You have a couple camera options during these scenes: wide pan, auto movement,  and "first person". It's normally on auto, which moves the camera to follow the action. Wide Pan is a wide shot, but is static, showing the full scene. First person should be simple enough to imagine as to what this one looks like. It puts you into the perspective of your unit in combat, but for a lot of the mounted characters, the camera clips into the animal. Nothing major, but I don't really recommend using this option as your primary viewing because these battle animations are pretty cool. They're fully animated and the positions of characters isn't tied to where they start, which is nice. The cut scenes, previous done with character portraits are now either done with in-game character models or, for the nicer ones, are prerendered CG animated scenes. These cut scenes are gorgeously animated - fluid animation and are absolutely gorgeous using the 3D slider (looks just as good without the 3D). On the topic of 3D, the battle animations and the nicer cut scenes are what you'd turn it on for. Movement screen doesn't really benefit all that much from it, but does give you the feeling of looking into a playset.

Game play wise, it generally plays the same as it's previous iterations. The addition of the new pairing system introduces a new element, making character relationships much more important that they used to be. Under the old system, units near each other stat boosts. With the new system, they'll have a chance of attacking with the attacking unit, meaning that your unit will do his or her attacks, and the supporting unit will also attack. It helps take out enemy units that have more HP than you can deal with a single character, and also can make raising low level characters up a lot easier if you plan it right. Supporting character gain support levels, ranging from C to A or S, which increase the bonus given and chance of attacking. Same gendered characters and some male-female pairs top off at A, while characters topping off at S have the ability to be married, giving a larger bonus, chance of support attacks and unlocking the female character's child.

Characters also now have 2-3 skills per class, with up to 5 equipped at a time. These skills range from passive or active stat boosts to attack modifying skills. For North America, skills were present in the second GBA game, Fire Emblems: The Sacred Stones, where each class had a unique skill. In Awakening, once a character learns a skill, they can equip it at anytime, meaning that you could have a Cavalier with skills from a mercenary, mage and archer if you wanted to. This opens up a huge window of opportunity for character customization. My Cordelia isn't the same as my girlfriend's, and hers isn't the same as her friends. Once you've cleared the story mission, you could try to level all your characters to the point where they become unstoppably broken to torment those who try taking them on in the Street Pass fuctionality, which I'll talk about now.

Street Pass is perhaps the coolest feature of the 3DS. In a sleep state, the 3DS sends out packets of data containing game information and your Mii avatar to passing by 3DS units, exchanging them for various purposes in games. In Awakening, Street Pass allows you to bring another player's party into your game, letting you buy most items that are carried by their characters. You'll have ability to challenge that party to battle, and hire their avatar to join your army. Challenging these parties to battles often pit you up against max stat'd characters who are near impossible to defeat, so more often than not, you'll probably be buying items off them. You'lll gain access to items you might not havbe access to yet in the story, like Silver weapons or Named weapons which have additional effects to aid you in battle.

In terms of DLC, Awakening is probably Nintendo's first forray into the realm of downloadable content. It has the good kind of DLC: challenge maps, and a variety of story and mission maps. The meatiest of these is the Xenologues is the Future Past maps, which puts you in the future from where Lucina and the other "children" come from. For post-game grinding, there's also a map they earns you massive amounts of Gold, experience points and the special Regalia weapons, which you can use to make your Street Pass party an unstoppable force.

The story of Awakening doesn't change too much from the previous games. You play as a fully customizable avatar character who, unlike many other games, is a major character in the story. Your avatar is a full character, with dialogue (no silent protagonist in this one!), relationships and a full set of support conversations. You customize the avatar's gender, appearance, voice and initial stats, but their dialogue won't change (though it does change depending on your character's gender). To get the most emotionally impactful story, I recommend you have your Avatar as female and have her marry Chrom, the main character. I won't spoil, but I think having another character married to Chrom results in a less dramatic story. Trust me!

Fire Emblem: Awakening was released February 4th, 2013 in North America and is only on the 3DS.