Jake Rushing – Wario Ware Smooth Moves (Wii), Muramasa The Demon Blade (Wii)
Now that I finished with my PC games for now, it’s time that I start tackling my Wii backlog, since I have (almost) all of the Wii games for my personal collection.
I’m going to start off with playing one of my most recent additions to my collection, Wario Ware Smooth Moves. I got a chance to play it at Fanime this year in the Video Game Hall portion of the convention, and I never had so much fun playing a Wario Ware game before. Using motion to play mini games? Using motion controls never had me more immersed and invested in these mini games! Hopefully I’ll beat the game before next week.
When I feel like switching things up, I’ll start playing Muramasa: The Demon Blade. This game was recommended to me by a good friend in college a while ago. And I gotta say, it certainly feels well flushed out with the art style as well as the fast paced combat that’ll keep you on your toes. No wonder why I find this game on the top Wii game lists of all time.
Ben Fitzgerald – Anna’s Quest (PC)
After a couple of days away from video games (too much Mass Effect) I’m back to pointing and clicking with Anna’s Quest, an adventure game from Daedalic that was released last year. I wanted to buy it then, but with my backlog of games, I decided against it. However, 67% off during Gog’s summer sale was just too good to resist.
You play as Anna, a very sweet, good natured little girl who lives in fairy tale forest – with some strange modern technologies as well. Her grandfather has fallen ill, so she decides to brave the evil forest to search for a cure. Alas, she is kidnapped by an evil old witch, who performs experiments on her. Thanks to her newfound friend, a talking teddy bear named Ben (who was once a boy, cursed by the witch) and her newly discovered telekinetic powers, she launches a daring escape before the witch can carry out whatever evil plans she has in mind.
I’m just a little ways into the game, but so far, it’s very cute. The heroine is as good-natured a girl as can be, which is a refreshing change of pace. It’s nice to play video games where I don’t have to kill people sometimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDGdvFhY_MI
Sean Willis – Rodea The Sky Soldier (Wii, Wii U), ActRaiser (Snes, Japan version)
Rodea the Sky Soldier, I found a copy of the first batch which included a copy of its original Wii version at a local super market. Got it price matched at 18 dollars, so nice find. It’s an interesting game but what is most weird about it is how the Wii version it comes with is more arcade like and the Wii U version (also 3DS version which is a direct port) is focused more on exploration and foregoes the smooth one wiimote controls for clunky standard gamepad controls. I don’t see why the Nunchuck and Wiimote setup couldn’t have had a working point and aim function but once you get around the stiff controls and know how to deal with the camera when it locks up then you can start to have a little fun. The Wii U version feels like a sort of revised port to a new console but the Wii version was never released so, weird they didn’t just combine the two. Oh well, the first is more my speed and a ton of fun and the second one is at least still interesting with extras to boot so I definitely got my money’s worth. It is a Yuji Naka game by the way so I guess it’s fair to compare at least the Wii version with Nights into Dreams and Skies of Arcadia, Sonic as well actually since it has a sorta homing attack and spin mechanic in it. I dunno, its hard to recommend the game without a copy of the Wii version but I’m kinda happy I bought it and got both. It’s worth a look at least. Now just to unlock the Wii U version FPS mode and see how bad that makes things, at least for a laugh.
I’ve also been playing a lot of ActRaiser all over again, but this time I found a direct translation hack of the Japanese version which is known to be a lot harder, cause I beat the game so many times, I need a challenge. It’s a great game going from castlevania style action platforming to a sort of civilization managment game and back to action platforming again as you play a sort of god trying to bring humans back to the world and slay all the demons who took over. The action stages you um, I guess play as a statue, and the management stages you play as a helper angel who shoots arrows at cute little demon things and helps ya setup direction for the town along with using lightning, earthquakes, and rain to help the villagers or just do some terian clean up. I love the music in the game the most along with the wonder art and backgrounds which give the game a sort of larger appearance. A shame the sequel resorted to just an okay platformer with more generic music. Still if you get a chance to play even just the easier US version I highly suggest it, one of my favorite and one of the more original games back then.
Terry Randolph – Just Cause 3 (Xbox One), Overwatch (PS4)
Currently the show I’m in is starting to undergo a very intensive schedule which puts me out of commission for a while in terms of games to play. That said, the moments I feel like I might have some free time will see me freeing the island of Medici in Just Cause 3 and checking out the new patches installed into Overwatch.