Vince's New Years Resolution Dynasty

[Vince]

Every year, I and countless other people make 'resolutions' for the upcoming year. Like the majority of people out there, I usually never come close to fulfilling those resolutions through even February, let alone the whole year. So this year I've decided to change things up a little bit. First, I'm making a Dynasty Report out of my resolution -- hopefully this will keep me a little more motivated to stick with it. Second, I decided to make my resolution something I would enjoy doing.

I, Vince Cressio, resolve to play more video games in 2006.



Seriously, though. I am what most would call a video game addict. I own way too many video games, and I buy more all the time. I own over 70 NES games alone.

This wouldn't really be a resolution with that alone, however. So I have decided that I am going to play through and beat most of the games that I haven't yet done so before I buy any more video games. Oftentimes, I'll buy a game, play it for a week or so, then shelve it forever. This last year was more rough than most, as I moved twice, and had 4 different jobs -- kept me quite busy. Since I own plenty of games that I haven't beaten, I would probably be busy until 2020 trying to beat them ALL, I've narrowed it down. So my actual New Year's Resolution:

I resolve not to buy any new video games until I have played through and beaten the following ten games that I already own:

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Gamecube)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Playstation 2)
Disgaea (Playstation 2)
Neverwinter Nights (PC)
Ogre Battle (SNES/Playstation)
Final Fantasy IX (Playstation)
Final Fantasy X (Playstation 2)
Jagged Alliance 2 (PC)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC)
The Secret of Evermore (SNES)

These games are all on here for a myriad of reasons. I'll explain each in detail as I get to the games (which I'm going to attempt to play one at a time). For the most part, they are games that I have shelved at one point or another because I got busy and never got back to them. For Final Fantasy IX, my little brother 'accidentally' erased my memory card with my 40-hour save file on it, and I was very disappointed. For Ogre Battle, every time I pick the game back up I have this irritating habit of starting a new game, rather than continuing my old one. Some of the older games are actually new to me, as I got KOTOR and JA2 within the last few months.

Originally, I was going to do 12 games, one for each month, but I didn't want to burn myself out, and as it is, I don't think I can make it through the entire list. With 2 FOF Multiplayer leagues, an OOTP Multiplayer league, 2 Civilization PBEM games going and one Hattrick team to run, my time for other games is not exactly overwhelming. I'll do my best though.

Oh, and the not buying new games thing doesn't apply if I need to upgrade a program because of an online league. Those don't count (so my loophole for buying SI's version of OOTP is in place).

[Vince]

I'm going to use this thread to keep track of my progress. I will more than likely post spoilers to the games I am playing, so be warned. None of these are really hot new items (Evermore was released almost exactly one decade ago!), so I don't think anyone's in danger of spoiling their game experience.

I'm not exactly sure how I'll document it, but I'll probably give some tidbits about where I am in the game, what I think of the game, etc. Most of these games are games I have played a lot and love -- I've just never beaten them.

Goals:
365 Days
Goal Pace: 36.5 Days per Game

Results:
65 Days
Games Finished: 2
Current Pace: 32.5 Days per Game

Metroid Prime 2 -- Started 1/10/06, Finished 2/23/06 (44 days)
Secret of Evermore -- Started 2/28/06, Finished 3/6/06 (8 days)
Final Fantasy IX -- Started 3/7/06

Final Fantasy X
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Disgaea
Ogre Battle
Jagged Alliance 2
Neverwinter Nights
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

[Vince]

Current Game: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Platform: Gamecube
Release Date: November 26, 2004

The Story: A little more than a year ago, I was in gamers heaven -- three of my favorite video game franchises were coming out with sequels all within days of each other. I splurged, and $200 later walked out of the local Game Stop with brand new copies of Half Life 2 Collector's Edition, Metal Gear Solid 3: Sons of Liberty and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Half Life 2 ended up getting all of my attention because it is in fact the best game ever made. Sadly, that meant the other two got the cold shoulder.

The Metroid Prime series on Gamecube is a first person shooter -- the original Metroid Prime was an amazing game, and was a major selling point for the Gamecube for me. The sequel was a no-brainer buy for me, although I worried that it would simply be a second mission for the first game. Then I realized that I would be ok with spending $40 on exactly that sort of game -- an additional mission with the same gameplay as the first. Any improvements would be gravy.

So far, I'm about 2 hours in, and things are going well. The graphics and gameplay seem to be exactly the same, but that is in no way a bad thing. The plot is developing well (although the "All your gear has been stolen!" routine is tired and repetitive with every one of these games, one of the major driving points of the game is to acquire the next piece of equipment which will allow you to get up/around/over/through the obstacle and continue the story, so it's hard to avoid the 'equipment loss' routine), and things are starting to fall into place slowly. I really enjoy the log books of each of the Space Marines -- they do a fantastic job of telling the story, and they convey the expected fear and anticipation of stranded marines in a strange place quite well. So far, my only gripe is that the game seems way too easy -- the first 'boss' that I faced hurt me all of one time, for less than 10% of my energy.

I'll probably put in a little more time tonight, then hit the sack. I'm off work all day tomorrow, so I should be able to put in a few hours tomorrow as well.

I love this resolution already

[ibnsgirl]

Interesting premise, Vince. I'll be interested to see what you think of KOTOR.

I'm not a gamer in the least, but I like watching Tony play -- kinda like watching a movie, but I get to help/give advice/etc regarding the action.

Anyway, KOTOR was one of my favorites, but Tony hit a bit of a brick wall, bought some other games, and, well, it's collecting dust until he gets back to it.

Best of luck in your resolution!!

[Vince]

Thanks ibnsgirl!

[Vince]

Well, I just died for the first time in Metroid Prime 2. I'm about to fire it up again, so we'll see if it's the difficulty, or just my rustiness. Two Darkling-Possessed Space Pirates just lit me up like a Christmas Tree -- the girlfriend calling my cell phone mid-firefight didn't help. These guys were a good bit tougher than anything I've faced yet, rusty game play or not, though, so that bodes well.

[Vince]

So now I've delved into a decent chunk of the game, and I can give a pretty solid impression of it to this point. Just in case you weren't sure -- this post has quite a bit of spoilage in it, so stop reading now if you're interested in avoiding that sort of thing.

Basic storyline is that you are stuck on this planet called 'Aether,' where two races, the Luminoth (good guys) and the Ing (bad guys), are duking it out in a full-scale war. To complicate matters, the Space Pirates (Samus Aran's sworn enemies) are trying to plunder the planet of its Phazon supply, so you not only have to watch out for the inhabitants of Aether and the Ing, but the Space Pirates as well.

The planet is actually completely unstable because of some interstellar body that crashed into it a while back -- some sort of asteroid or something similar. Because of this, there are actually TWO planets in the place of one -- Aether and Dark Aether. The Ing inhabit Dark Aether, while the Luminoth inhabit Aether. Aether WAS a paradise for the Luminoth, before the cataclysm. It wiped out plenty of Luminoth, and halved their energy production/capacity because of the creation of Dark Aether. Dimensional portals (rifts) allow transport between the two worlds, and the Ing have been attacking the Luminoth since they got here -- and they're winning the war. The Ing have a diabolical ability to infect their enemies in a parasitic fashion -- they take control of the body and all mental function against the host's will. These 'Darkling' possessors invariably enhance the reflexes and toughness of the host...however usually the host is loathe to do as the parasite commands it, as it usually means turning on its former allies.

Enter Samus. Following a distress signal from a Space Marine ship, she investigates to help -- only her ship is damaged beyond immediate repair, and she's stuck on Aether for a while. Shortly after her arrival, she's inadvertently thrust through a dimensional portal, ambushed by a bunch of Ing while in Dark Aether, and has all of her gear stolen. She survives, and wakes up back on good old regular Aether, and things start to get interesting.

Following the path of carnage that is dead marines, the log books reveal that they were being slowly decimated by the Ing horde while trying to effect repairs on their own ship. Eventually, all the marines are found dead, so there is no help from that quarter.

Further investigation reveals that there are a bunch of Space Pirates on the planet as well -- seems that Dark Aether has a lot of the element Phazon, which the Space Pirates use as a power source. The Space Pirates are also being attacked by the Ing, however they are much better prepared than the Marines were, and they have set up a full-scale base in the Agon Wastes. Their log entries read (somewhat comically) as if they have life really rough, as first they are attacked by the Ing, then their re-supply/reinforcements ship is attacked by Space Marines, and then they are attacked by 'The Hunter:' Samus Aran. Interestingly enough, you find out they have been attacked by you before you ever run into them.

Turns out there's two of you. Though no verbal communication takes place, your first encounter with The Dark Hunter, as the Space Pirates refer to her, has a lot of communication via weapons fire. One of the tougher initial battles, she eventually goes down. You sort of get the feeling you'll be seeing more of her/it later, however.

The sole living Luminoth you encounter is named U-Mos, and he gives you the responsibility of re-energizing the three energy controllers on Aether -- one in the Agon Wastes, one in the Torvus Bog, and one in a third location...I think I've heard it referred to as The Sanctuary, though I could be wrong about that.

The problem with energizing these energy controllers is that they are de-energized because the Ing have stolen the energy for their own controllers on Dark Aether -- and you don't survive long on Dark Aether. Your life is quickly drained by the harsh atmosphere -- so you are forced to stay on the 'islands' of light energy from beacons stationed around Dark Aether by the Luminoth. Some of these beacons aren't fully active, and require beam energy to function -- and then only for a short time.

This little twist makes battles in Dark Aether a completely different beast, and quite exhilirating. While dodging enemy bullets and projectiles, you need to be careful not to leave the safety of your beacon, or you help your enemies out by draining your life that much quicker.

Initially, you are a single entity to the Ing, and don't rate much of a threat. The Ing are happy because they've stolen all your weaponry, and you seem to dislike the Space Pirates. However, as you start to work against them by repairing the Aetherian energy controllers, they start to send more powerful creatures after you.

One nice twist is that the first 'boss' of any sort you face (actually called a Sub-Guardian) is a creature you've seen before, only this time it's infected by the Ing. Since you've already seen Darkling creatures before, this isn't that big a deal -- but when it starts throwing morph ball bombs at you, it becomes a bit more intriguing. The Ing use your own equipment against you -- and if you defeat the creature using your gear, you get it back. Kind of cool.

So far, my first real 'Boss Battle' was against a huge Guardian called Amorbis -- think the creature from Tremors, but with the ability to shoot lasers of Dark Matter. Oh, and there were three of them at the same time.

The fact that the battle was on Dark Aether made what would have been a simple duck and weave battle into a full-scale war: probably a 5-10 minute battle where I was sweating the entire time. Though as most video game bosses do, Amorbis quickly became repetitive, he became a little tougher with each iteration. Not only did I have to dodge the three worms erupting from the ground, fire at them, and avoid their beams -- I had to try my best to stay in the beacons of light while doing so. To top it all off, Amorbis periodically shot pieces of Dark Matter at the beacons themselves, nullifying them for a while and forcing me to scurry to another pocket of safety mid-battle. This added difficulty of moving back and forth between beacons changed the boss battle from completely repetitive and boring to stressful and exhilirating -- a truly beautiful design.

Realistically, after a few minutes it wasn't all that difficult. But it took a little bit of doing before I was in control of the fight, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even when I was pretty sure I had the battle in hand.

Thus far, I have re-energized the Energy Controller for the Agon Wastes, exploring about 80% of them on both Aether and Dark Aether. I have unlocked a good bit of the Temple Grounds, can decode both Purple and Orange Luminoth writing, and have three different beam weapons to use. I have only recovered my ability to plant morph ball bombs, my space jump boots, and a new Dark Suit that slows my energy drain on Dark Aether. There are plenty of places closed off to me because of my lack of Super Bombs and Super Missiles, and there are a few other gadgets I don't have yet that I know of a few places I could reach if I had them. The Morph Ball Boost and the Spider Ball being the most prominent. I just entered the Torvus Bog, and I can already tell I'm going to hate the water, which hampers my movement tremendously (Gravity Suit, where are you?). According to the game statistics, I have completed 43% of the possible things to scan in the game, so I'm just under halfway through.

So far, this game is just as good as the first. There have been improvements (I LOVE the combat on Dark Aether), but the WOW factor of Metroid Prime was enough to keep these games on the same level.

[Vince]

Back in the saddle again after a month and a half hiatus. I've been playing Metroid Prime 2 while I haven't been updating, just not very much. The culprit is twofold:

1) I'm busy at work, since we lost a few employees I work more.
2) A friend loaned our house Guitar Hero.

I've spent much time that would otherwise be devoted to this dynasty to trying to perfect all the songs on Guitar Hero. So far, I only have four songs left that I haven't gotten a 5-star rating on on the Expert level: Texas Flood, Frankenstein, Cowboys from Hell and Bark at the Moon. I am really close to getting Texas Flood, and pretty close to getting Frankenstein. The final two...ugh, those are going to be a pain in the ass.

But anyways, to catch up on my dynasty and its focus...

I've fallen behind pace -- it's already been more than a month and a half, and I have yet to pass a single game. I need to pick up the pace a little. Here's the situation in Metroid Prime 2...

[Vince]

Well, I've now explored the majority of Torvus Bog in both light and Dark Aether. I have restored the energy to its Energy Controller, but there are still the little nooks and crannies that I am still unable to reach. I have gotten a few new items...The Gravity Suit (hooray being able to move around in the water), Super Missiles, the Boost Ball Morph Ball Upgrade, the Grapple Beam, Seeker Missiles, the Dark Burst Charge Combo, numerous Energy Tanks, Missile Expansions, and one Beam Ammo Expansion.

What has really been a hamper on my enjoyment of the game is the simplicity of it. While at first, battles on Dark Aether were great because I had to worry about straying outside of the safe zones from the light crystals, my added energy tanks and the Dark Suit have completely negated the fun from the battles. I now no longer have to really worry significantly about standing around in Dark Aether's atmosphere, so I can just blast away wherever I am.

The most difficult part thus far has been the Boost Ball Guardian -- fighting in Dark Aether, in a room with no light crystals to generate a safe zone, I must have died three or four times, each time getting him to about 1/4 of his life before failing, and thinking that I needed just a little more oomph or luck to beat him. Then I remembered I had a light beam, and I kicked his ass in like two seconds. It was rather depressing. I guess if I wanted to give myself a handicap and make things tougher, I could limit myself to only using the beam weapons if an enemy is invulnerable to anything but them, but I don't like imposing house rules.

Currently, I am exploring the third (and most likely final) world on Aether -- The Sanctuary Temple / Ing Hive. It's probably a personal thing, but I really dislike this world. From the 'natural' looking worlds of the Agon Wastes and Torvus Bog, we move to something that looks like it is out of the Matrix. It feels quite out of place...but it's not a game breaker. Some of the enemies here are somewhat more difficult than I have yet seen, but nothing that is truly taxing. My current goal is to defeat the Spider Ball Guardian -- the fight makes for a pretty interesting diversion, as it is all done in morph ball mode, and I can't directly harm the boss. I need to find a way to manipulate it along a track to run into circuit breakers. For the most part it is straightforward, but by the time I got to the end, there was a much more complicated process to go through, and I died. We'll see if a concerted effort here illustrates it to be an actually challenging puzzle, or just an exercise in patience.

Additionally, I have determined that I might not be as far through the game as I thought I was. Though I've explored the majority of the map, there are apparently 9 or 10 keys to the final Temple/Energy Controller thing, scattered throughout all the worlds. It might take some doing to find them, as the scattered nature of my time playing the game has led to a pretty weak memory of the map in my mind. Sadly, at this point I'm sort of bored with the game, and am playing it more to get through it than because I'm really enjoying it. It's not that I'm NOT enjoying it...it's just that I'm not thinking 'wow, I can't wait until I get back to playing Metroid Prime 2!'

[Vince]

Ok -- 90% of the battle is the easiest thing you'll ever do. The last little bit is tough, but not impossible. More to come as I use my new toy, the Spider Ball

[Godzilla Blitz]

Hey Vince. Good idea with this. I've tried a "finish two/buy one" strategy for a while, but I failed when I ran into a sale somewhere and ended up buying a half dozen games.

I was thinking, mind if I join you on one or two of the games? I've never started/finished some of the games on your list, and I was thinking it might be fun to play along when you make your attempts. I'd likely just make a few posts telling about where I am with the game and how I like it. Might be a way to keep us motivated to finish the particular game, too.

[Vince]

Please, feel free! As the first two months have shown, my playing tends to be very sporadic, and in large spurts at a time. But I'd love to have someone else along for the ride -- we could compare notes, so to speak

As for Metroid, I quickly got the Power Bomb after getting the Spider Ball -- one of the easiest guardians in the game defending the Power Bomb. Though there are a lot of disappointingly easy parts to this game, there is still a good bit of game left. The Spider Ball has opened a whole slew of new maze/puzzle things, and the mechanics of using bomb jumps and morph ball boosts while attached to the myriad of spider ball magnetic rails has been a nice refresher to a game that is starting to get a little stale for me.

[Vince]

Well, after a marathon session today (stupid people cancelling on my poker night...who really studies for midterms? Sigh, I miss school), I'm almost done with the game.

I've gone through and restored energy to every single energy controller. The last thing I have left to do is to destroy the Emperor Ing in the Sky Temple, and absorb the remaining energy the Ing have stored up. To do that, I have to find 9 Sky Temple keys, which are scattered throughout Dark Aether. I have found one of them, and I believe I know where a second one is. The rest I'll have to wing it on.

There were two notable bosses that I enjoyed fighting -- one was a robot drone whose name is escaping me right now, but the fight was done completely in morph ball mode. What I believe is new for the Morph Ball in MP2 (as opposed to the first) is that the Boost Ball powerup now shoots you off the magnetic rails in a perpendicular direction -- opens up a whole slew of puzzle/maze opportunities. In this fight, you are on a circular magnetic rail that is a foot or so off the floor of the round room. The robot is suspended above you, and has three arms that alternate 'scraping' the rail you are on. If they hit you, you get hurt and fall to the ground...where the robot almost instantly electrifies the surface, and starts really draining your life. Every once in a while, a small red probe sticks out of the bottom of the robot -- you have to use your boost ability to smash through the probe. Once you do it a few times, the main unit of the robot takes periodic peeks out (much smaller time frame than the probes), and you have to do the same thing. After you hit the main unit once, the robot retreats upward, and you follow it to a rail that isn't a compete circle, and has a gap. As you continue the fight, the gaps get more numerous, and the robot starts using multiple arms at once to attack you. Not exceedingly difficult, but pleasantly challenging and a nice difference from the typical dodge and weave in first person mode.

The last was the final guardian I faced in the Ing Hive (that's the Dark Aether version of the Sanctuary Fortress)'s Energy Controller, Quadrati-something-or-other. A huge version of one of the robots I had faced countless times, I had to destroy it in stages by first taking out its feet, then its knees, then different antennae that were broadcasting sonically (go Echo Visor). Finally, once it was disabled, it went on a rampage floating around the room, and I had to stun it, then launch myself as the morph ball onto the surface of the robot itself, and using my spider ball ability, plant a bomb on the surface of it to defeat it. All of this in Dark Aether with no safe zones from light crystals. Again, not terribly difficult, but mildly challenging, and with enough variation (4 distinct stages to the fight) to keep me interested.

The remaining fights I went through were pretty straightforward -- the general enemies in the Sanctuary Fortress are by far the toughest I've faced. If you take them for granted, they can really tear into you quickly. However, most of them are pretty easy if you know what you are doing. For example, a charged Dark Beam shot at a Dark Pirate Commando stuns him, and then a single missile destroys him. Otherwise it's something like 10 missiles, or 10 charge beam hits, or some other long, time wasting fight. Others are similar. Rezbits are particularly annoying if you don't know how to handle them -- they can inject a virus into your suit that messes up your visor and you have to reboot your system with a button combination -- but they succumb to the same punishment as Dark Commandos. Ingsmashers are a pretty tough foe -- big, ground-pounding machines who can use both Light and Dark Energy to shield themselves, and you have to switch to the alternate energy beam to destroy the shield. One power bomb, and they're toast, however.

Recently, I acquired the Screw Attack, which is pretty nifty -- I can now cover insane amounts of ground in the air, and can use certain walls to 'Wall-Jump' a-la the Original Batman for NES game. The drawback is that it is extremely touchy to control, and if you hit any walls or the ceiling, it stops the attack immediately with a bounce-off effect. So if you're trying to hit a small target, it can get frustrating quickly.

I also picked up the Echo Visor, which allows me to get through Sonically Keyed Gates, The Annihilator Beam (combination of Dark AND Light Energy which also doubles as a Sonic Pulse Gun, to open Sonically keyed combination locks) and the Light Armor. The Light Armor in particular has a pretty sweet visual effect. Though it's a first-person game, every once in a while you get to see a 3rd person shot of Samus, and the Light Armor gives her a great chrome/platinum sheen. It also gets rid of the absurd shoulder pads that the other armors had. A much more clean look for Samus. It also completely eliminates the threat of Dark Aether's atmosphere, and allows me to go into the polluted Dark Water (similar to the effect of Phazon from the first Metroid Prime). I'm guessing I'll probably find most of the Sky Temple Keys in Dark Water, otherwise I would have run into more of them before it was time to get them (I found one, and though I didn't realize it, I believe I found a second before I even knew what they were or that I would need to get them).

All in all, this has been a good game, but nothing earth shattering. The first half of the game was much better than the second, as my suit power-ups have taken away the things that I enjoyed about the game -- that is, the challenge. The versatility of the morph ball, and the developers' use of it in creative ways has given the game a bit of a fresh taste in the second half, but there's nothing that's really driving me to finish it apart from getting it off my list. Even the story that is being told by the scans is stale -- I find myself guessing what is going to be in each bit of the story as it unfolds, and being unsurprised almost every time. At first, it was great to see the interplay between Space Marine, Space Pirate, Luminoth and Ing...but the Space Pirates and Marines have been all but nonexistant in the story, and the Luminoth and Ing story I pretty much learned within the first 3 hours of the game. I mean, the last three lore entries have been "Agon Falls: The Ing Horde Massed, many Luminoth were killed, the energy was stolen from the Controller, it was sad." "Torvus Falls: The Ing Horde Massed, many Luminoth were killed..." "Sanctuary Falls: We gathered at the Sanctuary Temple to withstand the coming horde. They didn't wait long..." I mean, come on...give me something new here!

I guess something that is interesting me is trying to find out what the whole 'Dark Samus' thing is all about. I fought her again, and it wasn't very difficult again, and then she disappeared again, but I'm pretty sure there will be more there. Also of note is that the Metroids have been pretty much nonexistant -- there is a part of the Agon Wastes where the Space Pirate base has been destroyed, and Metroids fly around, but it's a very confined locale.

Hopefully I'll knock this game off my list by the end of the week, and move on to the next.

[Vince]

Well, mark that one off the list. Feels good to defeat a game...I haven't played one completely through in a while. As a pre-warning: there are some major spoilers ahead, including an in-depth look at the boss battle and how I beat the game. Just in case you didn't realize that yet, I figured I'd tell you now.

Finding the Sky Temple Keys was a little more difficult than I expected, but still nothing extraordinarily challenging. Just backtracking a little, following some log-entry clues, and finding the right location. Going into the final battle, I had 9 power bombs, 195 Missiles (I believe there are always 255 total missiles, but I'm not sure. That was the total for the original NES back in the day, I believe), 13 of 14 energy tanks (so 1,400 total energy), all Beam Ammo Extensions for 250 total Beam Ammo, both light and dark, and everything else in the game, including all charge combos.

The Ing Emperor battle takes place inside 'The Sanctum,' a circular room with a ring of Phazon around the edge, which damages you rather quickly if you stand upon it. So obviously, you want to stand near the center of the room, inside the ring of Phazon. The Ing Emperor has 3 stages to defeat, and it took me three tries to beat him. The first phase is pretty straightforward -- he has impenetrable armor, but has X number of tentacles attacking you. You can blast the tentacles, but they are pretty difficult to target. Once you blast all the tentacles off, the armor melts away, and you can hit the 'eye' of the Ing Emperor -- which is the only way to do real damage to it. The eye, however, has an impenetrable shield around it in the shape of two semi-circles with a vertical ring gap in the middle -- and it is constantly rotating the shield. So to hurt it, you have to sidestep with it, while avoiding the phazon of the ring, and avoiding the enormous laser beam it shoots at you, which also stuns you for a few seconds. The eye is only exposed for about 30 seconds, and then you have to face the Tentacles again...and each iteration sprouts more tentacles. So if you expose the eye, but don't wound the emperor very much, you're making your life more difficult.

The tentacles have a few attacks, but they are rather repetitive, and not too terribly difficult to dodge. The first time through, they wounded me quite a bit before I developed my strategy -- the Annihilator Beam fires homing shots, so even though the tentacles dodge pretty easily, Annihilator Beam bullets home in on the target so you don't have to worry. Once you have that down, it's just a matter of dodging the attacks, and then switching to the Light Beam to attack the Eye -- the Light Beam murders the Ing Emperor. The first time through, I was at about half my energy through the first phase. Both the second and third time through, I hardly lost more than 100 life. Relatively simple.

In phase two, the Ing Emperor inverts itself, and is in a spherical cocoon at the center of the room. A poisonous gas fills the chamber, and standing on the ground level hurts you as if you were standing in Phazon -- rather quickly. The outer rim of the cocoon is magnetized, however, so if you use the morph ball, you can stick to it and avoid the gas. While on the rim of the cocoon, you are attacked by inglets who randomly spawn (very simple enemies who are easy to dispatch), and there are 11 weak points to the cocoon -- if you hover around the weak points, tentacles attack you. If you bomb the tentacles, the weak point is 'destroyed.'

This part was obnoxiously and ridiculously easy. All three times I made it through with flying colors. The tentacles have a telltale signal that gives you about a 2 second warning to when they are going to emerge, and the inglets are easy to see, avoid and kill. What makes it completely ridiculous is that the inglets drop power-ups. And usually hugely beneficial power-ups, such as packs of 50 energy. So it's laughably easy to mosey around the surface of the cocoon, avoid the tentacles, and kill each inglet that comes up to simply regenerate your life and ammunition. Once you're loaded for bear, just go after the tentacles, and you've moved on to the final phase of the Ing Emperor. The only thing that makes this strategy even the least bit detrimental is that at seemingly random intervals, the poisonous gas rises so that you have to go to the upper limit of the cocoon, and severely limits your mobility. While this is going on, the inglets have a much easier time of hitting you, and that usually knocks you to the ground and into the gas again, causing a bit of damage. The gas rises so intermittently, however, that it is still very much worth it to reload during this phase of the battle.

Enter phase 3 of the Ing Emperor Battle...also known as my arch-rival for almost 3 entire attempts. Even though the first two parts of the battle are pretty easy, they aren't quick by any means...and dying at this point was so frustrating just because of the time spent going nowhere. The Ing Emperor finally erupts from the cocoon in the shape of a giant Hunter ing -- an enemy you have faced often in Dark Aether, and who really doesn't pose much of a threat. This enemy, however, has much bigger teeth (metaphorically speaking). Standing about three times as tall as Samus, it moves about on 4 legs that come to points at the bottom. Its 'body' looks more like an exposed rib cage with vertical ribs, and inside the exposed rib cage is the 'eye' of the Emperor: his weakpoint. The catch? The Emperor can create an impermeable shield in this incarnation. You can't hurt him while the shield is up, but your attacks do work towards stunning him. Once you hit him enough in this state, he is 'stunned;' that is to say, he keeps trying to kick your ass, but he becomes vulnerable to either Light or Dark energy, as evidenced by the color of the eye. The impermeable shield is Red...once he is stunned, it changes to either White (vulnerable to Dark Energy) or Purple (vulnerable to Light Energy). When you hit him in this state, you can see the damage being done (his energy meter actually does deplete). Meanwhile, you're moving around the room trying (usually in vain) to avoid the damage that he is dishing out like crazy. He can use a Light Energy Attack, in which he generates about 10 simultaneous light energy beams that are like lasers, and very difficult to avoid. He can also use a Dark Energy Attack, in which he generates a giant wave of Dark Energy on the ground that literally looks like a wave of blackish/purple water. I wasn't able to completely jump over this ever, though jumping over it keeps it from hurting you more/pushing you back into the Phazon. Finally, the Emperor can jump on you (really annoying) and charge straight at you. He is very quick, and quite relentless.

What makes him extraordinarily difficult, however, is not that he is always attacking, or that he has so many different ways to hurt you...but that he plays defense. He is only vulnerable in his 'body,' and the body rests on top of its spindly legs, well above the height of your own character. Because of this, it uses its legs to block your attacks to great effect, making it extraordinairily difficult to actually hit it ever. Although one Super Missile usually knocks him into the 'stunned' mode, the difficulty of actually hitting him with that Super Missile is insane. The four legs of the creature are arrayed more like a diamond than a traditional animal with a square leg orientation...so the 'kneecap' of the front leg completely and totally deflects any shots you might hit it with, unless you come at an angle. And as soon as you come at an angle, it tries to turn to keep that kneecap in your face. Quite irritating, but at the same time refreshing for a game that hardly challenged me at all. Sporadically, once you knock the Emperor into the 'stunned' mode, he will summon a swarm of small, relatively harmless creatures that you can kill for small items -- but if you take your eyes off the Emperor to target them, you can bet that he's going to charge your ass and not only hit you, but knock you into the Phazon.

Because of the simplicity of the previous stage, I was at full energy almost every time I faced the final stage of the Emperor Ing Battle. In the first fight, he kicked my ass. I wounded him MAYBE 1/4 of his health. Undaunted, I fired it up again, perfected my strategy for the first two Phases, and went at him again. Again, it went poorly -- I started well, wounding him about 1/3, but then he just started slaughtering me. The problem I was having was that I couldn't time my shots to actually HIT him, as opposed to hitting his body in harmless places. It was starting to get frustrating, because what worked on one pass failed miserably the second time through -- I wasn't sure if this was because my timing was off, because the enemy AI was adapting, or whether there was no pattern.

To start off the third battle with the Ing Emperor, I creamed him right off the bat. First Super Missile nailed him, then hit him with a pair of charged Light Beam shots to knock off a good 1/6 of his life. Then, the shit hit the fan. I was getting smeared left and right. While I took him down to about 2/3 power, he got me all the way down to 5 energy. 5/1400. At this point, I was starting to get really frustrated, because I didn't see ANY improvement. I got pissed, switched on the Annihilator Beam, and just started pounding on the fire key. And wow did it work.

I was lined up just left of center, and my first shot hit him. Instead of just shrugging it off, he wasn't able to continue attacking me, so while I continued to fire, it kept stunning him. Once he was officially stunned, instead of having to switch to a different weapon, my bullets (because they were a mix of Dark and Light Energy...that's what the Annihilator Beam is) were hurting him. I was able to sit there and literally Annihilate him (ugh...that was a horrible pun). I was really excited to be finished with it...but quite disappointed that yet again, it simply took discovering what you were supposed to do to defeat the enemy.

He went down, and even though I was disappointed that it was relatively 'easy' to dispatch him, I was on the edge of my seat, because at 5 energy, any little shot or hit was going to kill me. Pretty good feeling to beat him there, regardless of the lack of strategy/skill it took at the end.

At this point, Samus walks up to the last bit of energy sustaining Dark Aether, and absorbs it...which makes the world start to collapse in on itself. As is (somewhat) typical of Metroid games (see Super Metroid for SNES...one of the greatest video games of all time in my opinion), you have a limited time to get the hell out of dodge, or you die. In this case, you have seven minutes.

Since the exit is about 4 rooms away, I'm not too worried, but I hurry nonetheless...I don't want to have to try to beat the Ing Emperor again, just in case that 'strategy' doesn't work twice. So I high-tail it out of there, and get out of the Sky Temple...only to be assaulted by Dark Samus for the third time -- and time is still running out, as the nice large red timer at the bottom of the screen keeps reminding you of.

At this point, Dark Samus has absorbed so much Phazon that you can see her skeleton and muscle structure through her translucent blue body, for a rather grusome effect. She starts attacking, and though it's a little more difficult to track her (her new abilities render some of my equipment useless against her), it's still nothing tough. Then she abruptly changes at about 3/5 power. Now she's creating a shield of Phazon that I can't penetrate, and throwing some major phazon missiles at me. With a little over 4 minutes left, and now suddenly unable to hurt my enemy, I'm sort of worried...however, a quick scan reveals that she's also throwing some small particles of Phazon which I apparently can collect with my Power Beam, and shoot Phazon blasts at her. It's a completely new game mechanic, and I'm not sure how I feel about them introducing it at the very end of the game...but it's not very difficult, and I beat her in short order with a couple of minutes left on the timer. Cue the ending sequence.

[Vince]

One down, Nine to go. Though there was a big layoff in the middle of that game, I'm excited about the way this is working out so far. Though I believe feeling like I had a deadline helped to make the second half of Metroid Prime 2 really drag, and I was getting tired of backtracking and such, I think that if I hadn't had that goal to work towards, I would have shelved the game, and wanted to start over when I got back to it.

My feelings on the game? Well, I have to compare it to Metroid Prime. And that's a tough competitor, because Metroid Prime was simply amazing. A great game for exploring, and started off with a solid storyline. The action was superb for the first part of the game -- those first few battles on Dark Aether were awesome. However, the game was never very difficult, and quickly became quite simple. I would say there were only two truly difficult parts to the game (Spider Ball Guardian and Ing Emperor Battle Phase 3), and the rest was almost laughably easy -- simply moving from point to point, on a planet-wide scavenger hunt to recover Samus' stolen gear. The story also quickly became stale, as almost the entirety of it was fleshed out in the first half of the game. There were no surprises towards the end, nothing meaningful to scan to reveal key parts of the story. By the end, I hardly used my scan visor. What was perhaps the most disappointing, was the fact that although a completely new and intriguing character was introduced during the course of the game (Dark Samus), the plot of Dark Samus was NEVER developed at all. The Space Pirates left logs about the 'Dark Hunter' terrorizing their Phazon storage, but didn't explain where she came from, nor was there any explanation at the end. Should we just assume that she was a rogue ing, who happened to take something from Samus in that first encounter in Dark Aether? I don't know. The end sequence was horrid...the Luminoth are all out of stasis, they bow to Samus, and she walks right past them with a single gesture of her hand without even looking back. At the end, you see her outside her suit (in a rather vanilla display of Gamecube graphics...Samus looks much better in the suit, in my opinion), and she flies off. Game Over.

I think I'm going to have to re-evaluate this game after the 'I need to finish this damned game because of my deadline' feeling wears off...because right now, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the heck out of the first half of the game, my review is reading like it was a terrible game. It wasn't terrible...just nothing inspiring. If I had to grade it right now, I'd give it a 7/10.

Now I have to decide what game to play next. I've been dying to get through Metal Gear Solid 3, but I think I'm going to save that for if I possibly get unmotivated in the future. It would be a good pick-me-up later if I lose steam. I think I'm leaning towards Secret of Evermore...but I'm open to suggestions. If I can't decide, I'll pick a random game by Sunday morning.

[Vince]

Well, it's Sunday morning, and I still don't have any strong feelings about any of the games on my list. I'm going to stick with Secret of Evermore for the SNES. I'll start things off either tonight or tomorrow.

Evermore is a unique game in this list in that I have played it to about 90% completion, and I almost always stop in the last world. I've been through the first of 4 worlds about 100 times, so that should be a piece of cake, but 2, 3 and 4 should take a bit more doing to get by. We'll see what happens.

[Vince]

Current Game: The Secret of Evermore
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Release Date: September 18, 1995

SNES Old-schoolers are probably more familiar with the vastly more popular "Secret of Mana," a Legend of Zelda-style Action/RPG hybrid game. Evermore is incredibly similar in that you control multiple characters on a one-at-a-time basis. You gain experience and level up, like traditional RPGs, but instead of turn-based combat, it is live action combat, whereupon every time you hit the attack button, your character attacks. A nice gameplay mechanic that limits the button-smashing technique is the game's interpretation of fatigue -- when you swing a weapon, you are 'fatigued,' and a meter builds back up to 100%. If you attack again before regaining your stamina, it is an incredibly weak attack, doing in some cases 0 damage even on a successful strike. Another twist is the change from magic to alchemy -- instead of using up Magic Points to cast spells, you need to obtain alchemical reagents for use in the spells. Instead of spontaneously 'learning' spells as players level up, the player must find different alchemists throughout the world to teach him formulae for use.

The basic storyline is that in Podunk, USA, in the year 1965, there was a mysterious experiment conducted that went horribly wrong inside someone's private mansion. 30 years later, a boy and his dog (the main characters) stumble upon the ruined mansion, and accidentally activate the machinery that was involved in that fateful experiment, sending them to a world much different than their own. Though at first they start in a futuristic metallic world, they are quickly jettisoned out via an 'escape pod' to a pre-historic world of carniverous plants and 'raptors.' The hero's dog has mysteriously changed to an incredibly large wolf/beast...but is as loyal as ever. An encounter with 'Fire Eyes,' whose real name turns out to be Elizabeth, reveals that she might be able to help you get back to Podunk, but would like some help first. Thus starts your adventure on Evermore!

[Vince]

My first foray into the world of Pre-Historia has been successful -- we have rescued Strong Heart from the Bugmuck. We had to beat a big bug (who exploded when he died...way to go oldschool graphics ), and he gave us a Spider Claw, which doubles as an axe in its spare time. Now we are able to chop down overgrown weeds, which formerly blocked our passage. Our arsenal includes the Spider Claw and the Bone Crusher, and we also have quite a few Alchemical formulae already: Flash (a small fireball), Hardball, Acid Rain, Defend and Cure (heals status ailments). I'm still waiting to get Heal, but that should be next.

Turns out that Fire Eyes is actually from Podunk as well -- her Grandfather is the one whose experiment went 'horribly wrong.' Elizabeth loved pre-historic times, so when her grandfather's experiment happened, she was supposed to be whisked off to a pre-historic world for a few hours. Turns out it's been a few decades, due to the screw-up. Lately, however, the volcano to the north has been cooling down, and she thinks it is the work of someone else from Podunk, screwing around with things. She has enlisted our help to get to the bottom of it, claiming that it's probably the best way to find our way back home.

Tune in next time, for a trip to the volcano.

[Vince]

Well, we have left the primitive world of Pre-Historia for the slightly more advanced world of Antiqua.

Our first trip north of Fire Eyes' village led us to our first encounter with the Vipers, vicious creatures that look more like fat bi-pedal salamanders than snakes. They're quite a bit burlier than the raptors and carniverous plants than I have been bashing up until this point, but they succumbed eventually. In their wake, they left the Horn Spear, our first spear weapon of the game. It has pretty good range, and more power than either the Bone Crusher or Spider Claw, so it becomes our default weapon of choice. A trip towards the volcano also gives us a first reunion with the raptors that I first faced at the entrance to Fire Eyes' village. Though a bit more mobile than the plants that sort of sit there and try to chew on you, they aren't too tough. Wading through a bunch of them, we pass a cave at the base of the volcano...but it's blocked by a huge rock. Undaunted, we climb to the top of the volcano using a bunch of steam vents to catapult us upwards. At the crater of the volcano, we meet a crazy old man who teaches us the alchemical formula to Levitate large objects...which is great, except for he doesn't have any of the necessary reagents! We need one part water, which is easy enough to find, but we also need one part Mud Pepper, and they are rather rare. In fact, there is only one place in all of Pre-Historia that happens to grow Mud Peppers, and that's the swamp!

A foray into the swamp leads us to a rather pedestrian maze where we kill a bunch of frog-like creatures that resemble miniature hippopotami, and we finally come to a hut that is accross a large pond from us. A weird looking guy who looks like he shaved in pre-pre-historia comes out of the hut waving around a large fish skeleton in one hand, asking for some help. As he asks, a huge serpent, the Salabog, erupts out of the water and starts spitting fire at us! Along the way, we have leveled up our Spear Attack, so we can now throw the spear for good damage after charging it up a bit. The Salabog likes to weave back and forth, and it spits out three will-'o-the-wisps at a time, which chase us around the three platforms. If you get too close to the creature, it tries to bite you. It was basically a long, boring battle in which you avoid the pesky wisps while throwing the spear at the creature, and periodically loosing a Flash or a Hardball at it. Both Flash and Hardball have gotten to level 1 by this point -- while I usually like to hang out in the quicksand fields levelling up my alchemical formulae, this time around I just want to get to the part of the game I haven't finished yet, and I'd like a little more challenge from some of the bosses, so I've skimped on 'levelling.' Salabog goes down, and we meet the crazy guy, whose name turns out to be Blimp.

Blimp gives us one Mud Pepper, and says if we need more to come back. Oh, gee, thanks. You mean for saving your life if we want more than one mud pepper we have to use this one up and then come ALL THE WAY BACK THROUGH YOUR FRIGGIN SWAMP? How's that for gratitude. Jerk.

Anyways, we head back to the volcano, stopping by the local Alchemists to re-load on our ingredients.

The volcano is full of Vipers, and they are a bit tougher than the enemies we've faced recently. A short maze of finding Mud Peppers to levitate the next rock leads us to an alchemist who has taken up hiding inside the volcano from the Vipers. He teaches us the Speed formula (raises our Agility), and we move on to a more complex maze amongst some pipes inside the volcano? What pre-historic volcano has pipes in it?

Ignoring the logic of a volcano with pipes in it, we hop into the rushing water, and navigate a moderately complex maze in which we have to find a switch to release a gate, which will allow us to continue. As an aside, we run into a Viper who cringes back when we stab it, and claims that not all Vipers are mean, and it's just the lust for power that turned them, and that now someone is controlling them in an effort to take over Pre-Historia. Seems Fire Eyes was right...but this Viper doesn't say anything about who this person is or what they are doing. By this point, we know they're trying to cut off the heat given off by the Volcano. We continue on, and now we're walking on top of a network of pipes, which lead up to an interesting looking machine that looks like a cross between what I'd imagine a boilermaker actually looks like, and an anthropomorphized coal furnace. With a flash, Fire Eyes appears in front of us (though the keen of eye will realize that she's not wearing glasses, and her outfit is a little more of a red hue than her normal pink), and we exclaim in surprise, "Fire Eyes?!!?"

In another flash, the real Fire Eyes appears before us, with a cute 'You called?' response. Red Fire Eyes and the real Fire Eyes have a confrontation, and it turns out that our hero, who is somewhat of a B-Movie Flick pundit, has landed himself right in the middle of a great one. Fire Eyes actually has an evil twin sister, who is bent on domination of the world of Pre-Historia. She is going to shut off the heat of the Volcano to kill off Fire Eyes' village, and then rule the land with her Vipers. She sends Fire Eyes off with an explosion, and then hurls her pet rock at us, named Magmar.

Spewing fire all over the place, and occasionally disappearing into the lava around the pipes to regenerate himself, Magmar is a pretty tough cookie. He has pretty terrible aim, however, so it's fairly easy to dodge his shots and wear him down. Without much of a challenge, we send him packing, much to the chagrin of Evil Fire Eyes. She makes a claim that "It's not over yet!!!" and sends the Volcano into overdrive. Hooray for video game magic, instead of burning our heroes alive, it shoots us far into the air, and in an impressive display of Mode 7 graphics, we get an overhead view of Pre-Historia and the environs (including a weird checkerboard looking thing and a giant waterfall) before we fall into a giant upside-down turtle shell that was near Blimp's hut in the swamp. It carries us down the river, and we fall over a huge waterfall...

[Vince]

...and hours later we wash up on a foreign beach in front of a grounded pirate ship, with our faithful dog (Whom in a flash of creativity I named Dog) nowhere to be found!

Though worried, our hero sets off to find his lost pup. The pirates around here claim there's treasure on the West Bank of the river, but there's a bunch of meaner pirates over there, so they are hanging out here where it's safe. We exchange our currency at a 2-1 rate...the Talons that we used for currency in Prehistoria aren't quite as valuable as the Jewels of Antiqua. We purchase a couple pieces of new armor, but save some cash in case there are some other things that need to be bought soon. A shady fellow offers us an 'Amulet of Annihilation' for 10,000 jewels, but we have no idea what it's good for, nor do we have more than 1/10th the asked for price, so we send him packing. So far, things are going well in Antiqua, but there's no sign of Dog anywhere!

Leaving the safe confines of the beached ship, we explore to the East, where we find some of those meaner pirates the guys were talking about...and they kick our butt! One hit is good for 50 or so damage...and when I only have about 120 health to begin with, I'm starting to think maybe it's time to level up a bit before continuing...but of course I want to find my dog first. A little more exploring reveals a cave, and who do we find there but Blimp himself, safe from the Volcanic Eruption because of 'swamp flowers filled with the essence of Mud Pepper.' Sure...Mud Pepper. He hasn't seen Dog either, but he claims there's a city accross the desert that I should check out.

In a brief cutscene, we watch as a sleek, greyhound-like dog erupts from a fountain in the courtyard of a palace. Since we're put in control of the dog, it's safe to assume that this is Dog, in a new form because of the new world. After exploring the palace grounds a little, we head inside, where we witness a brief conversation between Pomplonious and someone who looks like he might be King. He tells Pomplonious that he wants the Diamond Eyes of the Dog Statue, and Pomplonious warns him that the populace will never accept him unless there is a sign from the Dog himself. He who would be king/emperor claims "I hate to break it to you, Pomp, but the Dog is a myth. We can't just expect a mythical creature to come sliding into the palace now, can we?" Of course, cue the cat running across the palace grounds, and Dog sliding to a stop on the marble floor right in front of Pomplonious and he who would be king/emperor.

Next up, a trek across the sandy desert, and a reunion with Dog.

[Vince]

Ok, in real world mode -- Prehistoria is the land I'm most comfortable with in this game. The first half of Antiqua, I know pretty well too. I absolutely love the bartering session in our first foray into town coming up. After that, however, I am not very familiar with the West Bank of Antiqua and the Pyramid, and even less familiar with the third realm (whose name is escaping me right now). I have a strategy guide book from the days of yore, but I'm not going to open it unless I get unduly frustrated...and with the complexity of this game, I don't see that being a problem. However, that means I'm probably going to start missing some things. I know all the nooks and crannies of the first world, but from here on out, I probably won't remember things like the secret rooms where the alchemists who gave me the Speed and Acid Rain formulae are in the ensuing worlds. For instance, I know there's an alchemist in the middle of the desert that will teach me the Sting formula, but I can't for the life of me remember how to find him (think haunted forest maze in the original Zelda for NES -- that's how the desert is in Secret of Evermore).

From here on out, it's hopefully going to be as new for me as it will be for anyone else reading along.

[Vince]

Damn I forgot how long that desert is...

After a long trek through the sandy wastes, vicious tumbleweeds and sand spiders, countless oases, we arrived (panting and sunburnt) at the gates of the city of Nobilia. Discussing things with the locals, no one mentioned a missing Dog, but people were quick to notice my completely alien clothing. Togas seemed to be the way of things in Nobilia. Everyone was also quick to describe their new leader...while some were impressed with his ambition, most were wondering what he had to fear, because no one had seen his face! Interestingly enough, a statue in one of the courtyards looked a lot like the gentleman that ushered us through the metallic world way back at the beginning of the game. A local townsperson explained that the new leader had the statue comissioned to look like his mentor. Interesting...

After exploring the vast marketplace for a while, I discovered a quick way to make a buck, as one of the rice sellers had a rather low price, and a ceramic pot seller only wanted two bags of rice. Continually trading rice for pots, and then selling the pots to the marketplace appraiser raised some quick funds, but right when I was about to get into some serious trading for some seemingly quality merchandise, I got into somewhat of a shouting match with a so-called 'prophet.' He claimed that we were all under the control of a button-pushing overlord, and that we were in actuality in a video game! When he proclaimed to be struck down if he was telling a lie, I was offered the choice to turn him into a chicken, a ceramic pot or a goat. Declining the offer, I was thanked profusely by the prophet, and he rewarded me with a fine Centurion Cape!

Almost immediately thereafter, the marketplace emptied out completely! It was rather spooky...from a bustling marketplace to completely empty in the span of a few moments. You could hear the birds chirping in the background, it was so quiet. Everyone had gathered for an announcement by Pompolonious in the square.

Pompolonious decreed that the Sacred Dog had spoken, and that there would be a search for the Diamond Eyes of the Sacred Dog statue, with a huge reward to the person to discover the Eyes. As thanks for the Sacred Dog's message, there was to be a fight in the Colosseum, and the Sacred Dog would pick the challenger to Vigor, the as-yet unbeaten Gladiator.

Of course, the 'Sacred Dog' was actually my Dog, and he came right to my side, selecting me to be the unwitting challenger. "Great, I have to face that sword-wielding, bone crushing Gladiator with nothing but a femur, a claw and a stick!"

Vigor actually turned out to be a piece of cake. Though he rode around the arena in a chariot with spikes on it, he was slow and predictable. Even though the crowd got into it by throwing rotten fruit at me, and Vigor's occasionally thrown spear was a bit tough to dodge, I dispatched him in short order, and was rewarded with the Bronze Sword for my troubles. Finally a real weapon!

Pompolonious wasn't sure how to help us find Podunk, but he claimed that the Diamond Eyes of the Sacred Dog Statue would grant the new leader of Nobilia the power to send us home, and that our answers lied along the west bank of the river. Undaunted, Dog and I set off back to the marketplace of Nobilia to outfit ourselves for the adventure to come.

A quick cutscene revealed the new leader of Nobilia (again with his back to us) facing a talking wall, with a face the same shape as the statue in the square -- the leader's mentor, and assumably our nemesis in all of this mess. He refers to the leader as 'Number 2,' and discusses the failure on the plateau -- our defeat of Fire Eyes' evil twin, and our escape. 'Number 2' assures him that even if we survive the treck to the other side of the river, he has a surprise in store for us once we get back to Nobilia.

Back at the marketplace, a flurry of trading netted us a plethora of great items -- the Moxa Stick helped our healing abilities, while the Chocobo Egg granted us more life. Armor Polish gave our armor a little extra oomph, while the Jade Disk of Emperor Xi granted us a bit more accuracy with our attacks. Finally, the Sun Stone allowed us to avoid attacks with a bit more alacrity. We upgraded our armor marginally, with the Obsidian Helm and the Serpent Bracer. All of this traded for rice, spices, beads, perfume, limestone tablets, tapestries, chickens, jeweled scarabs and golden jackals. And one useless Souvenir Spoon. Sweet.

Once back to Crustacea, we took stock of our Alchemical situation. We have quite a few new formulae, and we are now at the point where we need to pick and choose our formulae carefully, because we cannot have them all equipped at once. Our new formulae were Crush, a more powerful attack formula, Revive, which brought my pup out of his 'dead' state, and Strength of Atlas, which granted me great strength for three swings of my weapon. We stocked up on alchemical ingredients from Blimp, and headed for the west bank, selling off our old armor to the armorer in town.

A little exploring showed us some crevasses, and a few walls that seem like they could be broken, but we don't have the ability to break them yet. A misstep on my part led to a tumble down said crevasse, and we woke up in the camp of one Professor Horace Highwater, the former Museum Curator in Podunk.

The encounter is quite enlightening, as we discover quite a bit of information about our situation, and the experiment that went terribly wrong. It seems that there were four people present -- Professor Ruffleburg himself (whom I'm assuming we met up at the space station/metallic world from the beginning), his granddaughter Elizabeth (Fire Eyes), the Museum Curator Horace Highwater, and finally the Librarian, Miss Bluegarden. Horace suspects foul play in the initial experiment, but he doesn't know who it could be.

Horace also explains that the new leader in Nobilia is a bit of a schemer (which we were pretty much already aware of due to cut scenes), and that we should instead return the Diamond Eyes to his camp, instead of the leader of Nobilia. Horace's associate, Madronius, teaches us the Revealer formula, which will allow us to see hidden bridges across the crevasses from earlier -- the crevasses lead to the two places the Diamond Eyes are hidden -- the Halls of Collosia and the Pyramid. Off we go into the fray again...

[Vince]

Well, Dog and I breezed through the Halls of Collosia, running into Madronius' brother, who taught us a really nice Alchemical formula in Fireball, a souped-up version of Flash. We dispatched the Mini-taur and the Mega-taur, and earned a Bronze Spear and the first of the two Diamond Eyes for our trouble! We headed back to camp, and Horace taught us an Escape formula that let us get out of dungeons in a hurry. A trip through the Pyramid was a bit more involved than the Halls of Collosia, but not difficult. A glitch in my game froze us up during the final battle, so I'm about to head into the fray again to polish off the Pyramid. Our new Bronze Axe lets us knock down certain walls, so some places that were off-limits before are now accessible.

[Vince]

Well, this morning was great as I was diagnosed with conjunctivitis, more commonly known as pink eye. Since I work in the food industry, I'm SOL on work until Thursday...which leaves a lot of time for my resolution. I'll probably end up knocking this game out either tonight or tomorrow, unless of course I get rip roaringly drunk this evening with my roommates, as eye drops aren't exactly medication that screams "don't drink alcoholic beverages while on this medication."

[Vince]

I breezed through the end of the Antiqua region in style...we destroyed the Pyramid's boss in no time, though for the first time, the boss used alchemical formulae that were more than an annoyance. The statues' Flash spells rocked Dog and I pretty hard.

We sped back to Horace's camp to find that he was sporting a green outfit, instead of his normal khaki colors. Practically demanding the Diamond Eyes, once he had them, he gave a most evil laugh, and ran off, leaving us to deal with a pair of thugs who were easy to dispatch. Chasing him across the desert, we caught up with him in Nobilia, where the man we had already assumed was an impostor was busy installing the Diamond Eyes into the statue of the Sacred Dog, and commanding the terrorized citizens of Nobilia. The statue sprang to life, and a boss battle commenced. It was rather bland...the statue summoned creatures, and was only vulnerable for little bits at a time...the problem being that my Dog is sort of kicking everything's ass at this point. Its attack has powered up to level 3, which means he can charge up twice. If he lands a fully charged attack, it deals about 500 damage. To put that into perspective, our normal attacks do anywhere from 30-60 damage. So that's a bit overkill, and speeds up boss battles tremendously. We took the statue down in short order, revealing a glowing energy core that was pulsating in a rather unstable manner. The real Horace thanked us, and then called over Tiny the Barbarian, a local strongman, to hurl the core out of the city. It exploded all the way on the other side of the river across the desert, diverting one branch of the river and exposing some caverns to a new part of Evermore. We went to explore the caverns, and soon left Antiqua behind.

Now we're really outside the realm of my knowledge. I know a bit about the first half of that act, but not much about the second. In the third region, Gothica, I've only been through it once or twice total, so I remember very little.

Antiqua was fun -- I particularly enjoyed searching the marketplace in Nobilia for trade goods, finding the best deals, and then running back and forth converting Jewels to Rice to Spice to Perfume to Jeweled Scarabs to finally useful artifacts. Antiqua also introduced the first sets of enemies that are much more vulnerable to Alchemy than my weapons -- the Mummified Cats and Bone Buzzards of the Pyramids are either impossible to strike with my weapons (Bone Buzzards), or nearly invulnerable to them (Mummified Cats), and alchemical formulae are much more effective. Because of this, my alchemy is getting stronger, as Crush, Fireball and Hardball are now at higher levels and do much more damage than before. Sadly, Antiqua also pointed out that my Dog is way more powerful than I am, and does an obscene amount of damage to most foes. Hopefully he is either scaled back or the foes get tougher in the future, because at this rate, there won't be a difficult boss battle again.

[Vince]

Well, Gothica was quick (which is good...Dog turned into an ugly Pink Poodle...ugh). I'm onto the final stage, Omnitopia. Highlights of Gothica:

I met Cecil of Baron Castle, who defeated Xeromus and is now living with his wife Rosa in Ebon Keep of Gothica. Nice little cross-game reference there

Fought an interesting boss called the Verminator. He was sitting on a pile of boxes, so he completely rendered my dog obsolete. I had to either throw my spear, or use alchemy to defeat him. His alchemical formulae beat up on me pretty strong, too -- so it was not an easy fight at all.

Other than that, just plain old vanilla stuff. Another evil twin, another plot for domination, another foiled attempt as Dog and I valiantly helped the locals. Turns out that this evil twin was a robot -- Horace had suspected back in Antiqua that his evil twin was a robot as well.

Queen Bluegarden's right hand, Tinker Tinderbox, set us up with a flying machine, the Windwalker, and we can now fly around Evermore (which we have fully explored at this point). He tells us that he wants to send us to the space station, but to do that he needs some of the parts that blew off of the machine from the volcano during the eruption. He sends us on a trip back to Prehistoria and Antiqua to pick up a Gear, a Valve and the Diamond Eyes of the Sacred Dog Statue. We collect them, running into Elizabeth and Horace again, among others. When we discuss with Elizabeth (Fire Eyes) the extent of our deductions about that fateful experiment, she says the only other person there that night was the butler...who was a robot programmed to clean the house. Interesting...we have a bunch of evil robots trying to take over the (made up) world, while the world only exists because of foul play. Methinks it was the Butler, in the Mansion, with the Experimental Machine. We load up on alchemical ingredients, and blast off towards the space station.

Dog turns from his hideous pink poodle-ness to a robotic toaster that floats through the air and can fire lasers. Ok. Within moments, I was annihilated by a metallic raptor. So now, we go back to try again.

[Vince]

And now I'm basically through with Omnitopia. Professor Ruffleburg confirms that it IS his robotic butler, named Carltron, who has gone rogue and is trying to take over Evermore. He has holed himself up in the final room deep in Omnitopia. I have recovered a Power Core from Gothica back on Evermore, which the Professor needs to enable the access to Carltron. Right now, it's basically stock up on anything and everything I might need, because this is it. I'm going to call it a night, and whoop this guy's butt tomorrow morning.

[Vince]

I forgot to mention my favorite moment of the game so far. This game was definitely made with a tongue-in-cheek feel -- the developers added in a bunch of somewhat funny lines to the game. My favorite, though, was in Gothica. I had to fight three shape-shifters, who became 'Bad Boys;' clones of my hero's character. After the fight, a little boy on the other side of the bridge responded: "Wow, you're good! You're at least three times stronger than yourself. I'm still trying to figure that one out...but good job!"

[Vince]

2 down, 8 to go. The final boss fight would have been difficult, but the Professor gave us an alchemical formula called 'Energize' right before the battle. It allowed my characters to charge our attacks super fast, and it had a duration that was rather long. Combine that with a relatively cheap casting cost (I had enough ingredients to cast the spell 95 times), and it's overpowered. Even though I didn't bother to level up my newest laser spear to even the second level before taking on Carltron, the dog was more than enough to make short work of the boss.

It started with a fight against some fans and speakers that had the ability to knock me across the room, while some pipes were feeding bombs into the room. The bombs did a ton of damage, but they were pretty easy to avoid. On top of that, I could swat them into the speakers and fans to do super damage to them. Combine the bombs with the Dog's charged attack doing 1,000-2,000 in damage, and we made short work of them. Destroying them revealed a wall of monitors, which would display the next enemies we would face: Mecha-Raptors. With Dog energized, we dispatched 4 sets of 2 raptors with ease. Following them came 3 Eyes of Rimsala, the boss I faced in the Pyramid. They moved around quickly and erratically, which made them a much tougher foe, but they didn't do much damage, so though they took longer to defeat, they weren't very difficult. After the Eyes of Rimsala came Metal Magmar, the same boss we fought back in Prehistoria, but tougher. His shots hardly ever landed, and a continuously Energized dog combined with some alchemical formulae for fun made short work of him. Then came Carltron's Robot.

The biggest scare of the whole fight was that IMMEDIATELY after defeating Metal Magmar, Carltron blasted me with a full force group of missiles from his robot, knocking me down to 10 health. There was no pause, no explosion, no nothing, just wham, missiles. A quick heal spell got me up and running, but a few moments showed that this wasn't going to be your run-of-the-mill boss battle. Instead of being 'stunned' when hit, Carltron wasn't even fazed, and continually shot missiles at Dog and I. Though we dealt some major damage, we had to take a significant amount of damage each time as well. But, sadly, Carltron only had one attack -- missiles. The damage he was doing simply served to delay the inevitable, as I was able to heal both Dog and I any time we got low on health, and Dog kept sapping his health with full strength blaster shots. Cue the ending!

[Vince]

With his robot destroyed, Carltron wasn't much of a threat, and Professor Ruffleberg turned him off. His evil influence gone, the evil elements of Evermore (all the baddies I'd been fighting) began to disappear. However, this offset the balance of the world, and it began to destroy itself. To right the balance, the people from Podunk had to leave immediately! Earthquakes, slashing rain, lightning and thunder were rocking Evermore as we used the escape pod to pick up Elizabeth (Fire Eyes), Horace and Camillia. Tearful, yet hurried, goodbyes were said, and we rushed back to the space station to use the Professor's machine to get back to Podunk. At the last moment, as the Professor's space station was exploding, Dog and I made it through the machine, and safely back to Podunk. Waking up on the street in front of Doughead Software and the future sight of Quik Store, we wonder if it was all just a dream? A short walk back towards home reveals that it was not at all a dream, as the local theater is showing 'The Secret of Evermore!'

All in all, it was a solid game. It was no Secret of Mana, but the dialogue was much more entertaining, and I enjoyed the change of pace that Alchemy (instead of Magic) lent the game. Sadly, like Metroid it was hardly challenging at all -- the Verminator was the most difficult part by far -- and the puzzles and mazes were ok, but nothing that really made me think. I think what made this game entertaining was the solid gameplay and fun storyline. I'd give the game a 7/10.

[Vince]

Current Game: Final Fantasy IX
Platform: Sony PlayStation
Release Date: November 14, 2000

After the debacle that was Final Fantasy VIII, with IX Squaresoft tried to hearken back to the roots of the series by bringing back some of the graphics and gameplay mechanics of bygone days. With stunning visuals (for a PlayStation game) and fairly solid gameplay, this was (for the most part) heralded as a vastly superior game to Final Fantasy VIII. However, it did not achieve the rave reviews of Final Fantasy VII, which many people regard as the greatest RPG of all time. This is a classic RPG, with (almost) turn based combat and a story-driven plot. You follow the main characters Vivi (a little black mage who doesn't seem to fit in very well), Zidane (a young thief plotting to kidnap the princess), and Garnet (a princess who is trying her best to get kidnapped) along with a host of others as they wander throughout a world torn apart by the war between nations.

The story behind this game is that the first time through the game, loving it like crazy, my little brother 'accidentally' erased my memory card...after I had been well over 20 hours into the game. It completely and totally shot my interest, and I got busy with school and work shortly thereafter. The game was shelved, and I haven't picked it up since. Today, for the first time, I'm starting over.

EDIT -- As pre-warning, I'm a complete and utter oldschool Final Fantasy Fanboy. Since this game emulates a lot of the things I loved about the American FF I, II and III (I, IV and VI for those who go by the real numbers), I'm probably going to be looking at this game through some rather rose-colored glasses. Take my review for what it is worth because of that

[Vince]

The game opens to a beautiful video (I forgot how much I loved the cinematics of this game) of a ship being tossed about the ocean during a raging storm. Then we flash to a palace, where a beautiful young lady is staring out upon a city forlornly -- it seems the ocean and the ship were a daydream. The next shot is of an airship floating majestically through the air...inside the airship, we spot a young man (with a tail...?), and that's where we take over. It turns out the boy is Zidane, and he is a member of the Tantalus Group -- thieves who are plotting to kidnap Princess Garnet from Queen Brahme of Alexandria. The plan is for Zidane to kidnap her while the rest of the crew is distracting the Queen and the rest of the citizens with their theatrical performance. With the plan set, the crew prepares to dock at the castle...

We watch another beautiful cutscene, as the airship zooms over the city of Alexandria. Townsfolk rush along to watch, and we notice a young boy in a blue robe and a tall pointy yellow hat -- the tip flopping over of course -- stumble and lose a ticket he is holding. A young girl helps him up "Hey, you dwopped your ticket!", and we then take over as Vivi. Wandering around the city for a while, we get our bearings and explore a little while, before going to turn in our ticket to the ticket booth to get stamped. Turns out the ticket is a fake!

Dejected, Vivi wanders around for a while before running into a small rat-boy (not sure about these animal people...a tail on Zidane, this rat kid, a guy named 'Hippaul' who looks like a hippo...strange) who says he can get us into the show if we agree to be his slave. With no other options, really, we agree, and follow him up along the rooftops to the castle. Sneaking in is little problem, and we sit back and watch as the show begins.

Queen Brahne and Princess Garnet are watching the show from a balcony, and it looks as if Brahne is enjoying the show immensely. Garnet, however, looks as if she would like to be anywhere but here. The actors begin performing on the deck of the Airship, which is moored right alongside the castle. Zidane and a fellow Tantalus Troupe member engage in a mock swordfight, and as a sidegame, we take control of Zidane. A pretty impressive button sequence later, we have impressed 98 of the 100 nobles present, and Queen Brahne is quite impressed! They shower us with nearly 1000 gold, and we leave the stage. The play continues, but Zidane and his companion are elsewhere...

At this point, Garnet gets up and leaves her seat...the captain of the Knights of Pluto, Steiner, notices her empty seat a moment later with a frown.

Flash back to Zidane, and he and his partner have knocked out two guards and stolen their armor. They begin to sneak around the palace looking for Garnet, when Zidane is nearly bowled over by a figure in a white robe with red trim. Though Zidane lays it on thick with the flirting, the figure is undaunted, and knocks Zidane out of the way as she escapes. Zidane grabs his companion as he chases her, shouting "That's princess Garnet!"

We flash back to the original hallway Zidane and his companion were in, where we see two creatures dressed in red and blue motley, answering to the names Zorn and Thorn, discuss how much trouble they are in as they wander around repeating each other. Finally reaching the Queen's balcony, they explain that Garnet has gone missing, and the Queen screams at Steiner (the captain of the Knights of Pluto) and Beatrix (who seems to be Steiner's rival) to find her at all costs. We take over as Steiner who tries to get all of his troops together in a search for the princess. The problem seems to be that all of his troops would rather be doing something completely different, such as flirting with the girls, eating, or writing a fantasy novel. Undaunted, Steiner climbs to the top of one of the towers, and notices Garnet on the other tower! She is being chased by Zidane, and he is only a step or two behind her! In a cutscene, she climbs up on a rampart, looks back at Zidane and smiles as she falls backwards off the tower!

It turns out that she grabbed a line of pennons that were attached to the Airship, and swung Tarzan-style over towards the airship. Zidane followed shortly thereafter, and with a little trepidation, Steiner followed suit from the other tower. Slamming into the wall of the wooden airship in all his armor, he put a sizable hole in it, as he was stuck. Zidane managed to land next to the band, and Garnet lands on top of him! She runs away, and Zidane quickly follows her. She runs past one of the female members of the troupe, who holds up Zidane long enough for Garnet to get away again. Finally, Zidane corners her, where she reveals that she is indeed Princess Garnet. Then, in a stunning move...she asks Zidane to kidnap her at once!

Flabbergasted, Zidane doesn't know what to say, but with Steiner hot on their heels, Zidane gets over it fast, and they continue to run away. After duking it out with Steiner a few times, Zidane and the rest of the Tantalus crew are running out of places to hide from him on the Airship, so Zidane and Garnet are forced onto a lift...which takes them right on stage! Steiner follows after, and all three are on stage in the middle of the play!

In the play, Marcus is courting Cornelia, though he is only a commoner and Cornelia a princess. The King is attempting to marry Cornelia off to a prince, in an effort to take over more land, and has forbidden Cornelia to see Marcus. As Marcus and the King are facing off, Zidane, Garnet and Steiner rise up to the stage. Zidane urges Garnet to improvise (she's still in her big white robes, so no one can tell it is her), while Steiner is struck with stage fright. Garnet takes to the role like a champion, and beseeches her father to let her run off with Marcus. While he is having none of it, Marcus prepares to run the King through, to avenge his family's deaths...but Garnet steps inbetween, and Marcus runs his love 'Cornelia' through! Stricken with grief, he runs himself through as he cannot bear to live. The crowd roars, and everyone is happy!

Except Vivi, as he and his companion have been discovered by the inept Knights of Pluto, and are being chased around the crowd where they were hiding. Vivi stumbles, and his companion ditches him...getting up in the nick of time, Vivi has no choice but to run on stage, where he loses control and casts a fire spell at the guards to keep them away from himself! A spark catches Garnet's robes, and she throws off the burning robe, revealing her for everyone to see! Steiner breaks out of his trance, and engages Zidane and the others, while the rest of the crew is struggling to get the ship off its moorings and into the air! The Queen, livid, is making a fuss as the Castle of Alexandria prepares its cannons to harpoon the airship before it can leave.

In an intense cutscene, the Prima Vista (the airship) is shot with multiple harpoons, and is stuck by the chains! The Queen unloads her biggest cannon, and fires a Bomb at the Airship! Steiner, unwilling to look behind him 'I'll not fall for that old trick!', doesn't notice the Bomb until it is too late, and the explosion leaves the Prima Vista badly damaged. The explosion has its own benefit, however, as it destroys the chains holding the Prima Vista down! Limping off, the airship clears the city, and begins to descend into the mists...

Unable to make it very far, the ship begins to lose steam almost immediately, and crashes into the forest beneath the mists! Zidane is thrown clear of the wreck, and comes back to find that everyone is miraculously in pretty good health...except for Garnet, who is nowhere to be found!

A cutscene reveals that Garnet and Vivi were also thrown clear of the wreckage, but are being chased through another part of the forest by an unknown being! Zidane sets out to find them...

[Vince]

It turns out that the forest we have crashed in is the 'Evil Forest,' so named because no one has ever made it out of the forest alive. It is a rather dark and sinister place, and there is 'mist' all over the place. And from what we gather by what others are saying this isn't your everyday mist. The Mist apparently begets foul creatures...whether or not that is idle superstition is up for debate. A short trip through the forest brings Zidane to find Vivi and Steiner looking on as a strange looking plant has taken Garnet hostage! Trapped in a cage of leaves atop the beast's head, Steiner and Zidane engage the beast immediately, as Vivi is too stunned to do anything on the sidelines. Zidane is so enraged at the beast, he achieves a state known as 'Trance' and is able to launch a powerful energy attack upon the creature using his 'Dyne' technique. The creature succumbs quickly, but manages to escape with Garnet still in its clutches! While Zidane and Steiner were otherwise occupied, another plant captures Vivi, and is quickly dispatched by not only Zidane and Steiner's attacks, but by Vivi casting Fire spells at the creature while captured inside it's leafy prison. This creature isn't lucky enough to get away, but it excretes a gaseous poison into both Steiner and Vivi, and Zidane is barely able to bring them back to the wreckage of the Prima Vista.

Zidane's friend Blank, a fellow Tantalus group member, fixes up a potion that cures the two unlucky travelers, while explaining that the plant had implanted its seeds into them to try to reproduce. The potion cures them however. After a short fight against the Tantalus Group Leader (for breaking the rules), Zidane is cleared to go looking for the Princess with Vivi and Steiner. Before they leave, Blank gives Zidane more of the potion, to help in case Garnet has been infected.

After a little exploring through the forest, we are privy to a few story-telling moments, as we notice Ruby, the girl from the Tantalus crew who sidetracked Zidane while he was chasing Garnet (interesting contrast of the names there), is now stranded in Alexandria, wondering what to do. We also see that the leader of the Tantalus crew has begun to make preparations to leave, including sending Blank on a mission of some sort, and Blank is given a map...

...meanwhile, back in the forest, a short trip reveals a huge plant that has Garnet captive -- our first boss battle. With a clever idea from Steiner, he combines his sword technique with Vivi's magic to create a magic sword attack that is devastating to the plant. Halfway through the battle, Blank shows up to add his firepower to our own, and we make short work of the plant. It shrivels up, and we quickly administer the potion to Garnet to bring her out of her comatose state. We aren't out of the woods yet (ugh...bad pun), however, as a bunch of rose-like plant monsters begin to chase us! Though we are surrounded at one point, we blast through the weak monsters quickly enough to think we might be able to make a stand...but there are FAR too many of them, and they threaten to overrun us! We begin to sprint for the exit, and the creatures are pouring out of every nook and cranny of the forest. To make matters worse, the forest seems to be petrifying at an alarming rate, from the center outward. The petrification is slowly catching up with us, as the plant monsters themselves begin to petrify as well...when suddenly, Blank stumbles! Zidane stops to look back, but Blank is up again. One of the plant monsters grabs him, and picks him up...

...he reaches to his belt, and throws the rolled-up map out over Zidane's head...he begins running it down as the petrification crawls ever further. Catching the map on the fly, Zidane sprints to the edge of the forest as tentacle-like vines streak forward to snare him. At the last minute, he dives clear of the forest, and the vines form an impenetrable wall between the trees, as the petrification envelops the entire forest. A look back to the forest shows Blank suspended in the air in the plant-creature's pincers, petrified with his right arm extended as he had just thrown the map.

A disappointed Zidane and friends make camp just outside the forest, to allow Garnet some time to recover from the plant's toxic seeds. Steiner of course rankles at taking 'orders' from a common ruffian like Zidane, but realizes that it's only what is best for Garnet, so he stands watch, and promptly falls asleep on duty. Once Garnet is ok, she acknowledges Blank's sacrifice, and tells Zidane that she wants to help him. Zidane explains that there is nothing to be done now, but that they'll be back.

A quick exploration outside the petrified forest reveals the 'North Gate,' which is the border between Alexandria and Burmecia. The gate is closed, but there are footprints, and smoke coming from the other side of the gate. It looks like a battle may have taken place, and the War Banner of Alexandria is flying over the gate. Steiner, ever the Queen's man, rages that people shouldn't be allowed to fly that banner, sullying the Queen and her country's image, and vows to bring the brigands to justice. We set up camp again outside the Ice Cavern, supposedly the only way to get up out of this valley of mist.

[Vince]

So far, I'm really enjoying the game (again). I really did forget how beautiful the pre-rendered videos are. The graphics outside the videos are far from exciting, as the characters are jagged and very reminiscent of PlayStation graphics. The music is great, and the storyline, while hardly developed, seems to be going in at least some direction. People are wary of the Queen, wondering what her deal is...including Princess Garnet. We're starting to see signs of something in the discovery at the North Gate -- is it really brigands doing bad deeds and then flying the banner of Alexandria to implicate the Queen? Or could the Queen be plotting war? Strangely enough, the Queen looks nothing like Garnet. Brahne is huge, overweight, and with some crazy hair/makeup issues, while Garnet is petite and beautiful. I really enjoy the characters to this point, as Zidane is portrayed as the Han Solo-type good natured 'bad guy,' a very chivalrous thief. Vivi is a very timid young black mage, unsure of his ability, and shy in conversation. Steiner is a stubborn, proud knight who is completely appalled by the 'ruffian' Zidane and his connection to the Princess, while at the same time respectful of Vivi and his 'immense power,' although at first he seemed reluctant to bring him into the search for Garnet back on the Prima Vista. Garnet hasn't been around much yet to warrant a character description, but she seems to be a willful young girl.

Gameplay is alright...load times for the battles are getting annoying real fast, as there's a 30+ second wait for each and every battle, between the load time, and the multiple camera angles they show before the battle actually begins. Also, I've noticed multiple times where a battle will begin, and both sides will wait about 15 to 20 seconds before anything happens, as the ATB (active time battle) meters need to fill up before anyone can act. You'd think the game logic would start the battle with someone ready to attack...there was also an issue once where my game failed to save at a save point. It would fail while the progress bar was filling up. I had to exit out of the save point, unplug my memory card, re-plug it in, and then save again. It worked fine after that, but I would be very disappointed in the future if I lost a good chunk of gameplay time because my game wouldn't save. Since it's a PlayStation 1 game, I can't use my PS2 Memory Cards for it. I couldn't find any of my old PS1 cards, so I have been using some I purchased from Game Stop -- non-Sony cards. Hopefully that doesn't cause a problem later...I've never had a problem with them before, but this one instance isn't exactly confidence inspiring. Outside of all that, I haven't played the game long enough to really get much more of a feel for it. More observations to come when I fire it up tomorrow.

[Vince]

A short trip through the Ice Cavern led us to a steep incline with a harsh wind blowing. Nearly all of us freezing, Vivi and Steiner pass out in the fierce wind. Garnet follows soon after. Zidane fights through the drowsiness, as he hears the tinkle of a bell...pushing his way through the bitter cold and up the hill, he comes to a frozen waterfall, where a mysterious character who resembles Vivi, only taller and with blue wings, jumps down asking why Zidane hasn't fallen asleep yet. Going by the title of 'Black Waltz,' he exlains that he caused the blizzard, and quickly calls to his aid a 'Sea Lion.' Battle ensues, and put into Trance mode, Zidane wipes out the Black Waltz early. The Sea Lion took a bit more doing, but went down in the end. With the spell broken, the waterfall begins flowing again, and the nearly freezing wind dies down. As Zidane goes back to check on his friends, a voice whispers "You have dealt with #1, but #2 and #3 will return the Princess..." Turning around quickly, Zidane can't find anyone there...but as he walks towards his sleeping friends, the camera pans out and the two figures in motley at the top of the waterfall imply that Thorn and Zorn, the Queen's henchmen, are at the bottom of this.

Returning to his friends to find them arising from their slumber, Steiner immediately asks what happened...to which Zidane responds "Nothing, don't worry about it." Steiner doesn't believe him...but Princess Garnet chides him for being rude, and Steiner quiets down with an apology to the Princess, though not to Zidane.

[Vince]

Exiting the cave, the group finds themselves above the Mist, and just outside a town called Dali. Zidane and Steiner get into it (again) about the Princess, as Zidane claims that she will have to attempt to 'fit in' like a commoner. Steiner is of course mortified that a peasant would think to order the princess around, as obviously he is her protector, and he knows best. The princess ends the argument by agreeing with Zidane (much to Steiner's Chagrin), and henceforth Garnet goes by the name 'Dagger.' Yeah, that's a stupid name, but whatever. I wasn't feeling creative at the time. The group heads into town, and grabs a room at the local Inn. There, Garnet explains that she was planning on staying on the Prima Vista to Lindblum, as she needed to get out of Alexandria for reasons she will not mention. Much to Steiner's outrage, Zidane promises to get Garnet across the border no matter what it takes. The group sleeps on it, and everyone goes out exploring the next day.

Inside the village of Dali, things are quite strange -- there are no adults to be found, and the innkeeper seemed to be gawking at the group awkwardly. Though Zidane chided him for staring at the pretty girl (Garnet/Dagger), it seems he's not staring at the princess at all...the group separates in the morning, to check things out. Garnet tries her hardest to fit in by speaking like a commoner, and succeeds in looking rather awkward, though she does improve somewhat. Vivi, meanwhile, is shunned by the children of the town, and his confidence is hurt by it. Meanwhile, the innkeeper is having a personal struggle because he wants to get someone off his back, and he thinks that by telling that someone that our group is travelling with a specific person (that he doesn't name), the person troubling him will leave him alone.

Zidane starts to gather up Vivi and Garnet, but after telling Vivi to go to the Inn, Zidane walks away only for Vivi to disappear! When he doesn't return after a while, Zidane and Garnet go searching for him, finding an underground passage under the windmill. There, they find Vivi, who two men keep referring to as 'it' rather than 'he.' Vivi is doing his classic scared out of his wits silent treatment, and meanwhile, Garnet is holding Zidane back from kicking these guys' butts. Seems she has recognized a symbol on the nearby barrell from the Alexandria Castle. Following the men who are taking Vivi away, they find Vivi stuffed in a wooden coffin, right outside a few machines using Mist to create what look like eggs. Freeing Vivi from the coffin, the trio begin to explore the underground passageway more...only to realize that the Mist machines are turning the eggs into adult-sized inanimate objects that look suspiciously like Vivi. Confused and hurt, Vivi doesn't know what to do or say, and neither do Zidane and Garnet. Garnet offers apologies, as the Alexandrian Symbol on the barrels combined with the guards' insistence that he is to be shipped off to the castle imply that the Queen is up to no good.

Meanwhile, Steiner has been talking with the townsfolk, trying to arrange transportation to the castle against the princess's wishes -- he seems to think he knows best. He finds out that there is a cargo ship that arrives in Dali soon -- it will be bound for Alexandria. Rushing down to meet the small airship, he stumbles upon Zidane, Vivi and Garnet, who had managed to get stuck in one of the barrels for shipment while exploring the underground passageway. Though an argument seems primed to breakout, a winged Black Mage flies up, and threatens to kill anyone who gets in the way of his goal of bringing Garnet back to the Castle! Battle begins between our group and Black Waltz No. 2.

No. 2 looks much more imposing than No. 1 did -- he has the full flowing blue robes, is taller, and is actually flying, as opposed to No. 1 who was for the most part ground bound. His spells pack a bigger whallop, as he crushes Vivi almost instantly. However, he's no match for Steiner's big sword and Garnet's supporting white magic, and goes down fairly quickly. The group convenes again, and Zidane explains the encounter in the Ice Cavern while they were asleep. Garnet wonders aloud about the Queen really sending such an evil being to capture her, while Steiner continues to insist that she shouldn't believe common bandits. Steiner seems to be blindly loyal to the Queen and Alexandria, even in the face of interesting, illogical things. In the brief encounter in which he found out about the Cargo Ship, the old man even asked him, "So you're in charge of what is right and wrong, are you?" Steiner responded almost disdainfully "Anyone can tell the difference between right and wrong."

When asked about the airship, Steiner rather awkwardly seizes his chance, and claims that the airship is on the way to Lindblum...even though he knows full well that it is going to Alexandria. This is the first time Steiner has outright lied to the group, even though he has disagreed with most of what we have done. Zidane notices that Steiner is acting funny, but seems reluctant to call him out. Taking Steiner at his word, we board the cargo ship...

[Vince]

Well, I should make that 'we approach the cargo ship,' as Steiner proceeds to go ask if we can hitch a ride. While he's gone, Garnet questions his motives, and Zidane pipes up claiming that the ship is probably headed towards Alexandria. He was well aware of Steiner's poor attempt at subtlety, but has a plan of his own. Strangely, the ship starts up before Steiner can get back, and Vivi, Zidane and Garnet are forced to jump aboard or risk being left behind. On the way up, Zidane 'accidentally' grabs Garnet's leg, which earns him a shout and a dirty look

An amazing discovery is that once aboard the airship, we find it crewed by the same inanimate dolls that we found underneath the village of Dali. Vivi attempts to interact with them, but they ignore his every effort, and he is highly confused, and just as hurt. Zidane asks Garnet to look after Vivi, as he is off to commandeer the airship to take it to Lindblum instead of Alexandria. Once he arrives on deck, he stumbles across a very depressed Steiner, who can't believe that the crew wouldn't respond to him, and highly distressed that he allowed the airship to take off without the princess on board. Relieved when he realizes that they are indeed all on board, he gets upset again as soon as Zidane takes the helm and swings the airship around. At Zidane's bold move, the animated dolls finally take notice, and begin gathering around the cabin of the airship as Vivi and Garnet make their way up to the deck from the engine room. The dolls aren't doing much, but they are gathering around as the airship begins to make its way towards the mountain passes and South Gate.

Watching from a nearby rock formation, yet another Black Waltz watches, and magical energy crackles around him. Obviously the most advanced yet, he is tall and imposing with a giant wingspan and an impressive staff. He advances, and threatens to kill Vivi, who is the only one out on the deck with Garnet. At this, the black mage-looking dolls appear almost agitated, and they gather around Vivi to protect him. Enraged, the Black Waltz calls them mindless servants, and proceeds to demolish them with a brutal display of magic. Those he does not set on fire or utterly destroy are flung off the deck of the airship to tumble down hundreds of feet to their deaths. Zidane sends Garnet into the cabin to steer the ship while the rest take on the Black Waltz. He leaves the choice as to which direction to fly in her hands...

Enraged, Vivi enters his Trance state, and battle begins. Vivi blasts the Waltz with his Double Black Magic skills, and between that and Steiner's Magic Sword attacks, he goes down in no time at all. Amazed that he could be defeated so easily, and enraged that Vivi would suggest that the 'lowly Black Mage Soldiers' are his friends, he flies off, exclaiming that his only purpose is to kill.

Zidane is relieved to see South Gate looming on the horizon -- showing that Garnet did indeed stay headed towards Lindblum.

Meanwhile, up in the skies, Zorn and Thorn are watching the action unfold from a small airship (think like a Jet-Ski), and they are quite depressed that their super-powered mage has been defeated. They're even more depressed to see it coming back for them! They abandon ship, and Black Waltz No. 3, still repeating his mantra "My only purpose is to kill!" streaks off on a collision course with the cargo ship!

Garnet is still piloting the ship, and Steiner is still trying to convince her to return to Alexandria, all the while bemoaning the loss of cargo along the way. Vivi notices the Waltz streaking towards the ship, and Zidane quickly points out that they will never be able to outmaneuver his smaller, faster ship. Their only choice is to floor it and try to beat him through the South Gate! Reluctantly, Steiner mans the throttle, as Garnet holds on to the tiller. Though the Waltz is gaining on them, a quick magical blast from Vivi discharges the Waltz's energy, and knocks him back a pace or two. Hurtling towards the circular South Gate as it closes, Garnet pilots the cargo ship into the cylindrical ravine between the two gates as they close, and the Waltz barely makes it in behind them. Again approaching the ship, the Waltz begins gathering energy...a slight blast almost knocks Vivi off the side of the ship, but Zidane grabs him and hauls him back on deck. With the other end of the tunnel closing fast, a Star Wars-like moment ensues as the Black Waltz lights his ship on fire! As the Waltz is spiraling out of control, Garnet just squeezes through the closing gate while the Waltz's smaller airship explodes against the inside of the gate!

We limp into Linblum and await an audience with Regent Cid.

[Vince]

The audience with Cid eplains quite a lot...

Garnet's father and Cid seemed to be great friends, and that is why Garnet has been looking forward to meeting Cid. Garnet explains that since her father has died, Brahne has been acting rather strangely, and Garnet does not understand why...apparently, a strange man has also been noticed around the Alexandrian court...but when Garnet has approached others about it, they excuse it as her being distraught over her father's passing. Obviously, this leads to her desire to flee the country.

It turns out that Cid is responsible for Tantalus's kidnapping attempt. So while Garnet wanted to leave, Cid was intent on kidnapping her. It seems that while Garnet's father was alive, he made Cid swear that if he ever faltered that Cid would take care of Garnet. Knowing that Queen Brahne would never give her up willingly, Cid needed a reason to get Garnet from Alexandria. Since Cid had known Baku (the leader of the Tantalus troupe) for a while, he knew the perfect resolution to get Garnet to Lindblum without implicating the Regency in any way, and therefore avoiding war. So Cid was behind the kidnapping attempt, and even though it wasn't entirely successful, Garnet ended up in Lindblum, and everyone was happy.

What seems to be the only problem is that Cid has been turned into an Oglop -- a creature quite like a frog. While he can still talk and function, his brainpower isn't quite what it is used to being, so Airship Engineering, which was his strength, is now out of the question. The reason he is an Oglop, is because his wife Hilda caught him cheating...and used her magic to make him an Oglop. She then took his newest ship, the Hilda Garde (ironically), and disappeared. While Cid has been an Oglop, his ability to design Airships has disappeared, so no new ships have been commisioned since she disappeared.

While Garnet is worried that Queen Brahne might make a move with her newfound army of Black Mages, Cid is convinced that she can't move while he has his fleet of Airships. Because of this, the Great Hunt, which is sort of a regional holliday, continues.

[Vince]

Meanwhile, as Garnet is meeting with Cid, Vivi goes out exploring, and finds himeslf a Kupo Nut at a local shop. Steiner gets lost in Lindblum (Small Town Knight in a Big Time City ), and is rejected by a female red mage who doesn't realize that he really is asking for directions. Zidane goes to Tantalus' hideout, but as expected, no one is home. He checks out the rest of the city, upgrades some equipment, and runs into an old friend named Freya in a pub. She is a Burmecian Dragon Knight, who is still looking for someone...her lover, apparently? Unsure of that. After their encounter, Zidane heads back to the castle to chat it up with Garnet.

It turns out that Garnet has been having trouble sleeping, so she asks Zidane how Tantalus had intended to abduct her. Zidane explains that they were to use Sleep Weed, an herb normally given to children to calm them while sick. "A strong enough dose would put an adult to sleep just as well." Zidane gives Garnet some to help her sleep. Garnet and Zidane flirt, after a fashion, and Zidane gets Garnet to agree to go out with him if he can win the Festival of the Hunt. Zidane also buys entry for Vivi in the tournament, though he never asked to be enrolled. After some convincing on the day of the tournament, Vivi decides to enter, and the tourney commences.

A 12 minute time limit is given, and points are awarded for each creature dispatched. The load times were really killing me here, as well as the arbitrary increases of the leader's point total. With 30 seconds left, I entered a battle in the lead. I dispatched the creature with 10 seconds to spare, and found that not only had I lost the lead after gaining 7 points for the creature, I had lost it by almost 20 points! With no time to find another creature, I had to admit defeat. Freya was crowned the victor, and to the victor the spoils, of course. While in the castle, watching Oglop Regent Cid award Freya her winnings, a Burmecian soldier staggers in, heavily wounded. He claims that a strange force has attacked Burmecia -- an army of stuffed soldiers wearing steepled hats!

Vivi is noticably shaken, and Garnet immediately suspects her mother. Freya claims that she must leave immediately, and Zidane immediately asks to go with her. Though at first she refuses, Zidane is not to be denied in this. Vivi, though frightened, is curious about the "Black Mage" army, so he asks to go along as well. Garnet is right there volunteering, but she is immediately shot down by Zidane, Steiner and Cid. Reluctantly, she gives up her fight to go along. While waiting for the Dragon Gate to open, the company settles down to the Feast of the Hunt, a tradition. Though Freya can't think about eating at first, Zidane explains that she has to wait for the gate to open anyways, and she might as well eat. Suspiciously, Garnet doesn't have much of an appetite...

...and moments later, when everyone passes out, it becomes apparent why. She has dosed the food with Sleep Weed, so that she will be able to escape Lindblum without Cid keeping her there. Steiner reluctantly follows, as Garnet explains Alexandria's potential involvement in the coming war. Waking up minutes later, Zidane is angry, but determined to chase after Garnet. He, Freya and Vivi head off towards Burmecia.

[Vince]

Testing, testing. Is this thing on?

I'm wondering if anyone is reading this. I enjoy writing these up this way, but I'm getting through the game at an absolute crawl. I think I'm going to either...

A) Continue to write these up this way, and play other games simultaneously with FF VIII.
B) Summarize the write-ups considerably.

If anyone is out there and has a preference...feel free to weigh in

[Godzilla Blitz]

The write-up looks very well done, but I'm not reading the current one because I don't want any spoilers for when I play the game. It does look like a great playing aid for when I get stuck playing the game.

Having said that, I think writing this would really lengthen the game. Just playing some RPGs takes forever, forget about writing the story out. I've been working my way through an old RPG called Breath of Fire on the GBA, and have been consulting the walkthrough for the game as I go along. The walkthrough portion alone is about 70 single-spaced pages, and your account here is written in more detail than the walkthrough I'm using. If you ever want to buy a new game, I think your plan B would be a good way to go.

[Vince]

So I've put in a few more hours, but in an effort to streamline the process, the write-ups will be shorter (hopefully).

Zidane and company head to Burmecia, where they find the city a destroyed ruin. Fighting their way to the castle, they find the King has fled, and it is indeed Queen Brahne (Garnet's mother) who is behind the attack on Burmecia. She is discussing things with Beatrix, her top general, and a mysterious man named Kuja, who seems to be in control of the Black Mages, when we step in. A short fight later, we shake Beatrix, but she pulls out an incredibly strong 'Limit Break' attack that puts us all down to 1 health, and we are out for the count. Brahne, Kuja and Beatrix discuss the fact that they need to finish off the Burmecians, who have headed to Cleyra, and they leave.

Meanwhile, Garnet and Steiner have headed off towards Alexandria, and with the help of Garnet's old tutor, Doctor Tot (who is no longer in Alexandria), manage to get back to the castle -- only to be arrested by Zorn and Thorn at Queen Brahne's orders! They were with Marcus, one of Zidane's old buddies from Tantalus, who found the Supersoft to help rescue Blank from his petrification in the Evil Forest -- he and Steiner are locked up, while Princess Garnet is knocked unconscious by Kuja. Zorn and Thorn begin to extract Eidolons (?) from her, when we flash back to Zidane and company...

...Who are in Cleyra, and we find that Cleyra is being attacked by the Alexandrian army! We fend off the first attackers, but there are too many of them, and Beatrix comes in and steals a jewel of the Cleyrans before leaving.

We are now heading out to fight off the last of the enemies left -- apparently the Jewel was the main target of Alexandria.

[Vince]

Well, we again faced Beatrix, and again got our butts whooped. Leaving us all seriously injured, she teleports via a bubble (?) somewhere else, calling off the Black Mages in the process, since they now have the Jewel. Zidane notices their method of transportation, and our heroes (minus Quina, who is a little worried about the bubbles) jump into the bubbles to follow. They do so in the nick of time, as Queen Brahne tries out her newest toy in the Eidolons that have been extracted from Garnet. They contain the ability to summon monsters, and Brahne calls forth Odin. Odin lays waste to Cleyra, destroying the tree completely!

Ending up on an airship, Zidane, Vivi and Freya overhear Queen Brahne sentence Garnet (her daughter) to death for treason! Beatrix begins to question Brahne's motives, and her own dedication to the cause. Zidane and co. use the bubble teleport to try to beat Brahne to Alexandria...

...and meet up with Steiner and Marcus, who have broken out of their prison. Marcus runs off to save Blank, while Steiner joins our heroes in their quest to save Garnet. Finding Garnet down in the depths of the cellar, we dispatch Zorn and Thorn (though they simply run away), and attempt to flee, only to be confronted by Beatrix yet again. She takes us to town for the third time, but then notices Garnet (who is still unconcious), and heals her. When Brahne appears and calls for Garnet's head, Beatrix makes a stand with Freya, as Zidane, Vivi, Garnet and Steiner run to the dungeon to attempt to flee on the Gargant. Halfway down, Steiner comes to a decision to face Queen Brahne alongside Freya and Beatrix, and he leaves us.

Fleeing on the Gargant, we are chased by a giant snake, and the Gargant passes Treno, where we were supposed to meet up with Freya and Steiner. Depositing us near Lindblum, Garnet vows to try to learn summoning again to help defeat Kuja, who apparently has swayed Brahne. Ramuh tests her, and decides to come along to help, giving Garnet her first summon ability. As we head towards Lindblum, we find that we are too late, and Brahne has already turned towards using the Eidolons there, as she summons a giant creature (Chupon?) to ravage the town. Regent Cid capitulates, and Brahne leaves a token force there.

We meet up with Cid, who is mischievous as ever and doing everything he can to be a thorn in Brahne's side, and discuss a way to get at Kuja. Turns out that Kuja is a weapons dealer from the outer continent -- a place where there is no Mist. However, Brahne controls all the ports, so getting out is going to be a problem -- but Cid knows of a way that might work. Rumor has it that the swamp near Lindblum has been reported to house creatures that aren't native to the Mist continent, and that there is an abandoned archaeological site that might lead to a tunnel under the ocean. We head off to check it out, but not before Cid mentions that Brahne's only conditions for surrender were to give up an old stone which was a national emblem of Lindblum...

Back at Alexandria, Brahne has hired two independent mercernaries to hunt down Garnet, and retrieve the pendant she wears around her neck. They are to do this at any cost...even if it means the death of the princess! Killing Zidane and Vivi would be an added bonus for her. The two mercernaries are a beautiful (yet very talkative, rude and arrogant) woman with a huge axe, and a big (extremely quiet) guy with a red afro, whose knuckles almost scrape the ground when he walks. After the female mercernary leaves, the man asks Brahne some questions about someone who has to be Zidane (mentioning his tail), and mentions that he will kill Zidane first, then retrieve the pendant.

Making the trek through the swamp, we find Quina again, and go through the Fossil Roo, riding wild Gargants along the way. We defeat the female mercernary in battle, and she runs away to fight us again later. Coming out on the other side, everyone is awed by the lack of Mist, which was an everyday thing for them. We quickly stumble upon a strange town of Dwarves, situated on stilts that cross a pretty large chasm. They are very friendly, but seem to recognize Vivi...and while we're there, we notice another black mage! He runs at the sight of us, so we find out that the black mages make a village deep in the forest.

Searching through the forest, we finally locate an incredibly well hidden village of black mages, who can all talk like Vivi (though they're all much taller)! They aren't the mindless automatons that Brahne has been using...or are they? They are very frightened that we used Vivi to find them, and are going to enslave them again. It comes about that they WERE automatons, and just simply attained "awareness" one day. Scared, they fled the scenes of battle they all invariably awoke to, and eventually set up this secluded village to be safe, and to enjoy "life." There are worries, though, because some of their number have simply "stopped." Likening the stopping to death, one black mage posits that their "lifespan" is merely a year long, though he has hidden this from most of his brethren, as he doesn't want to scare them. Hearing rumors of a White Dragon (we've seen Kuja riding a white dragon before) somewhere on the continent near a 'sanctuary,' we head back to the Dwarven town, because they had mentioned a sanctuary there.

[Vince]

In other news, I am incapable of a 'brief' summary of events.

[TonyR]

Originally Posted by Vince

In other news, I am incapable of a 'brief' summary of events.

but you do such a good job telling the story.

[Vince]

Originally Posted by TonyR

but you do such a good job telling the story.

Thanks