Dragon Quest 5 – Early Tips

How do I get the mirror?

When you come to the cliff it looks like this

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The right side block is the one you go across. That’s all.

How do I get the Wagon?
As soon as you get to Fortuna, wait till night, then go to the Curio shop in the upper west side of town and talk to the guy in there. Bring 300 coins.

Dragon Quest V – Early Thoughts

I bought Dragon Quest V yesterday, and so far have punched in seven hours. It’s fantastic.

The game play is great, granted it’s the same Dragon Quest game play since the beginning, but the way the monsters are handled graphically this time around, it really makes the battles a lot more fun.

There’s some grinding, sure, but at least you’re having fun doing it.

The music is great, the art is great, however there is something terrible that almost completely ruins all of it.

The localization of the game is terrible. The puns are embarrassing, the accents are unneeded, it’s the perfect game with the wrong script.

So, if you want to be one of the first to play it and talk about it, go buy it right now. The script on some of the characters is terrible, but overall this game is fantastic.

Quick Quotes: Pac-Man the Baby Eater

I was playing Pac-Man earlier, and I started thinking about the game. What if those ghosts weren’t trying to kill Pac-Man but instead were trying to protect the dots? What if the dots are actually the eggs of their species? That would explain why Pinky, the female ghost, is the most aggressive in the group.

~ Red Pear Kiwi

Critique 1 – GBC: 3D Pocket Pool

3D Pocket Pool

Developer: Aardvark Software

Virgin Interactive

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Starting at the top of the list is 3D Pocket Pool by Aardvark Software. According to Gamefaq’s, Aardvark’s previous titles were Bagitman for the Commodore 64 in 1984, 3D Pool for the Amiga in 1989, and then 3D Pocket Pool for the Game Boy Color in 2001. Three entries across seventeen years.

To sum it up, the game is about playing Pool on your Game Boy.

When you start the game, you are greeted by the credit roll, saturated with nauseating music.

Music should stride to set up the atmosphere of the game, regardless of what it is. You’d think that a pool game would have smooth jazz or maybe a bit of rock, to fit a bar type atmosphere, but this isn’t the case with 3D Pocket Pool. It’s a series of pops and beeps, in no musical fashion. It’s as if someone punched a keyboard, and then said that it was good to go.

As soon as I get to the main title screen, which is just the words “3D Pocket Pool” and language settings.

After passing the first title screen, you come to the real title screen:

Each one is a character you can choose to be. From what I’ve seen, it really doesn’t matter who you choose, they don’t seem to have any special powers, so for this run through let’s play as Vamp, a purple haired woman who, according to the text about her, “Wants to pay for training to become a commercial astronaut.”

What?

The next woman you can choose from is a blond haired, hot pink skinned woman named Babe, who “Hopes to promote herself as an actress – and to hire a nanny!”

I get that they are just trying to make it more than Pool for the Game Boy, but sometimes you just have to accept yourself for what you are. Pool for the game boy.

We’ll go with Vamp.

Tournament Mode, American 8 Ball rules. Bring it on.

It’s me versus a man named Yupp. There’s a screen with Vamp who is jumping up and down angrily, and Yupp, an overalls wearer with glasses. After that is the tournament bracket, followed up by the game itself.

The first thing that hits me is the music. It’s just like the title screen, only the beeps are more frequent than the pops. It really is nauseating.

The camera spins around the white ball and Yupp takes a shot. There was no coin flip or rock paper scissors to see who goes first, it was just Yupp. So, Yupp gets first strike, delaying me from jumping into the game. Also, the camera doesn’t spin around where the white ball is, where you assume it would, it just spins around this randomly fixed point on the table, usually showing nothing, since over the course of the game, all the balls are against walls or near pockets.

It’s now my turn.

The white ball is still in the middle of the screen, shooting out a ghost image of where that white ball would go, and if it hits any color or striped ball, shows where that ball would go. Pretty simple.

So as I’m spinning the ball around, trying to figure out how everything works, a message is displayed. “Time’s up! Vamp forfeits a foul to Yupp!”

What the hell?

In today’s gaming, a lot of opening levels are designed to allow the player to get used to the game. When a player is first handed the controls, from what I’ve seen from my own experiences and watching others play, is that first they move around, try to jump, and then fiddle with the controls. That first couple minutes is designed to show you what you can and can’t do, add a bit of tutorial to point you in the right direction, yet allowing you to figure stuff on your own for added enjoyment, and then you’re good to go. There is never a punishment, never a rush to learn. A video game is entertainment.

It’s Yupp’s turn again. When the computer is deciding where it wants to shoot the ball, you are allowed to spin the camera around. This is confusing at first, because the only indication that it’s your opponent’s turn is that in the upper right hand corner is his or her eye ball, like he’s scanning the board. However, since you’re spinning around the camera, you think it’s YOUR turn, and you hit a bunch of buttons to try to do something which, ultimately, fails.

So Yupp gets a colored ball in. I’m striped. For some reason, Vamp looks really pissed because of it. Again, I move the camera around with the D pad, not realizing it’s still my opponent’s turn, and thus going through that feeling of disappointment all over again as I wait. And wait.

Finally, I get to go. I see a striped ball, I go for it by pressing A.

In most sports games, when you are going to throw the ball, shoot the ball, hit the ball, what have you, there is a power bar to show how hard you are going to hit/throw/shoot the ball. Not so in this 3D Pocket Pool. You aim your ball, and, assuming that the bar is hidden, hold down A for a bit before releasing. Turns out, I hit a colored ball and thus foul out again. Hell.

Again, Yupp has to wait to see where to hit as I’m stuck listening to this terrible music.

The Game Field

There doesn’t seem to be any sense of physics in this game. The ball goes exactly where you think it will. For some, that may be great, but for me, it makes it really easy for the computer to keep shooting balls into pockets, so then I have to wait and suffer some more for another go.

Yupp screws up, my turn.

I just realized that, when it’s time for you to go, it prompts you to “Push A” before you’re able to do anything, instead of just going at it. That is silly, because there’s no other option to push. There’s no pass, which I’m not sure why you’d do that in a game of pool anyway, there’s nothing other than push A. Why couldn’t they just have skipped that?

I get a ball in a pocket. Sweet.

Again.
It’s so easy I’m feeling good about myself. It does everything for me. I turn the camera to where I want the white ball to go, watch where it’ll hit, and simply press A. Easy.

One thing I notice, too, is that the balls are glowing like they are covered in nuclear radiation. Not sure what’s up with that. Increase the graphics feel, perhaps?

It really is aggravating that I have a time limit. 30 seconds, it seems.

The computer takes way too damn long to make a decision on where to shoot.

Always assume the gamer is a decently logical thinking human being. At first I enjoyed the fact that I knew where the ball was going to go, but now as the game goes on, it grows tiring. It takes the bit of “luck” out of the game. It also brings you down, for example if there are no places to hit and everything is futile, instead of you just guessing, “Well, hey, maybe this will work,” it just straight up tells you, no, it’s not going to work.

The hell? I just aimed my ball at a far corner pocket, and when Vamp went to shoot, it auto-adjusted to another angle, thus not making it into the pocket.

I really hate this time limit. I can barely spin around and look for my striped balls in its’ full time, never the less actually aim, and since a big part of the game is to see where the white ball is going to go, I have to sit and watch the animation over and over again with each turn, each angle. There’s no way I can get an even decent spot in under thirty seconds.

The computer is like chess master, too. Since it has more resources than you, it knows the exact point where to shoot, so you have to sit through his little smirk that he does every time he makes the goal. How terrible is that?

Yupp’s on the eight ball, and he just pocketed one of my stripes. Awesome. However, since I can move the white ball where ever I want, I can’t seem to move the camera around, and all my balls are facing towards it. Hell.

Yupp won.

Wait. 0 – 1? There’s more than one round I have to play through? I’m assuming it’s best of two out of three? Forget it.

Yupp wins, 0 - 1. Hell.

That’s the game. You play pool, albeit a terrible game of it.

A look back: So what did the game get right? Well, it tried to make itself something more than it was for the enjoyment of the player, which is nice of them, but the overlaying negativities that hurt the game prevented it from being anything but.

The Future Tense – In Time

Adventures in time and space … told in future tense!

DIMENSION X … X … X … x … x … x …

Granted, this blog will probably not come across time or space, but certainly a lot of adventures.

Hello, I’m The Future Tense. Future Tense was taken already, so my moniker has now changed. The name of I, this blog, and my e-mail comes from an old science fiction radio show called Dimension X. Their opening was my opening, and thus spawned my name.

http://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/sci-fi/Dimension-X/index.php

Is the site with most of the radio shows in their complete form. Have a listen.

This blog will be about Critique. I’ll be critiquing games, various anime, manga, books, all kinds of things. But expect to see primarily video games on here.

I choose to critique rather than review because I have a goal of creating a blog with an atmosphere of discussion. Video games are my hobby, and some day, I would ultimately like to work in the field and be a creative designer. What better way to learn about how what works and what doesn’t than to participate first hand?

Welcome to the Future Tense.