(Note: I originally published this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on February 8, 2011.)

One of my weird gaming quirks is that I am inexplicably drawn to interesting title screens. Like a moth to a flame, if you show me a cool title screen, I’m more than likely to play your game. That’s part of how I pick which “unknown” games to play on Virtual Console, since all you really get to see are the title screens!

One of the first games I downloaded for the Virtual Console was Neutopia for the Turbografx-16, and I selected it solely based on how amazing the title screen was. Awesome 16-bit graphics, hero in a heroic pose, colorful landscape, it had all I was looking for. I bought it without even knowing what kind of game it was, I just knew I wanted in.

To my surprise, Neutopia is a 16-bit Legend of Zelda clone, and a pretty good one at that. I purposefully call it a “clone” rather than an “homage,” because really, who are they trying to kid? You use bombs to blow up secret passageways in walls. There are piglike humanoids who throw spears at you. There’s a monster that pops out of the water to shoot fireballs at you. There’re bats and skeletons. You have to traverse eight dungeons to find medallions and rescue a princess. There’s an item that stops time. There’s a really catchy, endlessly looping overworld theme. The boss of the first dungeon is even a dragon!

(One major difference, though, is that hero Jazeta has a much girlier sounding name than Link.)

Neutopia is perfect for old-school gamers wishing in vain for another top-down Zelda game. Just like Zelda for the NES, you’re plopped into the game with little direction and a massive world to explore. The nice thing the developers of Neutopia did, though, was give you a compass that will point you in the direction of the next dungeon you need to find. As far as getting there, though, you’re on your own.

But be wary, aspiring adventurers; Neutopia is HARD. In fact, some might even call it Nintendo hard. The game does not skimp on enemies to throw at you, and they do A LOT of damage. You upgrade your armor pretty quickly in the game so you can take a little more abuse, but just as soon as that happens, tougher enemies start showing up to take a chunk out of you.

The combat is exactly the same as in The Legend of Zelda (except, sadly, you cannot shoot your sword with power), but there is some pretty dodgy hit detection, especially against flying enemies. You have to hit them RIGHT ON with your sword or else you miss, while they can touch any part of you and you take damage. As a result, I found myself picking and choosing my fights, hoping to conserve health for enemies I couldn’t avoid.

I can’t recommend Neutopia enough to gamers looking to relive the days of old-school adventuring, but if you can’t take a challenge, stay away. Don’t let the bright colors and cheerful music mislead you, this game is going to fight you at every turn.

Neutopia is available for download from the Virtual Console service on Wii for 600 Wii points.

(Note: I originally published this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on February 7, 2011)

Before the Wii was released to the public, one of the most talked-about features was the Virtual Console. Some people cried foul, claiming Nintendo was simply trying to milk more money out of people who had already bought some of those games several times before. I, however, saw a lot of potential in the service, not just for me to “digitize” my collection of old games or play some old gems I missed, but as a way for a new generation of gamers to experience key points in gaming history.

There are all kinds of people who have either been reintroduced to videogames due to the Wii, or are taking a step into the gaming world for the very first time. These people may think that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is pretty great, but did they ever take notes on how to navigate through the Lost Woods? They might have really enjoyed Metroid Prime 3, but do they know the name Justin Bailey? While a lot of people may have picked up the Wii simply to play Wii Sports, there are plenty who were enticed by what it brought to the table as an entertainment device and began to genuinely like videogames, and will use the Virtual Console service as a way to explore the path that led to the games they are playing today.

Take, for example, my sister-in-law, who is fourteen years old. My wife has been a gamer her whole life, so her sister grew up watching her play videogames and the Virtual Console has allowed her to play a lot of the games that she was too young for at the time. She’s a big fan of Kirby, having played his games on the GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS. With the Virtual Console, she’s now able to see Kirby’s console game debut in Kirby’s Adventure for the NES.

More impressive still, she’s been spending time lately playing though Super Mario 64, a game my wife received as a Christmas gift the day before her sister was even born!

Even for someone like me who is a lifelong gamer, has never sold a console, and grew up reading every gaming magazine I could get my hands on, the Virtual Console has been a great way for me to play a lot of the games that I could only read about and never play. I never had a Turbografx-16 as a kid (and to be honest, I never even saw one in any store!), but through the Virtual Console I’ve gotten to play some really fun TG16 games like Bonk’s Adventure and Neutopia that I would have never had the chance to otherwise.

Unfortunately, the Virtual Console hasn’t gotten the attention in North America and Europe that it has in Japan (where new games are still put up weekly), and some of the most wished-for games will never hit the service for legal reasons (EarthBound), it’s still a great service that shouldn’t be easily dismissed. There’s a plethora of great games, some well-known classics and some buried treasures, waiting to be replayed by older fans who may have forgotten them, or discovered by new fans for the very first time.

(I originally posted this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on February 1, 2011)

You can tell a game is going to kick your ass when the MAIN MENU MUSIC is more intense than the final boss music in most other games.

I, being a longtime Treasure fan (having spent a large portion of my youth playing Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy on my Sega Genesis, which to this day are two of my favorite games) was overjoyed when the Japan-only Nintendo 64 game Sin & Punishment was finally made available to a North American audience via the Wii’s Virtual Console. It was really campy (naturally) and amazingly hard, but I loved it all the same.

Then Nintendo released Sin & Punishment: Star Successor for the Wii, which I consider one of the most dangerous games ever released. This game not only throws an incredible difficulty level at you, but it’s also designed in such a way as to make you feel worse about yourself every time you screw up.

Don’t get me wrong, the game is wicked fun, but it’s about as unforgiving as they come. No doubt everyone who calls themselves a gamer is familiar with the term “bullet hell.” Bring that into a 3D environment and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect from S&P: SS. You choose between characters Isa and Kachi, who fly around with a jetpack or hoverboard respectively, and use the Wii’s pointer to shoot at a multitude of enemies while you dodge an unending, seemly erratic barrage of enemy attacks. You also have the ability to reflect certain projectiles back at your attackers by tapping the fire button when something is in melee range.

Not only is keeping yourself focused on where you’re shooting and where you’re dodging tough in and of itself, the game also keeps track of your score for each stage and uploads it to a global leaderboard. Defeating enemies makes your score multiplier go up by about .1%. Enemies can also drop medals that boost your multiplier further, to a max of 16%. The problem is when you get hit, your multiplier drops by several percent at a time. Factor in that when you get hit you’re more than likely taking multiple hits at once and your multiplier can drop very drastically very quickly. It’s pretty frustrating, especially when you pull off a flawless run of a level and lose your multiplier on one of the giant, screen-filling bosses and get pretty much no score bonus for beating him.

If you feel like taking a serious knock to your gaming self-esteem, just check to see where you rank on the leaderboards after each level. You may think “Wow, I got seven million points! That’s pretty good!” but as soon as you see that the top player on that level has over 30 million points, you feel substantially less badass.

The game is just so freaking intense. Every move you make HAS to be deliberate or you’re on a slippery slope to losing it all. The game demands an extraordinary amount of mental dexterity just to keep track of everything going on at the screen at any given moment. I can’t recall a game that ever had me gripping my controller as hard as S&P: SS. They could have put “white-knuckle action!” in big bold letters on the back of the box and it wouldn’t even be a lie! I can’t play more than a couple of levels at a time because my hand gets so sore from keeping an involuntary death grip on my Wiimote.

S&P: SS is a game that every Wii owner should play, especially those who bemoan the fact that “there are no hardcore games on Wii!” It’s a whole lot of fun, but just go in knowing that this game is as hardcore as they come and it WILL kick your ass and then laugh at you about it.

There’s been three big games released recently, and I’m a lazy good-for-nothing so I haven’t written about them yet. Let me rectify that, as a Christmas gift to you, my handful of loyal readers.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has been hyped forever, and it’s really good. Christina and I are still only on the fourth dungeon, because we’re playing it together so when we sit down to play it has to be a good time for both of us and we’ve been busy (plus when it’s not my turn I have a bad habit of falling asleep).

The Wii Motion Plus makes the combat definitely more deliberate than past Zeldas, but it CAN be frustrating, especially with basic enemies who block certain directions and seem to be able to react better than you. Also, Skulltulas? Forget about it. The thrusting motion is very hit or miss so you’ll run into a lot of problems.

Still, the game is an absolute blast and the story is fantastic. This game proves the Zelda series doesn’t need voice acting to be engaging because the characters are charismatic and bursting with personality. This game’s version of Zelda is already my favorite.

It’s about as good looking as a Wii game can be, and as much as I hate being a “graphics whore” I can’t help but feel like the game is held back by not being HD. The art design is phenomenal, it’s a shame the resolution doesn’t do it justice.

So yeah, we’re playing it really slowly. That’s okay, though, because it’s still really fun.

Super Mario 3D Land is the first killer app for the 3DS and follows the tradition of Nintendo launching hardware with a new feature that everyone stumbles over until they come in and show how to use it right. The 3D effects are great, especially when looking overhead as Mario makes a long fall through the sky.

The game really combines the best parts of the 2D and 3D Mario games and is some of the finest platforming the gaming world has seen in years. While the early levels will fool you with their light difficulty, as you advance you’ll quickly start cursing in anger as you die over and over and over and OVER. The biggest offenders are the levels with “Nega-Mario” chasing you. Ugh.

The game would have been perfect if not for some of the crushingly difficult levels towards the end, because so many levels pretty much require you to have the Tanooki powerup. Regardless, it’s the best game on the 3DS by far.

Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s finally here! I’m absolutely loving it. It’s everything I wanted it to be and more. I’m playing a Jedi Knight, Sentinel advanced class and I can’t stop playing. While I’ve been excited about the idea of BioWare’s storytelling combined with a massively multiplayer game, part of me still wasn’t sure if that was as “chocolate and peanut butter” as I’d hoped. But man, it’s SO GOOD. The story is great; right from the word go you feel like a hero and will be attached to your character moreso than in any other MMO. You really start to think about who they are and what they’re like, and when you are able to add the “choice” element into situations where what you do affects other people, it’s an incredibly dynamic new way to approach online RPGs.

I’m level 27 right now and my Jedi Knight has already been through a lot. He’s incredibly devoted to the Light Side of the Force and will never refuse help to anyone who needs it, but he DOES have a weakness for the ladies that would probably get him in trouble with the Jedi Council if they knew (I made the choice to NOT tell them about hooking up with the Twi’lek Matriarch on Tython).

I play on the Darth Bandon server, so if you want to play sometime look up Zetharis!

So that’s my quick rundown for what’s been going on the past month; Christina and I will be breaking down our top 10 games of 2011 in a podcast early next month. LOOK FORWARD TO IT.

Okay guys, it is ALL ABOUT Skylanders now.

I’ve been following the development of Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure for a while now, because I thought the idea of collecting toys that would then work with a video game was an awesome idea. I’d been dying to play it, and the other night Christina and I picked up the Xbox 360 starter set along with a couple of extra figures.

Since then, we’ve been back to the store twice to buy more. I’d say it’s working.

Skylanders, for those of you who don’t know, is an action RPG that comes with an accessory called the Portal of Power. When you place one of the Skylanders figures on the Portal, it appears as your character in game. Any experience, money or accessories you collect on that Skylander is stored on the figure, independent of your save file; if you’re playing on the Xbox 360, you can take your Skylander to a friend’s house and play on his PS3 and your Skylander will be exactly as he was when you last played with it.

(I just wanted to show off the cool glow effect of the Portal of Power. The video doesn’t do it justice, but man, this is an awesome peripheral.)

It seems like a cash grab, and that’s probably true. In levels there are paths that can only be opened by a Skylander of a certain element (there are eight: Magic, Earth, Fire, Life, Undead, Water, Air and Tech). The game comes with three figures: Spyro (Magic), Trigger Happy (Tech) and Gill Grunt (Water) so the first few levels you’re fine. After that, though, you’ll have to buy more figures.

You also collect power-ups for characters that are scattered around the world, and of course they’re for figures you don’t have. When you pick them up the game asks if you’d like a preview of the Skylander in question, and then they show you a short, 15-second video of just how badass that toy you don’t have is.

Again, it seems like a cash grab, but the game’s production values are so high that you can’t really get upset about it.

For one thing, the figures themselves are INCREDIBLY well made. They’re solid, colorful and detailed and look like they can actually spring to life at any moment. Honestly, even if there were no game element I’d want to collect them. The characters are all cool looking too, with some of my favorites being Prism Break (who is a stone golem who shoots lasers from his crystal hands), Eruptor (a being made of lava) and Warnado (a spunky ripoff of Gamera, who unfortunately isn’t out yet). There’s 32 in all, so you’re bound to have a favorite.

Of course there are store exclusives, too; the Air type Whirlwind is only at Target, while Toys R Us has a three-pack of “Legendary” (recolored) versions of Spyro, Chop Chop and Bash. Which we bought, natch.

This would all be moot if the game was no fun, but Christina and I are really enjoying it. We actually have two save games going (so we can both get Achievements; they’re primary profile only) and we’re having an absolute blast. I said on Twitter that it’s some of the most fun I’ve had in co-op since Gunstar Heroes, and those of you that know me know how lofty a statement that is.

The game’s not a cheap vehicle for the figures; the graphics are bright, colorful and bring a whimsical world to life. Supporting characters have fantastic voice acting (including Flynn, who will be your favorite character, who’s voiced by Patrick Warburton). The game is even scored by Hans Zimmer, who you probably know from the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks.

It’s a really solid action-RPG, and while it’s not terribly difficult, each Skylander does have their own Challenge level that will even give hardcore players a bit of a tough time. Completing them does bestow upon your Skylander a permanent stat boost, so they’re worth playing as you advance through the main quest.

Oh, and is if collecting the figures wasn’t enough, the game also has enough collectible hats to please even the most jaded of Team Fortress fans.

What really makes the figure mechanic work (rather than just having the characters be something you select from an in-game menu at any time) is the sense of ownership it gives you over your Skylanders. Christina and I each have our own little stable so far and leveling up each of our Skylanders is surprisingly rewarding; knowing that they belong to you gives you a surprisingly strong connection to them, and it gives me a feeling similar to what I’ve gotten from putting together a carefully raised team in Pokémon.

The price of admission isn’t cheap, as the game will run you $10 more than a normal new release ($70 on consoles and $60 on 3DS, and they include the Portal of Power and three figures) and the figures are another $8 a pop. Not to mention there’s “Adventure Packs” for $20 that contain an exclusive Skylander, a new level and a power-up. Doing the math, we’ve easily dropped over $100 on it this weekend, but the amount of fun we’ve been having is absolutely worth it. It’s a game that will bring out the kid in you, the kind of game that will make you smile and get you genuinely excited to see new characters. If you can find a friend or family member to jump in with you, you’re absolutely going to have a great time.

I’m going to be topical today! How quaint.

Dragon Quest X was re-announced last night, much to the joy of every single citizen of Japan ever. I say re-announced because it was originally announced back at the same time as IX, but never mentioned again.

Dragon Quest, Square-Enix’s OTHER beloved long-running RPG series is a national treasure in Japan. The Japanese government had to ask Square-Enix (then just Enix) not to release Dragon Quest games during the week because too many people would stay home from work and school. This isn’t a law, like people believe, but this is the internet so trying to convince people that a rumor is inaccurate is like trying to yell at the ocean to stop being so wet all the time.

Anyway, Dragon Quest X: Rise of the Five Tribes is going to be an online game, which has stunned the world. I don’t really know what the reaction is in the motherland, but American fans are in an uproar about it. While Final Fantasy has tried to create crazy new gameplay mechanisms with each franchise iteration, Dragon Quest was loved because it stuck to traditional JRPG customs. Dragon Quest IX on the Nintendo DS broke tradition by not only being the first core Dragon Quest game on a handheld, but it was also the first game in the series to feature multiplayer. Dragon Quest X is taking that ball and RUNNING WITH IT.

(I don’t really know WHY American fans are in an uproar, to be honest… they complain every time a JRPG comes out and chastise it for being “too traditional,” but when a series tries to evolve they treat it like blasphemy.)

From what information’s been put out there, I can’t really tell if it’s an MMO or if it’s something more akin to Phantasy Star Online where small groups are formed and then sent into instanced worlds. My educated guess would be for the latter, as it’s being released for the Wii and Wii U, neither of which seem like a suitable home for an MMO.

I have to say I’m shocked at the reveal. It seemed that Dragon Quest was going to be Squeenix’s “comfort food” (or “security blanket”) while Final Fantasy kept traipsing off into futuristic cyber-worlds with made up languages.

That’s not to say I’m not looking forward to it; I liked Dragon Quest IX okay, although it started wearing thin for me towards the end. If I had had a friend to play it with and people to swap treasure maps with I probably would have had fun with it. However, a proper console multiplayer game featuring Akira Toriyama’s art and lush, colorful worlds? SIGN ME UP. TWICE.

I know exactly why Squeenix is going this route, too. Final Fantasy XI, in its heyday, was a CASH COW for them. It’s been the most profitable thing they’ve ever done. They tried to bottle lightning twice with Final Fantasy XIV, which was a mess. It’s a shame, too, because that game was gorgeous. Now they’re hemorrhaging money on a game that they’re so ashamed of they’re not charging people to play it. What else could repeat, if not eclipse, Final Fantasy XI’s success if not something with the Dragon Quest branding?

It’s too early to tell anything, really, except that the game looks gorgeous and the character designs are rad. It’s set to be released for Wii next year (Wii U is TBA) so we’ve got a long time to speculate.

If you look at sales data and see that the Wii is continuing to sell, you probably wonder “how can that still be selling even if everyone already has one?” I point you to my mom’s birthday present, a Wii she asked for from my stepdad.

I just got off the phone with her and she is so excited to be playing Wii Sports. SO excited. She can’t wait to go buy Wii Fit and try that out too.

My mom’s pretty rad.

Hey, Nintendo. Please put Pokémon Red and Blue on the 3DS Virtual Console. Then, add Pokémon Stadium to the Wii’s Virtual Console, and let us link them up just like we were using the Transfer Pak back on the Nintendo 64.

I have extremely fond memories of both games and I’m willing to throw money at you to relive them again.

Your pal, Joe

So for a long time now I’ve been wanting to get a group of people together to play Pokémon. I’ve missed having a group of people to swap strategies with, discuss different movesets and lineups, and battle with. An informal Facebook and Twitter poll later, and I introduce to you, the PK-Mon League.

(C’mon. You know that title is awesome.)

Taking place on the forums, it’s going to be a way for Pokémon fans to enjoy the finer points of the game with other people who are just as into it. With Black and White a little over a week from release, now is as good a time as any to jump back in!

When I lived in California, I worked at a grocery store for five and a half years. I went through a lot with that store, I saw a lot of people come and go, and worked a variety of positions. I worked my way up from a bagger to a cashier and was even being trained as a Customer Service Manager before I moved to Boston.

On my very last day there, I didn’t get a card or a cake. They gave me the closing shift. On a Friday night.

Super Mario All-Stars for Wii is kinda like that.

I’ve understood that it was simply a port of the SNES version, which was fine. Those versions of the games are a lot of fun and aren’t available if you don’t still have your SNES still hooked up. Would it have been nice to get those four games and Super Mario World remade, New Super Mario Bros style? Absolutely. With all the new Mario games that have come out in the past few years I understand why they didn’t go that route, because the development of those games would have suffered.

Still, they did NOTHING to the port. Each game’s menu still shows the SNES controller diagram. Really the only thing I can give Nintendo credit for on this was making it so the games didn’t stretch out to fill a widescreen television, something that still drives me NUTS every time I boot up a Virtual Console game.

But hey, I wasn’t really buying it for the game. It’s Mario’s 25th anniversary. I wanted the soundtrack CD and the book that came with it.

The CD that advertises 20 tracks? Guess what. Ten of them are sound effects. TEN. Half of the CD isn’t music. Why would I want to see more of the unforgettable Mario music represented when that would keep “coin” or “down the pipe”  off of the CD?

Really the only saving grace of the package is the booklet, which has a lot of design sketches and commentary from key Nintendo employees who worked on the games, but even THOSE are mostly limited to one-sentence blurbs underneath photos of the game’s packaging that take up 3/4 of the page.

The outer package is amazing, though. The red and gold look brilliant and the logo and 8-bit Mario are colored and embossed so they pop from the shelf. The front is one of those velcro-flap designs that are common on PC games as well.

If as much care went into the rest of the package as went into designing the box, this would be an amazing package. Mario isn’t just Nintendo’s flagship character, he’s the icon for gaming as a whole and 25 years is quite the milestone. He’s only going to get one 25 year anniversary and it’s a real shame to see it brought in this way. Sure, there’s a new red Wii and DSi, but this was really supposed to be a “celebration” product. I mean, it’s only $30 and it’s limited edition so if you’re a fan of Mario you kinda have to buy it, and maybe Nintendo knew that going in. Still, we, and Mario, deserve better.