Failure to Launch Title: White Knight Chronicles

Level 5's White Knight Chronicles is certainly a game. There is no denying that. It has all the trappings of electronic entertainment. You place a disc in a slick black machine and its data is transmitted onto a television screen by means of either lasers or magic wrought from ancient tomes unearthed years prior by the Arcaneologists under Sony's employ. I was never very clear on the details. Whatever the means of conveyance, soon this information is in your eyeballs, where you might desire it to be.

White Knight Chronicles was intended to be a launch title for the PS3, and one that caught quite a bit of attention as a reason to buy the console. It looked like nothing anybody had seen before. Rapid, intense combat in sprawling environments against giant beasts where you could transform on the fly into a giant robot of some kind. When the PS3 was first unveiled to the masses, that kind of dynamic action in an RPG wasn't something we had really ever seen before. The graphics were stunning, the combat looked intriguing, and the hook - being able to become a sleek, enormous suit of animated armor - had people scrounging the depths of the internet for more news on when to expect this sure-to-be-classic to drop.

So when the PS3 finally came out sans knights of any hue, it was an ominous sign about the future of Level 5's bouncing baby boy. In fact, it was another year after the PS3 release before we even saw a playable demo. If you are reading this from the dimension in which the Backlog normally derives its readers, you know that White Knight Chronicles did not exactly live up to its hype. For those of you viewing our blog from across the constraints of time and space, I apologize. You should still buy a PS3; eventually Level 5 makes a game with Studio Ghibli and it's awesome.

"Also, blowjobs aren't that great." - GameInformer

So this post is going to be about how playing White Knight Chronicles made me put it's sequel on the backlog almost immediately. I gave it a good try, a few solid attempts at putting time into it, but the much-hyped and now much-maligned failure-to-launch title just burned me out, and I really don't know when I'll make an attempt at going back. Let's take a look at just what makes a game that by all means should have been a Charlotte Bronte instead will be remembered as a mere Anne.

Intervention: Ayn Edition

This morning, I woke up to a message from my friend Canadian Wench.

Immediately, I saw the need to take action:

Canadian Wench: I think there's something terribly wrong with me. I'm thinking of buying Unlimited SaGa.
Ayn: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mb3qe4xdYo1ru00wio1_1280.jpg
Ayn: I'm the one with the black hair.
Ayn: You're the redhead.
Canadian Wench: :-(

Friends don't let friends play Unlimited SaGa.

Another Year of Gaming Goals.

Isn't it amazing how time flies?

Two years ago, for those of you that may have read this post, you'll know that I set the lofty goal of attempting to finish all of the non-import Playstation 2 titles I had acquired up until that point.  As I began the post today, I was starting to feel distressed at not making any progress on that goal as I began to set another.

..Then I actually looked at my media cabinet and realized that there were only three titles left:  Romancing SaGa:  Minstrel's Song, Disgaea 2, which I recently started (after finishing the first game), and Shin Megami Tensei:  Nocturne.  ..Nick also saw it fit to give me Yakuza a few months ago, but I'm not counting that one.

Blissfully, there's an end in sight, and I don't think I'll be piling adding any PS2 games to the stack.

While I'd like to rest on my laurels and say that goal is going to be easily (and finally) accomplished this year, like any goal driven individual, I'm going to set yet another one for this year:  Finish all of the Shin Megami Tensei games that have accumulated on my backlog.  So what does that put up for grabs?

Persona (PSP)
Persona 2:  Innocent Sin*
Persona 3 Portable*
Devil Survivor 2
Strange Journey
Persona 4:  Golden*
Nocturne

The asteriks denote games that I've finished in a previous incarnation, which makes me hard pressed to consider whether I truly include them on my backlog or not (yes, I actually do have the Japanese version of Innocent Sin sitting around here somewhere).  

So we'll see how this list proceeds.

Hopefully it won't take over two years to whittle this one down. .

No Flying Cars, But. . .

Recently, while I was at Best Buy acquiring yet more games that will take me forever to get around to (hey, they were price matching, don't judge), I glanced over to where they had an XBox 360 set up, as well as the Kinect.  Now, my disdain of motion controls has been noted in the past (and the prime reason why The Twilight Princess remains unfinished, despite it being a great game), but curiosity gripped me and I asked the associate:

"Hey, how well does the Kinect actually sell?" I ventured.

"Eh."  He shrugged.  "Pretty well with families, actually, but hardcore gamers won't really touch it."  

The associate then went on to describe similar sentiments as mine to the Kinect, and by extension, Playstation Move.

We could open up a whole debate and discussion about whether the Kinect was a smart move (ok, bad pun) for Microsoft or not, but instead, I think my best friend, Nick, sums it up best by saying this:

"Here's my problem with the Kinect:  It took us 20 years to get something that's just as crappy as the Nick Arcade game"

Kinect Star Wars Early Build

Happy Holidays from us at The Backlog.

Here's hoping you don't get a Kinect.

Unless for some odd reason, you wanted one instead of the ugly sweater.

Persona 4: The Social Link Network

Here at the Backlog, you know it's mostly coke parties and Gangnam-style dancing. That's why we missed a pair of updates in the last month or so. But, with a vacation on the horizon for both myself and my erstwhile writing partner, I suppose our update schedule will be a little more reliable. You know, now that I think about it, I might be confusing us with IGN. But either way, the point is, more posts, and more Korean dancing.

Oppa Backlog Style.

Case in point, before the latest time crunch began for me, I wrapped up Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. The game was recently remade/upgraded for the PSVita, no doubt following the success of their last remake for the PSP, Persona 3 Portable. I've mentioned in the past that the P3 is one of my all-time favorite games, and I was assured by several people upon embarking upon this fourth entry in the series that it eclipses its predecessor. I'm pleased to report that they were not lying. However, after writing about how Xenogears narrative-heavy style and extremely linear storytelling made it less enjoyable in today's interaction-heavy era of gaming, it feels hypocritical to talk about Persona 4 as being great. So I should point out some of the similarities as well as the differences before I get into the meat of my post.

This game is about 80% cutscene, 15% dungeon crawling, and the rest of the time is split up into running to and from cutscenes or dungeons. Like Xenogears, this game has a lot of talking. A lot of talking. The script for Persona 4 has to be e-freaking-normous. You begin as a transfer student in April of 2011, and every few actions causes the day to move forward until the finale on Christmas Day. Each "day" is essentially a new cutscene, or sometimes several cutscenes, where a lot of the time you'll find you have very little control over what happens. My girlfriend observed me playing this a few different times over a 3-day period, culminating in her asking "So, do you ever DO anything in this game?"

"What do you mean? Can't you see I'm fighting giant strippers? Honey? H-honey?"

But that's the thing - going through those scenes IS playing the game. It's what you play the game FOR. In Xenogears, I played the game expecting a standard RPG that included some giant robots, and instead I got a sci-fi novella with amazing potential, ultimately letting me down because of its glaring flaws. With Persona, I went in knowing that I was going to be spending a lot of time talking to people, and that was what I wanted. Someone once described this set of games to me as "a visual novel, not a game," and for the most part I agree. The difference is that he meant it to deride Persona 4, whereas I find it fascinating.

Xenogears featured a lot of talking and lack of character control because that's what happens when you tell your programming team to build a Sphinx and then take all their slaves over to work on Pyramid #36.

                                                                         egyptpyramidhistory.com

The nose was supposed to be on Disc 2.

Persona 4 is a game where the fighting and dungeon crawling is just a consequence of all the awesome talking you get to do. I'm going to take some time now to describe how this works so well for the game, so grab a snack and prepare to hit the X button a lot as we delve into the world of Social Links.

Faulty Reasons

I've hit an impasse with Nocturne.

No, I'm not bored of playing the game, but it has been on hiatus as work's gotten busy.  I've had a fun time playing it.  Heck, I've grinded to the point where my characters were ridiculously overpowered for a good portion of the game:  For those of you who have a frame of reference, let's just say being level 60 before having access to the 3rd Kalpa of the Amala Labyrinth makes things much, much easier.

But now I'm at the point of the game where I'm faced with a choice:  Nocturne, like many other MegaTen games, has multiple endings based on the choices that you make and which individual(s) you align yourself with.  Each of these characters has something called a "Reason" (or "Kotowari" in the Japanese version), which is the underlying philosophy used as a basis for creating a new world from the Vortex World (basically, the ruins of the former world before its rebirth) the game takes place in.  Allying with any of these characters will shape the new world with the vision of the selected character.

And that's where the problem lies:  I wouldn't trust any of these people to watch after my pet rock, much less with the responsibility of shaping the foundation of the new world.

Let's see my dubious choices, shall we?  Though be warned:  Spoilers abound:

To Fong Wong, Thanks for Everything: Xenogears

So it's over. I've taken Xenogears off the Backlog, and come to grips with the fact that this titan of gaming mythology is less striding colossus and more puny mortal than I remembered. It's still one of the best games of its time, but it served to clearly illustrate just how much times have changed. Xenogears is still better than some of the terrible games released today, but if each new good and great game stands on the shoulders of giants, then the games of 1998 are just too far down the totem pole to attempt making eye contact with those of today.

And some remain firmly at crotch level.

Naturally. there are exceptions. There are games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Chrono Trigger - games that will hold the same place in history as the Pac-Mans and Tetrises of the world in that they'll never really get old, even when measured up against today. Xenogears was, unfortunately, attempting something that had never really been done before, and since it came along a whole slew of games have done it better. Combat is smoother, the story is presented better, the characters are better developed, and they allow more open exploration of the world.

Still, if you can turn off the part of your brain that knows they didn't stop making games in the late 90s, Xenogears still presents a hell of a good time. Let's take a look at how this Squaresoft gem manages to hold on to the last bit of its luster.