Just realized it’s been a looooong time since I’ve done one of these updates. I have a hard time maintaining and updating a blog if I feel not too many people peak at it. Whatever, consider this my video game diary, and here’s what I’ve been playing over the holiday season:
Skyblazer – SNES (1994)
With some long, careful analysis over the course of games I’ve played and enjoyed since the day I played Super Mario Bros 2 (US version, not that Lost Levels nightmare…), I came to the conclusion that platformers are my favorite genre. From the average to hardcore gamer, we can all agree that the Mario bros. series and Mega Man games have placed the benchmark on what makes up the platforming genre, full of its jumps, constant strategy, use of power ups and objects and all in all being the master of the stage. Unfortunately, many other platform games are lost in the shadows behind the bigger known titles, including Sonic which was based merely on speed and franchise crud. Skyblazer is one of those tragically underrated games, and since I just started playing it once I ordered it to myself as a Christmas gift (the socks and sweaters just don’t do it for me), I’ve come to this awareness of how awesome this game is from what I’ve heard from other hardcore gaming review sites. Aesthetically speaking, since this is the focus of my blog, Skyblazer plays like the Mega Man series but with a Hindu mythology theme, from the enemies, music and architecture. It’s quite enjoyable and makes it stand out from the futuristic robot game it parallels to, where magic replaces technology.
RVG Fanatic’s look at Skyblazer
Saga 3/Final Fantasy Legend III – Gameboy (1991)
Ah yes, the days when Square would nicely disguise its RPG’s to the US as Final Fantasy games. When I originally played FFLIII on the original bulky Gameboy, I knew something was a little strange; the ability to time travel, the intake of beast meat and robot parts that morph your party members instantly to new forms with new abilities at their disposal and most head scratching of all, no chocobos or moogles. Yup, it was really a part of the early Saga series which later came to the US for the first time as Saga Frontier for the PSX. Saga 3, the only game I’ve ever beat in the Saga series, is a mix bag of elements which underplays story in favor of weird game mechanics and love for ambiguity. This of course is just from the gist from my own experience of this one game, which I heard the others are much stranger (Saga 1, I believe, you start with an airship right away and are given no instructions on to where to explore next, leaving you facing some nasty upper level beasts if you aren’t careful). I decided to give the game a shot and understand the job classes a lot more rather than randomly morphing like I did as a kid. Bleak story, cool concepts. Oh, and the enemies (ranging from rabbit witches, underwater sorcerers, terrorists to cyborgs) give this game a unique flair and is honestly my favorite part of playing the game.
.flow – Windows (2003, English translation 2011)
One of my earliest blog posts on here was a brief writing on the horrific, dreamlike world of Yume Nikki, a textless adventure game made solely by one Japanese designer using RPG Maker. The fresh sprites, minimal soundtrack (composed mostly of brief loops), and overall abstract concept gave the game a strong cult following with Japanese and US gamers alike. The fact that it wasn’t an RPG but used RPG Maker’s programming to make an ambiguous, sandbox adventure game sparked interests alone and inspired a couple other mysterious Japanese subjects to make their own fan games, such as Yume 2kki and .flow. I purposely waited until winter to start playing .flow since the English patch was released in the fall and the effect of playing this game at night in cold weather makes the experience a whole lot gloomier. It takes all of the loved elements of Yume Nikki, but instead of exploring dreams as levels, the main character (who is just as reclusive as YN’s star) explores the internet. What these levels reveal is up to the player’s perception, but it seems there are a lot of menstrual cycle themes and school pressure which seem to suggest the hardships of being a young girl with borderline teenage insanity. The worlds you find yourself going deeper and deeper in are much darker and eerie with the exception of the Rainbow Maze which has a nice rave background music but still packing mystery which fuels these games. I would check it out yourself since it’s very hard to tap into what these games mean and their overall effect….
Child of Eden – XBOX 360/PS3 (2011)
I finally came around to playing Child of Eden on my friend’s 360 Kinect, although it was a brief play. Nevertheless it blew me away with not just its hyper eye-candy but also with its gameplay mechanics. Being that I was never too big of a fan of the Wii’s controls or motion sensor gaming in general, the Kinect is a huge advancement over what I’ve been exposed to and with a game that actually exhibits the power of a next gen system in terms of visuals and beauty, it made the whole experience quite enjoyable. The sensation from the controls feels like a pseudo executed version of augmented reality and is definitely a stepping stone towards fully immersive, virtual reality gaming. The music, which is more emotion driven and trancey as compared to the games prequel Rez, is very touching and made me want to shed a tear when I healed the space whale by being attacked by a nasty virus that threatens the human mind archives of Eden. Also differentiating from Rez, Child of Eden’s world and abstract objects are more organic shaped rather than vector graphic shaped and also resembles many familiar sea creatures and birds. It’s absolutely gorgeous and is a true testament what gamers are being homophobic and soul crushing and who are ‘in’ with the movement of giving games a breath of fresh air and going where gaming has never gone before with the progressive blending of art and technology.
Web Wars – Vectrex (1983)
My buddy Evan got a Vectrex for Christmas from what I would say is a very generous and thoughtful wife who knows how to please us aging gamers. Just like Child of Eden, I only got a brief taste of the system and an even smaller taste for this particular game. Web Wars is like Tempest as the video states and has nothing to do with spiders. However, its strengths are its illusions of depth, sick arcade gameplay and sticking to the simplistic elements of early gaming which gave birth to the very industry. It looks much better in person, and I will definitely like to master this game and others for the Vectrex, especially if my friend gets the Sega Genesis controller mod that replaces the clunky controller it comes with 
I promise to do these more often! I have been playing many games lately, don’t worry. Once I beat Final Fantasy Legend III, the next RPG down the line for me is Nocturne and making a big dent in Xenogears. Stay tuned, stay gaming…
