Game Review: Street Fighter Anniversary Collection

Finally, Capcom has released Street Fighter III on the PS2, the long awaited sequel to the greatest fighting game in arcade history is here! Capcom is celebrating Street Fighter II's 15th anniversary ( Oh My God I feel old) with this release by including Street Fighter II Hyper Edition AND the Street Fighter anime movie all on one disk for the low low MSRP of $29.95.
Hey Capcom PSSST....I would have paid full price if you had made it ONLINE!
I don't know why you make Monster Hunter online, but a 2D fighter that raked in GOD knows much money for you, and single handedly revived the dieing arcade industry here in the states you refuse to make available on line. If I were Ken or Ryu I'd feel like I was punk'd.
Anyway I have only played III a few times, et me share my feelings on the game. SFIII is graphically superior to Street Fighter II and the Street Fighter Alpha series but it doesn't have the same.....for lack of a better word SHAAZAM.
I remember back in 1990 CJ calls me up and asks me to go with him to the local arcade,
"Dude you have to see something!".
So I go, not knowing what to expect and when we walk in, there in the front of the arcade is like 30-40 people crowded around 6 Street Fighter II machines, quarters lined the top of the control panel and cheers and jeers heard throughout the arcade. I was mezmerized as I first saw Chun Li do the spinning bird kick against Guile or the Hadoken battle between Ken and Ryu. I used to play Street Fighter I years before where only Ken or Ryu were selectable characters and I knew there were secret moves but could never figure out how to do them. I saw these guys & girls performing these special moves, and it wasn't like watching two blind kids fight...there was strategy, timing,and a psychological edge to the fights. This game was like crack to me and Krogenar, we played for hours on end and always cheered the other on in a fight. When it was released on the SNES I had it on day 1 we would spend whole days fighting on his fathers big screen TV. I played as Ryu and he prefered Ken, we played so much that we had to play with infinate time because we were like yin and yang, we knew each others stragegies, strengths and weaknesses and even with a sliver of health nothing was guaranteed.
We still play from time to time but Capcom milked the Street Fighter II franchise till the cow was dry and by the time they churned out III Tekken, Soul Caliber and the 3D fighting engine had taken over as the dominant fighting games at home and in the arcade.
Well Street Fighter III is here now, HADOKEN! Well the truth is the sprites are larger but the innovation isn't, the amazing soundtrack that complimented Street Fighter II is not present here (the C in rap is silent), the new fighters....yes they are actually new, have all to familiar special moves and . And my #1 gripe with Street Fighter III is the final boss Gil .
M. Bison was, and is probably one of THE best and most recognizable fighting game bosses of all time, he was evil personified without the crazy tenticles and freaky appendages. And he had a great evil (insert pinky into corner of mouth) uniform.....it had a hint of world war two axis uniform design.
This guy Gil.....has salon selectives hair and wears a bannana hammock, half his body is red and the other half blue, his pysical attacks are elementally based on......yup you guessed it fire and ice . How uninspiring is Gil, let me count the ways.....
And to make him even less suitable as a final boss he has no sub bosses like Vega, Balrog, and Sagat, wait where's Sagat! The Original Street Fighter final boss got the ax, that's not right, he should have a cameo or something. Oh Gill's special move you ask, 100% regeneration in mere seconds .
Overall the Street Fighter Anniverary disk is adequate, with good easter eggs like art galleries, and the Street Fighter anime but DAMMIT CAPCOM HEAR ME! PUT STREET FIGHTER ONLINE!!!!

8/10

The Chains of Promathia

After discovering the Hall of the Gods and seeing the statue of Promathia I bought a copy and installed CoP on my (now defunkt) PS2 HDD, with eight new regions to explore in Vana Diel I decided to visit Bibiki Bay first. Bibiki Bay is located in the southeast region of Mindartia and looks out on the Gugru Blue. Sheltered by a multitude of tiny islands, it's tranquil waters were once used by Tarutaru fishermen who farmed large caches of shellfish and seaweed.The Fishermans guild, seeing the bays potential, recently paid for the right to begin fishing the area again. The guild intends to make it's small fishing vessels; manaclippers, available for use by adventurers. Also, in order to bring ordinary sightseers, the Fishermens guild has just attained permission to land on the beautiful beaches of Pugonorgo Isle from the isles mysterious and wealthy owner....

You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression

After spending the better part of the day leveling my Black Mage job in the Valkurm Dunes I went from barely level 17 to almost level 21, the time has come for Tryptifaeris the black to venture from the Valkurm Dunes to Qufim, a dreary island north of Jeuno. The way there is perilous, first I must navigate the dreadfull Pashhow Marshlands (think of the dead marshes in ROTK) inhabitted by Malboro and other nasties, then cross the expansive Rolanberry Fields crawling with Goobue's, Crawler's and Quadav's. Once in Jeuno you must head all the way to the lowest level and then travel thru an underground cavern to reach the island of Qufim. But why risk all that when you can just jump on a Chocobo and be there in half the time?!





So here I am riding my Chocobo thru Pashhow Marsh when it dawns on me I have a clump of Selbina clay! What's that you ask. Well the mayor of the small port town of Selbina has a quest for adventurers, he gives you a clump of Selbina clay and asks you to seek out 17 stone monuments made by early explorers hidden throughout Vana Diel, and make impressions of the writings they left behind. Certain tablets are more challenging to find or reach, the reward varies on the difficulty, well this tablet is worth 1000 gill. I research the coordinates in the Marsh and steer my Chocobo to the spot, the tablet is down this winding narrow path to the north west, ahead I spot a Marlboro blocking the way! If I were on foot I'd surely be dead, but since I'm on a Chocobo I ride right past it, directly behind this abominal creature is the tablet.....and a dead end!







With it's back to me I dismount my ride and begin to scan the writing on the tablet, then I grab the clay from my inventory to make my impression and safely warp back to my home point which just happens to be Selbina. Just as I am about to use the clay I hear a rustling from where the Marlboro had it's back to me Dam! I suddenly get whacked for aproximately 50 hit points! I only have about 300, in a panic I begin to run thinking if I can get some distance between me and this monster I can cast warp and not worry that I'll get hit and my casting will be interupted, no such luck this Marlboro was fast on it's tentacles and Tryptifaeris was on it's menu. So I stop and begin casting warp, if it hits me I'm dead, I'll never have time to cast again....the Marlboro swings it's bulbous tenticle at my head but by the grace of the crystals misses! I now have 20 HP left and the Vortex of purple haze tears open and I feel myself enter the warp, the stench of the marsh and the the Marlboro fade from view....THWAAAACK! As I reappear on the other end of the warp back in Selbina I feel I've cheated death, a trimphant Tryptifaeris will stride into the mayor's hut with the clay tablet and I'll collect 1000 gill! But as I materialize a shocking vision appears, my mostly dead body laying face down spread eagle in the hot Selbina sand! It is extremely rare to see dead people in city zones but there I was mostly dead with a growing mass of living people huddling around me, staring in wonderment. I heard them asking "how?" and some even proclaiming there's PKing in FFXI now.....If only I began casting 1 second sooner this travesty wouldn't have occured. Suddenly from the back of the crowd I heard the welcome sound of someone casting Raise, and soon I was wisked from the ground and i floated midair as life poured back into me.

The Emissary: Episode II

After reaching San D'Oria I went to the Bastokan consolate there and recieved my next orders, to go to Fort Ghelsba where Orcses run amok and the Yughott Grotto and report my findings to the consul of Bastok.

After reaching the summit of the Ghelsba outpost Krog and I return to San d' Oria and report to the consolate. The final part of my mission awaits, the BCNM dragon at Horlias peak. This fight would prove to challenging, not due to the difficulty of the dragon but the difficulty in finding people who still needed to fight the dragon. A few weeks passed before I was able to finish the mission but the group I fought the dragon with broke the record for time.

The Emmisary: Episode I

My latest mission for the republic is a top secret mission organized by President Karst of Bastok. I am to travel to Windurst, the details of my mission would be given to me in the Bastok consulate in Windurst.....

After reaching Windurst under the cloak of darkess I headed to the Bastok consulate and recieved my orders. I was told to go to Heavens Tower (think giant tree in Secret of Mana) get a magical weapon which is supposed to be given to a Yagudo Beastman in Giddeus named Uu Zhoumo as a peace offering. The Tarutaru give the Yagudo beastmen weapons and in turn the Yagudo don't attack Windurst.But Bastok has other plans for this magic weapon.....I'm told by my "contact" to bring the weapon back to the consulate and swap it with a fake. After doing so I head north to Giddeus to give Uu Zhoumo the fake, things don't go as planned when the Yagudo realizes the weapon is a fake . uu Zhoumo order me to get him an Aspir knife from a Notorious Monster (NM) named Eyy Mon (Jamaican Yagudo ). After killing Eyy Mon I gave Uu Zhuomo the Aspir knife and met up with Little Killer.

Paradise Lost

As I leveled BLM I began to travel more frequently throughout Vana Diel, I found I wasn't as worried about being attacked. Mobs that used to pose a threat to me as a WHM were easily dispatched as a BLM. I completed a few more quests in San d' Oria then headed back to the Valurm Dunes to continue XPing with PT's.

Todays specialty, Crab legs ala Valkurm. That little blue thing is a deadly summon known as Carbuncle.....he's a distant relative of Pikachu. He kills stuff with nauseating cuteness.

And here I am getting a tan in the dunes.....red headed elves gotta be xtra careful!

Altana's Sorrow

After completing a few more quests in Bastok I reached a high enough level of fame to recieve the quest from the San d'Orian friar Virnage in the Mining district of Bastok. He asked that I retrieve a bucket of magical paint from the Garliage Citadel to help restore the beauty of the alter of the Goddess Altana in the Metal Works. As a reward Virnage would give me a letter to bring to the monks in the San D'Orian Cathedral who would then give me the scroll of Teleport Dem.

Yeah I could just buy it at the auction house for an UnGodly amount but what's the fun in that. So off I go to get that bucket of magic paint, I reach the entrance to the Citadel and cast Sneak, Deodorize, and Invisible to let me search in peace for this magic bucket of paint. I head down into the dark corridors and begin to search the rooms, careful to not fall thru the large holes in the floor. The Citadel is overrun with bats and it is imperative to keep sneak on at all times or suffer Krog's fate you will, during my through investigation my Sneak spell wore off! But I figured if I didn't move I could recast it and the bats would be none the wiser But by recasting Sneak I would negate the Invis spell....I figured there were no other mobs around that could detect by sight so I'd be ok.....wrong Just as I recast sneak a Bomb-type mob spawns and begins to hit me for large chunks of health, I wouldn't last long against this foe so I do the Mage thing and begin to cast Warp, the Bomb hits me but doesn't shake Tryp's focus, I continue to recite the spell, dark energy begins to surround me as I the room fills with the ancient words, the Bomb goes to hit me again but this time it misses and it appears I will escape this encounter, as I come to the end of my incantation the purple haze of the vortex tears open a portal that will reopen in the heart of Bastok and I will be an entire continent away from the deep dark of the Garilage Shitadel....moments later adventurers going to and fro in the Republic of Bastok are momenarily caught off guard when the fabric of space & time is torn asunder and a lifeless body is dumped in the middle of the Market district.

It appears that the ATB meter isn't present in this MMORPG 'cause my enemy got a last second hit on me for a whopping 170+ damage . The next time I attempted to get the elusive bucket of magic paint I contracted a guide, his name LittleKiller.

With the help of this mighty Taru I got my Paint and warped safely back to Bastok to give Virnage his stupid paint. He gave me the letter and telleported to the crag of Holla in the La Thene plataue, jumped on a Chocobo and headed to the Kingdom of San D' Oria to get my scroll of Dem. Later that evening I was drinking in the pub in Port Sandy when I overheard a rumor that a Vampire was down in the prison below the Chateau d' OraguilleI was fascinated by the whispers of this evil lurking below San D' Oria so I headed to the Chateau.......But that is a tale for another time.

Game Review: MegaMan Anniversary Collection

Remember the good ol' days of 8 bit side scrollers, where all ya needed was a square controller with a D-pad and 2 buttons. Where you didn't need a keyboard, a headset, a broadband connection (which didn't even exist then anyway). It was just you verses the hordes of pallet swapped baddies and the evil bosses! Well someone at Capcom does, and thanks to thier fondness for this extinct 2-D genre we will get to play one of gamings historic characters Megaman in his first 8 titles! The blue bombers one of those characters who've stood the test of time like Mario and his brother......what's his name , Sonic, the Belmont clan, and Link. So if you're a younger video gamer who doesn't remember the glory days you should definately check out this game! You'll get to kick Dr. Wily's mad scientist but 8X for less that the current 3-D super platformer-MMORPG-fighting bonanza.....and you may have more fun too! If I were to rate this game on it's visuals it would probably recieve below a 5 but fortunately for Rocks sake I'm not. What you don't know who Rock is? Well in Japan Megaman is called Rockman (think stone not music) The basic idea is Rockman is created by doctor light to stop Dr Wily's mad robots from destroying earth! Each of Wily's robots has a special attack that causes extra damage compared to MM's peashooter, with this knowledge you must figure out which weapon to use against which Boss....think ROCK, paper, scissors. Although very outdated the music fits Megamans world perfectly and it's nice to see the slight improvements from MM1-MM8 in sound and visuals. This is simply a fun compliation when you want to delve into a quality classic game with simple gameplay and a decent challenge. 10 Megaman games + loads of goodies like art work, videos for $29.99!

7/10

Flame On!

I've been trying to complete as many Bastok quests as possible. I just acquired the Dangruf stone fairly easily. And I got the painting of a windmill in Konschat for Roh Latteh. I tried to give some NPC in Bastok Markets cinnamon sticks, but he won't take em yet. I reached level 10 in fishing so I headed to Windurst the other day to take the test. While enroute to Muhuara I went fishing on the deck of the ferry, caught a few fish anda few monsters, but nothing I couldn't handle. I reach Muhuara and head out to the Buribura plains, I check a Bull Dhamel and to my surprise it registers as a decent challenge So I transform into white mage tank mode, cast bind on the giraff-like beast then cast Bio, Slow, Diaga, Water, and Wind....oh and I cast Blaze Spikes on myself so everytime it hits me physically FLAME ON baby!





It was surprisingly easy to defeat. So now I'm 3/4's of the way across the plains and I decide to collect a couple Bull Dhamel skulls , same game plan but this time a couple pesky Goblins decide to jump in the fight......not good /em finds death.
So now I'm back in Selbina, I should've just logged off at this point but noooo I had to redeem my pride by killing stuff in front of lowbies outside the Selbina gate, I kill a few sheep and a few Damselfly's, next thing I know I find my self double teamed by Damselfly's with my MP running low. But I refuse to turn tail and run, I notice I've been poisoned but the second fly is close to death so I hang in there, the Damselfly dies and I run to the gates of Selbina watching my 12 HP slowly dwindle, I reach the zone and collapse from the poison /em finds death again. I didn't have enough MP to cure myself. So I'm currently hanging out in Selbina, waiting for a sand storm so I can get some Valkrum sun sand and then I'll run back to Bastok and complete one more quest.Then I will set out for Windurst once again, this time I will avoid the temptation to kill and get to where I'm going.

Don't go chasing waterfalls

                                                                           Once again I contacted Krogenar the Beastmaster and asked if he would like to go to some dark, dangerous place called 'Drachenfall' - it's a waterfall that we can only get to by running a gauntlet through the Dangruf Wadi, it's a labyrinth with thick mist and hot geysers. The whole place is infested with goblins and lizards. After a few wrong turns we find the hidden entrance that leads back into Gustaberg, as we re-enter Gustaberg we find ourselves at the bottom of a narrow ravine, high above is the bridge I have crossed many times on the way to the Konschat Highlands. The waterfall reforms into a river with a path on each side, two bridges cross over it. Patrolling each side are Pugils' and Goblins. We make our way fowards, Krog uses his BST abilities and charms the Pugils and sets them against the Goblins blocking our path. Meanwhile, I rested up my MP so I could keep Krog's HP from "going red". It was slow going but the strategy worked, we get to the base of the famed waterfall. We fill our canteens with the water, and head back to Bastok. Another quest under our belts.