My Month In Games: March 2013

Fire Emblem: Awakening - 3DS

After some initial difficulty in FINDING a physical copy of this game on local store shelves, I was eventually able to purchase a copy from Target about three weeks after its Ferbruary 4, 2013 release date.  Conspiracy theories abound as to why this game was seemingly in such short supply during the first few weeks of its release.  Some say it was due to an inaccurate estimate of demand for the game on the part of Nintendo, others think that it was a ploy to get more people to download the game directly from the 3DS eShop (for the same price as the physical copy).  I guess if I was going to believe either one of those theories I'd probably go with the second one.  It's possible that Nintendo knew that this game would be popular with the kind of people who were likely to download it (adults) and thus used this title as an experiment in distribution channels.  Either way, I thought it was pretty strange that I couldn't get my hands on a physical copy immediately after release, and I refused to cake up my memory card with a huge game such as this FOR THE EXACT SAME PRICE as the physical copy.  Anywhoo...

Fire Emblem: Awakening is a pretty sweet game.  Fans of strategy RPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics or Advance Wars or even the Shining Force series will find a lot to love about this challenging and tightly constructed title.  From the great graphics and charming character design to the stellar soundtrack and the absorbing gameplay, Fire Emblem: Awakening has a lot going for it.  I'm already over 40 hours in and I don't think I've even seen half of what this game has to offer in terms of side quests, recruitable characters, and other ancillary bits.  Still, it's not without its drawbacks.  For one thing, it's a grind.  If you hope to recruit and train all (or even MOST) of the game's 50+ characters you're going to have to fight A LOT of battles...like, over 200.  No problem for a strategy RPG fan like me, but some may find it a bit excessive.  Also, you may have heard that this series is known for its punishing difficulty.  This is true in a sense.  Playing the game on any difficulty other than "casual" enables permanent death.  That is to say, if one of your characters falls in battle then they are gone for the rest of the game.  Character death during a battle is not particularly uncommon, and the thought of continuing the adventure without one of your favorite/most powerful characters is certainly a drag, but the fact is that you can always just save before a battle and reset the game and try again if one of your team should fall.  This has the effect of taking away any consequence of the whole "permadeath" situation and really only adds to the grind of it all.  The last minor issue I had with the game concerns its story.  The main storyline is fine even if it is a little hackneyed.  A motley group of royals, commoners, and mercenary fighters must unite to battle an ancient evil.  Standard stuff, right?  What the game REALLY wants you to focus on, however, is the interaction between the various characters in your army.  This is achieved through conversations between your units that get triggered when they literally fight side by side.  If you want to see any kind of back story or character development you have to take care to pair up the various fighters so that their camaraderie can develop.  These conversations between characters can sometimes be entertaining or enlightening, but mostly they're fairly inconsequential and it can be tedious to raise the "relationship level" between characters on the battlefield just so you can read a few lines of dialogue.  Still, despite these minor criticisms I really enjoyed this game and I'm happy to award it the first "A" grade for a game released in 2013.

Grade: A

New Super Mario Bros. 2 - 3DS

I wasn't too bullish on the first entry in the New Super Mario Bros. series.  It was alright, but it ultimately felt a little too retro and simplistic for my taste.  With this latest iteration, Nintendo has shifted the template from "let's create an updated version of the original Super Mario Bros." to "let's create an updated version of Super Mario Bros. 3".  This was an excellent move on their part.  With more compelling level designs, tighter controls, and the reintroduction of the raccoon tail power-up, New SMB 2 is far more engaging and fun to play than its predecessor.  It's still not quite as cool as my all-time favorite 2D Mario game, Super Mario World, but it's up there.  Recommended.

Grade: B

DMC: Devil May Cry - PS3

  
I was never a huge fan of Capcom's Devil May Cry series.  I liked the first one okay, but I never felt compelled to check out any of the follow up entries.  With DMC, Capcom has decided to reboot the franchise and retell the story of (half angel/half demon) Dante and his brother Vergil from the beginning.  In the lead up to this game's release I heard rumblings that this game would be something of a departure from the original series.  Concept art showed the new character design for Dante without his trademark white hair, and some thought that the combat would be more similar to the more measured "evade, parry, strike" style of games such as Ninja Gaiden.  Well, my memories of the original Devil May Cry may be a little foggy at this point, but it seems to me that, aside from the lack of a white haired protagonist, this game isn't all that different from the original.  A story about a battle between supernatural forces over the fate of the Earth?  Check.  Tight, stylish, combo driven combat featuring various guns and bladed weapons?  Check.  Techno-metal soundtrack?  Yes sir.

So what did I think?  Well, just as with the original, I enjoyed it well enough.  The combat is pretty fun and dedicated players can scour the levels for secret areas and upgrades for their weapons and abilities.  The main criticism I have about this game and others like it (God of War, Lollipop Chainsaw) is that the challenge of the game is not so much in defeating enemies, it's in defeating enemies in a stylish way.  Combat itself is fairly easy, the hard part is remembering all the various button combinations needed to chain attacks together and achieve a higher score.  I'm sure that there are people out there who LOVE this kind of thing (I'll admit that pulling off some of the longer combos kind of makes you feel like a badass) but overall it just didn't grab me.  I guess I'm just not the type to sit around and practice my button combos.  Now that I think of it, that's probably why I suck so bad at most fighting games!  Anyway, fans of the original series will probably love this pseudo-reboot.  It wasn't totally my thing, but I can still recognize it as a quality game that I suspect many will enjoy.

Grade: B-

flOw and Flower - PS3

Flower

Hmmm.  These games are boring if you ask me.  Pretty to look at (especially Flower) but fairly dull gameplay-wise.  Plus, they both utilize tilt controls exclusively, which I find frustrating and uncomfortable.  Critics fell all over themselves praising the "artistry" of these games when they were released, but the fact is that they're just not very fun.  I had similar feelings about lead designer Jenova Chen's most recent game Journey.  Interesting ideas, visually appealing, but overall pretty tedious.

flOw

Grades: Flower C, flOw C-