-by Bevianna Bones

The internet is a wonderful thing. I’m surprised it hasn’t broken over the last couple days, what with all the excitement out there. The same day that brought us all tissue filled boxes of rage over the season final of our beloved Game of Thrones, also brought us the most spectacular news the world has ever, ever been told. Bevianna, you say, “Fallout 4 was announced three weeks ago.” Not exactly breaking news anymore, and up until last night, I would agree. So to those, I will say this, “All I ever really wanted was a ballerina Barbie. In her pretty pink tutu…what did they get me? Mali-bu Bar-bie. But that’s not who I was. I was a ballerina. Graceful. Delicate.”

Insert yet another one of my obscure references here. For those of you that get it, congrats for being as full of random shit as I am. For everyone else, maybe we’ll have to make a special segment to identify and explain all of my obscure jokes I lovingly pepper my posts with.

And in this case, I suppose the collective them have finally broken down and listened to the forlorn cries in the dark of a dying planet, in much, much need of heroes and hope. Yes, folks if you haven’t heard, I’m finally getting my ballerina Barbie in the form of a next gen remake of Final Fantasy VII. Squee!

For those who are wondering, Ballerina Barbie is to Final Fantasy VII Remake, as Mali-bu Bar-bie is to all of the other remakes of Kingdom Hearts and FF X/X-2/XIV et cetera that Square has been pumping out at us for some time now.

Of course, the internet being what it is, there are already fanboys out there bitching that they are some how gonna fuck it up. And while there is that small amount of fear that something so reveared will lose part of its hold it has on our hearts, I say this to you, when has anything I’ve ever reveared so much be a huge disappointment?

Well, yeah, there was that…

Oh God’s, I had forgotten about that…

Oh yeah, and that…anyone wonder how it is that she is still working?

Alright, alright I get the point. But in fairness, that Howard bit was to promote the new comics. They wouldn’t dream of remaking my favorite piece of cinematic beauty ever?! Would they? Let’s hope not.

All of those things aside, history does teach us lessons, ans Square Enix has always done a marvelous job on all of their revisions of older properties. I have no fears this time around, and if some of the quells of fear I’ve heard turn out to be true, I’ll always have my 3 discs to pop in my PSX. Or fire up my PSP. Or play it on my Vita. Or play it on my PC, whether it be the PC version, or the emulator. I have save files on them all. 

I don’t think that’s going to happen though, the folks behind the game have as much love and reverence for it as the players do. That’s the key thing that has set it apart from all other games for all these years, is the love and craftsmanship behind it.  Now with the power of the PS4, they can make their original vision of that amazingly captivating universe a reality.

If you haven’t seen the E3 trailer, check out the link below. Oh and by the way, if you haven’t bought a PS4 yet, do it, do it now.

But be warned, I actually cried tears of joy when I saw how beautiful this looks. Grab a box of tissues. Matter of fact, you might have some left from Sunday’s Game of Thrones.

SPOILER ALERT: They killed off another one of your beloved characters…I’m not sure why this surprised anyone at this point.

Anyhow! Off to watch my old school collectors edition of the making of Final Fantasy VII that I got from Squaresoft in the mail almost 20 years ago. Great stuff. And maybe after that, some Chocobo racing and some frolicking at the Gold Saucer. Until next time.

-BB

-by Bevianna Bones

It’s Star Wars day!!! May the Fourth be with you!!! Yay puns!!! We’ve created a holiday out of a pun!!  What a world we live in!!! What are you waiting for?? Jump on your snowspeeder and zip around the ice fields on Hoth and take out those AT-AT walkers!!

In the world of video games, there has always been video game crossovers of popular movies, even back in the days of the Atari 2600. If it was a blockbuster, why not make games and toys and capitalize off its success? It’s a tried and true formula that either works out successfully for developers, or becomes an epic fail for them and bankrupts their company.

Sorry Atari, no T no shade.

Today, in “honor” of Star Wars day, lets talk about one that worked. Empire Strikes Back for Atari 2600.  They made several Star Wars games for the VCS, but Empire was one of the best. Better than Jedi Battle, Ewok Adventure, Return of the Jedi, and Star Wars Arcade.

If you go out in the woods today…EWOK!

It’s also more engaging than most of the SW video games in general. X-Wing vs Tie Fighter. Shadows of the Empire. Rebel Assault. Episode I Pod Racer.  Battlefront.

The game that let you kill them…kill them all!

Empire strikes back is a side scrolling shooter where you control a snowspeeder and have to take down AT-AT walkers that are “moving” towards the rebel base. Fire upon them and control your ship in spastic fashion until they fall. As you attack, their bomb door will open and a well placed shot in the sweet spot will take them down.

The radar on the bottom of the screen will show you how close the walkers, the dots, are getting to the base,  the bracket square. If your ship takes too much damage, fly towards the bottom of the screen to repair it. Continue until you are out of ships. Fun. 

That’s it that’s all I’ve got. These games aren’t very involved. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t a good time or a challenge.  And as I’ve said before, one of my favorite parts about these old games is how they sell it.  Enjoy!

-BB

–by Bevianna Bones

Ok, so I got distracted from writing this the last time I was going to post it, but now it’s here for real real.  Quiz and Dragons. An arcade game from Capcom circa 1992. Bevianna, you say, with snark, that the 90s were not the 80s to which I reply to you, the early 90s might have still been the 80s since the early 90s hadn’t really stepped into the dream of the 90s yet, and possessed a very 80s flair to it. It works this way with all decades really. The early 80s still have that late 70s feel, the early millennia was still shaking off pieces of the late 90s, and so on and so forth. So in any event, I declare early 90s as on the official table for the sake of retro reviews. Wanna feel old? It was 25 years ago. Some of you readers probably weren’t even born. And what else is more retro than an  arcade game and the joy of playing one.?

What is an arcade? Oh please tell me you jest, but just to clarify for those who joined the world after the mid 90s, an arcade was just about the happiest place on earth one would go to play games. The beautiful standup machines and pinball tables all lined up like soilders, demos playing and lights flashing, just begging you for your hard earned quarters. Hard earned because you were a kid of course and had to do menial tasks for your parents or neighbors to get them. Is that enough of an intro or what? On with the game!

Quiz & Dragons premise is quite a mixed bag, and quite a step from nearly every game that Capcom has ever made. The company that brought you major game franchises; Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, Marvel vs Capcom, Final Fight, D&D, even more recently Resident Evil; now brings us gamers a board game, fantasy game, rpg, and trivia game all in a solid and enaging tale.  You see here’s what happened:

Capconia was a peaceful kingdom. Thanks to the power of the “Seed of Wisdom”. The citizens were able to lead their lives in quiet happiness.
The Wisdom Seed: In the hands of the just man it could be used to insure peace. However, a man with evil in his heart could use it’s power to bring down a curtain of dark-ness on the world.

Dark-ness is particularly frightening…

One day the evil warlock “Gordian” invaded Capconia with a host of his foulest Mon-sters and seized the wisdom seed.

Mon-sters are the just the worst…

After using the Seed to endow his Mon-sters with evil wisdom, the warlock Gordian launched his assault on the good people of the land. The monsters forced the citizens to answer very difficult questions. Those who could not answer correctly were promptly eaten.
The sage king, Hateba VI, selected the four wisest and bravest in the land and ordered them to recover the Wisdom Seed.
You, the brave… The chosen… You must use your wisdom and strength to save our world.

God! Is that not the most engaging storyline? I am certainly popping a quarter into this bad boy! Stick your quarter in and hit start and away you go to the character selection screen

“Stop! In the name of love”-Wizard

Each of the four characters possess a different skill to make your journey more feasible. Fighter recovers vitality quickly! Wizard can change category often! Amazon can sometimes cut 1 or 2 choices! Ninja can cause double damage!  Oh what to pick what to pick…hurry you can’t think on it too long or the game will just go on and pick for you. The best choice depends on how you are playing. If you only have a few quarters, go with fighter as he recovers some health as you go. If you’re a dummy and only know a little about certain subjects, go with Wizard. If you are in for the long haul go with Ninja as he will deal double damage and you will complete the game quicker. And of course, if you want to be marveled by amazing thunder thighs, cries of “ya!”, and the power of only two choices on some questions, go with Amazon. (Guess which one my favorite is…ya!)

Yes, that’s Ninja and not Amazon, I’m trying to get through this quickly for the sake of the article.

Gameplay begins and you are at the start of the first board, or stage. Stage 1:Woods of Legend, is pretty small and straightforward. The dice rolls and that’s how many spaces you move. In the example, a roll of 5 or 6 would take Ninja to Wyvern. However, in the roll of 3, which was rolled, Ninja will be battling Mage. Such excitement!

The questions, are dated at best, but some more so than others.

When you battle your opponent, you are taken to the trivia part of the game. This is the quiz part and the main part of the game. Not to be confused with the Dragon part, who are merely Gordian’s puppets to wreak havoc open the land of Capconia!!

The dragons are masters of taunting.

Each enemy you face has a certain amount of life and you take one life from them for each of the answers that you answer correctly, get a question wrong and you the hero, the chosen, lose one.

Fighter gasps in agony!

Complete the stage by rolling through the board and to the stage boss. After taking down the boss, they will taunt you more about facing Gordian, and you will be taken to the map to select your next stage. Spoiler alert: Play through all 7 stages and you will face Gordian himself!!

As you travel through each board, they get increasingly more and more complex, with multiple routes and mini bosses along the way.

Such choices…the path to the inn through the pudding, golem, wyvern, golem, or mage, golem, wyvern, golem. Oh the complexity!

Throughout the boards, there are not just enemies, there are also spaces to help you on your journey. Inns and Elfs. For answering a measly one question, the purveyor of each will either restore your health or give you a useful item. Such as a ring that will show you the correct answer on the next quiz, or a staff that will make the next quiz only have 2 or 3 choices.

I’m sure she will!

And that’s basically it, like I said the game goes on for 7 stages until you face and defeat Gordian himself and save the Wisdom Seed and restore peace to Capconia. Or until you run out of quarters. Or you get bored. High emphasis on the third choice here. After about 4 stages it gets taxing to stay invested. But, I have completed it several times, and I will tell you that the ending is worth staying around for in about the same manner that the opening scene was for wetting your whistle to play. Ok ok, I won’t tease, I’ll show you what happens.

This is not my video, but sadly the damn thing wouldn’t upload, so a link to the YouTube’s it is.

Fin.
-BB