Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 4 - Brawl Out

 

Huge episode of Dragon Quest VI today as we slay Maou Mudo (again) and unlock class changes. Lots of class-change discussion here and in the next episode. I think I might just stick with the remake and see it through from here on out, then go back to the SFC version and sweep that up.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 3 - All In

 

This is hands-down the best hero design in this entire series, IMO. It's kinda too bad that such an awesome design was spent on one of the more middling games. Regardless, time to get in-depth and try to make some sense out of this game's convoluted plot.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 2 - Welcome Back, Spike

 

I'm afraid I have some bad news. A phone reset wiped out my powered-up DQVI save. That's right, my level 13 overleveled character has poofed. So I had to start over, and this time I brought back the old DQIII Buffy motif and went with Spike. (Had a perfect chance here to go with Serge and didn't)

This isn't the worst thing in the world, because I wasn't that far into the game. I went ahead and overleveled again, and this time I was out for REVENGE. Overleveling like this with one character: Kind of dumb? Yeah.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (iOS/Android, 2015)

 

This is the only official U.S. version of the game, and it took until 2011 for it to get a Nintendo DS release. I'll be playing the phone version, which is the Nintendo DS version with nicer visuals. Looking forward to this one because it's got some great character designs and we get much better looks at them than we do in the SFC version. Though I will say the SFC version's visuals have their own appeal and charm and I don't think this version obsoletes it.

Rockman & Forte 2 - Mirai kara no Chōsensha (Wonderswan, 1999)

 

It's the most dynamic team up of two guys who hate each other since Hobbs and Shaw. This is wild though: With all the Mega Man that I've played over the years, and me trying to cover all of the classic and X series, I somehow missed this game entirely. I thought I'd finished the entire series and was done. Nope. This game was hiding in a cave somewhere like the guy from Highlander III. Considering I never even heard of it until recently, I have no clue what to expect.

Lord of the Rings (Super NES, 1994)

Originally Posted: This time in 2010, and very incomplete. Now with the rest of the game added

Back in 1995, I played an SNES game called Lord of the Rings Vol 1. This is hands-down one of the worst RPGs on the system. Still, I played the hell out of this via a rental or two. I never finished it. I reached the final dungeon and quit because it's a complete maze and made no sense.

...wait a minute. "First Action Adventure RPG with real-time combat"? Ever heard of Secret of Mana, jerks?

Regardless, I hit this game up just to finish what I started long ago, and I got some screenshots in the process. The game uses a password system, so eventually I found a password to skip to the final dungeon - albeit with underpowered characters - and went for it. This game may be awful overall, but the final dungeon is quite respectable. It's like the developers put all their energy into the Mines of Moria.

Highlander 4x20 - Till Death

 

This episode contains the stunning and beautiful Angelina de Valicourt, seen here in the worst possible picture anyone could take of her for the episode thumbnail. Come on, guys. Anyway, she's smart and sexy and rambunctious and... Dammit, I told myself I wouldn't make this weird. She's just gorgeous, and also immortal, that's important. Yep, she's immortal and gorgeous. I don't have a crush, YOU have a crush. Dammit, I'm being weird again. I'll just start this.

Highlander 4x19 - Double Jeopardy

 

The cover image for this episode is a random cop lady... when the episode itself is a rare and coveted Xavier St. Cloud episode. That's right, he returns! Can't believe they didn't have him as the cover image. It's just as well though, because this is also unfortunately the return of Cop Show Highlander. For one night only! You know the creators of the show were chomping at the bit to bring back the Cop Show format, only to be held at bay by David Abramowitz like Gandalf holding off the Balrog.

Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures - Part 2 (Temple of Doom + Last Crusade)

 

The second half of this great game. We start with my least-favorite of the first three movies (it's still good though). I hope this game doesn't contain that insufferable, screeching blonde. It's bad enough to lose Marion, but losing her and getting a shrill harpy is a true step down. At least the movie also has Shorty, the most likeable character in the trilogy. The game does not contain Playable Shorty, unfortunately.

Temple of Doom might have also inspired every "mine cart level" in every video game. I like mine cart levels, so that's cool by me. ...will THIS game have a mine cart level, though?

Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures (Super NES, 1994)

 

Truly legendary game here that I've wanted to play since 1994. Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the best movies of all time and probably in any legitimate top ten for action/adventure movies. And good news: This game has all three movies from the original trilogy represented. LucasArts didn't decide to have it span three games like the Star Wars SNES trilogy, which is both good and bad. Good because you're getting a lot of value / series coverage out of this one game. Bad because it can't go into the kind of detail for each one that individual games would have had.

Regardless, this game came out right around the same time as Super Return of the Jedi and has a ton in common with that trilogy. It should, same developers. I'm pretty stoked for this, so stoked that I've gotten out my old Nintendo Power for this game and loaded up the movies to watch this week. The first three.

Note: While the timing is intentional given that Indiana Jones is back, posting this isn't an endorsement of this week's movie. Which is apparently doing even worse than The Flash. One of these days these studios might learn that their target audience doesn't feel like watching their beloved legacy characters get "deconstructed" as alcoholic old fools who ruined their lives and no longer have any redeeming qualities.

Anyway,  love Raiders of the Lost Ark! Let's go!

Freedom Finger (Playstation 4 and Switch, 2020)

 

This is the single craziest space-shooter I've ever seen. It's a parody of American foreign policy and a bit of an indictment of the Establishment with its many victims. It's also completely nutso. I had no idea what I was getting into until I played this with a friend over one afternoon. We expected a pretty basic space shooter and what we got was something else entirely.

In the immortal words of William Shakespeare: F*** it let's just do it.

Kirby: Mass Attack (Nintendo DS, 2011)

 

This is the only main series Kirby game that I've never played. So I made it a bit of a personal mission to knock it off and "complete the series", which led to me noticing that we were on the 30th anniversary of me getting Kirby's Dream Land, and deciding to do a post about that, and then deciding to do more posts of some spinoffs, and why not this one too while I'm at it? DS games get very little time on here. Never played this before, don't know what to expect*, and I'm going to beat the game either way. Screenshots are gonna be in all kinds of weird proportions while I figure out what works best.

* - All I know is that it has stylus controls. Which is probably why I skipped it back in the day. DS games can't help themselves with stylus controls. Or as I call them, "Waggle Motion: The Wave of Tomorrow"

...I'm starting to doubt my commitment to Waggle Motion.

Kirby's Dream Course, Kirby's Avalanche, Kirby's Star Stacker (Super NES, 1994/1995/1997)

 

That's right, today we get a 3-fer with some more Kirby spinoff puzzle/sports type games that I checked out over the weekend. Not going to actually finish any of these, but I'll get a gander at them. Never played this trio before this, so they're all new to me. First up is the fairly popular Kirby's Dream Course from 1994.

Kirby's Pinball Land (Game Boy, 1993)

 

This game is awesome, so I'm going to get it out there real quick before WW3 starts. Somehow I never covered this before, which is weird, could have sworn I did. It's so much funnukah! But also kinda tough.

Kirby's Dream Land DX (Game Boy Color Hack)

   

It's the 30 year anniversary (Jesus) of me getting this, my first game. School had just let out and it was time to finally get a game system. To commemorate this, I'm running several Kirby games this week. Starting with the color remake of Kirby's Dream Land, made by intrepid fans. I haven't played this since the first time I covered it, almost a decade ago, so we'll see how it triggers my memory.

Judgement Silversword (Wonderswan Color, 2001)

 

Wonderswan Color gets on the board with this shockingly good space shooter. Shockingly good for a portable system from the Game Boy Color era, that is. I don't know how they were able to get this game to play as well as it does with zero slowdown considering the massive number of moving objects onscreen at any given time. It's safe to say the Wonderswan Color was a really impressive portable and it's too bad we never got it in the states. In any case, this game will float you a few hundred dollars on eBay, or you could just download the ROM and actually have a shot at beating the game due to save states. Because this game is ludicrously hard. There's also a Steam version for like $20, but no states so good luck. It sure does play well, despite its near-impossibility.

Top 20 Title Screen Themes In Gaming

 

Been a while since I did a top list. The usual top list disclaimer applies: This is my personal take and it's off the top of my head. Plenty of great things are going to be missing, either because I never played them or just straight-up didn't think of them. Your mileage may vary. There's a special hell reserved for the people who post "No [X Y or Z]??" comments on every top list. However, if you have any suggestions, totally drop them in the comments. I'm grading off of a few criteria here: How good the track is, how well it fits / sets the tone for the game, and how memorable/iconic it is overall.

Hentai Vs. Evil (Playstation 5, 2021)

 

This game was $3 on PSN so I checked it out to see how bad it was. It's bad. It's real bad. So instead of doing something good like Highlander or, I don't know, Dragon Quest VI, today I'm serving up this helping of gruel. By God though, it... kind of works.

Highlander 4x18 - Through A Glass, Darkly

 

One of the not so good episodes in my view, which is really unfortunate because it's about the pivotal battle of Culloden (Scotland vs England) that shaped Duncan's persona from here on out. Culloden determined who controlled Britain, and the answer? 

Well, spoiler alert, the Scottish Jacobites were soundly defeated by the English, and so was Duncan's zest for fighting. After this he basically traveled the world for a while and saw war as a pointless waste. So there's a lot to mine out of this chapter.

Dungeons and Dragons - Art & Arcana

 

Every once in a while I like to take a quick look at some sort of artbook. This time, I got ahold of this particularly nice visual history of D&D. It's a bit of a trip down memory lane.