Chrono Trigger: A Timeless RPG

Audience, voting time is over. All who participated, thank you. I'm happy to see that each of the games received at least one vote, poor Pokemon Blue, which means that they will probably have their own posts in the future. Probably.

In any case, congratulations Chrono Trigger! I am not surprised that this title won. After all, it is one of the greatest RPGs in the world of video games. How can I possibly write a post that hasn't already been written about such a fulfilling and mind-blowing game? Simple, I'm going to go on tangents and drop tips along the way. This approach usually turns out alright.

Now get in the car Marty!

Where to start...how about the title? Chrono is the name of the main character, the spikey red haired dude pictured above. However, a Chrono Trigger is a magical weapon in the game. Its purpose is revealed about halfway through the game. As always, I'll stay away from major spoilers. I want you to play this game, remember?

Fun Fact: The FMV, full motion video, cut scenes as well as the box art were drawn by Akira Toriyama aka, the father of Dragonball and DBZ.  

The game itself is about a group of adventurers trying to stop an alien life-form that is devouring the planet. This monster has a name, Lavos. Depending on when, yes when, you stop Lavos, you will experience a certain ending of the game. We'll touch on those possible endings later. For now, bullets baby!

• Storyline is amazing
• Chrono is the main hero
• Six other party members
• The sixth member is a secret
• Soundtrack is beautifully overwhelming
• Magic attacks depend on characters
• Creepy Fair Games
• Replayable with overpowered stats
• You can name your playable characters, anything
• Countdown attacks
• Riddlesome* Quests
• Magic combos
• Sake Soup drinking contest

Ahem, Chrono himself is not all that interesting. I say that in the sweetest way possible. Similar to my beloved Link from the Legend of Zelda series, Chrono is a silent character who is designed to be a reflection of the player. There is nothing wrong with this style. It worked. It still works. Regardless, the game went above and beyond by trying something new for the time; it gave the player six five other main characters with distinct personalities. Rather than imagine character traits, Chrono Trigger assigns them via character specific dialogue, attacks, and quests.

Quick Tip: The game allows you to switch between the characters once your party exceeds three members. Try to play with different character combinations in order to not only unlock all group attack sets, but to also experience different dialogue reactions. Having a kickass all-girls team is most satisfying.

By the by, let's quickly summarize these various characters. I'll even include my names for them:

• Marle (Mare) the cheeky daddy's girl/white mage of the group. She is honestly the best healer and can also dish out some sick ice attacks too. I only named her after me because her name is one letter away from Mare.
• Lucca (Bulma) the brains and mechanical know-how in every situation. She is Chrono's best-friend and burns enemies with her fire magic. Like Bulma, she is a scientific genius. Also like Bulma, Lucca has purple hair (books). Unlike Bulma, she is not an obnoxious damsel in distress at all times.
• Robo (Droid) the personified robot aka The TANK. Robo can handle several hits to the face and is one of two playable characters who does not use a type of magic.
• Frog (Kirby) is well, a talking frog. He is a so-so fighter and healer, kinda the red mage of the crowd. Though, even there he is in second place, wink wink secret character. His healing targets the entire group but does not heal as much as Marle's spells. His magic is water based...he's British though?

  

  "What you say? No rubbish, or NayNay head go boom!"

• Ayla (NayNay) is the barbarian babe of every nerd's erotic fantasy. She speaks in broken English but has a strong wit about her. Ayla is the other non-magical character, preferring to use her strength. She also does not have a weapon, just a rock hard fist. I named her NayNay after one of my best-friends for two reasons; she's a beautiful blonde, and the fact that the name "NayNay" sounds hilarious in caveman dialogue. 
• ...there is a sixth companion but that identity is going to stay secret. I'll tell you this though, I named that character Cell. Yes, from Dragonball Z.

Those are the main characters in a nutshell. You can change their names after a while, a nice trait if you make any spelling errors or regrettable jokes. Also, your party appears as a group in the overworld as well as the towns. That's right, one character does not represent your entire party. Instead, they are all realistically displayed onscreen. Their outfits don't change, but put this game in its era. Having multiple sprites as a moving entity was big for the mid nineties.

Quick Tip: You can save in the overworld as well as swap out your party members, heal, change game settings, etc. It took me far too long to realize that all of these options were available to me there. I kept going to The End of Time...avoid that stupidity.

Now, this game's central setting is time travel. In the beginning, you are only exposed to a limited number of eras. This, of course, grows over the course of the game. The End of Time is the central hub for all your time-travel needs. Before your Delorean that is. You can name that too! Mine's called Nimbus.

Go Nimbus Go!

Enough with the names Mare. Let's cover some battle tactics now, shall we? 

I mentioned that there are countdown attacks in Chrono Trigger. This means that a certain amount of time must pass before you can attack an enemy. This is represented by a depleting bar that is located underneath each character while in battle. The speed of the bar depends on individual levels as well as character choice. For instance, Robo has a slow countdown since he is the defense tank. Whereas Marle is all about agility and healing, so her countdown is much faster. 

Depending on whom you have in your party determines the overall quickness of a battle. This matters greatly later in the game; there are some nasty enemies who love to paralyze your party before you can even land a blow. 

Other aspects of battle, ah! I mentioned magic and combos before on the list too, right? Magic is elemental in this game and is assigned to specific characters. In order to unlock magic, Chrono and the gang have to deal with Spekkio. He's annoying as all hell but does give you elemental magical powers. You'll meet him. You'll hate him. Guaranteed.

Anything else on battles. Hmm. I'm certain that I left out Magic Points. Let's talk about that!

Magic is different than Magic Points, MP, because something has to be confusing. Magic Points are what enable your party to do special attacks, Techs. The other two letters in battle, TP, refers to Tech Points. This is your general experience that is earned from each battle. As you level up your characters, they are able to do more Techs and hold more MPs. The maximum amount of Magic Points is character specific and plateaus at level sixty. Health will also reach a maximum, 999/999, eventually. Though there are only a certain number of Techs in the game, TP does not cap like health or MPs. Go EXP TP!

Now magic is a lot of fun to use. There are five factions of magic; light(ning), ice, fire, water, and shadow. Magic Techs will be represented by an elemental symbol in the attack selection. Enemies are elemental as well, this is displayed in battle, and can have up to two element types. Light Techs will hurt water enemies, but things become tricky when an enemy is both water and light affiliated. 

Obviously, same elemental attacks will do squat against the same magic-based enemy. Keep that in mind when exploring new areas. You don't want to be fucked over having to use Lukka against lava monsters. 

Just like enemies, you too can have elemental combos. In fact, you can have tribos, triple combos. Certain Techs exist between characters. This means that you will need to have both, or all three, characters active as well as the Techs unlocked in order to execute the attack. These Techs cause massive damage but cost a pretty penny to use. 

Quick Tip: There are some hidden triple Techs in the game. They are unlocked via gemstones scattered across dungeons and time. You must have the unique gemstone equipped in order to use these awesome Techs.

The enemies in Chrono Trigger are pretty story specific. Certain ones exist in certain areas as well as eras. You enable battles by triggering parts of an area, rather than random encounters on the overworld. These triggers can be anything from grazing an enemy sprite to stepping on a certain patch of grass. After exploring certain areas so many times, you'll have the fastest routes mapped out. 

Besides possible spoilers, I suppose I could mention the coolest part of Chrono Trigger, the endings.

What? Is that an oxymoron? Mare, how can you talk about the endings without spoiling the game? Easy, there are twelve possible endings to Chrono Trigger. I actually have achieved them all, serious Lavos dedication. They are triggered when you initiate the fight with Lavos, the big bad alien/planet eating parasite. Since there are several eras to visit, and certain era changing events that occur in Chrono Trigger, there are many possible conclusions to the game. My personal favorite involves dinosaurs which requires a second play-through.

Don't Panic: Chrono Trigger is designed to be replayed. Once you beat the game for the first time, you are able to roll over all of your experience and weapons to a new file. Basically, you play as an overpowered renegade and can do so again and again.

Anything left? Well, yes, so much left. But what to talk about? I did mention the save-thing already. Also the riddlesome quests, though I don't want to spoil those beyond the word "riddlesome". Perhaps you're wondering about the fair games or the soup drinking contest, audience? 

Games from Hell...Eh, they're weird.

Ha, those are actually important to the plot, namely the soup drinking. The fair games function as optional mini games too, but are necessary at one point. There is one game where you can win cat food. The more cat food you win the more cats you'll have in your home. The number can be a normal two to a ridiculous twelve. Even the crazy cat ladies of the world are shown some love in Chrono Trigger.

This game is beyond fantastic. It is, not was, revolutionary in the world of gaming. Chrono Trigger gives the player choices with vastly different outcomes, an actual RPG. Not the,"good" ending, "bad" ending, and "crap" ending choice of the subsequent RPGs. It introduces multi-functioning attacks that required the player to experiment with all of the characters in order to have the full scope of the game. Then the dialogue diversity revolved around party selection, it is just amazing. 

Chrono Trigger was so ahead of its time, hell, it's ahead of this time. Whoa, just like in the game. Chronoception.

Until next time audience! Here's some music to bridge the gap.

*Riddlesome (adj), a troubling problem related to solving riddles. (Coined by Mary)

Fable Lost Chapters, a Sycthey adventure

My sweet audience, some of you may remember that I mentioned Fable TLC in an earlier post about playing certain video games when bored. I briefly mentioned some of the "dickable" activities in Fable which make it an excellent game to relieve boredom. However, I'm not satisfied with that shout-out. No, no Fable TLC needs more than that, as does Skies of Arcadia Legends. So here in honour (just for you Maleficus) of Lionhead's best RPG is the Fable TLC post.

You'll find out who Maleficus is very shortly audience. Also there is some music at the bottom of the page. Yeah, way way down there. Keep going.

This is him. With a few adjustments ahem.

Bullets of beautiful info about Fable TLC:

• You are a boy. Not a single if, and, or but from you audience
• Almost immediately you are torn from your family and forced into the Guild of Heroes. Heroes' Guild for short
• The world of Albian is your terrain and is full of drunk idiots ordering beers with "umbrellars" in them
• Hero does not necessarily mean virtuous *wink*
• There are many NPCs you will hate, namely Thunder
• There are two NPCs you will love, namely Scythe
• The villain is magical and scary as fuck. I love Jack for that.
• This is the game that taught me how to do a poor British accent. Heh.
• You can be a whore if you so wish
• You can be a demon with horns and glowing eyes if you so wish
• You can be a chicken-man if you so wish
• You can be an angel with a halo and face tattoos with perfect blonde hair and perfect scars.Cough.
• You can be whatever you want if you so wish.

Where to begin? Perhaps with the beginning? As you know audience spoilers are to follow BUT not major plot ruining ones. Seriously, I want you to play this game. Why would I do that?

Awaken in Oakvale, a small port-side town busy with NPCs who all happen to know that it is your older sister's birthday. All of them know it, even the new merchant. Everyone except you. Basically you start off as a lazy little boy who forgets his own sister's birthday and waits around for adventure to find him. Rather classic eh?

Anyhow, you begin by doing "deeds" around the town in order to earn enough gold (3 pieces in fact) to buy a box of chocolates for your sister as a birthday present. The deeds are your first steps in the game both controller wise and alignment wise. Alignment is rather big in Fable, we will divulge into that more later. Basically though it is your morality, your amount of good and/or evil. So, you can from the start be all evil, all good, or a nice mix. It's your choice. Personally I enjoy being a total bad boy now and then. Smashing boxes is fun. Sides, "are you just gonna stand there like a lemon?"

Fast-forward past a night of horrible events to the Heroes' Guild. Here is where you really learn how to kick ass or chew bubble gum. Oops, wrong game. Heh, so at the guild you train with at first a stick (lame) then a sword, then a bow, then with plasma lightning that shoots from your finger tips while slowly corrupting your body turning you into a mutated freak who climbs walls and scares the shit out of 18 year old MareBears! Oops, wrong game again. Well sorta. You do in fact train with lightning or will or magic; it happens that cast lightning is your first spell. Still, beware the corruption. Or don't. Being an overpowered mage is awesome.

My overpowered Hero

Ah yes, what kind of hero will you be? Well there are nearly limitless combos. You could just go all out in one skill tree, meaning a maxed out warrior, mage, or marksman. However, that's lame and you'll look weird as all fuck at the end. See, depending on your skill tree you can look like a jacked out glowing giant (which is how I typically go) or a stubby shrimp with trunks for limbs. Or a skinny glowing twig. Or a lanky pillar the width of a pencil. OR a million other things. If you mix your skill tree you can become any kind of hero combination. If you max everything out (which is fun to do) you will look like Maleficus, in other words a jacked out glowing giant with beautiful blond locks. Oh yeah, your "other looks".

Tattoos, hairstyle, facial hair, and hair colour all fall under "other looks" as a category. Some are found in chests, others are only available at specific shops, some are stolen from people's homes. Yes, you can steal hairstyles from residences. How? Why with style cards of course! Fable TLC made it easy to customize your hero's outward appearance with the use of cards. Basically a style is written onto a card and once you collect it, you can have it applied as many times as you want. So if you like a tattoo you own or just want to try it out, you can at any tattoo parlour or with any travelling tattoo artist. It's rather nifty. Unfortunately the colour of your tattoos depends on the card, you cannot change them. Same goes for hair colour.

Quick Tip: If you own the PC version of Fable TLC you are able to design your own tattoos. Unfortunately I'm not that talented of an artist.

Hair colour is not something you can easily mess with. Ok if you know the game then yes, it is easy to change. However, for you curious newbies out there it might be more difficult since hair colour is dependent on your morality alignment. Remember how I said I'd tell you more bout alignment later? Well now is later.

Everything, and I mean everything, you do in Fable TLC affects your morality alignment; quests, games, murdering an entire town, clothing, even food. For instance eating tofu gives you "good" points whereas eating crunchy chicks (whole baby chickens) awards you with pure evil. I should also mention that clothing/armour only affects you when you are wearing it. This means if you want to know your true alignment (every piece of clothing has some push on morality) you need to be naked.

A typical bad-boy

How does alignment affect my appearance? It determines your hair colour (bleh, British spellings), whether or not you can grow hair, your eye colour (glowing red can be attractive to gothic culture) and many other things. Horns, those will appear if you are very evil. So will flies. As will red smoke. Least you learn the vulgar thrust expression. Haha so funny.

The completely good heroes have blond hair and sport a halo above their heads. They also grow blond beards (score!) and have butterflies follow them (um yeah...). Plus they are radiant with glowing light and deep blue eyes. If you are in between the extremes you can have sandy blond hair, dark black hair, light blue eyes, dark eyes, and always pale skin. No one tans in the world of Albian.

Aight so you understand that alignment has a strong presence for your character's appearance personally. Fortunately it does nothing for your quests. You can do all the quests in the game whether you're evil, good, or in between. That is a nice feature, means you won't miss anything. However, quests can have different outcomes (even the big major ones) therefore choose wisely dear audience. Or just make multiple characters, that works too.

Besides looks in the game (hey some of us are vain), you can customize your experience greatly. There are many side quests which can aid you at later stages of the game or just gift you with interesting weapons and outfits. For instance there are these things called silver keys. In Fable TLC there are thirty in total scattered throughout Albian. You can use the keys to open silver chests which have a designated number on them; if it says 15 you need fifteen keys to unlock it. Don't worry, you don't lose your keys after opening a chest. That would be a major pain.

Somehow I am born from something.

Another interesting side factor is the appearance of Demon Doors. These dudes are magic doors which take the form of old bearded men who want you to do something for them. This can be anything from giving them a rose to sacrificing all your silver keys. It's rather mixed. Regardless, you will be rewarded once you've opened the door with some sort of treasure. Often it's a weapon with magical properties. The Cutlass Bluetane is one of my favourites.

Hmm, speaking of favourite weapons, I might as well mention Skorm's Bow. This baby is the greatest and coolest looking bow in the game. Seriously, it is badass. However, acquiring the bow is not easy. In fact, it is a total bitch to earn. There is a temple in Darkwood called Chapel of Skorm. Skorm is the god of evil while Avo is the god of good. Yeah, super complicated.

I am a bitch to get!

Anyways, at the Chapel of Skorm you can make sacrifices in order to earn more evil points. What you sacrifice is followers, human followers. Depending on your alignment (the more good you are the more evil points you earn since they want you to be evil) and the time of day (I swear by midnight, it's the only time that works), you have a chance to be rewarded with Skorm's Bow. As a straight up fact you must earn more than 500 evil points from a sacrifice. This almost never happens in the first try and in fact, ends up with you hiring swordhands in order to make multiple sacrifices until you have the fucking bow. It's frustrating always but so so SO worth it. Guess what's not frustrating? Having your hero look 24 by the end of the game when he's totally maxed out with experience.

As many of you have picked up on, one aspect I really adore about this game is the fact that you can make a really hot character and force him to run around shirtless in the snow. Yup, great detail right there. As I was starting to say at the end of the last paragraph, I know of a way to make your hero be forever young. See experience, though it makes you stronger, also ages you. Your maximum age is 65, therefore once you've maxed everything out, then you are an overpowered retiree. This is fine if you don't care that no one else ages in the game. I care. Also I want Maleficus to be hot, always. So I use a minor glitch in the game to get what I want.

Near the end of the game, not at the end but near it, a quest card will appear at the guild for Knothole Glade/Witchwood. Basically the chief's son has been kidnapped and you need to go rescue him from bandits by travelling through Witchwood. This is good. See the Chapel of Skorm might be in Darkwood but the Temple of Avo is in Witchwood. At the Temple of Avo you sacrifice money (there's another glitch to avoid actually giving all your funds) in order to become more enlightened with being good. Horray. Well the first thing you earn from a large donation is the Sentinus, the "good" weapon which is a club with spikes all over it. Horray again. After that little gift though, you have the opportunity to earn some years of youth. This is what you want. So you give money (though not really) and earn a few years off your age.

See, 24 is better

Now here is where the glitch happens; teleport out of Witchwood to the Hero's Guild (it doesn't matter where you go but the guild is a nice known landmark). The game will ask if you want to abandon your quest, say yes. So now you are back at the Hero's Guild with all your experience you've earned as well as those youth points. However, the quest was not completed. Thus you can start the quest again and repeat this youth process til your desired age. I prefer 24 but you can go as low as 18. 24 is better though.

I suppose I should mention some actual gameplay and a few of the enemies, I just really don't want to give anything major away. Hmm, alright then, balverines and the undead. The other enemies, like hobbes, you'll just have to experience hands on. By the way, my late fish Maxley was named after a very famous hobbe. Just saying. Right then, puppy time!

He's hacking and whacking and slashing. Hack, whack, cutting that meat. 

Again wrong game. My favourite part about these creatures are the scars they leave. I purposely make Maleficus take damage around them in Darkwood just to have this. Perfect. Right, I'll stop drooling and we'll move on.

So cuddly <3

The balverines of Fable TLC are the werewolfs who never change back into human beings; aight at first if someone is bitten they can control the transformations but over time they succumb to the wolfy appetite of humans and other weak creatures. They are a central part of the game (they even dominate their own quest) and are adorable. I honestly think they are just the cutest things.
In Witchwood I kept hitting the stones in the order of S-H-I-T just to hear Maleficus swear and summon a small pack of adorable balverines to come out and play. They aren't too difficult of an enemy. Just equip a weapon with a silver augmentation (oh yes, these are magical stone badges you can add to weapons) and hack away.

Purposeful damage muwhaha

Quick Tip: Augmentations are permanent, you cannot remove them after attaching them to a weapon. Also, weapons only have a certain amount of augmentation slots depending on the level of weapon. Choose wisely.

Ah. The zombies of the game, the undead. These lovely gents, they are all male zombies for some reason, enjoy groaning and slashing at your boots as they rise from the earth. Once slain, they scream into a green puff of smoke before even more pop up to take their place.

Hello there darlings

They are the ultimate experience enemy. There are a few quests (pst, they involve a prison and a graveyard) which have unlimited respawn on the undead. This means you can kill them as much as you want for as long as you want to boost that experience. Add a few potions of strength, skill, and will into the mix and you've got a jacked out hero.

Quick Tip: Even if you don't want to be a mage, a most useful spell is Physical Shield since damage is switched from your health to your mana. If you take hits from your health you not only risk dying, but you also stop your combat multiplier (you'll find out, trust me) from, well multiplying.

Wow I've talked a lot about this game, without spoiling anything major yet either! Score!! There are just two last things, or should I say people I do want to bring up though. Wait, only two?! Alright, let's see. I chose Whisper and Scythe. We'll discuss Whisper first.

"Ello dar farmboy"

Dear sweet silver medalist Whisper. You are a difficult character for me to describe because I have mixed feelings on you. She is, for the most part, annoying, and like all characters (except for the coolest dude in the world) you have the option to kill her if she annoys you too much. I did kill Whisper once, and to be honest I regretted it. She is your first friend and perhaps your only true friend in the game. I mean everyone else is kind of aloof in a professional way or tries to piss you off by calling you a weakling constantly; Thunder, Briar Rose, you two wouldn't know anything about that kind of hero would you? Anyways Whisper is the other apprentice hero you meet early on in the game. In fact, you have to train with her in order to learn the basics. After graduation the two of you compete in quests and even (drum roll) the "arena-rr".

"Did you see th-at? I sawr it. The -eros of the arena-rr are trying ta kill eacho-der."

Heh heh, that's what all the NPCs in the game sound like, according to me. Yes, you and Whisper go along the path of hero-hood together for a while. She is irritating at times (the name farmboy could be retired darling Whisper) but she does have to deal with Thunder. He's her brother and a major pain in the ass for everyone in Albian. He's a giant and decent fighter, but ultimately he's an arrogant pain in the ass. Now for someone not so pain-in-the-assy.

Sycthe! Just again for kicks, SCYTHE! Dude you are the most bad-ass NPC of all time. Seriously, being a decaying hero who cannot be killed since he is technically immortal (yet looks like a mummy) after having entered the Void in order to defeat the Court (minus Jack of Blades since he fled the battle only to return now) and save Albian thus becoming the first Archon!! Plus, dat voice is freakin' amazing.

Sycthe is someone you briefly see in the beginning of the game and then finally meet near the end. He is, as the description above gleefully entails, fucking bad-ass. He is the original hero of the world and the only one to travel in the Void and survive (thus the Archon title). Although you aren't able to do much with him, he is the only character you cannot kill and you can always talk to him. On top of everything, he treats you with respect from the beginning; none of the others do this (Guild Master saying that Maleficus doesn't look like hero material psh) so that's major brownie points. Honestly, play the game and see why Sycthe is awesome. Maze might have beat him out if it weren't for, well circumstances.

So. Have I convinced you to play this game? If there are any doubts to those of you who love men then may I remind you that you alone have the power to craft a hot at as hell hero to your liking. For those of you who love women I'll say that you can own a bordello and sleep with as many nearly nude whores as you like who will praise you for your sexual talents. I might have forgotten to mention the bordello earlier, just slipped my mind.

Rawr. I am Jack of Blades and am a cool yet douchey villain for the shit I do to you. Rawr.

Until next time dear audience.

Oh yes, here's some music.

P.S. I fucking kept my promise. I did it. Hahahaha. Yes! Go ME! Oh, and want to know why May 2nd was the deadline? Cause I turn 22 that day. That's why! Mainly cause I can remember that date. In any case, HA again. I did it!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S.S. I can't believe I used British spellings. Cough cough, bleh.

Mario Tennis, Peddle Peddle

I feel just terrible for neglecting the sports game genre. Well no that's a lie. Most sports games are for the gramers of society; EA caters to them not to my brand of gamer. However there are a few silly sports games I do enjoy playing. You guessed it audience, they deal with Nintendo and Mario. If you didn't actually guess it don't worry, I just told you.

Aight aight I'll stop with the meanness audience in order to move onto Mario Tennis (wahoo!). Now just for clarification I am going to be focusing on the N64 title and not its gameboy sub-par sibling. Saying that I own the gameboy version since I really wanted to unlock all the courts on the N64. We also won't be reviewing the virtual boy version. Or the DS version. Just N60-motherfucking awesome to the max four. Right-o, it's time to list random niblets of goodness about the game.

•  This game is entirely based upon the sport of tennis though some of the rules are altered (amount of games per set)
• You can be a multitude of Mario universe characters who each have a specific skill set i.e. Bowser is power based and Mario is all around.
• Gameplay can be singles or doubles for tournament mode
• There are special courts such as the Bowser Court, Ring Tournament, and Piranha Challenge which act as extra mini-games
• Deuce
• The game includes two unlockable characters (six including the four achieved from connecting the gameboy game to the N64 controller)
• Paratroopa is the most badass character
• Birdo is the lamest character even underneath Luigi status
• Each character has a victory dance 
• Each character also has a losing visual. Peach's is the most hilarious 

Well that sorta sums up the game. Sorta. I mean it is a tennis game so there isn't a plot or story to complain and rave about. What I love to do is play the tournaments and destroy my friends at multiplayer.

Star tournament with my favorite flying turtle

So the tournaments are initially the traditional three stages of Mario tournaments; mushroom, flower, and star. Eventually though if you beat the singles tournament with every character you unlock the special tournaments which are rainbow, moonlight, and planet. The special tournaments are slightly more difficult than the regular tournaments and contain more games and sets per match. Honestly though there's no better feeling than crushing an opponent at the Star tournament. Championship point!

Ah that's right. In this Mario game you (the player audience) find more voice over work than normal. For instance Peach will sadly bemoan losing a match with "oh I lost" followed by crying. Birdo also talks as does Mario, Luigi, Daisy, Toad, Baby Mario, Waluigi, and Wario. The others which consist of anthropomorphic creatures (Bowser, DK, Paratroopa, Boo, Yoshi, etc) make their trademark noises.

AKA Birdo

Oddly enough Birdo is given a female voice (she's really a he) as well as speech whereas Yoshi retains his usual "yoshi" sounds. Regardless the voice over tracks add to the game with not only interesting match sounds (just play as Peach) but also losing and winning sequences. However the best audio tracks belong to Mario since he is not only a playable character but also the tennis announcer.

During each match Mario introduces who is serving, the score, as well as match and championship points. My favorite is when Mario declares "Deuce!" (when both players achieve 40 points in a match a deuce is called requiring two consecutive points to be won in order to win the game) since deuce is both a funny sounding word and Mario has a funny sounding voice. Don't give me that look audience it is an amusing word. Just hearing it makes me think of a very special song. Heh heh, deuce. 

So you might be wondering why I favor Paratroopa as my go-to ass-kicking character. If you're not wondering why then too bad, bout to tell you why audience. Paratroopa is a "tricky" based character meaning he isn't the easiest to control at first since he favors a curved serve. However once mastering Paratroopa (or Boo) you can dominate the game. By performing a "curved" serve you are able to often stagger your opponent in the first point giving you a leading advantage. Deuces are funny to say not fun to play. Avoid the deuce and use Paratroopa!

Also Paratroopa says "pedal pedal," all the time which is adorable. He also backflips in victory. So yeah, he's a badass turtle. 

Aight well this blog post is short but it as about a tennis themed game so there isn't too much to be said. Basically if you enjoy tennis, love Mario characters, and believe the word Deuce to be funny you will enjoy this game audience. Remember though, Birdo sucks.

Hint for the next post - LAN

Animal Crossing, Some Pixelated Xanax

Winter is upon us dear audience! Finally the world has become cold and frosty in the regions of the Windy City. What better way to warm up after a soothing icy day than with a video game? Well let's add in some hot cider, a few blankets, and a cat. Bamn, super snugly and relaxed. Just make sure the video game is tranquilizing like a strong narcotic.

I'm wondering how many of you knew I was going to write about Animal Crossing? I did hint at it in the Ocarina of Time blog but you might not have reached the end of that long overly hyper post. Well in any case now you know audience. It's Animal Crossing, the brain melter of video games. More so than Harvest Moon which is saying something since HM is a farming game. For this post I am strictly sticking to Animal Crossing for Game Cube. The only recent sequel that I've played is Wild World which due to the "globe effect" made me incredibly dizzy. Game Cube only zone.

Right so niblet/small chunks of info time:

• You are a human character living in a town inhabited by personified animals
• Your landlord is a Raccoon (actually Tanuki) named Tom Nook, he's kinda a douche
• The game never ends, ever
• The "goal" of the game is to have a perfect town with fifteen happy inhabitants
• The only violence in the game is hitting a neighbor with your bug catching net
• You can visit friend's towns if you have their memory card
• My brother Pete despises this game

The game begins with you creating your town via K.K. Slider, the local beatnik beagle musician. He just appears playing his guitar under a lamp shade and asks you what the date is. This setting is how the game always starts except after you move into your brand new town you will be greeted by a random resident every time you load your file. It's just the game being Animal Crossing.

So the game actually starts on a train. You are sitting by yourself when Rover this blue cat decides to sit down across from you. Even if you tell him to stay the fuck away from you he still sits down and remarks on how nice it is to know there are still rude people in the world. Stupid cat.

The conversation with Rover not only enables you to make your name but also decide your town name, face, and gender. Of course in deciding your face you're in the dark. Rover just asks you a series of questions and depending on your answers if the face you'll receive. Rover also calls up Tom Nook since you don't have a house to move into. Nook has houses "dirt cheap too" and would be willing to allow you to move in. Sigh, Rover for being such a pain in the ass you actually saved our character's ass from being homeless. Still you suck.

After you arrive you move in, become indebted to Nook (this lasts a long while), meet your neighbors, work for Nook (being his little delivery slave), and then finally are free to do whatever you want. Ah once all the beginning crap is over the game truly becomes a drug. A delicious relaxing drug.

Animal crossing is whatever game you make it to be. The amount of hours Jenny, KC, and I clocked in on this game are ridiculous. Oh yeah, I've been playing this game steadily since I was about ten years old. It's just a past-time for me. Whether it be collecting specimens for the museum, performing rewarding tasks for my animal friends, partaking in holiday events, or just playing NES games; this game made/makes me happy. Time to talk about specifically what makes me happiest. Heh heh, fun part!

The coolest part of AC are the NES games, hands down. In AC you can purchase/win various NES games that actually work! Yes you can play a variety of NES titles in your AC file. My favorite would have to be Wario Woods which took me forever to win from my stupid Island resident Bliss. Stupid squirrel, just gimme the damn game!

There's also, Donkey Kong, DK Jr Math, Clu Clu Land, Balloon Fight (another favorite), Excitebike, Baseball, and a bunch more I'm forgetting. The NES games enable you to forget about pulling weeds or the massive debt Nook has you under. Instead you can drift into the puzzle world as Toad trying to save the forest from the likes of Wario and his evil bat-things. Ah, wonderful.

For the actual AC game (meaning not in the NES worlds) a definite favorite is holiday events, especially the winter festivals. AC has a whole calendar of holidays that mimic real life events as well as random days like Officer Day and Founders Day. The Christmas equivalent holiday is the best though because you can make a ton of money and the next day receive gifts and cards from your friends and "mom" due to the holiday season.

Jingle is the gift-giving reindeer who gives players gifts if you find him and bother him enough. What he gives you is part of the Jingle series which consist of rare pieces of furniture.

Rare equals high sell price. Muwhaha goodbye debt. What makes this event fun is the process of badgering Jingle. He really doesn't like to be bothered but he has rare gifts so too bad. Plus if you change outfits outside the acre he's in Jingle won't recognize you and will continue to give gifts away. Heh heh, such a giving spirit. Plus the furniture enables you to score a high HRA score so there's that too.

To any of you who have played AC the name Katrina will ring a bell (get it bell?! oh Animal Crossing humor at its worst). This panther (I always thought she was an otter) tells fortunes which often have comical effects. My favorite is where your character falls on their face constantly. It's just hilarious to be running and then to suddenly eat dirt. Haha, poor virtual Mary you just had your ass kicked by the ground. Trip again!

Katrina also can make all the villages hate you or have all the male villagers profess their love to you. It's a lot of fun receiving fortunes from this panther/otter thing. By the way this is how she predicts the future:

On the beach,

a back-talking

watermelon will

be eating butter

Heh, ridiculous. Butter.

Now audience I could go on and on about the many relaxing activities of Animal Crossing, seriously the list doesn't end, but that'd be missing the point. Whatever you love about this game is what you make it. The game has no deadlines meaning you don't have to worry while playing it. The time just continues without anxiety. Enjoy yourself, that's all.

Couldn't resist this. Happens so many times!

Now here's a tune that we AC lovers adore. It sets up the game every time we load the disc. Animal Crossing take me away, far far away from here.

Ok so the hint for the next post is one word: Deuce.  

Ocarina of Time, Zelda Month

Break out the champagne and fluff up those couch cushions. It is time for Zelda month, the greatest month of the year! Why it happens in November I don't know, though I have a theory that it has something to do with Thanksgiving...In any case it's the moment you've all (and by you I mean me) have been waiting for audience; it is finally time for a full length Legend of Zelda review. Since you can't go wrong with this game and it was technically the first Zelda game I ever beat, Ocarina of Time away! Oh, if you want to listen to my favorite track from Ocarina of Time, just scroll to the very bottom and hit play. It's a good one.

I'll start how I always start with a bullet list of random niblets about the game:

• You are the hero of time known as Link, starting at age 11.
• The goal of this game is to stop Ganondorf the prince of darkness from ruling the world. 
• Also saving your girlfriend! Wait no. They don't end up together, uh best friend? Yeah but, um best friend you're in love with? Sure that works. Welcome to the friend zone Link.
• This game includes time travel which jumps Link seven years into the future and causes the creation of the three separate Zelda timelines. Yippee...
• You can wear masks in this game just for fun.
• As an adult you can win a cow from Malon the ranch girl. 
• Link doesn't talk, like ever.
• This game supports all the lefties of the world.

Ok that's a sufficient list of somewhat important bits to the game and completely useless bits that I find amusing. So where to start with the actual core of the game? I know, weapons!

The Zelda universe enjoys crafting a variety of weapons, armor, and items for Link to use on his numerous quests across Hyrule/Termina/Skyloft. My favorite "weapon" of all time would have to be the Pegasus boots from Link to the Past because you not only receive them early on in the game but they are amusing. Very amusing. Sadly Ocarina of Time (OoT) does not have the Pegasus boots, poor Link will have to not suffer me smashing him into every tree imaginable in the game. Shame.

No OoT has instead the iron boots (rather boring unless you decide to backflip in them) and the hover boots. Also normal boots which do nothing. The hover boots cause everything to be slippery and enable Link to hover for short distances. They are necessary to beat the game but aren't too much fun to play with.

Besides boots you can wear tunics of different colors as well as different types of shields and gauntlets. I have to say I was pretty pissed when Link ended up with the golden gauntlets in the end since they didn't match my awesome Mirror Shield and red tunic combo. The goldness just threw it off! Gosh Nintendo, be more fashionable. Note, those were my inner thoughts as an 11 year old child (the word "girl" doesn't really define my preteen self. Just doesn't).

So back to weapons. Well in this game my favorite weapon is the fire arrows. Not only are they arrows (right direction) they are on fire, constantly! Sure they use magic but who fucking cares? Magic potions are sixty rupees (very cheap) and fire arrows kick ass. Die Poe die! Plus you are bestowed the fire arrows after you complete the Water Temple. Yeah I'm going to avoid the "Water Temple" rant in this blog maybe forever in life if I can. Last time I played OoT I beat the Water Temple in thirty minutes which included finding all five golden skulltula tokens. Last point on fire arrows, they make a funny noise when you equip them. It's just a funny noise. I don't know I like it. Still fire!!!

The worst weapon in the game and by worst I mean most useless in essentially everything; the deku nuts. In the beginning Link is supposed to use them to blind his enemies by smashing a deku nut onto the ground but you never really do that. Instead this happens.

"What's this, I found a slingshot that actually kills my enemies instead of simply stunning them for 1.2 seconds? How incredible! What is the point of stunning enemies when they die in two hits from a distance?"

Fuck you deku nuts. You take up the space that Pegasus Boots could have filled! Still I'll max out my holding capacity for you to fifty no matter what because I'm addicted. The first step is admitting it audience.

Another useless (kinda) but extremely rad weapon in the game is the ice arrows. The same could be said for the light arrows but you really only require them for Ganondorf so I don't have too much gripe about the magic devouring arrows of light. No, the ice arrows are a completely optional weapon. 

Fun fact, Nintendo originally planned to have the Water Temple be an ice temple (probably where the fire arrows would've been used) and the Forest Temple be a wind temple (ice arrows and iron boots). 

The ice arrows are something you can win from the Gerudo fortress after you become an honorary Gerudo thief. They freeze enemies as well as freeze small islands on the surface of water. I think it's a shame they weren't able to incorporate this weapon into the game because it is a lot of fun to use. Perhaps if they had stuck with the original Wind and Ice thing the ice arrows would've been more depended upon. Who knows. They kick ass in Majora's Mask so no hard feelings Nintendo.

Alright that covers weapons, let's move onto locations/scenery/oh my fucking gosh this world is huge!!! I become excited over Zelda games. Just a condition I suffer. The world of Hyrule is massive in this game. Just enormous. As a kid it's even bigger because you are a short preteen forest punk. Also night is terrifying as a kid. Watch and see if you end up in Hyrule field, after dark! 

Ah yes Hyrule field, the central core to the world of Hyrule. At its middle lies Lon Lon Ranch where Malon (the ranch girl) and her father Talon run a horse ranch. No surprises there. As a child you meet Malon, are promised her hand in marriage by Talon (who then revokes it because he was apparently "teasing you" grrrr), and you learn Epona's Song which causes the short tempered red horse Epona to love you.

Epona and Link

Eventually as an adult you can win Epona from Ingo who has taken over the ranch out of spite for Talon napping all the time. You can also murder cuccos safely with Epona. She gives you invincibility making it impossible for cuccos to hurt you so long as you are on her back. Heh, stupid chickens.

Beyond Lon Lon Ranch is a vast world of different climates ranging from an active volanco, to a serene lake, to a haunted desert, to a lush forest of twists and turns where when adults become lost they turn into Stalfos and when children become lost they turn into Skullkids without faces. Charming place isn't it? 

The most beautiful place in all of OoT has to be the Lost Woods. Specifically of course the Sacred Meadow

My dream house

where Saria likes to chill with her ocarina. It's green, it has catchy music, you can teleport to different areas of Hyrule without the ocarina of time, and it's fun to uncover secrets that lie in the woods. However, I swear the moment I discovered how much the world sucks as adult Link was when Saria wasn't there seven years later. I mean c'mon Saria, you said you'd wait for me always! Then I found the Forest Temple and was happy again. It's what I look for in real estate, twisted hallways and wolves mandatory.

I have mentioned two of the temples in the game which isn't sufficient. Each temple must have a mention because five out of the six kick ass! Yeah I'll say it, fuck you Water Temple. Your only redeeming quality is winning the longshot from Dark Link. The other temples though, well let's go down the list shall we?

• Forest Temple, darling you are my favorite of them all with your eery music, twisted hallways, elevator, indoor mote, climbable vines, illusions, and haunted paintings. I love you and want to own you.
• Fire Temple, you scared the crap out of me as a kid with all the falling doors and fire pits you had. Your music was terrifying and your dungeon weapon was kicking, Megaton Hammer forever Volvagia!
• Water Temple, Fuck you again.
• Shadow Temple, I also love you to pieces. The amount of illusions and invisible objects you possess is second to none. Why the sinking ship, the guillotines, and of course the scythes make you not only amazing to beat but fun to beat again and again. Also creepiest music ever <3
• Spirit Temple, one of the best bosses in the game no doubt as well as having two of the coolest additions of armor. I say a big yes to silver gauntlets and Mirror Shield. Plus the whole "wall of death" really inspired my imagination as a child.
• Temple of Time, thank you for pairing epic music with a handicap ramp. Also the time travelling is pretty sick.

Alright location is wrapped up, what's left? Oh just everything! I think though I'll focus on my favorite part of the game, dicking around.

Oh Zelda games are often wonderful games to dick around in because they come with a cluster of mini games and side quests. The only titles that come to mind that aren't built for dicking around would be Four Swords and Awakening. Both are simple and short titles so they aren't exactly dickable. But OoT is, it's very very VERY dickable audience. You're about to find out how dickable it is. Right now. And once more, dickable dicking around!

So the greatest mini game ever created in the Zelda universe is the Hylia Lake fishing hole. Note, specifically the fishing hole in OoT; Twilight Princess has a fishing hole but it's not as fun. The game where you win the frog lure is more appealing than the actual fishing. Back to OoT, yes this fishing hole is amazing for several reasons but mostly the ones listed below. Bullets, commence.

• The music from Kakariko Village plays in the background, so soothingly slow
• The fisherman is a giant douche, makes him funny
• As an adult you can steal the fisherman's hat revealing that he's bald!
• The sinking lure
• The music that plays when you snag a fish
• The winning music after catching a fish
• Winning the Golden Scale which enables you to dive deeper
• Seeing your fish on display as the record for largest catch
• The Hylian Loach

The fishing hole is such a simple game that strokes everyone's ego to the max. Catching a fish, breaking your record, pissing the fisherman off; ah it's nostalgic and magical. Definitely the highlight to dicking around.

There are several more mini games, even an optional mini dungeon in the thieve's fortress, but those are rather standard. You have your slingshot target as a kid which becomes the arrow target as an adult, the bombchu targets which are exploding mouse shaped bombs, horse racing at the Lon Lon ranch, and another target practice game at the Gerudo Fortress. Mostly they involve targets. Honestly after mini games side quests are the best things to dick around with. There are two I'm going to briefly mention since this blog post is turning into a novella.

First is Big Poe Hunting. No not Edgar Allen Poe, though I'm sure that's where Nintendo coined the name, but Poes which are ghost like beings who haunt Hyrule.

Big Poes are are specific breed of Poe who like to wear pointy hats and disappear quickly after teasing you with their laugh. Damn Poe laugh. There are ten Big Poes scattered throughout Hyrule field and only appear after you win Epona and acquire the fairy bow. 

Quick Tip, Fire arrows (the first of the magical arrows you can gain) do more damage than regular arrows. Hyrule field has plenty of grass patches to refill your magic bar so skip the potion and leave room in your bottles for Poes.

To this day I have to use the map in my guide book to find all ten Big Poes. I swear two of the bastards always allude me making it annoyingly impossible without help. Oh yeah, the purpose/reward for this side quest? Another bottle. Four is better than three, honestly fourth bottle totally worth it. You can gain this bottle after completely the Forest Temple since you really only need Epona and arrows. I'd still wait for the fire arrows but that's my opinion. Also forgot to mention, you turn this quest in to the creepy Poe master who lives in Hyrule market right by the draw bridge. He's a bit odd, only has one glowing red eye. 

The Second side quest is the Biggoron Sword. Aw yeah, third sword in the game/best sword in the game. That's right, the Master Sword (the master of all swords of course) is second best damage wise in Ocarina of Time. I blame it on the sword being old and originating from the most annoying sidekick known to Zelda. Yup more than Navi who I'll touch on soon. 

Biggoron Sword, yes yes. Well it all starts with cuccos and winning a blue cucco from the cucco lady in Kakariko Village as adult Link. It's not hard; you find all her cuccos in the cucco game, win an unhatched cucco from her, wait for the thing to hatch, find Talon who is sleeping in a house in Kakariko, use the baby cucco to wake him up, return to the cucco lady, and viola, you win a blue cucco. 

My Giant's Knife broke...

Now that's as far as I'll go with the Biggoron Sword side quest. It's far more fun to figure it out along the way than spoil it for you audience. Honestly as a kid I was so excited to see where I'd have to go next and what I'd receive in return until finally I had the unbreakable Biggoron Sword. Don't bother buying the Giant's Knife, piece of shit breaks after 100 swings.

So I've probably annoyed the fuck out of all of you with the length and hyperness of this post. Yes, overly hyper Mare! Well I'm nothing compared to Navi.

Navi is actually the logo I use without profit for this website. She is the fairy (or faerie) sidekick who is with Link from the beginning to the end. That's kinda how he earns the nickname "fairy boy" in the game by all these girls. No comment. 

Yes, best cosplay ever!

Anyhow Navi is famous for her line of "Hey, listen!" which she sputters every so too often when she wants to remind you to stop dicking around and to go back to your actual quest. No Navi, I like fishing! She is useful though. Navi enables "Z" targeting which allows you to target and then circle a specific enemy in order to attack from a distance repeatedly without having to re-aim. Really fucking useful actually. She also can give you hints on how to kill enemies. Except of course the final boss. Damnit Navi, the time I really REALLY need you. Oh wait it's just a game of catch. Ok!

Ah now that's a Zelda blog post. It has pictures and tips and lots of everything that I love and only small fragments of what I dislike. Perfect. In celebration of Zelda month and as a small escape from my busy schedule of too many essays, I hope you enjoyed the journey of Ocarina of Time through my eyes. Hmm maybe one day I'll actually do a recorded commentary on parts of the game. When I have time of course.

Hint for the next blog. It's going to be about a game where nothing dies except turnips. Even then they just rot.

Mystic Quest, hidden gem in Final Fantasy

Long time audience. Actual Halloween night was a lot fun since I spent it with two of my best friends in the whole wide world, Nay and Suzy. I'll post a pic of us three being adorable as soon as files are sent to me. Speaking of Halloween...I had some complaints about the Halloween post for being too "uncomfortable" of a read. Well shit, sorry that I freaked you out audience I was just giving you a small window into my head. I suppose that was too personal even for this space of internet. I'll try not to reveal too much of myself to you again, the post will stay there though. I actually rather liked it...

Time to go back to non terrifying topics. Mystic Quest, considered by many idiots players to be the "black sheep" of Final Fantasy (clearly they've never tried to go through VIII) is an SNES turn-based RPG. This game is a perfect intro to RPGs and is one that everyone can beat. It's an easy game. Sometimes it's nice to not have to be frustrated with a game and to just blissfully enjoy it. For all of you without an SNES it is available through PC emulators. Hopefully by the end of this blog you'll want to play the beauty that is Mystic Quest.

Some chunks of info:

• You are a lone hero named Benjamin/Zash who must save the world from the rule of the Dark King
• There are four main "lands" all themed around the ancient four elements that have been cursed
• Along the way you gain friends who can fight with you in battle
• There is a spell named exit
• Unlike other FF games you can actually see your enemies rather than enduring random battles

In the beginning you find yourself alone on a cliff. Apparently that's where you live with your family and friends except before your very eyes the village you love crumbles to the ground. Huh. You walk away devastated and run into a bloodthirsty monster. Oh, you only have a sword that resembles a toothpick as your weapon too. Crap. The monster luckily sucks in stats (otherwise this would be a very short game) and is defeated without too much trouble. Then an old man appears and gives you a sword that shoots laser beams when at full health. He leaves you with the mysterious words, "it's dangerous to go alone, take this!" Wait, that's not how it goes in Mystic Quest...

Right, there is an old man but he takes you to Focus Tower and explains that the world has gone to shit as the cliff you were just standing on collapses. My mistake earlier. It seems that mysterious old men in retro games tend to blur into the same character and that I enjoy making painful jokes just to annoy Brian. Sorry Noey. Well now the game is set up; you have your quest, you have your sword (it becomes less crappy), and you're soon to find your damsel.  Benjamin is ready to go save the day! 

The actual gameplay is something similar to other Final Fantasy titles (turn based) except for one major difference that I mentioned earlier. In most Final Fantasy games you cannot see your enemies. Instead you are at the mercy of the "random battles". We've all played Pokemon Red/Blue (if you haven't then immediately remove yourself from the gaming community) and have experienced the joy of the journey through Rock Tunnel. Fuck that place to hell. Every time I always think I have enough repel and then halfway through my supply magically goes from ten to zero. The zubats, not the zubats! 

My point was/is the random battle system sucks. Rather than having your enemies visible at all times, you wander around in fear of the screen shattering and a battle commencing. It's not as though the battles are hard (c'mon zubats) instead random battles occur far too frequently and produce weak enemies. Zubats (my favorite example) are more work to kill than they're worth since they use both "confuse ray" and "supersonic" on your pokemon and give almost null amounts of experience once defeated. Battle time should be spent on enemies that boost stats, demonstrate a challenge, and don't last ages. 

Mystic Quest does not have a random battle system (except for a brief period in the ice pyramid). Instead the enemies appear as sprites on the screen. If you approach one the battle begins and you hack and slash your way to victory. Once defeated the sprite of the enemy disappears, nifty right? So what this does is it gives you the player the choice on which enemies you want to fight and when. For reasons unknown this battle method did not stick after Mystic Quest in the Final Fantasy series. My theory is that everyone else doesn't mind and I'm simply more hyper and easily startled than the average player. Random battle screen shatters give me miniature heart-attacks...I still blame it on the zubats.

A huge perk to this game is the soundtrack. Scroll down the bottom and press play. You won't regret it I promise.

Ah I haven't mentioned characters yet, least not characters that are worth talking about (sorry old man). Mystic Quest gives Benjamin four companions who appear at different times in the game to assist him in his quest against the Dark King. They are as follows princess hippy (Kaeli), cheap ninja douche (Tristam), conflicted jock son (Reuben), and amazon female(?) warrior (Phoebe). Just so we're clear I do like these characters but those nicknames do sum them all up rather nicely. Phoebe is actually my favorite of the four; Tristam please stop trying to have me pay for your services because you're not putting out, whore!

So Phoebe, this is what she looks like,

According to Japan

According to Europe

And her actual Game Sprite

I'd say Japan has a closer match than Europe. Phoebe resembles a warrior because she is one. She has this awesome weapon called the Cat Claw which not only enables you to climb walls but also upgrades into the Dragon Claw which is the ancient form of hookshot. Ah Zelda references <3. Phoebe isn't the brightest sidekick you have in the game though, she um does some rather stupid stuff along the way. Phoebe you aren't a black mage, pyrotechnics should be left to the experts. Still Phoebe is a lovable character, all of the sidekicks are to be honest. I just enjoy giving them nicknames.

Besides weaponry and characters (I could on for hours) the game has spells. Muwhahaha magic! So there are black magic spells (elemental) to kill enemies with such as quake (there's something about tectonics), blizzard (out cold), fire (flames of wrath), and aero(plane?). Also wizard spells which are like more specific versions of black magic spells; meteor has a pretty cool visual sequence. Then you have your white magic spells (health) which are arguably the best and cheapest spells in the game. They are cure, heal, exit, and life. Exit is a lot of fun since it erases the enemy before you. Sadly you don't gain exp for erasing a monster but it's amusing to watch. 

Quick Tip: Heal is great for causing status changers to enemies and Cure works well on undead enemies. Experiment a bit and see what happens.

That's about all I have for Mystic Quest right now. I know I didn't go into the game's story line or fighting style much but I have my reasons. Mystic Quest is a relatively short game so if I went into detail about the story it would ruin most of it. I'd rather you play the game audience, experience it for yourself. The fighting style is turned based meaning one character attacks, then the other character attacks, then the enemies attack before it all repeats. Honestly turn based style fighting isn't a diverse topic. Alternating it is like trying to reinvent the wheel, underneath that new coat of paint it's still the same damn wheel.

Happily I was blasting the song below while writing this post. Finally the fantasy of having inspirational music mystically fits my quest to create blog posts. Too much?