[NaruShippuUlti3FB] Beat the Main story of Ultimate Ninja Storm 3!

1149 Words. Estimated Reading Time: 5 Minutes, 45 Seconds.

tl;dr: Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst is a fighting game, and may just be my favorite fighting game in the last 5 years..

I’ve just recently completed my first run through of the main story of this game, Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst.

Long title, I know.

Anyway, I have to say that this game is probably my favorite fighting game of the last 5 years. It is innovative in a few crucial ways while not sacrificing accessibility or gameplay, and it does it all in a very tight and engaging package.

It has a large amount of characters which all play differently, and the standard game is played with one main and two supporting characters, allowing for a very large amount of versus matchups. Characters has references to the story worked into the gameplay itself, and not just into the story of the game… As in, a character who is slow plays slow, a character who focuses on items or melee is designed to be focused on that, and every character has a mode where they will break away from the way most other characters play.

To digress for a second: Yes, it is a Naruto product. And no, even if You are not a fan of the series, it does not suck. No familiarity with the story is needed to enjoy the game, as any needed backstory is well represented within it. You will not be at a true disadvantage versus someone really interested in the series, provided You play the game enough to learn the rules and characters as You would have to do with any other fighting game.

Fights are done in an arena style battlefield with a dynamic camera. For 1 vs 1 battles (all versus matches and most story matches) the camera works absolutely wonderfully. There are a few points in the story when You fight “6 vs 2” battles (which is in quotes because it is really 6 vs 1 + 1 support) or have beat’em up style dungeons to walk through. The camera isn’t horrible then, but You may have to use that right stick more often in these few segments.

As for the combat itself: Instead of a combo-based move list like many games in the fighting genre, this game created a large amount of different kinds of commands. This makes for less memorization of combos (Ex. Quarter Circle Forward, A, Down, Back, B) and more a memorization of abilities (Ex. The Second Mizukage has many good projectile attacks, and if he is cornered should back away as soon as possible). However, this is different from most fighting games, so I will clarify a few things about the control:

You can still do a minimum of three melee combo strings per character, but You can also: “throw” enemies, which really results in a move which throws the enemy away from You; use two different kinds of special move (Jutsu) which, provided they hit the enemy, play out in a cutscene; throw projectiles which will stop an enemy for a split second, breaking their commands or wasting their abilities; call upon support from one of two team mates, who will either continue a combo for You, hit an enemy with a special move, or (provided You have filled a certain bar) gang up on Your enemy in a high-damage cutscene where You all three juggle Your opponent, finishing with Your strongest single move; Use three dimensional movement to dance around the battlefield, able to dodge most attacks but unable to really do damage, as a way to change the distance between You and Your opponent.

There are more commands, but this is already really long, so I’ll move on.

The story is decent, though if You really cannot stand Naruto, then every story cutscene is skippable, and will not cause the game to be unplayable. It is worked into the game very well, and I can easily say I would play through it again: They have a few very interestingly different situations which occurred in the story, and they were both challenging and fun. Then, there is the Legend vs Hero system, described in this image. Just, a lot of depth for a fighting game, story wise.

Once the main game is complete, You are given free reign to walk around and engage people in the beautifully rendered 3D world. This is where I currently am, and so I’d better get to completing it, so I can talk about it too. I hope it doesn’t take me too too long!

Let’s see.

• Christopher

[Dragon Breed] is Awesome!

730 words. Estimated Reading Time: 3 Minutes, 39 Seconds.

tl;dr: Dragon Breed is a shooter from IREM, which runs fine under current versions of MAME. It is hard and different, and I like it.

In terms of CAR (the three main needs which are satisfied by gaming: Competence, Autonomy, and Relatedness. Good Video on the subject here) some of the best representations of high Competence gaming are the shooter games (also called shoot’em ups or shmups).

I have always had a fondness for shooters; one of my first memories in video games was a game called Stargunner, published by Apogee. However, my current library was lacking a strong representation of these games… so I went looking for new ones recently.

I found Dragon Breed.

Dragon Breed, by IREM, is a horizontal shooter which has a major difference from most other shooters in that You are riding a large, invincible dragon instead of being in some kind of ship. This makes Your own hitbox relatively small and well-protected versus most other games, and at first glance, You may think that this makes it too easy.

But that is the opposite of the truth.

The game is designed to mitigate this invincibility by making the enemies aware of this. The enemies will never directly attack the dragon, instead shooting directly for You. This makes the game interesting, as You can block shots with the dragon, but rarely will a shot be accidently blocked because of the way it was shot.

And yeah, You die a lot in this game.

I am very interested in beating this game, and I might post a more thorough look at it when I have done so, but my first impressions with this game are very positive.

The difficulty is high without being impossible, and for a non-bullet-hell shooter that is a delicate balance to achieve. The dragon mechanic, by far the most notable aspect of the game, provides a different experience than most shooters in that You want part of Your “ship” to get hit instead of trying to always avoid every shot. And the art and music are both very well done.

Good thing I don’t actually need to feed the machine quarters… I wonder how long it will take me to beat this?

Let’s see.

• Christopher

[Advance Wars II] Computer Tourney Set Up

565 words. Estimated Reading Time: 2 Minutes, 50 Seconds.

tl;dr: I’ve been playing Advance Wars II lately, and want to share the way I set up my computer to play it.

So, last Saturday my Brother was in town and we played Advance Wars II.

I really like this game, as it is a fun, simple-to-grasp Turn Based Strategy game that allows hotseat play. The various characters You can choose from are interesting, and each one affords a different set of strategies than all of the others. Add to that the fact that it supports 4 players and has a built-in map editor, and it’s easy to see why it is one of my favorite games on the Gameboy Advance.

Here, though, I am not playing it on my Gameboy Advance… I am instead playing it on my computer, and on my Widescreen Television.

I own a copy of the game, and was able to produce a ROM image of it for my own personal use. This, I loaded using VisualBoy Advance, which is available for both Windows and GNU/Linux. I then was faced with a decision, because I wanted to have it ready that very night: How am I going to unlock more than the 4 starting characters?

Well, I eventually came to the conclusion that I was going to use a code. See, while the game itself doesn’t have an ‘unlock everything’ code, there existed for the GBA a few systems like the Game Genie which allowed people to alter the code of the game. One was Gameshark, the other was Codebreaker. (NB. I use these as the only examples because that is what VisualBoy Advance has support for.)

I decided to go with Codebreaker. Below are the Codebreaker codes to put in to unlock all characters and all costumes.

00009E1F 000A
1006FD98 0007
8202805A FFFF
8202805C FFFF
8202805E FFFF

Just copy that and paste it into the emulator, and all of the COs are unlocked, allowing for tournament play that very same day.

The only remaining question then is: Who will win?

Let’s see.

• Christopher

[Da Capo] Shirakawa Kotori's Route Reflection

663 words. Estimated Reading Time: 3 Minutes, 18 Seconds.

tl;dr: I just finished Kotori’s Route in Da Capo I!

So, I just finished playing through Shirakawa Kotori’s route in Da Capo. I had a good time, and though I was able to play through the whole thing in a little more than a day, I found a lot of the moments to be very memorable. This isn’t a spoiler blog, though, so I won’t go into too many specifics.

A major theme which carries through her entire route is the theme of misunderstanding. Just about everyone, including You, misunderstands each other in this storyline… Even little things (Like talking on the telephone) are made into relatable and memorable events based on this motif. And dealing with that is a large part of the story, for better or for worse.

And, needless to say, there are a few ways to get the worser endings.

Another theme present throughout Kotori’s route is being true to Yourself. This is exemplified in Your character’s choices in regards to family, friends, and even his own education. There is a lot of growing up to do along this storyline, and experiencing that again without feeling like the game is out of touch with reality was a joy. All in all, a very good experience.

Kotori herself reminds me of a few people I used to know. Perhaps that is why I find her to be so relatable… It is a very realistic set of emotions that she carries throughout the story, and she is able to present them in such a way that, given the circumstances, I can completely believe that these emotions are genuine.

And hey, she is introduced at the beginning of the game as a very popular person… which (though that is not exactly my case now) I can say from experience builds up a lot of superficial relationships. Superficial relationships are (spoiler alert) not very gratifying IRL or to You or Kotori.

All in all, I had quite a good time with this. There were only a few Gotcha! moments in the choices, and because of this I can easily recommend Da Capo and Kotori’s route to those looking to do a “real life” playthrough of a Visual Novel. Anyone who had a middle or high school romance which survived (or died) due to communication and self discovery will enjoy this route. I certainly did. And in regard to how well is stacks up to Your expectations…

Let’s see.

• Christopher

First Post!

tl;dr: Short post with a list of facts about this place to check if the blog is working.

Word Count: ~169, Estimated Reading Time: About 50 Seconds.

This is mostly a test post to see how well this layout will work in practice, but I will say a few things.

• Owls are pretty cool

• I will be posting small, short posts here a lot

• Games are fun, and so are stories

• I want to hear from You on the things I post here

• An owl rolling around is pretty cute.

• Other than this post, I will never say what the topic of this blog is.

Let’s see.

• Christopher