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• Shadow of the Colossus: First Blood

  This weekend, I did a bit of shopping, visited my parents, and destroyed two idols the size of skyscrapers. Yes, I have drawn my first blood (or some kind of black ichor, anyway) from Shadow of the Colossus, and it's been as much fun as a naked pagan dance. My previous assessment of the first Colossi battle was a little off. The first Colossi battle is a tutorial battle—of sorts. It's just not a very easy one. You're expected to learn and perfect the basics of climbing, stabbing, and shimmying. Otherwise you don't stand a chance against the second Colossi, which is three times as large as the first and has twice as many hooves to flatten you with. The sink-or-swim approach of Wander's first real fight is a clever way to bypass modern gaming's overzealous hand-holding, though it took me a while to realise I would get better if I tried. I was just initially scared to keep trying. I'm not even sure why I harboured that fear. Who was going to laugh at me for my failures? The shadowy Gods flitting near the ceiling of the Temple of Worship? Wander, who wouldn't change his facial expression if you dropped a cinder block on his foot? Agro? Wander's dead girlfriend/wife? I eventually realised I was being silly, and took up the controller again. Read More... Posted Apr 20 2009, 08:16 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: super mario bros 3, shadow of the colossus, ps2, mega man x, nadia oxford, secret of mana, Suikoden ii

• I Don't Think I Missed Much: Beyond Oasis

  Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection has proved invaluable in helping me patch the gaming gaps inflicted by my childhood loyalty to Nintendo. Aside from suffering at the hands of Altered Beast, I've been working my way through Beyond Oasis. Beyond Oasis is an action-RPG that was released in 1995, a particularly rich vein of gaming history. Its top-down sword-swinging action is most often compared to The Legend of Zelda, though the large sprites, interchangeable weapons and focus on fighting over puzzle-solving remind me more of Secret of Mana. With Secret of Mana being one of my very favourite instruments of torture video games, you would think that I'd latch right on to the Sega Genesis alternative about an Arabian boy with blue eyes and blonde hair. Alas, it has just not been so. Beyond Oasis works well as a distraction to pick at while waiting for my potatoes to boil, but something about it feels hollow. It feels strange to make this discovery, because I spent a lot of energy pretending not to care when the first big, beautiful screenshots of Beyond Oasis hit game magazines. Read More... Posted Apr 14 2009, 09:16 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: legend of zelda, retro, 16-bit, sega genesis, nadia oxford, secret of mana, beyond oasis

• Me and My Moogles: A Love Affair Ahead of its Time

  Every tick of my heart signals another second I'll never gain back. I've been spending an uncomfortable number of those ticks sitting here and contemplating the history, physiology, and behavioural habits of the Moogle species from Final Fantasy. There's a lot that still weirds me out about Final Fantasy being part of mainstream gaming—indeed, part of mainstream culture—but I've more or less adapted with one exception: I can't get over the fact that Moogles are now considered cuddly and cute by the world at large. I decided Moogles were adorable when I played Secret of Mana for the first time, though I didn't really get to know more about them until Final Fantasy VI, when I drafted Mog into my party as the head of Team Aryan (Mog, Sabin, Edgar, Celes). His Dance skill wasn't especially useful when I went up against Kefka's three-tiered pile of demons stapled together, but his crazy amount of hit points made him the ideal meat shield. I drew Mog on my schoolbooks, my bags, whatever cheap computer Paint program I could get a hold of. People wanted to know what kind of affliction in the head gave me my fondness for deformed cats. Read More... Posted Mar 12 2009, 08:11 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: final fantasy, final fantasy vi, retro, nadia oxford, secret of mana, mog, moogles

• On Renaming Characters: My Own Naughty Experience

  Mackey's post about re-naming RPG characters took me back to a special place. I admit I'm lazy about re-naming my characters these days, but there was a time when my habits made my parents fear for the monikers of their grandchildren. Actually, thinking about it, my mother mostly egged me on. I think there's some kind of karma going on for people who gave game characters swear-names. Recently I needed a video of Cloud in the Mako reactor at the start of Final Fantasy VII for a whimsical, memory-heavy blog post elsewhere. The only appropriate video had Cloud branded as "El Boner." Secret of Mana was my first Super Nintendo RPG. I named the girl "Bitch" because I'm creative and hilarious. After that, the the fate of each female character in subsequent RPGs was sealed. Nothing against the characters themselves. It was just tradition. Read More... Posted Oct 28 2008, 06:40 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, final fantasy vi, final fantasy iv, final fantasy vii, nadia oxford, secret of mana, characters, naming

• You Won't Agree With This: GameTrailers' Top Ten Video Game Themes Ever

  Editors love Top Ten lists. There is so very little in this vast world that can be summed up with a Top Ten list, which is why readers go orangutan when writers try. And "readers going orangutan" is a proven traffic-booster. The thing is, nobody can resist the pull of these lists. We want to see our personal favourites up on the marquee; we want validation in an anonymous world. Lord knows that when GameTrailers/Screw Attack uploaded its list of the Top Ten Video Game Themes Ever, I loaded the hell out of the video just so I could sit back and yell at it. Not to say Screw Attack made bad choices. Most of them are pretty obvious. It's just impossible to please everyone, least of all me. For instance, I'm not so sure about choosing the Prelude for the whole Final Fantasy series (Screw Attack limited suggestions to one per franchise). The Prelude theme is very nice and it certainly represents the series as a whole, but there are other songs that are far more striking. The Opera from Final Fantasy VI, for starters. Or the Redwings' anthem from Final Fantasy IV. I can at least give Screw Attack credit for not choosing One Winged Angel from Final Fantasy VII. I saw that performed as a jangling mess at Video Games Live, confirming a suspicion I've long held: the song is not particularly well-written. Read More... Posted Oct 17 2008, 08:12 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: screw attack, mega man, donkey kong country, game music, controversy, nadia oxford, secret of mana, gametrailers, donkey kong country 2, indecision

• Secret of Mana is Bug-Tastic

  If you're like me, then you're probably playing Monday's Virtual Console release of Secret of Mana. The only excuse I'll accept is massive head trauma--and we're talking brains-leaking-from-a-gaping-wound trauma. That's the only way you can explain not playing Secret of Mana for the low, low price of eight bucks. Why, in 1993 I had to do some hardcore begging to get my parents to drop 60 dollars on this game, and that's back when American money had value! But I digress. After playing Secret of Mana, you've probably recognized two distinct facts: 1.) The game is awesome as hell, and 2.) It's also buggy as all get-out. I've never been privy to any real game-destroying antics, but the general weird glitchyness of Secret of Mana always made the game feel like its programming was held together by bubble gum and string. We can't exactly blame Square's Iranian super-programmer Nasir Gebelli, though; while originally designed to take advantage of the doomed SNES CD add-on (which eventually became the Playstation), Secret of Mana was hastily transformed into a regular-old SNES game once Nintendo washed their hands of CD-ROM technology. This change left some unfortunate problems in its wake. Read More... Posted Oct 15 2008, 08:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: wii, rpg, square, bob mackey, virtual console, secret of mana, glitches

• Virtual Console: Now the Best Thing Ever

  Remember back when the Virtual Console sucked? Of course you do; it was just this past summer. During those hot, boring months, I sat on about 2000 Wii Points; hope soon became a forgotten concept as Nintendo slowly trickled out games I've never given a damn about. By the time August rolled around, I was half-expecting to see a Virtual Console Monday featuring the Sega Genesis version of Chuck Rock along with a free Wii screen saver that would scroll the words "KILL YOURSELF" across the screen if you left the Wii-mote idle for more than 20 minutes. But since the beginning of Fall, Nintendo's really gotten their Virtual Console shit together; and today's release of both Secret of Mana and World of Goo is proof of that. Sure, I'm in the dead center of a semester that's left me so haggard I can barely type this post without using my keyboard as a makeshift pillow, but... Secret of Mana. Read More... Posted Oct 13 2008, 08:45 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: wii, world of goo, square, bob mackey, virtual console, secret of mana

• Fever Gaming

  Many in the Game Kingdom have experienced gaming while under the influence of, er, illicit substances. We won't go into detail about those sins, but instead we'll talk about a similar, more legitimate gaming experience: gaming while sick. Hey, if your immune system crawls off to the pub and leaves you at the mercy of a high fever, can The Man blame you for enjoying the pretty colours your brain soothes you with while it slowly turns into fricassee? I speak from experience. This weekend, which was a gloriously warm Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, I found myself knocked out with the flu. Today, I'm able to sit up again and this coincides with my decision to keep on living. I was honestly too sick to game at all this weekend, but I remember some good times when the doctor prescribed long doses of "sit down and don't move" and gaming became my number-one pastime. Read More... Posted Oct 13 2008, 02:28 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: final fantasy iv, super mario kart, nadia oxford, secret of mana, fever, sickness

• Ten Reasons Why Secret of Mana Sucks

  Caution: Humor and Satire Within. I want to make two things abundantly clear. I love Super Nintendo-era Squaresoft. I love those games with a ferocious passion that transcends nostalgia. I am not being cute or silly when I say that Chrono Trigger changed my life. It did. Had I not played that game for the first time in December of 1996, I would have never kept writing, would have never been listening to the soundtrack which led to my getting up the courage to making a move on my first serious girlfriend, and a number of other causal ripples coming out of that formative experience. I also want to make it abundantly clear that I have very little time for baseless hating on anything, whether it be a human being, a flavor of lollipop, a book, or videogame. That said, Secret of Mana sucks and I hate it. I have tried. Lord knows I have tried to play, to beat, and to love that game. I have tried so damn hard. But the truth is inescapable. It sucks and it will always suck. Here’s why! Read More... Posted Sep 12 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, top ten, chrono trigger, square-enix, virtual console, secret of mana

• The Dividing RPG: Secret of Mana

  Squaresoft's Secret of Mana will be coming to Virtual Console this September, probably as Seiken Densetsu 2. It's probably a good thing Square-Enix didn't try to reshuffle the Mana titles when they came to America. Re-numbering Final Fantasy already requires more math than I want to do outside a school setting. (Yes, I was a dunce, and I still am according to expert testimony.) Secret of Mana's VC revival got people a-muttering on message boards and IRC. And I was shocked and appalled to learn that there are people out there who care not for Randi's pastel-coloured adventure to find a giant tree. They called it dated. They called it boring. They called it buggy, and "buggy" is actually being generous. By all programming logic, every copy of Secret of Mana should have imploded on the store shelves. I might be biased. Secret of Mana was my first RPG outside of the Dragon Warrior/DragonQuest series, so it wasn't too hard for me to be blown away by the harrowing story of an orphan who was fathered by a sword. Read More... Posted Sep 02 2008, 04:00 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: snes, rpg, japan, square-enix, 16-bit, nostalgia, nadia oxford, virtual console, computer ai, seiken densetsu 3, seiken densetsu 2, secret of mana