[quote="alienjesus"]More updates for all to enjoy!
1. Ys Book II: Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter
PSN Vita2. 3D Streets of Rage 2
3DS eShop3. 3D Gunstar Heroes
3DS eShop4. 3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2
3DS eShop5. 3D OutRun
3DS eShop6. Mugen Senshi Valis II: The Fantasm Soldier
PCE CD7. Mugen Senshi Valis III: The Fantasm Soldier
PCE CD8. Bomberman
PCE CD9. Rocket Knight Adventures
Mega Drive10. Trax
Game Boy11. Panic Bomber
Virtual Boy12. Arcana Heart 3: Love MAX!!!!!
Vita13. Super Monkey Ball
Gamecube14. Lost Kingdoms
Gamecube15. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
Gamecube16. 1080° Avalanche
Gamecube17. Bubble Ghost
Game Boy18. Catrap
Game Boy19. 3D Thunder Blade
3DS eShop20. 3D AfterBurner II
3DS eShop21. 3D Fantasy Zone II W: The Tears of Opa-Opa
3DS eShop22. Ikaruga
Gamecube23. Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library & The Monster Seal
Vita24. New Adventure Island
PCE *NEW*
25. WarioWare Twisted!
GBA26. Dragon Warrior
NES *NEW*
27. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D
3DS eShop *NEW*
Dragon WarriorDragon Warrior is quite an experience. Whether I would say it is a positive one is up for debate.
Dragon Warrior is an old-school JRPG of a particularly grindy variety. It built the foundation for many of the JRPGs to follow, such as Final Fantasy and Mother, and from my understanding pretty much started a national obsession with the genre in Japan.
Clearly the Japanese populous are much more patient than I am
There is plenty to like about Dragon Warrior. The art is simple but charming, I love the localisation (But thou must!) and the open ended nature of the game could even be said to be a predecessor to the likes of Zelda. In fact, compared to most later JRPGs, Dragon Warrior gives little direction, doesn't railroad you in a certain direction and in fact gives you very little information on what you should actually be doing.
What you should be doing is grinding. A lot.
Dragon Warrior's opening act involves grinding for about 1-2 hours until you hit level 4 and can move 20-30 squares north and grind on slightly tougher enemies for an hour. Then you move west and grind on even tougher enemies (buy new equipment as you go) before going south and fighting even tougher enemies. The whole process before you can start making a meaningful impact on the world takes about 4 hours. But you know what? I didn't find myself minding too much. I had similar experiences with Ys and Phantasy Star. You grind for ages early on, but then the game pacing speeds up and you have fun. This happened with Dragon Warrior too, at least for a while.
After a slow start, the middle of Dragon Warrior is a blast. You explore caves, get great equipment, find magic keys, explore graves, rescue a princess and more. Basically everything there is to do in the game can be done at this point. Towards the mid-late game you can find the best armour, and if you're brave, get the best sword and visit the final town too. I did this all between levels 8-13.
And then the end game happens. This is where I lost the love I had for Dragon Warrior. The only thing left to do was head south to the final town, buy a shield and then take on the final boss. At level 13 I had about 8000 exp. To take on the final boss I needed to be level 20, requiring about 28000. The final 3rd of the game is literally just grinding for TRIPLE the experience points of the game up tp that point. And bear in mind that this is an extra 20000 exp, 30 exp at a time. It takes forever. It's unbearable. Frankly, by the time it was done it was with a sense of relief rather than joy with which I watch the credits roll.
If Dragon Warrior ended 5 hours earlier than it did, I would have called it a good game. As it is though, the fun of playing the game was sucked away completely in the final few sessions I had playing it. Dragon Warrior is an interesting curio, but as a fun experience it would only satisfy those with the most boring of existences. Tax inspectors or something. I'd recommend people avoid it.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3DThe Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask for the N64 is a game I adore, but which I've actually only finished once before. Whilst I'm super familiar with a lot of the sidequests, I'm not so intimate with the dungeon layouts. So even though I've played through before, it managed to still feel fairly new to me when I played through this 3D remake.
I absolutely love the atmosphere of Majora's Mask. The off kilter camera angles and animations, brooding soundtrack and sinister area designs give it a feel that no other Zelda game before or after has been able to match. It's a truly magnificent experience.
The world building of Majora is just made even better by it's focus on the lives of the people who live in it - seeing people go about their lives, solving the issues they're having and finding all manner of hidden things makes it a joy to experience. For example, there is a conversation between Anju and her mother in the inn that you can hear only if you've completed the Kafei and Anju sidequest up to the point where you deliver the pendant, managed to claim the room at the inn on the first day, and happened to be in your room at 11pm at night after both of those events have been done. This extra bit of characterization was probably seen by the tiniest fraction of people who played the game, but they bothered to put it in, and that is wonderful.
On this forum, 2D Zelda seemed to be preferred, but I am a 3D Zelda guy, and Majora is one of the best in the series in my eyes. The dungeon designs take the player seriously - there's not a lot of handholding here, with some of the tougher dungeons in the series, and on a time limit to boot. In the 3D version of the game though, you can get hints if you need them, although youll need to fly all the way back to clock town to get them.
Other than this feature and the obvious improved graphics, Majoras Mask 3D offers only a few minor changes from the original - there's an extra sidequest to get an additional bottle, some heart locations moved a little, a few rooms in dungeons changed ever so slightly, and the boss fights were redesigned. At least a little. In practice, Odolwa is entirely new (and I like the new fight better), Goht is almost identical (which is good), Gyrog has 2 stages, one of which mirrors the original and one of which is new, and Twinmold is different, but has a similar concept. It's a nice experience to mix things up, but the boss fights are generally 'different-ish' as opposed to better or worse than before.
Majora's Mask is one of my all-time favourite games, and like Ocarina before it, the 3DS version is probably the best way to play the game. Everyone should too, because it's fantastic.