Mechs, Mechs, Mechs. And Nintendo.

Today’s topic is mechs and Nintendo. Let’s start with mechs. Mechs. Mechs, mechs, mechs. I’ve grown up watching mech shows my whole life. When I was five or six, I used to watch a show called Force Five, which consisted of five popular mecha anime from the ‘70s, each one with a different approach to the mech genre.

I can’t say I remember a whole lot about these shows, but two of them were Getter Robo and Dangard Ace. There were two more that I don’t remember the names of, and one last show that I don’t remember at all, from the list of five. That said, all of these shows did instil one idea in me that has stayed ever since: mechs = customization.

Getter Robo especially really drilled this point home. Depending on the situation, three smaller aircrafts could combine into one larger mech. One would make up the head, one the torso, and one the legs. Depending on how the three of them combined together, you would end up with one of three configurations—Getter Liger, Getter Dragon or Getter Poseidon. How the three protagonists chose to combine with one another depended on the situation at hand. My favourite of the three was Getter Dragon at the time.

As I grew older, I began to watch other mecha anime. Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs came next. A few years after that came Ninja Robots (known to some as Ninja Senshi Tobikage).

Cinnamon Rolls Are Evil.

I don't know what Cinnabon puts in these, but it has to be the most evil thing in the universe. Each roll is so tasty, and so flavourful... almost overly so. And they're heavy to boot. It's sinful.

So, you finish one roll, and find yourself feeling stuffed already. But it was so tasty, you want another!! Just... you know that if you do eat another, the strong cinnamon taste will probably turn you off cinnamon for the rest of the week, and you won't get to enjoy the rest of the box.

...and so, you have no choice but to keep yourself in check, for the greater good. Evil, I tell you.

Why I Don't Want to Leave Shin Megami Tensei IV's World

I thought I was done writing about Shin Megami Tensei IV, but I suppose one is never done when it involves a game this good. Just yesterday, I found myself in the mood to take a break from DmC Devil May Cry and A Link Between Worlds, and decided to return to Shin Megami Tensei IV instead.

The last time I was playing Shin Megami Tensei IV, I stopped because the final portion of the game requires you to complete number of sidequests in order to proceed any further. One of these quests required that you find a certain kind of demon in Shinjuku... five of them, actually. The catch was that in order for any of them to show up on your map, you’d need to come across the first one so that your Navigation AI, Burroughs, could identify it and then track down the rest.

Needless to see, as with any quest of this sort, I spent a couple of hours wandering around Shinjuku without anything to show for it, and eventually, put the game down and moved on. I’d played through most of Shin Megami Tensei IV without a FAQ, and I didn’t really want to start using one now. I figured I’d take a break and come back to it later.

Last night, when I resumed my game, I was reminded that there was also another reason I didn’t keep playing SMTIV—it was because I didn’t want the game to end.

DmC Devil May Cry is Fun. So Much Fun.

This is going to be a brief set of early impressions because I’ve barely played the game in question. That said, I still very much wanted to write about DmC Devil May Cry because of how much fun I’ve been having with the game, ever since I booted it up earlier this evening.

Now, I’m no Devil May Cry expert, but I do love action games in general, and games where you’re afforded a high degree of agility. DmC is one such game, judging by the hour-and-a-half I’ve spent with it so far. Dante feels incredibly smooth to control and has so many different kinds of moves at his disposal that it’s sort of amazing they all fit on a single controller.

DmC started off fun enough, but the point that the game really sank its claws into me is when I found two new weapons in addition to the sword Dante always carries around with him. The first weapon is Arbiter, a demonic axe that’s good for hitting things really hard.

Zelda: A Link Between Worlds - A Step in the Right Direction

In recent years, The Legend of Zelda series has suffered from no end of problems. While Zelda games released in the last seven years have consistently been “good” (some even “very good”), there’s always been something missing. Some crucial element that keeps them from attaining the immortality enjoyed by Ocarina of Time.

Infuriatingly, this certain “something” that is missing tends to be different in the case of every Zelda game, so it isn’t as though one can simply point to a single missing ingredient and identify it as the culprit.

Ace Attorney 5 Special Episode

Orcas and penguins and murders, oh my!

Spider-Man Games Usually Have Such Great Music

Of every superhero, Spider-Man has probably not only been in the most games to date, but also the most good games to date. Great Spider-Man games date all the way back to the Sega Genesis, proceeding onto the PS1 generation—which is where they really started to come into their own—and the generations hence.

That said, while most of the Spider-Man games themselves have been fantastic, the one other outstanding quality they all seem to share in common is that they all have great music. I don't know why this is, precisely, but I would imagine it's because Spider-Man himself evokes a sense of enthusiasm and adventure, which makes it easy to compose fun, upbeat music for his games.

Below are just some of the tracks I've enjoyed from the Spider-Man games I've played. There are a lot more, of course, but these are the ones I seem to remember most fondly.