Thomas Can Never Be Alone

Genre: Puzzle-Platforming

Developer: Mike Bithell (PC, Mac, Linux)/Curve Studios (PS3 & Vita)

Publisher: Mike Bithell

System: PC, Mac, Linux, Playstation 3, Playstation Vita

Initial Release Date: July 24, 2012 (PC & Mac)

Minimalism seems to find a way to get into video games, and Thomas Was Alone is no exception to this rule. Like Journey and flower, this game does not have a huge drawn out plot. The game follows the story of several AIs in a computer mainframe run out of control and gain unique personalities and abilities. Using each of their own abilities, these AIs help each other get from point A to point B while facing various obstacles.

Each of the AIs has an ability that can help the other AIs solve puzzles. Laura (the pink rectangle),
acts as a trampoline. 

You'll have to switch between AIs in order to progress through each level, so there's some form of strategy needed in order complete the game, which gets harder with more AIs as the story progresses.

The only way we can know of each of the AIs personalities is through the narration (and humor) of the narrator, Danny Wallace.

If you're looking for something that has some puzzle solving strategy and something that isn't plot-heavy, then look no further than Thomas Was Alone.

Anyways, sorry that this was up late!
-Anthony-

Setting A Schedule

Hey everyone. I apologize for the lack of any sort of postings last month, I had plans to start after graduation, but that plan backfired due to guests being over, as well as me being more focused on my real life job, so I haven't had any time to get a post up.

I've been thinking it over a maybe I won't have it set to being two posts per week, but just one for the time being since work has now become the main focus.

Check back on Friday to see anything new that comes up. Until then, later everyone!

-Anthony-

The Fate of This Blog

Hello everyone. Today's post will be to inform you the future status of this blog.

This blog was initially created for a college class that I am taking, and of course because of this class, the Hidden Gamer Blog was born. Throughout the experience of the blog so far it's been a very bumpy ride, from trying to make deadlines meet, to thinking of how the blogs will turn out.

There was a lot of planning, and even though that it was a lot of work, it was fun as well.

So, because of these reasons, I'm still going to continue posting here, but the posts will be updated more so on weekends, and at most two post per week.

There will be no blogs next week due to graduation requirements, and no blogs this weekend due to exams and work.

So until everything is taken care of, the blog will be on a temporary hiatus.

Also, I'd like to thank everyone who has come to visit this blog, wherever you are, along with those who have posted comments.

Until some other time!
-Anthony-

"Trial And Error" -- Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the TItan Demo

Hey guys! It's time to do something a little different for this blog and have some more variety to it. Generally up to this point, it's been me going over games that I've been familiar with. In this series of posts known as "Trial And Error" it follows me playing various demos and learning more about the games as well as how they play.

Title: Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan

Genre: Role-Playing

Developer/Publisher: ATLUS

System: Nintendo 3DS

Release Date: February 26th, 2013

Today's first posting for "Trial And Error" will be on Etrian Odyssey IV, the first game in the series that's been developed on the Nintendo 3DS.

Etrian Odyssey IV takes place in the land of Tharsis, where a mysterious tree known as the Yggdrasil looms over the area. The Outland Count of Tharsis decides to sponsor an explorer's guild in order to learn more about the tree's secrets, and like in every previous game in the series, you are the latest explorer arriving in the said area in order to seek fame and fortune.

You never know what might come at you, and sometimes, you will.

Etrian Odyssey IV, and all games in the series are dungeon crawler RPGs, where the battles take place in labyrinth like areas filled with monsters, and you don't know what you're going to encounter at most points. To know when you're getting closer to an enemy, on the bottom right hand corner of the 3DS' top screen, when it turns red, you're most likely to encounter something.

If you're familar with games such as the first two Elder Scrolls games -- Arena and Daggerfall, or something more recent like Legend of Grimrock, these are some examples of what dungeon crawlers are like.

Three of the character classes you can have your party members as.

The game features 10 different character classes, seven of which are available from the start -- Landsknecht (Swordsman), Nightseeker, Fortress, Sniper, Medic, Runemaster, and Dancer. Each class has their unique weapons, skills, and preferred positions (the front line or the back). You can have up to five members in your party for battle, and up to 30 members for your guild. 

Of course since you are the leader of your own guild, you'll be expected to take quests and help other people out along the way. The Mark Grand Court is where you get your missions which will progress the story, while the Dancing Peacock is an area to receive side quests.

Other areas of interest while in Tharsis include: the Saehrimnir Inn, which is where you can rest and restore HP and TP, revive fallen allies, and save your game, the Berund Atelier, the weapons, armor, and items shop, the Explorer's Guild where you can create more characters, and the City Gates where you can set off for adventure.

Things may have to be cut short...

Of course, like any demo, you can only have access to the game up to a certain point. However, an interesting thing with Etrian Odyssey IV is that you can save during the demo, allowing you to continue with your adventure once you have the full game.

So anyways, tell me what you think about this, and what I can do more for Trial And Error. Thanks again, guys!

-Anthony-                         

Mother, What Is Earthbound?

Title: EarthBound/Mother 2

Genre: Role-Playing Game

Developer(s): Ape, HAL Laboratory

Publisher: Nintendo

System: SNES (original), Game Boy Advance, Wii U (ports)

Release Date: June 5th, 1995

If you don't get the title of this post, it is that "Mother" is actually the name of the series, though in the U.S., it was localized as EarthBound. It is the second game of the series, and the only game of the Mother trilogy to have been released in North America. Compared to all of Nintendo's other titles, it is one of the few series that is not well known. 

Unlike most RPGs in the 80s to mid 90s that are usually based in some sort of medieval settings, EarthBound takes place in a more modern time -- "199X" to be exact, and also in a world that resembles America. And, the enemies that you face can vary -- from strange bizzare people, inanimate objects, beasts, and even aliens.

The Starmen are the most notable enemies in the Mother series, and are generally fought near the end of all three games.

As stated, since the game takes place in Eagleland, which is based on America, you'll notice that the game has references to American pop-culture, through dialogue, and even in the game's soundtrack.

In EarthBound, one night, Ness awakens to see that a meteorite landed on top of a hill not far from where he lives. Near the meteor, he meets an Alien known as "Buzz Buzz" who tells him about a mysterious evil in the future that is too powerful, and that it is up to him along with three others in order to save the world. The task is to located eight melodies using an item known as the Sound Stone in order to unite his power with everyone else's in order to stop this evil from ever existing.

The main cast of EarthBound

Ness -- A 13 year old boy from Onett who has strong PSI powers, who's main mission is to collect all eight melodies in order to save the world from evil. He always has his red cap sideways, and wears a blue and yellow striped shirt. His weapon of choice aside from his PSI powers is baseball bats.

Paula -- An 11 year old girl from Twoson who also has PSI powers, and knew about Ness in a dream. She joins Ness after she has been rescued from some of the main villians. Aside from PSI attacks, Paula uses frying pans as her weapon.

Jeff Andonuts -- A 13 year old child prodigy and the son of the Dr. Andonuts, a notable professor/scientist who resides in Winters. He is the only character in the party to not have the ability of PSI. He uses guns/lasers to deal damage to enemies, and can also use bombs and bottle rockets.

Poo -- The last recuritable member who lives in Dalaam. A dedicated warrior and also popular with the ladies of his hometown. He lets his fists do the damage dealing along with his PSI skills. He also can wield a special weapon known as the Sword of Kings. Unlike other characters who can heal their HP and PSI with Western food (like pizza and hamburgers), this is not as effective for Poo, so having Eastern Foods and Water will help restore him.

Nintendo Direct is Nintendo's update series that talks about games coming out on its current consoles. 

Now, here comes the main reason why today's blog is about EarthBound and not something else. In today's Nintendo Direct, Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo announced that EarthBound will be coming to the Nintendo Wii U's eShop/Virtual Console sometime later this year.

I'm sad to say that I never played EarthBound when it first came out on Super Nintendo Entertainment System, but now I'm more hopefully that once I acquire a Wii U, I'll be able to play it for sure.

When EarthBound was released back in 1995, it wasn't very successful and sold poorly, but now that the fanbase has grown, and more people have been demanding it, with more people downloading EarthBound on the Wii U, it could gave future EarthBound games more availability to come overseas.

Also, while not mentioned in the video, EarthBound was not released in Europe, so there's a first for a lot of people over there.

If you want to learn more about the Mother/EarthBound series, the best site for all things related to these games would be Starmen.net, where they have new and previous information regarding EarthBound as well as Mother (known by the fans as "EarthBound Zero") and Mother 3 ("EarthBound 2").

Well, I think that covers everything for this blog, stay tuned for more exciting things to come!
-Anthony-

Show Me Your Poker Face! Poker Night at the Inventory (1 AND 2)

Titles: Poker Night at the Inventory 1 & 2
Genre: Card Game (Poker)
Developer/Publisher: Telltale Games
System: PC, Mac OSX (both games), PS3, 360 (Poker Night 2 only)
Release Dates: November 22, 2010 (original), April 23rd, 2013 (2)

Poker... with characters from various video games and other big franchises... well, now that's something to think about.

Poker Night at the Inventory puts you against four notable characters in a battle of cards, Texas Hold 'Em style (with the second game adding Omaha Hold 'Em in the mix). The first game features you going up against Max from the Sam & Max series, Strong Bad from Homestar Runner, The Heavy from Team Fortress 2, and Tycho from the Penny Arcade webcomics.

In Poker Night 2, you opponents this time are Brock Sampson from the [adult swim] animated series The Venture Bros., Claptrap from Borderlands, Ash Williams (not to be confused with Ashley Williams of the Mass Effect series) from the Evil Dead movies, and Sam from Sam & Max. GLaDOS from the Portal series also makes an appearance in this game, serving the role as the dealer.

The cast of Poker Night 2. 

The general gist of Texas Hold 'em poker is this: each player is dealt two cards, turn by turn each player can choose to call the amount the previous player put out or raise in order to earn more money. Players can fold if they feel that their hand is inferior to that of the others.

After all bets are done, the first three cards of the river go out, and the process repeats until there are five cards out on the table. The player with the best hand wins the pot.

And just when you think the game is all about money, you best think again. Each character has a special item that you can obtain which can be used for another game.

In the case with the first game (and probably the second), each of the character has a special item that they can put up as part of the bet, and if you win the bet, that item is yours. In the first game, obtaining a special item will grant you bonus weapons and gear in Team Fortress 2.

Winning more poker matches allows you to unlock extra tables and cards based on each character's series. In Poker Night 2, they made special areas/maps for all 5 characters.

If you're looking for something fun and/or want to learn about playing poker without using real money, then both Poker Night games are a choice for you, and both are $5, with pre-ordering Poker Night 2 (on Steam) will grant you the original Poker Night free of charge.

Thanks again for reading!
-Anthony-

Ground Zeroes And A Phantom Pain

Today's blog will be rather brief, as it is about something which is new information in regards to the latest in the Metal Gear series.

Title: Metal Gear Solid V (5): The Phantom Pain

Genre: Stealth, Action, Third-Person Shooter

Developer: Kojima Productions

Publisher: Konami

System: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 (other systems pending)

Release Date: TBA

Over the last year, there have been two major teasers that led up to Metal Gear Solid V's reveal at this year's Game Developer's Conference. It was initially announced through two separate games: "Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes" and "The Phantom Pain". It is also the first game to utilize the FOX Engine.

The Ground Zeroes trailer serves as the prologue for the game, which takes places after the events of the previous game in the Big Boss story line, Peace Walker. In the full trailer, it is shown that Big Boss has been a coma for nine years. How and why has yet to be known.

Trailer from GDC 2013:

Now to be fair, I've never played any of the Metal Gear games (unless counting the demos for Snake Eater 3D for the 3DS and Metal Gear Rising: Revengance count in any way), but I've always been interested in the series in itself for some reason. My guess is it's just the gamer instinct or something.

Anyways, more stuff will come in the following weeks and months until it's release, so until then enjoy the trailer!

-Anthony-

Harmonious Harmony - HarmoKnight Demo

Title: HarmoKnight
Genre: Rhythm, Platformer
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo
System: Nintendo 3DS
Release Date: March 28th, 2013

You're probably surprised that I'm posting something about a game that hasn't came out yet, but luckily there's a demo of this game on the Nintendo eShop and I decided to check it out.

Because I'm talking about a demo, this blog will be pretty short, and spoiler free.

HarmoKnight is Rhythm based Platformer developed by Game Freak, the company that's well known for making the Pokemon series. Every now and then they'll make a non Pokemon based game, but if you still need that Pokemon fix in your life, several levels in HarmoKnight feature music from various Pokemon games.

The plot of HarmoKnight is simple: you play as a young warrior named Tempo and find out that monsters known as Noizoids have come and attacked Melodia (a planet/main setting) and it's up to him to save the planet from these monsters.

Going by the demo, you have two main controls: B in order to jump and A to attack enemies. Occassionaly there will be times where you will need to use the circle pad/controller in order change directions.

Again, to keep spoiling the game, it would be best to try out the game and or demo for yourself. Sorry for the short posting! And happy belated St. Patrick's Day everyone!

Day One in the Dark - Darkstalkers That Is

Title: Darkstalkers Resurrection

Console: Playstation 3, Xbox 360

Genre: Fighting

Developer: Capcom (originals), Iron Galaxy Studios

Publisher: Capcom

Release Date: March 12th - 14th, 2013

9 times out of 10, I usually don't purchase a game on the first day it's out, whether it be a physical copy or for digital download, but since I've never played any of the Darkstalkers games, it was worth my while to download it one it's first day out.

Darkstalkers Resurrection is an HD port/compilation of two games: Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge, and Darkstalkers 3 (the second and third games of the series), the prior of the two making it's first appearance outside of Japan. In addition, like with Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition, both games have been made to have online playability.

Between the two games, the cast consists of 18 playable characters, with most characters being based on some form of supernatural entity, such as vampires, succubi, and even zombies as some examples.

Morrigan Aensland, a succubus, is one of the playable characters in the game, and she is one of the most popular of Capcom's characters. She also appears along with other Capcom characters in  crossover fighting games.

In regards to characters, since this game is a compilation of two games, certain characters are only playable in either game.

Exclusive to Night Warriors:
Donovan Baine
Huitzil
Pyron

Exclusive to Darkstalkers 3:
B.B. Hood
Jedah Dohma
Lilith
Q-Bee

So you're probably thinking "how can play both games?" You can press "Select" (on a PS3 controller) or "Back" (on a 360 controller) and switch between the two games.

The menus for both games consists of the following:
- Single Player (play through a series of matches against the CPU in Arcade Mode or learn each character's moves)

- Multiplayer (play online with people, watch replays, and set matchmaking options)

- Ranking Boards (view the online rankings for the online portions of Night Warriors & Darkstalkers 3)

- Awards (view any in-game achievements)

- Vault (see concept art, pictures, and videos of all of the characters)

- Help & Options (learn what the controls are and change volume and control output)

- Playstation Store/Xbox Marketplace (view/purchase any downloadable content)

In order to unlock the art in the vault, you must earn points which can be done through leveling up and completing certain in-game achievements (as shown in the Awards section).

In online multiplayer you can save your replays, and just like with Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition, you can also upload replays to YouTube as well. Here's an example:

Because these games were release back in the mid 90's, output for using each characters moves are different from today's current fighting games like Tekken Tag Tournament 2 or BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, so they included challenges to show some techniques that each character can use.

Seeing that it has been too long since Darkstalkers has had any actually games since Darkstalkers 3, the reason for Darkstalkers Resurrection is to see if there is enough interest in making a new Darkstalkers game. With enough people this can be possible, but it's ultimately Capcom's decision.

To wrap things up, Darkstalkers to me so far has been an interesting experience, especially since it's something that I got on the first day. I've been enjoying it so far and will continue to see what I can learn from this classic fighting game.

Fire Emblem Awakening Discussion Part 2

After pretty too much delay, I bring to you the second part of my Fire Emblem Awakening discussion which will focus briefly on character classes, battle layout, and conversations.

1. Character Classes and Weapons

In Fire Emblem: Awakening, each character is specified by a different class, which allows them to use specific weapons in battle that can either deal damage or help out other allies in battle. Characters can use swords, lances, axes, tomes, staves, and other items to assist them in battle.

The Avatar, shown above is part of the Tactician class, one of the new playable classes in the game who can wield swords and tomes.

While most characters can use weapons to battle others may not have that luxury. For instance, Clerics use staves in order to heal other players in order to gain experience rather than by fighting.

Some character classes such as Mages and Archers who wield tomes and bows can attack enemies from two spaces away (but in this case Mages can also attack up close, while Archers cannot). Lancers who wield a Javelin can also attack enemies two spaces away.

Characters can also be promoted to other classes or change classes (via specific items). In the case of the Avatar he can be promoted to a Grandmaster or change to any other class entirely.

2. Battle Layout

Shown above is the layout of one of the battles in Fire Emblem Awakening. Blue units are your characters, Red units are enemies, and while not shown here, Green units are allies.

The general condition of battle can be to either A: Defeat all enemies in battle or B: Defeat the leader of the enemies, which ends the battle automatically.

While in battle you can view the enemy's status and weaponry. And in regards to weapons (specifically swords, lances, and axes) there's something you should pay attention for.

Sword wielders have an advantage over characters with lances, lance wielders have an advantage over axe wielders, and axe wielders have an advantage over swordsmen. Wielding a weapon that is weak against an opposing weapon that is strong will harm your chances in battle, but it won't always be the case.

Characters can also pair up together in combat and enhance their allies' statuses, and sometimes even help out in battle alongside them. Winning battles while paired up will not only give them experience, but it will also allow them to have special conversations, which will be mentioned finally.

3. Conversations

Characters can have up to three to four special conversations which can be done outside of battle. Male characters conversing with female characters will have four conversations (the fourth being an eventual marriage) while same gender characters, characters who are siblings to others and siblings to parents will only have three.

Depending on which two characters are interacting, the scene will be different with each character as they are all unique in their own way.

While I have given some information about the game, the most important thing for anyone to do is to experience the full game themselves and learn about what goes on the world each game takes place in.

Thanks again for watching,
-Anthony-

Pandora's Tower - One of the Last Major Wii Titles

Title: Pandora's Tower
Genre: Action, Role Playing
Console: Nintendo Wii
Developer(s): Ganbarion & Nintendo

Publisher(s): Nintendo & XSEED Games

Release date: March 26, 2013

Even though that Nintendo's latest console, the Wii U has been released and out for a few months, developers will shift to work on games for the Wii U rather than the Wii. However, the Wii in this case, while  only getting a few games this year, will still have a surprise up it's sleeve, and in this case, it's Pandora's Tower.

Originally released in Japan in May 2011, Pandora's Tower follows the story the story of Aeron, a man who must travel through a series of towers in order to break a curse on his girlfriend Elena by defeating bosses known as Master Beasts in order to reverse Elena's curse.

Pandora's Tower was not initally going to be released overseas (both in America and Europe) due to the lack of general marketing in the west. However a group of people started a campaign known as Operation Rainfall in order to bring this game, along with two others: Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story, all of them being RPGs (Role-Playing Games), with XSEED publishing the latter of of the two.

So the campaign that simply started as a small group at IGN is now three for three in their original operation (which has now expanded with other similar campaigns to release games to the west).

You can pre-order Pandora's Tower on Amazon or Gamestop for $40.

Trailer for Pandora's Tower (NOTE: This is from the European trailer, not US)



Thanks for reading this! More stuff coming your way!
-Anthony-