My Hero Academia Vol. 14 Review

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Oh yeah, forgot to put this one up. Five more.

This was one was really easy to write for some reason.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

How does one define perfection in video games? Is it recognizing how one game brilliantly executes its main goal? Is it simply returning to a childhood favorite again and again? Or, perhaps, is it something as broadly simple as doing everything right? In that case, it's difficult to imagine anything more perfect in the Zelda pantheon -- or perhaps even all of Nintendo's library --  than The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. There are a variety of reasons for this, but more than anything, it's timeless in its accessibility. Consider this quality when when juxtaposed to Zelda's other masterworks: Majora's Mask -- which I still consider the the series apex -- demands an entirely different style of play that can be too stressful, Breath of the Wild and even this game's sequel in A Link Between Worlds may stray too far from the series formula for some, Ocarina of Time suffers from the same graphical degradation as the rest of its respective generation, and The Legend of Zelda is too archaic and impenetrable by today's standards.

Only Link's Awakening for Game Boy may match it here, and as masterful as that game's bittersweet balance of infectious light-heartedness and gradual melancholy is, A Link to the Past is instantly superior for presenting the greatest opening in series history -- as far as Nintendo games go, only Super Metroid and Metroid Prime may surpass it, and A Link to the Past may even trump those with its own title opener. After the Nintendo logo flickers on screen with the gentlest of harps, a majestic three-dimensional Triforce morphs into shape, embedding within the game's logo as the Master Sword pierces through, a triumphant score celebrating our arrival into the latest Zelda adventure.

Sleeping With The Enemy: Embracing Disappointment (Kirby Star Allies) (Hey Poor Player)

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That's right: it's a brand new column by yours truly, and it's debuting on Hey Poor Player! Wowza!
 

As this came out of nowhere, I'm certain you're asking how Sleeping With The Enemy was born. Truth is, much as Biweekly Music Wednesday! interfered with my schedule, I treasured how it was the perfect outlet to discuss personal musings regarding the gaming industry, memories of games past, and the like. With it gone, I certainly had more time for reviews, but the loss of expressing everything else was sorely felt -- I love talking about games, but the passion and fuel behind that love is just as important to me.

The answer was clear: I needed a new column, but this time I knew Hey Poor Player had to be its new home -- not only would that extend my reach and relax Leave Luck to Heaven's focus on reviews, but it'd spice up the site's output. Everyone wins!

Coming up with the theme of criticism was a challenge: any ol' topic can serve just fine as individual opinion pieces, and it's not like everyone's fascinated with my stream of consciousness, so I needed an eye-grabbing hook to lure readers. "Criticism" was eventually decided through two factors: the epiphany I elaborate upon in my debut Kirby Star Allies article, and reviewing this BMW! installment revolving around an infamous Xenoblade Chronicles: X tune.

How do we handle criticism? How do we handle disappointment, or maligned critique of mechanics we fail to understand? I answer to aim these questions and many, many more. You can expect new installments every two to three weeks.

(By the way, my boss came up with the name. Works quite well in grabbing your attention, right?)

One Piece Vol. 87 Review (Hey Poor Player)

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Six more.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition Vol. 2 (Hey Poor Player)

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Seven more.

Silver Spoon Vol. 4 Review (Hey Poor Player)

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A bit late on this one --- this week's been a killer.

I should mention that while Silver Spoon is localized by Yen Press, there were delays in Viz shipping last month's titles again, and combined with this month's manga, that makes about nine manga to review./ As I have no choice but to review these through October, the flow of game reviews here may take a hit, so please have patience.

Worldly Weekend: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis)

With Sonic the Hedgehog finally embedding the Sega Genesis into the mainstream -- enough to overtake Nintendo's own Super NES for the 1991 holiday season -- only one logical conclusion was inevitable: the need for a sequel. If momentum was to be achieved, being bigger, prettier and faster wouldn't be enough enough: nay, it must be better. If it must be prettier, than its pre-rendered 3D graphics musn't merely be for show, but instead highlight specially-earned sections of play. If it's to be faster, it must cut down on the momentum-killing puzzles and gimmicks from the first game to encourage more flow, upgrade the controls accommodate this venture, and then go a step beyond by the accompaniment a CPU-followable character that could be controlled via a second player. If it must be bigger, than everything just mentioned must play into every facet of its design.

What results is Sonic the Hedgehog 2, a game implicitly more confident than its progenitor. With the design lessons learned from the first title, the game could satisfyingly combine flashiness with enthralling gameplay, and so we have a game that is, for the most part, absolutely solid. It is a game of sufficient length (over ten zones -- just enough time for the practiced player to finish before supper), engaging feedback (the Spin Dash mechanic), and dense, captivating level design from beginning to end (not a single stinker in its zones, and all brilliantly capitalize on the original's multi-tiered design). No longer is Sonic a game meant to defeat Mario, but a game that can stand tall with Mario.

Metroid

To discuss these Nintendo progenitors is something of a difficult task: much as I adore the likes of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, for instance, they've certainly been outstripped not merely by modern standards but in their own successors. While Super Mario Bros.' immaculate design renders it just timeless enough to be accessible even to modern audiences, however, the same can't be said for The Legend of Zelda -- it certainly remains a masterpiece for those wishing to invest time into it, but barring one's possession of an NES Classic and its instant save states, its cycles of punishment and foraging fare quite poorly against the conveniences of today.

Much like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid is also often cited as an impenetrable classic -- the game is hard-as-nails difficult, thinking little to nothing of the player's morale. The overall "maze" design, while taking care to distinguish Planet Zebes's underground sectors from one another, does not establish the same philosophy with its room design and we're left with a homogeneous, indistinguishable look that's prone for disorientation. There are various reasons for this -- Metroid had a particularly troubled development, for starters, and the game as we know it today only came together in the final three months of development -- but let's be honest: it's not as if Metroid was the only 80's game that employed similar tactics, and I'd like to think the game still holds up regardless. Being a Nintendo historian, it's easier for fanboys like myself to overlook such flaws for the sake of research and personal amusement, and Samus Aran's first adventure is hardly an exception.

Star Fox

Long before Star Fox disappointed again and again with genre shifts and half-baked game design, before Star Fox 64 solidified its position as a recurring Nintendo franchise, and before even Donkey Kong Country stunned the world with pre-rendered CGI, the original Star Fox captivated the gaming populace with polygonal graphics. The gameplay was great too, mind, but as this was the first Nintendo game to primarily utilize polygons, the tease we previously witnessed with Zelda: A Link to the Past's opening Triforce had been realized as a living dream. We had taken our first step into the future, so to speak, and the proof lied in the 3D Arwing gracefully operating by our very own hands.

Of course, as always with the passage of time, what was once cutting-edge is now primitive, and so Star Fox must now rely on its actual gameplay to preserve its legacy. Not that I particularly mind the presentation losing its luster -- Star Fox apparently has a dreadful framerate, and let it be known here and now that is, without fail, always something beneath my notice -- but as the following generation of Nintendo 64 and PlayStation games are mocked for their graphical degradation, how could a 3D SNES game hope to survive? Quite well, actually. Not that it has a patch on Star Fox 64 or anything, but it remains a close second if only for its laser-focused mission: being a competent space shoot'-em-up. With how all the post-Star Fox 64 games reinvent the wheel to not-so-great success (arguably, anyway -- I have a soft spot for Assault), this is a blessing. In addition to being a revolutionary landmark title thanks to its graphics, you get a simple, no-strings-attached rail shooter.

Worldly Weekend: Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP)

And so along comes the second title in Kingdom Hearts' never-ending flood of side-games, this time on a console I have absolutely no interest in owning. As mentioned in an earlier review, I was only able to play Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep on a PSP lent by a buddy at college, and have since purchased the remaster contained within PS3's Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX. There are, I am certain, other good games on the system. Great games. Amazing games. But for the life of me, I cannot bring myself to care about it, and so I suspect this will be the one and only PSP review we'll see on here for some time. Perhaps my other Worldly Weekend retrospectives will eventually lead me to cross paths with Sony's handheld once more, but for now, I'm afraid you'll have to make do with this one article.

Regardless, I dub Birth by Sleep as a side-game with some mighty hesitation there, and that's for two reasons: a) Birth by Sleep is absolutely essential in comprehending the Kingdom Hearts story from here on out, and b) it's easily the series' best since Chain of Memories; actually, that probably remains the case. Not that it doesn't fumble in that typical Kingdom Hearts manner -- that, and while I hate to keep dragging the PSP, I heavily question its existence on the platform -- but we'll get to those problems when they come. For now, let's get into the good stuff.