Special birthday edition, since I only ever seem to get games on my birthday these days. I know, your hearts are bleeding and struggling to play tiny violins with their various arteries and veins. Man, that's actually pretty messed up. Perhaps you should visit your local surgeons or something.
Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
The Valkyrie Profile series has earned its reputation from being both fantastically fantasic and also over-complicatedly complex (new birthday thesaurus is working great!) and nothing has changed in this sequel. Or prequel. I've always meant to check if prequel meant "to be viewed sequentially after the original but set chronologically before the original" or not. I'm going to assume yes, because this game makes a lot more sense if you've played Lenneth (aka Valkyrie Profile 1).
Most factors remain the same, so this review will just assume the reader has played the original. If not, stop reading this blog and go do that mess right now. If you've just come back from playing it as per my suggestion, than welcome back and I hope the last few months have been kind to you. Regardless, the general crux of these games is that Odin (the big cheese) has somehow cheated or wronged the Valkyrie that the game is centered around and she's on a mission to right the situation. Throughout both games, you find disembodied spirits clinging to some material possession of theirs from before they died, which the Valkyrie materializes in the form of an einherjar: the "glorious dead" of the Norse religious mythos that are fated to fight alongside the Aesir in Asgard during Ragnarok. If none of those words made sense, don't worry about it. They're basically just dead warriors who died noble deaths that will fight alongside you.
The combat system of this game is what I wanted to talk about. A bizarre hybrid of real-time and strategic turn-based action, where time only moves when you do, you're able to plan out the battle by standing perfectly still and predicting where to go. Any action uses up Action Points, which don't regenerate unless time is flowing (or if you get hit) so you can't simply stand around lobbing spells at distant enemies. If you trigger a combat, you are then able to manipulate your four player characters into fighting an opponent. Using the right attacks in the right combination (so a leg sweep that would knock the enemy down should be followed by a downwards strike) is key to doing the most damage that are you able to do.
What I found really cool about this system is that you can use your attacks to concentrate on a body part of the enemy, hacking it off once it reaches a certain damage limit. These hacked off pieces can sometimes become items that you can use as accessories, or to sell to shops for a tidy profit. In fact, there are times when I would go out on a "butcher run" to collect a lot of valuable dismemberments that would be useful for some project or other. It's a brilliant example of something that appeals to both the insane power-gamer type ("So, if I aim for this piece in particular I have a 15% chance of getting this item I really need..") and the relaxed casual-gamer type ("Whoaaa, that arm went flying off! Awesome!") in equal measure.
I'll just end this review by mentioning that the super-difficult bonus dungeon is actually worth spending time on in this case. For serious. Not only does it have some of the most imaginative puzzles (and, unfortunately therefore, most frustrating) but there are several hilarious instances of the main game getting parodied (there's a notice to say that you should go and finish the game first to avoid spoilers). Finally, after each of the floor's bosses in this mammoth dungeon, you'll receive some of the player characters that ended up leaving your party permanently due to some story event. If you really liked the warrior guy that just happens to end up betraying you halfway through the game (this is an example, so not spoiling anything) then he'll rejoin you after a particular boss so you can continue using him - at the unfortunately low level he left you at of course.
Super Paper Mario
Considering the new Super Mario Galaxy has just appeared with rave reviews, it's likely that Mario's first Wii effort (it's always difficult in the morning..) will be overlooked by the European crowd as they - due to some messed up timing by Nintendo HQ - get both games almost at the same time. Nevertheless, it's an entertaining mix of both the Paper Mario RPGs and a solid, standard Mario platformer. The range of powers one receives, either through the other player characters or the Pixl fairies which grant various powers, means there's always something new to explore or check on a previous level, should you be so inclined. The sheer level of depth, so to speak, is a welcome fixture of the Paper Mario stable which I'm glad to see has not diminished one iota for this semi-"dumbed down" entry of the series. In fact, I'd dare say the puzzles are even more fiendish than usual. The only issue I take is that it doesn't seem to use the Wii's motion sensor very effectively, allowing only a "what is this?"-style pointing to ask about objects or enemies (and sometimes uncovering invisible objects) and a weird little bonus you can do by jumping off an enemy and performing a special move if you wiggle the wiimote at the right time. Of course, there may be more powers to come that use the Wii's unique effects, since I'm only about halfway through.
So I'll probably be picking up Mario Galaxy before too long, as well as hopefully Metroid Prime 3 and some more PS2 RPGs. Or failing those, some more games currently stuck in backlog hell. Until then, then.
