Breath of Fire: Right in the Feels

 Progression is slow going in Breath of Fire, but the storytelling is pretty brilliant. It takes round-about routes to get to certain points, but there's quite a bit of payoff once it happens.

I piddled about Tantar and Tuntar until I finally thought to talk to the chief again, d'oye. And he was like "Ryu, we need a proper wedding ring thingy, so go get it while we prep for the interspecies wedding"

Ok.

So he opened up a trap door, as usual, and I got...yes...another key. So I go back north to the cave by my big robot friend and find on the inside that the water level has been lowered because of the damn being broken. So I traverse this dungeon like all the rest with little incident and receive the ring.

 The fact that this chest kinda resembles a Boss Key chest from Zelda became slightly foreboding to me.

Went back to town and found that they had arranged the wedding *gasp* just in time for me to bring the ring!

Don't mind me, ladies, errand boy coming through.

And we commenced with the inappropriate marriage of dog and woman. No offense, Bo.

So we were thanked and let go. I took a nap at the inn and proceeded to leave. We were supposedly gonna take the robot over the river...but...

That dickbag had better ideas I guess. And like a classic cartoon villain he had it perfectly timed. So while we were all in this town celebrating a wedding...

The neighboring town went 'splodey. But before the General could do the same to us, the Robot inexplicably shuts down...weird right? So we go in to stop the bad guy.

I thought this was gonna be an easy fight, but was I ever wrong, wow!

Ok, who fed the General after midnight?

He turned into a Gremlin and proceeded to pound me to a pulp. In order to win this fight I had to have Nina casting Atk Up on Ryu and Bo as well as Fort to keep Bo's shitty defenses up. After that, essentially, Nina was healing on every round while Bo and Ryu slowly chipped away at this dude's health. Once he was at a sliver of health, he did the boss thing and became tougher. Every turn he was blowing fire worth 15-20 damage at the whole team. Nina had to keep on her toes and heal the lowest health dude for like a millenia before Bo finally shot him down.

After this, the Robot moved:

We got to the southern part where the broken bridge was. Then the saddest thing in the world happened. I was too sad to take a screenshot, but essentially, GAR hopped into the volcano and died so that he wouldn't hurt anyone ever again.

This was me

With the GAR's noble sacrifice came the eruption of the volcano which filled the southern river and hardened into stone so we could cross.

 From here on I will fight for GAR and everything he stood for...

Keep on gaming, Gamers.

-ME0

Breath of Fire: Adventures of GIANT ASS ROBOT

 I'm getting to that point where I'm addicted to playing this game now. And I have to give it props that despite its lack of subtle hints, it still give you things to look forward to. For a while now I've been waiting to do something with this GIANT ASS ROBOT. It was confusing me because I thought my E.Key would activate it for some reason. I dunno...Earth Key....giant stone robot....requires a key....can you see my line of reasoning?

Regardless. I now made the trek up to see my friend the GAR (an acronym, but as bonus knowledge, Gar is also the name of a character in Breath of Fire 3).

 I'm gonna be in you.

So I wound my way around the littler desert patch or whatever and entered via it's foot. Up the leg I go, seeign all the creepy wires and stuff, then found its heart.

 It's HEART is being ATTACKED! FOR REAL!

I couldn't let this injustice stand, so I went after the madman and his flunkies. They went down like bowling pins with my recently power-leveled heroes letting loose into them.

So after taking down the General AGAIN, we activated the robot with the new key we got from
Bruce Springsteen and then it started to walk.

 It walked all the way to the giant damn and then:

 BZZZZAAAPKABLOOEY! (That's a technical term)

 And then the damn was loose and our giant friend stood proudly beside the free flowing river. Thinking that my job was done I wanted to head south but then discovered again that my road was blocked. A bridge was broken. Frustrated I went BACK to the twin towns, who now seemed very happy, and heard why I couldn't progress from this guy:

Ask the NPCs: The Reckoning

So looks like I gotta solve some more stuff around here before I go. Maybe I can solve this guy's mental health problem....

Keep on gaming, Gamers.

-ME0

ME0: A Real Life 16-Bit Warrior

 Greetings Gamers!

I just wanted to let you know that JO3 and I are still alive. In fact, a few days ago we had a lovely night out for steak and followed up with several hours of video gaming (like we do). I'm currently on the road performing a puppet show, and I just had some time to sit and think about my blog recently while showing a friend the video games we've been playing.



Just wanted to let all of you know that the blog isn't dying or going on "permanent hiatus" or anything like that. J03 is in his final throws as an acting student, and I'm on a really busy tour. Come April, we'll be alive and kicking. But I assure you, gamers, that we'll be trying to post as often as we can.

Gaming's already our life, so its a no-brainer that this blog is the least stressful thing in the world when it comes down to it. So, expect to see more of us, and I'm looking into making some sweet aesthetic changes to the site as well. Thanks for your patience and your viewership.

More 16-Bit Adventures are coming!

OH, and I found this on the internet, it might be a bit old by now, but I just thought..."Wow, THAT is a real life 16 Bit Warrior. Proud of you buddy."

Oh, and if I can get my funds in order this summer, I'll be attending Comic-Con and E3. I'm thinking my costume choice is pretty obvious....Steampunk Link!

See you soon, gamers!

Game ON!

-ME0

Mega Man X: Holy Boss-Battles Batman!

So I demolished the rest of the old bosses in this one level, and fought a new robo-beast; which ended up having me face 6 boss fights in one level! SIX. I was running low on all counts of powers and energy tanks as the level progressed. It also felt like the bosses were a little more difficult than the first time I fought them... not that I DIED a whole lot. The fights just felt harder.

The first boss door (which again was pretty much as the start of the level) was the Armored Armadillo. I knew I had to electrocute him with my lightning shot to get rid of his armor, and then continuously do so until he died.

Don't worry, I'm not invisible, I just got hit by his forehead shot.

After defeating Armadillo, I made my way through some baddies and got myself to full health; just in time for the next boss door (which was pretty much a single hallway away.)

And within this doorway was that bastard who can actually turn invisible: Sting Chameleon. He was just as annoying as I recall, the first time we fought. Only THIS time, I found his weakness!

THE BOOM!... erang.

So I made my way out of his chamber, down a little drop where there was some health behind some pipes. I used the boomerang to snag them up (that thing is all kinds of handy, ain't it?)

Onto the next boss! Here I had to face off with Spark Mandrill! I already knew his weakness, so I could use my wonderful Ice Shot to freeze him whenever he was getting to close for comfort. I did not leave the battle unscathed however, as each one of his flying punches would knock me off the wall if I tried to avoid them that way.

You know what killed the dinosaurs? The ICE AGE!

So that was 3 bosses down, so I was imagining I would be facing a new boss right away, but I was wrong! I dove down into some water and instantly knew what was coming.

Hmm... I wonder who I'm fighting next?

Oooo... Surprise, surprise.

Octo-whatever his face is was a bastard. I very much did not enjoy fighting him. Mainly because I couldn't figure out his weakness, and also I couldn't remember how I beat him last time. So I switched rapidly through my powers and buster shots, trying to avoid his missiles and keep away from his whirlpool thang.

Then I killed him with his own powers; just for the hell of it.

Then I leapt out of the water and found another boss door. When I entered I saw the conveyor belt and knew right away I was to be facing Flame Mammoth. Last time I didn't have his weakness, and I knew I did this time. As far as I could tell, it seemed the tornado power did more damage to him. I jumped away from his fireballs, and soot shot, and blasted him down as much as I could.

I finished him off at the same time as getting knocked into the air by his fat-ass weight coming down.

So I had finished them all off. All them old guys. And the level wasn't over? Who was I supposed to fight next?... Some rather large robot, T-Rex head thing? This guy was annoying as hell. He killed me a fair amount of times, to be honest. He only had two attacks really. His upper half and lower half would split and move seperately attempting to hit me. The other is if both halves come together and shoot a large electric orb out at you. I had to dash under that one. You can't hang up on the wall to avoid it... It will launch at you.

Also, in trying to jump through the gap of top and bottom, the top would often be too fast and crush down on me, causing a fair amount of pain. How I ended up winning was getting into a rhythm of his movements and blasts; I scrolled through my powers, charging fully as well as I could to do the most damage possible. And in the end, it was still a damn close call.

HUZZAH! I won! Whew... That was DAMN stressful.

But I finished him off, that I did. And was then sent to the boss screen again. This HAS to be the final boss now; Sigma. I'm also curious as to whether I'll get some answers of some plot? Maybe?... Maybe I'm hoping too much. I guess we'll see.

Catch ya later gamers.

Mega Man X: Another Down

On the home stretch team! I demolished the next level of Sigma's Fortress, and killed some more old bosses. The levels in the fortress are fairly standard; as a matter of fact, there isn't much in the way of platforming or obstacles that cause worry. It's more about getting X from one boss-fight to the next.

For instance, within the first 10 seconds of the level I came to a boss door!

And it was my good friend Chill Penguin.

The fight was pretty similar to how the last one went, I jumped over his attacks, shot him when he was up blowing wind, and got hit by his tackle a few times. The big difference this time though, was that I found his weakness!

FIRE! Hahahahaha!!

.... Ahem. So, that killed him faster.

Next I came to a mech which I used to tear through some baddies. Short and sweet, as usual.

Next there were these two paths I could go up, littered with bad guys either way. After getting struck down a couple times, I used my Chamleon ability so I was untouchable to leap up as fast as I could, avoiding bad guys and shots alike.

I ran out into the open and was greeted by the noise of flapping wings. And so I faught Storm Eagle again. He felt more annoying this go around, but that may just be because he didn't do anything special when I hit him with any of my powers. The Chameleon Sting shot seemed to do more damage, but it didn't stun him so I kept getting hit by his little birds or dive attack.

I did manage to kill him before I fell off the edge, luckily. But I was hurtin' pretty bad. After the fight I made my way forward and got some more health. It was a short distance however, before I came to the last boss of this level. Which was a big, giant, robot, face.

So, this guy had a few options for attacking. His eyes opened one at a time, being different colors. The green eye shot one bullet, the red eye shot a spray of 3 bullets (it could also fly out at you) and the blue eye, which kinda flys at you and then hovers there for a bit. After a bit the walls would close in and it's nose would fly around and try to hit you.

After enough damage, the eyes would explode, leaving you to just deal with the nose.

When you kill it, the spikes disappear and you teleport away, victorious! Onto the next level, I'm feeling so pumped, I know I'm close to the end!

Catch ya later gamers!

Super Metroid: The Gravity of the Situation

Hey Gamers, been a little while, hey? I just recently got back from a tour of a puppet show that I'm in the middle of, and up until now haven't had a lot of game time. Buuuttt, that's not my excuse, seeing as whenever I WAS available, I was gaming like a mad man. However, my actual reason for not posting in a while is because I finally figured out how to get unstuck in the abandoned Space Pirate ship thingy. Because I now had the grapple beam, I went back into Brinstar and found that I had skipped a spot that was grapple beam friendly. I grappled my way across this large gap with glowy little bug things getting in my way and then I found something. I nearly pooped my pants and totally forgot to make a screenshot while I was at it, but the item I found was called the X Ray scope. So you know that problem I had since I started playing this game, where I'd get stuck for hours and have to shoot walls and bomb floors until finally I found the one passage what would allow me to progress through the game? Well, let's just say the X Ray Scope would have come in handy a LOOOONNNNGGGG time ago. However, I've now made good use of it and discovered many secret stashes of missiles and tank upgrades and whatnot. So THEN I went back to the abandoned ship from the end of my last post and found a passage at the bottom of the ship with my new X Ray Scope. 

All of the above took me a few hours of game-play...but the one, true, SOLE reason that I have not been updating in a while is because many many many more hours were spent in frustration trying to kill this guy.

 A website told me his name is Phantoom, or something like that. In any case, if you're panicky and trigger happy during boss fights like I get from time to time, this fight was hard. It wasn't until hour...oh I dunno...13? That I finally smartened up and stopped using super missiles and power bombs on him, because little did I realize that the super move he kept using on me was only because he was angry at MY super moves. So then I gave my head a shameful shake and used strictly regular missiles and charge shots. The fight was ten minutes that time.

So after killing Phantoom, the lights and power came on again in the ship and the save point (which woulda been really handy pre-boss-fight for dummies like me) was now accessible. I was then able to explore more of the ship and soon discovered another awesome upgrade, this time to my armor.

As you can see, it's purple. Which already makes it cooler, seeing as the last one wasn't much of a color upgrade. Now this here is called the Gravity Suit. Sounds cool, yeah? Well, it is. Under water is no longer a slow, arduous process, as the suit treats undersea travel as if in open air. Also, it has a super jump ability that you can use by entering super speed, pressing down (which holds the charge) and then pressing jump when you're ready. It's a bit hard to use, but worth it for those hard to reach places. So then I found a reserve tank for my energy and proceeded into a new world, which was short lived for some reason and brought me back to Brinstar. I'll be playing more soon and will let you know if I figured out why it brought me down here.

Later Gamers.