The History of it All.

Ancient Ys Vanished Omens is the full title of the original game in the series from 1987. Ys tells the story of Adol Christin, a redheaded swordsman with a lust for adventure. The original game finds Adol washing ashore in a strange country called Esteria somewhere off the continent of Eresia. He's nursed back to health in the city of Minea. He soon learns that he's in a land of legend. One which floats in the sky, as to seal off a great evil from the rest of the world. He learns about the two goddesses and the six priests who created six books of Ys. Reuniting those six books is the key to the secrets of Ys. His thirst for adventure sets him on a path to collect the six books of Ys and to the very top of Darm Tower itself for a confrontation with evil. Along the way traveling through monster infested plains, forests, and mines, solving puzzle laden palaces, and surviving trap filled towers. The next game in the series came out in 1988 and held the full title of Ys II: The Final Chapter. Ys 2 picks up immediately where Ys left off. It opens with Adol defeating Dark Fact atop the Tower of Darm and collecting the sixth book of Ys, the Book of Fact. The game has you climbing down the now crumbling tower. You make it out by utilizing a different path than the one you used to reach the top. The geography of the land of Esteria is such that you come out on the other side of the base of the tower which rests in a giant crater into a different section of the land. You're cut off from the land of Ys 1. Adol continues to explore the land, learning more about the six priests and the two goddesses of Ys. He travels through subterranean canals, volcanoes, and icy plains to eventually reach and confront the true evil sealed away in the land of Esteria. The next title in the series came in 1989 and was called Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. In the original Ys, Adol met a bandit name Dogi and they became fast friends. Ys 3 tells the story of what happens after the events of Ys 1 & 2 when Adol decides to visit Dogi's homeland, leaving Esteria behind. They reach Dogi's hometown of Redmond to find something amiss. That's all Adol needs and he's off seeking adventure. You're led through a story having nothing to do with the previous games at all. Ys 4 was called Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys and it was from 1993. There were two versions of Ys 4. The Dawn of Ys was for the PC Engine Super CD and was created by Falcom / Hudson. They also released Ys IV: Mask of the Sun for the Super Famicom which was created by Tonkin House. They share locations, characters, and even a lot of the same music, but beyond that are entirely different. Dawn of Ys is considered canon. Dawn of Ys has Adol returning to Esteria years later. Revisiting a few old locations such as Minea and Darm Tower before heading off to the land of Selceta where the Romun Empire is causing trouble. Ys 5 was released in 1995 on the Super Famicom under the title of Ys V: The Lost Desert Kingdom of Kefin. This game actually takes place between Ys 3 and 4 chronologically. It tells the story of Adol's time in Afroca. The city of Kefin vanished five-hundred years ago. The problem comes in the fact that it seems to be reappearing, much to the chagrin of the inhabitants of the new cities now standing in its place. Once again Adol is there and off to find the answers. That brings us to Ys 6 which was released for Windows in 2003 under the title of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim. Ys 6 picks up sometime after Ys 4 with Adol and Dogi on the western side of Eresia where he happens to run in to Terra and her pirate father from Ys 4. They're going to investigate the Great Vortex of Canaan. Adol and Dogi come along.  While nearing the Great Vortex the Romun Empire who has been pursuing the pirates catch up and attack. In the naval assault, Adol is knocked overboard and once again finds himself washed up on a beach in a strange land. So begins a quest to figure out how to get off of Canaan which is surrounded by the Great Vortex and is impassible by any ship.  Ys is not Final Fantasy obviously. It is one long story. No retelling the same story over and over here. Throughout the entire series the storytelling and characterization has been first rate. The Japanese can tell great stories. Tight, well told stories. Falcom, Game Arts, Natsume, SEGA and a few others have such an ability. There isn't any metaphysical mumbo-jumbo here. No teenage angst. Just old-fashioned rollicking good time adventures. Ys 6 is no exception, in fact it's the best of the entire series. The characterization is surprisingly deep for the NPCs, especially for an ARPG. The game features "only" two towns and every last NPC is named. You get to know them. They have an amazing amount of things to say. After each event in the game, no matter how minor, every last NPC has something new to say. This results in going around and talking to every last person in the game after you do anything. You're rewarded with deep characterization and a very rich story. I am thoroughly impressed with the storytelling in this series and especially Ys 6. Not to mention how tied to the original game this chapter is. From returning characters also washed up on Canaan to allusions to the very nature of the goddesses of Ys. This is truly great stuff. I will be crushed if the next Ys title once again never reaches the Western market.

Next time should be about the nostalgia of it all.

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It.

Ys 6 is far from broken. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Ys 6 works perfectly. It works perfectly by refusing to age. It took until the fifth game for the series to mature to 16-bit play mechanics. Ys 1 through Ys 4 were firmly rooted in 8-bit play mechanics. The original game didn't even have an attack animation. Your character had a sword which stuck out from his body. You didn't swing the sword. You merely ran into your enemies to attack. You had to align off center to score a hit. Attacking dead on would cause you to take damage. This system was dropped for the third title in the series. The first two games were 2D pseudo top down in perspective. Ys 3 switched to a 2D sidescrolling perspective. This facilitated the need for an attack animation, and a jump ability. Fans of the series in Japan clamored for the original style of the first two games. Falcom returned to that style for the fourth title in the series. For the fifth title in the series Falcom added the jump and sword swinging animation with actual control over the sword. You actually had to press the button to use the sword. Ys 6 is on a 128-bit system, and nothing has changed as far as play mechanics go from Ys 5. The most advanced feature of the game is the ability to rotate the field, and even that isn't in your control. The game will rotate the field for dramatic reveals every so often. How archaic! But considering that nothing ever obscures your view, maybe Falcom has the right idea. Rotation is technically a 16-bit concept, but is most associated with 32-bit systems. Another 16-bit concept is FMV. FMV has been in place since the series' original remakes of the first two games on the Turbo Duo. The battle system is a mix of 8 and 16-bit mechanics. Attack, jump, and magic. Ys 6 allows for the barest of combos in attacking. The character uses three swords that he can switch between on the fly. Each sword allows for a different magic type based on the element of the sword, and set combo unique to that sword. That's all you get. That's all you need. In bringing Ys 6 to the rest of the world outside Japan, Konami felt they had to add a few things. First off they replaced the 2D sprites for the character with 3D models. To help make the game more visually acceptable to the kids raised on the PlayStation. They also added voice. Every last NPC in the game is fully voiced. Falcom on the other hand fully believes in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and I for one agree with them as far as Ys goes. I realize all things need to advance or they become stagnant and die. This can't work for every game. The industry needs to continually push forward. As painful as that might be. But for a handful of series, like Ys and Dragon Quest, I don't mind not moving forward.  For Ys, I'm content with more of the same. A couple of days ago, Falcom announced Ys 7. Please don't change anything. And Konami, please bring it here.

Next time, the wonderful storytelling of Ys.

Ys: The Ark of Napishtim -- Initial Impressions.

I know I said I would get around to playing some older games I own that I never got around to playing, but I never got around to it. The next must play day-one title has arrived and that game is Ys: The Ark of Napishtim. The game is the sixth title in the Ys series. Ys 6 is an action RPG just like the five titles before it. The first thing that's readily apparent is that Konami loves you for loving Ys. Konami has gone out of their way to appease the bitching Ys fanboys around the world. They offer a variety of ways to play the game. First off, you can play it with English text and voice, with the newly created CG FMV. The version the fanboys bitched about. Or you can play what's considered the PC version of the game. The original PC version's anime based FMV intact, Japanese voices, and newly added English text. They've also decided to include the original PC version's music and the standard series sound effects. They had created a new mock orchestrated score and replaced the sound effects to better suit the new music. That music is now layered in over the new dungeons and the sub-quest they've created to Falcom's PC original. Konami also added 3D character models over the sprites of the PC game. Series fans did the usual "I'm going to kill myself" crap that always goes on whenever a company changes anything from the straight from heaven Japanese original anything. Apparently enough of them made enough of a noise that Konami actually heard them, and did something about it. I'm playing through the game with the English text, English voices, and the original PC anime FMV. The other thing that's initially readily apparent, is that the series is still as decidedly old school as ever.  The game is 8 & 16-bit gameplay with 32-bit bells and whistles, painted on a 128-bit canvas. The third thing readily apparent is that it's just plain fun, but I'll get into that next time...

Siren -- Final Opinion.

I have seen the final movie earned from finding all the archive items in Siren, and in doing so have fully completed the game. Siren is a very mixed bag. The story is the game's strongest feature. A wonderfully dark tale of revenge, selfishness, survival, and the occult. It's presented piecemeal. It's a mystery you unravel and reconstruct. When you have all the pieces together you see that they fit into a clear picture. But like any great story within the genre, it's open to interpretation here and there. The story is also highly nuanced. It's all there in the details, should you notice them. It's in this style of telling the story that the game also suffers the most. Because of the extremely obscure nature of the puzzles coupled with unlocking the secondary missions you're often left wondering where to go and what to do. The game's linking system chart really tries to help you along but doesn't actually get the job done as well as it should have. You end up checking everything in the level for context sensitive changes to your action menu. Which isn't always easy or fun given the situations you'll often find yourself in with the shibito. It's tough to notice that little something in the dark corner while you're running for your life. The combat is also a mixed bag. The stealth element is interesting. A couple instances of real tension trying to sneak by a boss or two. The actual combat could best be described as clunky. It's very workhorse. It gets the job done. But it never clicks. It's always just a little off. The game uses a nontraditional graphic style to tell the story. The character models are modeled after real people. Real faces. Almost like photos mapped onto polygons. It's a little off-putting at first, but it will grow on you to the point of being appreciated. The music and sound in the game work perfectly. The game was translated by SCEE and uses British voice actors for the entirely Japanese cast of characters. This is more than a little off-putting at first, but does also indeed come to grow on you. Siren is a bold and original approach to the genre. The concept is sound. The execution flawed. Those of you who like a great story and don't mind some frustration to see it through, should look into this one. You will be frustrated, but you will also be rewarded, or at least I was. I'm going to give the game the relatively high score of 8.0 basedon the rewarding story. But then again, maybe it's just me, so I'm inviting Magus to give his full take on the game...

Next up, cleaning out the catalog of the games you pick up cheap and never get around to starting, as I have a few days to kill before the next must play right now title arrives.

So Good, Yet So Bad.

I have completed the game Siren proper. I have seen both endings. Why isn't this the final opinion then? Because I'm not done. There are archive items in the game. One-hundred of them to be exact. I've collected ninety of them. Earning all one-hundred of them unlocks a movie that should contain some more insight into the story of Siren. There are no two ways about it, Siren is a struggle to complete. I don't mean in a good way. Why did I complete it then? The desire to see the exceptionally cool story through, that's why. I'm satisfied having completed the game because the story is that cool. It's right up there below Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 as the best the genre has to offer. The story sparked the desire needed to see it past the struggle of it all. Plus I believe Magus would have never let me live it down that Riddel had completed a game where I could not...

Next up will be the final opinion on Siren.

Keiichiro Toyama Knows What He Likes.

Siren was created by  Keiichiro Toyama. Toyama also was the project leader on the original Silent Hill. The games share a large number of similarities. First and foremost at the core, they are both based on mythos. They both use symbolism to express cultural and or group based beliefs. Secondly at the core, they both employ dynamism. Dynamism was used rather predominantly as an undertone in 1980s horror films. Dynamism is expressing the idea of all phenomenon as a force. In the case of the games, evil is the force being expressed. Evil as a force in and of itself. They both also use the concept of descending reality or alternate reality. The world around you is changed You're not in Kansas anymore. Aesthetically the games also share a number of similarities. They both make heavy use of dirt, and rust, and decay, and grime. They both employ fog and darkness to heighten claustrophobia and the general sense of dread. The games are inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft when it comes to the design of the enemies. They use his penchant for the grotesque. Sound is the last area they share similarities. They both employ noise in the same fashion. To unsettle you. They use actual sirens and alarms and sound. Musically is the one place they differ considerably in approach. Silent Hill used a cacophony of sound to keep you unsettled. Siren uses ambiance and silence and occasionally classic horror scoring tactics. What's readily apparent to me is that Toyama has used the same set of building blocks to create both titles. It's also clear to me from Siren just how much of what makes Silent Hill what it is came from Toyama...

Next time I should be covering the struggle and the desire.

Stage Select Unlocked.

I'm twenty-two missions into Siren and I still don't know what's going on. Siren tells the story of the Japanese mountain village of Hanuda. At midnight, a siren blares and the seas turn to blood. The local inhabitants of Hanuda are turned into the deranged shibito, except for a select ten. You play the game through the viewpoints of those ten playable characters. This isn't like an action game where you're picking the type of character you want to take into whichever stage. You're playing whoever wherever the game demands. The game employs the survival horror standards of cutscenes and notes. The story comes to you in a very piecemeal way. You have to put it together. In telling the story, the game jumps around all over the place. From character to character, location to location, day to day, and back and forth. You will find yourself back at a place and time you've already completed with the same character, only this time you'll notice a second mission objective. The mission ends when you complete either the original or the secondary objective. It's all very confusing. To help make sense of this, the creators including an extensive charting system. A large graph, with the times listed on the left hand side. Each day, broken down by the hour.  Three days worth. Plus some special dates from some of the cutscenes between missions. Across the top are listed the ten playable characters. Where they intersect are colored rectangles. A specific color denotes the status of that mission. Light blue means the mission hasn't been attempted. Dark blue means it has been completed. If the rectangle is split diagonally in half between dark and light blue, it means the secondary mission hasn't been completed. Green denotes the when of movie or cutscene sequences. It helps to show you what needs to be done and the when what's going on. When you highlight a box it often has lines connecting it to another box. Which helps track the events. What leads to what events. They also provide basic information of what's going on in each box. So and so wakes up in the woods and heads to this location, for example. For the first nineteen missions the game keeps you moving forward. Once you complete the nineteenth mission, the stage select is unlocked. Allowing you to go back and complete secondary missions, opening new missions. It also allows for you to search out missing notes, as the game charts how many you possess. The story itself seems rather cool. I still don't know what's going on for the most part. It's a mystery. But it's supposed to be. It's just a rather difficult one. I'm for far less hand holding in gaming, but I'm not sure if this is a case of going too far or not. I guess it all depends on how big the pay off is by the time the credits roll. For now I'll keep hacking away at it...

Next time should be about connections.

A Conceptual Mating of Genres.

Siren opens with Kyoya Suda in the woods outside the Japanese village of Hanuda. He happens upon a girl and her dog digging, looking for something at an alter. She hears him watching her from afar and runs off. Later that night Kyoya watches a group of people performing some sort of religious ritual at the same alter. He's again seen by one of them. They call out and he flees. In his flight he happens upon a police officer. Something isn't right with this particular police officer. The police officer fires at Kyoya. The first mission of the game proper opens with "Escape from police officer". You're unarmed. You have no means of defending yourself.  You have no means of attack. So you have to run away. There's a truck next to the a lone building. The truck is locked. So you run to the building. It's some sort of worker's shack. On the table you find the car keys. Outside is the insane cop. If you were run out there with your flashlight on, he'd see you and shoot you. Killing you dead with a single shot more often than not. So you have to figure out how to get outside without being seen. Herein lies the true concept behind Siren's survival horror. The actual survival aspect. Siren isn't about combat. It's not about blowing the heads off zombies. The game is about using your wits to survive. Puzzles over combat. Puzzles in action. If survival horror were to breed with tactical stealth, you'd end up with Siren. The game's enemies are shibito. Which is essentially Japanese for zombie. They're the souls of the dead returned to their dead body. While they may be made of dead flesh and drool on themselves, they're deranged, not stupid. They use weapons. They use tools. They open doors. They use flashlights. They react to sound. They also can't be killed. You can only sort of knock them out for a while. They curl up in a near fetal prayer position as smoke drifts off them. They'll awaken after a time and resume being a threat. They make getting from point A to point B a pain in the ass. The game allows you to Sightjack. Sightjacking is the ability to see what the shibito see. You sort of tune them in like a radio. When you get a clear picture you can set it to one of the face buttons on the controller for quick access. Sightjacking allows you to learn their patterns. It also can reveal key items, as a shibito will often stop and look at important or useful things. So for example, at the start of a level you sightjack, you'll notice that there are three or four shibito within range. You'll learn that one of them is up in a tower. You can see a rifle in his hands. That tells you'll need to be careful and not be seen by him.  Another shibito's view reveals that he's guarding a bridge you're probably going to have to pass. He's holding a pistol. The character you're playing this particular mission with has no weapon at all. So you're going to have to figure out the puzzle of the main mission objective, and also how to get by all the shibito. While exploring the area, you'll find a car. Opening of the trunk will reveal a flare. There just so happens to be a barrel with wood and other flammable items within near the bridge the shibito with the pistol is guarding. Lighting the barrel's contents with the flare causes the shibito with the pistol to come and investigate. So you hide. After the shibito passes your hiding spot on the way to investigate the barrel's burning contents, you can sneak across the bridge. As long as you do so quietly enough. That's just dealing with one of them. You still have to find the exit, and a possible secret objective within the level. The concept is sound. It's just all a very trial and error, a stumble around lost sort of affair. Which means it's not for the impatient at all. The frustration level is high. The question becomes, is the pay off worth it all? It will have to be one hell of a story. We'll see...

Next time should be about the storytelling of Siren.

Siren -- Initial Impressions Redux

I am through the fourth mission of Siren. Siren is a survival horror title from one of the creators of the original Silent Hill. Siren and Silent Hill share a lot of similarities and I should cover those in a future entry should I manage to actually survive playing through the game.  The game is confusing at best. Siren uses multiple playable characters, in multiple locations, with multiple often unknown objectives, in multiple points in time over the three days of the story. It doesn't hold your hand at all. And it gives the most basic information on what you're supposed to be doing at any given time. Get whichever character you're controlling at the time to such and such a location. What it doesn't tell you is that you can seemingly unlock other missions by your actions in that level. The fourth level for instance has you playing as a priest of some sort and you're told to get to the road. There are numerous enemies about in your way. You have no weapon. Along the way, if you happen to find this one door, you can enter it and plug in the freezer that isn't working. Notice some water in the sink. Go on about your business of trying to find the road. If you then happen to check a door that was locked when you were here with a different character two levels ago, you'll find it unlocked.  Inside happens to be a puzzle. Solve a rather clever puzzle to get some numbers. Go on about your business. Happen upon another door with a combination lock. Use the numbers. Find a washcloth and some rope. Take them, why not? Now, for some reason should you go back to where the freezer was, and the water in the sink, you could soak the washcloth. Now you have the wet washcloth. Now you can stick it in the freezer, should you wish it. Why would you wish to? I'm not sure. Do it anyway. The game tells you that you've met some condition and that something is now unlocked in some chapter two days from now for some character you've never heard of or something. Now I wonder what I missed in the first three missions. I did pick up a radio, was I supposed to use it in the mission which it was found? Um ... yeah, it's like that. I now have a headache.

Next time I should cover concepts.

Outrun 2 -- Final Opinion.

Outrun 2 is great fun. Arcade fun. SEGA have outdone themselves in replicating and updating an almost twenty year old title. They've stayed entirely true to the original classic. You get an amazing looking game, classic music, perfect control, and enough extra content for three games. There isn't a lot to say in wrapping this one up. It's just about perfect. Not entirely perfect. In unlocking the final few extras, the game gets insanely hard. It pretty much only comes up in the Knockout missions and the others where you're racing the CPU characters. You have to be perfect because the game employs the catch up mechanic. You drop speed, and you're just about instantly in last place. Catching up is not likely at that point. It can be frustrating. Because of this I can't in the end call the game perfect. But it's really damn close. I'm giving it a 9.5. Outrun 2 is as true and as well developed a sequel a fan could have hoped for. This is the SEGA of old. This is the SEGA of the SEGA! scream. SEGA!

I'm going to be trying another abandoned game. There are a couple weeks before my next must buy title is released, so let's see if I can knock a couple more off the list. Next up should be the initial impressions on Siren.

Course Design and Art.

Outrun 2 is very much like Outrun in design. They've essentially given a nod to every stage from the original in Outrun 2. The original feature fifteen stages on a branching system. You start on the same course every time, and when you reach the end of the course you'll find a branching path. If you take the left course, you'll be going someplace on the easier side of things. The right path leads somewhere tougher. This continues along to the five possible endings. You don't get to race on each course in a single game. You pick your five as you go. One of the great things about the original was the varied nature of the courses. From beaches, to mountains, to forests, to deserts, to industrial areas. Outrun 2 essentially has updated all fifteen courses from the original. There are nods to every last course. The first course of the original is represented in Outrun 2 by Palm Beach. The third course of the original where you raced alongside a cliffside is here as Castle Wall. The mountainous course is here as Alpine. The original's Oil City is here as Industrial Complex. The original was impressive for diversity in courses at the time. Racing games in 1986 didn't really offer different location types within a single game. It's commonplace now for them to offer up every possible location type. Outrun 2 nods to the originals are still very impressive. The visuals are great. You're always noticing new things. The fields of colored flowers and the windmills of Tulip Garden. The torches lighting the way in the fog of Ghost Forest. The density of the trees making up the Coniferous Forest. The sand blowing across the track in Ancient Ruins. All of these little graphical extras were there in the original and they're here looking as slick as ever in Outrun 2. The courses all look great. There isn't a single less than course in the entire game. This applies in the other aspect of course design. The actual lay of the land, and the twists and turns. The game's course design on that level is brilliant. Both the original and Outrun 2 offered flexibility and subtlety. They offer numerous ways to take a particularly nasty turn.  Braking is rarely needed when dealing with turns if you have the skill to power drift your way through.  This is arcade racing. Flying through at top speed is possible in almost every single turn in the game. All racing games are a matter of learning the courses. You'll never master every last turn. There are always a couple that will haunt you and actually keep you coming back for more. Which is a good thing.

Next time should be the final opinion on Outrun 2.

More Than A Passing Breeze.

There is a lot to do in Outrun 2. Beyond what you'd expect in an arcade based racing game. Outrun 2 was designed for SEGA's Chihiro board, their Xbox based arcade system. You'd really only expect the main game from the arcade. But even the main arcade game has depth beyond getting from point A to point B the fastest. The arcade game itself offered two modes. Outrun mode, where you do just that, get from point A to point B in the fastest time possible. Heart Attack mode, where the goal is to impress your lady friend by doing as she says. Heh, the game has a mode that replicates driving with a woman ... the comedy.  They also added the standard time attack mode to the home game. Racing without cars on the track and creating a ghost car. Allowing you to race yourself and improve. For the home conversion, they added a few more modes. Out Run Xbox Live, which allows you numerous ways to play. You can post your Time Attack ghost files. People can download them and race against you offline. This allows you to watch the world's fastest on a particular course and learn from them. A very cool feature. You also have actual online racing. Up to eight players. Within that mode's options is the ability to adjust the "keep up" factor. Whether you hold your position with the leaders after a crash, or if you keep your actual position and have to actually catch up. This allows for great arcade intensity for the beginners. If turned off, it allows for the same intensity without penalizing the advanced players. So with one, it's always intense and up for grabs, or one crash and you're out. There is also the option to download content (nothing available as of yet). That's clearly more than enough for SEGA to have said, you're getting your money's worth, but they didn't stop there. They added Challenge Mode. Within Challenge Mode are three further modes. Outrun Mission, which has you completing 101 missions to unlock rewards. They've broken the course map of Outrun 2 into sixteen stages (0-15). Each stage has six missions. You're ranked from E to AAA on each mission. Earning an A rank on each mission gets you a Mission Card. Earn the six Mission Cards in each stage to earn a seventh card for the stage, which informs you of what you've unlocked. The missions vary from stage to stage. They are exceedingly creative. Some examples are Drift, where you have to maintain as many drifts as possible. Zone Runner, where you haveto drive in the specific colored zone your female passenger wishes of you. Knockout, where the last car to pass the line is knocked out of the race. Crazy Convoy, where you have to not bump anything in an overly crowded course filled with nothing but large trucks and busses. Cone Runner, where you have to knock over specific colored cones while avoiding the others. Max Speed, where you need to maintain a set speed to earn hearts. Love Courier, where you have to pick up hearts scattered over the course, and then drop them in the zones to earn extra time. Math Mayhem, where there are giant numbers over the course like +6, -2, +9, +5, - 7, +10 and when you reach the end of the specific course and you have a choice of paths you need to select the correct answer and continue on. This is actually much more interesting than it sounds. It's like your brain says you're not supposed to be doing simple math while speeding along trying to avoid cars and crashing. This mode really works well. Just when you thought you've seen the crest of their creativity, they hit you with another mode out of nowhere. Like Snap Happy, where you have to drift to get the best angle of a heart balloon on the side of the course, then snap its picture. Memory Test, where you have to memorize the sequence of the fruit floating over the course and then hit the correct gates. Laser Breaker, where the CPU cars are connected by lasers, and you earn hearts by breaking the connections. Race Sam, where you have to beat a specific CPU character. Heart Breaker, where the CPU cars have floating hearts around their cars, and you need to steal them away by tagging them with your car. They really went overboard with this mode when they didn't even have to. It's awesome. The second of the modes within Challenge Mode is Party Missions. Essentially taking turns in missions against some friends. The third mode is Outrun Race, which allows you to race the lot of CPU characters at once on any courses you've unlocked. Speaking of unlockable content, there are a plethora of things to be had. I am on stage four of Outrun Mission and I have unlocked 26 of 142 cards, the Euro Remixes of the original Outrun tracks, a couple of new cars to race with, and the reversed versions of a couple of the courses. I know there are more cars, more reverse courses, and the original arcade version of Outrun to be unlocked. They really went above and beyond the call with this one as far as padding the home version. Beyond a job well done.

Next time should be about course design.

Outrun 2 -- Initial Impressions.

The 1986 arcade game Outrun is my all-time favorite racing game. It's the game all racing titles are weighed against. This is the first real sequel to Outrun, coming some nineteen years after the original. The first thing I noticed was how pretty the game is. It's just gorgeous. The courses that I've seen so far tend to be nods to the originals. The first course has a quick S-turn just like the original did, only in reverse. Another thing you'll quickly notice is the draw distance. It goes on forever. Nothing pops in. There is one course where you're cresting a mountain and as you come over the top the road can be viewed snaking off way into the distance. It's extremely impressive. The music is straight out of the arcade game, with some new tracks thrown in. They fit well. The sounds roar, the music booming. This isn't Gran Turismo. It's pure arcade racing. The controls are dead on. The cars handle great. The power drifting is as simple to perform as can be. The courses seem to be brilliantly designed. From what I've seen anyway. I've messed around with the Outrun Arcade mode, and of the already obviously great Outrun Challenge mode. I can tell right off that this game is greatness...

Next time I'll cover Outrun Challenge mode.

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap -- Final Opinion.

The game ended up having six main dungeons. I still can't shake the feeling the game is a little small, even though my mind says there is a lot packed into that smaller world. The world was drawn beautifully and filled with classic sounds and music. There are a couple standout arrangements of music from A Link to the Past. The story tried to go somewhere new but still retained the golly gee style. The story also seems to be a prequel or sequel to Four Swords, and or Four Swords Adventures. Not having played those yet, I can't say for certain. But I'm pretty sure it is. The actual combat is the easiest of the entire series by far. I didn't die until the very last boss, and that was by my mistake. I thought I had a fairy in a bottle when I only had some Lon Lon Milk. So I let myself die expecting to be resurrected. The puzzles are by far the best of all the handheld games. The shrinking aspect helped in doubling the number of puzzles. As I said before, probably the most puzzle-centric title of the entire series. The Kinstone system worked rather well. I enjoyed it and wouldn't mind seeing the system carried along in the series future. I'm giving it a nine based on the classic gameplay we all know and love. Nintendo does need to go someplace new with the series though. Don't rehash yet again...

Next up should be initial impressions on Outrun 2.

Puzzles And Other Means To Extend The Game.

I'm through the Wind Temple in The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, which is the fifth proper dungeon. I use the phrasing of proper dungeon for a reason. There are seemingly only five of them in the game. Five, not the standard eight. This is offset by how they've approached the overworld this time around. It's the most puzzle-centric overworld of any game of the series by far. On almost every screen in the overworld, you have numerous paths blocked. It used to be that you'd get an item from the dungeon that would get you beyond the one thing blocking your access to a new area. There could be four or five such instances per area this time around. This is due to the scrolling playfield. It also results in the smallest overall world map. This is all compounded by the Kinstone system. Every NPC in the game seems to have one. They open new areas, add golden creatures (harder to kill, drop a lot of Rupees), reveal treasure chests, or cause events to happen. Thankfully they show you what happens with each fused Kinstone, and then mark your map. The map stays marked until you access the change out in the overworld. This still results in your going back and fourth all over the map numerous times. There is a warp system in place to give you fast access to the general areas of the map. There is often a sense of not knowing what to do from having too much to do in the overworld. There are non-dungeons between the actual dungeons. I call these non-dungeons only because they don't have a compass, big key, map, boss, and event item rewards, and they're actually stretches of the overworld. They might as well be dungeons given their complexity. There only being five main dungeons and a technically smaller map make the game seem small. The game instinctively feels smaller than the others in the series. But if I think about it, my mind tends to say the puzzle heavy overworld, non-dungeons, and the Kinstone system extend the game considerably. I can't really tell if the game is larger or smaller because they don't give you a record of your time in the game. So I'm stuck sort of arguing with myself. My gut saying it's smaller, my mind saying it's at least as big as the others with everything packed in the overworld.

Next time should be the final opinion on The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.