Hey, it’s been a while. That’s probably a good thing, I’ve had more drama going on in my life than I need. I finally got my BS in psychology, and that’s the important thing after being in and out of higher education since 1999. I got my Wii, and things are still looking good for the job prospect I have.

More relevantly, I’ve also acquired a boatload of new games that I hope to write about. Since I posted last, I’ve bought or been given lots of things thanks to graduation grants and Christmas presents, and I’ve played most of them for at least five minutes. Here’s a quick rundown.

• The Wii - The system itself is such a great experience, and the additions made right after I got it were cool. I sent out a lot of friend requests, but only one person actually added me. I’ll probably send requests out again, since some people have said that they didn’t see one from me. At any rate, my friend code is 0283.6682.4218.9973.
  The Internet Channel isn’t the greatest browser, but I’ve used it for checking my e-mail (”don’t look at the screen, i gotta type my password!”) and showing off cat image macros.
• Wii Sports - Draws people to my Wii like moths to a flame. I definitely don’t mind demoing the system with this game, because it’s a terrific demonstration, but for the first week, it took up a great chunk of my time.
• Super Swing Golf - A faithful port of PangYa, so much so that I just call it that instead of SSG. I love playing it, but the swinging is pretty hard. Sometimes, I get it down, only to get it wrong the next day. Muscle memory has always been a part of video games, but not always to this extent!
• Zelda: Twlight Princess - A masterpiece with a slow beginning. After the first hour or so, the style, the plot, the characters, and the very nature of the game get 100 percent better. Also, Link makes a really cute wolf.
• King of Fighters 2006 - A rather silly edition of a fighting game series that’s always been just a tad too serious for my tastes. I’ve only played long enough to unlock some extra Nagase outfits, but it’s good fun.
• Final Fantasy XII - Another masterpiece, it departs from Final Fantasy formula enough to let its story and characters shine.
• Stretch Panic - A late gift from a friend who said, “This looks weird and it’s from Treasure and it was five bucks. Here!” Still gotta try it.
• Chibi Robo - I could never allow myself to pay $50 for this, but when it was $10 on Boxing Day, it was irresistable. It’s kind of tedious, but so very brightly colored.
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - Another GC game that looked great, but I never had the money for. Also $10. Haven’t played it yet.
• Donkey Kong Jungle Beat - GameStop is dropping this game like it’s hot, and it is. It’s a ton of fun, but it makes my hands hurt. ;.;
• Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - It’s pretty good. It’s at least fun, but neither returns the series to former glory or takes it in a new direction, and I think the formula is getting old. Still though, the references to 1999 make it pretty certain that a Castlevania 1999 will happen, and it better be awesome.
• Final Fantasy III - The five minutes that I’ve played suggest a very linear, turn-based classic RPG. It doesn’t seem bad though.
• Yggdra Union - Almost too hardcore for me. I got spanked a couple times, and haven’t played it in a week. It’s so nice looking though, I’ll have to go back.

I also bought a platinum Wavebird, since I have no GC controllers anymore. (gave away the cube to my bro!)

That’s about it, though I may have forgotten one or two. I’m doing the equivalent of storing nuts for the winter, since I don’t know what the next few months hold for me. Plus, for the first time in my recent life, there are no must-have games coming soon that I’m salivating over. It’s all right here. There’s just a few old ones out there that I need to pick up.

More on these as the inspiration strikes me!

Children of Mana is a crazy-go-nuts $15 new at amazon.com right now. It was practically an automatic purchase for me. I dig the Mana games no matter what anyone says about them, but the reviews on CoM made me think twice about paying full price.

The series doesn’t have a great track record lately. Secret is mythically great. Seiken Densetsu 3 is pretty good, but I never really got through it. Something about it was too epic for me to be playing it on an emulator.

Around Legend, it started getting weird. LoM has no overarching story really, it’s just a series of highly expressive missions that teach you a lot about the world, but nothing about your character. It’s really charming if you let yourself get into it. Personally, I love the game for it’s episodic nature. I can pop it in and play a mission, grow the mana tree a little more, and feel good. On the negative side, the controls are clunky and unresponsive. They’re usable, occasionally satifying, but they stick out like a sore thumb. It’s a 32-bit game that gets shamed by the controls in the original Zelda.

Sword was hard to like. It was pretty solid, the controls are a little better (collision detection is still vague), but the return to a “large overworld”-style game didn’t work so well for it. I would get lost a lot. It was often hard to go on, even though I had named the male and female leads after me and my girlfriend. ;.;

Requiring use of the shoulder buttons for certain actions also lost it a few points with me, but that’s just due to my monkey-hand complex.

So, at $20 after shipping, I like Children quite a bit. The controls are much more responsive than in Sword or Legend, and the 4 face buttons all pull their weight, even allowing dual-wielding. This game feels more purposeful than the last two installments, even though the story is still pure Square cheese.

I appreciate being able to choose a character at the beginning too! It’s not a tough choice like SD3, but it’s not an “Are you a boy or a girl? ^^” choice. I’m pretty sure this is the first game to let me play a niccolo wanderer, which gives it many awesome points for me.

The gameplay progresses dungeon-hack style. Simple, straightforward. Collect items, collect gemstones. The simplicity is great, since I’m coming off writing like 26 pages of text for classes in the past week. Brain’s a little fried.

I tried some multiplayer, and it is a blast. Enemies and objects bounce around and deal damage to everything they touch. It’s beautifully chaotic. The team dynamic makes it a whole new game, and I wish I could play in some 4-player teams. Sadly, it requires your friends to have carts, but maybe the price will stay low so I can talk some friends into it. This game really needs online multiplayer.

In closing, I just wanna say that the Mana series is Square(-Enix)’s way of releasing its aggression. Why else would I have to beat up so many cute, fuzzy things?