VGJUNK'S FAVOURITE GAMES, PART 2

Last time out I wrote about ten of my all-time favourite videogames, but because I am an indecisive sort I just kept going. So, here are another ten, in no particular order. It was a fun exercise, and I hope you found a couple of games you've never played before that you try out and end up enjoying.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (3DS, Square Enix / indieszero / 2014)

I am obsessed with this game, I really am. Not since Tetris has a game exerted such a strong “just one more go” influence over me, and that’s okay because the Final Fantasy-based rhythm action game is perfect for playing in short bursts. It’s also perfect for playing in marathon sessions, if you ask me. Okay, so how you feel about Theatrhythm is, in large part, dependent on whether or not you like the soundtracks of the Final Fantasy games. I love Final Fantasy soundtracks and I love rhythm action games, so it was an easy sell for me.
If you’ve never seen it in action, Theatrhythm has you tapping and swiping along with music tracks from the Final Fantasy series – over two hundred of them included in the game – and it’s a simple gameplay system that works perfectly. Inputs are precise, the difficulty levels are excellently balanced and it’s packed with that sense of pleasure that comes from getting really immersed in the action.
The gameplay is excellent, but as bonus it’s all wrapped up in an extremely loveable package. Square Enix are putting more effort than ever into leveraging the history and characters of the Final Fantasy series into lucrative spin-offs with games like Final Fantasy Explorer, Record Keeper and Brave Exvius, but it’s in Theatrhythm that it comes together the best. That’s partly because it’s all just so sweet and charming. Some people will complain about the cutesy, doll-like character art, but personally it’s preferable to yet another CG model or FF6 sprite edit. There’s fan service aplenty, stat-boosting art cards to collect. You can make a party composed entirely of dads. Even the online versus mode is a pleasure. Sure, there aren’t many players about and when you do get a match you’ll probably be stomped by someone with a playtime of 999 hours, but even if you lose you swap a little profile card with the other player, which includes a new map for the game’s quest mode, and you also get one of the game’s collectable cards. The way it works is that you each pick a song and the one that you battle each other over is randomly picked - and the majority of the time, an online opponent who won the virtual coin-toss will pick the song you chose last time, so that everyone gets to play the track they want. I'm getting old and soppy enough that this kind of unenforced ettique is very heartwarming to me. Like I say, Theatrhythm Curtain Call is utterly charming and it’s also the only game to make me say “I wish they’d keep releasing DLC for this.”

God Hand (PS2, Clover / Capcom, 2006)

The game that was so much of a cult thing that it stopped being a cult thing and became widely known, God Hand came out of nowhere and finally got the transformation of the beat-em-up genre from 2D to 3D right. The ultra-weird presentation that revels in such glorious insanity as wrestlers in gorilla costumes and fat demons called Elvis is the perfect parter for a deep, challenging and customisable combat system. It’s not a game that wants you to have an easy time of it – it gets more difficult they better you play, for starters – but it only treats you mean because it knows you’ll get so much satisfaction when you master the combat.
A harsh taskmaster, then, but one that exudes such a loveable sense of dumb fun that it’s impossible to get angry at. And hey, if you do get angry, you can kick a dude in the balls to relieve said anger, complete with cartoon “ding” sound effect. Finish the whole game for the best and most appropriate ending to any videogame, then head straight back into it on a higher difficulty. When it all clicks and you’re dodging attacks almost without thinking and counter-attacking with suplexes, you’ll be glad you did.

Global Defence Force (PS2, Sandlot, 2005)

Another cult game, this second entry in the still-going-strong Earth Defense Force series is the one that first revealed to me (and many others) the inestimable charms of the EDF. I remember hearing about it through the GameCentral page on the late, lamented Teletext service, where they gave it a glowing review. “What the hell”, I thought, “it’s a budget game so I might as well pick it up. Maybe its as good as they say.” It turned out to be even better, the ultimate surprise package. It’s a simple premise, born from the sci-fi movies of the fifties: giant insects are invading the Earth. Shoot them. Shoot them and shoot them and shoot them, because there are bloody thousands of them, crawling over buildings, scurrying across beaches and occasionally calling in an off-brand Godzilla for back-up.
Quite a few games on this list have what I’d describe as a feeling of purity about them, where they do one thing but do it exceptionally well, and Global Defence Force fits exactly into that category. The graphics might be ugly and the slowdown rampant, but it’s worth it to have destruction on such a huge scale. You haven’t lived until a group of tarantulas the size of buses are leaping at you, only for you to send them back where they came from with an enormous plasma cannon. Five difficulty levels, two very different playable characters and dozens of weapons to collect give it plenty of longevity, too. Try the Inferno difficulty level, if you fancy a challenge. It even says in-game that only a handful of people in the world will complete it, so if you’re the kind of person who responds well to that kind of antagonism, then have at it.

Night Slashers (Arcade, Data East, 1993)

Of all the hundreds of games I’ve played in my time writing VGJunk, Night Slashers is the one that stands out as being my luckiest find. I might never have played it otherwise, but since I did it’s shot straight onto my list of all-time favourites. It combines a genre I love with my favourite setting to produce a side-scrolling beat-em-up that takes place in a gore-soaked horror world of Frankensteins,  mask-wearing psychopaths and zombie bowling. That’d carry it a long way even if it wasn’t any fun to play, but happily Night Slashers is one of the more refined examples of the form. It’s got the basic brawler set-up of multi-attack combos, throws and a special health-draining attack, and then it piles plenty of extra moves on top of that: charge attacks, screen-clearing magic spells and the ability to wedge zombies into the ground like tent pegs so you can kick their exposed heads off, amongst others.
You all know of my love for Halloween by now, and there are very few games more evocative of the season than Night Slashers. It’s even more of a gory B-movie than most gory B-movies, and being freed from the limits of what special effects can accomplish allows it to be packed with things like monsters whose flesh melts off when you punch them, all set to a wonderful soundtrack that I’d describe as action-horror-rock if I had to give it a genre. Night Slashers might not be the best arcade brawler, not while the also excellent Alien vs. Predator exists, but it’s just - just - my favourite.

Shining Force 2 (Megadrive, Sonic Software Planning / Sega, 1993)

As an RPG fan living in Europe, and especially as a SNES owner, the nineties were kinda rough. So many of the classic RPGs of the 16-bit era never made it to our shores. No Final Fantasy VI, no Chrono Trigger, no Earthbound. Of course you can buy all those games though various different services nowadays, but that’s no good to pre-teen, summer-holidays-to-fill VGJunk, is it? Happily I managed to get my console RPG fix through a borrowed Megadrive and Shining Force 2: the jolliest, most candy-coloured RPG out there. Just thinking about Shining Force 2 means I’m immediately hearing the town theme in my head, a musical theme that by rights should appear under the definition for “jaunty” in every single online dictionary.
Yes, Shining Force 2 is a happy game, a cheerful game, a strategy RPG where, if truth be told, the strategy rarely gets more complicated “try to fight enemies one at a time.” Not every RPG has to be unfathomably deep to be enjoyable, though, and sometimes it’s nice to just command your fairy-story characters about the battlefield without worrying about personal affinities or elemental alignments or what have you. Shining Force 2 is a great example of this kind of gaming experience. A colourful world to explore, packed with weird characters and dialogue with a slightly wonky translation that only adds to its charm, Shining Force 2 has a certain childlike sweetness to it. Would it be one of my favourites if I had had access to Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger as a kid? I’m not sure. Maybe I wouldn’t love it quite as much as I do, but I’d always have room in my heart for an RPG that lets the player put a werewolf, a vampire knight called Lemon and knock-off Gamera in their party.

Blood (PC, Monolith, 1997)

Anyone who’s been following me anywhere on the internet will already know all about how much I love Blood, and that’s a lot. Back in part one I said that Silent Hill 2 is the game that most feels like it was made for me, but Blood runs it a close second. It’s a first-person shooter created using the Build engine, much like Duke Nukem 3D - but where Duke Nukem 3D is a parody of and homage to over-the-top action movies, Blood is all about horror. “An undead cowboy with a pitchfork fights evil cultists” is an elevator pitch that makes me realise it’s probably a good job I’m not in charge of a movie studio. Everything about the world of Blood is just completely, spiritually nourishing to me, the computer game equivalent of a big mug of soup in November– the horror movie references, the sinister carnivals and haunted hotels, the ghost enemies that scream like someone with their testicles caught in a bear trap, all of it.
The setting is great, but it wouldn’t mean much if the gameplay was rubbish, but Blood delivers in that regard too. It’s got the classic, rocket-speed carnage that the golden age of PC shooters was so wonderful at creating, but with its own unique style of combat. Even the lesser enemies can be utterly deadly, so there’s less focus on the huge swarms of monsters you’d see in, say, Doom, and more emphasis on tightly-constructed corridors and smaller arenas, with excellent level design all the way through the game. The enemies are fantastic and nicely varied, and the selection of weapons is probably my favourite in any first-person shooter, from familiar friends like the double-barrelled shotgun to the destructive power of the dynamite bundle to more exotic tools of death like the voodoo doll. It’s the closest you’re likely to get to being the “hero” of your own gore-soaked horror movie. A Bruce Campbell-em-up, if you like, and that feeling is probably why I play through Blood at least once a year.

Deadly Premonition (Xbox 360, Access Games, 2010)

Let’s get this right out in the open: a lot of the time, Deadly Premonition isn’t that much fun to actually play. The controls are bad, the combat is repetitive and dull and I always seem to get one or two huge glitches whenever I play it. However, none of that matters, because Deadly Premonition’s gameplay is merely a vehicle for transporting a truly bizarre and completely captivating storyline. The comparisons to Twin Peaks are immediate and obvious, but Deadly Premonition twists that familiar setting into its own unique experience, creating a world that looks at first glance like low budget trash but eventually reveals itself as a game with a rare depth of personality. The game’s star, FBI special agent Francis York Morgan, is a truly fascinating character, and not just by the usually low standards of videogame characters. Driving around and hearing York talk about the movies he’s watched sounds like it’d be insufferably dull but it ended up being my favourite part of the game. You don’t often get such a glimpse into the inner life of a videogame protagonist, and as York makes his way through a surreal plot with a shocking twist at the end I find myself being totally captivated by this weird world full of oddball townsfolk. It’s also one of the very few games to make me feel genuine emotions. I had a lump in my throat at the end of the game, and it wasn’t the usual hastily-swallowed sausage rolls.
Deadly Premonition is a great example of what videogames that might be lacking in technical proficiency can make up for in sheer imagination and ambition. It starts out as a supernatural murder mystery but goes on to take in so many different themes, always tinged with a unique sense of humour, that any problems I have with the gameplay are completely negated. Of course, if you told me that you hate Deadly Premonition, I could totally see where you’re coming from. Not every game has to be for every person, though, and that’s the great thing about Deadly Premonition.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (PS3, Ubisoft, 2008)

I can’t believe I’m putting this game on the list. It’s a fairly generic tactical FPS in which terrorists get shot in Las Vegas. It’s pretty decent, although hardly more evolved than any of its predecessors. And yet, when I was thinking about this list I kept coming back to it for one simple reason: the Terrorist Hunt mode. I have spent so much time and had such a good time playing that mode, specifically playing it couch co-op with a friend. Just the two of you, a very limited number of respawns and a mansion / oil refinery / casino filled with terrorists who skipped the “camouflage” portion of their training camp and turned up in bright red fatigues.
I couldn’t even tell you what it is about this mode that was so appealing to us, leading to RSV2 becoming our go-to game any time we fancied some shooter action. Maybe it’s the way the terrorists sometimes command their comrades to “Aim and shoot!” just before you aim at them and shoot them, the irony being as devastating as the machine-gun fire. Maybe it was the uncomplicated, solid combat combined with the tension of only having limited lives. I have no idea, I really don’t. I guess that’s why they call your tastes “tastes.” I like the taste of Dr. Pepper, but I sure as hell couldn’t explain why.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Arcade / PS1, Capcom, 1998)

I’m pretty bad at fighting games. I’ve explained this before, it’s because there are so many of them that I want to play that I never have the time to sit down and really master any single game. I’m greedy, basically. Street Fighter Alpha 3 is the closest I’ve ever gotten, though, thanks in part to it being just the right level of complexity for me: lots of different fighting systems and three separate fighting “styles” to chose from, but nothing I can’t wrap my head around. Obviously there are many other Street Fighter games I could have had on this list – the impact of Street Fighter II’s SNES port is hard to exaggerate, that game became almost a religious calling for some kids – but SFA3 is my favourite of the bunch. I don’t know how well it’s regarded these days, having never paid attention to things like “balance” and “tier lists,” but it’s got that classic, super-slick fighting action that made Street Fighter famous in spades. It also has the most appealing graphics (to me, anyway) of the series, with big, cartoony sprites, and a huge roster of characters new and old. The PS1 version even adds a “World Tour” mode with RPG-like elements. At its heart, though, Street Fighter Alpha 3 is simply Street Fighter. Timeless, classic action that’s honestly yet to be improved on in a big way. Nowadays, if I’m going to play Street Fighter I’ll probably play SFV… for a while. Then I’ll hop straight back over to SFA3 and spend entire battles doing nothing but Dan Hibiki’s rolling taunt.

Chrono Trigger (Squaresoft, SNES, 1995)

What can I say about Chrono Trigger that hasn’t already been said a hundred times before? Not much, that’s what. Creative talent operating at the height of their powers to craft a true masterpiece, every aspect of the game slotting together to form a veritable Voltron of delights. A time-travel story that not only works, but opens up the possibility of over a dozen endings! Quite probably the best soundtrack on the SNES! Memorable characters, a team-up battle system, singing robot cats! Chrono Trigger is the ultimate gloomy afternoon videogame. Go on, try it text time it’s dark and rainy at four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Get under a duvet and play some Chrono Trigger, it’ll warm you right up.

There, I think that lot ought to do it for now. Some games were omitted because, while I do love them, everyone else does too and they don’t quite feel as special to me personally. Honourable mentions include Zelda: A Link to the Past, basically every Super Mario platformer but especially Super Mario World, Final Fantasies 5-8, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Timesplitters: Future Perfect and Marvel vs. Capcom 3. What did I learn from this? That my tastes are pretty mainstream, mostly. There’s not much here that you’d mistake for being obscure, with the exception of Night Slashers. Also I’m a massive Playstation fanboy, apparently. And with that, I’m off to try to complete my CollectaCard collection in Theatrhythm Curtain Call, an endeavour that I’m sure is going to end up with me found dead from exhaustion, surrounded by probability charts and drop-rate tables.

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EPHEMERA, VOLUME 10

Back once again – three small words guaranteed to get “Renegade Master” stuck in my head – with a fresh set of five miniature moments from a variety of games, it’s the return of the VGJunk Ephemera series! Yes, it’s another selection of inconsequential bits of game that make me say “nice” whenever I see them, or at least they would if I was in the habit of talking out loud to myself as I play videogames in my lonely shame-zone.

No-lem

When I wrote about the summons of Final Fantasy V, I mentioned that I’m fond of the Golem summon whenever he pops up, and I particularly like his appearance in Final Fantasy Tactics.

Here is the FFT version of Golem, looking like The Thing going through an awkward teenage phase. Even for something made of rocks, this Golem really looks like he’s made of rocks, as though the rabbi (or whatever the Ivalice equivalent of a rabbi is) who created this particular Golem was distracted half-way through the carving process. Just because he's taken the form of a fossilised mound of chicken nuggets doesn’t make him bad at his job, mind you, and when you summon the Golem your characters are still placed under his protection. This means that when a physical attack comes your way, the Golem’s hand appears and blocks it, and it looks like this.

It’s specifically this animation that makes FFT’s Golem my favourite. The satisfaction of your enemy’s attack being casually rebuffed is nice, but it’s the way you see them actually hit Golem and rebound from the impact that makes me like it enough to write about. I appreciate the surreality of the entire thing, too. There was no way that ninja was expecting, when he started swinging his blade, that a huge stone hand posed in the universal gesture for “no” would appear and take the hit.  Presumably the sudden jarring impact also dislocated the ninja’s shoulder, and the fact that the ninja doesn’t take any damage is a rare flaw in an otherwise excellent game.

An Abdominal Workout

Sticking with animations but moving on to Nintendo’s classic wet-slalom-em-up Wave Race 64, which is one of my favourite games on the Nintendo 64 and is still a lot of fun to play even now thanks to its sunny atmosphere and excellent water physics. One thing that Wave Race 64 lets the more confident / arrogant (delete as applicable) player do is perform tricks while they’re jet-skiing around the game’s courses, and my favourite of these stunts is flopping around in a circle on your stomach.

With the possible exception of some other straight sports games like Tennis, Wave Race 64 might be the most “realistic” game Nintendo have ever produced, and that’s why I love this animation so much – having played Nintendo’s other racing games, you might expect this spin to be flashier, to put the “buoyant” in flamboyant, but no. This looks exactly like a slippery person attempting an ill-judged trick in choppy seas, and there’s something about it that’s terribly charming to me. Maybe it’s the way the rider doesn’t react when they land and the jet-ski slams into their midriff, grimacing through the pain in an effort to look as cool as a person in a life vest can look. Who knows for sure? The heart truly is a mystery, but one thing is clear: the first thing I’ll be doing after I finish this article is playing Wave Race 64 and making my character spin around in an undignified as manner as possible.

Red-Hot Tag Team Action

Goldeneye was unarguably the king of multiplayer shooters on the Nintendo 64, and its reputation as host of the best four-player murder-fests only seems to grow with every passing year. It’s a position I can’t really argue against, not when I played so much Goldeneye multiplayer that I’m surprised every time I see Pierce Brosnan and his head isn’t shaped like an improperly-stored cereal box. However, one overlooked N64 shooter that I had a lot of fun with as a young person was Acclaim’s Turok: Rage Wars, a multiplayer-focused take on the “time-travelling Native American fights dinosaurs” franchise. It had a solid core married to some fun weapons and interesting game modes, like the one where players randomly turn into monkeys. Still, that wasn’t quite enough to keep me and my friends hooked, so in an example of what is now called “metagaming” but was known back then as “pissing about,” we came up with our own game mode.

One of the weapons in Rage Wars is a napalm launcher. I know it looks like a poor first draft of a robot caterpillar, but it’s actually a gun capable of firing sticky napalm bombs that can be detonated at the push of a button, like so.

With the power of the napalm gel in hand, we devised a new four-player game mode. One team of two has the napalm launchers, and covers each other in explosive gel. Their goal is to kill the other team of two as many times as possible, but only using the splash damage of the exploding napalm. Thus, Team Napalm has to get as close as possible to the other team, gradually whittling down their health with repeated detonations, while their targets try to stay out of their way. A lot of Rage Wars’ stages are quite small and constricted, so that’s easier said than done, and when you add in the frantic bickering of Team Napalm as they demand that their team-mates blow them up right this instant, c’mon, he’s trapped in a corner, it makes for a frantic experience. Each kill earns a point, the teams switch roles at the end of the game and whoever scores the most points after x amounts of matches is the winner. In this way, I think it’s safe to say we extracted maximum value from Turok: Rage Wars.
On a related note, I tried playing some of the game to capture the GIF above. The default control scheme is that the analog stick is for looking around and the C-buttons move your character, and years of playing more modern shooters meant my brain simply could not handle the functions of each stick being on opposite sides of the pad to what I’m used to. It would only be slightly hyperbolic to say that it threw me into a dimension of pure confusion where the laws that govern our human world held no dominion.

Bagsy Brazil

As strange as it might sound, there are some games you can play that don’t involve computers or consoles. Who knew, right? One such game is Subbuteo, the much-beloved tabletop recreation of football where the exciting soccer action is controlled by flicking plastic players with rounded bases around on a green blanket. I mean flicking in the literal, with your fingertips, sense. A cherished part of many a young football fan’s childhood, my own included, Subbuteo’s popularity meant that a computerised version was a certainty and so it came to pass in 1990 when Goliath Game released Subbuteo: The Computer Game on a variety of formats. While it loses the pleasure that the tactile nature of real Subbuteo offers, a computer game version does make some sense. You might not be able to find a willing Subbuteo parter, and if you did there’s a fifty-fifty chance they’re the kind of uncultured barbarian who ignores the rules and does nothing but blast shots towards goal from all over the pitch. There is a clearly marked shooting zone for a reason, you idiot. Playing Subbuteo on your computer also has the advantage that you know none of your players are going to be broken: the ankles of the plastic figures are notoriously fragile and, much like the ankles of West Ham striker Andy Carroll, will snap if so much as a gentle breeze caresses them. This isn’t about the game itself, though, but specifically the screen where you select the colour of your team’s kit.

As seen here in the Atari ST version of the game, your players are presented as though they were a box of real, physical Subbuteo figures, complete with styrofoam packaging and a goalkeeper on a stick who looks like he’s in the process of being robbed at gunpoint. For comparison, here’s what a real box of Subbuteo players looks like.

Without wanting to slip too deeply into wistful “when I were a lad” territory, there was always something slightly magical about seeing a Subbuteo team all boxed up like this, especially if it was some exotic and ultra-obscure team like Red Boys Differdange, or when you realised that Arsenal would make a perfectly good stand-in for Rotherham United. Looking at this kit-changing screen, I’m certain that whoever designed it felt exactly the same way.

Mocking Laughter

Finally for today, a musical interlude courtesy of Squaresoft’s SNES masterpiece Chrono Trigger. It’s got one of the best soundtracks on the system - one of the best soundtracks period, even – and here’s one tiny thing about it that’s hardly vital to its success but which I’m still very glad of. At one stage in the game, our plucky heroes engage in battle with grumpy wizard and potential party member Magus, and the fight gets its own special musical theme. The whole track is great, but I’m here for the laughter sound effect that plays during the song. You can hear it at about 1:02 in this video:

I don’t have anything insightful or clever to say about it, I just think it’s super neat. I know some people hear it as baleful sobbing, but it will always be laughter to me. My only question is who’s laughing? It’s got a certain dopey quality to it, so I doubt it’s Magus. I can’t imagine him haw-haw-hawing like a drunken hillbilly. Although, Magus does say “if my fate is to die, then I must simply laugh!” at one point, so maybe he’s secretly a much more chucklesome fellow than his dour demeanour suggests.
One of the reason that I think it’s laughter rather than weeping is that I’ve listened to the Brink of Time album, a collection of acid jazz Chrono Trigger remixes. Magus’ battle theme is covered on the album, complete with laughter.

You can hear it at about 47 seconds in, and while it’s (rather impressively) played on a guitar now that’s definitely a laugh. There you go then. Case closed. Chrono Trigger is a game that laughs at those who play it. That’s fine by me, frankly. I’ve had so many happy hours playing Chrono Trigger that it could steal my girlfriend and slap my mother and I’d still love it.

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EPHEMERA, VOLUME 2

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about five pieces of videogame ephemera - five little bits of dandruff from the shaggy head of the gaming giant, none worthy of a full article on their own but all too dear to me to be forgotten. Here are five more. It's a thing now!

A Bitchin' Pegasus

A simple one to start with - I really like the logo of Masaya, the videogames arm of Nippon Computers Systems and publisher of such titles as Gynoug, Langrisser and the infamous Cho Aniki series. Here's a version from Megadrive game Vixen 357.

The Pegasus is pretty nice, classical yet dynamic, but it's the typography I really like. It looks as though it could be the logo for a futuristic hoverbike-racing team, or at least one from the future posited by the cyberpunk anime of the late eighties. Masaya Cybernetic Implants and Heavy Manufacturing Concern, maybe. It's a name you can trust, if not say easily!
Here are versions from the NES and SNES, respectively:

I think the NES one is my favourite of the lot. It's a bit more compact, and the two-tone colouring on the S is neat. Perhaps it's not interesting to anyone else, but from an aesthetic standpoint I'd probably say this is my favourite game developer logo from the 8 and 16-bit era.
Oh, and that Japanese text? It doesn't say Masaya. It's says mesaiya, presumably NCS's attempt to call their games division "Messiah." So, they're either called Masaya, Mesaiya or Messiah. I'm glad they went with Masaya, because the logo wouldn't look as nice otherwise. Also, being called "Messiah" is going to create a lot of expectation that you might struggle to live up to.

Good Blood

In the original Silent Hill, any blood show on a still picture looks really good. Nice colouration with a pleasing viscosity to it, much better than the usual "red poster paint" effect you might see in lesser survival horror games.

This is especially noticeable during the school portion of the game, because apparently Midwich Elementary had a critical shortage of pens just before Harry arrived and thus every note you find is scrawled in human blood.

I think the claret-smeared piano is just an unfortunate side-effect of replacing all the school's ink with blood, mind you. There's no message being conveyed here, apart from maybe "don't pick your nose really hard just before your Grade Two exam." The point is, I think that the blood looks just swell. Crimson and inviting, as though it could still be warm. Don't you think so? Hello? Oh, everyone's gone, look.

The Last Tantrum of Kuros

Ironsword - what images does that name summon into your mind? If you said "Mills and Boon cover model and ultra-hunk Fabio" then well done, you've seen the box art for this game before. I meant in a wider sense, though. Doesn't it make you think of proud barbarians, the clash of steel, mighty thews and castles to be stormed? Well, Ironsword: Wizards and Warriors II doesn't have any of that. It has Kuros, a boggle-eyed knight of considerable lameness whose idea of swordplay is to kind of wiggle his mighty blade in the unthreatening manner of someone trying to open a reticent umbrella. Kuros is, to be frank, a bad knight. As such he dies a lot, yet even in death he cannot stop embarrassing himself.

Just look at that. The mad flailing is bad enough - a little decorum would be nice, Kuros - but it's the way his dangling leg swings in the breeze for a moment that really caps off this pathetic tableau.

Nina Williams, Master Athlete

While I'm on the subject of lamentable animations, here's something I mentioned briefly in the Tekken 2 article but I love it too much for it just to be a footnote. It's Nina Williams in the original Tekken's intro. She's running!

Yep, she sure is running. I think someone at Namco read Nina's design document, saw that it said "leggy blonde" and took this to mean "a pair of legs with a blonde head on top". Fortunately someone spotted this and managed to just about cram a torso in there. It's small and vestigial, but it at least provides somewhere to attach her dynamic, pumping arms.
There's something slightly unnerving about this animation, and it's not just that Nina looks like an acrobat that's grabbed a gun in a desperate attempt to escape from the Cirque du Soleil. What's it called when something looks human, but not human enough to avoid making you feel weird? The uncanny valley? Yeah, I think Nina's right on the precipice of that particular canyon.
Of course, it might be harsh of me to complain about the polygon work of the mid-Nineties, and I'm sure Namco did the best they could with the available resources. It's definitely harsh to single out Nina, because no-one from the original Tekken has aged well. Do you remember what loveable bear character Kuma looked like in that game?

That's right, like a terrifying hell-beast constructed from furry rocks and a seething hatred for humanity.

Bed Linens

Most of you have probably played classic Super Nintendo RPG Chrono Trigger, but if you haven't, it concerns time travel. At one point in the game you end up in the realm of a prehistoric race of advanced douche-wizards called the Enlightened Ones, who live in the floating kingdom of Zeal. They have extensively studied and ultimately mastered the fields of art, science, magic, and totally sweet bedsheets.

Just look at those duvet covers. So stylish, so refined, the elegant red and gold colour scheme married perfectly to the comforting fluffiness that they no doubt possess. They lose a couple of points for having a picture of a world-dooming energy siphon machine thing embroidered on them, but you can just pretend that's an angel or something if it really bothers you.

Don't like them in red? Have one in purple! Purple, the colour of royalty. Also gold, the colour of, um, gold. It doesn't get much more regal than that, folks.
Seriously, I would very much like some bedding that looks like that. Maybe I'll set up a Kickstarter to raise the cash to make some. Your reward for pledging ten pounds is a thirty-second video of me sleeping under said bedcovers. Pledge a thousand and you'll receive my old bedcovers. Well, I won't be needing them any more, will I?

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10 GREAT CHRONO TRIGGER REMIXES / COVERS

Previous remix compliations:
Mega Man - Castlevania - Final Fantasy - F-Zero

Yasunori Mitsuda's score for Chrono Trigger is rightly considered by many (myself included) to be one of the very best videogame soundtracks ever created. It also contains a track called "Burn! Bobonga!", which isn't important but the name just makes me smile. So, Chrono Trigger's soundtrack is great and all, but let's see what happens to it when it falls into the hands of other musically-gifted people: it's time for ten great Chrono Trigger remixes and covers!

Devildom String Orchestra - Chrono Trigger Medley

The previous remix articles I wrote up had something of a heavy metal flavour to them - partly because I'm a long-haired Iron Maiden fan and and partly due to the more rocking nature of ­Mega Man and Castlevania soundtracks. While there'll still be a some hard rockin' tracks here, Chrono Trigger seems to lend itself much more readily to gentle, orchestral reinterpretations like this thing right here: Devildom String Orchestra's four-piece string version of "Wind Scene", "Theme of Frog" and "Battle with Magus". Extremely well done, although I hope you don't have an aversion to slightly creepy animal masks or the Scream movie franchise.

Zircon - Calamitous Judgement

Not only is Chrono Trigger the pinnacle of 16-bit RPGs, is also teaches you lessons about the harsh nature of the justice system. I helped that girl find her cat and everything! Anyway, here's Zircon's energetic, techno-y take on the Trial music, which is possibly a gateway into another dimension where judicial proceedings are held at raves.

5/4 Takepod - World Revolution

If you are fighting a planet-destroying star-beast, you need some suitable dynamic music to accompany the battle. The original "World Revolution" does a good job of supplying this, but master remixer 5/4 Takepod's takes it even further with this powerful rendition.

lonlonjp - At the Bottom of Night (Acoustic Guitar cover)

After that aural assault, let's slow it down with a rendition of the impossibly sad "At the Bottom of Night". There's a lot to be said for the more simple cover versions, and this is just one man and his guitar with some excellent playing that enhances the original fantastically.

kLuTz - 600 A.D. in Piano

Continuing the gentle theme, here's kLuT's solo piano rendition of the 600 A.D. overworld music "Wind Scene". Again, its simplicity allows the fantastic playing to shine through.

Onnochi - Battle With Magus (Metal)

Back to the metal! It has to be heavy, really - what could be more appropriate for a metal cover than a track about fighting a scythe-wielding dark wizard? The only thing that could make it more metal is if Magus was riding a motorcycle while you fought him. Anyway, the reliably excellent Onnochi gives the theme a real sense of drive. Like driving a motorcycle! Haha, you see it all makes sense.

Yasunori Mitsuda, Hiroshi Hata, Hidenobu Ootsuki, and Gizaemon de Furuta - Undersea Palace (The Brink of Time)

The "Brink of Time" arranged album seems to be somewhat divisive amongst Chrono Trigger fans: supposedly "acid jazz" but really too varied to be classified by genre, it's a remix album that goes in some unexpected directions. Personally, I love it - it was the first thing I ever bought on eBay - and this version of "Undersea Palace" is my favourite track. I particularly like the completely unrelated intro section, which may not be from Chrono Trigger but fits the mood perfectly. After that, the bass guitar is the real star of this one, and the horns add that extra bit of punch.

SEXY-SYNTHESIZER - Frog's Theme / Fanfare 1 (Love SQ)

The requisite odd remix here, as SEXY-SYNTHESIZER offer up a chip-tuney, almost Game-and-Watch flavoured take on the theme of everyone's favourite frog/knight hybrid.

Phoenix Project - Boss Battle

I'm a sucker for jazzy organ solos, I admit, but this also offers some nicely crunching guitars that really drive the "boss battle" nature of the song home. Phoenix Project's "Resolution Trigger" doujin album is a great listen all round, really - their version of Frog's Theme is also excellent.

Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra - Chrono Trigger

Finally, something wonderful - from the Orchestral Game Concert series, it's the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra's powerful version of the Chrono Trigger theme. A fittingly grand tribute to a truly grand game, and one that for all my better judgement makes me wish there was a Chrono Trigger movie.

There you are then, ten great Chrono Trigger remixes and covers. As you'd expect from a game with such a stellar soundtrack, this is just the tip of the iceberg so who knows? Maybe there'll be a part two to this article in the future. Until then, I'm going to be learning how to hack roms so I can give Magus a motorcycle.

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