Sunrise Blvd.

Let’s Play Sonic the Hedgehog: Spring Yard Zone

Carlos — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:51:05 +0000

Spring Yard Zone is my favorite zone in Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s probably the catchy song in the level and the whole night time theme to it that is pretty neat to me. There are lots of traps around the level, which kind of sucks, but you get lots of air and bounce around quite a bit in the level.

Snatcher MSX2 Version

Carlos — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 02:10:39 +0000

I’ve been taking the MSX2 version of Snatcher for a whirl. I’m not sure if I would have became a Snatcher fan if this was the game I would have played to start me off in the series. The little music beats are alright, I’m not really a fan of it…I’m wondering if it is better on the PC-Engine version of the game. The noise that plays when characters are supposed to talk is annoying and as far as I am aware there is no way to turn it off. Text dumps itself on the screen in a stream, so it would be pretty hard to do anything other than a video LP of the game, and I can’t find a good emulator for it either. The one I have been using runs painfully slow. Other than that, the games are similar, with minor differences in the MSX2 version (such as Gillian Seed having the option to stare at boobs). Right now I’m about at the scene where Gillian heads to the factory after Jean. I’ll update soon on it.

The retro looking graphics are a little appealing to me.

Let’s Play: Sonic the Hedgehog-Marble Zone

Carlos — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:48:15 +0000

Marble Zone is one of those zones that just makes me paranoid. It’s the beginning of finding lots of booby traps that will seal your fate if you are not fast enough or if you do not pay attention quick enough. Some of the enemies can really mess with your rings. I’m really not a fan of it and I wish I could just skip it, but unfortunately it’s the second stage of Sonic the Hedgehog. The music is pretty neat, but not my favorite of the stages in Sonic the Hedgehog.

Let’s Play: Sonic the Hedgehog-Green Hill Zone

Carlos — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:20:28 +0000

A guy named Cybershell does some good runs of Sonic the Hedgehog games. I’ll be taking you through them. Starting with the first Sonic the Hedgehog. The first run is through the Green Hill Zone of Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s the first zone you encounter and one of my personal favorites. I remember going through this as a kid and just running wild. I’ll warn you that Cybershell does like to curse quite often, but it is in a humorously entertaining light and it is actually fun to watch him mistakes versus it just being annoying that the player messes up.

Let’s Play Sweet Home

Carlos — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 03:07:36 +0000

My Sweet Home (NES) LP is complete

You can read it all here

Dragon Quest II Reflection

Carlos — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:33:47 +0000

So I finished Dragon Quest II. It was much harder than the first game! I had to grind for quite some time to finish up the game, but it was all worth it. Seeing the credits roll again felt great, I feel like I’m getting further into the series and now can say I beat the second installment of the series. It’s cool that parts of the game are set in past spots of the first game, reminds me of playing Final Fantasy X-2, except that it does not ruin a great game and make it something totally different.

I barely survived the last battle. My main hero put the finishing blow with his last bit of HP left.

The End

Dragon Quest II Beginning

Carlos — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:30:36 +0000

So I started Dragon Quest II. Most of the beginning is spent chasing after the hero from another kingdom, whose name is Art in my game. Maybe it’s short for Arthur? That would be a better name. Since this is the GBC version the character limit is four characters I believe, so I guess they couldn’t get crazy with the name. I spent some time chasing after him and then discovered that he is only at level one when I caught up with him, which means I need to grind him up to my status. He has magic, which should be useful.

I also visited the Hero’s Spring while searching for Art and was sprinkled with some water, unfortunately it did NOT level me up. Now I’m embarking with Art into the world.

Dragon Quest I Reflection

Carlos — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:28:02 +0000

I beat Dragon Quest earlier this morning. The game was pretty fun, definitely still archaic, but fun. I’m glad to have it down on my list of Dragon Quest games beat. I’m now working through the beginning of Dragon Quest II.

Here’s some things that still bugged me:

The Return function only brings you back to the castle, I never knew how awesome the function was in the future games where you can just return to any town you have visited instead of backtracking all the time
Removing a curse is a hidden thing, you can get cursed and not know where to go for hours
I couldn’t find any item to heal my MP. Maybe I just missed it.
Some of the games puzzles seemed to have no clues and you just wander around until you find the next path.

Tweeted Over The Weekend

Carlos — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:52:40 +0000

Imprisoned Again

Carlos — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:51:26 +0000

My journey in Dragon Quest VIII has led me to being imprisoned. As I sat in the cell and talked to my party members who were trapped with me I began to think about how imprisonment is such a common video game plot line. Right off my head Dragon Quest V comes to mind, being enslaved for years, and I seem to recall also being kept imprisoned near the place where you changed job classes in Dragon Quest VII. Final Fantasy also loves imprisonment plot lines with the Via Purifico in Final Fantasy X and being locked inside the Shinra building in Final Fantasy VII. Thinking outside of the RPG genre, Metal Gear Solid comes to mind, with Solid Snake sitting as a duck waiting to either be tortured or to jail break from his cell.

I think the plot line works sometimes to add a bit of drama and change to games that you are used roaming free in. The game takes away your ability to roam and you find yourself trapped. The lack of power honestly makes me a little claustrophobic. Though I suppose in a 100+ hour quest, they are going to put whatever they can into a story. Although, It seems a little lazy to me for them to rehash the same old plot and leave me feeling deja vu from one game to the next.