Okay, so this isn't as badass as some fights we've all had, but this particular gem stands out as the reason I never finished Final Fantasy 7. I believe my copy of 7 went missing after that, and I just couldn't do it anymore. Also, I'll be defining a new term.


The Blastoise Effect/Syndrome
A somewhat common phenomenon of RPGs, in which your main party, or indeed, one character of your main party, will become so nightmarishly powerful in relation to the rest of your characters, that he becomes the only one who gains experience in combat, or rather, the only one worth bringing into latter battles. This can very easily be seen in the Pokemon games, where the adage comes from, where the starter Pokemon becomes a god among bug types. He might stay as your first party member, or, in the case of other RPGs, relegated to clean up duty. You keep him around to keep the rest of your party alive, or so you can survive an encounter.

This is starting to not become as much of a problem, with some games auto leveling alternate characters if you don't play as them, to keep them somewhere near your main party.

Other Examples of The Blastoise Effect:
Tidus in Final Fantasy X(by the end of the game, my Tidus was hitting for 100k every time, had Auto Haste, Auto-Regen, and Break HP Limit)
Caim's Sword in Drakenguard
Marche in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance



Enough Dictionary, Here's the Boss Fight

Materia Keeper


Someone strangely using Yuffie on this bastard, or just in general

I'm not going to have as much exposition on this guy as my last run down(Badass Boss Battles numbah 1)

What made this fight hard, for me at least, was my beginner's skills in RPGs. I didn't understand the concept of grinding, hoarding items, or the idea of keeping two save files. So imagine a bright eyed child, running up a mountain, killing some monsters, getting some experience, a few items here and there, and you get to a save point. Save points are always good things right? Well, not if you forget to keep a second save file back a ways. And you see this giant scorpion looking thing near by. Well, the gamer in me says "kill it with sword, and get lootz". While not that hard hitting of an enemy, I ran into the battle with few items, about half HP/MP, and not that good equips. I was resoundingly trounced. So I load my save game, and take a look at what I've got. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No materia shifting for stats and spells, no items to heal. Nothing. So I look at my party members I can shift in. And, thanks to The Blastoise Effect, my other characters were VASTLY underpowered in relation to my mains. So that idea was scrapped. And then I remembered, Vincent was close to a limit break. So I try again, and fire off Vincent's limit break, Galian Beast. The Beast only has two moves, Berserk Dance and Beast Flare. Both did very impressive damage, and he gained HP! Win-Win! Well, until I find out that Beast Flare is a fire spell, and the Keeper absorbs fire. And you loose control of Vince until he dies. Needless to say, I had to load my game again.

This pattern emerged of attack, die, attack, die. Lots of my boss fights do this. Then I had a great idea. I could retreat. Make it back down the mountain. Heal. Buy items. So I make a break for it. Bamm! Run into a dragon. Run away, keep running. I make it halfway before dying. Load up, hope for better luck. I made it farther this time.

This pattern emerged of run, die, run die. Well I juts put away the controller and went to another game. Then I lost my copy of ff7. So I never was able to beat him, or the game itself. I'm gonna try to this summer. Find FF7. Close Shut the Doors of Oblivion. Finish the Fight.

Alright, I'm done

So, as a few of you may know, ZeroTolo and myself have a radio show Thursday nights on WUMF called Pixel By Pixel(PXP). We cover all aspects of the Video Game world, be it politics, gamer culture, movies, whatever we feel like talking about.

Every week, we have a few bits that we cover, with the three hosts covering one of our three reoccuring bits: Games No One Played, Games That Need Sequels, and Why God Did I play That?

We open it up to all on Destructoid to listen and call in! We love hearing feedback from people, and appreciate constructive criticism.

So listen in this Thursday, 6-8 Eastern Standard on WUMF!




P.S. Okay, so I know this was kinda weak, but I've never been good at selling myself with out it seeming like I'm begging or being a man whore.

I miss when Lucasarts ruled the PC game world. You'd see a new game come out ever couple of months, and they'd all be fantastic. Full Throttle, Dark Forces, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, all of those classic games of my childhood, with great game play, and great stories. I miss the days of old point and click adventure games, like the old Indiana Jones games. Took like a meg of memory to have on your computer, and you got hours upon hours of gaming out of them, partly because they were great, partly because they were hard as hell. Something recently has made me really nostalgic for them. Something about the quality of games has made me really want to play them.

And not just those old point and click games. Tie Fighter was such a solid flight sim game, and you can't find it at all. Or X-Wing. Great games with pretty damn good voice acting for the time, and awesome cutscenes.

Something about them has always stuck with me. Just the way they come together and played has always made me sad about games today. Not that todays games are bad, god no. I just feel that something has been lost in the proliferation of video games. Some magic and quality since they became big business.

Anyways, I'll get off my short soapbox now. I might do more of these some time. Stuff I miss, stuff I'm angry about, stuff like that. Lemme know if you like them.

The title says it all. Picking it up on a whim because every one apparently has been anticipating this game, I soon found hours of my life devoted to this puzzle loving man, who's accreditation I want to see. What kind of university gives degrees for puzzles? Where can I get one, since years of video gaming have warped my brain into something usable only in situations involving torches that need to be lit, jars that need to be broken, boxes moved, crests placed, and keys collected. I wouldn't mind having a ph.D in puzzles, what makes this man so special?



On the surface, and from what most people talk about, it seems like your standard puzzle game, which is what I thought it was gonna be when I bought it. I found out that it was anything of the sort. With a fairly deep story, Layton sucks you in to a world that seems strangely French, even though it supposedly takes place in England. It's the music that does it, with its great use of a droning accordion.

One of the points people make about the game is the town folk's obsession with puzzles. They really do have a fetish like need for puzzles, and what makes it this game great it actually explains it in the end. They give a reason for peoples' love of puzzles! Its' crazy!

My favorite part of the game, well, besides the puzzles, had to be the cut scenes and the voice acting. It was really unexpected, on a hand held(on the DS even), and was so fantastically done, that I was completely blown away. One unsettling thing though, was Layton's calling out to his assistant Luke. Unsettling because it always sounded like he was calling to me, seeing as I'm a Luke. It just got unnerving after the forth or fifth time.

All and all, I cannot say enough good things about this game. Pick it up if you have a DS. Now.

Also, anyone cracked the secret door code that gets revealed in the next game?

So taking a cue from my blog title, I think I'll start talking about my favorite/most challenging/aggravating/cheapest boss battles. I know that this is a running bit kinda, but I'd like to do some of my own.

I'm gonna preffice this series by defining a few terms. No idea if anyone has done something like this, but it needs being done. We defined these terms on the radio show last week, and I liked them so much, I thought would share them.



The Controller Place
There comes a time during a game when you simply have to set the controller down, and walk away for a while. Be it a boss battle, a particular platform section, a mob of monsters, every gamer sets his controller down at one time or another, and walks away.

The Controller Drop
You've all been there. You're rocking out, being awesome, when suddenly, something so COMPLETELY unexpected happens, you drop your controller because of how stunned you are. A boss uses a new attack, or changes his attack pattern, a platform disappears, or a new monster spawns where it shouldn't.

The Controller Slide
You reach a point in your epic struggle, that your skills fail you, and you screw up. It happens to the best of us. In this moment of disgust, you slide your controller across the room, towards the machine that has caused you so much pain. Missing a jump you've made a thousand times before, hesitating to take that last shot, getting greedy are all common causes of controller slides.

The Controller Throw/Slam
The most severe of controller torment, this occurs during the final stages of gamer meltdown. Differing from the drop, this embodiment of rage consists of a full arc of motion, extending from the hip, raising about your head, and slamming down against the ground with force and violence. Often accompanied by a proclamation of "I'm never going to play this game again!", true instances of controller throws are few and far between.

With the advent of the wireless controller, these actions have changed slightly, with the Throw becoming more hazardous to the controller itself, no longer hindered by a machine.


I define these terms because I wanted you all to know that in my 17-18 years of gaming, I have only ONCE ever thrown my controller down in disgust. I've slid my controller across the floor many a time, dropped it during several RPGs, and set it down countless times. But only one foul beast has ever caused me to throw my controller.




Emperor Ing
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

The battle starts off, like many prime bosses, by you falling into an open pit. In the center of said pit, is a pillar of doom. The cutscene begins, and you see enough tentacles come shooting out of the pillar to make any perverse hentai jealous. These tentacles sweep the floor, which you must jump over, while shooting at. They also occasionally think with portals, and punch holes in reality, and attack you from behind.

After destroying the tentacles, they recede into the pillar, and an all seeing eye appears from inside, shooting a beam of doom at you. The eye is protected by two hard shells, with a gap in between them, running vertically. While this doesn't seem bad, the shells move, and the beam has the annoying tendency to stay right in front of the gap. After causing enough damage to the eye, or taking enough time, the eye falls back, and more tentacles appear. This process repeats several times, all the while avoiding hentai and eye beams.

After enough damage has been done, which seems to change every time you play, you are treated to a cutscene of it morphing into a large cocoon. A quick scan reveals that it is inside, morphing into something larger and more heinous. But, in order to bring about this heinous form, you have to crack this bastard's shell. None of your weapons do damage, except for a super morph ball bomb. And luckily, the shell is magnetized, so you crawl on its back, crawl like a cockroach looking for a bite to eat, bombing neatly marked points on his chitiny shell, all the while avoiding the rising poisonous fog wafting off the ground. And if the fog were not enough, he spawns fists to attack you at all points, shooting and getting in your way, chipping away at your depleted health.

After destroying all the points on his shell, the bastard shows his final form, a five legged creature with a glowing ball of energy inside his evil maw. His mouth is the only place to hurt him, and the bastard doesn't make it easy. This glowing nexus of power is color coded to show what to hit him with: if it glows black (yes, glowing black), you shoot him with your light beam. If it glows white, you shoot him with your dark beam (a laser beam of darkness). This wouldn't be so bad, if he didn't change colors faster than the weather changes in New England. Oh, and did I mention, you only have a finite amount of ammo of each of these beams?

The object of your growing hatred has several attacks. His easiest to avoid his his charge attack, where he runs at you. Easy enough to avoid, but sometimes it just decides to go crazy and hit you even if you're on the other side of the room. He does the requisite laser shooting, and the spread shot, and is for lack of a better term, an insufferable jackass.

While this doesn't seem to bad, you have to realize that unless you want to be a total cheat(which I didn't find out about until my last attempt at this bastard), you loose health and never gain it back, in any significant quantities.

I played. I lost. I played, I lost. I played, I had him to a sliver of health, I lost. I played, I died during the tentacle rape party. I played, I lost. I played, lost, played, lost. This continued for 3 days, and at least 40 tries. And then it happened. I snapped. I executed a beautiful controller throw, with an accompanying "SON OF A BITCH!". Full arc, full range, and a release that would rival any pitcher or quarterback's best throw.

My roommate looked over at me. I've known him since we were 3. We've gamed for as long as we can remember. He looks at me, my best friend does, and says, "you just threw your controller down. You've never done that before." I looked down at my shame, my beautiful Wavebird that had served me faithfully through many adventures, and I realized what I had done. I turned the game back on, and my controller had stopped working. It would recognize some commands, but the sticks were shot. It was dead. My companion was dead.

The horror hit me like the fist of an angry god. I was disgusted. I put away my old friend, and broke out a lesser, corded controller. I decided that it was all or nothing time. I would beat this bastard, for my friend. This play through, I noticed something. On the third form, the sleeping monster, the creatures he spawned dropped massive health. So I decided I'd wait, and not kill him instantly. I'd wait for full health. And I did. Using this, I came into that battle with the five legged beast with full health, something he wasn't expecting. And I emerged victorious in that last battle. And then the world fractured, and you see another cutscene, showing the boss in his death throws. Some how it wasn't enough. And I find out, that wasn't the last boss of the game. But she was a joke, Dark Samus was.

Well I've talked enough. See you all later. Feel free to use the Controller terms as needed.

-Mecha Jesus
Your Cybernetic Saviour