Game memories: F

Feel the Magic XX-XY (DS)

Project Rub in the UK, but I got this with my imported US DS ahead of the European launch.  In many ways it was an ideal game to launch the DS with, showing many varied ideas on how the touchscreen could be used.  It didn't hang together that well, but I remember the black, white and orange colour scheme vividly.

F1 '97 (PS)

Murray Walker shouting "He's on the green stuff" over and over again; tracks being messes of pixels a little way down the road.  A great game.

F1 2010 (Xbox 360)

Far too many options and menus to wade through.  Completing a single race in the career mode took ages, since you had to go through practice sessions, qualifying and the race itself.  Ideal for people who love F1, but for me it was just a bit painful.

F1 2011 (3DS)

As with F1 2010 above, but with a third of the framerate.

F355 Challenge Passione Rossa (Dreamcast)

At the time this felt like a massive technical achievement and tales of the arcade machine using three monitors underlined the game's credentials.  I played it for about fifteen minutes before being totally overwhelmed by the options and realistic gameplay - in other words, I kept spinning off the track, couldn't work out how to switch to a behind-car view, and had better things to play instead.

Field Commander (PSP)
Like Advance Wars but with little charm, little challenge, and a rubbish online mode.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (Gamecube)
I've never completed a proper Final Fantasy game; I've never even passed the first hour of one.  This, however, was played loads at virtually every games night we held.  Kieron had a bucket on his head, I was a Selkie.  John was accomplished at ranged combat, we all could heal each other but often didn't.

Fire Emblem (GBA)
I never completed this.  I remember it getting very stressful due to the fact that if a character died in a mission, they remained dead.  I restarted missions again and again to protect my favourite characters, and as a result it grew stale and too difficult.

Floigan Brothers: Episode One (Dreamcast)
It's a shame there was no episode two - this was an amusing game which was unlike anything else, as with a lot of Sega's Dreamcast output.  It was far too short and there was a bit too much collection required as far as I recall.  I got this in Singapore and worked out pretty quickly that it was a pirate version, but bought the proper version on my return from HMV for a fiver.

Ford Racing 3 (Xbox)

I was convinced to buy this by people on RLLMUK praising the second game, the fact it was online (when there were few other online games around), and it was £10 brand new.  I think I played it online three times and offline twice, before being tempted away by other games that were just more fun to play.

F-Zero (SNES, Wii, Wii U)

F-Zero GX (Gamecube)

F-Zero X (N64)

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity (GBA, 3DS)
GX is the best.  The Mode 7 games are a bit pants now, but at the time they seemed great, particularly on the GBA where the handling was much more refined.  Replaying them now, they are just too floaty and the career mode is a bit lightweight with daft difficulty spikes.

Future Tactics: the Uprising (Gamecube)

I bought this in the US and as a result, the hassle needed to load the game meant that I played it little.  A shame, as when I did I remember it being a clever game melding a strategy turn-based game with something that felt more action-based.  I'm now able to play US games on my modded Wii; I may try this again when I find it.

Fighting Vipers (Saturn, Xbox 360)

I continue to be hopeless at fighting games that are more complicated that Street Fighter II, but Fighting Vipers has a pleasing lack of combo, super and extra EX WTF meters.  The fighting feels solid and the idea of being able to knock off armour works well.  I get the feeling that if I played this a bit more I could get quite good at it.  That's unlikely to happen.

Wario Land 4: gem collecting

One of the 3DS ambassador games, this isn't something I'd normally have picked up.  While Super Mario Land and SML2 were excellent examples of handheld gaming, taking home consoles experiences and reducing them to more immediate and shorter challenges, I had heard that from SML3 (Wario Land) onwards the games got just a little too complex.

That's true of Wario Land 4 to some extent, with levels being just a little too big to play on either part of my commute.  The character of Wario is a little too large to show enough of the level, and the jumping physics are a bit suspect as well.  It just doesn't feel like a Nintendo platform game.

I think it's unlikely I'll be back to this given the wealth of other games on the console ...

Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: completed!

The end was in sight indeed. I collected the four keys after defeating the knights, and got the big key. After recharging health, again, and filling two bottles with fairies, I went through the big door, to hear Vaati taunting me that I had three chimes of the bell before his plan would be complete. Well, Vaati, sucks to be you, since I had the sound turned off and so bell chimes wouldn't happen.

Sadly, the console didn't accept this as an argument, and hurried me through a few rooms of enemies. The hardest part was after I got to a room with three knights, and my usual tactic of decamping to a corner and waiting for them to swing their swords didn't work since the whole fight was timed. Apparently the third chime sounded.

So, next time through I just tried the whirly blade of doom approach, and though I lost a few hearts of health, it was fine and let me through relatively easily. Which was luck as I had to do it a few more times following deaths on the final bosses.

The first two forms of the final boss were pretty tough, and it took me one death to work out that in the first form you had to use the gust jar to suck up the dark clouds around Vaati's circling eyes. The second form was much harder, having to hit him with arrows from all sides while avoiding spiky balls of death, electric balls of death, and just general death. Once I had turned four of his eight eyes red, I had to split Link into the four on the correct side (not easy when Vaati kept running over the splitting panels) and thwack him. A lot.

But after a couple of attempts, he died, and I went to rescue Zelda. And there was no cutscene; instead the castle started to collapse. So I ran out, Zelda in tow, picking up some more health on the way. The game obviously hadn't ended, so I wanted to stock up on fairies and hearts, just in case.

And it's a good job I did. Vaati claimed to be a god, and appeared once again as a big round enemy with claws for arms. It took me ages to work out that you had to use the cane to flip his arms upside down, and that when you'd done so you could shrink down and run inside them. And then once inside you had to thwack the correct eye monster. And then once both arms had been dispatched, I had to split Link into four again and hit Vaati's electric balls back at him. Lots to do, very little health left at the end.

But there was an end. Ezlo got his human form back, then ran off through the picori portal after saying goodbye. He gave Link a proper cap before he went. Zelda magically made everything better. The stained glass endings reminded me of the opening to The Wind Waker. And that was that.

Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: collecting keys

I found the other swordmasters, so now my collection of tiger scrolls is complete. By button mashing I can send Link spining all over the screen; a whirly blade of doom.

This doesn't help when your opponents are big knights with seemingly magic shields that stop anything getting through.

After getting stuck on the ground floor of the castle for ages (1F, but the one you enter on, stupid American numbering), I finally worked out that I had to bomb the bottom half of a wall on the other side from a weak point I could see from a different room. Which goes against every bit of logic so far, where walls only disintegrate if they look broken on the side you bomb to start with.

Up on the higher floors, and there are loads of knights who've just appeared, each one guarding a key. Lots of fighting ahead, and each fight lasts far too long since you have to wait for them to swing at you before their guard is down. After each fight, I'm warping outside the castle, sneaking past guards, and going to the fairy fountain for a recharge of health. It's a little tedious, but there's an end in sight, at least.

Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: a point of no return?

Running headlong into the sparkly tree seemed to make all the leaves drop, and I could shrink down. So I got the book, went to the Temple of Droplets, and have got the last two elements via a place in the clouds. I fused the sword with the two elements, and headed through the new exit - to be confronted with information on the light force and Vaati, who knocked me out. He didn't steal the sword, though, which was a bit stupid of him.

Oh, it's now the Four Sword. I like the way that different elements crop up over and over in Zelda games.

Hyrule Castle is now all dark and foreboding, and even after rescuing the king it remains so. I can exit the castle, but in the town all the people and animals have disappeared into their houses. So it looks like I can no longer move the cats to make way for a new house, or finish off the kinstone collecting (not that I would do so anyway). I'm going to try to remember where all the other swords masters were, so I can learn different fighting techniques, and I hope they're still around.

But it looks like the endgame now. Vaati, I'm coming for you.

Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: a book on a bookcase

I got the mole gloves so I can now dig through dirt - and finally worked out what those filled-in cave entrances were about. I've also found power bracelets which let me move objects like bookcases when small but don't appear to let me move little boulders when big. I'm now on a mission to return overdue library books. Don't ask.

I've returned two, and have found the third, but it's on top of a bookcase. There's a note on the table nearby which hints that if there's a problem I should just run headlong into it - but using the pegasus boots and running into the bookcase doesn't do anything. There's another one of the sparkly trees out the back of the house, but other than that nothing. I can't work out what to do.

Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: not being able to dig

I'm in the Fortress of Winds, and am stuck. I know what I need - something to suck up or dig through or otherwise destroy the big foamy blocks that are strewn across the level - but I've been everywhere I can get to in the dungeon, many times, and there remain a couple of rooms that I just can't access. This is most frustrating.

Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: collecting elements

While Twilight Princess has slightly stalled, I've been playing The Minish Cap on my commute to and from work, and it's been captivating. The storyline is semi-standard, with Zelda being frozen in stone, but it's Vaati who's the enemy rather than Ganandorf, and the world is inhabited by the Picori. Link has a magic hat who used to be a sorcerer, and he can shrink and grow at select portals. Half the trick is working your way around the world as a dot, where you can't mount steps or traverse puddles.

I've made quite a lot of progress; I've mended the Picori sword, and fused it with two elements. Some of the objects collected are pretty innovative - the gust jar which hoovers up dust and grass, the cane which flips objects over - though there are as ever the stables of the boomerang and bow and arrow. The Game Boy Advance suffers from only having two buttons to which you can map objects, so there's frequent breaks to reassign actions.

It's very different from The Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess, and indeed very different from Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. It reminds me most of Oracle of Ages, which of course is because it's by the same team - but I never finished that so I'm hoping this has a little more staying power ...

Pac-Man Vs: fruit appeared!

We also played this last night. It hasn't aged at all, and had six of us shouting instructions at each other to try to catch Pac-Man. The scoring system's a bit off (subtracting Pac-Man's score seems a little pointless), but the core of the game is still amazing.

Pokémon Sapphire: aimless wandering again

My main team's all at around level 40 or just above now, and I very much doubt that's good enough to face the Elite Four. So instead I've been exploring, clearing the sea routes of trainers and so on. Then I went around the map to the daycare centre, to see how the poochyena I'd left there was getting on. It had gone up to level 20, so I took it out and battled with it to level it up once more so it would evolve. Which it did.

I really don't know what to do now. I don't want to go to the Elite Four and fail over and over again like I did in LeafGreen. But it's a bit dull with no aim. I did think of trying out the pokémon contests, but I can never do very well at those. I really don't understand what goes on, and I think that pokémon who are good for the battles may not be the best for the contests.

I get the feeling that there's loads around to do - I've heard about breeding, for a start - but really I'm going to have to go and get stuck again, aren't I?

Pokémon Sapphire: what's a shell bell?

I finally caught a relicanth, and then my adventures took me to a cave just off of Route 125. Inside was a man who told me that if I found four salts and four bells in the cave, he'd make me something. So I went exploring. All through the cave were staircases that started halfway up the cliff face, and I couldn't find any way of getting to them. I looked around and found four salt piles, and a few other goodies, but I was sure I'd missed something since there was no way of getting to the blue ball things (which I assumed were the shells). I explored loads, made more annoying by the frequency of pokémon attacks.

In the end, after a long time of looking, I gave up and went back out of the cave. And then I had a change of heart, and went back in to check the old man wouldn't just accept the salt. For some reason the cave was flooded. I have no idea why.

But this meant I could just walk up the top staircases and collect the shells, and on giving them to the old man he made me a shell bell. Whatever one of those is.

Pokémon Sapphire: to the Pokémon League

Maybe not yet.

Sootopolis City gym offered little resistance to Manectric, with a little help from Gyrados and Kyogre, so I've now completed the gyms and can control any pokémon going. And I can walk up waterfalls, which apparently will be very useful in getting to the Pokémon League.

But I'm not going there yet. My pokédex stands at 80 owned, 126 seen, and there are some big gaps. I've been exploring the sea routes (some of which have changed since the storm, I think) and fighting the swimming trainers. Again, Manectric can take things down in one hit, but I've instead been using Gyrados in order to beef him up. Combusken had the Exp Share, and he evolved into Blaziken this morning.

As well as the sea routes, I've been exploring the sea bed. I've caught a few pokémon there, but at the moment I'm on the hunt for a relicanth. I've seen one a couple of times but both times was unable to catch it. It's pretty rare, it seems, and I'm having to fight loads of clamperls in my hunt.

Still, at least Gyrados (and Blaziken) are getting experience from it.

Pokémon Sapphire: Kyogre owned

As in, I own him. He didn't give up without a struggle, though. I stated off with Manectric, and spark, which not only took off around a fifth of his energy each hit but also paralysed him. Kyogre had a few tricks of his own, including hydro pump which killed any pokémon faced with it - even when it wasn't very effective. Ouch. After a few turns I had Kyogre down to a tiny bit of energy, paralysed, with low attack levels. And I threw ultra ball after ultra ball at him, alternating that with reviving another of my pokémon so the battle didn't end. And the seventh ultra ball captured him.

Hoorah!

So it's stopped raining, and all is well. Now I can go to the Sootopolis gym.

Pokémon Sapphire: it's raining!

Since Diamond and Pearl have just come out in the US, it won't be too long before Nintendo of Europe decides that they might want to think about starting to localise them. So I've gone back to Sapphire to try and actually get to the end of a pokémon game. It was a choice of this or LeafGreen, and LeafGreen is currently unaccessible .. and I still can't bear to face the final four again.

So, I picked up after beating Norman; five gym badges down. I've completed two more gyms now (one against bird pokémon and one against psychics), and chased Team Aqua around the world a bit. I've caught a Manectric, and he's great - his spark attack one-hit-kills loads of enemies. Combined with Gyrados's surf, and we're an unbeatable team. I've been around the safari park a bit, and caught some very odd pokémon. I've dived to the bottom of the ocean and found Team Aqua's hideout.

And then everything went funny. Team Aqua had a red orb; I had a blue one. It started to pour with rain. Everything flooded. Now I'm on the way to an undersea city where it still rains. Gulp.

Phantasy Star: completed!

Finally! I spent a little time roaming the final dungeon to build up experience points, and levelled everyone up to level 26. I mainly did this because during my previous fights normal attacks weren't touching Dark Falz, and with all other monsters changing level was the cause of such misses.

No such luck here. Normal attacks still didn't affect him, and I was reduced to using magic and Odin's laser gun, which does 20 points of damage no matter what. Noah's wind and Alis's fire were doing some damage (although I don't know how much, since annoyingly the HP indicator was removed for this battle) but they soon ran out of magic power. I was reduced to healing with Alis, curing with Myau and attacking with Odin. With 26 HP left, Odin fired the killer shot, and I breathed out.

Phantasy Star: completed.

Phantasy Star: completed ... nearly

Ooh, lots to report on. I found a prism, which someone told me will make something appear. I found an eclipse torch, which seemed pointless. I found a frozen laerma tree, which I used the torch on, and then I could get a laerma nut from it. Villagers all over the place kept on mentioning laerma nuts, so it's obviously important.

I explored Dezoris for ages, and couldn't find anything more. So I went back to Palma. Just north of Scion there's a wall and a gate whcih I couldn't get through. I tried everything, until I realised that Noah had an "open" spell. Dur. Fought through there, walked through a lava field, arrived at a tower, fought through there, found a man who gave me a crystal and also found a miracle key. Healed and fought all the way to the top of the tower, and had a lovely view ... but nothing else. Experimented with everything and found that the laerma nut makes Myau grow wings. Flew up to castle, found Lassic, realised description was "Shadow", beat him, found Lassic for real and beat him. He's dead. Huzzah.

Game didn't end; instead told to see the governor. Which governor? Quick investigation shows it's the governor of Moltavia - headed back to Paseo and went into the governor's mansion - he wasn't there. Instead, fell down hole. Went through dungeon, found door in wall after much searching; went through and found Dark Falz. I already killed you in Phantasy Star Online! Started battle and realised that nobody's attacks were doing any harm. Oh dear. Died.

Phantasy Star: getting tooled up

Going by a comment from a villager back on Palma, I'm going to have to get a Laconian sword, shield, axe and armour before I face Lassic. So far (at the end of the adventures I describe below) I've got the sword, armour and axe.

The game's a little frustrating now, with no signposts as to where to head next. After defeating Medusa, I knew that the sword was on the island in the middle of the sea, so went over there and got that. I then went exploring a bit and didn't find anything new, so I flew to Uzo and went exploring around there instead. East of Uzo there's a maze of mountain ranges, and I found a new dungeon. At the end of that dungeon was Noah's mentor, who was a bit rubbish and died in a one-on-one fight with Noah without causing any damage at all. I've no idea what a "frad mantle" is meant to be, but it increases Noah's defence.

I went a bit further East, over a lake and found myself back at Paseo, the spaceport that I originally arrived at. I'd forgotten, but in the armory there they had diamond armour for sale at 15,000 mesata. I had 17,000. I bought it. Well, it's got to be good, yes? And it did seem to bump up Alis's defense quite a lot.

I couldn't find anything else, so went to Skure and starter wandering around there. The planet's quite restrictive, with massive mountain ranges all over the place. I did find a cave, however, which I went through, only to find another cave, and another ... I ended up in Twintown, which is populated by some ugly aliens with a French accent. These use the same sprites as the evilheads, but with a different colour palette, and they haven't attacked me yet. I presume they're friendly.

Half the town are pathological liars, it seems ... but you can tell the ones that are, because they say "indeed", "really" and "oh yes" all the time.

I went into the shop in Twintown and found an ice digger for sale. For 12,000 mesata. Great - by this time I had built up my money store to just under 4,000 ... I decided to come back after exploring more.

I found myself in a morgue, full of zombies. It was a real pain, because there were countless dead ends which were full of enemies, and traps, and I even got caught in an area I couldn't get out of - I had to use the flute to go out of the morgue and back in. In the end I found a chest (I had to use Myau to disarm a trap to get past it) which had the Laconian armour in it. Huzzah!

By this time I had 8,000 mesata, so headed back to Twintown. Around Twintown is evildead city, and evildeads give you 136 mesata each when they die. Being attacked by 3 of them is very profitable. I quickly raised the money I needed for the ice digger.

This thing is great. It can plow straight through some mountains. Not others, though. And there's no way of knowing which is which. I'll have to explore more to find where to go next.

Phantasy Star: goodbye, Miss Snake Head

Lots of progress last night and this morning.

Firstly, I went around buying the good weapons that I wanted. This was fine except for the laser shield which you can only buy in Abion, which is miles from anywhere and I'd already had to go there once already. I wish I'd bought it before - but then again, I don't know if I'd have had 4500 mesata to spend on it ...

I went to Dezoris, the third planet, and found a bit of a icy wasteland. Palma seems pretty underpopulated, so why don't they all just move there, rather than freezing to death on Dezoris or burning in the desert sun on Motavia? Seems pretty obvious to me. They must be doing something right, though, because everyone on Dezoris is loaded. Monsters give shedloads of money.

I then went back to Motavia, to a town called Uzo, and bought Alis the laser sword. It's missing the "whuuuum" sound effects. I talked to some people, and they told me that to the Southwest there was a cave in which dragons lived, who have giant gems in their heads. This sounds like a hint. There was also a man who told me about a "soothing flute" which he'd dumped in Gothic.

So, I went to the Southwest, and after a lot of wandering around found a cave. I wandered through it for a while and eventually came out into a town called Casba. No dragons to be found there, but there were some vehicular activities. I was able to buy a landrover from the shop for 5000 mesata - unfortunately, it's a strange tracked vehicle and not a Freelander. Also, a man in a house told me that he's abandoned a hovercraft near Bortevo, on Palma. As you do.

On the way back through the cave I went exploring and found a blue dragon, who I killed rather easily and then found an amber eye. I presume this was one of the gems they were talking about. No idea what I'll do with it yet ...

Since I had no other leads, I went back to Uzo to go and find either the flute or the hovercraft on Palma. I forgot how annoying it was to search - you have to bring up the menu screen, scroll down four spaces to 'search', then repeat over and over again. Luckily the old man had told me the flute was dumped on the outskirts of Gothic, so I went around the path on the outside of the town and it was handily hidden at the end of a path near the entrance.

The hovercraft was less easy to find. I went to Bortevo (half the way to Abion, so only half as far out of the way and half as annoying to get to - although the speed of the landrover helps quite a lot) and once I got there remembered that it's where I found Hapsby the robot - the whole town is a ruin and each of the houses contains junk. I searched in every house and in the last house, the one right next to the exit of the town, I found the hovercraft. Hapsby repaired it and it's as good as new.

Rather luckily, Bortevo is right next to a bit of water, so I jumped in the hovercraft and headed west across the sea. And ended up in Scion, really close to where the whole game starts. It's going to be much easier to navigate around now.

I did some exploring down the coast there and found a new town, called Drasgow, floating in the middle of the ocean. It was a bit of a dump, but one person told me about Sopia, which is a town surrounded by gas fields. They don't make it easy for themselves, do they? I also coincidentally found a shop which, after exploring a massive maze, let me buy a gas shield.

So, to Sopia, which is on Motavia. I went to Uzo, and talked to everyone in the hope that they could tell me where to go. Nobody did. However, I now had my landrover which meant that I could go over the top of the ant lions' nests, and so I went exploring. I was quite lucky in that I tried going East first, and that's the way it was - Northeast, in fact, but only once you'd hit mountains going East.

The gas fields are a nasty place, and I ran into a couple of nasty enemies on my way through - a horseman and a sorcerer, who took quite a lot of health off of me. I was glad to get to Sopia. It's not much of a town, but it does have a hospital! There's nothing else there, though. I found the mayor and talked to him, and he begged me for money - 400 mesata, in fact. His town's poor because nobody goes through the gas fields. Move, you fools. Since I'd earnt 300 from killing the two enemies out in the gas fields, I said yes, hoping for some sort of reward. But no. He told me that Perseus's shield was on an island in the lake - I presumed the lake next to the town. I presumed correctly, as it turns out, because on a small island I found the mirror shield.

Ah, yes, I thought, my Greek mythology's coming back to me. Perseus killed Medusa by using a shield that reflected her image back to her. Odin's going to be able to finish the job.

Nearly up-to-date.

I ran into Medusa's tower before, when I took a wrong turning on the way to Bortevo the first time I left Gothic. So, back to Uzo, fly to Gothic, and to the tower, Repunzal. I worked my way through the tower, which was a nightmare - traps everywhere which meant I kept on ending up in the basement, and there were some very nasty enemies in there. I had to go back to gothic a couple of times to restart. I also suspect I looked very odd on the train trying to draw a map as I went. But it all paid off, as I found Medusa, and killed her in four turns. She left behind a Laconian axe. I just hope it's good.

Phantasy Star: battling for cash

On the way in to work this morning I decided to try to raise some of the money I need to buy things in Phantasy Star. While some of the areas I visited recently have a fair number of high-earning enemies, sometimes the battles can go on a bit and I'd have to heal quite often. So I headed back to Eppi for a wonder the forest, and to go werebat hunting.

So far I've earnt 8500 mesata from wandering around killing the werebats. I'm sufficiently levelled up that I can take down a group of four of them in two turns, normally suffering no damage. It's a little bit dull, but at least soon I'll be able to afford the equipment I want to buy. Then it'll be onwards and upwards.

In any case, such a mindless task is useful for doing while I'm listening to the 1Up Yours podcast.

Phantasy Star: flying around the galaxy

Now I remember where I was. I was trying to earn money in order to buy new equipment for everyone from the new towns I can now get to.

It's a little monotonous having to fight over and over again to get mesatas though.