Sorry these Week in Gaming articles have been so sporadic the latter half of this year. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of review gaming and whenever I’m not review gaming, I’m never sure I have enough to say about other games to put out one of these articles. After the disaster that was Orange Season: which I thought was going to be a great fall game but ended up so bad I put it down early, I got a couple of recently released fall Nintendo titles to play which are very much appreciated. I’m currently mainly working my way through one of those, the first one they released, and sitting on the other one until afterwards. Hopefully I’ll have those reviews out before the year is over, or at least one of them. But on the side, I’ve finally jumped back into Stardew Valley, always a good farming game that never disappoints.

I’ve been getting the urge to go back to Stardew Valley all year but I’ve been holding back, waiting on that 1.6 update content to hit consoles and now it finally has. I quite enjoy playing Stardew on my Switch with an 8bitdo controller. I had a beach farm I started a while back, maybe last year, that I had planned on being my very first Joja route. However, I only ever got a little bit into the first year’s summer. So, since the new update is now out, I decided to start over on that route and deleted my old file. I know I read somewhere that there would be new postgame Joja content to make the route as substantial as the community center one is, thus this seemed like the best idea for me to enjoy the new content. I also ended up joining a friend online in a new multiplayer farm as well where we’re trying out the meadow farm map with blue grass.

So far I’m right about where I left off from my last attempt at this beach farm before the update. I’m in the middle of the very first summer. I always play Stardew pretty slowly, I’m not an efficient farmer whatsoever. My house doesn’t have a kitchen yet and I’m still trying to decide what tool to upgrade first, now that I have the money to go with the copper bars. My pickaxe being so weak in the mines since I’ve reached the icy area, has been an annoyance. Also, watering crops by hand on the beach has been quite slow. Yet on the other hand, I want to upgrade my regular axe a few times asap so I can clear out the regular dirt area the beach farm has that’s full of giant logs, then I can set-up my crops with sprinklers. At the same time though, I might already be about to unlock the greenhouse by the time I would be able to upgrade my axe enough, so maybe I should just focus on my watering can and pickaxe after all. I’ve mostly been collecting the stuff required for the community center because I wanted to try and do it myself as much as possible for the various rewards, and then I plan to buy a Joja membership near the end. I figure maybe I’ll leave the hardest community center requirements, like a lot of the fishing, left undone and buy my membership once I’ve at least donated all of the required farming and mining related items. – Jenae

I’ve been doing a lot of retro gaming lately, both on original hardware and through recent remakes, and it’s been a ton of fun. My sister and I recently finished Lufia, which wasn’t as good as Lufia II but had a ton of charm all its own, and getting to see the evolution between the original and the sequel reminded me of just how much innovation happened during the SNES years. Jumping from that to Mega Man Legends on the PS1 was a different kind of reminder that those early years of 3D were rough when it came to control schemes. We opted to use the directional buttons for turning and the shoulder buttons for strafing, but even then controlling Mega Man around the 3D world comes with a major learning curve. The world of MML is incredibly charming, with that 90s dub you either love or hate, and wacky hijinks abound. The cast is impeccable, honestly. I understand now why Tron is so beloved. The comedy isn’t always a hit, but I have been having a great time watching these characters interact. The animations are also beautiful, and I adore Mega Man’s expressions. That being said, we eventually caved and used a GameShark code for invincibility so we could see more of the story rather than fight with the controls, though the safety buffer it provides has given me a lot more practice with the control scheme, since I do engage with it to the best of my ability. It’s fun when you get the hang of it, but it hurts my hands after extended periods. If ever a game would benefit from a remaster with modern controls, it’s Mega Man Legends. Maybe then I’d finally get to read the dirty magazines, too.

In modern retro news, I’ve been having a blast with the Dragon Quest III HD-2D remake. What a stunning glowup that retains the charms of its NES roots. I’m too old and busy to deal with the grindy nature of the RPGs I grew up with, so having some nice QoL updates here have made playing it incredibly comfy while remaining nostalgic. It’s visually gorgeous, with colorful, vibrant locations, beautiful lighting, and fun voice acting that really gives the characters some pop. I went with the most basic setup of the hero, warrior, mage and healer, but I’ve only reached the second major hub so far, leaving me plenty of time to experiment with new party configurations. The Dragon Quest difficulty feels a tad on the easy side, but I know I don’t have the patience to move up to Draconian, so I’m pretty happy having this to sit back and relax with a couple hours a night. – Leah

What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!

You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!

The post oprainfall Week in Gaming: Nov 10 – 16 appeared first on oprainfall.

Capcom announced on their blog, that Mega Man Legends will be finally coming to PSN next week on September 29th of this year. The game will be priced at $9.99.

Do note that the game will run on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, but for undisclosed reasons will not not run on the PlayStation Portable.

The post Mega Man Legends Will Arive On PSN At The End of September appeared first on oprainfall.

Sometimes, people want to play a game that takes us in a different direction. Many games force us to play as the good guys, the winners, and the A-team. Sometimes, we want to experience a particular series from the perspective of the bad guys, the losers, the B-team. Capcom had an idea for one of their franchises for the PlayStation. A prequel to the iconic Mega Man Legends was developed and released for the system: The Misadventures of Tron Bonne. Is it fun to play as the Bonne family or is it better to be good?

The Misadventures of Tron Bonne begins when Teisel Bonne decides to head out to Ryship Island to explore the Nakkai Ruins in search of treasure. He takes along Bon Bonne and the servbots, but has Tron stay behind in order to protect her from danger. Before they can enter the ruins, they are attacked by Glyde. It is revealed they defaulted on a 1 million zenny loan from Mr. Loath. The loan was taken out by Teisel to build the Gesellschaft, but in the end caused him to get captured. With Teisel in the clutches of a greedy loan shark, It is up to Tron and her servbots to repay the debt and rescue him and Bon from the clutches of Glyde and Mr. Loath.

This is an action-adventure game with strategy elements, but unlike the rest of the Mega Man Legends series, it contains multiple gameplay styles divided up into missions. Players can choose to play action stages, puzzle stages, an RPG stage, or explore the Nakkai Ruins for rare and valuable treasure. There are 15 missions total with each mission containing three levels. Action stages have the players looting and taking items. This is a good way to increase both the zenny count and find key items to make the game easier. The action stages have Tron going to Sart Farm to steal animals and go to Gold City to rob the bank. Tron uses the Gustaff, a powerful mech, during these missions to fire at obstacles, pick up items, and throw beacon bombs at objects and places to command her servbots to go collect items and zenny. The Gustaff starts off weak, but can be upgraded with energy tanks, armor, and new weapons. Upgrading the Gustaff is as simple as taking key items to the Lab and having specific dev servbots build the upgrades. With enough zenny, the Gustaff will become a powerful tank with the option to shoot bazookas and multiple shots.

The lone RPG stage is a dungeon-crawling stage in a first-person mode. The goal is to find treasure within the caves and find the three aurora stones to sell off for money. The Nakkai Ruins is a free exploration stage. The ruins are full of treasures and enemies to defeat. This is the place to go to grind for zenny. Puzzle stages involve Tron picking up various crates in the harbors around Ryship Island to move out of the way or create pathways. The goal is to load all the item crates to the ship. The key is to carefully plan out your moves as the Gustaff Tank can only move 10 steps and can only lift so many crates. This is easily the most challenging part of the game, yet the most rewarding portion as it challenged my brain. The puzzle stages are also forgiving as players can start all over again or go back one move if they make a mistake with no penalty.

The Gesellschaft is the main hub inside the game. Tron can interact with her 40 different servbots and find out some key information and unlock their potential. There are various rooms such as a cafe, storage room, lab, and gym. As the game progresses, more rooms are unlocked inside the Gesellschaft as they are built. Every servbot has their own alloted stats and special skills. These special skills include developing weapons and armor, paining, poetry, snipers, and other useful skills for the adventure. The stats include attack, speed, brains, and sloth. Unlocking a special skill is as simple as giving a key item to a specific servbot or taking the servbots with you on a mission.

There are some training courses in the training room to help servbots increase their speed and attack. The mini games start off easy at level 1, but become increasingly more difficult in the higher levels. Before the start of each mini game, the rules are explained so the player can quickly learn the games. Mastering the mini games will take lots of practice. The game encourages you to develop all of your servbots and use them. The sloth stat will increase if a servbot is inactive. If a servbot’s sloth reaches level 4, they will not help you out until you complete a mini game in the torture room. I only had this happen to me twice during my playthrough of the game, but believe me, the 30 second torture mini game is not easy to complete as the margin of error is slim. Once the mini game is complete, the servbot’s sloth level goes down to level one. Before starting a mission, Tron can send out up to three servbots to scout the island for various goods to either use or sell off. It’s another way to keep the servbots active.

The art style for the game is similar to the rest of the Mega Man Legends series. It is colorful, simplistic, and charming. Like other 3D PlayStation games, the graphics have aged a bit, but still looks good for the time. The music is fantastic and is arguably the best soundtrack in the Legends series. The tunes are catchy, yet quaint in each area. It keeps you focused and alert and does not put the player to sleep.

The Misadventures of Tron Bonne is a good classic action-adventure game incorporating both strategy elements and different gameplay styles such as puzzles to solve, caves to explore, and things to collect in the action stages. It sheds a different light on Tron Bonne and her brother Tiesel. Playing as the villains is fun and is a refreshing way to play an action-adventure game. Thanks to the PlayStation Network, the game is now affordable to purchase as it is no longer necessarily to plop down over $100.00 on a physical PlayStation disc copy. If you have not experienced this cult classic and you own a PlayStation 3 or Vita, I recommend downloading the game from the PlayStation Network.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy purchased by the author

This review is based on the PSN version of the game.

It took the reviewer 12 hours to complete the game

The post RETRO REVIEW: The Misadventures of Tron Bonne appeared first on oprainfall.

After the ESRB published its rating yesterday on its website, Capcom officially announced The Misadventures of Tron Bonne is out on the PlayStation Network as a PS1 Classic, at least in North America. The announcement was posted today through Capcom’s official Twitter page

Misadventures of Tron Bonne available now on the North American PSN Store!! Grab it!! http://t.co/IGivlGO4k8

— Capcom-Unity (@Capcom_Unity) May 6, 2015

The Misadventures of Tron Bonne is the prequel to the first Mega Man Legends. The game is known to be one of the rarer and most expensive games to find for the original PlayStation. I highly recommend buying the game digitally at a lower price unless you just cannot live without a physical disc and instruction booklet. The game is on the Playstation Network for the price of $5.99. This is miles better than the prices listed online for the original copy.

Will you be buying this game? Are you finally excited to see The Misadventures of Tron Bonne available? Are you also wanting to see Mega Man Legends 1 and 2 on the PlayStation Network in the future? Share your reactions in the comments below.

SOURCE

The post Misadventures of Tron Bonne Out Now on PSN appeared first on oprainfall.

A recent rating by the ESRB for The Misadventures of Tron Bonne has surfaced on the official ESRB website. The Misadvenutres of Tron Bonne is a PlayStation game in the Mega Man Legends series. It serves as the prequel to the first Mega Man Legends game and is known to be one of the rarer and most expensive classic PlayStation games. According to the rating, the game has been classified with an Everyone rating for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable. It got the rating based on the violence in the game. One could speculate that this means the game will appear on the PlayStation Network as a PlayStation Classic soon. We do not have confirmation yet from Sony or Capcom that The Misadventures of Tron Bonne is coming to the PlayStation Network. We will be watching closely until an official announcement is released.

SOURCE

The post The Misadventures of Tron Bonne Rated By The ESRB appeared first on oprainfall.

So, as some of you may already know, this month is Mayga Man Month here at oprainfall. That means lots and lots of Blue Bomber reviews, a top 10 later this month, and just all-around Mega Man love. With that in mind, I present to you the following poll.

The question is simple: Which Mega Man game is your favorite? Voters are allowed up to 5 votes. We will tally up the results sometime next week. Enjoy, and keep on pew-pewing!

The post READERS’ PICK: Favorite Mega Man Game Poll appeared first on oprainfall.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another Monday and another episode of The Downpour Podcast!

This week is a special episode of the podcast. While we certainly do touch on some happenings on the site, we devote much time to Jonathan, Randy, and Jared sharing their gaming stories. From childhood to youth to now, everyone has a story of how they got into gaming. And no one’s is ever the same, even when some strings of the intertwined web cross.

Have we been about niche RPGs and Japanese games our entire life? Or is there much more to each of us? It’s a lengthy show-and-tell, but we know that once you hear our stories, you’ll want to share your own—which we happily encourage! Tell us your gaming story in the comments below, share them on Twitter @downpourpodcast, or email us at downpourpodcast@oprainfall.com. We know you have your own story, and we would all love to hear them.

We always appreciate your feedback! Be sure to comment on this post or send an email to downpourpodcast@oprainfall.com.

[powerpress]

Show Notes

Character Battle II: Sonic the Hedgehog VS Mega Man
MOSAIC: 3 – On Generations and “Timeless” Games
Games of the Past REVIEW: Dillon’s Rolling Western

Follow Jonathan on Twitter
Follow Jared on Twitter
Follow Randy on Twitter

Intro Song: Sonic Generations – Metal Sonic Boss [Stardust Speedway JPN]
Insert/Break: Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete – Enter Mystere!
Outro Song: Grandia II OST – FIGHT!! Version #1

The post The Downpour Podcast Episode 15 appeared first on oprainfall.

Only 10 years after the world’s introduction to Mega Man (or Rockman, as he’s known in Japan), Capcom delivered a game that no one expected as the blue bomber’s introduction to the hip new thing: 3D video games. While previous Mega Man series were side-scrollers that involved linear levels, elemental bosses and weapons, leading up to the showdown between Mega Man and Dr. Wily, Mega Man Legends was a whole new take on the Mega Man franchise.

Mega Man Legends takes place thousands of years into the future of the classic and X series of games. You play as Megaman Volnutt, a digger on a world covered by unending water. Diggers search out ancient ruins in search of treasure known as refractors. These refractor gems are used as both currency and as energy in this world. The enemies that roam the ruins of the planet are robots called Reverbots, and no one really knows why they are there or who made them. But there is treasure to be found under ground and Mega Man wants in on the action just as much as anyone.

Mega Man, his adoptive sister Roll Caskett and his adoptive father Barrel Caskett crash land on an island known as Kattelox on their search for the mysterious treasure known as the Mother Lode as well as clues to where Roll’s parents disappeared to when she was younger. Mega Man and the Casketts aren’t the only ones that are searching for treasure on this small island; it turns out there is a group of pirates who have shown up to lay siege to the town, the Bonnes. Who will end up on top? What is the Mother Lode? Where are Roll’s parents? Does Mega Man Legends succeed in delivering a fun, new experience to a whole new generation of gaming?

Mega Man Legends is an action role-playing game and is a whole new genre for the Blue Bomber. You have your trusty buster used to dispatch enemies and you are able to upgrade your weapon using upgrade parts scattered throughout the ruins and the single shop in the game — something far different than other Mega Man games. Instead of taking down bosses at the end of each stage and earning their respective weapons, you find various parts strewn about the world that you bring to your spotter, or supporter, Roll who has all the mechanical know-how to put these broken pieces of machinery together to equip bigger, more powerful weapons and other machines on your other, non-buster arm. These weapons range from mines, to bombs, to machine guns, to cannons, to rocket launchers, to shields, beam sabers, drills, and even to vacuum cleaners. And that last one is handier than you’d think. While you have all these weapons, unlike the Classic and X series, there aren’t too many clear places or situations that call for those certain weapons to make your life easier. Heck, some of them I have hardly ever used because there is just so many of them! I am all for a plethora of weapons with a high amount of variety, it would have been nice to maybe give more reason to try out different weapons.

Weapons aren’t the only thing that this Mega Man has in his arsenal. No, it’s not a robot dog. Various other upgrades include jet skates, spring legs for higher jumping, head gear, and other items the keep you one step ahead of your enemy. All these things help Mega Man as he explores ruins and dungeons as well as donating museum pieces and participating on local TV game shows.

Mega Man Legends provides a good variety in it’s gameplay while presenting it in a non-linear manner that lets the player choose what they want to do, when they want to do it that builds on the core concept of the first Mega Man game. And each aspect is done very well, a great achievement for the first time a Mega Man game was made in 3D. The only thing I could possibly complain about is the difficulty. Playing through on normal never landed me at the Game Over screen. Of course, your results may vary if it’s your first time experiencing the game.

Once you beat the game, you unlock hard mode…which is what it says: hard. This gave me a really good challenge, though some tasks were more frustrating to accomplish because of a severe handicap given to you during certain events in the story. Though it does make you switch up your tried and true strategies to look outside your comfort zone, using weapons that you never really bothered with in easier difficulties. And, while a little odd, once you’ve conquered the game on the hardest difficulty, you unlock easy mode that gives you a maxed out buster and enemies reward you with four times the amount of money to let you upgrade all your weapons to maximum in a relatively short amount of time.

One thing that I’d like to bring up is some of the quirky humor used in this game. In conversation, you’re given dialogue options to move things along, and some of them either make you seem pretty dumb (My name? It’s Hippopotamus!) or like a complete jerk. (Is something missing in this painting? Some talent.)

Despite all my praise thus far, this game is definitely not free of faults. The DualShock controller launched at roughly the same time, but Mega Man Legends does not support analog stick support. Camera is handled by the L and R trigger, and that is a bit awkward. But once you’ve got it down it runs nice and smooth, in my opinion. The game’s controls are a strike against it, though.

The progress through the game is pretty straightforward that gives you a good idea of where to go next without dragging you kicking and screaming. The only time that I can remember getting hardcore stuck playing this game in the past was figuring out how to access one of the Sub City gates toward the end of the game. You could see the entrance through a fence, but there was no way to know how to get in there. I struggled for weeks and weeks before finally hopping on my blazing fast 56k modem back in the late 90’s and looking up a walkthrough to help me figure out the dungeon crawling required to find the entrance.

The 90’s were a different time for games coming out of Japan. Granted these kinds of things continued into the 21st century, but the main theme songs (Your Wind is Blowing and Another Sun)that were used in Rockman DASH are stripped from the North American release and replaced. This wasn’t even made apparent to me until a year or so ago. Because I didn’t know, I didn’t have any feelings on this all this time, but knowing now I am quite a bit upset that it happened. It’s about artistic intent: these songs were made to accompany the game and express the creator’s message. Taking it out and replacing it makes the product wholly different than what was intended. Though, I would be sad if I never got to hear the replacement “song” used during the North American ending credits. It was fun and catchy. Give it a listen below, but be warned that it *CONTAINS SPOILERS*.

All in all, Mega Man Legends is a wonderful breakout title for the franchise that is fun, entertaining, whose high production values are clearly evident. Capcom put a lot of love and work into this title and it clearly shows. It tried so many new things that really drove a lot of concepts of game design in the later part of the 90’s and even today. There is an excellent piece recently written by Bob Mackey at 1-UP that covers features or concepts that the Legends series did and beat the ever-glorified Ocarina of Time (Don’t get mad and crazy. I LOVE Ocarina of Time and have played it almost as much as Legends.) to the punch. Sadly the Capcom that built this game and it’s stupendous sequel isn’t the Capcom of today that tries new things and puts their all into new ventures, or even into their most-loved franchises.

Despite the faults the game has, it really is a great feat to get so many things right bringing a game born on the NES into a full-fledged 3D adventure. The game is a rarity to come by for a good deal, mostly because people don’t like to let a gem like this go. If you get a chance to play it, you won’t regret it. If you’ve played it, you know where I’m coming from.

Review Score
Overall

Review copy supplied by author. This review is based on the Playstation version of the game.

The post Games of the Past REVIEW: Mega Man Legends appeared first on oprainfall.

Anyways, here are the highlights from this past week.

Rose Weitz talks about how The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask got her into gaming in this week’s OpRainfall Origins.

A new trailer for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII has been revealed. Those glasses!

If you decide to pre-order Fire Emblem: Awakening from Gamestop in North America, you’ll be rewarded with a sweet artbook.

Jonathan Higgins reviews Black Knight Sword and Charlotte Buckingham reviews Etrian Odyssey in this week’s Game of the Past review.

Capcom sent out a digital survey asking you what you want in terms of digital stuff. Make sure to vote for Mega Man Legends.

Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers has been announced for a North American release. Get excite!

Jeff Neuenschwander talks about the statuses of Elite: Dangerous, Meriweather: An American Epic, and Barkley 2 in this week’s Crowdfunding Spotlight.

Steve Baltimore talks about why the Vita is definitely worth your time and money.

Final Fantasy V is coming to iOS. What could possibly go wrong?

One of our staff members shows us something special that Nintendo of Europe sent out to him.

Itoi’s working on something related to the Mother franchise. Get excite!

I rage at Nintendo about how they’ve been treating the Wii’s Virtual Console over the past couple of years.

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy is getting a sequel in Japan. Now if only the first game would get an international release.

Finally, several of the OpRainfall staff members give their top five most anticipated games of 2013.

The post Retro Wrap-Up: Decemberween Edition appeared first on oprainfall.

They want to know which downloadable content you are most interested in. They have put a survey up that gives you the power to tell them exactly what it is you want. The survey, which doesn’t take too long to complete and doesn’t seem to ask any intrusive questions, includes things like Mega Man, Street Fighter, Viewtiful Joe and many others. Do you find yourself more interested in an original IP? There is an option for that as well. Seeing Mega Man Legends 1 and 2 as a choice of something that may one day be available as downloadable content put a huge smile on my face. These games, which are kind of rare, would then be available to the masses. Don’t forget to let us know in the comments below which games you want to see.

Source

Do the Survey Here!

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