Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

You didn’t really think they’d give the cover to Professor Layton, did you? Not when there’s a new Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles game afoot! Saddle your chocobo, paint your moogle, and read-a-long!

Issue #245, September 2009
featuring Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (Wii), Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (DS), Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll (Wii), The Beatles: Rock Band (Wii), Dead Space Extraction (Wii)

Hard to believe that Crystal Bearers will be the sixth Crystal Chronicles title. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long since we tried gathering four GBAs for an evening of connectivity cable madness on the first game in the series. Crystal Bearers has been up and down since 2006, and now Nintendo Power has it pegged for release by the end of this year. NP calls it “one of the most exciting Final Fantasy games in ages” and that it has a “dynamic new logo.” Seriously. They called out the logo.

FFCC:tCB takes places one thousand years after the GameCube original, which is one of those KOTOR-like timelines that always give me fits. You live in the year 2009. Go try and interact with someone from the year 1009. Now explain to me why these games always exist in a thousand-year evolutionary freeze frame, where basic technologies never advance and everybody still speaks the same language.

Now, Crystal Bearers has given the world of Crystal Chronicles some changes in those thousand years. The Lilties are now the top dog (they were the little tanks from the first game) and they seem to have gotten taller. They’re sort of Goron-esque now, which is not a compliment. The Lilties have killed off all the Yukes (the ugly stork people), so the game’s first thrust of plot comes as a lone Yuke re-appears in the world. Probably hell-bent on revenge.

The gameplay hook revolves around lead character Layle being telekinetic. Using the Remote as a pointer, you can pick up items (and people) in the gameworld and toss them around. Layle is actually largely free of weapons, since he can pick up pretty anything and throw it. The telekinetic controls are used for exploration and in combat. NP also suggests the game has no RPG elements that you would expect of a Final Fantasy game. No spells, no inventory, and only a minimum of equipment slots. The development team is aiming for a solid action-adventure title with the depth and backstory of a RPG.

Motion controls are also used in light gun sequences and to pilot an airship. Itahana name-checks snowboarding, dancing and farming as additional waggle-action. It seems sort of minigamish to me, but I would expect that the traditionally heavy Final Fantasy story and free-roaming exploration will add much gravitas to all the shooting gallery dancing harvesttime snowboarding bits. FFCC:tCB does not use Wii MotionPlus, because the game does “not require heightened sensitivity.”

Is there a reason why Nintendo Power can’t name Peter Griffin?

You know, back when The Simpsons, Beavis & Butt-head, and Ren & Stimpy were the Moral Majority’s favorite animated targets, Nintendo Power had no trouble naming those shows.

What is with you fanboys and Wii MotionPlus? You’re worse than 360 kids and Natal. In this issue’s letter column, there is a raft of solicited ideas about how MotionPlus could be used to make gaming better. Look, I bought the damn thing, and I am ALL FOR new stupid control accessories (I’m still pissed that Nintendo bailed on the eReader and allowed Sony to debut a camera-assisted trading card game. Hello, Pokemon TCG?!?!) but the supposed “ideas” are the same silly crap that we all heard back in mid-2006. Here’s some gems for you:

• - 1:1 swordfighting in Zelda!!!!111!!
• - Tail swinging in Godzilla!!!111!!
• - Fight using a staff!!111111111
• - LIGHTSABER OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!
• - Warioland: Shake It would be more accurate!!!!!11111!!!!

Come the f on. You mean to tell me that NOW, all of a sudden, we’re all so terribly disappointed in how the Wii Remote has worked for the last three years? One reader says that WarioWare: Smooth Moves did not follow movements well enough. Another says that MotionPlus would bring better bow-and-arrow aiming to Twilight Princess. A third wants MotionPlus sword slashing in Sin and Punishment 2.

Here’s the news, gang: These games are not magically bad now that MotionPlus exists. NOBODY was complaining about the archery controls in Twilight Princess or cursing inaccuracies in Warioland: Shake It. And who here thinks that the normal, unsexed Remote is functionally incapable of swinging a sword in S&P2? Go ahead and enjoy new games that leverage MotionPlus, but don’t jump on the bandwagon that somehow Nintendo’s launch day technology is now not up to snuff.

I wish somebody would go ahead and release that 1:1 swordfighting game that everybody thinks they want, so we can all find out how miserably tiring and un-fun that would be. As a community, we need to get past this.

These no doubt apply to all versions of The Beatles: Rock Band, but here’s some of the subtle changes Rock Band fans can expect from the Fab Four edition. The whammy bar will not change the guitar tone, and you will not be vamping any custom drum fills. Both of those features were removed to avoid screwing up the Beatles sound. Spoken parts no longer affect your score. And while harmonies will not hurt you if your singers can’t nail them, there will be a harmony trainer which will help you learn what George was doing. Since the Beatles did not record their vocals independently, Harmonix has put a flute into the trainer that will help you isolate each specific harmony track.

But at least one Beatles-breaking change had to made to appease the marketplace: Paul’s Hofner 500 bass replica is now right-handed. And it has a whammy bar. Hardware director Daniel Sussman claims the company “had a heated debate about these things for weeks.”

Download Staff Picks: Swords & Soldiers (WiiWare), Water Warfare (WiiWare), Space Harrier (Arcade), Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again (DSiWare)

Top scoring Wii review: Wii Sports Resort, 8.5 (all scores out of 10)
Top scoring DS review: Space Bust-a-Move and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, tied at 7.0
Lowest rated Wii review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, 5.5
Lowest rated DS review: Ant Nation 2.0

A sign of the old Nintendo Power. – Here’s the kind of fanboy dorkishness that NP really doesn’t need. EIC Chris Slate claims to finally have been “bit by the Game Boy bug” while he helped on the mag’s Game Boy 20th anniversary article. Really. I suppose it’s better than the usual unnecessarily random GameCube slam.

From back before canon was king. – In November 1992, Super Star Wars arrived on the SNES allowing Luke Skywalker to lightsaber banthas and Han Solo to leap over TIE fighters. It is simultaneously odd and refreshing to think that, at one time, this decidedly non-canon game was about all the Star Wars product available. Lucas’s brand defense team would string you up if you suggested perverting the continuity like this today.

Random does not equal win – In a victory for those of us against giving your creative product a purposefully random or ironic name, WiiWare platformer Eduardo the Samurai Toaster was given a middle-of-the-road “Hmmm…” rating.

Oh, THAT’S why they didn’t review it. – Reader Pojo asked why NP never reviewed Wii Music, suggesting that they didn’t want to give it a low score and hurt holiday sales! NP bowed out of the discussion with the old chestnut that Wii Music isn’t a game per se. This must be a new editorial policy, because NP once gave Mario Paint a 3.9 out of 5.

Project Natal, scooped. – Ubisoft has a new fitness title coming (hooray!) that uses a USB camera to guide your exercising. Your Shape is due this very winter, ensuring that camera-assisted exercise games will be old news by the time Natal sees retail.

In those days, the pixels were larger. – The original Game Boy screen was 160 x 144 pixels. Today, your Instant Messenger buddy icon is probably bigger than that.

And you said it wasn’t a system-seller. – WWE champ Kofi Kingston just bought a Wii “two weeks ago” for Punch-Out. He claims to have run (like, jogged) to Best Buy to get it. He has never played Super Mario Sunshine, one of his favorite gaming characters is Solid Snake, and when he can’t play himself in a wrestling game, he picks the Undertaker.

Next month in Nintendo Power… “big upcoming games” like No More Heroes 2! Not much of a tease, I know.