Some video game narratives are good enough to spawn several sequel and prequel games. For better or for worst. Here are my personal favorite 6 video game series as of right now. #6 - The Paper Mario series: Paper Mario, Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door, Super Paper Mario and Paper Mario Sticker Star. #5 - Shin Megami Tensei Persona : Persona, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Persona 3: FES, Persona 4 Golden, Persona Q, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. Also...Persona 4 Dancing All Night... #4 - Ace Attorney Series: Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Justice For All, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies. There's also the Miles Edgeworth spin-offs. #3 - Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue's Last Reward. #2 - Danganronpa: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls and Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. #1 - Kingdom Hearts: KH1, KH CoM, KH2, KH 358/2 Days, KH Birth By Sleep, KH: Coded and Kingdom Heart 3D: Dream Drop Distance. Honorable mentions: Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem, Professor Layton and Disgaea.
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#6 - 6WX The most aggressive Sonic player you'll see. He's among the few Sonic's I actually enjoy watching. Places well. #5 - Mr R: The world class Sheik. In my opinion he's the best Sheik player in the world. At least from what I can see. He's movement is solid. #4 - False: One of the smartest players in my opinion. He'll be a force to be reckoned with soon. Sheik and Luigi main. #3 - Dabuz: Despite how people talk about him, you cannot deny this man the credit he deserves. He has completely mastery over his character and a master of defensive play. #2 - Anti: Doesn't go to many tournaments but always wins (until CEO). He plays the whole cast but I usually see him do work with Mario. #1 Nairo: This man is a walking highlight. He has no fear and will get the sickest kills.
Super Smash Bros. Kirby Super Smash Bros Melee Young Link Super Smash Bros Brawl Pit Super Smash Bros for 3DS Rosalina and Luma Super Smash Bros for Wii U
Ness E3 was a bust for me this year. Aside from about 5 games in total, I really wasn't too impressed. Personally I thought Microsoft had the best conference and I have never owned or will ever own an Xbox. But anyways, let's talk Kingdom Hearts. Square Enix announced two Kingdom Hearts games at their conference. Yes, one of them being a new trailer for KH3 but let's start with Kingdom Heart Chi. The game no one was waiting for. It's a mobile game that allows you to make your own character and join one of the Keyblade factions who fight for the remaining light. It takes place around the time of the Keyblade War. This game is a prequel to the entire series and will directly tie into Kingdom Hearts 3 meaning, you shouldn't skip it. It's extremely important to the overall plot. But if we're being honest, no one really wanted KH phone game but I digress. Kingdom Hearts 3, like it was in 2013, is still in development. We got no release date and the trailer didn't show much. If we're being completely honest, at it's core, the gameplay is always fundamentally the same. Once you've played one KHs game you've essentially played them all. In the other trailer we saw the guns and using Disney theme park rides as attacks. Not to mention in previous installments, we've already fought the Rock Titan. The most interesting part of the trailer was Young Xehanort and Young Eraqus talking about the Lost Masters. Seemed like a cheap little trailer designed to keep fans satisfied while they work on the game but I WON'T be tricked. But let's talk about the potential of this game. The general story outline is as such: Sora is trying to fort Xehanort by finding a special Keyblade and 7 Guardians of Light while Riku and Mickey look for Terra, Aqua and Ven. I'm hoping Riku and Mickey act as a playable party in a similar fashion of Sora, Donald and Goofy. Will Kairi be fighting with Riku and Mickey or does she have her own role to fill as a Princess of Heart and a Keyblade wielder. What about Lea who can now too, wield a Keyblade? Where will they fit in in the grand scheme of things? If Riku and Mickey manage to find and save the 3 previous Keyblade warriors by mid game does that mean they'll be playable? Or at least party members? Wouldn't be cool to switch between 3 different parties? You'd have Sora, Donald & Goofy, Riku, Mickey & Kairi then Terra, Aqua & Ven. This is a reach and unlikely but something to consider. If this is about the 7 Lights fending off the 13 Darkness' you should be able to actively play to some degree, those 7 Lights.
If Sora is the only playable character in this game then the franchise would have regressed. In most games you can play as multiple characters and in DDD, Riku had more significance to the plot than Sora did. I could speculate for hours about the infinite potential of this new game but at the end of the day, it's not like it's coming out soon so make sure to play KH Chi in the meantime. For any game played competitively, there are tier lists. That doesn’t only apply to fighting games; Mario Kart 8 has a specific weight, car and wheel customization that’s considered the best. Shooting games have guns that are considered to be better than others. But let’s focus on fighting game tier lists. For those who don’t know, a tier list is essentially a list in a fighting game that lists the best characters to the worst character. Assuming the players are at the same level of skill, the player with the better character should have the advantage. Professional gamers for fighting games establish the metagame for fighters and generally get the sense of which characters are the best. Then from there certain characters become viable and most competitive players start using the best characters in the game because it gives them the best chance of winning. Let’s dive in a bit more. All the pictures that will be posted are just the characters I main (meaning the characters I use most) in various fighting games. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like explaining the specifics mechanics of individual fighting games and fighting game jargon so Iook them up. There’s always controversy surrounding tier lists because some people believe in tier lists and some people don’t. Common arguments used for those who don’t think tier lists are really sensible say that the game comes down to skill and mind games. The better player can win with any character. If you’re good enough, ideally you could use the game’s worst character and beat the game’s best character. This isn’t completely false but the player with the worse character has to work that much harder to win. In any competitive fighting game, once a meta is established, that’s primarily what you’ll see. The same high tier characters versus other high tier characters. Another reason this happens is because everyone starts playing the same characters and discovering new tricks and techniques with them while no one really does that for the bad characters. Once the idea that certain characters are bad are implanted in players head, they are that much less likely to even give them a chance. Competitive players play for money and some for a living so they don’t waste time with low tiers. The thing that makes certain characters top tier are usually characters that are created with tools to effectively neutralize or deal with every situation. For example, Sheik in Super Smash Bros 4 can deal with any type of character. Fast, powerful, zoning, she has a great neutral game and can play essentially lag free. Sheik racks up damage quickly, has a good recovery and can gimp lots of characters offstage. Superman in Injustice also has everything. An air dash, a great anti-air, a good projectile, mobility and even awesome damage output. Kratos in Playstation Allstars had a physical counter, one for projectiles, the ability to build AP quickly and great combos making him the best character in that game. As you can see, all these characters were given way too much to make them balanced. But is it a bad thing? I don’t think so. One of the cool things about fighting games is coming up with techniques and strategies in order to beat top tiers. And if you beat a top tier character with a low tier one, the victory is that much more sweeter. Are low tier characters useable? The advantages with coming out with a completely underused character is the element of surprise. Assuming you mastered some unknown tech and skills with said character, you can completely put your opponent in situations they are unaccustomed to dealing with. It’s called not knowing the match up. At a Mortal Kombat X tournament, I was able to get decently far in bracket for a game I don’t own due to people being unaccustomed to fighting Cassie Cage (Hollywood & Brawler Variation). There’s nothing wrong with maining a character that’s not top tier as long as you put in the work to make your character the biggest threat they can be. A lot of characters that are high tier have steep learning curves while others are pick up and play types. For example Mitsuru Kirijo from Persona 4 Areana Ultimax. She's so good, but very hard to use. I think its fair for a character to be really good if mastering them takes time and practice. Sometimes unfortunately, a character is high tier and easy to pick up. Diddy Kong and Luigi are characters that take next to no skill to learn and are top 6 in the game. Ultimately I think you should play a fighting game the way it’s most fun to you. I don’t like using characters I don’t like whether they're low, mid or top tier. I pick characters I like, master them and try to win matches. Whether you adhere to tier lists and play with the best character (or don’t) doesn’t matter. Just win and have fun.
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AuthorNyamekye Hemmings Archives
September 2023
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