RPG Rabbit Is Pleased to Report That Undertale Was Absolutely Worth a Second Purchase

Over the holiday season of 2015, I went back home to Virginia to visit my family. It was great to see everyone, but in many respects, it was a pretty miserable trip. For one thing, there are no lattes in my hometown, but the larger issue was that I didn’t really get any sleep for the entirety of my stay. The three hour time difference between Virginia and the West Coast, the fact that my parents’ house was so full of relatives that I had to sleep on a mattress in the living room, and the fact that I was feeling awful because I had been forced by necessity to travel without my medication conspired in a perfect storm of insomnia that prevented me from getting more than two or three hours of sleep a night. This meant that I had a lot of wee-morning hours to kill, and while I spent a lot of them taking long, solitary walks on the nearby golf course while talking to then-brand-new Boyfriend on the phone, I needed something to do in the rest of my downtime.

Enter Undertale.

One of my recently-graduated students sent me a Steam Key for the game during Steam’s Winter Sale. It wasn’t uncommon for me to receive Steam games from some of my ex-students; as soon as the small cadre of nerds in my college writing class discovered that I was a gamer, they clamored to add me to their friends list, something I had only allowed once they graduated and which I celebrated by sending them graduation gifts of weird Steam games (including Hatoful Boyfriend and Secret of the Magic Crystals). They responded by sending me some weird games in return (notably Shower With Your Dad Simulator and There’s Poop in My Soup), but one student thoughtfully sent me a key for Undertale, a game with which I had only a passing familiarity.

I knew it had been getting nothing but glowing press, though, so I installed it, began it, and it enthralled me all through the long dark of my sleepless nights. I loved the idea of an RPG in which you didn’t have to kill anyone or anything, and I thouroughly enjoyed the quirky characters, the font-based humor, and the gorgeous music. (I would in fact occasionally take the raft to the waterfall level and let the music just play while I caught a few elusive hours of fitful sleep.)

The waterfall level was as nice to look at as it was to hear.

Really, everything about the game was charming, but after I beat it, I never really went back to it to get any of the other endings.

All of this perhaps explains why I was so damn excited when Fangamer announced that they would be releasing an Undertale Collector’s Edition, which I immediately preordered for my PS4.

I think it’s pretty great that Fangamer exists to bring physical editions of popular digital games to the masses, as well as posters, t-shirts, and other assorted collectables. It’s a pretty great time to be a gamer, and the fact that companies like Fangamer can thrive is really indicative of that. They certainly know how to make this girl part with her money.

Worth the parting.

It was the offer of a music box that sealed the deal for me.

Especially an attractively packaged music box.

I’ve always enjoyed the tinkling, nostalgic, slightly creepy tone of music boxes. And this one definitely sounds a little creepy.

I don’t know whether the dissonant tone is by design or whether I just got one that is slightly off kilter, but I kind of like it. Certainly I appreciate the level of detail. It’s hard to see on the video, but BEST FRIENDS FOREVER is etched into the inside of the locket.

The locket is definitely the coolest thing in the package.

The Annoying Dog is one of my particular favorites from the game, and I was consequently thrilled to find my very own Annoying Dog vinyl decal in the package.

As well as an attractive art card, which I think I have since misplaced. I was too excited about the Dog.

I stuck it on my bike at once.

Right next to my Southern Poverty Law sticker.

The game disc came packaged with a small storybook modeled after the beloved Little Golden Books of my childhood.

I had been under the impression that the book was going to be telling me something new about the story of the game, but, alas, it is simply the opening cutscene of the game in a shiny new storybook format. Still cute.

The real pièce de résistance turns out to have been the two-disc collector’s edition soundtrack.

Which comes packaged with a fold-out booklet of sheet music that is sprinkled with comments from developer and composer Toby Fox.

Despite the fact that I can’t play any instruments, this is still really cool.

Parenthetically related:

I’m a little perplexed by the fact that searching “Toby Fox” in Google brings up this list of frequently searched questions, all of which seem perfectly logical things to ask aside from the first.

Anyway, the soundtrack is deeply excellent. I’ve been listening to it in exclusive rotation with my Hamilton original cast recording for the past few weeks. Not only is the music a veritable feast for the ears, it’s a 107-course feast because that’s how many damn tracks are on those discs. Granted, a few of those tracks are 10-20 seconds long, but most of them are substantial, amazing compositions that have seen me through several long nights of both cleaning my apartment and copyediting. So far, I’d say the purchase was worth it if only just for the soundtrack.

I’ve spent almost a thousand words on all of the stuff that came with the game without saying much about the game itself, but you can click on the first link in the post if you’d like to read my original 2015 impressions of my first playthrough. I am replaying the game on my PS4, and the port is perfectly serviceable with no issues. It’s got PSN trophies, if you’re into that (which I am). It also deals with the aspect ratio difference by providing the option to use surprisingly attractive frames around the gameplay screen, giving you the choice of a dynamic frame that changes as your location changes…

…or an objectively beautiful sepia-toned floral frame.

I’m playing with the dynamic border because I’m curious to see how it changes as the game progresses, but I was sorely tempted by the sepia border because it’s so nice to look at. I seriously sat thinking about the decision for about five minutes and had to ask Boyfriend’s input on this crucial choice.

By far my favorite thing about playing Undertale on my PS4 is the fact that I can painlessly use my arcade stick to control it. The game practically seems designed for the stick. It only requires two input buttons in addition to the joystick, and using the stick to dodge incoming bullet attacks makes me marginally better at the battle system.

But only marginally. I am objectively terrible at this game, and I love it anyway.

This new control scheme makes the gameplay feel more novel, and I’m consequently enjoying my second playthrough very much. I’m starting out pacifist again. We’ll see if my deep-seated sense of virtual guilt allows me to make it through a genocide run.

Anyway, TL;DR: The Undertale Collector’s Edition is absolutely worth picking up if you’re a fan of the game and you happen to have an extra 64 bux lying around. Especially for the soundtrack. Which I am going to go listen to right now. For the tenth or twelfth time.

RPG Rabbit Fightsticks It to Amazon

I didn’t post anything last month because August was Persona Month. And oh, what a month. I had trouble doing anything with my free time that was not playing Persona. And then, at long last…

That’s a lot of goddamn hours. I’ll probably be up to 200 after New Game +.

Now that I’m done with this mammoth undertaking, I seek to tackle my considerable backlog of games. There’s just one problem:

Oh. Right.

Persona 5 was pretty easy to play with the controller on my lap, but there are a lot of other games I’m hoping to play (or finish playing) that would be very difficult to manage. Besides this, a DualShock 4 isn’t really designed to sit on a lap. Well, I thought, they do make controllers designed for laps. Maybe I should get one.

Thus did I enter into the confusing world of arcade sticks. Or fight sticks, as they are also called, since they are primarily used for fighters. I don’t play fighters often, and I’m bad to mediocre with them (though it might be cool to finally play my Persona Arena games), but it occurred to me that you don’t HAVE to play a fighter on a fight stick. It is just a controller, but bigger. And for laps. That about sums up the things I knew about fight sticks.

I have now learned that fight sticks are really expensive. Like the cheapest one I could find was $60. Most are in the $150 range, but a few strayed into $250 territory. I also learned that arcade sticks do not have all the buttons that one might desire, but each arcade stick also seems to have a different number of buttons. In addition, some fight sticks have “square gates” and others have “octagonal gates.” Some fight sticks have parts that can be swapped out for “Sanwa parts,” which are apparently very exciting parts. I was more than a little bewildered.

After collecting a variety of opinions from the Reddit hive mind, I settled on the Mad Catz Street Fighter V Fightstick Alpha, not because I particularly care for Street Fighter, but because it is the only entry-level option that comes equipped with a stick toggle switch, three buttons that allow you to tell the joystick to function as the left analog stick, the d-pad, or the right analog stick. While switching the stick function would be cumbersome, I reasoned, it would still be less cumbersome than holding a DualShock on my lap. Best of all, the model was available refurbished on Amazon with Prime shipping, so I could save sixteen bux and have it in my malfunctioning hands within two days. I ordered it.

It arrived in a very colorful box festooned with some very angry Street Fighter combatants.

Chun-Li’s legs always seem to be twice as large as the rest of her, which seems anatomically problematic. I mean, her feet are bigger than her head.

The box was labeled on the bottom with an official-looking Amazon inspection label, which I expected to guarantee some level of quality.

Just gaze upon that super official check mark!

The thing was even packaged in what looked like the original plastic, complete with instruction pamphlet.

It also came with a set of different-sized Mad Catz stickers, I guess so you could put more logos on your arcade stick if you wanted to do that for some reason?

I just stuck the big one on my bike instead.

I wasted no time in plugging it into my PS4 to try it out. No fight stick under the $250 price point has a wireless connection, but the Alpha comes with a fairly lengthy cord. My living room is pretty big, so it reaches my couch, but just barely. This creates a very exciting trip wire booby trap for Boyfriend to navigate while I’m using it, but I prefer to think of this as a feature rather than a bug, as it’s very funny. (He has long legs. He can deal.)

The PS home button doesn’t turn on the PS4 like a DualShock does, but that’s a minor quibble. I fired up the system and got ready to try out Exist Archive with a fightstick. But when I tried to navigate over to the game’s icon in the menu, nothing happened. I wiggled the stick in all directions, and I got no response. I tried it in every mode. Nothing. I plugged the thing into my PS3 and then my Steam Link. Nada. I sighed in resigned irritation. Apparently that Amazon “INSPECTED” sticker doesn’t mean very much.

Luckily, Amazon’s returns process is fairly straightforward. I packed the fightstick back in it’s colorful little box, hoping they wouldn’t mind that I had already used one of the stickers. The UPS man came to my door to pick it up the next morning. It took about two and a half weeks to process the damn refund, but I got it, and then I used it to buy a brand new stick of the same make and model. It arrived, oddly, on a Sunday afternoon (has Amazon somehow bribed the postal service to deliver its shit on Sundays, too?).

 

They didn’t bother sending it in a separate box this time around. A greener choice, I guess?

Finally, almost three weeks after the initial purchase, I had a completely functional stick.

I understand that it’s pretty small for a fightstick, but I’m a pretty small human, so I prefer to think of it as RPGRabbit-sized. Reviews online complained that it was too small to fit comfortably on a lap, but it does pretty well on my lap. I do think that a larger person might not find this model very comfortable to use. I like the pleasant clicking noises that the stick and the buttons make when I press them. I wasn’t allowed to visit many arcades as a child, but my favorite part was the big, clicky buttons on the machines, and this brings back some of that nostalgia. The matte finish on the surrounding surface has a nice tactile feeling to it, and it has the bonus effect of likely remaining smudge- and finger-print free.

Conveniently, the thing includes a color-changing lightbar that corresponds with player (ala the DualShock4) and even a share button. The toggle switch gives me right and left stick and d-pad function and there’s two small buttons to the right of the lightbar for R2 and L2, but I’m missing R3 and L3 inputs, and there’s no touchpad.

Experimentation has taught me that the fightstick is perfect for Exist Archive. While it’s going to take a little time to get used to the button configuration, navigation through the world is much easier, and I only need to toggle the stick function when I have to use the menu. It’s also great for platformers, and I can use it in Persona 5 if so inclined, though swapping to the right stick for camera function in dungeons is something I’m not sure I can get used to. I tried to play Final Fantasy XV, and it kind of worked okay, but since the touch pad is what opens the damn menu, that seems like a no go. I’m not actually sure I can play FFXV at all now, but I also wasn’t actually sure I wanted to, so that’s probably not the end of the world.

The stick functions perfectly well on the Steam Link, though I’m still trying to figure out if I can make Steam recognize the stick toggle switch function. I can play Hyper Light Drifter again, but the learning curve is going to be high, especially when it comes to aiming the gun. I expect it’s going to make playing Overcooked much easier. I’m looking forward to trying out Transistor and Bastion with the fightstick, and maybe I could even pick up Pyre. I haven’t tried the stick on the PS3 yet, but I know it’s going to be great for the P4 Arena games, and I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to pick up Dragon’s Crown (aka The Quest for Lady Bigboobs) and play more of that with Boyfriend.

Dealing with slightly crippled hands as a gamer is a huge pain in the ass, but I think this fight stick will help me get back to some of the games I’ve had to avoid. Overall, I’m pleased with the purchase.

TL;DR – The Mad Catz FightStick Alpha seems like a pretty good entry level fightstick for relatively small humans, but don’t buy one Amazon refurbished, no matter how many “INSPECTED” stickers they slap on the damn box.

Update 9/23/17: Playing Dragon’s Crown with the fightstick is a blast. It took me a few dungeon runs to get used to it, but once I did, I think it’s actually more fun with the stick. I can’t cast rune magic, since that requires use of R3, but since I only play the game co-op with Boyfriend, I can make him do all the rune magic. I played some Persona 4 Arena, too. I still have no idea what the hell I am doing in that game, but button mashing is a lot more fun when you have big, clicky buttons to mash.

Update 9/29/17: Amazon dropped the price of this stick about a week after I purchased it to around the price of their refurbished model because Amazon is made entirely of butts.

 

RPG Rabbit Gets Her Paws on Persona 5

Guess what Boyfriend pre-ordered for my birthday?

OH. HELL. YES.

MegaTen is my favorite franchise next to Final Fantasy. It’s hard for me to decide which franchise I like more, though I’ve never bothered to try and obtain the super-deluxe premium edition of a Final Fantasy game, so maybe that says something.

The Persona 5 Take Your Heart Premium Edition will set you back $89.99, and that’s a lot of bux. (It will probably set you back a whole bunch more bux if you didn’t preorder it.) Is it worth that many bux? Well, the standard launch edition is $69.99, and there’s a lot of stuff in the Take Your Heart edition, so yes. It is worth that many bux.

Everything comes packaged inside of this attractive laminated cardboard box. It’s got a fancy magnetic clasp.

Opening the box reveals an exciting smorgasbord of fangirl delights.

Le front.

Obviously, we have the game itself. It comes in this super neat steelbook. I believe you also get the steelbook if you ordered the standard launch edition.

Le back.

I’m a big fan of steelbooks. I think they look cool, they’re shiny, and they’re much more durable than a plastic case. Even the inside is attractive.

Next, we have this hardcover art book entitled Persona 5: The Aesthetics.

I appreciate the hard cover. It’s going to look very nice on my shelf. The pages inside are matte rather than glossy, but the art is crisp and colorful.

Paging through it is going to be fun, and if I decide that I’m going to need to do some cosplay, this is going to be an excellent reference.

It’s a Persona game, so it goes without saying that the soundtrack is going to be awesome.

Haven’t listened to it yet, but I’m looking forward to rocking out to it in my car. It seems to me that if you’re selling your collector’s edition for 90 bux that you could spring for the extra 75 cents or whatever for a jewel case for your soundtrack CD instead of a cardstock envelope, but I guess it gets the job done. A lyrics booklet would have been cool, though.

One of my favorite inclusions is the Morgana plush.

As you can see, she’s not very big. My hand is here for size reference, but disclaimer: I have very small hands. So she’s probably even smaller than you’re thinking. She’s cute, though, and I’m really excited about this particular mascot character. Persona 3’s Koromaru was stupid adorable, and Persona 4’s Teddy was creepy as hell, but a talking kitty named after a powerful and dangerous Arthurian sorceress? YES PLEASE.

Speaking of danger, Morgana comes with her own disclaimer.

Huh. Apparently she’s both flammable and unsuitable for children. Sounds like my kind of cat.

Last, but certainly not least, we’ve got a Shujin Academy school bag.

I was expecting the bag to be on the small side and probably cheaply made, and I was correct on both counts. It’s too small for my (admittedly huge) laptop, but I could keep my Dungeons and Dragons stuff in it. Also, it will be great for the aforementioned cosplay. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s lined inside.

There are no interior pockets or anything, which is a little disappointing, but not unexpected. It’s really not a bad little bag. I could use it as a purse. Bonus: I’m pretty sure it’s waterproof.

So there you have it. The Persona 5 Take Your Heart Premium Collector’s Edition. Worth it? I would say so. Worth it now that you’ll have to pay a scalper’s price on eBay? …Ehhh, maybe? But I’m satisfied. Boyfriend’s satisfied.

Boyfriend even got a bonus in the form of the bag in which Amazon wraps its gift purchases. He has re-appropriated it as a super creepy face mask.

See? The Take Your Heart edition has something in it for everyone.

 

UPDATE 7/26/17: So it took me 20-30 hours of gameplay to realize that Morgana…is male? Neither the name nor the English voice actor in any way made that clear, but, uh, sure? I mean, I guess he keeps talking about how hot Ann is, and I guess a lesbian or bisexual mascot character was too much to hope for, BUT STILL. Disappointing. And confusing.

Also, contrary to my expectations, that academy bag is remarkably durable and roomy, as it turns out. I’ve been using it as a rehearsal bag for the summer Shakespeare play in which I’m performing, and I can fit my script, my 20-pound Norton Shakespeare Complete Works, two paperbacks, ten comic books, pens, pencils, and a tupperware snack container in there with a little room left over.

RPG Rabbit Achieves DDR Pad Nirvana

Since my parents weren’t the kind of parents who let me play video games or watch T.V. through most of my childhood, they had to find other ways to keep me entertained. This meant, among other things, that I went to dance classes. And not unwillingly, mind you. My smaller self was all about ballerinas. I dreamed the dream that I imagine many uninformed little girls dream about being a ballerina, a dream that persisted until I was old enough to understand exactly how much goddamn work goes into being an actual ballerina. From then on, I just thought it was fun to make my body do neat things while getting to wear a costume with a fuckload of sequins on it.

My favorite thing in ballet class was the part where we got to take turns practicing a single kind of step across the entire dance floor. I liked to try and make each grand jete or chasse or…uh, the leg-changy jumpy thingie? (It’s been awhile.)…look better than the last. My least favorite part of dance class was the dreaded combination. Our instructor would stand up in front of the class and model a set of steps that we were supposed to be able to repeat. As long as she was standing in front of me, doing the movements with her back to me in the same direction as I was doing them, I was fine. I was a great dancer. I was in the groove.

The minute she turned around to face us, or worse! the minute she started calling out the movements with directions (“Left! Now right!”), I transformed from what I imagined as a graceful gazelle into a stubby-legged giraffe with six left feet tied in knots.

Dramatization.

I don’t know if other people have this problem, but I don’t understand how someone can hear the word “Left!” and instantly know which way to go. How do you know which way is left? Do “left” and “right” have a feeling? I have no idea. I have to really think about it every time I want to know which way is which. “Left!” shouts the dance teacher. Okay, I think. Okay, so which hand do I write with? I wiggle both hands. Oh, okay, it’s this one. Okay, so now the OTHER way is left! Go that way! But by the time I am done thinking that, everyone else is already two steps ahead and going a different way! It makes learning choreography a bit challenging. When I was still young enough to not care what other people thought, my mom draw a big L on my left ballet slipper, but once my sense of shame grew in, I stopped letting her do that. While I do enjoy just dancing to music in my own groove, there is something intensely satisfying about moving in choreographed steps that perfectly match a song, and I really did like doing it when I could get it right. I could do okay with a lot of practice, but as much as I loved dancing, it was very stressful to try to remember choreography while also desperately thinking, Right or left? Right or left?! RIGHT OR LEFT!!!?

Well, I can’t tell my left from my right, but I can follow arrows.

You see where this is going.

I love DDR because it lets me dance in a way that feels choreographed without my having to remember every step or which way is left. I just get to move. And, oh, how I can move now!

Boyfriend texted me this image while I was at work:

I was in a meeting, so I had to not make high-pitched noises of excitement, but it was a near thing. I have discussed my DDR dance pad travails at some length on this blog. I’ve been through a lot of pads in the past three years. After my Red Octane pad starting ghosting, I bought a foam core DDR Game Energy pad, and it had a misfiring left arrow out of the box. Same thing happened with its replacement. I had some better luck with DDR Game’s Tough Universal Dance Pad, but although I didn’t have issues with ghost-stepping, its thin and unsatisfying dance surface was irritating, and I had to readjust its position after every song. This past Christmas, my grandmother sent me some money and told me to buy something really nice for myself with it. So I did.

Behold the Omega 4X Precision Dance Pad:

Precision Dance Pads is a mom-and-pop-style operation which appears to be the culmination of one man’s dream: to make a durable DDR pad that didn’t ghost, didn’t require extensive knowledge of electrical wiring to maintain, and didn’t weight 300 pounds. I heard about the company through the Crypt of the Necrodancer devs, who have a plug for the company’s custom Necrodancer pads on their website. My interest was piqued, and after doing some research, I desperately wanted one, but I didn’t have an extra $365 lying around until I was able to match Grandma’s generous Christmas contribution this past December. Finally, it has arrived! So let’s talk about it.

First off, let’s get this out of the way: this is not a cheap pad. $365 is a lot of dollars. That’s why it took me almost two years to finally get around to buying one of these things. However, let’s put that price in perspective. The aforementioned Tough Universal pad set me back about $75. While this is a considerably lower price, I expect to get a maximum of six to eight months of moderate use out of a good soft pad before it starts ghosting. That adds up after awhile. There are a lot of metal pads out there, but they’re not cheap, either, and where the hell do you store that thing? Boyfriend and I live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. A metal pad would take up like 20% of our total available space. Ergo: $365 seemed a fair price.

Once the purchase was made, there was a good, long wait. I expected a good, long wait — it does say on their website somewhere to expect at least six weeks processing time — but they apparently had a fire in their warehouse in December, and this bumped things back even further. By this point, I had already waited years for a dance pad that didn’t suck, so an extra month or so didn’t seem like a big deal. I guess if you’re the kind of person who is used to Amazon Prime, the potential wait might drive you a little crazy, but it’s my understanding that these people make each pad to order. While this adds to processing time, it also makes it possible for them to do custom images. I seriously considered getting Boyfriend to help me make a bunny-, Totoro-, or Zelda-themed design using their template, but the company already offers a startling number of customization options on their website, including two Necrodancer designs, a pad that looks like a SNES d-pad, a design involving a disco ball for some reason, and also a…squirrel?

I am admittedly perplexed as to the genesis of this design, but it’s stupid adorable, and considering the colors, I just went ahead and decided in my heart that this was secretly a custom Squirrel Girl skin.

The color scheme is even consistent!

So there’s the first point in its favor: this is, without a doubt, the cutest dance pad in the history of ever.

Yesterday evening, when I arrived home from work, the glorious package was waiting for me. I dragged it into the room with the computer, and proceeded to tear into it. It was a surprisingly labor-intensive package to open. The pad appeared to have been wrapped in a flattened cardboard box and then covered in an entire roll of packing tape.

A bit unconventional, but it got the job done. The pad arrived in perfect condition. In addition to the pad itself, the package contained a bubble-wrapped packet protecting the control box.

This is another ingenious customization option that the company offers. They build their own control boxes, and they are modular, so you can select the control box that works the best for you. Despite the fact that I mostly play Stepmania on Boyfriend’s fancy PC, I also have a PS2 copy of In the Groove that I like whipping out every once in awhile to take advantage of its far superior workout mode, so I opted to pay a little bit extra for the multi-tap control box.

This allows me to connect the pad to a PC, PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube. According to the company’s hilariously snarky FAQ, you can get PS3, Xbox 360, or PS4 control boxes on special order. So, if Sony starts putting out new DDR games, I have the option to get a second control box for my PS4. Swapping the box is as simple as plugging in an ethernet cable. My multi-tap control box seems solidly built and likely to last, but if anything were to happen to it, I can easily purchase a replacement on the website. They have replacement sensor pads, too. I’m a big fan of companies that sell replacement parts. It usually means that they expect their product to last.

The pad is less than an inch thick, but it’s surprisingly hefty. The pad’s smooth graphical surface is held onto the plywood backing with heavy-duty velcro.

Though I haven’t taken it apart to look at the sensor plates inside, it’s clear that I could do so easily should the need arise. The backing is much more functional than fancy.

It’s just a piece of plywood that’s been painted black. It makes the pad heavier than I expected, but it’s still perfectly manageable for this relatively small woman to handle, and because it’s so thin, it slides right behind the couch and against the wall for storage. I suppose some tech aficionados might take issue with the lack of polish, but again, mom-and-pop operation. These people are clearly more interested in function than they are with form.

Let’s talk about that function, shall we?

Set up was stupidly easy. Plug and play. The drivers had no trouble installing, and while I reflexively went into Stepmania’s joypad config menu to set it up, it seemed like all of the buttons were already properly configured. Time to start dancing!

This pad is so, so good. So good. It took about two songs for me to get used to the new surface. It’s weirdly smooth for a dance pad. Arcade pads have arrow buttons surrounded by a metal lip and probably some screws, and they are so obvious you can feel them through your sneakers. The pad I’ve been using for the past six months, the Tough Universal pad, has textured arrows that are incredibly comfortable to feel through both socks and shoes, though I didn’t like using it barefoot. This new pad feels like a slightly springy wooden dance floor, and it’s almost perfectly smooth. You can kind of feel the sensors, but finding them mostly comes down to reflex. For this reason, I think this might be a tricky pad to use for a beginner, but once I made the adjustment, I loved it.

I like hard pads because you can so clearly hear the rhythm you are tapping out with your feet, but I dislike having to stomp like you do at the arcade. It’s satisfying and fun for a few rounds, but it starts to wear on me for long-term play. I like being able to glide from arrow to arrow on a soft pad, but a soft pad lacks the satisfying tap-tap-tap of the rhythm. This pad gives me the best of both worlds.

I played for about an hour and a half last night. After an hour or so, my feet started to hurt a bit. I was in socks, so I tried putting on my sneakers to see how that might affect play. While shoes made things more comfortable, and also made it sound like I was tap-dancing (which was awesome), I sacrificed some accuracy because I couldn’t feel the arrows. I tried shedding both shoes and socks, but I could only get through half a song barefoot, so I went back to my socks. The company’s FAQ suggests putting some foam under the pad if you find it uncomfortable, and since I kept the interlocking foam from my last broken foam core pad, I think I’ll try that tonight.

Are there any drawbacks to this pad, other than a price that some people might be unable to afford? Not for me. The pad did randomly disconnect a few times last night during play, but only while I was in the menu. While that might be something to do with the control box, I am inclined to think it’s because Boyfriend has too much crap plugged into his USB ports. If the issue persists, I might have do do some troubleshooting, but as of now, it hasn’t affected play.

Speaking of Boyfriend, he seems to have found the only true problem with this pad, and this may be a problem unique only to him and his very tall brethren: if you have size 16 feet, hitting arrows accurately seems to be a bit tricky. Now to be fair, this is a problem that Boyfriend has always had when playing DDR, as let’s be real, nothing is designed with size 16 feet in mind. (Like not even shoes. We have to special order all of his shoes online.) However, with most dance pads, he can feel out where the arrows are enough to mostly keep his feet in line. He had a lot of trouble keeping his feet on the correct arrows while using this pad. This morning, when he came home from work, he asked wistfully, “If those dance pad people make all their dance pads themselves, do you think they could make me a big foot dance pad?” Perhaps that’s something we’ll have to pursue.

In the meantime, though, the point is moot. He’s not going to be able to pry me off of my Precision Dance Pad long enough to get a turn himself. In fact, it’s ridiculous that I’ve spent so much time writing this blog post. That’s two hours I could have spent playing DDR.

My inner child will never be a ballerina. But playing DDR on a pad this good? That almost makes up for it.

RPG Rabbit Enters the Next Generation

At long last, the PlayStation4 is mine. (THANKS, BOYFRIEND.) After a surprisingly sedate Black Friday scramble, we took advantage of GameStop’s deal on the Uncharted 4 bundle, netting a free copy of The Last of Us: Remastered for our trouble. The original plan was to get in on Kohl’s PS4 deal, which was admittedly rather less straightforward but would have netted us $75 in pretend money that we could only spend a week later. Kohl’s, however, seems to have stocked an approximate total of 2.5 PS4s, so they were long gone by the time we got there. On the whole, I preferred GameStop’s game-in-the-hand deal.

Neither Uncharted nor The Last of Us are my kind of game (which is why I am going to watch Boyfriend play those), but lucky (?) me, I’ve owned Final Fantasy Type 0 HD for over a year, after having preordered it with the express purpose of gaining access to the Final Fantasy XV demo that I loved so much, so I also had a game to play. A visit to our local library allowed us to snag a few more to try, and I downloaded a few demos from the PlayStation Store, too. My next-gen odyssey has begun!

The PlayStation4 Slim itself is quite a nice piece of hardware. It’s much smaller and lighter than I was expecting, even for something calling itself the “Slim”. It’s so quiet. Its operation is not dissimilar to the PS3, but its UI is rather more intuitive. Here are some things that I really like about the PS4 as a system:

1. It allows me to suspend my game while I open another application and holds my place until I return to it. (I can almost hear Boyfriend hollering from the other room, “What, like PCs have been able to do since forever?!“)
2. I can take my own screen shots with zero effort. (Boyfriend: “You mean like on a computer?!“)
3. Finding my friends is much easier with simple Facebook integration.
4. The DualShock 4 is insanely comfortable to hold, it has a touch pad, and it lights up, which is neat. It’s got a headphone jack in the controller itself, which is just fucking brilliant. You plug a pair of headphones in to the controller in your hand, and suddenly you are no longer at risk of waking your partner in the next room. The sound quality is quite nice, too! The lack of a Start button is, however, continually confusing to me and just seems on some level to be full of a deep, existential wrongness. How can a controller exist with no Start button? Madness. In addition, the battery life is significantly shorter than that of the DualShock 3. And man, Sony, why you gotta make these buggers so expensive? Having to throw down sixty bux for a second controller seems a little excessive.
5. The console has a “rest mode” which conserves power, downloads things, and charges the controllers, something that is clearly necessary given the short battery life.

It’s the games that make a console worth having, however, so let’s talk about the ones I’ve played so far!

World of Final Fantasy Demo

This is one of the games that persuaded me that it was finally time to make the upgrade. (The other is, of course, Persona 5.) While my copy of the full game hasn’t yet arrived, I really enjoyed the demo. The gameplay consists of good old turn-based combat with menus (<3!) with a monster collecting mechanic a la Pokemon. Your party consists of two characters, Lann and Reynn, who in battles are stacked with a bunch of other Final Fantasy creatures, like so:

Creatures (called Mirages) come in Small, Medium, or Large, and they need to be stacked in that order. Lann and Reynn have the ability to be either Large or Medium, so they have the option to stack two smaller Mirages on their heads or ride on a Large Mirage themselves. As you can see, I have elected to ride an Ahriman while having a Moogle on my head, a thing I never knew I wanted until it was an option. Each stack of creatures can use any of the abilities present in the stack, so experimentation is highly encouraged. Each Mirage has its own skill tree, so I am going to have all the fiddly bits I ever wanted. Also, I can ride a Behemoth around, so what’s not to like here?

Unravel Demo

I also tried out the Unravel demo, a game starring a little dude made of red yarn exploring an old lady’s back yard. It’s a really cute concept, and it appears to be a pretty solid puzzle-platformer. I always appreciate platformers in which I don’t have to worry about being attacked while attempting to land jumps, so I quite enjoyed my leisurely jaunt through the first level. The environmental puzzles seem logical, and the yarn mechanics are fun and varied. You’re made of yarn, but you can also use your yarn to swing from trees, rappel up and down furniture, and create ramps.

The game is very pretty to look at, and the music is soothing. I wasn’t floored by the game, but I might pick it up at some point if it’s on sale.

Arslan: The Warriors of Legend

I didn’t really know what to expect from this game. I saw it on the shelf at the library and grabbed it because I thought it might be an interesting JRPG. Spoiler alert: it is not.

Now I’m not going to lie, I didn’t play a whole lot of this game before becoming bored, so maybe it gets better, but given the half hour I did play, the game appears to be about Prince Arslan (Boyfriend: “Wait, that’s supposed to be a guy?!”) learning to be a warlord despite the fact that his dad King Wossname is a huge dick. I understand that the game is based on an anime called The Heroic Legend of Arslan, and like video game adaptations of movies, there are very few video game adaptations of anime that are any good. This one does not appear to be an exception.

The game plays a bit like Dynasty Warriors. Mostly I rode around in circles on my horse, mashing a single button to murder thousands of clones of the same dude. Like I said, boring. I took it back to the library.

Tearaway

This game is bloody adorable, made by the studio behind the equally adorable Little Big Planet. The game is essentially Little Big Planet 2.0 only without the platforming and with the addition of some world-repair mechanics by way of Okami. The upshot of this is that I like Tearaway much more than I liked Little Big Planet, because while I suck at platformers, Okami is one of my all-time favorite games. The game preserves many of the things I enjoyed about Little Big Planet, though, like the fourth wall-breaking narrators and the character and world customization aspects. The idea of using your DualShock 4 lightbar to repair the world with cleansing light is equal parts dorky gimmick and genuine fun, especially when you get to blind the NPCs.

My favorite use of the lightbar so far is when I got to use it as a spotlight for a play that some of the NPCs were putting on. I’m also a big fan of the papercraft aesthetic that Media Molecule has created in this world, and I love the endless customization options, because it means that I was able to make my avatar look like a bunny at the first available opportunity.

That alone gives the game an RPG Rabbit stamp of approval.

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD

I am still trying to decide if I like this game.

I want to like this game. For one thing, I threw down sixty bux for the damn thing over a year ago for the express purpose of playing Episode Duscae, and we all know how that turned out. I played a little bit of the game after playing the FFXV demo, but I was only able to get through the first hour or so before I had to return my friend’s PS4. Coming back to the game now after having played and watched several other PS4 titles really hammers home the fact that this is a very ugly game.

It would have been an ugly game on the PS3. Frankly, I’m mystified as to why it was ported to the PS4. It seems like an odd choice. I mean, I’m glad it made it over to the states, but the game seems explicitly designed as a handheld experience.

That being said, there’s a lot to like. After a few hours of practice with the battle system (particularly the all-important “dodge” command), I’m enjoying the fast-paced action. I like having so many interesting characters to choose from for my party, even if keeping them all leveled and learning their different button combos seems intimidating. Also, chocobos, let’s not underestimate the majesty of chocobos.

I’m also weirdly happy that the game includes a good old fashioned world map, even if it’s also really ugly.

The music is pretty great, and there’s lot’s of fiddly bits to keep me occupied, what with leveling everyone’s skills and completing side quests. Time will tell if it will hold my interest, particularly after I have World of Final Fantasy around to play.

I have a lot of things to keep me occupied on my new console. I have more games on the way, and there’s more on the horizon. (Don’t even get me started on Persona 5 and Ni No Kuni II…) I might even consider trying out some Twitch streaming, since the capability is integrated into the console. And someday when I have an extra five hundred bux lying around, I might be able to get a PSVR.

It’s a good time to own a PlayStation 4!

RPG Rabbit Discovers That Buying a New 3DS XL Is a Convoluted Pain in the Ass

Yes, I know that GameStop is evil. Unfortunately, they also have a lot of cool shit for sale, and some of that cool shit is cool shit that no one else sells. I offer as proof of this theory of cool shit the recently-released Hyrule Gold Edition of the New 3DS XL. Well, damn. That is one attractive piece of console hardware. I had promised myself that I would not upgrade to the newest generation until an exciting enough model appeared. Lo and behold, such a thing had appeared. Shiny, shiny gold featuring a beautifully-detailed etching of the Wingcrest? I could not resist. Since the damn thing was both a “GameStop exclusive” and a “limited edition,” I feared that if I waited on this too long, I would not be able to snap one up before they became only available on eBay at exorbitant prices. Besides, GameStop was running a deal! If I traded in my old 3DS, I’d get $100 towards a New 3DS XL! Awesome! And I could transfer all of the data from my old 3DS to my New 3DS! Rad!

Oh, wait, except that I needed both the old and the new system to make the transfer? And I couldn’t trade in the old system without making the transfer first? This was a veritable Ouroboros of a transaction. So I turned to my best friend, the Internet, to solve my dilemma. The Internet delivered an answer of jackass proportions.

Step One: Go buy a New 3DS at full price from GameStop. Take it home.

Step Two: Transfer your data from your old 3DS to your New 3DS. This will take more than two hours.

Step Three: Take both the New 3DS and your old 3DS back to GameStop the next day. Return the New 3DS. Trade in the old 3DS. Immediately re-purchase New 3DS.

Step Four: Profit?

I have followed these steps. I purchased a New 3DS.

I had to admit, it looked even better in person than it did on the box. It is a most pleasing shade of gold and has a slightly different profile than its predecessor.

I then spent a great deal of time waiting for the data transfer to take place.

This was tedious, but at least I could distract myself with a delightful little animated representation of tiny Pikmen fragmenting and rebuilding my files. I mean, I could if I had no life. I read a book instead.

Tomorrow, I get to trek back to GameStop to wave my receipt, return, trade-in, and repurchase this console that I have already customized to my liking in an utterly ridiculous dance of bullshit. What makes this particularly irritating is that it is demonstrably unnecessary. Nintendo is able to remotely restore your account in the event that your 3DS is stolen, and assuming that you have backed up your save data, the new system will function as your old one. The one difference is that you will have to re-download software from the eShop, but that seems slightly more convenient than multiple trips to GameStop and an impressively convoluted merchandise shuffle. Oh, Nintendo. You are like a beloved, elderly uncle that gives us neat presents, but then makes us sit through an interminable, recursive story that is a tedious waste of everyone’s time. This metaphor, though apt, may be slightly labored.

After the transfer, I was pleased to discover that when I opened my New 3DS, it looked like my old system had been cloned. Every program was where it belonged, all my data secure, all matters in order. It was as if the soul of my old 3DS had leapt into a new, more vigorous body. I can’t believe I am waxing poetic about a game system. It was pretty cool is what I am saying.

Is the upgrade worth it? It would be worth it alone for the improved 3D experience. Infrared cameras are able to track your head movements and adjust the 3D accordingly, meaning that you no longer have to hold the system completely still in order to achieve the optimal optical illusion. It makes playing games in 3D for long periods no longer a chore. It’s kind of magical. I have noticed that things load faster, though it’s not such an improvement that I would rhapsodically praise it. I have not yet played something that required the C-stick, but it seems like a potentially useful addition. The screens seem brighter, the speakers are louder, and the cartridge slot is no longer positioned in a way that I will potentially dislodge a game cart during play.

It is going to take some getting used to having the stylus pop out from the front. It’s beyond foolish that an expensive  electronic device doesn’t come packaged with the adapter that charges its battery. Also, the shiny, shiny gold plastic is a fingerprint magnet. It is, however, a lovely object that I am glad to own. As more New 3DS-only titles are released, I hope to be even more excited to own it.

Now, please excuse me. I need to go catch some more Yo-Kai.

RPGRabbit Treats Herself to the Best 3DSXL Case Ever

Once upon a time, my most prized DS Lite accessory was my playthrough case decorated tastefully with an embroidered seal of Hyrule. I used that thing past the point that it fell apart, only abandoning it when I upgraded to the 3DSXL. There weren’t really any 3DSXL cases that I really liked. I ended up with a hideous pink plastic thing that I picked up on clearance. I thought it was dorky, but it was highly functional.

Also, it was only a dollar. That really had more to do with it than anything else.

I wasn’t able to find any other case that I liked as much as my seal of Hyrule case.

UNTIL TODAY:

Behold its majesty. This is probably the nicest game case I’ve ever owned. Although it only has enough cartridge pockets for two games, there’s plenty of room inside of the DS case for a separate cartridge case. I consider this my reward for successfully coding a game. I can finally carry my 3DSXL around in a style appropriate to its excellence.

RPG Rabbit Accidentally Buys the Wrong Game Because of Inconsistent Naming Conventions

I was very excited to get a call from my local game store this afternoon, telling me that a copy of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax had finally come into the store. It was even the collector’s edition! Needless to say, I was stoked! I had a whole free evening in which to play it! I got home and opened it! I looked at all my neat collector’s goodies! I opened the manual!

Wait, what now? General Teddie? P1-Climax? I don’t remember any of these things from Persona 4. Damn it, is this something else I missed from Person 4: Golden? Or..oh. Oh wait. I see.

Despite the fact that Persona 3: FES is an updated, expanded version of Persona 3 and Persona 4: Golden is an updated, expanded version of Persona 4, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is not an updated, expanded version of Persona 4 Arena. No, it is instead a direct sequel. To a game I have never played. Because, SILLY ME, ATLUS, I should have totally expected you to switch up your naming conventions.

So now, instead of playing this awesome oh-just-kidding-i-am-a-sneaky-ninja-sequel of a game, I am patiently waiting for the original game to download. Thank Dionysus for the good ol’ PlayStation Network! Saving my uninformed gamer ass!

Oh well, at least I have this sweet Teddie punching bag to kick while I am waiting.

RPGRabbit Makes Her Yearly Pilgrimage to GameStop’s Black Friday, Buys Too Many Games Again

My friends and I went en masse to GameStop’s Black Friday sale this year. Mostly we were there to purchase my neighbor a PS4 Black Friday Bundle and my husband his own 3DS XL, because he was understandably jealous of mine, but I got myself several games, too!

It was undoubtedly the friendliest Black Friday event I have ever attended. Our local store opened at midnight for the occasion, but my rural southern Oregon town could only muster about eight other gamers excited enough to arrive early to line up. My friends and I moseyed on up to the storefront about ten minutes before midnight, and we had no problem acquiring all the game-related goods and services for which we had come. In addition, I picked up a copy of Persona Q: Shadows of the Labyrinth for my 3DS and Xenoblade Chronicles for my Wii. I wanted to pick up a copy of Theatrythym Final Fantasy Curtain Call (which has got to be the worst and weirdest name for a game in history, but whatever) for $20 off the list price, but was stymied in my efforts by the fact that my local GameStop apparently had not bothered to stock any copies of one of the games featured in their own Black Friday ad. I forgave them once I got home and realized I could just buy the game for the same price on their website, but now I have to wait 5-8 days to play it!

I was lucky enough to have a four-day weekend for Thanksgiving, so I got a chance to play both of the games I did get in-store, and damn, they were worth every bit of the conspicuous consumption required to get them.

First of all, the first run of Persona Q comes with the last 12 cards of the Major Arcana of the Tarot as they are represented in the most recent Persona games, and that is just cool. It is admittedly a little annoying that the marketing departments involved decided to spread all 22 trumps across two separate game releases, and that I would have had to also purchase Persona 4 Arena Ultimax in order to acquire the entire set, but I appreciate the decision to include such a cool bonus for fans. The cards are surprisingly large as well, almost the size of my hand.

The game itself is impressively amazing. It’s a spin-off game of both Persona 3 and 4 in which both casts meet and interact somehow, which seriously sounds like the premise of some terrible fanfiction, so I was expecting the fanserviest fanservice that had ever fanserviced instead of a new, awesome, standalone entry in the Persona series, but I was only about 33% correct. Yes, the game is a vehicle for fanservice, and the interactions between the characters will make absolutely no sense if you haven’t played both Persona 3 and 4 and remember the events pretty clearly, but underpinning the fanservice is an unexpectedly excellent and satisfyingly complex set of game mechanics.

Remember Etrian Odyssey, that strange first-person map-drawing dungeon-crawler? I wrote a review of the demo of one of the later games in the franchise where I said that I found the mapmaking surprisingly fun, but that the plot didn’t seem interesting enough to keep me drawing maps for upwards of 30 hours. Well, apparently if you throw some Persona characters in an Etrian Odyssey game, that is what will keep me drawing maps for as long as you would like me to draw maps. Because damn, I am really enjoying drawing maps while Akihiko bickers with Shinjiro about protein powder.

In other news, did you know that searching “Akihiko and Shinjiro” gets you pretty much nothing but yaoi fanart?

Atlus is shamelessly ripping off their own IP in this spinoff, and I don’t really care, because the result is so damn fun to play. I get to explore dungeons and make maps, and also fight Shadows and fuse Personas? Fuck yes, sign me up! The combat is standard Persona 3 and 4 fare – exploit your enemies’ weaknesses, gain bonuses, kick ass, wash/rinse/repeat – but combined with the exploration aspects, it somehow seems fresher. In a poorly-rationalized twist (it has something to do with faaaate), the Protagonist no longer can swap his Persona out at will; instead, the entire cast can equip “sub” personas that can be equipped like any other accessory. These sub Personas provide stat bonuses and allow the use of more skills, and they level up independently of that character’s “main” Persona. It’s a new way to use an old mechanic, and I appreciate the variation.

Lastly, the game is gorgeous. Modern Persona games ooze with cell-shaded, pop-manga stylishness, and this one is no exception. Everything – the storefronts, the dialogue boxes, the menu screens – is colorful and aesthetically pleasing. It’s almost more impressive because the game easily looks as good as its PS2 and 3 counterparts, and it’s sitting pretty on the 3DS, a handheld. I will say that the 3D effects are pretty lackluster during dialogue and shopping portions of the game (the backgrounds look weirdly blurry, and the character models seem to almost sink into the backgrounds instead of popping out like you’d expect them to), but the 3D is excellent in the first-person dungeon crawling and the battles. I’ve only been in the first dungeon so far, but it looks amazing, like a living, three-dimensional popup book designed by Dave McKean.

This game is absolutely a must if you’re a Persona fan. If not, well, I think the gameplay can stand on its own, but the plot and dialogue might be confusing enough to be downright alienating for someone who’s never before touched a Persona game.

I’ve been wanting to play Xenoblade Chronicles for some time. I loved Xenogears, its weird, ponderous, pretentious-but-amazing PS1 spiritual predecessor, although I haven’t played any of the Xenosaga games. I was super excited when Nintendo published Chronicles and localized it for North America, but I kept pushing off playing it because I wanted to finish Skyward Sword first. Well, I still haven’t finished Skyward Sword, so sue me, but I’m glad I started playing this game!

Xenoblade Chronicles is a cutscene-heavy sci-fi action JRPG, which is about what I was expecting from director Tetsuya Takahashi. The game is set in a strange world where the Homs (humans) and other organic life forms live on the back of a mindblowingly huge titan named Bionis. Apparently, Bionis is eternally locked in struggle with a mechanical titan of equal size and strength named Mechonis, and his evil, robot children like to fly over to Bionis and murder its inhabitants. The Homs live in technologically-advanced “colonies,” though, so I’m betting they’re secretly from spaaaaace. That also seems a safe bet because that seems like a bit of a thing for game director Takahashi.

The battle system is a combo-driven mashup of menus and MMO-style skill cooldowns. It took me about an hour to figure out what the hell I was doing in combat, because the help windows that pop up to explain what’s going aren’t very good at doing their job, but once I finally figured out that pink abilities make enemies susceptible to being “toppled,” and green abilities make the enemies “topple,” and once they’re toppled, you can really fuck them up good (similar to how enemies must be “staggered” to make any progress against them in the FFXIII games), I started having a blast. The battles are quick, satisfying, and strategic, because the placement of your character in relationship to the monster you are attacking is important to ensure your abilities do the most possible damage. You can switch between different characters in your party, and the AI does a pretty excellent job of fighting with the members that you aren’t directly controlling.

The voice cast is really solid (and apparently includes Jenna Coleman of Doctor Who fame, although her character has not yet been introduced), and the music is amazing. Like really amazing. Takahashi apparently hired a crew of six different composers, and damn, did they ever do their jobs! I would listen to this battle music all day. It sounds like The Black Mages covering all the best bits from the soundtrack of Star Ocean: Til the End of Time. It’s so good. I really cannot express to you in words its amazing, rocking, majesty, so have a listen.

Do you hear that shit? Electric guitars, driving beats, and trumpets? Hell yes, this is the level to which all JRPG soundtracks should aspire.

The game looks pretty good for a Wii game. It’s very nostalgic, honestly, in a way that hearkens back to the very best RPGs of the PS2 era. My only issue with the game so far is its impossible and irritating world map. I have a lot of trouble navigating with the stupid thing, and its marks for the sidequests are really difficult to read.

This could have something to do with the fact that I have my Wii hooked up to a CRT-TV rather than an HDTV, but I really just feel like the side quest markers are usually vague approximations at best.

I was also very grumpy that the single female member of the party gets fridged about three hours in so that Shulk, the protagonist, can get all moody about it and swear revenge on the evil, heartless robots.

Maybe it would be better in video games if we called it getting Aerithed?

I really liked Fiora, and it was pretty badass to see her charge a giant robotic overlord in a robot tank, but I would have liked continuing to have her in my party so I could play as her for the rest of the game even more. Oh well, I’m pretty sure Shulk recruits more ladies later on, but still. Why does it always have to be the girl that gets Aerithed?

So, all in all, a very successful Black Friday was had by all. What’s the coolest gamer thing you got on Black Friday?

RPG Rabbit Wins Ni No Kuni

I didn’t beat it yet, but I won at it.

Observe.

I caught a tokotoko of my VERY OWN. I have named him Totoro!

That is all.