Today on Gaming with Killatia we take a look at the xbla and psn game After Burner Climax. Does it do the classic Sega franchise justice? Watch to find out.

Game Review: Battletoads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwNfhSkAJl8

A new review. 3 games in 1 being reviewed, A few minor screw ups, but you should understand what I was trying to say. Hope you enjoy this review. Thanks for watching!

Recorded Right after Mad World by Request.

As you all know, one of my favorite games of all time is Final Fantasy 9. I have even admitted that Final Fantasy 9 was better than 7 as the best game in the franchise. However, it’s not that I don’t like any other Final Fantasy, it’s just that 9 was very close to my heart when I was growing up. Back then, I didn’t even know where to find the other games in the series. This was when I was just a guy trying out different games. I wanted to become an artist, but now that I am into games, I have been trying to find the Final Fantasy games that I want to play for myself. One of them, which I have been looking for, was Final Fantasy 6, which was one of the last great SNES games. I have recently picked it up, but not in cart form. I picked up the game with Final Fantasy 5 that were both part of the Final Fantasy Anthology for the Playstation. I have been playing this game for a while, and it is now my second favorite Final Fantasy game.

The main story of Final Fantasy 6 revolves around a young girl named Terra, who is a powerful soldier from the Empire, on a raid in a mining town trying to find a newly unearthed being known as an Esper. However, the raid doesn’t go well, with the Esper killing the two soldiers she was with, and Terra ending up unconscious. She is later found by a group of Moogles, and a thief named Locke defends her from the soldiers of the Empire. They end up escaping the soldiers and going to the mechanical castle of Figaro in the desert. Terra finds out that Locke is part of a resistance group that is trying to take down the Empire and their evil ways. Terra decides to join the team that is led by the young King of Figaro, Edgar. They are joined by Edgar’s brother Sabin, a hotheaded monk, Cyan, a powerful swordsman, Shadow, a ninja to hire, Celes, an ex-mage general of the evil empire, Gau, a feral child who can learn monster attacks, Setzer, a gambler and airship owner, Strago, an old blue knight, Relm, the granddaughter of Strago who can control an enemy in battle, Mog, a furry bear bat thing who is a geomancer, Umaro, a berserker yeti, and Gogo, a mysterious mime. I think the one thing you will notice right off the bat is that there are A LOT of characters to play as, and it is just amazing, since it gives you a lot of variety and makes you choose who you want to use and such. The main theme of the whole story is interesting since magic vs. machine is a unique theme here, which I will explain later in my review. Though doesn’t anyone find a berserker yeti kind of scary? I mean a yeti is already scary, but a yeti in a berserker class? I would be scared. Anyway, let’s get back to the review… I got off- track there.

The gameplay featured in Final Fantasy 6 is still the same from Final Fantasy 4-9, active-time battle. You basically control a group of 4 fighters and you take on giant monsters, machines, and other stuff. Everyone has their own job system like Final Fantasy 4 and 9. However, there isn’t a limit to what they could do. What I am saying is that it isn’t as restrictive as other games in the franchise. Another main theme of the game is the summons, which are called Espers. They take a big role in the story, which I won’t spoil for people who haven’t played the game. You can equip the multiple Espers through the game and by multiple, I mean one at a time. They each have multiple abilities, mostly spells. Some are learned quicker than others, but it all depends on the character and the abilities. Now, characters like Shadow can learn fire and Umaro can learn thunder. Even though the jobs in Final Fantasy 6 are now not so limited, it does take away from how unique they are, kind of like the level system in Final Fantasy 12. This game still has really good character development, but again, this is Final Fantasy, so of course it has great character development. Everyone however, does have his or her own special powers specific to each character’s job or class or whatever you like to call it. For example, Edgar can use tools, Sabin can perform Street Fighter moves by literally pressing button combos that look like Street Fighter moves, Celes can absorb magic, Locke can steal, Cyan counts from 1 to 10 on whatever attack he can use, and you get the idea. It gives the game play more variety than the older Final Fantasies ever did. No offense or anything of course! Overall you have about 14 characters that have multiple abilities to experiment with or use in battle. For example, even though I can equip Edgar with a sword and such, I always resort to him using his chainsaw since it is one of his most powerful attacks and I don’t need to use MP or anything. I say the only downside is that you can’t use 5 characters in each party like in Final Fantasy 4. I mean Final Fantasy 5 had a reason to only use 4 characters since the game basically gives you literally 4 characters! What is up with Square Enix thing to only include 3 to 4 people?

The graphics, you could say, haven’t aged well since this was when games were moving out of the 16-bit era to the 32-bit era due to consoles like Playstation, Saturn, and Nintendo 64 getting ready to release to the market. Due to me growing up near the end of the 16-bit era though, I get a charming nostalgic feel for the graphics and I think they still look great. Back then, no other game could push the limit on how the graphics on the SNES could look besides Rare and Square Enix back then. Of course, what people like me and everyone else could never forget is the amazing soundtrack. Seriously, there is A LOT of memorable tracks, from the song for Terra to the threatening tune of Kefka. Nobuo Uematsu definitely knows what the heck he is doing when he composes the soundtrack to a game. Now, this game does have some interesting tidbits of info, like in America this game was called Final Fantasy 3 since it was the third game to be released here in America until Final Fantasy 7 came out and the whole “what the heck were you guys doing with the title of the games this whole time?!”. A lot of people also consider this game Square’s swan song on the SNES. right next to other Square classics like Super Mario RPG and of course Chrono Trigger, which I am desperately looking for on the Final Fantasy Chronicles on the Playstation to play and review. Now that I have gotten that all out of the way, let’s get to one of the best features of the game, KEFKA! This villain is amazing and is one of the most iconic villains in all of gaming. What makes him interesting besides his appearance is his personality. He isn’t some emo longhaired guy like Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7. He isn’t some super powerful sorcerer like in Final Fantasy 8. He is just a man, a mentally disturbed man who just wants things done how he wants. Like I said, he isn’t a god, he is just a man and a very very good villain. I wish more villains were like Kefka, but then, if that happened, it be bland and boring. A lot of you might be thinking why I hate Final Fantasy 7. Well, I have a few reasons why I hate it. It’s OVERRATED! I can’t see why people like Final Fantasy 7. I mean, yeah, back in the day it was amazing since it was the first Final Fantasy game in 3D, but today it looks like garbage. The 3D bodies look extremely blocky and the characters are just not likeable enough. They all act like whiny school kids who just got dumped by their girlfriends and failed all their final exams in one day. It all boils down to Sephiroth being a longhaired angel of death becoming a freaking, whiny mama’s boy whose job is to just whine, complain, and of course, be a primadonna. I just can’t see why people like the game. Now, don’t get me wrong, the 3d rendered cut scenes are cool and the music is great except for the theme of Sephiroth. I just can’t stand it and I know that more people prefer Final Fantasy 6 to 7.

Now, it’s time to get down to what doesn’t make this game fully perfect, but it is as close to perfect as possible. I do not like the whole machine theme. While it is more steam punk than future, I just don’t like where this is moving. Have they ever seen a single Hayao Miyazaki film? They don’t go into future stuff like the later games in the series. I will talk more about the theme of future stuff in a later Final Fantasy game review, maybe when I review Final Fantasy 10. I do not like how Sabin’s super moves are pulled, since the Playstation version plays just like the SNES version, you have to use the D-pad. That is one thing that is never going to age well with PS games. It’s really awkward to pull off some of his moves that need to point to a 45-degree angle or whatnot. While I like the graphics and all, some of the close-ups on the pixels do not look that great. I mean, yeah, it’s no Odin Sphere, but that was before that stuff.

Overall, this is truly a great game and is another game to go onto my list of favorite games of all time. You can find this game in multiple varieties. You could hunt down the SNES cartridge, find it with Final Fantasy 5 on the Final Fantasy Anthology disc for the Playstation, and you can find it in handheld form with the Gameboy Advance version. However, I say get the Playstation version since it starts and ends with PS1 full motion CG cut scenes, which still look good in my opinion. I just wish they could go back to these styles of games since it seems like the only good later Final Fantasy games have been 6,9, and 10. Why can’t they just do that? I don’t mind the Kingdom Hearts-style fighting system like in the new Final Fantasy, but I just can’t seem to get enough strength to go and play it. Just ignore Final Fantasy 13 IF you want to and go find Final Fantasy Anthology.

This game gets a 9.7 out of 10



Game Review: Deer Avenger:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLCjzi57niI

This is my return review. Was gonna wait until September 17th, but decided to come back early. I am at 2000 subscribers, which is cool. Thanks to all who have subscribed. Hope you enjoy this new review. Thanks for watching.

Recorded on Aug. 28 during my live streaming.

2009, while having a lot of great games, wasn’t as big as 2007, with releases like Super Mario Galaxy and Bioshock to name a few that defined 2007. However, we did get a lot of A-list titles like Infamous, Prototype, Punch Out!!, Ratchet and Clank Future: a Crack in Time, Muramasa: the Demon Blade, New Super Mario Brothers Wii, Left 4 Dead 2, Brutal Legend, Assassin’s Creed 2, and of course, Batman Arkham Asylum. While those are all great games in their respective genre, one game kind of took over the spotlight for the title for Game of the Year. What is this game that took the world and critics by storm as the best game of 2009? Well, this title is just simply known as Sonic and the Black Knight. No, I’m kidding. That game sucked. The actual name of the game is called Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I have never seen such critical acclaim for a third person shooter. I mean, I enjoyed the first Uncharted even with its small faults that held it back, but check these awards out that this game has won. Best PS3 game of E3 2009 by 1UP.com, Best Third Person Shooter, Best Graphics, Best Story, and Best Single Player Campaign by Gametrailers.com, and multiple Game of the Year awards from other sites and magazines. Gosh dang, this game better be as amazing as everyone says it is. Let’s dive right into what people consider one of the single best PS3 games of all time.

The story takes place with Nathan Drake waking up in a train car, hanging off the side of a mountain in Nepal. It then turns to flashbacks to show what happened to Nathan Drake to get to where he is now. It turns out that he has teamed up with two old companions to find the lost treasure of Marco Polo. However, during this adventure Nathan encounters betrayal, and has to get the treasure while trying not to get killed by a psychopath named Zoran Lazarevic. It then turns into a race to the treasure, kind of like how the Indiana Jones films are set up, except I think I prefer this story to the Indiana Jones films though. While not an original idea, since like I said, it’s like Romancing the Stone or the Indiana Jones franchise, but it works and it is executed really well. Now, I am going to go in-depth with the story of a minute so I don’t care if I spoil it for people who haven’t played this game. The thing with the first game was that it was a good story, but in the end, the twist was, I think, not that good. Don’t get me wrong. Nathan realizing that people who touch the El Dorado statue turn into zombie vampire things is an interesting twist, but I didn’t like it. The same kind of twist happens here in Among Thieves. Nathan is actually trying to find this giant gemstone that Marco Polo found, but then he realizes that the gemstone isn’t really a stone. It turns out that the gemstone is actually blue amber from the tree of life. What happens this time is people who eat the amber turn into these buff blue warriors who guard the tree of life. Now, what I like about this is that it’s a little more reasonable twist than the twist in Uncharted, where it turned the crew of Nathan’s ancestor into creatures. I was expecting something more like the Aztec Indians that were still alive in the final area of the game. It just made me feel like I was playing Resident Evil 4 or 5. In Uncharted 2 however, I think its handled more, since the blue warriors are still strong, but don’t overwhelm you in numbers like in the last game. The story is also longer which means the game is longer, which is always a bonus. Give me a long story over multiplayer any day.

The gameplay featured in Uncharted is more of the same stuff that you would do in the first game. You go around solving environmental puzzles, collecting treasure, platforming, and shooting enemies. The shooting is, of course, done in Gears of War-style third person shooting. It’s basic, but it works well, unlike Dark Void. Another interesting gimmick that the game has added is stealth, but it’s not all perfect, and I will explain later. The fist-to-fist combat has also been fixed better, and it works really well. The multiplayer is nothing that I have ever seen in a game. I have played some Modern Warfare online, but I think Uncharted 2 blows Modern Warfare’s multiplayer out of the water. You get a lot of variety in online modes like a 3 person co-op campaign mode, variations of capture the flag, Horde, and other multiplayer modes that you can find on other shooters. Recently, like a few months back, they have come out with more maps and a new siege mode, but I haven’t been able to play that, so I can’t talk much about it.

The graphics in the game are just amazing. It’s definitely right up there with games like God of War 3 and Heavy Rain, which happens to be two of my favorite games of all time. It is amazing to see all the details, like Drake’s legs getting covered in snow, or when his whole body goes in the water. They put a lot of hard work in this sequel and it shows. The only thing that would be more amazing is after beating each chapter or for each amazing graphical detail you can spot, you would get 100 dollars. The voice acting is also very well done with, of course, Nolan North, Emily Rose, and Richard McGonagle returning in their respective roles, and new actors like Claudia Black, Steve Valentine, and Graham McTavish doing, in order, Chloe Frazer, Harry Flynn, and Zoran Lazerevic. The humor in the game is good, but sometimes it is downright hilarious. Another great thing about the acting is that the script is written so well that you get enlightened by everyone’s past relationship with each other without it being shoved in your face like other games. Overall, the presentation is one of the best I have ever seen on a single game. The music is once again amazing, and I just love it. Composer Greg Edmonson who is famous for the soundtrack for Firefly once again does an amazing job with this game’s soundtrack.

However, there are some chinks in this game’s strong defense that kind of bothers me. The intelligence in the enemies is really questionable. During the stealth segments, it seems like the enemies are just stupid not to notice you’re right there next to them. Granted, the blue Avatar buff enemies are smarter and will come at you with force, but it doesn’t make up for the rest of the enemies in the game. That is basically the only thing I think is wrong with this game, though it makes up for it with enemies who will outnumber you if you stay in one place too long. It makes you push forward and go through the fight.

Uncharted 2 was just amazing to play. This has to be one of the best experiences that I have ever had playing a video game. This is definitely an unexpected addition to some of my favorite games of all time. If you own a Playstation 3 and don’t have this game, there is something wrong with you. I would buy this game on the spot if I saw a copy of it. It’s fun, intense, filled with action, and is all around wonderful to play. Don’t just take my word for it, go check it out yourself

This game gets a 9.8 out of 10

So when is a new Gaming with Killatia coming? If everything goes to plans the first week of September. What about Collectors Edition? Im not sure on that as I have to cut down my spendings on games to pay some bills. However I will get a new one up soon. 

And to end this little update a reminder of my live streaming this Friday at 9pm eastern standard time. If you ever there the last streaming then you would know that we will be playing the original Somic game for the Genesis (or Mega Drive for gamers outside the usa). Hope to catch you all there.

Anyways Killatia sining off!