Cave Story

Cave Story is a freeware game available for download developed by some guy over several years. It is sort of similar to the 2D Metroid/Castlevania games but more linear and story driven. The main character awakens in a cave with amnesia and the story unfolds as he explores. The plot is pretty good for being an independent game developed by one person, it isn't spectacular though.

The gameplay is good, some pretty solid 2D platforming and shooting. There are a total of 9 weapons available, and you can carry up to 5 at a time, though finding them all can be difficult. The difficulty is always reasonable, there are plenty of save points and the learning curve isn't too steep. The last series of bosses can be pretty tough; it took me a few tries but not so many that I got frustrated. There is a secret area which is much more difficult for those looking for a challenge, it took me many tries to beat it.

Anyway, I'd recommend anyone that likes 2D platformers to give this game a try. It doesn't have the polish of a professionally developed game, but it is truly excellent for being made by one person, and it many ways it has the feeling that someone really put their heart into it unlike many other games.

Kanon

My friend recommended this to me and at the time I had nothing else to entertain myself with so I gave it a shot. It turned out pretty good! This anime is based off of one of those Japanese dating games (zzz) like Fate/Stay Night. Let me just say it contains practically no action or fighting of any kind so if that is your interest you won't like this. The premise is the main character (same voice actor and general archetype as Kyon from Haruhi) goes to finish High School at his cousin's High School in another city. He hasn't been to his cousin's in 7 years. I can't really say much else without spoiling things, but there are a lot of girls. The beginning starts off relatively slowly (it sets the foundation for the rest of the story) but things get interesting from there. This anime has its share of happy moments, and also its share of tragic moments; it is neither overtly depressing or bubbly. The ending was very well done, I can't say anything about it though without spoiling things! Anyway, definitely the best of the "harem" anime, though it only loosely fits that definition; I'd give it a watch if you have any interest in that sort of thing at all.

Metroid Prime Corruption

I was looking forward to this game a bit (more than the other Metroid Prime's at least). New system, new controls, hopefully Retro would be able to fix the problems of Metroid Prime 2 and maybe even make a better game than Metroid Prime! Heck, if we were lucky it might even match some of the 2D Metroids...

Sad to say I was pretty disappointed. The game was alright, definitely worth a play. Basically I feel like it tried too hard to be Halo. Metroid games have always emphasized that you are alone exploring a vast interconnected area. This game turned that around, introducing far too many characters (yet not fleshing them out at all) while letting you explore a number of small unconnected areas. On top of this the game was too linear. There were times when you could choose which order to do your next set of objectives in, but thats all there was to do: finish the objectives. In previous Metroids when you enter a new area you are presented with a number of paths, many of which would contain power ups and other interesting stuff. Instead, in this game there is one path which might have a power up or two along the way. This linearness along with the lack of connection between the areas (you could still fly between them with your ship, so it was easy to get around) made the game feel very small.

The items were pretty boring in this game. Although new areas were frequently unlocked by finding new items, at least half the time new areas were opened through story events. This is a step backwards; the great part about finding new items is that not only can you move on to the next area, you can go backwards to old areas and find new stuff. The only new item were the grappling upgrades which were interesting but nothing special. A lot of items that were even in the other Prime games (which already cut out a lot of items) were missing. Corruption only had 2 beams and 2 suits to be gained; even the original Metroid on NES had 3 beams.

The environments were somewhat dull as well. The first large planet is pretty diverse with a number of interesting areas. However, the rest of the environments are too mechanical just like Prime 2. The second large planet in particular was very dull with many of the rooms and areas being almost exactly the same.

As for the last area...

*SPOILERS*

This place was alright I guess. Large amounts of Phazon everywhere was at least more interesting than large amounts of machines everywhere. The thing that irked me about this place the most though was that you lose all of your energy tanks and missiles are useless. So basically all the items you found are pointless. Great. The ending was boring and instead of giving answers just raised more confusion. Why was Metroid Prime...a Metroid and not just a being of Phaaze? What is the connection between Aurora Units and the Mother Brain (who first appeared in Metroid...well before Aurora Units first appeared in Corruption)? ...

*END SPOILERS*

Anyway...if you've played the other Prime's you should play this one just to finish the trilogy. Otherwise...play it if you are interested. Having an FPS on the Wii was nice, but I liked RE4 more. Super Paper Mario, RE4, and Twilight Princess remain my top 3 favorite games on the Wii.