The Smash Ultimate Salt Mines (feat. Byleth)

Yep.  There’s no getting out of this one.

The Street Fighter V “Experience”

Given that this blog is titled “Cross-Up”, you would think that I would have long ago reached a point where I would ask myself “Am I talking too much about fighting games lately?”  Granted, the answer to that would have been “no” precisely because of the title, but whatever.  Beats griping about terrible Final Fantasy games.

Now, griping about fighting games?  That’s something I don’t do very often.  Being salty about losing, sure, but that’s an inherent part of the package -- an unspoken, understood rule for the fighting game community.  Regardless, sometimes you have to gripe about something because you care. You want it to be the very best it can be.  And given my experiences over the past couple of weeks, I’ve got a notion to lay into a game that’s bugging me more than the one featuring my arch nemesis, Jigglypuff.  I mean Pikachu.  I mean Pokémon Trainer.  I mean Greninja.  I mean -- gosh, a lot of the mons in that game are cancerous to me.

All right, enough babble.  Let’s talk about Street Fighter V.

Let’s discuss Devil May Cry V (Part 1).

When I finished Devil May Cry V, I was frustrated.  

Not because I didn’t like the game, oh no.  Of course not; as a wise man once said, I’m absolutely crazy about it.  My issue is that, despite doing relatively well throughout my first playthrough (and thus on the standard difficulty), I ended up botching the series-standard mid-credits fights.  Did that lock me out of content?  It doesn’t seem like it.  But those are bragging rights -- no, a sense of accomplishment I wanted, in case I never got the chance to play the game again.

Even though I’ve long since cleared DMCV, I want to play it again.  On a harder difficulty, especially.  Why?  As another wise man once said, I need more power.  I want to improve -- sharpen my skills and steel my will, so I have the talent and courage needed to truly pull off my own unique combos.  The stuff truly worthy of the announcer bellowing “SMOKIN’ SEXY STYLE!”  My pride is on the line here -- and I have some of the finest gameplay I’ll likely see all year to thank for that.  

Now I guess it’s up to me to explain why.

YOU CANNOT KILL ME

I AM OMEGA (spoilers)

YOU CANNOT KILL ME

I AM SUBHUMAN (also spoilers)

Kingdom Hearts Voltimania: -A fragmentary passage- (Part 1)

All right, let’s cut straight to the artery of this thing.  The official title is Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep: -A fragmentary passage-, but I’m never going to call it that in full because 1) it’s clumsy at best, 2) it has Birth By Sleep in the title, which makes me wretch, and 3) the game’s timeline is all over the place, so “0.2” is only somewhat fitting.  I mean yeah, its 0.2 plus the compilation’s 2.8 equals 3, but it’s not as if KHIII made it on time.  And even with the two PS4 compilations -- The Story so Far notwithstanding -- there’s still nothing pertaining to Unchained/Union X save for Back Cover.  Which is…inadequate, to say the least.

This is a lot of talk about meaningless garbage to start off a post that focuses on 0.2’s gameplay.  So I guess I’ll go ahead and get focused.  And also, decide to alternate between calling it 0.2 and what it really is, AKA Kingdom Hearts III: Ground Zeroes.  And also also, embed another wrestler’s theme.  Because if it’s worth doing twice…

Kingdom Hearts Voltimania: Dream Drop Distance (Part 1)

Let’s start 2019 off right [citation needed] -- with a big dumb post on Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance.  Because we’re less than a month away from the fated release of Kingdom Hearts III, and…well, in order to know where we’re going, we have to know where we’ve been.  Fingers crossed that neither route leads to the edge of a steep cliff.

Also, let’s go ahead and pretend the title of this miniseries is a clever play on KH Ultimania, i.e. the Japan-only (naturally) information books/strategy guides tied to the series.  Not so much Hulkamania, for myriad reasons.

That said, I’ll gladly use this chance to embed Hulk Hogan’s classic theme song.

Street Fighter V, 1.539 Years Later

I just love the fact that I dumped 100,000 points of Fight Money into unlocking one of the earlier Season 2 characters in Street Fighter V literally three days before the announcement of the next character -- who then proceeded to drop two days later.  Like, I was under the impression that I’d have more time to play, both to get used to my new choice (Kolin) and earn at least a little money towards the next (Menat).  NOPE.  Boy, do I feel like a clown.

Anyway, Street Fighter V.  It’s been out for a good while now, and both it and Capcom have taken heat.  More, and more, and more scorn has been flung their way, to the point where -- if you go strictly by the comments sections online -- one out of every three people hates the game.  Is that a fair assessment?  Well, having put some time into the game, and with so much time passed since its 2/16/16 release date, I think I need to put my own thoughts out there.  At the end of the day, I can only speak for myself.

Still, let me say this to start: the people that like (or love) SFV are entirely justified.  And the people that are disappointed in (or hate) SFV are also entirely justified.

But enough of that.  Here’s what I think.  Ready?  Here we go!

Let’s discuss Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (Part 1).

So I finally beat Uncharted 4.

*clears throat*

Some people live their dreams

Some people close their eyes

Some people's destiny

Passes by

There are no guarantees

There are no alibis

That's how our love must be

Don't ask why

It takes some time

God knows how long

I know that I can forget you

As soon as my heart stops breaking

Anticipating

As soon as forever is through

I'll be over you

*sigh*

CRIPES.

Let’s discuss Final Fantasy XV: Platinum Demo.

You didn’t think I was going to let this one slip away, did you?  Please.  Even though I’m not “the Final Fantasy guy”, I’m gonna go ahead and be “the Final Fantasy guy” for a hot minute.  I’ve even got my hat ready.

But before I go into the demo, there’s some Square-Enix stuff and news worth staring in the face.  By extension, there’s a question I need to ask.  It’s a very important question, and one that I’m surprised I never directly asked before now.  So brace yourselves.

Let’s discuss Until Dawn (Part 2).

Previously on Let’s discuss Until Dawn…        

Oh man, I am so qualified to talk about this game, because I think horror movies are dumb.

Now it’s up to the gang to solve the mystery…and it’s up to you, the player, to keep them alive.

My theory is that Supermassive Games didn’t want to make a horror game.

*ominous sound*

I think the biggest thing about them is that I like what they represent instead of liking them because of who they are.

But let’s give Supermassive Games the benefit of the doubt.

*jump scare*

You should judge a game by what it is, not what it isn’t.

*cut to black*

…That would have worked a lot better if I had a cutscene to sync up with those words.  But forget it.  Have some more words and forget about it.  And also HAVE MORE SPOILERS.

Let’s discuss Devil May Cry 4 (Part 1).

So who’s better, Dante or Nero?

Don’t answer that yet.  I’ll get back to it…eventually.  But for now, let’s move on to something else.

Let’s discuss Mortal Kombat X (Part 1).

I’d just like to take a moment to mention that in my first match of Mortal Kombat X, I managed to pull off a Fatality just by mashing a couple of directions and hitting a button.  It was complete luck, but somehow I found Jax ripping open Reptile’s head and stuffing a cigar into it like an ashtray.  Almost immediately, my brother accused me of looking it up on the internet beforehand -- the greatest of sins to be committed when trying out a fighting game raw.  (Though it’s worth noting he spent a fair amount of time with vanilla Marvel 3 before our inaugural match.)

I think at that stage, he drastically overestimated how much I cared about winning.  As I’ve said, I’ve never cared about Mortal Kombat, and anyone who assumes that I hate it is justified in doing so.  I’m not saying that anyone who does like it is wrong; it’s just that it isn’t for me.  I’ve got an armada’s worth of biases, and unfortunately they’ve kept MK from even setting sail on the metaphorical ocean. 

But hope springs eternal.  Maybe this, NetherRealm’s latest attempt to bring in new fans and old loyalists, and offer up the TRUE next-gen fighting game, is the chosen one.  Does it have what it takes?  If nothing else, can it win me over at last?

Well, let me say this to start: I think I get Mortal Kombat now.

Final Fantasy 13-2: Good Morning, Kupo! (Part 7)

Before we get started, there’s something I want to talk about -- and thanks to Sirrah Yllib for bringing this to my attention.  It looks like I haven’t brought up anything about the music yet…and a part of me’s tempted to leave that bit of the game out.  I do all right when it comes to music (listening to it rather than playing it), but I’m no expert.  And when it comes to 13-2’s music I don’t have all that much to say.

It’s serviceable.  There are a couple of good songs in there, and a couple of…well, let’s call them weird songs and leave it at that.  The other songs?  Honestly, I don’t feel like they’re worth mentioning.  They’re not terrible, but you won’t see me shuffling off to YouTube to try and figure out what that one song during that one scene might have been -- kind of sad, considering that I’m almost always listening to video game music when I write these posts.  Still, I wouldn’t chalk it up as another failure of the game.  Not yet, at least.  While a good video game practically necessitates a good soundtrack, 13-2’s inoffensive music doesn’t do quite as much harm…unless of course, you’re the sort who puts extreme value on music.  In which case, express disappointment as needed.  I know I have with…you know…everything else.