Double Down on DS

NOTE: This op-ed is based on very loose hearsay, speculation, and partial evidence. The very nature of the Nintendo NX is subject to change between the time of this writing and its eventual release. 

The console market is in a place of uncertainty for the first time since the early 1980s. Sure, the uncertainty principle has followed consoles from day one, but if we look at the facts, the years have seen a dwindling number of advantages consoles have held for consumers over PCs in the last fifteen years. The Dreamcast introduced a built-in modem in 1999, whereas previous attempts at internet support have been aftermarket accessories like the Satellaview or the Sega Channel. Despite this, the idea of distributing games over data lines was years away from viability, with the 64DD, PS2 Hard Drive, and Phantom Console's graves as trail markers. Now, hard drives and internet connections are standard, along with digital storefronts and infrastructure for downloads and even streaming. Put simply, the line between consoles and PCs has been completely blurred, the only true differences having more to do with politics than hardware. PCs are still fundamentally the wild west while consoles are gated communities. Literally anyone can develop a PC game, and even get it released through a proper online store like Steam or Humble Bundle. Console developers have to offer their firstborn just to be put on a waiting list for a development kit. Granted, that line is blurring, but there's very little point in waiting for the treaty to be signed if the arms race is already over by way of stalemate. 

Between Miitomo and the runaway hit Pokemon GO, Nintendo has shown they're not above going to third parties for hardware, the taste of Philips out of their mouth at long last. Still, what we've always loved about Nintendo is how they go their own way, for better or for worse. Though they may have tread lightly in bringing the NES to America, compromises have been few and far between, much to the chagrin of developers, publishers, and even gamers. The Super Nintendo sold well enough, but if not for the Mortal Kombat blood controversy and Sega looking the other way to EA bypassing normal publishing channels to bring Madden to the Genesis, the SNES could have buried the competition as the NES had done to the likes of the Master System and Atari 7800. The N64's use of cartridges (in)famously drove away powerhouses like Square to Sony's bed, alienating those RPG fans who had cut their teeth on the SNES. Again, it sold well enough, but we have to ask what could have been. Similarly, the GameCube was a reasonable success, but now stands as Nintendo's second worst-selling home console, after the Wii U (we won't count the 1973 Color TV-Game since it's a Pong console), owed again to a proprietary format and a reluctance to play ball with third parties. 

Meanwhile, in the portable and handheld market, Nintendo's only true blunder to this day is the Virtual Boy. Otherwise, even the weakest link in the Game Boy/GBA/DS chain has been a license to print money. It's almost hilarious how people would forgive serious flaws like a blurry, spinach-green display on the original or a dim-as-moonless-midnight screen on the Advance and still send the things flying off the shelf. It took Sony pouring buckets of money and marketing into the PSP to even make a dent in that wall (Rest In Peace, Neo Geo Pocket Color). It finally took the iPhone to make Nintendo sit up and notice they weren't alone in their dominance of the handheld market. As much as I laughed at the prospect of iPhone/Android games and still hesitate to call it a serious platform, just like consoles, the line is blurring and it's all getting better. I still love my Vita, and I still have my original PSP, and if I could only have one, I'd take either of those over the best iPhone or iPad any day. The problem, the final hurdle for mobile phones and tablets to overcome, is the interface. Touch controls and gyroscopes do not give the same satisfying, tactile feedback as buttons or even knobs. Nintendo seems to understand this. That's why I think they're making a legitimately smart move in presenting the NX as a souped-up gaming tablet, following patterns laid down by the likes of the NVidia Shield or the Wikipad or some of Sony's Xperia devices. Some may be scratching their heads, but I think this move is the best decision they've made in years. They're still going their own way as they always have, it's just down a trail they blazed years ago. 

Sega Power Partner (from Tommo) review

This thing rocks. Usually these more novelty-inclined gadgets, especially the flash drives tend to fall short on the productivity side of things, favoring style over substance. This pack, however, is an absolute bargain at 60USD for 9000mAh of power. To give you an idea of what that amounts to, in order to put it to the test, I plugged in both my phone (an Xperia Z Ultra) and PSVita after both had been completely spent. It charged both devices fully and still had enough juice left to top off a Bluetooth and a pair of wireless headphones (All Sony, by the way, because I'm a shameless fanboy). Had the phone and Vita been on while charging, I may have come up a bit short, but as endurance runs go, I'd say it performed admirably. 

The unit itself is bulky, but not unmanageable. A far cry from those little "boosters" you get from those bargain bins at the Walgreen's, it's about the size and shape of an early iPhone with a bit more heft in the weight department. It definitely favors purses, messenger bags, and the like versus cargo pants. Then again, if you're in the market for a power supply with more oomph, the devices you need this for probably don't like your pockets, either. The casing is a hard plastic that frankly feels more like metal. The design is the array of white grid-lines which adorned the early plastic Genesis game cases before they went to cardboard and red stripes. For added protection, it comes with a silicone sleeve molded to shape of the Mark I Genesis console.
Power level is displayed through five blue lights, visble through the "cartridge slot" of the Genesis cover, which is a clever design choice. The first of the lights is a simple "working" light whenever the unit is connected. It is also touch-sensitive, serving as the power butto. The other four represent the remaining charge, and carry on the Sega motif by looking like the chaos emeralds of Sonic fame. Nice touch.
Accessories include a velvet drawstring pouch with a small partition for the handful of cables it comes with, one long and one short. Both are flat, red, and fit very loosely in the three connectors on the top of the unit. On more than at least one occasion, I did find that a cable had come loose during charging, which was a tad annoying. Meanwhile, other USB cables feel like a tight fit, especially my Vita's cable. It took a bit of forcing, and I was worried about snapping the connectors. There is also a small, thicker white cable, but it is a mini-USB, which neither of my devices use, so I couldn't test it. 
As a rule, these batteries usually give out after about 500 charges before they begin depleting their max (Tommo's site says about 75% is the next step down). Unlike some other USB power supplies, the internal cells are not replaceable. So, when this thing goes, that's it. However, given that I've been using it about every other day, that's at least a year away. After that, I'll be upgrading my Genesis to a Saturn.

Concept of Deceit

The trouble with games getting retitled upon release in various regions is that it you may completely miss a release because you literally don't know what to look for in searches or what to ask for in stores. For weeks, I'd been seeing trailers on Classic Game Room's trailer channel for a game called Conception, specifically, Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars. I had no real interest in it, so when I saw something else called Deception IV: Blood Ties, with somewhat similar-looking video thumbnails and artwork, I skipped over it. In fact, it wasn't until today that I decided to check on its official page in the PSN store. 

I suddenly felt very, very dumb. 

In my defense, the Deception series has gotten the Final Fantasy treatment when it comes to installment names, and I don't merely mean "IV being II" or "VI being III." I mean, Final Fantasy Legend and Mystic Quest-levels of "where did this come from and where does it belong?" 

Backing up, the first game in this apparently very long series that I played was Kagero II: The Dark Illusion. When I first heard of it, it was called Code Kagero. That article mentioned it being a sequel to a game called Tecmo's Deception, an early Playstation release from 1996. The games are a kind of action/strategy/puzzle synergy, feeling like an odd mix of Resident Evil and the skate park editor from the Tony Hawk games, if you can picture that. I always liked describing Kagero II (which was released as Trapt in 2005, but I refuse to call it by that name) thusly: 

"You play a beautiful princess in a gorgeous mansion... who makes a deal with a demonic spirit to give her the power to fight off bounty hunters after she's framed for her father's murder."

The setup is that you're being pursued by bounty hunters (and anyone else allured by the price on your head) who generally move fairly slowly, yet hit very hard. Your only real defense is running. Apart from that, and thanks to your demonic contract, you have the ability to pull booby traps out of thin air. When you enter a menu, the game freezes and the room gets broken up into a grid. You can set three different types of traps: ones that come out of the ground such as bear traps, ones that fall from the sky like boulders, and ones that come out of the wall like arrows. Each trap is assigned to a controller button. You decide where they're placed in the room, triggering them with the assigned button. The trade-off is that you have to lure the baddies close enough to you to get ensnared without getting hurt yourself. The other issue is that some traps take longer to set up than others. So, if a trap doesn't work, and you decide to assign another trap to pick up the slack, you'll have to stall. The traps can often work in conjunction with the mansion's architecture and decor, including torches, stained-glass windows, electric chairs, spike pits, and mechanical alligators, to name a very small sample. 

I frigging love this game. 

I freely admit it appeals to the sadist in me. As much as I'm not big on fantasy settings, there's something perpetually intriguing about castles, dungeons, secret rooms, and hidden passages. I also love the moral ambiguity, the way you question your actions (and delight in them) as your victims mutter pensive final statements as they meet sticky ends, to say nothing of the greater plot behind the scenes involving your father's murder. It definitely has its problems. It gets very repetitive and falls victim to the dominant strategy conundrum. Points earned help you purchase different traps, but you'll often find yourself sticking to a pattern of the same handful of devices, leaving you very little incentive to experiment. Still, the pros outweigh the cons and I consider the game a masterpiece. It was a fairly late release on the Playstation 2, and I was convinced I wouldn't see another entry in the series for some time, if at all. 

Now, nearly ten years later, not only does it get a sequel, and not only does it get to come stateside, but it completely flies under my radar with a name I don't recognize, and barely makes sense as a title. 

In fact, Blood Ties isn't even the proper name of the game. It's Dark Side Princess (which sounds way more badass). Even the IV isn't accurate as the game is labeled as a direct sequel to Kagero II. Remember how the Rambo series' first film is simply called First Blood, with Rambo being the "over title" of First Blood, Part 2, with Rambo III dropping the "First Blood" part altogether? Kagero II is technically Deception IV, but it's called Kagero II because it follows Kagero: Deception III. Is it any wonder this series is so obscure not only in America, but in Japan as well? 

So, given all I've gone on about the series, how I felt dumb, then excited, then confused, then back to excited, the question remains: will I be picking up the game? Not right away. There's a few dealbreakers that sour the package despite all the praise I foisted upon it. 

Firstly, the game is produced by Tecmo, who recently merged with Koei. I wasn't happy about this merger, as Tecmo saw fit to insert characters from its Ninja Gaiden franchise into Koei's Warriors Orochi games. That should make me happy, as the Samurai Warriors series is another staple of my PS2 top 5. However, it simply makes me sad. 

That's a minor gripe, though. The biggest problem is a matter of time and money. Deception IV has been released on PSN for Playstation 3 and Vita, but is not cross-buy. As much as I get why not every game gives you both the console and portable version for a single asking price, I feel like this is a huge misstep for a series that didn't really catch on outside of a very niche market in the states. A game like this really deserves to be played on the PS3, but I've been favoring my Vita of late. Whichever version I got, I wouldn't be completely happy with it, but their combined price isn't exactly worth it to me. The other issue is simply that I've reached a point where there's too many games out there and too many games in my library for me to spring for another. Child of Light is on its way, along with Hyper Light Drifter, and Wayforward will soon be delivering on the new Shantae game I preordered during the Kickstarter campaign. As far as current playing habits go, I've been really invested in Pinball Arcade, specifically the Gorgar and Black Knight tables. Speaking of pinball, Zen Studios recently announced a new 4-table pack for the Star Wars line, including a Han Solo-themed table and even one focusing on the Droids. So much to do, so little time. Wait for me, dear Deception IV... or come to Playstation Plus, whichever comes first. 

Here's a recent trailer for Deception IV: