Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

LGR Takes A Portal Back To Elder Scrolls Oblivion

During the middle run of the Playstation 3 I bought Oblivion used from Gamestop and up to that point it was the first time i'd seriously played an Elder Scrolls game. It was a fun open world game but like the recent LGR review of it, I didn't love the Oblivion gate sections either. All that to say, it's a fun game and the LGR review is a good overall retrospective of it and it's DLC expansions including the oft chided Horse Armor.

Since Cheerful Ghost has been rolling along happily for 7 years, make sure to read Greg's review from 2014 if you want even more Oblivion stuff to read.

https://cheerfulghost.com/games/167/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/30/2018 at 08:35pm

Thanks for the link! Gosh, I tired to play it again recently, but it's so hard. I'm amazed I've gotten through it a few times.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/01/2018 at 03:21am

As many hours as I've put into Skyrim (literally over 200 in a single game, and a few more games over 100), Oblivion is still better I think.

Greg, when you say "it's so hard" are you talking about the game being hard or getting past some of the dated mechanics? If it's the game itself, there's a difficulty slider that you can use to basically make yourself mega overpowered right out of the sewers.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/01/2018 at 03:29am

Also, fun story: I started Oblivion on PS3 on the special edition with the major expansions included. I got vampirism (oops) and went on the quest to fix it. As became tradition with Bethesda PS3 ports, this one was buggy in ways that didn't affect the other platforms and I couldn't cure it. At this point it was way too late to start over so I bought the game again. The non-special edition didn't have the bug, so I was able to cure my vampirism and continue on with the special edition.

But I found out that the PS3 special edition didn't even have all the DLC so what did I do? Bought it on 360.

And of course when I became a primarily-PC gamer, I bought it again.

Then I bought the Elder Scrolls collection on PC because it was beautiful and had some neat extra goodies and I wanted it on my shelf.

So I have 5 copies of Oblivion.

And this has been story time with Travis.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/01/2018 at 03:36am

Yeah the game is hard, it scales with you. I guess I didn't realize there was a difficulty slider. Skyrim is easier. I have 151 Oblivion hours on my PC, although I played through it once on the PS3. As for Skyrim, I played it first on the PS3. Then got it for Steam which says I've spent 108 hours. Then I got the Special Edition which says I've spent 173 hours.

But yeah, where I got to in Oblivion last time I played, I was getting attacked by vampires and without a cure disease potion.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/01/2018 at 03:49am

Yeah vampires are annoying in this game. As long as you can pray at a shrine quickly enough you can get rid of it without a cure disease potion. My issue was that I didn't know I had the precursor to vampirism until it was too late.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/02/2018 at 12:29am

I had the same issue with Vampirism. Got it, had no idea what it was and then found out I had to complete a quest to cure it. Walked away at that point.

If I come back to Oblivion I’ll pray more

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The 3DS Will Never Die - My First Impressions of New Super Mario Bros. 2

I remember the first time I saw the original Super Mario Brothers and that memory is burned forever in my brain. As Mario entered the pipe for World 1-2 and the color palette of the level changed to a darker tone, I was hooked. I've been playing Mario games since that point and quite enjoy that Nintendo is continuing to create games in the traditional 2D platformer style under the New Super Mario Bros. series. It started with New Super Mario Bros. on the DS and then then New Super Mario Bros. Wii and I finally picked up the 3DS version I'm playing now called New Super Mario Bros. 2.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 takes everything that worked about the previous games and... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 35: Infinity War Review, Part 2

In the newest episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio yet, we talk about the home release of Avengers: Infinity War, how our thoughts have changed since we saw it in the theater, and the extra stuff on the Blu-Ray.

But because it's us, and we love talking about Star Wars... we talk about Star Wars first.

Watch Lindsay Ellis Epic Three Part Hobbit Review Documentary

Today I found a three part video essay review and documentary piece by Lindsay Ellis and needed to share it. I found the Hobbit trilogy to be interesting yet had a rough time with aspects of it and Lindsay's review does a good job covering it and she does an epic deep dive on how it was made and it's complicated path to theaters. I don't want to spoil her review videos but I will say her series blurs the lines between review and documentary in a very unique way that elevates video reviews to new heights. For instance she travels to New Zealand to interview people involved in local cinema and were involved in the production of The Hobbit. One part I appreciate in... Read All

Say Hello To The Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle

Scene is a dimly lit arcade. Camera follows arcade cabinets and three hip 80's kids playing Captain Commando fanny packs and all.

Kid 1: "Man I love beat em ups wish you could play this at home!"

Kid 2: "Yeah but there is no way this would fit in your house.""

**PORTAL OPENS AND CAPTAIN COMMANDO STEPS OUT AND NODS (THAT HAIR)**

All Three Kids: "CAPTAIN COMMANDO!""

Captain Commando: "So you kids want to see a future where an arcade fits right under your TV."

Kids: "YEAH!"

Captain Commando: "Then come with me to 2018!"

**KIDS RUN THROUGH THE PORTAL**

So I don't want to spoil the rest of the video but it's basically the best video game ad I've ever seen selling one of the most... Read All

The Playstation Classic Is Coming December 4th!

Because Nintendo made a ton of money doing it and fans loved it Sony is releasing the Playstation Classic this December featuring 20 games such as Final Fantasy VII, TEKKEN 3, R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, Jumping Flash! and Wild Arms. Looks like the mini system is very similar to the NES and SNES classic in that features game saves, HDMI output and faithful recreations of the original controller. The difference here is the base unit + 20 games + controller is more expensive at $100 and that's not a bad value at all if these games are something you are looking to re-play. So far Sony has only released details of 5 games on the system with more information to come up till... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 09/20/2018 at 03:35am

I'm highly on the fence about this.

1. I feel like if you aren't announcing the full list of games by the time preorders are available, you'd probably start with your heavy hitters, and these don't get me super excited and make me want to preorder. That kinda makes me worry about the rest of the games, but maybe they're teasing us now, with a big reveal of amazing games to come. Who knows... but that list needs to be amazing to push these because...

2. The Playstation line, especially the first two consoles, sold like hotcakes, and the PS3 is fully backwards-compatible with PSX games except for a couple. There are modern devices hooked up to people's TVs still that can do this well and...

3. The original games are disc based, so they're cheaper than retro carts, with the exception of some rare games. Getting your ideal set of games is pretty easy. Combine that with the fact that most people into this idea probably already have a device capable of playing them, and it's less of a drive to get it.

4. Only one game, Ape Escape, absolutely required the dualshock controller, but those analog sticks made plenty of games way more enjoyable, and this is releasing with the original d-pad only controllers.

So yeah the game list will be the main deciding factor for me, for sure. A secondary factor is whether we can use PS3/4 controllers with direct USB, or PS2 controllers with a USB adapter. It is handy that it comes with two controllers out of the box though.

Either way, I want it, I definitely want it. I just don't know if I $100 want it.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 09/21/2018 at 03:31am

Ouch, yeah I didn't notice that the controllers didn't include the analog sticks. That sucks.

The PSX had a pretty incredible line up of games, so there's plenty of great titles to choose from but these first couple announced games is kinda lackluster.

Let's speculate wildly about what other games will be included because that's fun! I'm thinking one game that could get people excited would be Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/21/2018 at 03:48am

Right.

I want this too, I think, but so far the only game I'm interested in is Final Fantasy VII. That said, you are right and these games are really easy to get used or even on Steam. Hoping the rest of the lineup is great but if it's not then it's a harder sell for something that, to me, is already a hard sell. I think the big reason is I skipped the Playstation and PS2 and went straight to the PS3. I loved the PS3 but nearly all the games I loved are on PC.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/21/2018 at 03:50am

Games that seem like the are required: Spyro, Crash, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Chrono Cross(that's for you Tim) & Tony Hawk.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/21/2018 at 04:37pm

Wow, I heard myths about the lone gamer who never bought a PS2 but I never imagined that I'd know that person.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 09/22/2018 at 01:33am

I was looking through the PSX games list and there were sooo many great RPG's out on that system. Seriously if they just loaded this up with RPG's this would be a must buy for me.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/22/2018 at 12:42pm

Yeah, it was a really popular system. So at the time I was going to college and had less money. I played PC games on my laptop.

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The Video Game Site Webring Is Now Live!

When I launched Cheerful Ghost in 2012 I built something that solved a problem I had. It wasn’t easy to collect all the games you owned in one digital list that you could share and write about. You could write on Facebook but none of that sticks around, Twitter isn’t a great place for conversations and no one cares if you start up yet another game blog. To me Cheerful Ghost set out to bring the discussion with my friends to one place where we could talk about the games we loved. Over time we started The Cheerful Ghost Roundtable that later became the Cheerful Ghost Radio Podcast, we published Starship Rubicon on Steam and this year launched the Cheerful Ghost Games... Read All When I launched Cheerful Ghost in 2012 I built something that solved a problem I had. It wasn’t easy to collect all the games you owned in one digital list that you could share and write about. You could write on Facebook but none of that sticks around, Twitter isn’t a great place for conversations and no one cares if you start up yet another game blog. To me Cheerful Ghost set out to bring the discussion with my friends to one place where we could talk about the games we loved. Over time we started The Cheerful Ghost Roundtable that later became the Cheerful Ghost Radio Podcast, we published Starship Rubicon on Steam and this year launched the Cheerful Ghost Games BBS. Recently I got the itch to create something new and I’m excited to launch The Video Game Site Webring!

As I was reading The SNES Omnibus by Brett Weiss I noticed that he included a lot of great game quotes from sites i'd never heard of. As an independent game site creator I realized that a tool to help discover independent and lesser known sites would be useful to the larger game community. In a couple days I hacked out a prototype and started collecting a list of game sites. I decided to model the base website on old 90's Webrings and Stumbleupon. The final site is what we are launching today and you can find it at http://vgw.io.

The Video Game Site Webring makes discovering new video game sites fun by randomly taking you site in our list. Over time we plan on adding even more games to the list and if you know of any, let us know. The Video Game Site Webring aims at making the discovery of niche gaming sites easy and fun. We’re purposefully NOT including the top gaming sites like IGN and Kotaku because we feel these sites get enough attention. The goal of VGW is to give focus to smaller site and have these site link to VGW so we can all benefit from the increase in visibility. Part of the launch today is to give attention to these sites but over time I’ll reach out to these sites and see if they can all link to the VGW to help give everybody a boost. This is the core tenant of a webring and I hope, over time, VGW catches on. Also bringing back old stuff from the 90’s like Webrings is pretty cool too.

On last important thing but the Video Game Site Webring is that it is entirely open source and available for anyone to look at and modify on GitHub. I felt this was an important part of this project so everyone could see the source code and know how it worked and change it if they wanted. Cheerful Ghost has benefited from Open Source and it’s cool to create new projects that might be useful to others too.

I want to thank Travis for helping on this project and Brett Weiss for writing The SNES Omnibus which was a big inspiration for this project.

http://vgw.io/

My review of the SNES Omnibus by Brett Weiss

https://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/3829/hop-aboard-the-snes-omnibus-for-a-fun-ride-around-video-game-land

View the VGW source code on GitHub

https://github.com/jdodson/vgswebring

Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories Review

Will_Ball gives this a solid "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

Will_Ball gives this a "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

I recently decided to jump back into the Kingdom Hearts world with Re:Chain of Memories. This was originally released as Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories for the Gameboy Advance (GBA) in 2004. The GBA version was a 2D role-playing game and card game mixed into one. Re:Chain of Memories is a 3D version that was created for the Playstation 2 in 2007. It contains the same core gameplay, but rather than being in a 2D world, you are playing it in a 3D world, using much of the same assets from the original Kingdom Hearts. The version I played was an updated Playstation 2 version that was made for the Playstation 4.

Chain of Memories is a very interesting game. It takes the... Read All I recently decided to jump back into the Kingdom Hearts world with Re:Chain of Memories. This was originally released as Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories for the Gameboy Advance (GBA) in 2004. The GBA version was a 2D role-playing game and card game mixed into one. Re:Chain of Memories is a 3D version that was created for the Playstation 2 in 2007. It contains the same core gameplay, but rather than being in a 2D world, you are playing it in a 3D world, using much of the same assets from the original Kingdom Hearts. The version I played was an updated Playstation 2 version that was made for the Playstation 4.

Chain of Memories is a very interesting game. It takes the Kingdom Hearts gameplay, restricts the game world size (more on that in a bit) and introduces a card game for the battles. The battles are really different. You still have the 3D movement along with jump and roll from the first Kingdom Hearts game, but to do actual attacks/most of the defense, you must play a card. You have different types of cards. There are magic cards, attack cards, item cards, character cards and monster cards. Each card has a number between zero and nine. Both the monsters and you play cards to attack each other. When a card is played there is a very small window for someone else to play a card. If the second player (you or the monster) plays a card that is a zero, equal to, or higher than the original card, the original card is thrown out. If a zero card is played first, it is the lowest card, but if it is played second it is the highest card. Zeros can break anything (this too will be explained in a bit). If the second player plays a card with equal value, the other player will be stunned. If they play a card higher than the first player, their card will also be acted upon.

On top of playing one card at a time, you can queue up three cards for a combined attack (their value is the total value of the cards). These three cards will do different things depending on what cards you play. If you play the right combination of cards you can act out a Sleight, which will do a special move. Only zero cards and a combination of three cards with an equal or higher value can beat a player playing three cards. This is where zero cards are really useful. They are quicker to cancel out three cards than building up an equal or higher amount of three cards to defeat what was played.

For creating decks, you have a certain amount of CP (I assume this means card points). Each card costs a certain amount of CP, so you have to try to maximize the usage of your CP to the best of your ability. When your character levels up, you have the chance to increase your CP by a certain amount. You can create up to three decks. Some deck builds work better than others for certain enemies. In the end I had to modify and create new decks on occasion to move past monsters/bosses.

Each character has a certain amount of hit points (including you). You end up winning battles when all the monsters have been defeated. You lose when all your hit points are gone. This is standard game mechanics here.

Overall the card game was hit and miss for me. On one-hand it was unique. On the other hand it moved too fast for me. It was hard to take in the battle field, where you are in your deck and what cards the monsters are playing. A lot of the time I felt I did not have enough time to respond to a monster’s play. For the most part, I would just put a decent deck together and spam the monsters with cards (and sometimes Sleights). Later in the game you really have to put more thought into what cards you play and the order you have them in your deck in order to get past some of the monsters and bosses.

In between battles you traverse rooms. These rooms are not all that big and get a little monotonous after a while. You do have control over what rooms you see though. As you exit each room, you are allowed to play a room card, which in turn determines the type of room you will see next. This was a cool gameplay mechanic that opens up replayability.

The story is the best part of this game. Chain of Memories picks up right at the end of the original Kingdom Hearts. Sora, Goofy, Donald and Jiminy run into a mysterious stranger. The follow this stranger into a castle and learn that their memories aren’t all that they are cracked up to be. The end result is a game that plays upon the character’s memories and really does a great job telling this story.

As for replayability, I feel this game has a lot of it. From the way you can define a room to the secret character that is unlocked at the end of this game, I could see myself revisiting it. The strong story helps too.

Overall I would recommend this game. It is a lot of fun to play. I am also curious to see the GBA version in action. I might end up tracking down a youtube video of the gameplay to see the differences. The Kingdom Hearts world definitely grew for the better with this game.

I Just Watched One Of The Most Impressive Nintendo Directs Today!

Nintendo just dropped one of the most impressive Nintendo Direct's today answering the question of what's coming next to the Switch. Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion 3, Yoshi's Crafted World, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles port, Final Fantasy XII remaster, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy IX, and X/X-2, Katamari Damacy Reroll, Civilization VI as well as New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe which is New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe making one of the stinger console lineups moving into 2019.

Nintendo also dropped more details on the first batch of games to come bundled with it's online service such as Baseball, Balloon Fight, Dr. Mario, Donkey Kong, Double Dragon, Excitebike,... Read All

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/14/2018 at 04:08am

I keep seeing these videos of news of games coming to the Switch! It's a damn shame I don't have one nor am planning to get one any time soon because of the expense. But man is the Switch getting tons of stuff! Oh and there's also a Smash Bros Switch bundle coming, too! https://www.gamespot.com/articles/super-smash-bros-ultimate-switch-bundle-announced-/1100-6461764/

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/14/2018 at 12:44pm

Right, there are. I think I’m gonna get one for Christmas.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 09/14/2018 at 04:05pm

Why wait for Christmas? :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/14/2018 at 04:43pm

I like needless suffering.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/14/2018 at 04:44pm

Any games you going to get from this direct Will? Im wondering how Civ 6 will play with a controller?

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 09/14/2018 at 09:11pm

Online. I want the nes controllers too. Going to pick up Luigi's Mansion at some point. I may pick up Super Mario U.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/15/2018 at 12:19am

Oh man, honestly the big news for me in this is more Katamari. It’s been too long since I obsessively picked up everything in sight.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/15/2018 at 01:55am

And I’m still hoping for a Mario Maker port. It looks like that’s my only holdout game from the Wii U.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/15/2018 at 02:05am

Yeah, I bet they'll just create a whole new game but the new version will be heavily based on the original. The 3DS Mario Maker port is awesome, you just can't share your maps with anyone online you need to physically be next to them.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/15/2018 at 04:08am

I commented before watching the video, I was hoping for something new with Katamari but it looks like the first game with a fresh coat of paint, which is a little disappointing. There have been a lot of core changes to the game over the years that we'll kinda miss out on. But maybe it's the start of something, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to buy it anyway.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/15/2018 at 04:09am

And I agree Will, I want those NES Controllers. But in trying to decide what I'd use from the online service, I think it's basically just the NES games and nothing else so I'm not sure it's worth it.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 09/15/2018 at 05:26pm

I am also interested in Diablo 3, despite owning it on the PC. I like the idea of that game being more portable.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/15/2018 at 07:58pm

Agreed with Diablo III being more portable. I think I’d just buy online for the games too and at some point the catalog might get so compelling as to get it for that alone. That said $20 isn’t that much but I’m not sure I need yet another way to play the original Super Mario brothers.

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Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 34: What Makes a Good Game Sequel?

In this episode we ponder what makes a good game sequel. This started as a conversation between Jon and Travis and as we discussed and debated sequels we decided this would be the perfect topic for an episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio! Have a listen and let us know what you think: what makes a good sequel, and what are some of your favorites?