Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

On 12/27/2015 at 05:23 PM by SanAndreas

Greetings, Pixlbit denizens! I hope you all had a good holiday. I had a good holiday with my wife, our kid, and our grandkid. We didn't do anything spectacular this holiday. We wanted to go see the Christmas trees in Washington, DC, but an incrediblly heavy rainstorm that hit DC and Maryland that afternoon put a damper on those plans, so to speak. Oh, well, it's been surprisingly warm here and I like that a heck of a lot better than the ice and snow they're getting out west!

Anyway, it's been a long time since I posted a swag blog. As always, I got some gaming related goodies. Video game goodies have been a part of every holiday and birthday for me for many years. I got computer game cartridges and floppy disks in my early years. In 1989, I got a brand-new Game Boy with Tetris and Super Mario Land, and I still have my old Game Boy. Here is what I got this year, thanks to my awesome wife.

On the subject of Super Mario Maker, I have always enjoyed games that have editing tools built into them. When I was really young, I had a platforming game called Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory on Atari 130XE that played a bit like Donkey Kong and Miner 2049er, which allowed you to make your own levels. I've also dabbled in RPG Maker and hope to get RPG Maker MV at some point, since it has side-view Final Fantasy style battles now. So I'm enjoying Super Mario Maker a lot. I hope they make a Zelda or Metroid maker at some point! I've uploaded three levels so far, and have actually managed to make a halfway decent one called "Bowsers Cloning Lab" where you fight three simultaneous Bowsers! If you're a SMM owner who is interested, the ID number for this one is 7D6D-0000-0149-1F73.

The other game, Trails of Cold Steel, is the first entry to Nihon Falcom's Dragon Slayer/Legend of Heroes series that has 3-D graphics (that I know of). I was really excited when XSeed announced they were working on the first two TOCS games, and this game does not disappoint. It's a great RPG. My wife wanted to get the Vita version but ended up getting the PS3 version instead. Either way, awesome game. I have the Collectors' Edition, as you can see, and I'm looking forward to TOCS2, which is also being localized by Xseed for PS3 and Vita. There's a third TOCS game in development by Nihon Falcom in Japan for unspecified platforms (hopefully PS4), and hopefully that's in line for an English localization as well.

Oh, and for GrayHaired - both of these games came with full-color manuals. Super Mario Maker has a 64-page book with tips on making levels. The basic nuts and bolts of the game are still in the game itself, but by now everyone probably knows how Super Mario works. Trails of Cold Steel, meanwhile, does come with a nicely printed full color manual. These days printed manuals are limited to the occasional Nintendo release and to releases by niche publishers like Xseed and NISA.

Anyway, once again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Matt Snee Staff Writer

12/27/2015 at 05:39 PM

have you been playing Cold Steel yet? How is it? thinking of getting it for my Vita.

Merry Christmas man!

SanAndreas

12/28/2015 at 03:30 AM

I have. It's really good. Graphics aren't the most detailed but well-drawn, and the game is loaded with content. It's well worth getting. I'm looking forward to TOCS II.

mothman

12/27/2015 at 06:04 PM

I want Trails of Cold Steel. I don't think I want to go digital though.

12/28/2015 at 03:31 AM

There should be some physical copies around for PS3 and Vita somewhere. I got the PS3 version on disc and as part of a fairly nice CE.

Cary Woodham

12/27/2015 at 06:45 PM

I got a lot of cool stuff for Christmas, too. Check back Friday and you can see some of them at GamerDad.com. I also got a PS Vita (and Gravity Rush).

You can check out some of my Mario Maker level codes here:

http://www.gamerdad.com/blog/2015/09/25/carys-top-five-favorite-d-i-y-games/

12/27/2015 at 09:42 PM

I played some of your Mario Maker levels (left stars and a comment on your Miiverse page as well). Mad props, man, mad props.

KnightDriver

12/28/2015 at 12:49 AM

I listened to an interview on Axe of the Blood God podcast with someone leading the localization team on Trails in the Sky. What a project! She seemed really exhausted by it.

12/28/2015 at 03:28 AM

The first Trails in the Sky was very draining for Xseed financially, which is why there was such a long wait between its release and Second Chapter. The Legend of Heroes games are very heavy in dialogue. And First Chapter is smaller than Second or Third Chapters. They contracted the second game's translation out to a company called Carpe Fulgur, and the guy who leads that company supposedly had a nervous breakdown while working on Second Chapter due to the pressure. I don't know if Xseed handled the translation of Trails of Cold Steel or if they contracted out to Carpe Fulgur or some other outside party.

12/29/2015 at 01:20 AM

Wow! So much work to translate a game!

Halochief90

12/28/2015 at 02:01 AM

Good to hear from you, man. Have fun with Mario Maker and Trails of Cold Steel.

Thanks. Good to hear from you too.

GrayHaired

12/29/2015 at 10:26 PM

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you Andrew. by now you probably noticed I cleaned out my FB list....and I mean all the way out! Lol....*sigh*

AzureAlchemist

12/30/2015 at 05:22 PM

...Hope you have a good New Years..~

PixlBit