Bizarre Bosses and the Return of a Hero

I am sorry to say that my trek through Darm Tower has been quite slow, yet steady. To be honest, I haven't played very much as the game hasn't entirely gripped me and due to the fact I often move my Wii around and it can be a hassle to constantly set it up and take it down over and over again. Excuses aside, the Tower of Darm has proven interesting to say the least.

There have been a couple of simple puzzles in the Tower, yet puzzles nonetheless. They usually require an item received after beating a boss, some backtracking, talking to NPCs, or a mixture of the three. One involved destroying a column which was playing music so morbid that listening to it drained your health and blocked your progress. Another required a brooch which allowed you to teleport throughout a maze made up of mirrors. Neither proved too challenging.

The first boss of Darm Tower was a giant and fearsome mantis. I'm not sure what it is about mantis-based enemies in (mainly eastern) video games, but they always seem to throw sickle-like projectiles. That's not how mantises work, but I can see where such an idea would come from and it's clever game design. The fight begins with the insect throwing out two sickles which fly out a set distance, pause, and then fly back to their source, but that number quickly grows to three.

I'mma slice you!

Complications arose when its sickles would get "out of sync," so to speak, when, say, two sickles would be at their apex, but the third was returning our just being released. This made it difficult to get hits in at times and I honestly died a couple of more times than I would have liked. It was until I refound the Silver Armor (you lose all the "silver" items you have at a certain point in the Tower and are forced to find them again) that I finally beat the beast and was rewarded with a Book of Ys and a hammer to smash the morbid pillar.

The second boss of the Tower of Darm is a spinning rock dude who shoots out smaller rocks in a pinwheel-like fashion. He ended up being much easier and only took two attempts to down. The only troubling thing about his fight was that his projectiles spawned exactly under him, which is where he hit-box was as well. This meant that you could be hit by an unseen projectile if not careful about the timing and position of your approach. The prizes for defeating him were another Book of Ys and the aforementioned brooch.

What do you call rock poop?
There's no punchline. I really don't know.

Unlike myself, the video game industry has been quite busy! Especially in the realm of Kickstarter, a site where indie games, and a number of other things, can become funded by regular people all around the world. That is, if the idea is popular enough.

For Keiji Inafune, the mind behind Mega Man, popularity was no problem for his latest brainchild: NOT-MEGA MAN Mighty No. 9! Mere days after being announced on Kickstarter, the project already reached its $900,000 goal and is currently blasting through its stretch goals. Though there aren't any gameplay video yet, but the concept art and concept in general looks amazing. Plus, we can trust Inafune (right?).

As excited as I am, the fact that Comcept (Inafune's team) has had to resort to a Kickstarter irks me for a few reasons:

1. A number of people are essentially paying for a game that A. Isn't necessarily even started yet and B. Know little to nothing about. I'm going to safely assume this shouldn't be too much of an issue for a respected veteran of the industry like Inafune, but it's a problem with Kickstarter in general. That being said, if the game is funded, people can just wait and pay for the finish product after they see more, get to play a demo, and so on. Unfortunately, this leads to a second issue:

2. Funder restricted content. Many Kickstarter projects have tiers for funders based on how much money they put into it. This is fine when it's a t-shirt, a coffee mug, or a heartfelt "Thank You" letter (though it would be nice if such things were available after the funding period so those who can't drop a large amount of money at once have a chance to purchase them at a later date), but, at times, in-game content finds itself place in the rewards section of a Kickstarter page.

Mighty No. 9 currently has two in-game things on its reward list: a Golden Beck skin and an exclusive transformation. The former is purely cosmetic and I really have no qualms with it, but the latter affects gameplay! Now, it's yet to be seen how said transformation will work and it may be quite balanced or a joke transformation, yet it's still irksome that one has to pay so much more (in this case, about $60) to get the full game.

Call it foolish. Call it overreacting. Either way, it sets a precedent I'm not to fond of. Though, I do think my last complaint is the most worrisome:

3. Funder created content. Way down the rewards list for Mighty No. 9, you can see "HELP CREATE A CHALLENGE" and "DESIGN AN ENEMY." Granted, these rewards are limited to only a certain number of people, but can these individuals with a lot of disposable income be trusted with creating in-game content? Call me cynical, but I'm not sure. It's wonderful that you care so much for a game, but leave the technical stuff to the professionals.

This one comes with a qualification as well, though. As long as the professionals have a strong guiding hand and the balls to say "no" when necessary, such rewards shouldn't be too problematic and act as nice bait for those willing to take it and throw all that money in.

All things considered, I see Kickstarter as, ultimately, a force for good in gaming. Other Kickstarters I have been monitoring are: Shovel Knight, Shantae (Also started this week, and another series I apparently need to look into. I feel like my backlog has only extended since I've started this blog. What's a man to do?), and Kaiju Combat (This project is one I think has been hit a little harder by my three complaints above compared to something like Might No. 9).