SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs - Radiance in the Form of VGM Edition

We hope you enjoyed your weekend, but if not, let's at least start your work week off on the right foot with SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs. If you're a fan of video game music like we are, then you will most likely find yourself right at home with our weekly segment which showcases the best and brightest themes in video game soundtracks. This week we feature music from Radiant Historia, Mega Man X7, and Mario Golf, to name just a few. Let's kick back and unwind as we take you to a journey of musical magnificence!

v626. Radiant Historia (DS) - Blue Radiance

We start this weekly edition of SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs with a work by the incomparable Yoko Shimomura. Radiant Historia is one of the best original Nintendo DS RPGs on the system. With multiple endings, an innovative battle system, and of course, the focus of this weekly series, an incredible soundtrack. Blue Radiance might be a theme you hear often in the game-- it is the battle theme after all-- somehow it doesn't get old.

v627. Mega Man X7 (PS2) - Awake Road Again - Highway Stage

While the soundtrack to Mega Man X7 is without a doubt fantastic, the actual game it accompanies isn't so hot. In an attempt to bring the series into something more modern, the developers took many levels and made them 3D affairs. The combination of poor camera work and poor platforming added nothing but headaches to players, and that's not even factoring in the headaches players will get listening to Flame Hyenard for less than a minute. Awake Road Again - Highway Stage plays in the second half of the opening stage. This part has you playing as series favorite Zero.

v628. Mario Golf (N64) - Ring Shot Menu

Mario Golf: World Tour released a few weeks ago on the Nintendo 3DS. It's one of our favorites entries in Mario's golfing series to date. However, we can't help but still love the Nintendo 64 version a lot either. A part of what makes the N64 Mario Golf so great is the superb soundtrack that was composed by the terrific Motoi Sakuraba. He and the developer Camelot have worked together for almost two decades now.

v629. Solatorobo: Red the Hunter (DS) - Battle of Fate

Solatorobo: Red the Hunter is a greatly overlooked Nintendo DS action game that introduced the world to Red the Hunter. Outside of the intriguing and original gameplay, the soundtrack is another item from the game to make a serious note about. It's sometimes soothing, sometimes tense, but always lovely.

v630. Wild Arms 3 (PS2) - A Person's Warmth (A Quiet Town)

Michiko Naruke is the primary composer for the Wild Arms series. While her best work continues to be the original Wild Arms on the original PlayStation, her work on Wild Arms 3, the first PlayStation 2 entry in the franchise, is nothing to scoff at. There's some truly captivating tunes in the soundtrack, such as this one we've selected, a town theme from the game, A Person's Warmth.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe (3DS) Review

It was a quiet week all in all for SuperPhillip Central last week, but we're back with a vengeance starting with Sunday of all days. Today we have a new review for you as part of our Nintendo 3DS-focused month of reviews. It's Kirby's time to shine once again with our review of Kirby: Triple Deluxe.

A 3D Pink Puffball Paradise

Other than Mario, Kirby is one of Nintendo's most versatile mascots. Whether he's using himself as a golf ball, entering pinball machines, or being a part of inventive games like Canvas Curse, Mass Attack, or Tilt 'N' Tumble, Kirby isn't shy to push himself to do extraordinary things. Kirby's newest title, and debut on the Nintendo 3DS, is Kirby: Triple Deluxe, and it's a much more traditional Kirby title a la Super Star. It's a game that very much feels like a return to the Wii's Return to Dream Land, save for the lack of multiplayer and Sphere Doomer areas. What it all adds up to is a platforming adventure that not only Kirby fans will love, but any supporter of 2D platformers.

Kirby's minding his own business when suddenly a beanstalk takes him for a ride into the sky. A shady figure quickly king-naps King Dedede, and Kirby quickly pursues to once again save the day. Little does he know that his quest will not only save Dedede but save a kingdom from a sinister evil as well. While Dream Land is not the setting for this 2D Kirby, a great many familiar level tropes and ideas permeate through Triple Deluxe, such as requiring the first boss of the game to be none other than a variant of Whispy Woods.

For Kirby's sake, I hope there's no
giant at the top of this beanstalk.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe plays out like an ordinary 2D Kirby. You move across numerous levels, sucking up foes with Kirby's vacuum-like mouth, using Kirby's copy ability to take the powers of certain enemies, all the while performing feats of platforming peril and prowess, as well as solving quick puzzles.

The ability to change platforming planes
leads to some cool level design.

As the subtitle would suggest (after all, it is Triple Deluxe, aka 3D), the game's levels make fantastic use of the Nintendo 3DS' stereoscopic 3D hardware. While it's by no means mandatory to have on, it greatly enhances the experience. Various levels will have Kirby transporting from the foreground to the background, somewhat similar to the Virtual Boy's Wario Land, for the select number that have played that game. There's also plenty of obstacles and hazards that make use of this 3D concept, such as enemies that come from the background to the foreground, whether they be flying foes or Waddle Dees that swing back and forth, showcasing the depth of levels. Then there are hazards like hands, trains, and giant wooden balls that shoot out from the background and enter Kirby's dimensional plane.

These Waddle Dee model trains are but
one hazard that can attack from the background.

One of the newest gameplay elements introduced in Triple Deluxe is Hypernova mode. When Kirby eats a specific fruit from a tree, his complexion brightens with a rainbow glow and his ability to suck things up, whether they be objects, items, or enemies, increases exponentially. This leads to some of the puzzle elements of the game, including using Kirby's now-godly inhaling abilities to move gigantic blocks around to reach new areas and collect hidden goodies.

I've heard of a blowhard, but an inhalehard!?
That's exactly what Hypernova Kirby is.

Aside from Hypernova, Kirby: Triple Deluxe also contains some gyroscope-intensive parts to it. These are generally located in the many side areas of the game's levels, but they generally control well. You can tilt the 3DS while Kirby wades in a jar of water in order to influence the direction the water inside spills, tilt the system to aim a missile, or tilt to move a hanging weight over to its desired position.

These areas of the game usually contain the game's most important hidden trinkets, Sun Stones. These appear in every non-boss level, and are required to progress through the game. While nowhere near having to find all of them is required to access the boss of each of Triple Deluxe's six islands, a fair amount is needed to move on. Unless you're just trying to breeze through every level as fast as you possibly can, it's really difficult to not have enough Sun Stones to progress through the game without being forced to return to levels.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Waddle Dee,
but ski season ended a few months ago.

Along with Sun Stones, there are numerous keychains to acquire. Unlike said Sun Stones, these keychains are purely optional, coming in two varieties, a small silver collectible that is very common and a larger rainbow collectible that only appears once in nearly every level. Collecting these unlock character sprites from a number of past Kirby titles. It's really a celebration of Kirby's remarkable and illustrious past.

"Feet don't fail me now!"

Outside of the story mode, which sadly doesn't last all that long, Kirby: Triple Deluxe features two distinct modes, a Super Smash Bros.-like fighting game in Kirby Fighters and a rhythm action game called Dedede's Drum Dash. The former features all of the abilities in the game, and you choose from one of them and fight through various stages against AI opponents. There's multiplayer included, but this is limited to local play, unfortunately. Another bummer is that every fighter is simply a differently colored Kirby. It would have been nice to see the actual enemies that each Kirby's abilities are based off of. For instance, Cutter Kirby could have easily been replaced with Sir Kibble, an enemy who Kirby uses his copy ability to gain Cutter in the first place.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe runs well on the Nintendo 3DS hardware. The visuals appropriately colorful as well as rather whimsical, too. The music is cheery and mostly original, although there are pieces taken directly from Kirby's Return to Dream Land. Can't really complain about that, as that Wii game's music was exceptional and darned catchy, much like the new musical content in Triple Deluxe.

No need to applaud for Kirby:
He's already got a hand.

If you're looking for an abundance of prevalent innovations in this Kirby game like you saw with Canvas Curse or Mass Attack, you are going to sorely disappointed. Kirby: Triple Deluxe stays close to the formula of games like Kirby's Adventure, Dream Land, and their subsequent sequels without straying too far outside the gameplay of those titles. What it's lacking in amazing originality, Kirby: Triple Deluxe makes up for this with its clever level design, 3D implementation, colorful and crisp graphics, engaging and novice-friendly gameplay, and varied amount of modes. Kirby: Triple Deluxe won't "blow" you away, but it certainly doesn't "suck" at all. It's a fun game, and that's really all you want in a Kirby title.

[SPC Says: 8.75/10]

If You Think Whining About Mario Kart 8 is the Way to Mature the Industry, You're Doing It Wrong.

Nowadays we're in an industry where apparently the idea is if we tackle issues that are deemed "mature", we can further advance our hobby and outsiders will take us seriously. In between the "lol Xbox 180 sux" and "lol Wii U is deader than disco" circle jerk threads and articles on many sites, there is content sandwiched in between which ironically wishes to start an "intelligent" discussion with the same subset of gamers and journalists making topics and articles to bait people to read them.

In general, it gets to the point where one finally grows tired of the excessive garbage that is the gaming industry. It doesn't matter whether you're looking at the press who are about as professional as peewee hockey players, journalists who are more than happy to be in bed with publishers for fear of losing ad revenue and review copies, publishers who release sequel after iterative sequel every year, developers who use social media in irresponsible ways, people who want gaming to become more like Hollywood with many cinematic gaming experiences rather than let gaming shine as its own entity, and gamers who carry on on message boards and comment sections like absolute toddlers.

I've been sick of the console war bullshit for a while now. In order for the industry to be taken more seriously, some want to tackle the tough issues that relate to gaming, whether they be worthwhile or not. For instance, let's just moan about the lack of diversity in Mario Kart, because why the heck not? It's nice to want to push the medium forward, but when one begins to stand up against everything, no matter how big, small, important, or trivial, their voice eventually gets drowned out. They become broken records, one trick ponies, and people you simply stop listening to because they're always crying foul and finding social injustice everywhere. This sucks because there are worthy social-related subjects to take to task and make a controversy out of, and these just become noise thanks to the constant clamoring of the champions of social justice in gaming.

Of all the games to pick on, why is Mario Kart 8 what we're focusing on? We're talking about a world where two Italian plumbers venture around for a humanoid princess, face off against an army of turtles and other creatures. Now, if you want to pick on Nintendo for not having diversity in other games where it would make sense to have various races represented, do it. I'm all for that. Animal Crossing is a great example. Why can't we have the ability to showcase a dark-skinned character to play as? That would make sense!

The first thing I thought of when I saw this
screen: "Where's the token black guy?"

Many other studios are so transparent when they throw in some kind of character other than a white male or female. For instance, adding a gay character into your game for no other reason than to make some frivolous statement with no depth to it at all does not help. Considering that video game stories have a hard time creating realistic characters in general, why the hell should we trust them to write a convincing gay character? I don't trust this industry to accurately portray a gay person without falling into offensive stereotypes.

Regardless, there needs to be a reason for such an inclusion, and does it really have to be in the game as if such a character were some item on a checklist? "Gay character? Check. Black guy? Check. Okay. We're good. Start writing a script!"

I think if we want the industry to be taken more seriously, how about we actually start behaving seriously and professionally? You know, let's start with the press. How about we stop the "Wii U isn't selling. We're going to write 101 articles about this over the course of the next month, varying our wording, but essentially saying the same thing." How about we not accept a smartphone, tablet, or whatever the hell Ubisoft gave journalists at a special Watch Dogs media event?

Let's look at developers. How about we show a little bit of professionalism? How? Well, I'm sure as hell not the best source to determine how, as I like to cuss people out on Twitter, but maybe you could rise above acting like typical fanboys airing out dirty laundry for the public to see?

Then there's gamers. That most likely encompasses everyone reading this site. How about we leave the "which console is going to sell the most" pissing contests to the console manufacturers and just enjoy the games being released? How about we not laugh when a company is doing poorly, as that will most likely affect the industry in a negative way? Why don't we not spend our days playing "console wars" more than we actually play games? It's my understanding that being someone who likes the hobby would want the industry to succeed. However, I see more folks happy with other companies' failures rather than everyone's successes. Personally, I find these people to be a disease to the industry, and even then, that's an insult to diseases. If you want this industry to grow up, then you shouldn't look at potential racism, sexism, altruism, organism, masochism, etc. to start a controversy over. You should look at yourself first. Are you contributing positively to the hobby? If not, fix your priorities.

Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) North American TV Spot

Ever since it was unveiled at Nintendo's special showing at E3 last year, gamers around the globe have been anxiously awaiting the chance to step into a kart or onto a bike and speed through courses full of anti-gravity glory. In seventeen days, their wait will be over with the release of Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U. In the meantime, check out this commercial which will be airing on televisions across North America leading up to and after the launch of the game.

SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs - In the Wee Morning Hours Edition

Sneaking into SuperPhillip Central like a snake through the tall grass, our weekly segment of video game music favorites arrives in the early morning hours to start your week. This week we have music from Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, Valkyrie Profile, and Dragon Quest V! If for some reason you feel the symptoms of VGM withdrawal while you wait for next week (symptoms include missing the VGM segment and missing the VGM segment again), check out our complete selection of VGM faves with our updated database.

v621. Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War (PS2) - First Flight

In North America alone, Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War met fantastic financial success, selling over 1 million units. That makes the fifth installment of the Ace Combat series one of the highest-selling entries in the franchise to this day. While most of the music within missions was orchestral, such as this piece, arcade mode featured a rock-centric set of songs.

v622. Valkyrie Profile (PS1) - Fighting the Shadowy Gods

The battle theme of Valkyrie Profile, Fighting the Shadowy Gods gets the player pumped and primed for battle. While we did very much enjoy what Motoi Sakuraba offered with his soundtrack for Valkyrie Profile, we're still rather fond of his Star Ocean: The Second Story tracks a bit more.

v623. Dragon Quest V (SNES) - Violent Enemies ~ Almighty Boss Devil is Challenged

Dragon Quest has never been as prominent of a franchise in the West compared to Final Fantasy. However, it's a different story in Japan. A fair amount of entries in the Dragon Quest series never made it over the Pacific. It wasn't until the remakes for the DS that IV, V, and VI were legally playable for RPG fans. This selected composition from Dragon Quest V contains both the regular battle and boss themes.

v624. Power Stone (DC) - Manches Stage (Jack)

One of us on the staff recently got back into the SEGA Dreamcast cult-classic Power Stone, albeit on the PSP with the Power Stone Collection. Seeing as Capcom is now heavily focused on franchises like Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and Lost Planet, to name a few, we don't hold much hope to ever seeing Power Stone get placed in the public eye for a loooooong time, if ever.

v625. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) - Volcano

The New Super Mario Bros. series gets a lot of flak from gamers, particularly longtime Nintendo fans. Then again, a large portion of those people whine about everything anyhow. Nonetheless, one of the greatest disappointments with the NSMB line of games is the music. It's by no means awful, but the constant "bah, bah" sound effects and otherwise poor instrumentation make for a combination that is less than amazing. Perhaps if New Super Mario Bros. 2 and New Super Mario Bros. U also didn't share the same exact music, we, along with our fellow gamers, wouldn't be so up in arms over the music. Regardless, the volcano theme that originated in NSMB Wii gives a foreboding feeling with its powerful chord progression.