My newest addition to my Etsy store, Pixelized Creations, is a Secret of Mana perler bead figure set with stands.
Randi, Primm and Popoi are each made from plastic, non-toxic perler beads and fit into a treasure chest stand. Each figure can stand on any flat surface like a figure for you to display proudly in your office or home.
The pieces are available individually or in a set at a discount price. You can also have them as magnets instead of the stands.
I discovered a sweet new artisan's group this week that's chalked full of gamer artists. The Autumn Society of Philadelphia, established in 2006, features artists from the Philly area. Two of my favorite artists, Jude Buffum and Doctor Octoroc are members of the group but today I'm posting a piece from artist, Potato Farm Girl.
Secret of Mana: Snack Time features the characters of Squaresoft's 1993 Secret of Mana RPG game for the SNES. A very nice piece.
For the first time of Etsy, one of my fused bead creations has been featured in the treasury section, which is a featured item section of Etsy picked by certain members. (My pieces are in the very first box)
I'm under the Treasury West section (not sure what that means) and under a title called "Up, Up, Down, Down" for a section of videogame crafts picked by Etsy member, Deepshade. It was so cool of her to include my Secret of Mana set in her treasury picks.
All from my personal collection of bead art pieces, I thought it would be fun to post all the Easter related items I've crafted over the years. From Dark World Bunny Link to the Chocobos in Final Fantasy, there are lots of Easter icons in videogames.
Even the cute little rabite reminds us of the Easter bunny a little, until it tries to eat our leg.
If you like any of the pieces you see hear, remember you can find or custom order them from my Etsy store, Pixelated Creations.
For the first time in my life, I actually have a week of paid vacation and I have been spending most of it playing video games. I mean what else would I do? Especially when I'm broke.
Anyway, this sweet vacation has been full of cool toys and games for me to check out as I spend my days watching Batman: The Animated Series, eating finger foods and wearing my comfy clothes.
On my list of games to check out this week are: World of Goo: This wiiware title put to use your bridge building skills and knowledge for the laws of physics as you use little balls of goo to build structures to bring the balls over to the pipe on the other side of the stage. Great game so far and a well worth the 1,500 Wii points.
Secret of Mana (Virtual Console): Yes, I know I bought this game already for the Super Nintendo, but I haven't got the actually console to play it on and since Nintendo released it on the VC this week, I couldn't help but use the extra 800 Wii points I had to download it. Final Fantasy fans will love this series and I personality think it is one of the best RPGs out there. Lego Batman: If everyone doesn't know already that I am a huge Batman fan, then allow me to throw this out there now... I love the Dark Knight. I have loved Batman since I discovered the Adam West version on old reruns when I was a kid and then the whole love for the Batman was solidified when I saw the Tim Burton movies.
This cute lego version of the dark knight's adventure is much like the lego Star Wars games but with less freaks in it. The humor of the previous lego games is in there too, but there is still the serious tone of the Batman comics mixed in as well. I personally can't wait to get to the villain stages so I can play as Harley Quinn or Poison Ivy.
Hellgate London: I know this title was released last year, but I got a new toy to play with for 30 days that finally allowed me to run a hardware heavy game like this: Area 51 Alienware Desktop.
Yep, the nice people at Alienware have set me up with one of their sweet gaming rigs for the next 30 days in order to review it for the Pulse Niagara. Being that my PC gaming collection stinks, they sent along Hellgate London and Call of Duty 4, so I could see how the Area 51 rig handles the big games.
So far, Hellgate reminds me a lot of Diablo but more in a 3D world. Characters give you quests in exchange for loot or gold and you plow through the post-hell stricken world of London killing monsters in search of loot and new missions. Character creation is pretty limited but the controls are easy to handle.
Infinite Undiscovery: New jrpg from SquareEnix on the Xbox 360 and surprisingly its a great and different game so far. The main character isn't the same bruiting emo guy as most rpgs and the combat system is somewhat like Final Fantasy XII. Lots of promise for this game.
I have a few others I'm yet to crack into yet, but I still have 4 more days to go.
More to come on: Mario Super Sluggers Dead Space Crash: Mind over Mutant Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen Buzz Quiz TV Civilization IV: Colonization Igor Mercanaries 2 Soul Calibur IV Too Human Chocobo Dungeon
Also I have a few products I have to review as well. Look for part two of vacation week for information of those.
While it was only a couple of years ago that I went a sold my collection of retro video game machines and games, my boyfriend and I have now decided to start collecting any of the old videogame systems and games and display them in our spare room upstairs.
Of course, this choice makes me really wish I hadn't sold my perfectly good Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Gameboy Colour (Clear Purple version) with all the games including Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario World, Super Mario All Stars and Final Fantasy III. Yes, I am an idiot, but I actually believed Nintendo would release good games on the virtual console and that the Nintendo Wii would have ample storage space for those games. Silly me.
So far on our first couple weeks in searching for hidden treasures and sweet deals, we've managed to find tons of Dreamcasts, Xboxes, Playstations and Gamecubes, but older systems are really hard to find or hard to find cheap.
We found one place that had an old Sear Pong Game but the guy wanted $50 for it and couldn't even take the time to find the power adapter for it. We walked out on him.
Finally I managed to track down two Nintendo Entertainment Systems online for $40 that had all the cables for one unit, two controllers and a zapper. We snapped them and figured we'd keep the extra system in case the other one ever breaks.
This week I also purchase Little Nemo: Dream Master for NES for $2.99 and Secret of Mana for SNES for $25 on eBay. I've been trying to find SoM for less but $25 is the cheapest I've found online or offline so far, so I gave up and bought it. No system yet, but I'll get one soon enough.
Our main plan is to focus on the hard to find systems first and then games as we find them cheap. The spare room will be made into a game room, complete with some cool retro decorations I am currently working on.
I'll try to post as we pick up more cool retro items to add to our small little collection.
I am one cartridge and a Super Nintendo or a Virtual Console release in North America away from safely playing Secret of Mana again.
Nintendo, hurry up and release this game in North America already. Either that or Square Enix made a re-make of this game. eBayers are already selling this game for $40 or more, so why shouldn't your company jump in and sell a Nintendo DS remake for the same amount.
While everyone can squeal and jump for joy as Square Enix continues to make over or re-release every damn Final Fantasy game known to man, this little fangirl is still completely lost without her favorite Square Enix game still sitting at the bottom of their importance pile.
Secret of Mana was an action role-playing game released on the Super Nintendo on October 3, 1993 in North America, but in Japan it was released as Seiken Densetsu 2 on August 6, 1993.
The game featured three characters, a young boy named Randi, a young girl named Purim and a young sprite named Popoie, who all join together to help reforge the legendary Mana Sword, defeat the empire that wants to control the mana seeds and ultimately restore the Mana Fortress that once tried to destroy the world.
There is a glimmer of hope though ...
While I thought I was doomed to either download the game through a ROM or finally cracked and buy a Super Nintendo to play the game again, I found out that this September Japan is getting Secret of Mana on the Virtual Console which means that we might be getting the game in North America soon.
OH KALOU KALAY!
I still would love to see Square Enix make a version for the Nintendo DS either as a re-release or as 3D remake, but a virtual console release would be friggn' awesome too.
Dawn of Mana, the true sequel/prequel to the original Secret of Mana for the Super Nintendo has finally made its way to North American shores and to be honest, it didn't live up to the greatness that is Secret of Mana.
When I first picked up the game, I looked at the back and manual before popping it into my PS2 and from the screenshots and descriptions, the game looked similar to that of the Dark Cloud games with its singular path levels and cartoon like graphics.
The game follows a young man named Keldric as he tries to rescue his friend, Ritzia with the help of his new found friend, Faye the Fairy and his new weapon, a vine sword created from a splinter from the Mana tree that gets stuck in his arm.
Other fairies give you new magic spells through the game but they only last for so long and then they're gone. I prefer if you could have kept the spells and recharged them but you can only recharge Faye's magic which will gain new spells as you level up in each round.
The battle system allows you to use your sword, sling shot or magic against enemies as well as a new panic system which uses the Havok system. The panic system allows you to throw, roll, etc. object to scare your enemies for a few moments in which they will produce medals and power ups when you attack them.
The power ups allow you to build up your character's levels each round but are unfortunately reset at the beginning of each new round. This system was a bit annoying to figure out at first but once the game got going, it becomes second nature to push boulders down the hill first before hack and slashing. I didn't really care about the resetting levels because there isn't much difference in power between levels or maybe there is and I didn't notice.
Each round or chapter, as the game calls them, you have to complete a boss battle which I found each to be hard and lengthy compared to the rest of the game. It took me half an hour to take out the very first boss. THE FIRST BOSS!!! I killed the final form of Sin in FFX quicker than that.
At the end of each round, the game tallies up all your time, how many items you got, objects smashed, etc. and gives you a rated like S, A or B. This is why you don't want to run through the game without employing the panic system for medals. Do so and your rating will be low each round.
The music and the graphics in this game were great and very much like Dragon Quest VIII. Each round had new music and each of the characters spoke so you didn't have to read the text if you didn't want too. The graphics were cartoon like and made for some interesting looking characters.
I liked how designers kept some of the original monsters from Secret of Mana like the cute little yellow bunnies and such. I was annoyed to see another feminine male hero in this game but I understand they're all the rage in Japan these days, so I forgive SquareEnix for that.
All in all, I did like this game but with other games like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Final Fantasy XII available, I would suggest playing those first and then grabbing this game up afterwards. It wasn't a terrible game nor an unplayable game; I just think there are better RPGs out there and definitely better games from SquareEnix. That's all.
