Lord Spencer's Gaming (and other stuff) Blog

The Silent Hill franchise is often considered the second great Survival Horror franchise starting on the PS1 after Resident Evil , and that's largely accurate despite the two games being very different. While Resident Evil is defined by its campy horror influence and survival mechanics, Silent Hill leans far more on the horror angle. It is to Team Silent's immense credit that the first game still manages to elicit fear and admiration for someone playing it today. #23: Silent Hill:- Year: 1999. Genre: Survival Horror. Publisher: Konami. Developer: Team Silent (Konami).

When writing all my previous "Studio Ghibli Thoughts" posts before, I only wrote them after re-watching each respective movie. I am now admitting to writing this post without watching Grave of the Fireflies again; I simply can't bring myself to watch it another time having already watched three times. Every time I watched it, it had a profound psychological effect on me for days, and I know that given the deteriorating scenes in Gaza today, it would make that war even more real to me than it is right now. Grave of the Fireflies is the first movie directed by Isao Takahata under the Studio Ghibli name, and it was produced to be shown in tandem with My Neighbor Totoro which will forever be a curious strategy (that may have been the only way for Totoro to ever be produced). It is a movie about the death, due to hunger, of two children in World War II Japan as society hardened by war around them, and the systems of protection allowed the most vulnerable to wither and die. ...

The most striking thing about Jade Cocoon: The Story of the Tamamayu is its relation to the excellent work of Studio Ghibli thanks to the involvement of Ghibli's Katsuya Kondo in the design of the world and characters. It is immediately apparent when you watch the opening anime movie and becomes even more apparent when you consider the environmental themes within. Another inspiration was the fledgling Monster Collection genre, spearheaded by Pokemon , which inspires the Minion collection mechanics of the game and its core gameplay loop. With such pedigree, you may be surprised by how little you know of the game since it never reached the wide audience it deserved at the time. Yet, it did have a dedicated cult following, and that's a testament to the inherent quality of the game. A quality that is just close to standing the test of time if not for a few niggling issues. #A24: Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu:- Year: 1998, 1999. Genre: JRPG. Publisher: Genki, Crave Entertainme...

  Considering the esteem and cultural reputation of My Neighbor Totoro , as well as the large fandom around it, it is amazing to consider it struggled to get financed initially. In fact, it would not have been made had Ghibil's star producer, Toshio Suzuki, not linked it with the much different (and quite bleak) Grave of the Fireflies .  If I try and watch the movie while being as distracted and uninterested as possible, I could understand why it was a tricky proposition to pitch the film. Its a slow, sometimes pondering film about two girls moving house and missing their mother. Not much "plot" happens in the movie, with even the titular Totoro appearing little, and doing little when it appears. You could watch the movie this way, and if you do, you would be watching it wrong. It should be a litmus test of sort, watching My Neighbor Totoro and engaging with it being a proof of humanity at some level. Here is a movie that, if you remove your cynical adult self that was b...

Following the surprise success of the Broken Sword Adventure games on the PS1, a success that was surprising because the genre usually thrived on PCs but struggled on consoles, Sony reportedly requested that Revolution Software make a new game with the PS1 in mind. The result was In Cold Blood , a new type of Adventure game that was unrelated to their past work, but maybe could offer something new to fans of the genre. Unfortunately, it is exactly the advances that the game made that make it so much inferior to the charming games that preceded it. #A30: In Cold Blood:- Year: 2000, 2001. Genre: Adventure. Publisher: Sony, DreamCatcher Games. Developer: Revolution Software.

  This is officially the first actual Studio Ghibli film, created under the newly formed Studio unlike Hayao Miyazaki's first film; Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind . For many, this is the film that introduced them to Ghibli's work, even if they didn't know it at the time, being a favorite of localized Anime reruns in many countries. If nothing else, then it's a great introduction to the style and sensibilities of Miyazaki and his studio. Castle in the Sky followed Nausicaä in establishing many of Miyazaki's trademark themes. From his focus on flight, smaller moments that underscore the humanity of his characters, the power of community in both social and physical forms, the confluence of technology and nature, and the fearsome power of technology misused. The movie concerns the pursuit of the mythical city of Laputa, which is floating in the sky, by a number of different factions. First, is a governmental faction, that obtains a clue about the city's existe...

We are now closing in on the final third of Retro Sanctuary's Top 100 PlayStation 1 Games list and we are naturally getting the good stuff. However, there are some serious errors on this list. For me, it's extremely inappropriate to have Final Fantasy Tactics out of the top 30 games on the PS1, as it's one of the most influential TRPGs of all time. Other serious errors are the inclusion of Time Crisis , which has a significantly superior arcade port, and Rayman 2 , which is a very good 3D Platformer with a better Dreamcast port. Otherwise, the rest list is a mostly fine collection of games. It has two fighting games (three if you count the brilliant Super Puzzle Fighter Turbo II ) of varying quality ( Darkstalkers 3 is very good while Tobal No. 1 needs to be replaced with one of the better fighters we already covered), a highly-regarded Shmup, a Square cult-classic, a racing game, and the brilliant 3rd Person Shooter/Stealth game Syphon Filter . At this stage, the stre...

  Although not officially a Studio Ghibli movie, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind , directed by the great Hayao Miyazaki, was the start of the partnership that created it, and is in style and purpose clearly part of that studio's canon. The result of that partnership was one of the most important Anime movies of all time. You can reliably trace Nausicaä's influence to a significant number of Anime moves and series that sprang after it, and even in the then-nascent videogame's scene. Its wealth of imagination, the complexity of world-building, and brilliant soundtrack were probably early influences of a genre that depended on adapting existing properties and ideas instead of developing its own. Besides its undoubted influence, Nausicaä is just a brilliant movie on its own. That's obvious in the first 10 minutes or so when the titular character is silently exploring the Sea of Decay. By then, you should understand that the world went to hell after a horrific war and t...

If you thought that a third Syphon Filter game in three years is a sign of creative fatigue, then you have thought right. For all intents and purposes, Syphon Filter 3 is almost identical to the second game but with poorer pacing and story beats. That explains why this third outing of Gabriel Logan and friends had the lowest scores on the PS1, but is too much of a good thing necessarily bad? I actually don't think so, which is why despite the game being clearly inferior to the second outing, I still enjoyed my time with it at its best. #36(S2): Syphon Filter 3:- Year: 2001. Genre: 3rd Person Shooter/Stealth Publisher: Sony. Developer: Bend Studio