Pac-Mania: How dare ya!

Welcome again to the PookSpot. Its time for an arcade machine, home version arcade, phone arcade, whatever you'd call it, and maybe the most insane arcade game ever. Welcome to, Pac-Mania, friends.

I'll eat your boring Earth as well.

The game has more features than original Pacman. Lets say you're cornered by two ghosts. Press a button and you escape by jumping over them. Congrats, you saved yourself a 1-Up for later. The game gives you up to 5 pellets (the 5th being special and its effect lasts shortly, and not always appear) and gives you a speed pellet that will last till a collected power pellet's effect last. Namco now gives you a more beatable version of Pac-Man, so say thanks to them.. or so you think!

Unless you don't know that the three available Pac-Man World titles are made for people to beat it and unlock everything in it, this arcade machine is frustration. The levels are different in each version of the game, shall you get the home version and arcade version at once. Block Town is 2 levels at the home version instead of one level at the arcade version, so home version should be longer. Keep in mind that the home version has unlimited free credits, all by pressing the "Start" button after you're "Game Over"'d.

But in either versions, Pac-Man still drives like a mad man, and sometimes the ghosts are uber intelligent. Sometimes if you jump over them to another way, they'd follow the way you're taking, thus making you die if you didn't turn directions at the last moment. This is true for all Pac-Mans that has jumping in mazes enabled though, but its more insane when you talk about an arcade machine.

Look, look! Wait, run, run! Sue will sue you!

Enjoy the nasty trip to the final place, Jungly Steps. Among the way, hundreds of doom levels are awaiting. Enjoy as you see the cutscene of jumping ghosts. And oh boy when you go to Jungly Steps, as the very insane ghosts catch up with you. So when you think that the game is easy cause you can jump, you lied to yourself actually.

Ok, ok, I have beaten the game instead after spending many quarters. What do I get? Another round of frustration through the same worlds, more frustrating than last time. Or the game could be made endless it seems. Ok, I'll buy a Pac-Mania machine and set it to be free, or I could get it on MAME and get endless virtual quarters. Or hey, I can buy Pac-Man World 2 and get a whole arcade machine set in an arcade house in Pac-Man's village, assuming you get 180 Namco coins for the ultimate machine, umm, Ms. Pac's, with everything available.

Give up playing Pac-Mania and go play the original Pac-Man.

Summer Vacation 19' and more from Final Fantasy II

So here we are, reunited again. Pooka Mustard just got his Summer Vacation yesterday, the 19th of May, hence why I called it "Summer Vacation 19'". So for the millionth time I think, we are free from the jail of education, right after the revenge of the physics which took place that same day. Its time to get free again, and fill in spots in this blog.


Meanwhile, the midnight of that same day and 2 hours into the new day, it was the time I brought back Final Fantasy II into action. As we knew from the previous post, its the most insane RPG I ever caught. Limited inventory unlike the original and stuff like that. Still, the more you get deeper into the game, the more it gets insane. Let's see more.


Yesterday, its time we launched for the Mysidian Tower after we got it's main key. Surprise! You're swallowed by a large whale that swallows people for a very weird reason.

Yuck!!

Hopefully you got out, but then went to Altair and had a nap, or two, because it seems like you wanted to go to the Mysidian Tower with almost full HP. Also to restore your invaluable items, HP and MP. Then you launched to the tower. By the way, its the tower that holds the spell everybody you talked to, told you its vital for beating the emperor and its sealed heavily. I went yesterday and told to myself, "Hey this is a tower with a very important spell inside, it got to be as high as the castle in A Link to the Past". Only to see then that this tower is more insane than that castle.

There, I met Vampirettes and Imps which usually comes in 8s and 6s. Speaking about female vampires, they have their Entice, and Imps have Muddle, both spells do the same thing: confuse your party. Which means that anybody in your party having a chat bubble with a blue ring is a potential threat to your party. Worse if you're talking about a confused Maria with two awesomely powerful swords enough to take out a party member in one hit. Hopefully, whenever you meet them, scroll down to the "Flee" button and press it, rinse and repeat three more times, this is how you escape the confusers because they aren't really good at keeping you confined to the battle unlike others.

Female vampires suck love?!!!! I'm out of the battle!

You are going to meet the Hill Gigas again, but I'm assuming you already know how to handle them by now. No no, behind him, enjoy your "Bomb" day.

BOOOOOOOOOM!!!

This is just the beginning, my fellow reader. How about facing three more kinds of Gigas instead, with one of them having a weakness point you didn't know about unless you battled him until he died or knew it from a FAQ? Sorry, but the Hill Gigas by now should be a kid's game. And if you're really really unlucky, you opened a chest which contained a very dangerous dragon. I'm assuming you're exhausted from whatever got hold of you as you go up the tower, then you face a dragon. Man.. By the time you reach that monster-in-a-box, chances are you went up around 8 floors of insane frustrations. Finally after trying to avoid the mighty hoax rooms, Mindu is ahead of your eyes. Then, you entered a room with 5 crystals, one of them is totally gold. If you ignored the silver crystals and went ahead for the gold, like me, because you were frustrated, congratulations. You missed something you'll thank the game for.

OK, I warped out of the tower, that made me forget what's the hardest level in Phantasy Star IV, and went back to Fynn to have another nap. Now if you were me, you'd go to the river near Fynn and park the ship there, going the rest of the way with the canoe. As you head into Fynn itself, you might meet these non-sense ba...- oh wait! Bombs, Hill Gigas, Sorcerers, Captains, etc, everywhere not just near Fynn, awaiting you!!

Now give up having a permanent home. For your information, some homes are now useless to go to. Fly to Mysidia in case you want spells, or a full fledged village.

And that's not until I beat the freaking game. The third part will talk about the end of the insanity, but it won't appear right away. Patience, frustrated Padawan.

Final Fantasy II: Insanity and frustration!

I remember that I got Final Fantasy Origins for PS, just for one thing, original Final Fantasy in a better look with many facelifts. I didn't care at these days for the other thing in that CD, called Final Fantasy II. I cared with it nowadays. And ended up on one of these RPGs, that are a lot different than usual RPGs. Yeah really. This is what I observed from the game...

Prepare to die!

You've got a story better than original Final Fantasy, and your party talks, something that didn't exist in the first. Your whole party could learn spells unlike the first, which needed a mage. You've got a canoe at the beginning, instead of the original's canoe at mid-game. Then...

It will give you insanity and frustration, then fits, the more you go deeper into this machine-o-doom! Let's see if Firion can say "Prepare to die!" as freely as he wants.

Nothing in Final Fantasy is called Experience Points, or XP. You wanna make Maria a powerful girl with dual swords? Go ahead, but let her attack with swords so she could be a great offender. Don't upgrade me her swords to level 9  then say "no, she should equip knives from now on", you will restart from zero, as you make Maria learn how to hold knives. You want to make Firion a mage? Don't just make him kill monsters with whatever he is holding, let him DO magic so he could be a mage. Don't make him fight monsters with your weapon so you could gain MP. Hey wait, are there spells like Cura? Never. Want to make Gus heal the most HP? Then make him heal a lot using the Cure 1 spell, then it will upgrade by time to Cure 2, Cure 3, etc.. Don't expect to find a Cure 6 scroll hidden somewhere, unless you're talking about a magical weapon.. That's for.. player status.. Oh, and you have 63 inventory slots only. You can't stack 99 potions like in original FF. Not to mention that Key (or important) items are going to fill 1/4 of the inventory. Be wise with your inventory! Enemies please?


The bosses were insane, assuming you had Mythril weapons of course. The next time you challenged a gaint blue turtle in the ice, unprepared... surprise! Only one guy got you out of this problem, or you went and figured out where's the weakness... maybe you don't have it yet.

ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!

Yeah... and roars in your face as well with his surprisingly powerful attacks and high defense. Now let's move on? What about the ogre from the original? Aww, his size now gives him the power to unleash an attack to execute a process that tries to delete your HP. Come the next day asking for the Ogre Chieftain, okay?

Then the famous repetitive mission of "rescue the damsel in distress" is on it's way. You expected to fight some goombas and that's how you do it? You expected the mission to be as easy as the original's Garland?? Wrong! Think again. Warlocks and Spiketoises await you.

Then you open a chest, just a chest... WOAH! A monster fills the whole screen, maybe two! That's what I just want to run away from his face... that's more powerful than the original's Hill Giga which seemed to be a hoax, be prepared for the real Hill Giga! Chances of me beating that fiend (is he more powerful than the original's first fiend?) were at this time, 50%, and it gets up the less Gigas I face. But I did say goodbye when two taken me out... And for your information, one guy couldn't take you out as safely as four guys could. Same for three guys.

Gordon: I just defeated the Hill Gigas! Ye.. FIRION? MARIA? GUY?

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Many rooms in that wonder are nothing but hoaxes. You expect a room full of chests right? The room with that valuable thing that made you go into that killer dungeon for it? Once again, nope. These hoaxes are empty rooms with a higher monster spawning rate, that is, if you entered this room, you come up in the middle, and chances that the two steps you'll move to the door are full of monsters, that will punish you for taking this route. Millions of these rooms are spread in the game.

All that, were frustration and halfway insanity. Yeah it's still long, but I have one more thing! Let's make you go out frightened right? And here's the most insane thing to happen in the game, and the most creepiest!

For a poisoned Wind Drake, you go to talk to him and know what's the next thing you'll do. He gives you his valuable thing, but talk to him again. He tells you to bring that thing to the said place again..... before you press X, touch your iPhone screen or anything, lower your sound volume and prepare for the Wind Drake's roar... in your party's face. We expect a frightened and coward Maria and Guy (and YOU) as you all think that he will eat you now.

That's all what I got to say about Final Fantasy II. Yeah it should have given you fits and made you gave up, but for some reason I didn't give up... But I'm grinding, oh no....

Wake up, PookSpot!

Hola again guys! Pooka Mustard is back after a long gaming journey... Yet PookSpot is forgotten right?


Though I have exams a few days later, I will try to make a post before I start. Let's stop these reviews I was making in these days and start something else still par to gaming, righty?


Which takes me to the upcoming post... it is...