Xeno-what?

Xenoblade Chronicles is an excellent game. Many would say it’s the best RPG on the Wii, possibly the best RPG of last generation. There’s been a lot of attention attached to the title lately not based on its merit but its price. GameStop is selling pre-owned copies for $90. Let’s fight corporate profits.

I went on and on about gaming finances a while ago and it looks like a lot of what I said rings true about the used games market. Let’s have a look at what people are saying and the situation surrounding this “controversy”.

The internet is up in arms! Vloggers from all sides of Youtube and bloggers from the ends of the earth are screaming “Betrayal!” from whatever rooftop they can find. No one ever yells at the multitude of resellers on Ebay who’ve been hawking this game for over $100 for quite some time, GameStop just decided to price some of their games accordingly. Back in the days of the PSone they sold some used games at a premium like Dragon Ball GT Final Bout and Final Fantasy Tactics before its Greatest Hits reprint, so there’s really nothing new here besides the marketing.

When did Xenoblade become vintage? This is probably what bothers me the most about the current situation. The game was released April 6, 2012, that’s just over 16 months before this writing. It’s kind of hard to believe a game that came out a month after Mass Effect 3 is a vintage title; I’ll agree that it’s an extremely high quality game but it’s not quite dated yet.

What is a used game? I’ve wondered that many times, but I think it’s the sticker in the top right of the cover of the game. How many times have you purchased the last copy of a game where they hand you the display case with a sticker closing it to satisfy the “sealed” requirements? A lot of these “resurfacing” copies of Xenoblade are spotless with working Nintendo Club codes; they just lack the shrink wrap. I’ve never seen any declaration as to what constitutes what makes a game used. I guess GameStop owns the physical property and can do what they like with it. Would you slap a sticker on it and sell it for $40 less? It’s business, plain and simple.

GameQuestDirect is a company that reprints certain games under contract with the original publisher with a 50% splint in sales. So at least the original company is getting some sort of revenue from the units shipped. Several times before they’ve rerun games that were going for a premium in the second hand market (Guitarooman, Rhapsody, REZ, Fatal Frame series) and fulfilled demand to the point that drove the price down. Seems like a good deal; it’s a legit copy, you can find it clean, and avoid crazy resell prices. Here’s where it gets fishy, GameStop is the only company in the US that can distribute new copies of Xenblade so they essentially control 100% of the supply. Nintendo gave them a contractual monopoly.

The reseller’s market has determined the price of high demand games for years now, and the big corporations know it. With the obvious path to primarily digital distribution for video game consoles in the future GameStop has seen a few areas to get a few more dollars before their business model becomes “vintage”. 

A Quest Draws Near-er

A few months ago I went on about how much fun I had playing the original Dragon Warrior it was a pleasant surprise while I was looking for a history lesson. Dragon Quest instantly became one of my favorite 8-bit Nintendo games and piqued my interest in the other games. Today we no longer fight slimes alone.

After a pretty impressive title screen Dragon Warrior 2 starts out much like the first one with the descendant of great hero readying for an epic quest in a king’s throne room. Once he’s acquired some starting equipment and healing items; multiple slimes attack at once outside of the castle. This is different, that single file line of monsters waiting to jump you has widened to up to 6 foes per encounter. That’s a game changer folks, it’s still one action per round per participant but now turn order plays a much larger role. Fear not, there may be multiple monsters in each encounter but you have your two cousins to join in the fray. Each of you has a unique skill set; the main hero is all brawn with the use of all of the most powerful equipment, the male cousin is a mixture of magic and physical power, and the girl has the most powerful magic in the game.

Comparing Dragon Quest 2 with its predecessor is pretty impressive, it looks like they took everything from the first game and made it bigger. The first noticeable change is the upgraded battle system that adds a new layer of strategy to battles. Difficulty has been ramped up quite a bit, but not any worse any other RPG from the late 80’s. The world map is 4 times larger with a ship to traverse the seas. You can even travel to the island and visit the castles from the first game, the Dragonlord’s descendant still lives in the same castle and encourages your fight against a the new evil.

There are growing pains. Oh the growing pains. Having multiple party members with different roles is cool at first until you realize the balancing is totally off. The main hero is amazing; he hits really hard and can take punishment like a champ. The female is semi useful once she gets the better healing spells and attack magic but will fall in a single hit. Your male cousin is useful at first, but later on his magic and physical abilities aren’t up to snuff save for being the only character with a revive spell. Your party is pretty much reduced to a tank and two heal bots. My other major gripe with the game is the success rate of instant death spells; this can be great for you but sucks when you get ambushed in one of the final areas and your fully refreshed party is leveled before they can act by a monster that poses no threat otherwise. Deaths like that happened pretty often in the endgame and make it really tempting to throw your controller.

I’ve heard that the SNES and Game Boy remakes of the game help with the balance issues in the game, so you might want to pick up one of those in place of the original NES cartridge. Dragon Warrior 2 isn’t the best game in the series; actually it’s likely close to the bottom of the stack. I’d recommend playing Dragon Quest 1 or 3 instead if you have to play an NES Dragon Warrior, but it’s interesting to see the bridge between the two.