Welcome to Toys in the Attic, a new little segment where I get to talk about a game from a land so far far away – the past. We’ll start this off right, by talking about my absolute favorite video game of all time – Dragon Force. No, not the power metal band, Dragonforce, although a game about them would be quite interesting… but I digress! Dragon Force is one of the greatest games never played, and a lot of that has to do with its release on Sega Saturn in 1996. How many of you owned a Sega Saturn in the mid 90s? How many of you even knew somebody who knew somebody who owned one? It was rather sad that such a great machine had such a short shelf life, but that’s neither here nor there. Now I’m just going to educate you about a game you should have played eons ago.

Dragon Force is a strategy RPG about conquering the continent of Alundra. In the beginning of the game, you control the monarch, Wein, and his many generals. Each general has their own army of warriors, which can be one of many different classes. Each of those classes has their strengths and weaknesses. Mages and Archers, for instance, are good at killing enemies at the other side of the field, but tend to be rather weak in close range. Monks and Beasts are very powerful attackers but it doesn’t take a lot of effort to kill them. Dragons and Zombies are rare to find, and hard to stop, but what kills them kills them quickly. It’s essentially a giant game of rock, paper, scissors and the winner is usually determined before the battle even begins. You travel with a total of ten generals to each castle – but each castle can hold around twenty or so generals themselves. Each general fights one at a time until one side has completely lost or retreated. The winning side holds the losers as captives and if you’re fighting in a castle, they get control of the castle.

Every “week”, Wein meets with his generals and talks about the war. You can give out awards to generals who do well, fortify any castle you occupy, attempt to search for items hidden in the castle, or try to convince captive generals to join your side. Some generals refuse to join your side at all for a long time – most of them, however, are merely waiting for their monarch to join you. The awards you give out go to the general’s soldier ranks – but only one warrior type at a time. Each award you give them counts for 10 warriors, up to a maximum of 10 awards. One hundred soldiers might not seem like a lot, but you’ve also got to recruit that many soldiers for the war effort. How well recieved you are in the game world has a lot to do with that, but largely recruitment is just a time based effort. If you wait long enough, you’ll be able to replenish your stock.

Each general levels up as well. Levels give them respect to their soldiers, strength to kill enemy soldiers, and up to three spells. The generals often change the tide of battle. Typically most generals can take out two soldiers for every one that hits them, and the magic spells can sometimes wipe out whole armies. If it gets to the point where both generals kill both armies, the two of them have a duel. Whoever has the most health usually wins, but I’ve had instances where the enemy was so evasive they ended up winning the battle. It can be really frustrating, since it takes a long time to even get to that point.

The story begins with Wein being told about Goldark starting a war in the west. The other monarchs on the continent believe him to be a madman and wish to stop him; Wein, realizing that the war is going to happen with or without him, decides to participate but only in the name of peace. A holy spirit visits him in the middle of the night and informs him that there are eight holy warriors that are reincarnations of eight heroes who put an evil demon, Madruk, to rest under a mountain near Fandaria, Goldark’s nation. The spirit informs Wein that Madruk is awakening, and his evil is possibly influencing the war. Wein is one of the eight chosen heroes, and it’s up to him to collect these warriors and stand up to Madruk – and stop the war. Kind of a lot for one guy, right? Well, he is king… anyway, Wein is on the lookout for eight warriors. There are eight nations… each with their own monarch. Surely it can’t be as simple as that?

It… it kind of is. I mean, it’s simple in theory. The actual challenge of capturing the monarchs is insanely difficult. They’re usually the strongest general of their nation, and while you’ve been busy fighting and capturing other generals, so have they. Also while you’re trying to capture their monarch, some other nation might decide to poke you for a bit. And that’s just the monarchs! There are thieves, vampires, and unholy hellspawn robots to deal with as well. The best strategy is usually to wait until another nation has done most of the beating for you, and come in for the kill – or to get dragons and zombies for everyone! Once you collect all the heroes, then you’ve got to stop the hordes of evil, while simultaneously collecting the weapon of badassness – then you’ve got to go and stop the ultimate evil. This can take a while, as each of the pieces are spread out over the continent, and it takes a week to walk a few inches across the screen sometimes.

After you’ve beaten the game as Wein, you can play the game again from the perspective of one of the other eight – well, not Reinhart or Goldark. You have to beat the game using a different monarch, first. Those guys are considered the “hard” mode of the game. Most of the difficulty of the game comes from the location of your nation and how easy it is to convince generals to come to your side. Strategically, Wein is the most average. People listen to him plenty okay, and he’s in a spot that’s easily fortified. Reinhart is located in the middle of the continent and is pretty much bitch bait for everyone – plus he uses mages, which are amazing at the end of the game, but suck dick in the beginning. Goldark is really strong, obviously, but because he’s the dictator that started this war, none of the monarchs join his side until you get all of them.

This game fucking sparkles. The only way it could get better is if it could somehow pleasure you sexually and then make you the greatest sandwich you’ll ever eat. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve poured into this thing in my lifetime. I must have beaten it with all eight monarchs at least half a dozen times – and some way more than others. And it’s not a quick game! I pride myself on being able to beat an RPG fairly quickly, but the slow paced strategy of the game forces you to spend at least fifty hours beating the first section of the game. It has a lot to do with the fact that there’s a lot of talking – a lot of it. You’ll spend a long time listening to people go on about stuff that’s kind of important. But this game is definitely fun. If you can’t be arsed to get a Sega Saturn and a copy of this (jerks) I don’t blame you entirely. You’ll just be missing out on an amazing gaming experience.

Dark clouds foreshadow rain.  Similarly, the new Mortal Kombat live action video that made its way onto the web seemed to foreshadow a coming storm of new media for the almost-forgotten franchise.  Timing couldn’t have been better, in all honesty.  Just around the corner is E3, the place where video games can be reborn (or at least, given a second chance).  E3 is where many fans are expecting to see something new from the Mortal Kombat franchise, having just been acquired by a new developer.  It’s been a little less than a year since Midway went bankrupt and Mortal Kombat went to WB Games (now, NetherRealm).

That much time away from the spotlight can leave most properties in a stalemate of sorts.  Mortal Kombat is no exception to becoming stale, especially considering the series hasn’t been terribly relevant since the 3^rd entry.  The new Mortal Kombat movie on YouTube turned out to be nothing more than a really elaborate job application for an aspiring director.  However, it seemed to springboard perfectly into this: a true trailer for a truly new Mortal Kombat game, simply titled Mortal Kombat.

The trailer, which is now available to view any time on themortalkombat.com, was released just a bit before E3 and barely a week after the live action video was abuzz on YouTube.  What is shown is a phenomenal little trailer for a gorgeous looking Mortal Kombat game, easily the simplest and prettiest entry in the series in years.  But, despite the earlier proclamations otherwise, to call it new is a bit of a stretch.

Let’s call it a throwback, but not in a derogatory sense, because it throws back very, very well.  Based off of this short trailer, it seems obvious that Ed Boon and company are at least trying to make this game into the MK game fans have been waiting for since MKII.  It’s safe to say that the games had become a bit too diluted and had strayed a bit far from what made them the classics that they are.  Adding 3D environments, boats of new characters, weapons, and new stories are all well and good, but the world became too much and got too far from what MK fans had loved.

So, MK, it seems, is going back to its roots.  2D fighting, classic characters, classic environments, and classically brutal violence are all in this trailer attempting to showcase that Mortal Kombat is back.  No character shown is from any game later than Mortal Kombat 3.  The returning characters seem to have (for the most part) reverted back to their simpler forms, like Sub-Zero and Reptile who resemble similar looking ninjas, but not pallet swapped ones, and Kung-Lao and Raiden who have been given a modernized MKII makeover.

Environments that we see are ones that fans have been demanding, like The Pit and The Dead Pool as well as others, all given a modern sheen.  But most importantly, the game seems simpler, yet  almost simultaneously deeper.  The games in this genre that have had the most success have been ones that anyone can pick up and play, but with layers and layers of depth to give the hardcore players new nooks and crannies to salivate over.

Mortal Kombat has never been known as a game to feature a really in-depth combat system until the later games, at which point it almost became too complex, and no longer pick up and playable.  This trailer shows a game that’s in 2D, which will mean less complex controls, while at the same time showing what appears to be an intense combo system filled with crazy juggles and special moves.  It would be hard to argue that Boon and the boys had taken a cue from the latest incarnations of Street Fighter and have really taken a game that had lost its luster, simplified it, and added some much-needed depth.

But it’s also obvious that this game is here to please the fans, very similar to how Capcom did it with Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV.  It’s hard to argue against emulating success, and harder to argue with the success of SFIV and SSFIV, which have revitalized the fighting genre and thrust it back into the mainstream.  Can Mortal Kombat continue the fighting genres hot streak?  Calling all you suckers for the old school:  Whether it’s a reboot, a throwback, or what, it looks badass and it looks like Mortal Kombat is back.