The Ultimate Just Got Better: Minty on PS2

Forever Kingdom: A short revisit


When I came back to Forever Kingdom, I felt confident that whatever challenges blocked my path, I would be able to learn a solution. My confidence was tested then bested. Let me tell you how.

My trio of bound souls find themselves knee deep in sand, immersed in an inky cavern. I notice that there are torches I can light with fire. I think, maybe this will be important. Maybe a stela will refer obliquely to lighting these.

I move forward into an opening and a massive snake shoots out of the ground. I strike it to no effect and it immediately kills my group. On try two, I run past it towards a door. But the door is locked. I die again. In the third run, I veer left and try a different door. This one opens and I’m safe. I attack a crab and it feels like an easier match. I continue and leeches begin bouncing like giant fleas from out of the sand. They don’t hurt me so much, but now I notice that I’m cursed. Being cursed means that my defense is cut in half. I battle another crab and it kills me with one swipe of its claw.

I am only beginning to recognize the depth of the situation.

Fortunately, I have enough currency to buy armor that helps me withstand three shots instead of one from the crab. I develop a combo that stuns the crab perfectly into death. Then I make my way through the labyrinth. There is a minimap, so I figure I do not need to draw my own. I’m wrong. There are many important details that are not displayed on the minimap: pits and piles of sand block some passages and sandstorms teleport you around. I become lost. There are no stelae to clue me into my situation. I simply wander around trying to find a path I haven’t found before. I meet a door covered in fire and try several ideas: I wear fire-resistant armor, I shoot it with fire, I shoot it with ice, and nothing changes. I remember the torches from earlier and convince myself that they all need to be lit.

At this point, I have been wandering in the labyrinth for an hour, lighting torches and trying to find new paths. Often, I find myself going in circles. Until everything ends. I switch to a different character each time I want to shoot a fireball. On one of these attempts, a crab sneaks up on me. It strikes and I’m dead. I’m dead and I don’t want to come back. I don’t want to look at a walkthrough. The game exists perfectly in my head right now as something impenetrable. Perhaps one day, I will return.

Yanya Caballista:City Skater





Yanya Caballista is one of the best names for a video game. The Japanese release added “featuring Gawoo” to its title and that’s even better. I would love to refer to skaters as caballistas from now on, but I don’t think anyone would know what I meant. I don’t think anyone would be familiar with Gawoo or Bluebee. Now, for better or worse, I am.

This game wants me to use a finger board attached to the analog sticks. I didn’t have one, nor could I figure out how to attach a plastic spoon or popsicle stick to them. Instead, I just put my two fingers on the analog sticks and did my best to keep them in a v shape.

I bought a skateboard recently. It’s funny to me how much learning this game and learning to skate are similar; that is, my mind wills my body to move in a certain way and my body cannot heed the command. My wrist and fingers hurt just like my legs hurt after an hour of trying to pop higher ollies.

Gawoos have invaded Earth and the only thing that gets them to go away is skateboarding tricks. They are so impressed by tricks that they explode. holding the controller sideways, I slide my two fingers forward. I click the left stick down and ollie; then I click it again and land a heelflip. The Gawoo is amazed and pops into thin air.

Through the game, I realize there are advanced techniques that I must learn. There are challenges that teach me these techniques and they remind me of Crazy Taxi in their cruelty. In one challenge, I have to impress 7 gawoo in three minutes. They are standing all over the place, on islands, in cages, on top of a tower. I tried this stage 5 times before realizing that I wasn’t executing an important technique, the push ollie. For this, I have to push right before a ramp and ollie at once. If I don’t do it right, I don’t clear jumps and splash in the water. Even though I know how to do it, I still only hit it right 70% of the time. The same is true for almost any other action in the game.

After two hours, my wrist hurts far too much to think about playing this again. If I go into the options, I can change the controls to something “normal,” but that feels like a betrayal. I can’t allow myself to step around these over-proud design decisions.

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