Black Frost x1 appears!

GTPU is on hiatus this week as I work through approximately 5000 technical issues. Sorry all! We'll be back next time. Please also note we'll now be updating once every two weeks, on Monday mornings as usual. Thanks for your support!

Trio the Punch - Never Forget Me...

Released: 1989
Published by: Data East
Genre: Beat-em-up
Platform: Arcade, ported to PS2

It's kuso-ge time! Even among crap games, Trio the Punch is pretty darn special. Purposefully nonsensical, Trio the Punch was the third in a series of games by the same director featuring ridiculous characters and nonexistant plots. The stars of the other two games in the series, Karnov and Chelnov, even make an appearance in this game as bosses. Critics and serious game fans seemed to universally despise this game upon its release, but we know better, don't we?

The "trio" in the name presumably comes from the fact that the player is given a choice of three main characters to play as. I don't recall names ever being given for these characters, so for lack of better ones I've creatively decided to call them "Ninja Guy", "Sword Guy", and "Punch Guy". While Ninja Guy has the useful ability of being able to turn into a tree and not move for a little while after being hit, and Sword Guy has the best range for his attacks and also the power of looking like Conan the Barbarian, I decided to play as Punch Guy because he looks like a pretty cool dude and also he has sweet Wolverine claws as an upgraded weapon. This would later turn out to be a horrible choice, little did I know!

Wait no Weebles wobble but they DON'T fall down ugh this is all wrong :(

Trio the Punch features a whopping 35 levels and zero plot. Between levels you're occasionally given a message to introduce the next stage or appraise your performance in the last one, my favourites being "the moon is your friend" and "you are the best in the world." They started to get sassy as I progressed in the game, telling me "that was okay" when I beat a particularly tough stage. There's no particular rhyme or reason to the order of the stages or the bosses in Trio the Punch; one moment you'll be in a graveyard, the next in a desert, the next in a sewer. One of my favourites was the circus stage, featuring a boss that looked suspiciously like Col. Sanders. Well, technically the boss was the evil chicken that burst out of Col. Sanders Alien-style, but you get the idea. Another highlight is very near the beginning of the game, in which you fight a pink sheep. Whether you win or lose, the words "CURSE YOU" appear at the top of the screen and you'll spend the next level as a sheep yourself. Not much of a curse considering the sheep is much easier to play as than any of the real characters.

Michelangelo's Dying Slave is really delighted that you have so many continues. Just look at that happy smile!

At the end of every level you beat, an old kung fu master gives you a roulette wheel to spin that awards (or punishes) you with whatever you land on. Sometimes it's an upgraded weapon or a new special move, and sometimes it's a downgrade or even just a chance to switch characters. Levels are so short that the whole thing is pretty meaningless, though I did find that I landed on good things more often than not. Unfortunately for Punch Guy, his best weapon is a really really powerful punch that sends you sliding across the screen to hit multiple enemies. If this sounds great, you probably haven't taken into account that many stages of Trio the Punch feature multiple levels of platforms and this punch is likely to send you flying off of them and right into an enemy below! It's just another fantastic element of this ridiculous kuso-ge.

Trio the Punch really is a great game for fans of the weird. It requires zero attention span, but a lot of patience--it should be mentioned that the collision detection in this game is utterly wonky; you'll often hit when it looks like you should miss and vice-versa, and hitting the top of an enemy or projectile won't hurt you, but send you bouncing away until you're on solid ground again. For all the ridiculous fun this game has to offer, it gets 4.5/5 cursed sheep on the GTPU weird-o-meter.

GTPU 2009 Cosplay Special

This weekend, I unexpectedly had the (mis)fortune of working at a convention for two days. While the people I was working for are great, the dealers' room is open for long hours and cons are generally a grueling test of endurance. I decided the best thing to do would be to bring along my phone and turn the weekend into a giant game of "spot the awesome game cosplayers", and it turned out to be the most fun I could possibly have while pushing stuffed toys, DVDs, and posters on nerds with a ton of disposable income. As an extra challenge, I tried to snap as many Persona 4 cosplayers as I could. Hope you guys enjoy it too, and don't forget to click for big!

Daisy, Peach, and Luigi from some obscure Nintendo game no one's ever heard of. I think it's called the Great Giana Sisters.

Irvine, Tifa, and Rinoa, three of the many Final Fantasy series cosplayers who made their appearance at the con. VII, VIII, X, and Advent Children are the perennial favourites, but any cosplayer who could pull off a convincing Kain or FuSoYa would get mad props from me.

May from the Guilty Gear fighter series, which, in keeping true to the theme of this blog, is in fact a pretty weird bunch of games.

Black Rose from .hack//a bunch of games I guess and maybe an animated series. I have to wonder if she got tired of carrying that gigantic sword around with her all day, but it sure is well done.

These guys were totally and unapologetically radical. They also couldn't walk more than a few feet without getting harassed for photos, which didn't stop me from doing the same. From left to right, Fei-Long, Cammy, Guile, and Ryu from various Street Fighter games. Check out the artistic liberty taken with Guile's tattoo.

Mitsuru Kirijo from Persona 3, complete with an adorable little stuffed Koromaru the wonder dog. :3

This girl somehow found a way to make Parappa the Rapper even cuter, d'awwww. It's tough to tell in the picture, but she even had the little frog decal on her hat. I GOTTA BELIEVE!

POKEYMANS was an absurdly popular choice for this year's cosplayers, and there were tons of Ashes, Mistys, Dawns, and Pikachus running around the con. Since most of them were about 10 years old, however, I decided to get a picture of these Team Magma members instead.

This creepy Silent Hill nurse was made kinda less creepy by her non-cosplaying friends heckling her while I took this picture.

PERSONA 4 PHOTO GET! It's the hero's lovable and vaguely homophobic BFF, Yosuke Hanamura! He was pretty much literally the first cosplayer I saw on Saturday morning. He also has a Raiho stuffed animal, which came with the recently-released SMT: Devil Summoner 2 (you should probably buy this).

PERSONA 4 PHOTO GET! It's my personal favourite, great detective Naoto Shirogane! For the record, this is a boy cosplaying a girl who dresses as a boy. We've come full-circle here.

PERSONA 4 PHOTO GET! Finding Teddie wandering around was awesome enough, but he happened to be with a friend dressed as Rise Kujikawa. Knowing that someone at this con took the time and care to make a Teddie costume pretty much made the weekend for me.

Last but not least: SONIC THE (furry?) HEDGEHOG himself. That's dedication. Shine on, you crazy diamond.

That's about it for this year's con. Sadly there were tons of great ones I missed, but thanks to all the nice folks who let me take their photos! Hope you all enjoyed it!