seanstar wrote:


Ewwww on the SaGa Frontier. Just Eww.

Kinda wish I'd picked up Vagrant Story on the PS1 though before it became a relic. Sadly I picked up Thousand Arms instead. Boy was that a mistake.

thousand arms wasn't THAT horrible. you should have got wild arms though.. great game.

octavius wrote:


I have every Wild Arms (US) title. The first was awesome (to the point of absurdly awesome). The third was OK, but kinda "meh" and the dungeon crawls were atrocious. The fourth I've not finished. The fifth was badass. The second...should never have happened. Ever. Dreary doesn't even begin to cover how you feel after a few hours of WA2.

I've also got Suikoden 1 (easy to find), and Suikoden 2 (exceptionally hard to find), both were new purchases. Suik 3 sits untouched after...nine years? Couldn't bother after seeing it in action elsewhere (but my return period was already up by then). Never looked at 4/5 after 3.

SaGa had a good battle system on paper, but its RNG made winning feel like farming for that one specific weapon/armor in World of Warcraft: damned if you do, damned if you don't. With that kind of detraction, I just couldn't get into the story very much since the battles frustrated me insanely. Shame too - aside from the actual gameplay, the story I've heard is quite good.

Then there's Legend of Mana. I was a HUGE SOM/SD3 fan. LoM had much of the gameplay, but its main problem was that it dragged on for what seemed like forever, kind of how Dawn of Mana does. I should really break out Sword of Mana again - that was rather pleasing to play.

I wish I could get analog controls working in PCSX-Reloaded. I SO want to play GT/GT2 again...but digital controls only sucks.

Apparently I need to pick up Wild Arms Played a demo disc of the first dungeon back when it was new/pending, but never got around to buying the game.
Squishy Tia wrote:

Agreed- if I hadn't started with II, I would never have made it through I. If I hadn't got my clear-save-chain of I and II that I wanted to maintain, III would have been a bit trying. IV is a big improvement over III on many mechanics; if you can tolerate the sailing long enough to get the blinking mirror, it balances out to be worth the play time. V impressed me favorably. Not, perhaps, quite II but decidedly the strongest PS2 title, and not a bad way to end the series if no more are made.


I didn't really approve of the toony overhaul and item-farming underpinnings of Legend and Dawn; never picked up the first and got bored of the second. Sword had me hooked until I confirmed my suspicion from the advertising that it was just a rebuild of SD1/Final Fantasy Adventure, but even then I kept playing until hitting a brick wall in the desert somewhere, not being quite sure how to proceed, and breaking long enough to get even less sure how to proceed.

Also, a good juxtaposition that came to me on why I enjoyed the spirit of Lunar 2 more than FFVIII or, as I'm finding, Vagrant:
Lunar: "You have the power to defeat Zophar, but to do so, you're going to need to sacrifice your girlfriend, because she's the source of his power." / Hiro: "F*** that; there's got to be a better way, we're awesome, we'll find it ^_^"
FFVIII: "Ze vay zis vill go iz you vill let ze sorceress possess your girlfriend and bring about ze apocalypse, zhen you vill be able to actually kill her by beating your girlfriend nearly to death so then maybe she leaves and can be killed. Also, zere vill be gratuitous hand-wavey time travel, it verks, shut up." / Squall: "Whatever. Can I go do it yet?"
Pardon me for being an optimist and/or wanting characters to have more emotions than neuroses...

Hence why Tidus makes FFX (and its ending) all the more sensational. Hell, Zidane has more emotion than Squall. And a tail. Tails rock.

Legend of Mana wouldn't be so bad if your partners' AI weren't so bad that it makes the SNES partner AI look awesome in comparison. I spent more time character switching in LoM than anything else just so my partners wouldn't constantly die. It also didn't help that unless you set up your "world" exactly right, from a combination of about 9! choices (yes, that's a FACTORIAL in there), you couldn't get certain items/sequences or a good ending. You just weren't beating LoM with any sense of satisfaction without a walkthrough/strat guide.

Dawn of Mana is too damned linear. In fact it's almost so much so as Linear 2...er, I mean Lunar 2. L2 was just horribly linear, nearly as much as FFXIII. That and L2's battles were unforgiving and actually created a design paradox where players would purposely leave Hiro dead since boss levels were based on his level. Yech. I never beat L2. L1 was awesome. L2 was....frustration and a half. And grindtastic if you didn't cheese your way through it by leaving your hero dead for every battle (where possible). On the plus side, L1 and L2 had really nice box sets, and I have the Ghaleon punching doll in mint condition (unopened) from my preorder.

Hm. Wasn't aware bosses were based on Hiro's level, and I never had any trouble in the game. Maybe that mechanic was only in EB Complete? THe one walkthrough I occasionally referenced had boss HP listed as fixed, so...
FFVIII, on the other hand, ~was~ a pain in this respect. I ended up pretty much gaming the system and Carding everything to get summon growth without levelling.

I'm still trying to get myself some work at the moment and my Masters doesn't start until the end of the month so naturally I've played far too much recently:

I can't get enough of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer. I first played quite a while ago and recently revisited it and have been leveling up for the past few weeks, pouring far too much time into it. It's difficult to explain quickly how it works but check it out if you're after a slightly more interesting online multiplayer experience. I've gotten pretty good, so much so that recently I got some obscene hate-mail from another player in my PSN inbox. I actually found it more funny than offensive but I'm hoping they ban him now...that would please me.

I finally traded in Resident Evil 5 last week, I just couldn't continue with it. I didn't like the setting, the characters annoyed me (plus my AI partner never did anything I wanted them too) and the inventory was a royal pain. I actually liked the game when I first started but after a while I felt like I was lying to myself and playing it felt like a chore. Looking forward to the release of Resident Evil 4 HD, I LOVED that game.

I also stopped playing Infamous recently. I got it free as part of the Welcome Back promo on PSN and enjoyed it for a while but it just got so repetitive and dull. ALL of the characters annoyed me and the storyline was like a poorly-written comic. It's a shame because I was enjoying it for a while but it just ran out of steam, I guess the price was right.

When I traded RE5 I picked up LA Noire which is proving to be a really enjoyable experience. I wasn't sure at first when the tutorial/intro section proved a bit limited and partly confusing (the first interrogation wasn't explained clearly enough for my liking) but the cases that have followed have been pretty compelling. I've even bought the 'Rockstar Pass' so I've got a few extra cases squeezed in, so far it seems worth it. Some of the investigation stuff reminds me of Shenmue a bit, which is probably why I'm enjoying it so much.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I gave my favourite FPS game of all time another bash in preparation for an article I'm doing for RGOTW (ready soon Mossy).

...wow I need a job.

Squishy Tia wrote:


Just avoid Children of Mana at all costs. Wow was I disappointed in that one.

Currently, I am doing some more "retro-gaming." I missed many of the PS2 classics and have been enjoying the HD remakes. Currently playing the Prince of Persia Trilogy with Tomb Raider HD remix to follow. Hopefully that will appease me until 11-1-11 (Uncharted 3).

Oh I do have Batman Arkham City on preorder also...

Eh, I don't own, nor do I intend to own, a DS. It's got some games I'd like to play, but lack of video out means I won't be getting one. The PSP I can tolerate because at least I can output its tiny video to my TV and have it large enough to see without squinting/hanging my head down (which hurts after only about ten minutes for me).

I think I may fire up La Pucelle: Tactics again and enjoy it. I had a lot of fun with its particular type of leveling system. Much more so than with Disgaea, and immensely more so than Phantom Brave.

SaGa Frontier is being offered a rare return to my queue for a second chance later. Started in far too fast with far too little sense of the intent of the game style and far too little understanding of the mechanics. Waltzed right into my first character's bad ending, and one of the hardest final-bosses in the game, without seeing hardly any of the game world. The game still looks fascinating in theory, but I'll need a cool-down before I can fairly evaluate it.

So moving on to
Rogue Galaxy (PS2)- Haven't played much more than 3 hours, but for as juxtaposed as it is (olde-tymey pirates... iiiin spaaaaace), it's thus far surprisingly strong. Story is decent (what little I've seen), combat and growth mechanics are smooth and enjoyable, I've already spotted a few nice design decisions in item use/availability, and I haven't yet felt bored or over-challenged (save by my own goofs). The aesthetic also works well- semi-smooth cel-shading with just the right amount of edge enhancement, music which I'm not humming yet but isn't in the way, and voice-acting which is diverse without being over-the-top. Looking forward to seeing how far I get, but it's already worth the $8 I paid.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I (Wii)- My stated reaction to this one is "favorably impressed." Story needs work, storytelling needs work, and I'd love to see an Episode II that doesn't rip so thoroughly from Sonic 1&2, but the pacing, difficulty, and mechanics are all... there. They work. They flow. They're smooth, fun, familiar, but still exploring new territory. I'm loving the audio, and the aesthetic is the best I've seen done with "classic" Sonic I believe since S3&K. I hadn't precisely given up on the franchise circa Advance, or even Rush, but I'd at least repressed it. Now... I am cautiously optimistic about Generations. Sega's shown they can still do 2D Sonic, in a single-session-playable format, without having every stage be a character-specific gimmick-fest. Now they just need to follow through, let go of the classic-series crutch, and perhaps expand the character archetype palette to... 3 was a pretty good number. I wouldn't object to the subsequent addition of other characters with different aesthetics and plot, just clone their mechanics off the base 2 or 3. I'll even allow them to them to roll with the chintzy {power, speed fly} labels they're so fond of. More than that, though, and you're back to gimmick-stages.

MegaMan 9/10 (Wii)- Defeat from the jaws of victory, Capcom. Defeat from the jaws of victory. A good dose of classicism here, but you really didn't need to roll all the way back to the mechanics and audio circa MegaMan 2. Letting the contractors borrow a couple of your classic level designers wouldn't have been amiss either- 9's stages have far too many technical memorize/execute-or-die-instantly rooms, and 10 has an overabundance of damage even if you aren't playing as the fragile characters. I approve of the spicing-things-up to try to break the redundancy that plagued the series for so long, but... the choice of how and where was... suboptimal. Also, robo...enza? WTF?

Just finished Deus Ex: The Human Revolution and it only just fell short of being one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played. Deus Ex was a game that I was sort of familiar with but never actually got into. For those who don't know, the games let you take your own approach style-wise, meaning you can either go on a rampage or sweet-talk, sneak and hack through different situations.

Being a bit of a stealth geek, I opted for the quiet approach and only bought the augmentations (special abilities unlocked through XP) which favoured this approach. Despite this, I wasn't a complete ghost for the entire game. THR allows you to take a varied approach depending on how situations turn, meaning while skulking in the shadows I could sometimes take an aggressive/offensive tactic too, without the enemy ever actually getting a bead on me.

I'd say THR certainly the best FPS/RPG game I've ever played but it has one pretty serious flaw. Despite the options you have throughout, the boss fights really spoil the illusion. You're forced to fight (and kill) in pretty limited, quite dull and generic boss arenas meaning you can't really deploy any of the tactics you might have been using during the body of a preceding mission. I also found them a little frustrating given that I'd spent my XP honing a quick talking, slick and stealthy character, selling nearly all of my weapons and hardly firing a single bullet (apart from the odd headshot with a heavily upgraded and silent pistol) meaning an open firefight to the death was something that required a whole different approach. I recently found out that the boss battles were actually outsourced hence why they were so out of sync with the rest of the game.

Either way, I wouldn't let this put you off giving it a go. It's a prequel so only basic knowledge of the storyline is required to enjoy the game. (Gamespot have a got a pretty entertaining bluffer's guide.)

EDIT: I forgot to mention that certain choices in the game (some based around morality, others on your ability to negotiate) will result in slightly different story elements. For example, I successfully handled a hostage situation which resulted in a character surviving long enough to give me some access codes for all of the computers within a facility you end up visiting. In this sense, opting out of certain upgrades isn't always the end of the world as you can always find alternative methods of infiltration etc.

Man, it really was an awesome game.

Been juggling games for a while now.

Started the HD remixes of Prince of Persia series. About half way done with the first game. The archaic controls don't really hold up anymore. I may actually not finish these.

Gears of War 3. Fun but repetitive. Story was fluff. I could almost never actually see what I was shooting at. It was definitely still fun chainsawing people in half.

Replayed Borderlands again. This time on the Mac. The game is just a ton of fun.

Batman: Arkham City. Wow, just wow. Gonna come back and be a completionist on this game. The controls for fighting were downright hard at first, but by the end of the game I was taking out groups of thugs without getting hit. Its almost like a rhythm game when you are fighting. Very cool. Best game of the year for me. And thats saying something considering my obsession with Uncharted series.

Uncharted 3: Beat it last night on hard. The controls are actually worse than in Uncharted 2, at least for the gun fight portions of the game. The story was fun, but not quite as good. It seems to go more blockbuster like Transformers, thats always trying to surprise you. I prefer the Indiana Jones style it previously had, where the humor and one liners were constant. Don't get me wrong, its still a fantastic game, but I wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped to be.

Next on my list:
Ace Combat
Need For Speed
Tomb Raider HD


One thing I am noticing. Games are getting easier and easier to beat on Hard. Why do developers insist on not letting me play on Crushing/Brutal/whatever made up name for hardest right from the start. I rarely get the opportunity to play a game more than once...

Actually started gaming again a bit. Recently beat Arkham Asylum through OnLive (testing out the service). Got 100%, felt good about it. An absolutely great game.

Just purchased Battlefield 3, must admit I'm a bit disappointed by it. Great graphics, short single-player. Tried playing online both on the PC and PS3 side, and have not enjoyed it. I've been told that it takes quite some time to get leveled up and good enough to compete. Frankly I don't feel like investing the time.

Played a bit of retro games recently, replayed Mario 64 (amazing how quickly I can beat that game now) and some Super Metroid.

Just bought Arkham City, haven't tried it out yet. Should be a fun week next week playing it.

Looking forward to the new Assassin's Creed and Skyrim.

I've heard that FPS are a sport, and you need to constantly 'train' (aka keep sharp and play a few hours every night) to really compete. I found that to be the case. I bought Socom 4, my first FPS game since GoldenEye on the N64 before the summer... it was a real learning curve. I've always been one for insane reflexes but that only gets you so far, but after giving it some time I was going well... then I had a break from it and just can't get back in. FPS are not for casual gamers I feel.

So, Minecraft has been my gaming some evenings. Wack on some music and go exploring.

Rogue Galaxy (PS2) was solid right up to the ending... which was, on first consideration, unfulfilling, and on subsequent consideration, insulting. Play the game if you find it, complete it because it's decent, just don't put extra effort in expecting anything special at the end.

Valkyrie Profile (PS1) - Per the RGotW, I'm a good chunk of the way through and it's panning out. Definitely a different sort of game from most RPGs.

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (PSP) - Since I'm on the road until January, I'm finally getting into the stack of PSP RPGs, mostly re-releases, that I've built up over the past couple years. FFT is fairly amazing, and the remake is actually an improvement, but it does take patience. In spades.

Final Fantasy III (Famicom) - Likewise, since I'm away from my consoles, and FFT is sometimes a bit taxing, I'm also re-trying FFIII. Last time I made it to the temple where you're forced to spend the whole time mini'd and pretty much crashed and burned. But the classic NES version is still, IMO, a better experience than the DS remake

Especially with the Turbo option to speed through repetitive parts of the game (battles) in an emulator. That's the only thing that allows me to even halfway enjoy FF1/NES - the wait times during battle at normal speed are atrocious, especially for ROM based media.

Squishy Tia wrote:


I have heard rumor that the battle system was written by a completely different team than the rest of the game, and that overall, according to those who have dissected the ROM, it's a bit of a miracle the game runs at all FF1 is an experience to have for the cultural/educational value, but not really as an entertainment experience in this day and age...

I will say FF1 is still fun to play for nostalgia value. And it can easily be beaten in 2-3 days.

I'm playing some Batman Arkham City: Lockdown on my iPhone.

Speaking of, I should also add:
iJewels (iOS)- 2nd game in, and I hit the top 10% of GameCenter-ranked players. I knew all those years of classic PalmOS Bejeweled were good for something!
Bejeweled (iOS)- shinier and more exploding-y than the rules I'm used to, but Diamond Mine is still fun.