The Book of Revenant

GotY 2011 right here, people.

I bought Catherine because I love Persona Team’s games.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Luckily, I got one of the best games released in recent years.
Continue reading »

Whine mode, activate!

Well, the PS Vita is going to be $250 in the states. No idea what it is going to be in Japan, but it probably won’t be more than ¥30,000. With this price point and the power it is going to be packing this should be pretty great for gaming.

Kind of worries me, though.

My concern, and of course it is a very selfish one, is that the Vita follows in the footsteps of the PSP and is home to games that I don’t enjoy. I own very few PSP games and the majority of the are ports and remakes. Which, it is great to play Final Fantasy IV and The After Years on the go, but it has definitely been lacking in the original titles that grab me.

Those have all been on the DS.

And the 3DS isn’t doing so great so far. Maybe this will push Nintendo to price drop, and the price drop will spur some interest from developers. Perhaps if the Vita jumps to the lead the types of games I like will be developed for the Vita.

Somehow I doubt it.

The trend in gaming is going for safe sells. Chris Kohler wrote a great article on this. And it seems that while we are only briefly into this year’s E3, he’s right. Shooters and other safe sells abound. The big issue is the types of games I want to play are hardly what sells.

I’m a father now, so my gaming time is going down. That’s okay. I’ll live with that. But it is still something I enjoy and the price point of the Vita being affordable seems to be a signal that the aspects of gaming that are unimportant to me, powerful graphics, internet accessibility, are becoming the front runners at an affordable pace. Which means if this is what the majority of gamers want, it is what the majority of games will be.

I just feel like I am being pushed out of my hobby.

Went over to Alex’s tonight.

We didn’t do any recording¹. We did, however, play Demon’s Blazon, which is known as Demon’s Crest in the states.

It’s pretty freaking awesome.

It’s kinda Metroidy, with the obvious touch of Ghosts and Goblins as it stems from that series. I’m rarely a fan of open world games, but being able to go through the stages which are chock full of passages and junk to find, I was really enjoying myself. The big issue would probably be that it works off a password system instead of having saving. I really hate me some passwords.

It did make me realize that I really want another Metroidvania game. I wonder if there’s anything I’ve missed. I’ve played all the 2D Metroids outside of Other M. All the Igavanias as well. There’s gotta be something that I haven’t played that will wet my whistle.

1. It’s been a long time, actually. But we do have quite a backlog of videos to put up. [↩]

This past weekend I finished the last chapter before the main story in Final Fantasy 4 The After Years. It’s been incredibly enjoyable so far and now that the story is finally bringing all the characters from the previous chapters together I find I’m enjoying the game even more. But I’m not sure how it’s going to feel once I can put together my own party.

What I really like about Final Fantasy 4 is how there is a host of characters but you can never (at least in the original version) choose your party. As the plot progresses the game gives and takes characters at such a pace that your strategies must adapt to what is available to you. There are times when your party is abundant with magic and there are times where you can barely keep your characters healed.

The After Years offers 9 introductory chapters, each ranging from 2 to 4 hours with parties of various character types. Soon I’m going to be able to pick my own party from a pool of over 20 characters and I can’t help but feel that is going to clash with the game at its heart. I’m not sure how it works exactly, but I hope with a cast that large there is no character who must be in the party.

I haven’t played it yet, so perhaps I’m just being pessimistic. The game has been outstanding so far, so here’s hoping my worries don’t come to fruition.