Archive for the 'Impressions' Category

So I finished a game! – Beneath A Steel Sky

Published on Monday, February 22, 2010 in Gaming and Impressions. 0 Comments

Beneath a Steel Sky has such an awesome name. Ever since I heard the name I felt like I was missing something by not having played it. That’s quite a powerful effect considering I really knew nothing about the game. After finishing the game I wanted to play another point and click adventure game right away, and that basically summarizes what makes a game good. When you’re finished with it you want more of it. It’s only three dollars on the iTunes store so if you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch and a few bucks left in your iTunes account it’s more than worth your time.

If you’ve not played the game, my following paragraphs might have some spoilers, so beware. But I think all you really need to know is that it is a good Point and Click with a great story that is more than worth your time. Spoilers from here on out. Continue reading ‘So I finished a game! – Beneath A Steel Sky’

And Away!

Published on Saturday, January 9, 2010 in Impressions and Movies/TV. 0 Comments

Eriko and I went to to see Up! today which is known in Japan by the much longer name “Grandpa Carl’s Flying House”. First time I cried in a theatre in a long time.

What was pretty brilliant about the movie is that they front loaded the tears. Sure, there was a part later on that got me a little misty eyed, but the beginnig was pretty damn powerful. Especially since I’ll br married myself in a month’s time. Unfortunately the rest of the movie wasn’t as brilliant as the opening, but it was still an enjoyable flick.

I haven’t seen many of Pixar’s films, but due to their general acceptance I’d assume most films fall under the “a little bit for everybody” category. I don’t know if Up! falls under this category, but I do know it is a film that any couple in love should go see.

And The Fantasy Goes On!

Published on Thursday, January 7, 2010 in Gaming and Impressions. 0 Comments

So after a good while of being busy with Eriko and her family, I finally got to settle down with some Final Fantasy XIII again. And good lord, the game is getting hard. I spent most of the evening trying out different character combinations for the Chapter 9 boss. Eventually I got it and dayumn it was satisfying. Nothing like a good boss fight and a hot cup of caramel flavored milk tea on a cold winter’s eve.

Now I’ve finally unlocked the ability to pick my party members and I’m trying to find a threesome that works for me. I’ve always enjoyed playing more “untraditional” party groups in games. Partially for the difficulty boost and partially for being able to say I went a different path. I’ve settled on Fang, Sahz and Vanille for now, but I’ve been having some troubles with normal battles, so perhaps this may not be the best group in the game. Fang is one of the two characters who has the Defender class, but her Hit Points are so low right now that I’m confused as to how she’s supposed to properly utilize a class that is supposed to take the bulk of your battle damage. Sounds like a challenge.

And that sounds perfect to me.

The Continuing Impressions of Final Fantasy XIII

Published on Monday, December 21, 2009 in Gaming and Impressions. 2 Comments

Some people aren’t going to like Final Fantasy XIII.

That person could be you.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I think you, whoever you are, should give Final Fantasy XIII a try. If you’re a classic Final Fantasy fan it will probably be good for your soul to try out something different. The game isn’t going to destroy your beloved copy of FF12. Don’t worry, I checked. Mine’s still there1.

FF13 is its own game and some people2 are bitching about the ‘drastic’ changes made in the game. These people are looking at what the game took out thinking that there would be nothing in its place. So far in my hours of playing there has been no town to explore and all. Thing is, I’ve not really felt like I would benefit from having that experience in this game. The developers of Final Fantasy wanted to deliver this story3 in this way and it’s really engaging. I’ve allowed myself to be sucked into the world and really get engaged with what is going on. Whenever I draw myself out to dwell upon what I have experienced, I can nitpick for hours some of the goofy dialogue and weird character actions. But when I’m sitting there with the controller in hand I’m like a four year old getting his first dose of Saturday morning cartoons. I can’t help but grin like an idiot and suck up this game in all of its glory, stupid story or not.

So I’ve unlocked the item “creation” system. In my last post I talked about how weapons had EXP values and this is where they come into play. All that junk you collect from your enemies, their cursed horns and electrically charged bolts, can be used on your weapons and accessories to power them up. Now, while big EXP holding items tend to be available, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the EXP awarded varies for different items. Poking around the menu trying to fit these gizzards and nuts into my swords and bracelets in the optimal way for my status bonuses is criminally simple but at the same time extremely satisfying.

The summon system has also reared its head in the game and after the boring way they handled them in FF12 it seems 13 got one that just wanted to be ridiculous for the sake of it. And it is rediculous, but extremely entertainingly so. Basically, after you unlock the summons4 when you use them in battle they, I think, get to do some attacks but I mostly ignored that for pressing the big shiny button that says RIDE. Becuase you can mother fucking mount them summons as they turn into motorcycles or horses or whatever the fuck. And then you’re given commands to input and rip off the faces of monsters. Unfortunately at this point I’ve only had one chance to summon but it was so ridiculously awesome that I can’t wait to do it again.

The negativity I’ve been seeing about FF13 is getting a little ridiculous. There are also some playing the game who are quite, well, not happy with it and I guess that’s okay5. Most of their complaints seem to be coming from the world outside of the battle system, though, so if you agree that is the most important part of an RPG you should definitely not give FF13 a pass.

  1. Even though I’m not sure why, to be honest. [↩]
  2. People who haven’t played the game, mostly. [↩]
  3. Oh god, let’s not discuss the quality of the story. [↩]
  4. Which is done in a very cool way so I’m not going to spoil it. [↩]
  5. It’s hard to retreat from the discussion without seeming like I’m hurt by their dislike, but I’m seriously tired of the negativity! [↩]

Final Fantasy XIII First Impressions

Published on Saturday, December 19, 2009 in Gaming and Impressions. 1 Comment

So on Thursday I rushed out after school to go pick up my copy of Final Fantasy XIII (FF13). To say I had been waiting for this game for a while is an understatement worthy of some sort of unnecessary reward. I can’t remember exactly when the game was announced but as soon as I realized how much I wasn’t enjoying Final Fantasy XII I knew I wanted to see the next game. I don’t know if it was desperation or just wanting to know if my beloved Square had lost it or not.

Well, after a few hours with FF13, I am more than happy to say that no, they have not lost it and in short, Final Fantasy is back.
Continue reading ‘Final Fantasy XIII First Impressions’

Dragon Quest 9 Play Update

Published on Saturday, July 18, 2009 in Gaming and Impressions. 0 Comments

My little in game ticker says that I have put fifty-six hours and twenty-six minutes into DQ9. I have had it for about a week so that’s a bit crazy, maybe? The multiplayer clock is showing 10:50 and that has been a huge blast as well.

I’m really digging the game.

Really starting to flesh out my party.

Really starting to flesh out my party.

My party is making really good progress at this point. What took up a large portion of my playtime thus far was me working on various classes for my characters. I hit Dharma Temple, which in Dragon Quest tradition allows me to change my characters’ classes. So change I did! I got a lot of work done on all of my characters so they have a larger variety of skills now. The craziest I did was leveling up both Thief and Soldier for my main character in order to max out the sword skill. Now, as you can see in the picture to the left, my main character is a sword wielding Mage. This is pretty awesome, I have to admit. My other characters only gained some stat bonuses or function skills in addition to the weapon skill points I got in leveling up other classes. Aside from my main who is going to get some Mage skills before going back to being an Entertainer. A lot of this progress was made in multiplayer, which I plan on writing about at a later date. Right now, I’d like to focus on what I have played solo which has been marvelous in its own right.

So the story, eh? Really, really good. It’s just purely entertaining. This is a bit surprising coming from a game with no speaking playable characters. The closest  you have is your ganguro-esque fairy companion Sandy. But in a styling that has been used in Dragon Quest for quite some time now, each town has its own story going on and solving it is part of the hero’s ultimate goal. Now, this sounds like it can get really sappy, but the way these stories have played so far have been not without their own little twists that make them really great. I’m not that far story-wise but unless it takes a big downturn I can’t see myself being disappointed with it. And even if it does, the first few stories are still awesome.

As far as actual gameplay, I’m really digging the class system.  Meshing the classes with the point system from Dragon Quest 81 really made for a system that has pulled me in completely. To the ire of many Dragon Quest fans, magic is limited to the class you use but skills are not. I didn’t think this would bother me and it really hasn’t. Flexibility and customization still thrives and all of my characters feel really different and useful.

The online shopping is also really cool as it gives you a few items to buy every day. A lot are ingredients for the Alchemy Pot2 but I even stumbled across a birthday cake which when used has the amazing effect of doing absolutely nothing. Still, I spent 4000 of my gold to have two of them in my inventory. Damn pack-rat habits.

Going to take a break now to eat lunch and do some dishes but I’m fairly sure I’m going to jump right back to the game after that. It is so much fun.

  1. Characters gain skill points as they advance in levels and can spend these points on a skill which grants abilities and status bonuses as its rank increases. [↩]
  2. Which I’m indifferent towards. Not really a big fan of item creation in games but this is definitely not done poorly. Step up from DQ8’s, at least. [↩]

DQ9 is a good mix of Dragon Quest

Published on Sunday, July 12, 2009 in Gaming and Impressions. 0 Comments

So I got to Ruida’s1 tavern in Dragon Quest 9. This means I can make my party! After creating a warrior that looks like Eriko2 I had her pick out how to design the rest of my party. I’ve been playing around right now and have the main character Zerick at level 11, the Warrior Eriko at 9, the Thief Lin-lin at 9 and also the Priest Shotaro at, you guessed it, level 9. Going Swords/Spears/Claws/Staves on the weapon skills respectively for the characters but mostly putting skills into the unique class skill.

Monsters on the map isn’t as lame as I expected but it is still fairly lame. The surprise is just down a bit. But if you want to grind the population isn’t lacking. That’d be my only complaint thus far. Still, what with this basically being DQ3 meets DQ8 it is pretty goddamned awesome. What I mean by that is DQ3 let you create your own party of characters from a few classes and DQ8 let you select what weapon and other skills your characters had. Since each class has its own skill set to pick from, in turn despite there only being six classes at the opening of DQ9 there are a lot of options for creating your party.

For example I went with Claws on my Thief because the skills I’ll get in the future look like they could sap HP and cause status effects. But they could also go Barefisted which looks nice for doing damage.3 Priests have a few interesting options like Spears, Clubs or Staves. I really like how the staff you can buy can be used to cast the fire spell Mera (or at least it acts like that) so my Priest is doing decent enough damage. Staves also allow for MP regeneration when you do physical attacks with them. It is pretty sweet.

Now, I can’t do it yet but I’m sure later down the line you’ll be able to change the characters’ jobs. I wonder how changing classes and skill points will work since many jobs have the same skills. Will a Soldier with 34 points in spears keep those points when transitioning to Priest? It will be interesting to see.

And for those worried about the Japanese, the game has furigana. Which is so awesome because it makes reading it so much smoother, assuming you have hiragana down. Looking up words takes very little time for me and this is probably one of the first Japanese games I’m really understanding the dialogue too. (Although that may have been a long time coming thing considering how long I’ve been working towards it.)

Gonna get back to it while I have the time!

  1. Luida? I don’t know the official English name. [↩]
  2. Because I am lame like that. :D [↩]
  3. But I really hate going weaponless, especially after playing my FFV challenge barefisted mostly! [↩]

The Four Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden Short Movies Up!

Published on Friday, July 10, 2009 in Gaming and Impressions. 0 Comments

Head over this-a-way and you will find some short clips of field and battle gameplay from this newly announced game from Square-Enix. Once you get through the awesome little opening clip (or press the skip/スキップ button in the lower right hand corner) click on System (システム) to check out the vids. To watch both the field and battle videos, toggle between the black boxes up in the left hand side that look a little like this.

Short they are but they show some really neat things. Of note in the battle is that there is a spell called つよいファイア which translates to Strong Fire. Not exciting initially but when you look carefully you can see two characters are casting in union. This implies there will be some exciting options being planned for the battle. I really can’t wait to hear more about this game.

This Just In! Final Fantasy XIII To Not Suck Dong

Published on Thursday, April 16, 2009 in Gaming and Impressions. 2 Comments

So, I bought a movie. Continue reading ‘This Just In! Final Fantasy XIII To Not Suck Dong’

Game Center CX: Arino’s Challenge Makes My Thumb Hurt

Published on Monday, March 9, 2009 in Gaming and Impressions. 0 Comments

Recently released in North America as Retro Game Challenge1, GCCX just getting a sequel in Japan prompted me to pick up the original. This game is fiendishly old school and hilarious to boot.
Continue reading ‘Game Center CX: Arino’s Challenge Makes My Thumb Hurt’

  1. Here’s the Wikipedia page of the show. I am so damn hooked on the show. [↩]