Today's Random Gaming Thoughts

[Gabriel]

What to play? Xenosaga II, Enchanted Arms, or Ar Tonelico II? I only have time for one, and whichever one I choose will keep me busy for a while. Crap. Being paralyzed by options sucks sometimes.

 

Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection is on order. Funny that I'm so excited by that, especially considering I can already play every game in the collection by way of my existing systems.

 

R-Type Dimensions was pretty cool. However, I decided not to bother with purchasing it right now. R-Type isn't my big shooter series. I'm more of a Thunderforce, Raystorm, and Psyko guy. If I want to play the games I can play the unremixed versions on my PS1 R-Types disc. I may revisit the idea of snagging this download in the future. That may seem contradictory considering the Genesis preorder above, but R-Type doesn't key into my gaming history like the Genesis games do.

 

I didn't learn a new Fire Emblem game (for DS) was coming until a few days ago. I doubt this game will offer anything that the 4 Fire Emblem games I already have don't already offer. And I already have enough trouble figuring out what RPG to play. Plus, even though I really enjoyed Portrait of Ruin, I really don't want to squint at the DS's small screen again for a while.

 

Halo Wars has captured my attention. I figured I'd play the demo, find it more complicated than I cared for, and I'd then easy mark it off my watch list. Instead, I think it's catapulting to the top of my want list. If my friends are interested in it too, I'll probably pre-order it in the next few days.

 

Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 comes out next month. It will have many more playable mobile suits. The Nu Gundam alone makes me salivate. As a Warriors fan and a Gundam fan, it's a must have. Now if we could just get some Macross games over here.

 

I'm probably going to take a chance on Puzzle Kingdoms (Wii) and Galactrix (360). Galactrix struck me as too complicated in some ways. But some of the thematic bits appealled to me.

 

Class of Heroes (PSP) looks decidedly old school. Mytran Wars (PSP) looks like it's up my alley. Infinite Space (DS) seems to have an interesting theme. I'll need to look into those more carefully.

[+Psionic]

Doesn't this belong in a blog?

[Atarifever]

I really don't want to squint at the DS's small screen again for a while.

Time for bifocals there Gramps.

Edited February 6, 2009 by Atarifever

[Gabriel]

Doesn't this belong in a blog?

 

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

 

Every once in a while I post one of these types of threads. My goal is to see if anyone has anything to say about some of the games I'm interested in, while also seeing if anyone else wants to rattle out a list of upcoming games they're excited about.

 

It never seems to work out that way, though.

[Tempest]

What to play? Xenosaga II, Enchanted Arms, or Ar Tonelico II? I only have time for one, and whichever one I choose will keep me busy for a while. Crap. Being paralyzed by options sucks sometimes.

Play Enchanted Arms. It's not all that long, it's funny, and it's a pretty good game. Just ignore the tutorial type things you see in the begining because they'll insult your intelligence (This is a ladder, you climb up them).

 

Tempest

[Gabriel]

What to play? Xenosaga II, Enchanted Arms, or Ar Tonelico II? I only have time for one, and whichever one I choose will keep me busy for a while. Crap. Being paralyzed by options sucks sometimes.

Play Enchanted Arms. It's not all that long, it's funny, and it's a pretty good game. Just ignore the tutorial type things you see in the begining because they'll insult your intelligence (This is a ladder, you climb up them).

 

Tempest

 

Yeah, I'm at an abandoned mine. There was a "get in the cart" tutorial. It consisted of "Walk up to the cart and press A."

 

"Naw! Say it ain't so!"

 

A friend is telling me that I need to grind at the casino. I'm not too enthusiastic about that prospect.

[Tempest]

A friend is telling me that I need to grind at the casino. I'm not too enthusiastic about that prospect.

You can, but it's not required. If you're not into getting every robot (I forget what they call them) then you only need to grab the good gear. There's a save point right by the casino, all you need to do is get a bunch of chips (roulette is the best way), buy some stuff, sell it off, and repeat. If you only want enough money for the gear then it should only take an hour or so. If you want EVERYTHING you can possibly buy then it might take several hours. It's very similar to DQ VIII in that respect.

 

Tempest

[PressureCooker2600]

Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection is on order. Funny that I'm so excited by that, especially considering I can already play every game in the collection by way of my existing systems.

 

 

Exactly the same here. I have it on order and that's all I'm thinking about.........even though I have most of the games already on the Genesis.

[KrazyKaiju]

I'd say go with Ar Tonelico. I started Xenosaga II nearly two years ago and still haven't finished it. I like it, but it just doesn't enthrall me like most JRPGs do. Every time I try to advance the story I get thwacked because I'm under-leveled, yet grinding against enemies I'm actually capable of killing is way too tedious. At this rate, I'll probably get to Xenosaga III by the time PS5 comes on the market.

 

I love RPGs, but I've lost my patience for games that require needless grinding. There are too many other good games to play.

[Gabriel]

I'd say go with Ar Tonelico. I started Xenosaga II nearly two years ago and still haven't finished it. I like it, but it just doesn't enthrall me like most JRPGs do. Every time I try to advance the story I get thwacked because I'm under-leveled, yet grinding against enemies I'm actually capable of killing is way too tedious. At this rate, I'll probably get to Xenosaga III by the time PS5 comes on the market.

 

I love RPGs, but I've lost my patience for games that require needless grinding. There are too many other good games to play.

 

Xenosaga II is one I feel like I have to finish before I can get on to Xenosaga III. (I had promised myself I'd complete the whole trilogy by the end of last year. That didn't exactly happen.)

 

The reason I stopped playing it was because I came to a point where it seemed I had to do Good Samaritan Missions. A LOT of LONG GMS missions. The combat system certainly didn't encourage me. I think I see what they were going for, but combat is just so slow and tedious in this game.

 

I actually like both Enchanted Arms and Xenosaga II. They're at the top of my list after all (I have over 100 other RPGs in my queue). It's just when I think about having to sit down and play for hours and hours without being able to pursue the main plot I lose a lot of enthusiasm.

 

So yeah, RPGs have a lot of pacing issues.

[Mord]

I'd say go with Ar Tonelico. I started Xenosaga II nearly two years ago and still haven't finished it. I like it, but it just doesn't enthrall me like most JRPGs do. Every time I try to advance the story I get thwacked because I'm under-leveled, yet grinding against enemies I'm actually capable of killing is way too tedious. At this rate, I'll probably get to Xenosaga III by the time PS5 comes on the market.

 

I love RPGs, but I've lost my patience for games that require needless grinding. There are too many other good games to play.

 

I concur. Play Ar Tonelico II. I'm currently starting phase 4 of the game. Fun thing is that I don't feel any sort of level grinding on the game. Of course, I also never flee from anything. In fact I hardly even notice my level with this game, if the levels weren't displayed when you save/load your game I'd never know what level I was.

[Gabriel]

I concur. Play Ar Tonelico II. I'm currently starting phase 4 of the game. Fun thing is that I don't feel any sort of level grinding on the game. Of course, I also never flee from anything. In fact I hardly even notice my level with this game, if the levels weren't displayed when you save/load your game I'd never know what level I was.

 

When I first got the game, I played it up to a point where I got to a store run by a little girl which Cloche had a positive reaction to. The game really had a quality of "play a few more minutes and see what happens next." I did a couple of dive missions, hunted some revateil, and generally had a good time. The combat system is pretty interesting. In attack mode it feels like a Tales game and in defense mode it feels like playing a rhythm game.

 

The dialogue makes me laugh too, which is always important.

 

Yesterday, Enchanted Arms won out (I adore it's combat system), and it really sucked me in. But the more I think of it, the more I feel like pushing Xenosaga II to the curb and making Ar Tonelico II the next one I play.

 

I had the same problem with the original Xenosaga that I am now having with Xenosaga II. I got through about 60% of the game, left it, then had a horrible problem convincing myself to ever get back to it.

[hex65000]

[ Hijack!]

 

Sorry man, I don't have time to extensively comment... I'm still trying to min-max (or was that max min?) my way through Digital Devil Saga 1...

 

So far:

I am the remaining tribe ruler of the Junkyard.

King Frost has been defeated.

Currently hunting for Belezubub's second form...

Have calculated approximately how many money units it will take to learn the whole skill tree (excluding mastery) a touch under 20 Million/character...

~100+ hours logged and at about the 3/4 mark excluding side quests. Reviews claim it's a 40 hr. game... Reviewers are in a hurry methinks.

I am so NOT doing a second playthrough just to get beatdown by the Demi-feind thingie.

The story is really intriguing... Must... finish... series...

Thank gawd for my copy of HD Loader or my PS2 would have committed suicide by now.

 

[/hijack!]

 

Hex.

[ Has said, 'Nom! Nom! Nom!' more than once while playing this game...

[+moycon]

I actually like both Enchanted Arms

 

You should go for Lost Odyssey next. I liked EA as well, but I thought LO was the superior turn-based RPG.

[Gabriel]

~100+ hours logged and at about the 3/4 mark excluding side quests. Reviews claim it's a 40 hr. game... Reviewers are in a hurry methinks.

 

Seconded.

 

RPGs are universally underestimated in terms of playtime.

[+moycon]

I think the playtime might be in regards to the main quest?

I know I always spend way more time then is mentioned in reviews, although I tend to power level, find everything and sometimes leave my game un-paused!

[Gabriel]

I think the playtime might be in regards to the main quest?

I know I always spend way more time then is mentioned in reviews, although I tend to power level, find everything and sometimes leave my game un-paused!

 

If we assume reviewers actually "play to completion" then its a certainty they're rushing as much as possible, bypassing anything non-critical.

 

Anyway...

 

Last night I was playing Enchanted Arms. The power blipped due to a hailstorm. Had the power blipped just 2 seconds later, I would have been in the middle of saving and probably had my save file corrupted.

[Gabriel]

Went in to Circuit City. It was really sad. The entire store's inventory consisted of one row of CDs/DVDs/Blu Ray/games. The rest of the store was bare, and taped off. All of the employees were temps, except for one. I guess that's actually good for the vast majority of the employees, because they probably found other work. It's not good for the one I recognized because she has always been especially kind and helpful whenever I've been in there.

 

Anyway, they had the following games which I picked up (or didn't):

 

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith = I figured, what the hell. I've been wanting some new songs to play air guitar to. I'd never pay the $60 this game was originally selling for, but I was willing to pay $20. For the 20 bucks, it's OK, but it has somewhat illustrated to me how few Aerosmith songs I have any interest in. At least Midori doesn't have a mouth like a blow up doll anymore.

 

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 = I had been wanting this game for a while, but had marked it off my want list because the demos for C&C3 and this game were far too fiddly. However, since it was $20, I grabbed it. So far, it's not too bad. It will tide me over until Halo Wars gets here.

 

Virtua Fighter 5 Online = I picked this up and was about to buy it. It was only $10 after all. Then I remembered how I had bought VF4 for $8 a few years ago and still felt I wasted my money. I figured I was only about to buy it because it was cheap, not because I had any real interest in it. So, I put it back on the shelf. The funny thing was there was a little kid hunting for games with his mom. When he saw me set that particular game back down he got all excited and snapped it up. I think he convinced mom to buy it. I hope he enjoys it.

 

I was tempted to pick up the Lego Indy game for the PS3, but decided not to as I've barely touched my Lego Star Wars games. I had also hoped to grab some Blu Ray movies, but their selection was beyond picked clean. The only things left were movies no one would ever buy.

[davepesc]

I really, really hated Xenosaga 2. Very disappointing because I really, REALLY loved Xenosaga 1.

[hex65000]

I hope Xenosaga isn't as bad as you say, that is on my big list of games to play (and finish)

 

Gotta agree that reviewers probably don't play RPGs all the way through. Ever notice that a lot of the screenshots are usually pretty early on? At the same time, I can think of several games where it would be wildly impractical to do a proper review just because of the skill and time requirements. Now that I think about it, that makes me wonder how well a lot of professional reviewers actually experience the game they review.

 

Update:

Belzebub fell pretty readily but I kept having to resurrect one of my members since he didn't have the Null Death attribute.

Orochi was SUPER easy because I ground levels and the tech tree pretty heavily -- The guy had eight turns and I think laid a glove on me twice the entire time.

My leader character has mastered the tech tree with the exception of pre-final fight skills that aren't available.

I can guarantee that the whole party will make level 99 before the final fight. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

~125 hrs. logged... starting to pray I don't burn out before I get to the end.

Back on track for the main quest and climbing the tower... The sidetrack for more oddball boss fights forthcoming (that unlock more skills).

 

Hex.

[ The wyld card holder... ]

[Gabriel]

I completed Enchanted Arms today. I think my final game file showed 65 hours of play.

 

Now at the end of the trip, I can say the story was a bit light, but not bad at all. The world felt tiny with only a handful of locations. But the characters were memorable enough, and the battle system ranks among the best I've played. The ending wasn't spectacular, but it was satisfying.

 

But man, those final boss battles felt endless.

 

I think the game suffered a bit in the final acts. Nothing ever felt truly epic (until the very final boss battles, which finally revealed what had been going on all along). It all felt very personal. And considering the themes of the story, that wasn't a bad thing at all.

 

Anyway, I think it was a really good game. I might revisit it sometime to do the elemental shrines. Thanks to the dates on the achievements, I can see it took me a month and a half of play to get through the game (with a big gap between when I started in late 2006 and when I picked it up again last month). Using 2 months as an estimated length of each game in my RPG queue, I'll still be trying to finish the ones I have for at least 25 years.