Dragon Quest II（ドラゴンクエストII 悪霊の神々）

My first thought when I started Dragon Quest 2 immediately after DQ1 was that I didn't like it. I don't want to sound like an old fogey that hates change but man, I really don't like the changes they made from DQ1.

Yes, this is totally going to be recurring theme here.

I don't want to say something as cliched and hackneyed as "with great power comes great responsibility" but dammit, you can't just tack more shit onto a finely tuned game and expect it to come out decent.

Sure, if you start a series with only one party member, the next natural progression is to add some more party members. I didn't even notice but DQ1 only had exactly one enemy each battle. Oh boy have I noticed it now!! Consider the average length of a one-on-one battle in DQ1. Yes, the whole thing is kinda slow but given that the only turn is either you or the enemy, everything ends pretty quickly. Now take that same slow battle and triple the size of the party (hence button presses) and increase the enemy count up to 7 enemies.
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
You still here? Cause I think I just went into a temporary coma. Maybe the slowness wouldn't even be that bad because of course I'm multitasking this game if not for that AWFUL battle music. OH MY GOD. I thought something was up with the emulator on my PSP but NO, it's totally craptastically accurate.


Seriously, not only did I multitask this game hardcore, I did it with the sound OFF. Even though there's actually some halfway decent songs in the game, I don't even care because this is the song you will hear for like 80% of the time. I dunno, maybe it's just me? SquareEnix must have thought this diarrhea is hot shit (LOL get it??) because they included it in Theatrhythm Dragon Quest out of the total TWO DQ2 songs in the game.

Yet another example of more isn't always better is the world map, which must be about 4X+ times larger than DQ1. You can even travel to the original town from DQ1 and though most of places in DQ1 are gone and it's scaled down, you can still get a sense of how small the original map was as it's just a small part of the world in DQ2.

Everything is all hunky-dory until you get the boat, then it becomes an open world of getting lost and trying to find shit on random floor tiles based on cryptic clues from random strangers. This game is worse than even Mother in terms of aimlessly wandering around with no clue of where to go or what to do. Now, you can find a very basic world map that barely does the job but I didn't know that until after navigating vast expanses of ocean to find tiny islands in the middle of nowhere.

Even the awesomeness of the PSP wasn't enough to make this game palatable

For kids bored out of their minds with the ONE game their parents got, I get how wandering endlessly around a vast expanse of nothing but ocean would be a good way to waste time (FUN!!). But as an old fogey with 8 more DQ games on deck, the last thing I want to do is wander for hours looking for a TINY TINY island town in the middle of nowhere to find the goddamn gold key. (Yeah yeah, I talked to the random guy that said the gold key was to the south and his vague "directions" were TOTALLY over-simplified.) So once again, time to load up gamefaq and a world map on the good ol' internets.

Once you load up a walkthrough, you'll need to find item after item scattered around on the world map and also completely invisible. At least DQ1 told you how many steps an invisible item was but DQ2 has you scouring around the floor like some kind of crazy lunatic assuming you even found the clue (aka gamefaq).

Despite the dead simple story, the first game had a kind of charm as it made fun of the standard RPG tropes complete with the ohime-sama dakko. However, it feels like DQ2 actually takes itself seriously and thinks it's all that because it's selling like hotcakes. The endless fetch quest after fetch quest obviously designed to be as obscure as possible combined with the endless stream of painfully slow, random encounters flavored with the wonderful burps of the battle "music"(?) really made me glad to finally put this game down for good. I feel sorry for the poor kids in that last cave with the pitfalls, endless loops, and resetting paths back in the day without a gamefaq and the miracle of saves states.


Yeah, ok, they made some cheap and easy improvements sure. Like how you don't have to keep buying keys as using it once won't break it (that totally made no sense btw). And sure, you can save and whatnot in other towns besides the very first castle but it really doesn't make up for all the crap they added that makes the game slow as molasses. And no, throwing in a halfhearted, token pafu-pafu ain't gonna cut it either.

Score: 1 random stranger told me to crawl around the floor aimlessly searching for some "dew yarn" and now I'm in an insane asylum points out of 5.

PS. Buying the DQ collection on the Wii was NOT cheap and while DQ1 was good, I'm hoping DQ3 at least makes up for the scalper price.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Danganronpa 2（スーパーダンガンロンパ2 さよなら絶望学園）

スーパーダンガンロンパ2 さよなら絶望学園 (Super Danganronpa 2 Goodbye Despair Academy) known to non-Jhipsters as just "Goodbye despair" or "Happy Trigger Havoc 2" if you're a fake gamer on youtube who spends all your time trying to squeeze money from suckers online *COUGH* MJR *COUGH*, is umm ok so this is turning into a huge run-on sentence so let me try again. AHEM

Before I begin, there's not going to be any spoiler in terms of story here but I should point out that if you haven't played Danganronpa 1, you really should before playing the sequel. While not unplayable, you're pretty much gonna ruin the first game but really do I even need to say this? Like who skips straight to the end? Oh right, kids these days with their let's plays and instant gratification...

To cut straight to the chase, this game is paced far worse than it's predecessor. It really reminded me of that TV show Lost because I watched like maybe half of the first season, a quarter of season 2, then the last episode and I felt like I totally saved myself hours upon hours of puffed up suspense and fake cliffhangers. Ok ok, relax, this game is not even close to being as bad as Lost but the whole middle half of the game was a total drag.

In addition, I wasn't a big fan of the new trial mini-games. Rebuttal showdown was ESPECIALLY annoying. I'm not even sure how that worked on the PSP, as the analog controls were horrible on the VitaTV and I really needed to swipe on the touchscreen. Logical dive was also meh, I mean it was a tolerable, crappy snowboarding game. At least they simplified what used to be the tedious part of piecing together the crime in comic form.

Not a fan of this genre... I guess this is how non-fans of rhythm games felt

I feel like they tried too hard on adding more unnecessary gameplay elements in the trials, which ultimately didn't add much to the game. At the same time, they kept the flow of each chapter exactly the same as the predecessor: free time (presents ugh) → murder → investigation → trial. I mean it was ok in the first game but after a combined 70 hours of this across both games, you can't help but wish they changed up the formula a bit.

Besides the meh gameplay changes, the graphics are pretty much the same style except the environments are much more interesting and varied compared to the claustrophobic being trapped in a school setting.

Amazingly, Titty Typhoon apparently wasn't censo- ahem, edited for content.

You gain experience by walking of all things and of course, there's a trophy that would require TONS of grinding (ie walking) which sorry, I'm gonna pass on. Your Level doesn't seem to affect anything except maybe serve as a parody of other games. Speaking of parody, the plot in this game takes the already far-fetched, crazy setting of the first game and brings it up a notch. There are a lot of references to other games and playful 4th wall breaking. I mean for crying out loud, there's a rabbit mascot in a murder game though surprisingly, this game came out only 5 months after Virtue's Last Reward so... coincidence?

I played this bonus game like twice and I was like, meh, I have better things to do.

Overall, I had as much fun as the first game. It was easy to play and even though there was a huge drag in the middle, things finally did get interesting at the end. There were a couple plot points that were kinda disappointing but unlike Lost, it did explain everything though it was probably easier given the crazy nature of the game setting.

I liked the music a bit more this time around with a couple of tracks I actually liked. For example, the song for the end credits was pretty good.

More electric guitar is always a good thing
Score: 3.5 (+.5 mandatory bonus for Hanazawa Kana) oh god, they added an annoying rabbit on top of the annoying bear out of 5 (41 hours to beat)

There's more extras in this game as well, including the Miracle Monomi mini game (pictured above), which... whatever. However, a nice bonus is an alternate IF story of Danganronpa 1 in text form. I do intend on reading that at some point.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Danganronpa（ダンガンロンパ 希望の学園と絶望の高校生）

ダンガンロンパ 希望の学園と絶望の高校生 (Danganronpa Acadamy of hope and high school student of despair) or known to non-Jhipsters as "Happy Trigger Havoc" was on my radar for a while. When it got re-released bundled with the sequel for the Vita as "Danganronpa 1・2 Reload", I decided it was finally time to pull the trigger (oh god, sorry about the pun but it just slipped out).

Of course this game didn't have a chance in hell of making it out of Japan when it was originally released on the PSP in 2010. Maybe if it was on the DS and rebranded as "Phoenix Wright Origins: The Lost Chapters of Despair!" I mean after all, both games are about murders and trials and Ace Attorney even has red blood instead of the pepto-bismol censored stuff in Danganronpa.

If you think about it, Ace Attorney is just as violent yet somehow it's all just laughs and giggles

But times are a changin ie Vita isn't getting pirated like a cruise ship lost in Somalia. I think the fact that the entire series getting localized and still going strong for a 3rd entry really speaks to the success of the long tail niche markets with social media internet marketing. (OH LOOK AT ME! I'M SO SMART!)

I don't own the original PSP version of the game but I'm pretty sure the Vita version is pretty much the same save for the god awful load grinding like a awkward teenager at an 18+ club and wet tissue paper durability of the UMD disc of course. Well, at least the PSP version comes with a manual with tactile functionality made from some amazing Egyptian invention with papyrus plants.

Apparently this is what passes for manuals nowadays (0 pages)

Anyways, ah hem, the Vita version comes with the original demo as well that is pretty much a trimmed down version of the first murder. The cool thing about the demo is *SPOILER ALERT* it sets up the stage making you think the main love interest is the cute idol girl. *SPOILER ALERT* Suffice it to say, the main game is not quite the same as the demo.

I approve of the character design. God, I'm such a sucker aren't I?

As for the game itself, I thought it was easy to play and fun overall. I liked the character designs and the mysteries were interesting. My only real complaint is the lack of voice acting between trials. Yes, the trials were fully voiced but as an American, reading all those lines of dialogue in between the trials was a bit annoying.

The music was memorable but personally it wasn't my kind of thing. I guess it did a good job as a game soundtrack but I'm not gonna listen to it by itself.

OST was ok I guess, just not my kind of thing

The game definitely starts out pretty slow as they are just so many characters to talk to especially when they're all in one room. There were times when I just got tired of trying to find the right presents from the gacha machine and talking to random people during the free times. It's not like you're going to unlocked rich backstories for most of the characters. I spent a lot of time with the swimmer and I think I learned that she liked doughnuts. (I dunno, it's been a while.)

Hey, I know how to swim too, wanna go out?

The game definitely picks up as you have less and less people to talk to. I just liked doing the investigation and the trials, really. The trials were definitely more dynamic compared to Ace Attorney as you have to shoot moving words. It also has parts where you select evidence like AA and even a mini-rhythm game. Sure the logic got a little, shall we say, vague near the end but the game was friendly enough to replay whatever you failed. The ending was very satisfying and you can't get those awesome death sequences on the DS.

LONG LIVE THE PSP!!!

Score: 3 god that bear is annoying though out of 5 (30 hours to beat)

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Black★Rock Shooter THE GAME

You know when you have a really cool idea for a story, character, or setting but not enough to develop it into anything fleshed out? Well, Black Rocker Shooter is kinda like that but the original illustrator just rolled with it cause INTERNET. The rest, as they say is internet viral/social/whatever history.

Looks cool so let's just roll out a whole media franchise on it

I was first exposed to Black Rock Shooter as these viral things go pretty randomly. It was probably an AMV or MAD from a related youtube vid which led me to the OVA, which brings us here to the game.


The famous(?) supercell song
Given the grassroots nature of the whole BRS thing, there really is no canonical anything as it's media developed out of nothing more than a concept and the game is totally unrelated to any other BRS media works. It definitely took an interesting approach as the story begins with the human race almost entirely wiped out.

You thought other post-apocalyptic games were hardcore? This game starts out with literally only 12 humans left alive after 2 die right at the start of the game. My first thought at the beginning of the game was, you're the only girl (weapon thingy?) in the ENTIRE WORLD surrounded by 12 men? UH OH. Turns out my fears were unfounded as the story is not about any sort of fan service and is actually quite serious (the unlockable costumes on the other hand...).

The main story is fairly short and can be completed in about 12 hours or so and it's exactly the type of story that every mainstream gamer would hate. Without going into spoilers, let's just say it's not exactly Hollywood happy endings and was very artsy, indie film-ish. I personally loved it as it definitely breaks the mold.

Try dem graphics on the DS in 2011

The graphics are great as Imageepoch (RIP) is the master of the PSP platform and I was already biased towards the BRS character designs. The gameplay was fun as well, especially the boss battles. In classic Imageepoch fashion, it tries lots of new things and battles are a mix of balancing dodging, blocking, shooting (of course), and special moves along with stamina and recovery time. My only complaint is that the standard enemies are often recycled and VERY generic.

While the main story is fairly short, there's tons of things to unlock in the EX missions including the most powerful, best looking special attacks and some sexy costumes (this is a Japanese game after all). I tried to swipe my credit card on the PSP to buy the costume DLC but it wasn't working for some reason. Amazingly, it appears to be unlock by playing the game??? WEIRD!

The OST definitely has a few gems
Overall, I really enjoyed this game. The music was really good, I loved the character designs (WRS OMG), and the boss battles were a blast. It was also fun unlocking all the cool stuff post end-game. Yes, the regular battles could get a bit repetitive and some of the bike missions were a pain in the ass but I definitely think this is one of those underrated titles that mainstreamers are totally gonna write off.

Score: 3 when costumes could be unlocked without a credit card out of 5 (27 hours played)
+.5 optional bonus point for the EXTREMELY short skirt costume.



The PSN version is only available in English as Imageepoch published games were pulled from the Japanese PSN store. :-(
I LOVE YOU IMAGEEPOCH! PLZ COME BACK!!!!!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Final Fantasy II（ファイナルファンタジーII）

I naturally started Final Fantasy II right after beating the first one and of course, stopped playing it not long after.There's only so much final fantasying I can do before I need to take a break. Anyway, I came back to it after I got tired of how SLOW DQ2 was with the awful changes they made from DQ1 (review pending). I guess there's only so much dragon questing I can do before I need to take a break from that too.

Not that there's anything wrong with FF2. In fact, it's far better than FF1 as sequels should be (but sadly often isn't *cough* DQ2 *cough*). I didn't like it much at first because it was just so different from most RPGs I've played (I don't want to brag but I've played a few). But thankfully, I was able to keep an open mind and the game eventually grew on me. It probably helps that the PSP version I think has a re-balanced leveling system (ie easy mode for retro hipster wannabes like me).

My first impression of FF2 was WTF? I was wandering around the world map at the start of the game and then just DIED. You see, this game is linear OLD SCHOOL. At least DQ1 warned you that crossing a bridge would result in stronger enemies. Here, the only hint that you're not supposed to go somewhere is not mountains or a fancy 3d tunnel (*cough* FFX *cough*), but rather monsters that just DESTROY YOU. Game over. No retry option. Go back to title screen. Thanks for playing!

Looking for INSTANT DEATH? Just cross the eastern bridge and go north.

Not only does FF2 feature the linear world map of death, you also can't fight for shit in the beginning. Basically, the leveling system has been micromanaged to hell and you need to level every single possible thing separately. That means because your weapon levels start at zero, you are constantly missing until you level up at least one type of weapon for each character. So yeah, FF2 can make quite a negative impression in the beginning. It's like some kind of weird hybrid between more complicated PC RPGs and the stripped down console RPGs of the time.

However, once I got used to this weird hybrid, I actually enjoyed the mechanics quite a bit. For example, in one part of the game, Gai, despite having like double the HP of everybody else, was constantly getting wailed on. So I put a shield on him and even though his DEF stayed the same, after he leveled up his shield skills, he didn't get hit quite so hard anymore. The girl of course, per RPG sexist rules, went in the back row. LOL

Before my ascension to Jhipster, I was big into PC RPGs. In fact, my first RPG was Curse of the Azure Bonds on the C64 (with code wheel copy protection and the works). So having a console RPG with a tint of PCness was actually kind of refreshing.

My first RPG. That's magic armor in case any SJWs were wondering. You would know this if you read the book. DUH!

The dialogue mechanic is another example of this approach. While there are no complicated branching dialogue options, you can memorize words that are highlighted in red. You can then ask characters questions based on the list of words you memorized. Still very simple but just a tad more PC-like than any other FF game. Of course, people must've hated this approach because all of FF2's game mechanics were scrapped, never to be introduced again in any other FF title EVAR.

It's no Fallout but hey at least they tried.

The story in FF2 feel like the beginnings of what makes FF stand out as a series instead of the standard RPG clones FF1 felt like. While the story is still basic and the villain one-dimensional, there are hints of the character development and touching moments we'll see much better fleshed out in later games. So not a great story but it's a decent start to an evolving series.

Is it just me or is it getting HOT in here?

I have to give FF2 credit for trying some new things that actually worked pretty well (at least in the PSP version) despite some flaws. It also introduced Chocobos and Cid, two things that would continue on for well over a decade. The PSP remake also has a great CG opening intro that actually relates to the game (unlike the PSP remake of FF1) and several really neat non-CG cut scenes. It also has a great OST especially as you near the end of the game.

Game has way better songs but this is still pretty darn good for listening to like 1000+ times
FF2 has a lot going for it and I liked it quite a bit. However, at the end of the day, it's still very much a multitask game. I actually played this game for a bit with my full attention and it was a tedious cycle of random encounters and holding down circle. Yes, I had to use magic on certain monsters (red, black, and yellow blobs in classic FF fashion) so it was maybe 10% less of holding down circle compared to FF1 but there were tons of buff/debuff spells and whatnot that I never felt the need to even try. Fight, cure, fire, ice, and thunder is really all you need for the entire game.

Ok ok, that's a slight exaggeration. The last dungeon had a large difficulty spike so I had to use flare and holy but it was such a pain to level up the spells, that I just grinded a few hours to completion. I never even grinded a spell past level 9. I can't even imagine how long it must take to grind to 16 levels. And by the end, the economy was so broken, I could just elixir my way to the end of the game with totally weak spells. Of course, this meant that I may have missed out on some cool spell animations but ah well, I simply didn't have the patience. Especially since Ultima requires leveling OTHER spells to be effective. Speaking of Ultima, there's some interesting FF lore about why it was so weak in the original version with some harsh life lessons for the poor unwary kids back in the day.

In conclusion, while not a bad game, FF2 wasn't quite innovative enough to warrant my full attention.

Score: 2.5 wish this game had a level for auto-battle/encounter rates, it has a level for freakin' everything else out of 5 (25 hours to beat)

As a bonus, after playing FF1, I felt like a retro-gamer expert when I jumped into LAVA with no hesitation. YOU WON'T SCARE ME THIS TIME WITH 1,000 DEGREES LIQUID OF DEATH!!

"Your entire body is covered in lava!!!"
"Hmph! It's just a flesh wound"

The PSP version also has some weird random caves scattered throughout the land and a new game plus "Soul of Rebirth" bonus quest that I have not delved into. Soul of Rebirth seems cool cause it makes it worth grinding the constantly switching weak ass 4th party member. Of course, I had no clue about that while playing the game so I'm probably screwed but we'll see. Maybe I will revisit after I finish FF4's bonus quest.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely