Ahh Dragon Quest IV, the fourth entry in one of the most mainstream RPG series you can think of. Does the internet really need yet another review of this game? I only played the DS version, which I would imagine is very different from the original 1990 Famicom release. But yeah, it's good and if you like traditional RPGs, you should play it. What more is there to say that hasn't already been said? Let's find out, shall we? Heh, heh, heh.
I created an all female party in Dragon Quest III thereby missing some pafu pafu dialog with an NPC. On the flip side, I was able to equip them all with extremely strong bikinis and garter belts. There's no visible difference in the game but I'm sure the fictional game characters felt objectified nonetheless. This time, as a more "mature" gamer, I went with the male protagonist. This had absolutely nothing to do with any concern that a female protagonist would not be pafu pafu eligible. In the end, as far as I could tell, your gender made zero difference to the story.
There is no "official" explanation of what pafu pafu actually IS so thanks to random internet artist for very clearly illustrating an event that takes place in the first chapter where an NPC regains his memory with help from Fureya's umm assets. Speaking of the chapter structure, I really enjoyed playing through each of the character's backstory in each chapter and then recruiting them into your party in what was originally the last chapter (more on that later). I'm frankly shocked that Squeenix didn't make the game into separate episodic purchase$$$ for their mobile ports (barf).
DS version looks mostly the same so fuck this app shit
Overall, I liked the diverse cast such as the twins and Arina, the strong tomboy female character. She doesn't use any magic or any of that weak nonsense, just physical attacks with knives, whip, claws, etc. Oh wait, I forgot that strong female characters didn't exist before Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn.
Hey, Aloy doesn't wear a weird hat!
I also liked the fact that you can talk to your party members every time you talk to an NPC. I'm not sure if this was part of the original Famicom release but I found that for the most part, your party members say something unique for every NPC conversation, which adds a ton of additional dialogue to the game. It gave a bit more personality and flavor to the adventure since they weren't silent for the majority of the game. You do miss the comments of people you don't really use so who knows what the old guy or Toruneko had to say about shit. While I prefer something like the skits in the Tales series, it's better than nothing for sure.
As usual, since I can't take screenshots from my game file on the actual hardware, here's a quick screenshot I took of the game status screen.
Definitely better than the male version with the weird fish hat
The final boss animations really stood out for me and were pretty cool. While writing this, I actually found out there was an additional chapter not in the original version even though the game clearly said "Fin". The post credit chapter was pretty grindy and features what looks like the same final boss but with different color palette and a tiny change to the original ending. Meh.
Score: 3 missed opportunity to translate final boss name as "DEATH PISS ARROW" out of 5 (38 hours to beat)
Overall, this was a solid fun and traditional RPG, which of course is what the DQ series is known for. I would definitely recommend setting battle speed to the fastest setting. In additional, having the dual screen real estate made it really easy to look around the map by rotating your view where that was allowed. The dungeon maps are pretty small and easy to navigate as well. As long as you have the hang of basic buffs and debuffs (Sukuruto and Rukana), it's a pretty simple and frictionless playthrough.
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
Persona 3 is my personal record for the game that took me the longest to beat of all time. As I mentioned in my Persona 4 post, I started this game around 2007 before FES even came out and I finally, finally beat the game in 2020. A lot has happened in the 13 years or so since I started this game so holy fuck, it's like I'm closing a chapter of my life, namely, the good one when I was young and dapper. Now onto my next shitty chapter of middle age crisis, bemoaning the good ol' days and being afraid of the social media lashing if I state my opinion on all those pronouns on Twitter. So I guess it's business as usual, same shit as last year.
Back when you could tell the gender of the right side at least
I have kind of a semi-excuse for why the fuck it took me so long. I first played like 40 some hours of Persona 3 and then FES came out so I started over. At least I was able to import my academics, courage, and charm. Of course, since FES added hard mode, I just had to be stupid and play on hard to be "hardcore". Hard mode is no fucking joke so I got stuck a bunch of times because of the grind and plus I rarely have free time to play on a console, anyways, here we are, Happy New Year, it's FUCKING 2020!!!
Went to Hatsumode last week and not a single hottie in furisode just some middle-aged obasans in down jackets... IRL sucks!
Of course, I probably would have finished this game a lot sooner if I opted to play the PSP version. Unfortunately, being on the PSP, there were some significant compromises such as the removal of cut-scenes for a more visual novel type of presentation. Because the Vita didn't exist (RIP), there is no definitive version like Persona 4 Golden. I do intend on replaying the game (again!) at some point much, much later for the portable female MC route. I just have to see if I can steal Junpei from Chidori and promptly throw him away as he's not my type. That's what I would do as a hot anime chick, at least. I thought adding a female MC was a really neat idea and something all games MUST HAVE, YOU SEXIST GAMERS!! SHAME ON YOU!!! or something to that effect.
I mean seriously, it's so EASY! Hex has done it so many times I'm sure!
So yeah, in a nutshell, Persona 3 is a great game. Personally, I liked Persona 4 way more because of DEM FEELS but Persona 4 wouldn't exist without all the mechanics and things inherited from Persona 3. The central theme and concept behind this game is to reflect on our finite lives and the suggestion that maybe you might want to spend your limited time on this mortal coil wisely. You have to juggle your school schedule, social activities, and you get tired in dungeons.
This real life idea permeates throughout the entire game, often to the detriment of the gameplay itself. For example, in real life, you can't just open a menu and make somebody else equip some new items. No, you have to actually go up to your party member and talk to them to change their equipment. Also, in real life, you can't control other people like umm... game characters. No, you have to make suggestions via strategies and they'll decide exactly what they want to do LIKE NOT FUCKING HEALING YOU AND RESULTING IN A SENSELESS GAME OVER!!! And that's the other thing. As soon as you die, it's game over even if someone in your party has the fucking ability to revive you. Of course, P3 Portable "fixed" all these gameplay issues and is more like Persona 4.
The "Control you like the fucking game character you are" Strategy
Personally, I liked the original version better as it reflects a central theme that drives the game as an entire whole package. FES even fixed up some time "loop holes", for example, praying at the Jinja takes up time instead of being a freebie stat increase. I hated having to go to the shrine to pray every day anyway. The only part that is less realistic is that you can go out with like 5 girls and never have to choose one like in Persona 4 (boo). Personally, Mitsurugi is best waifu and we enjoyed a wonderful Christmas together. #CreepyGamer #Weeb
#1 Waifu, no question
Overall, after finishing the game, I had to sit back and reflect on how I spend my precious days as I age past middle age and set one foot in the grave. Then I realized I spent 115 hours of my so called "precious" life PLAYING THIS FUCKING GAME ON HARD! Thanks Atlus for making me feel guilty and ashamed.
Kamiki especially makes you think... about maybe not wasting your life playing Persona 3
Especially at the end, oh my god, the final boss is a fucking nightmare, let me tell you. It's not that it's super hard after I grinded to about level 85, it's just fucking LONG but that's not even the worst of it. Just before he dies, he pulls a cheap move of random status ailments and WITHOUT FAIL somebody gets charmed and heals the fucker to full health. Several hours of whittling away at his HP WASTED. It's like the ultimate slap in the face. On my 5th try, I finally beat the fucker by changing everybody's strategy to attack and popping precious Somas I had hoarded like they were candy. It was probably one of the most frustrating final boss battles I've ever played but oh the rush when I finally put that fucker down.
I BEAT IT! I'M SO COOL! CAN'T WAIT TO TELL MY FRIENDS!! ...oh wait
I also really liked that you can go talk to your maxed out Commus to get the final conclusion of each mini story. But it was like 3 am in the fucking morning when I finally beat the game so I wished I could save before all that shit. You can go to the dorm to save for one more day before your Senpais' graduation but I was afraid I would miss something.
Overall, while I think Persona 4 is the better game, I finally "get" the reason for all the mechanics that we are now familiar with. I think it's safe to say that this is the game that really made the Persona franchise what it is today. While yes, there was some incredibly frustrating moments, I really enjoyed my 13 years of mostly not playing this game.
Hook that Shoji Meguro goodness right into my veins ANY time
As for the music, I loved it even though I wasn't a fan of the rapping (especially in the dorm at night, huh?). I much prefer the more somber music it switches to in January. And sure, there could have been more variety in the tracks for all couple HUNDRED floors of Tartarus stair climbing but I still loved the music overall. (Yes, you can ask Fuka to change up the music in FES but that's still like 5 tracks.)
Too many stairs, time not respected. Score: 0 out of 5 - Shitaku
Score: 4 "You didn't cheat but you still didn't grow. You didn't improve anything of real value. You experience a hollow victory and nothing was gained. Stop playing games and get a fucking life" out of 5 (115 hours to beat)
Even after all this non-time respecting BS, I'm now like 5 hours in Episode Aegis so who knows how long that will take to beat. Also, once again, those silly localizers are up to their usual shenanigan by changing Aegis' name to "Aigis". Why?? I have to say, I briefly watched the English dub and it was so cringe. I have no idea how non-Jhipsters can bear it. "Oh no, You-car-ree chan is hurt!" Oh my fucking god, how the fuck can you guys stand it??
No Japanese weeb VA option is like 0.2 bonus smug points for needing to resort to emulation for the undub. "The Journey"? Pfft, just Episode Yourself localizers (psst, I'm saying "fuck you").
Hey, why don't you do both of us a favor and just Episode Yourself ok??
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
You may be wondering, hey eminent Jhipster, if part one of Iriya no Sora DS was soooo boring, why in the world would you waste your time with the second half? Well, you must be new to this blog. If this Jhipster doesn't play through these games, who else will inform the greater English-only internet what they're missing out on? Sure, you can waste your money on one of those A-Z Patreon funded books cause I'm sure those authors are fully fluent in Japanese and actually played through all those games they throw in there with a token synopsis and some screenshots that you can google yourself in like 3 seconds.
Uh huh, yeah, sure. Whatever you say.
Anyways, Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu II is one of those perfect examples of why you shouldn't shit on a game you never finished (*cough* Jason Schreier *cough*). Though in my case, they split the story into 2 games so I technically finished the first game. Needless to say, the snail's pace of the first 2 volumes of the light novel rapidly speeds up in this game and some shit finally happens! For example, Iriya changes up her hair.
I'm pretty sure I know what white looks like and that's not it (screenshot from Nintendo's site)
Kidding aside, I finally realize why this light novel is regarded as highly as it is. It definitely went in a direction I didn't expect and it becomes clear that this is not a happy-go-lucky story as suggested by the first game. I don't want to get too much into spoilers but there might be a rape scene in there (sorry if this triggered you).
The main character is as spineless and useless as always so at least his character is consistent. But now that shit's starting to hit the fan, you do feel for the poor kid. After all, he is just a snot-nosed middle school boy.
He's just a boya (Ha! Get it? I'm here all night folks!)
The setting with the war, UFO, aliens, etc. was not really explained at all but it's merely just the backdrop for the love story. It's a very immature love story about a normal boy and a mysterious girl, a bit touching at times but also tragic. I thought it was worth the read even though it took a while to get to the interesting parts.
As for the rest of the features, they removed the multiplayer card game (oh noes!!) and that annoying feature of touching words to unlock cards. Now, you can just enjoy the story and play the mildly entertaining side-scrolling shooter, at your leisure.
Hidden gem shmup (check my $100 eBay listing, great deal!!)
You can play as the fighter plane in the air or jump down to shoot enemies on foot Contra-style. I was quickly able to beat 4 stages but then it just starts over at a harder difficulty and that was good enough for me.
Score: 3.5 Cero D for sexual content? But it's just words, you guys didn't even illustrate it! out of 5 (16.5 hours to finish)
I'm not sure if this sound novel is above-average in general but it certainly got me hooked enough to finish it much faster than the first part. Also given how boring the first half was, averaging the two scores gives it about a 3 average which is around what I would score for the entire story overall. You never know how you'll feel about a game until you finish it all the way to the end. Good thing I have a real job that doesn't require me to poop out a diarrhea review in time for the release date.
In any case, it was good enough for me to be interested in picking up some of the other DS Dengeki Bunko games. All right, look like it's time for some SHOPPING!!!
Time to open up my monster amazon.co.jp wishlist!
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
I probably beat FF4 more times than any other RPG as a kid. I definitely remember grinding all my characters up to level 99. Oh to be a kid again and have all that time to waste! I don't remember if I owned the game or rented it but it would be quite an achievement to grind to level 99 on a weekend. Gotta love them negligent parents! Back in my day, parents didn't need to watch or love their kids. Look at me, I turned out just fine!
Parental neglect has never been more hilarious!
I decided to play the DS version this time because I heard it was the hardest version (cause I'm hardcore gamer). Right away, I could tell the difference in the first battles outside Baron. Each enemy took 2 hits to kill (or 1 jump) and they hit back for around 30 damage. Without using a potion, you wouldn't make it past more than 5 or 6 battles. Still, I felt most of the game was fairly balanced until the last dungeon. Phoenix downs are plentiful for a reason as bosses will kill your party members more often than not.
Yeah, shit is easy here but just wait...
This is the first FF game with the famed ATB (active time battle) system and while I didn't really think much of it at the time playing the easy type for westerners rpg newbs version as a kid, playing the DS version really ups the tension and excitement. For the harder boss battles, it becomes a race against time as you frantically revive your party members and try to time heals so that it happens right after they're revived and before the boss kills them again. In particular, there is one really cheap boss battle that starts with everybody dead except Cecil and someone (wearing green) who joins you last minute under-leveled as fuck.
Even the box art screams "easy type for whiney babies!!!"
The battle system in FF4 is one of the most innovative RPGs for the time which is why I'm really more in the FF camp over DQ because I appreciate when developers try new shit even if it's totally broken at times (*cough FF8 cough*). The ATB isn't the only thing to rave about. I remember being giddy with excitement when I figured out you can bypass reflect by reflecting spells on yourselves (or vice versa for healing). Don't forget about casting float for enemies that spammed quake, and that annoying dungeon where you couldn't use metal equipment. Sure FF3 had similar neat ideas such as casting mini to enter tiny dungeons but here it actually affects the game play and makes it so much fun to play (sometimes annoying too). However, it definitely falls behind other games like FF6 in the story department.
On the DS, the graphics are way shittier than this #PSP-fanboi
Playing as an enlightened Jhipster, I was hoping to be wowed by all the brilliant prose in its pure, unadulterated Japanese form. Unfortunately, there's nothing the English translation really left out in terms of story. Sure, no more "spoony" bards but 「黙れ、貴様！」 isn't exactly Shakespearean prose. It's funny how we used to think as kids that NOA was censoring all these naughty curse words with "spoony" but really Japanese doesn't have much in terms of swearing in the English sense. "Shut up, (derogatory and rude version of) you!" doesn't really translate to any kind of swearing. The "oh we're cool cause we didn't censor the curse words" fake marketing makes Barret from FF7 seem juvenile and sophomoric now.
The one big thing I noticed playing as a Jhipster is that the pub in Toroia is a freakin' hostess club! It never says it outright but there's a Mama on the first floor and the second floor is dedicated to pretty oneechans talking to men. I know a fucking hostess club when I see one (not that I've been to one cause ya know I don't gotta pay to talk to the ladies).
I bet Japanese script is "I'll kill you and fuck your skull!" #CENSORSHIP
I really enjoyed the story as a kid, what with you starting out as a cool black knight and the whole Mist village thing. As an adult, maybe it's because I played this game too many times but I felt that the writing was a bit too juvenile and the voice acting in the DS version was pretty damn generic. I mean c'mon, how many times you gonna let Kain's shit slide? Really?!
I mean seriously, C'MON!!
I really wished they had a hard mode for the PSP version because the graphics are way better and the spell effects look so cool. The DS is the usual pixelated mess of course. Yeah, it had some new mechanics such as the decant thing (shrug) and some token multiplayer feature that I naturally ignored completely having no friends IRL. If it wasn't for the lack of difficulty, I would suggest the PSP version over the DS any day (don't even get me started on the iOS port).
Score: 3.5 get these muthafucking spoony snakes off this airship! out of 5 (53 hours to beat)
Also includes all the time lost dying in the last dungeon #gitgud
FF4 was one of my favorite games of all time for quite a while. The original SNES version was one of the best looking, sounding, and funnest RPG of its time and would easy be a 4 or even 4.5 score. However, playing through the DS version again in modern times, I have to say that it's definitely a fun game to play but also a bit dated in terms of the plot. Still, definitely a classic that I would consider a must-play for RPG aficionados.
Still one of my fav boss themes to this day
Currently, I am enjoying the after years and actually intended to write about it here along with the main game. However, after playing the interlude for about 5 hours and 3 hours on the first scenario, I'm hoping there's enough content to justify a whole post by itself. We'll see.
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
Continuing my public service to the internet by providing witty prose about Japanese only games that no other English speaking person in his/her/popular-gender-neutral-pronoun right mind would play, here's part 1 of Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu. Fucking finally! I managed to slog, mostly half asleep, through this game, part of DS Dengeki Bunko series aka "oh wouldn't it be cool if the DS was like an ebook reader?" (The answer: not really.)
Kindle? Pfft, not nearly enough moe
While I normally play all my DS games on my New (not actually new) 3DS LL (Jhipster for XL), for games in TATE mode, the heavier model puts too much strain on my delicate gamer wrists so I usually bust out my regular 3DS for these occasions. For those not up on gamer terms, TATE is the weeb term for vertical screen（縦画面）primarily for shooters or shmups as the expert Youtube "gamers" (hoarders) call em. Speaking of shooters, this game comes with one in the form of a mini game that uses the touch pen to target enemies.
Extra weeb cringe if you pronounce TATE like Tater tots.
It was ok, about as good as you'd expect for a mini game hidden in a sound novel. I wouldn't exactly rave about it as some awesome shmup "hidden" gem to BUY NOW BEFORE PRICES SKYROCKET!! Or actually maybe I'll do exactly that as I'm looking to purge this one out of the collection. Anybody want my copy for the super fair price of $99.99?
There's also an annoying quiz mini game with questions about the story. Making even ONE mistake requires you to start over and while you can skip 5 questions they come back around again basically requiring you to memorize every single question anyway. Getting a 100% perfect completion is a fucking ordeal but it unlocks an extra side chapter. I know this because I played through the stupid quiz more times than I'm willing to admit to do a perfect run.
I actually read the whole thing and completed this quiz. Yes, I have no life.
All of the mini games are unlocked by finding cards that are hidden by tapping certain words of interest in the story. The cards naturally can be used for a card battle game that apparently supports up to 4 player multiplayer competition action. I would guess that 4 people with 4 copies of this game unlocked all the cards and got together to play against each other probably exactly zero times in this universe.
As for the meat of the game, which is the book, you can read it for yourself free, provided you're fluent in Japanese of course. I did like the artwork which is primarily the reason why I bought this game in the first place (yeeaah, I need to stop buying shit based on the cover). Unfortunately, the music and sound effects are unremarkable and totally forgettable. In fact, I forgot about them already.
I should've checked Metacritic first (pfft, ya right)
While the reviews are pretty good overall, personally this story was just not for me. It was perhaps too slow paced or maybe a bit too unrealistic for my tastes. I don't know what it is but it did serve as an excellent way for me to knock myself to sleep faster than popping some Benadryl. I really wouldn't recommend this one unless you want to waste 20 hours of your life. Or you can just watch the OVA anime through the magic of Youtube. (Content ID so totally legal, right?) In the end, I really regret wasting my time on this... Alrightly then, onto part 2!!
I'm not sure if I was awake the whole 18 hours...
Score: 2.0 but does it support TATER tot mode?? out of 5 (18 hours to complete)
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
In my never ending quest to make room to buy more useless shit for my overflowing Closet of Shame™, I recently rummaged through my gargantuan PSP collection to see if there was anything I wanted to get rid of when I came across Star Ocean: First Departure.
Let's go clean and organize that game closet!!
Yeah, I'm a hoarder collector so I didn't even know I had this game. (Just kidding, I've been meaning to play this for quite a while now.) So is this a game worth keeping in my awesome, amazing collection of pure gems so hidden I can't even find em? We'll find out! Let's pop that UMD in and play some of that!
Whew! All nice and clean. (*disclaimer: not my closet)
The first thing that struck me about Star Ocean 1 was how similar the menus were to Tales of Phantasia, in other words, a confusing mess of options. Even some of the item names are identical. After exhaustive research (4 minute Google search), it turns out the original SFC version was made by the same team behind Phantasia. It's not quite as bad as Phantasia; at least there's actual menus now instead of hidden behind Rune Bottles but still, there's a lot of shit to digest. Fortunately, most of the stuff can be safely ignored as you mash your way through this "action" RPG.
That's a useful skill cause I ate blackberries like it was crack (sighs only us old folks will get the crackberry reference)
When it comes to skills, the only thing that really matters is to max out determination before anything else that costs more than one point. Since determination skill cuts the cost of other skills, you can max most everything else by the end anyway. Honestly, I didn't bother with most of that specialty or super specialty shit. I didn't write any books, compose music, perform an orchestra, or draw any paintings. I'm a gamer, goddamit, not an artist! All I used were the battle skills, identify for unknown items, and training+kaigan for some extra exp and skill points. There's also a skill that allows you to increase/decrease encounter rate, which makes this the earliest game with adjustable encounter rate I've seen so far.
Do I look like a renaissance man? Oh shit, Caleb's slipping! The Janus coin!
Really, the only part of the game that you might want to plan for is which optional characters you want to take along since you only have space for about half of the recruitable characters. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to assemble my usual harem waifu team due to the fact that some characters require other characters to join so I went with Ashlay (old dude), Perisie (cat girl), Joshua, and Eris (#bae). I had to give up on Marvel and Fear to get Eris but it was worth it as she's my fav character (so far).
Now all I need is for Joshua to get in an "accident"
There's quite a bit of content to enjoy based on which characters you recruit, especially since most of the dialogues are fully voiced in this remake. Given that this is made by the team behind Tales of Phantasia, of course you would expect the characters to interact in the form of skits. In this game, they're called Private Actions and just like Phantasia, they are fun skits where the characters interact and talk about stupid shit like which is better, cats or dogs? I enjoy these skits especially when they're fully voiced as I feel more invested in the characters and hence the game itself.
Not sure why they changed the names, Fear is totally cooler than Phia or whatever
I was quite impressed at the variety of PAs. I imagine your experience would be quite different depending on your combination of characters. For instance, there were a couple funny PAs that involve the cat girl trying to eat the bird man that requires you to have Joshua and Perisie. While I'm not so gung ho as to try replaying the game with every possible combination, I do intend to do another play-through later since I missed out on Fear, Welch, and the dude that looks like Ranma with glasses. Unfortunately, there is no new game+ option and actually finding the PAs is kind of a big pain in the ass and a big time sink.
This PA was actually quite funny as she's MK5 about the present you gave Iria
Unlike the Tales series where you can press a button at any time, you have to go to each individual town and enter it via private action and your party goes into the town separately to do their own shit. Then, you have to FIND your party members scattered at random places in the town to see any skits. If you see a skit, more often than not, you have to exit the town and re-enter it to see the NEXT skit. I probably wasted several hours running through each town looking for all 7 of my party members. Perisie especially was a pain in the ass to find when she's a fucking cat.
Besides the mess of menus and annoyance of finding PAs, the rest of the game is pretty good. I mean, sure, with auto targeting on, the combat is just mashing L+R to train your special moves but whatever. There's also a lot of waiting for long spell animations which don't seem to be skippable. It's all pretty easy to breeze through except of course, they had to add a difficulty spike for the last boss. So that was the only time I even cared about what accessories to use (the ones that halve light and dark damage) and even grinded out a bunch of levels. Fortunately, the ally AI is very good so I just made sure to keep giving my spell casters crack blackberries and they did all the rest.
Whoa, 3D battles! (proceeds to spam all of two buttons)
The part I really appreciated in the remake was the fine attention to details for the environments the likes of which I have not seen since Sora no kiseki. While I did not play the original SFC version, it's clear Square Enix went all out on interior decorating in the remake. I didn't much care for the character design (Ratix especially looks like he has the IQ of a squirrel) but got dayum, with the accent rugs, finely detailed stone stairs, and beautiful shelving carved from the wall, it's like a HGTV porn show.
You'd be surprised how expensive nice rugs are
Most lazy RPGs either reuse textures or even recycle entire shops but oh no, not THIS remake. Every single location is unique and modeled with exquisite detail. Even empty rooms that serve absolutely no purpose has detailed patterns on blankets and posh room dividers with intricate grating.
Who else stared for 2 straight minutes at the amazing stonework on the stairs? Anybody?
I love it when developers put tons of work and polish into little things that ordinary philistine gamers probably don't give two shits about. But hey, if the Japanese dude that worked on the background miraculously happens to read this, I hope he knows that I fully appreciated the effort.
Pfft, that shit is SO last season. I have standards.
Score: 3 hmm time to look into a new credenza out of 5 (30 hours to beat)
Overall, I think Star Ocean 1 is an average good time, at least the remake. Sure, it has some warts, and I didn't even talk about the plot because, well, I just didn't have much to say about it. I did find it ironic that the intro anime reminded me of Xenogears and the last part of the game felt super rushed just like Xenogears. However, to compare the plot would be an injustice as there's just not that much going on in this one. I'm not even sure if the game's intro has anything to do with the plot. I thought the problem was on the Mua continent, I don't remember an entire planet blowing up? Ah well, whatever.
I totally have never seen this before
Anyway, all I'm trying to say is I had fun with the game and that's good enough for me to keep the UMD especially since Nintendo fucking sunk the emuparadise UMD backup battleship. Reserving space in my limited closet space is probably the best endorsement you can get from me. It helped that the music near the end of the game was top notch. I especially liked the Star Wars homage with the John Williams theme that plays right around when you get the force sword. You know, cause Star Wars was still good back then. #troll
The Star Wars influence is strong in this one
The original voiced intro on the SFC version was also a very strong nod to Star Trek and technically I have to give props for adding voiced audio to a SFC game.
Typical misogynistic woman serving coffee. Score: -12 out of 10 (IGN)
Finally, for the obligatory Jhipster commentary, it was really annoying that they decided to change the cast member's names to lame shit like Phia or Mavelle instead of super hero type names such as Fear and Marvel. I bet they wouldn't do that shit today now that Marvel and DC are mainstream Hollywood franchises and not just for the nerds to be ridiculed back in the day (yeah, totally not bitter). ANYWAYS, as usual, the JP voice acting in this remake is way better than the typical anime dub English job so I wholeheartedly suggest playing the OG version. So yeah, Dick Smallberries Jr can just go suck it. Blackberries that is, they're delicious.
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
This is going to be a short post because platformers are not really my kind of genre. However, Super Paper Mario has so much story and a leveling system, I guess I might as well blow some steam on how much this game sucks.
First of all, the story is incredibly boring, cliche, and just goes on and on. I feel like there's a Nintendo template file somewhere in their offices which is copy+pasted for pretty much every single one of their games. They just need a thin premise substantive enough to whip up a villain and end goal to justify the game. Which is fine for them I guess but combining that shallow template with line after line of dialogue was just disastrous.
The game tries so hard to be funny but it just ISN'T. I mean is this game supposed to be funny for kids? Not only is the humor too simple to be funny but the themes are weirdly adult. Even poop jokes would be preferable than this material that seems targeted at a mysterious group of fully grown adults with the maturity level of teenagers.
Trying to be clever with galge parody.... ha ha ha I guess for the kids???
The worst "joke" is when you have to sit there, jumping 100 times to press a button. HAHA Nintendo, thanks for wasting my precious time. That's hilarious!!
No really, USE the shortcut cause it's not fucking worth it (HINT: it's the disc eject button)
In addition, the puzzles are incredibly challenging for a game that's supposed to be Cero A. While I'm always game for some puzzles, somehow, puzzles on a platformer just didn't do a thing for me. Staring at a puzzle and working it out on pen and paper yes. Aimlessly walking around in a platformer of all things trying to find the hidden 3D path or some spot to point your wiimote at... um not so much.
In fact, the only time I was actually having fun was a brief segment where you fly around in space and shoot stuff. I should've taken the hint and played Ke-Tsu-no-ana instead. Ke-Tsu-no-ana is probably a way better experience and maybe even better smelling than this pile of poo.
The only brief part that I enjoyed.
Score: 1 yes, lighting your fart on fire IS funnier than this out of 5 (23 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
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Wait, you think that's cliche? Well, Mr/Ms/Ind (gender-agnostic) learned, and scholarly non-philistine sir/mam/individual (again, gotta be considerate of the gender-fluid), you've come to the wrong place, because Tantei Jinguji Saburo DS - Inishie no Kioku is just about the most stereotypical series of detective stories you'll ever see on a video game medium.
My copy of the game, which I'm probably going to sell right after this
Actually I don't think it would be accurate to even call it stereotypical because it eschews conventional aspects of a crime story such as having a bloody goddamn mystery. Don't expect any kind of plot twist, some mysterious mastermind, nor basically any kind of surprise or suspense. Playing this game is more akin to reading a police report on some neighborhood crime committed by a criminal whose masterful plot was to throw away the murder weapon in the dump near his government subsidized project housing.
In each episode, you talk to people, gather some facts or eyewitness accounts, do some digging around (what we in the industry call legwork), figure out who did the crime, and done. Move onto the next episode. The only semblance of challenge you're presented is a series of questions to sum up the facts of the case you discovered in the previous hour or so of gameplay.
Inference time! AKA rehash what the game just told you.
For example, if you found a letter from the suspect stamped from Nerima, the game might ask:
"Where was the letter stamped from?"
A. Shinjuku
B. Nerima
C. Yokohama
Even if you were not even remotely close to paying any attention to the story, you're in luck! You can just keep choosing randomly until you get the right answer.
I even played the original version of the first case just to see if the mobile port from which the DS version was based on totally fucked shit up. I'm ashamed to say I also own the Early Collection for the PS1 so I was able to experience the original FC version in all its frustrating glory. And no, it wasn't any better, in fact it was a lot worse. At least the DS version made it easy to get through the not so great story.
SPOILER: there is absolutely NO POINT in exploring the park. THE CAKE IS A LIE!
What's even crazier is apparently Aksys tried to palm off this mediocre game with HALF the content? Of course, they changed the whole setting to no longer take place in Japan since stupid 'Mericans can't remember names unless it's like Bob or Jake Hunter??? WTF? There's no accounting for taste I guess... especially when you have none. I think I would almost have more fun trying to see how the localizer butchered the setting, what with the Yakuza and all (maybe add an Italian accent?).
The only thing this game has going for it is the character illustrations, the overall art style, and Misono Yoko. Yeah, Yoko is pretty hot. The art style is good but also hilarious because Jinguji is about the most Japanese hard-boiled detective ever. He's super polite, is quick to apologize, is not afraid to bow, and his office is neat and tidy to boot. Hard-boiled? Maybe more like the Hanjuku (half-boiled) detective in Shinjuku. LOOOOOOOOOOL #notfunny
All in all, I really have no idea how or why this series has gone on for so long. My only hope is that the later games in the series blows the early games out of the water as I continue to amass Jinguji games like an idiot collector. Well except this one, it's going into the sell pile.
Yoko, you're too good for Saburo... and this game.
Score: 1.5 if they did a AA crossover with Yoko, I would be ALL OVER THAT out of 5 (16 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
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
