Now Playing - "Mother Ocker"

Thought I'd talk some more about the games I've been playing this week.

Throughout the week when I've been in the house I've been trying to finish off Final Fantasy X (PS2) - I think I'm getting quite near the end, since I've beaten quite a few of the endgame bosses, some of which have been kinda hard, but still probably nothing as hard as the Seymour Flux boss or whatever it was that had me stuck for a while after going up Mt. Gagazet. 

So far, I'm still a bit annoyed by the majority of the characters, even though some aspects of them are growing on me slightly. Lulu and Auron seem to be the only two I like anything about. The story has picked up since the earlier stages, and its keeping me interested. Some people really like this game, and I want to give it more of a chance. Still, there are some things I like about it. The Spheregrid still seems clunky and slow, I mean I only got 1 lvl 3 Keysphere the whole way through the game so far. Something about the slow pace of getting stat boosts annoys me sometimes...

I was away up north for the weekend so took my DS and a game or two, one of which was Dragon Quest: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS). I managed to get quite a bit further on the long drive up there. I'm now on the 3rd generation of the story, so reckon I'm within about 10 hours of the end I think, but who knows..I've not beaten it before. 

Apart from the lack of direction sometimes, I'm really liking almost everything about this game. The graphics are really nice, and the story seems pretty damn epic for such an old RPG. They really tried to infuse some emotion into the characters and the trials you go through.  The story goes through arcs of a sort, you start out as a kid, and follow your story as you grow older, get married (I didn't like that bit) and go in search for the truth behind your ancestors and the Zenithians. Its quite similar to DQIV actually, I reckon I am enjoying this way of doing the story better than the stop-start chapter driven story of IV, even though I did like that game as well.

I started up my Etrian Odyssey (DS) save as well. Man..this is one hard game. I like it so far though, pretty cool writing, character design and gameplay. I kinda like the map drawing, even though I'm not quite used to it yet. 

I might be working on a FFIX review next if I can find some time.