Realm of the Mad God (Steam) is a pretty nifty co-op bullet hell MMORPG with a fast paced action battle system. I saw some adverts on Steam for it and probably was drawn in by the sprite artstyle, which looks really good. It has servers of up to 85 at a time, and it really gets fun if you work together in a group, doing what they call an exp train, where a group of players runs along the paths in the world, with attack toggled on. This means you are a really effective weapon, killing the enemies that happen to be nearby. The cool thing is, all the nearby players receive exp whether they shot the enemies or not. This is a really quick way to get to the level cap of 20 (a bit dissapointing perhaps, but there is a lot more to do once you hit that cap.) Oh, I should mention that the game has permadeath like in roguelike RPGs. If you run out of health, you die permanently. I've only really played about 10 or 12 hours of it so far, and seemed to struggle with the bosses in the game (well, the Gods, and the endgame level) as they hit very hard and there is so much going on...I put the game down though, as I felt I wasn't getting anywhere in terms of gear, or understanding tactics for some of the more difficult fights. Somehow it seems like I only scratched the surface on this. Maybe I'll go back to it some day, but for now, I'm concentrating on other games.
I've picked up my save on Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (DS) again, after I got around 10 or 15 hours into it initially and put it off for a while. I really enjoyed DQIV and DQV on the DS, but this one is proving a bit more difficult for me to fully get into for some reason. I think the story is really slow moving and a bit confusing...especially if you put the game down for a while...so I don't recommend doing that lol. It has the job system of some of the other games, but its a bit easier to master jobs than in DQIX. Nonetheless, it adds a lot of interesting stuff to levelling up your party and building a good team. In fact, they didn't do a lot to actually tell you about the Alltrades Abbey. At one point it just becomes available. So for a while I was progressing through the story without even having jobs for each of my party members...Which reminds me about the way they give you minimal direction (like in many older rpgs) concerning the next story area. I'm not sure if I'm doing optional quests or actually progressing the story right now. All they said was that I had to go out into the world and travel with the aim of becoming a hero. Aside from some flaws, and very slow pacing (but its a Dragon Quest game, so hey, I suppose its expected) I'm enjoying this game and the 25 or 30 hours I've put in so far.
After pretty much a solid day of playing at uni, as well as a good few months of playing through this game in small bits, I finished the last online urgent quest in Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (PSP), beating the Amatsumagatsuchi. After that I kind of lost interest as I was starting to find solo-ing the remaining double monster online quests difficult. Unlocking Akantor, Ukanlos and Alatreon would prove very difficult...and perhaps I was a bit burnt out after over 200 hours of this game. So I also did a little bit of multiplayer with some friends on Monster Hunter Tri (Wii) once I had finally shaken my obsession with MHP3, which I was worrying would get me re-addicted again, but it didn't thankfully. I got up to HR19 or so in Tri, and it kind of bugs me how slow and dragged out the multiplayer is. I think they just wanted to spread the content as far as they could, but more event quests could have easily done this more effectively. Grinding for HR points is never really that fun, so far at least...
There is a pretty small, but quite cool collection of roguelike RPGs on the IOS store, and I've long wanted to get into this (obscure? It definitely doesn't get much love these days) sub-genre of RPGs. One of the ones that I've kept on my Ipod for a while now has been 100 Rogues (IOS) I really liked the balancing and quirky sense of humour (although nothing compared to the amazing detailed craziness that is Dungeons of Dredmor) and it kept me sporadically playing through the game with various different character builds. I actually got to the final boss (from what I can tell) with a Wizard before dying. They have some really unbalanced attacks. Teleport can take you anywhere (within reason) nearby and doesn't even cost a turn. If you know how these games work, that can be easily abused, as you can always be at least one step ahead of enemies, attacking from range, or backstabbing if you want. I really recommend 100 Rogues. Since I bought it, it has climbed up to £1.99, which a lot of the better RPGs seem to have done also. I miss the days when most games were less than a pound... Ash (IOS) is another one I played a tiny little bit of. Since the update (2.0 or whatever one it was that massively changed character art and rebalanced the game) I've not really wanted to continue my save, instead I want to start over completely...just to see what has changed. Not to mention the fact that I started to run into really difficult battles after a couple hours in. I just hope its got the same feel..If you are wanting to change a game, I don't see why you would release the original copy only to patch it much later down the line. Make up your mind...Its almost as bad as the DLC nonsense you get nowadays...day 1 DLC...
I picked up Shin Megami Tensei: Persona (PSP) after it dropped in price to £9.99 on the PSN...We don't get a physical release of this game here, and I was ideally wanting to pick up the special edition from America to go with my P2 and P3 PSP special editions, but I would have to pay a shitload more than 9.99 to import it...and it didn't really seem like it was worth it for a 2 disc soundtrack (I'm more keen on artbooks than soundtracks) So I started up a game on this, as I had an urge to get into this series recently, and liked the way it went from the opening (very high school/paranormal anime story-wise) but didn't actually play more than about 10 mins or so. The school you start in is super confusing...
Rage (360) Very nice graphics and world building from the start, but I don't think its that realistic the way they take the story in the first 10 minutes...As soon as you are rescued by an inhabitant at the start of the game, you are taken to his settlement in his car, and immediately sent back the way you came to clear out a bandit hideout. Not so much as a morsel of food, drink, or even a word of explanation concerning the post apocalyptic world you have just woken up in. Just here's a gun, go and get em is about all you get. The enemy AI, animation and gunfire is a bit...unusual I found. There are some nice ideas, so hopefully this game doesn't dissapoint me, I hopefully improve my opinion of it as I go in a bit further.
Dodonpachi Resurrection Deluxe Edition (360) I picked this one up at Christmas with a gift card from Game. It was on sale down to £15ish, and this price is pretty good. I wouldn't want to pay much more, as its a very short game. I like the SHMUP genre but I'm not one of those super crazy fans who import the games from Japan. I can't imagine how dissapointed I would be if I did that, popped it in the 360, and finished the game within a half hour or so... I'll still pick up Akai Katana if it does end up coming out in Europe =D
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