First hour impressions #2

Hopefully everyone has had a good holiday so far! For me I've enjoyed spending time with friends and family, and helping out with Christmas preparations like the dinner and eating copious amounts of said Christmas dinner-turkey, bacon, sausages, gravy, potatoes (both roast and mashed with chives and herbs), maple parsnips. bread sauce, sage and onion stuffing, oatmeal stuffing, brussel sprouts (with walnuts and bacon, as each year we try different recipes to liven up everyone's favourite oft-maligned cruciferous vegetable lol.)

Ok so I've been putting off writing this post for a while now, and my motivation has slowly diminished for playing the first hour of more games along with the approach up to Christmas and my attempts (successful and otherwise) at studying. I tried playing Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers (I really just wanted to write that title out in full, because its a hilariously bad title), Bravely Default (demo, and then the first hour) and found it difficult to stick to a solid hour of playing the first hour of handheld games because I usually flip the ds into sleep mode when I get distracted by the tv or other stuff. So no notes materialised for either of those games, but I have been really enjoying Bravely Default as I've gone along. Its like that game was designed for gamers like me who like their JRPGs and art styles you might see in RPG artbooks.

Which brings me nicely onto the next game, and the second in my series of posts where I'm looking at the first hour of games.

Dragon's Crown (PS3)

Started 10:24am, 18/12/13

• amazing artstyle shown in the opening sequence really cemented what I had seen of the game in trailers. This game is really for me, even though it has exaggerated designs and could be divisive, the colours and style are just amazingly well done.
• the initial screen on starting up the game was to choose a save slot, then choose the character details. Multiplayer integration looks important and fairly seamless-there isn't a seperate multiplayer option, its all one mode from the looks of things. I went with the Elf archer, who had a fairly 'normal' design, as opposed to the exaggerated Sorceress and others which kind of made this game viral before it had even released.
• It took me around 5 or 6 minutes to get to the beginning tutorial, and around 6 or 7 minutes, the first combat section where they show you the controls. Now, here is where I got stuck for longer than I should have. Its nothing to do with the quality of the game per se, its more due to the fact I was playing on a small 20"ish screen from a few metres away. I couldn't make out what the button prompts were saying, and like in those fighting game tutorials where you push certain combinations or perform certain tasks to move onto the next, I couldn't move on for a while. So play on a big TV in future! That's my note to myself.
• There are such amazingly drawn environments and characters, and similar to Bravely Default which I've been playing recently, it feels like you are playing through the pages of an artbook. I found myself just pausing to look at the backgrounds as they panned out and I got to new areas.
• This is definitely one of the best looking 2D games I've seen, perhaps the very best. Its to be expected from Vanillaware, who previously released Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade
• The game has an interesting looking world map, which scrolls across at great speed to our first location, and dungeon.
• The locales are very nicely done, with some really good looking lighting and water effects.
• The first boss (Harpy) gave me some problems, and ended up killing me once. I immediately came back to life and continued the fight from where I left off, and didn't really understand how.
• After beating that boss, the stage ended in a sort of arcade-like way, and we got rewarded with spoils (items), exp and other goodness after this first main quest. They then give an introduction to the appraisal system that the game has. It reminded me of Diablo in that we have to identify the items before their effects can be known and you can decide what you want to do with them. Well, you can sell items without appraising, but its not recommended value-wise. I had enough money to appraise all my items, sell one, and repair my armour, after which I kept the rest of the items. I'm actually kind of surprised that they weren't more harsh with the money they give you. I wouldn't have been surprised if they went all out with hardcore old school difficulty, it would have fit, with all the other oldschool features in this game.
• I also see how the party system will work in single player - you can find bones of fallen wanderer, resurrect them and have them join your party. I get some Dwarf warrior NPC who compliments my slightly more fragile ranged combat style as a tank.
• I got the next main quest in my journal, and a sub quest, and I took up the sub quest, which took me to the dungeon I'd just been to, so I went back through that a 2nd time quickly, and that was the hour.

So I was really impressed by Dragon's Crown over the hour I played, and would have played a lot more if I didn't have exams to study for. But I definitely will be checking more out soon, and I recommend it to those gamers who like their 2D Dungeon Crawler/hack'n'slash RPGs or action games, those who like nicely drawn 2D games - this is probably one of the most amazing 2D games I've seen, and those who like to co-op on games like Gauntlet, as I've heard that those are along the same vein as Dragon's Crown.
Hopefully these impressions help in some way if you are or were on the fence about trying this game out.

Source: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=638953

http://www.itsartmag.com/features/dragons-crown-concept-art/

http://www.itsartmag.com/features/dragons-crown-concept-art/#.UsDNgbS49eE

http://youtu.be/7dZrwslwM4Q

First hour impressions #1

I was talking about this idea the other day. I'll be continuing my first hour impressions series of posts with a PS3 title that didn't get much attention when it released back last year a downloadable title on the PS3 in Europe and USA. I picked this one up as I had some spare credit and wanted to spend some in a sale they had on 'big in Japan' titles, or something stupid to that effect.

Legasista (PS3)

This game is a dungeon crawling RPG and looked quite gameplay heavy and loot driven, similar to Cladun in many ways. I enjoyed that game and never actually picked up it's sequel, so decided to pick this one up.

I finally got around to playing it now that I have some more time to procrastinate from studying free time.

So here are my notes and thoughts that I made during the first hour of playing this game. Will I enjoy it, or go back to it some day soon? I don't like starting games and then going back to them much later. So, it seems an hour is a good time to invest into a game to get a good idea of how the game will play without getting too invested into the game if I don't have time to put into finishing it.

Started 23:35pm, 17/12/13

• The game initially impresses me with it's music, which has a good mix of sounds, from some sort of folksy sound in fitting with an RPG town, some quite different latin sounds, and some retro sounding RPG sounds. This is why I'm no good reviewing soundtracks or music in game lol.. I'll post a link to one of the tracks I liked here.
• The animated sprites in dialogue scenes are quite well done, with dynamic moving characters showing some expression related to the dialogue.
• The default option seems to be Japanese voice acting, with subtitles. The text is really crisp and has a nice font as well. Quite easy to read even on the small 20"-ish screen I'm using at the moment. Not my default screen it has to be said, that one is through in my term-time flat in Glasgow.
• The game looks very gameplay and action-RPG orientated, with only a small bit of exposition, dialogue, and then straight into a series of tutorial dungeons.
• The game has similar gameplay to the Cladun games on PSP, with hack and slash combat and very detailed number heavy gameplay. Attacks do X.YY damage, i.e. to 2 decimal points such as 1.55 damage per hit. So those RPG fans who like their stats and micromanagement of equipment may appreciate this.
• The character designs are interesting after the initial revealing of the protagonist (who seems pretty generic to me. He is one of those male protagonists who has an outfit that shows off the thorax and abdomen but covers the arms and shoulders...They seem way more common than they should be..) So, fairly typical NIS characters that remind me of Atelier Iris or Etrian Odyssey in a way.
• The gameplay complexity starts to up fairly quickly towards the end of the first hour, with dual HP or durability bars...or something...I'm not too sure, but I think they correspond with the main hand equipment and off hand equipment, i.e. sword and shield durability/HP.
• Right before I stopped, the complexity started getting 'worse', with some kind of mana related equipment system which really reminded me of Cladun and FFVIII's junctioning stystem mixed together. I'll have to dive back in with the tutorials or maybe even starting over when I go back to the game some other day.

For now, I liked what I saw of the game, but from what I remember of Cladun, this should be a fairly repetitive dungeon crawl for the most part. I was quite impressed and I would recommend the game to people who like their top down hack and slash action games or RPGs. There are a lot of games in that sub-genre at the moment, especially with the whole roguelike explosion.

I'm a big fan of dungeon crawling RPGs and hope I can get back into this at some point. The next game I analyse based on the first hour will be another PS3 game, with some similarities! That's the only clue for now! I've already played it, so hopefully will post before Christmas comes around. I hope your holidays are going nicely so far!

First hour impressions

I'm going to do a series of posts that I've been considering doing for a while, and in fact, I think I did something similar if not the same a while ago with two strategy rpgs. Or, had intended to, but never actually got around to playing the opening to one of them. Check out the link.

For this time, I'm again going to play through the first hour of certain games and see how they play. It'll just be a random choice, not using the random generator on backloggery (see Cookie Picks) but just me putting in games that I've been wanting to play and haven't got around to yet.
Its very much in the vein of First Hour, an interesting (but in some ways controversial) blog idea. They review the first hour only of games, going on the assumption that if a game doesn't drag you in or attract your attention within the first hour, they aren't going to be worth the time after that. Well, they do go into a bit more detail, but a lot of the games that really blossomed slowly get reviewed quite badly on there. Then again, they do full reviews as well, which gives games more of a chance to impress. Check out their blog at the above link. Its not very active, but has a good back catalogue of posts to read through.

Now that I've finished university for the Christmas period, I'll have access to a few more consoles. Its mostly been handhelds, specifically my 3DS that I've been playing, so I might try out a few games on home consoles or older systems perhaps.
What I'll do is I'll post these first hour impressions in seperate posts as I go along. They'll have tags and numbered titles to try and keep them together as well.
I've already played and written notes for two games (both RPGs)... so stay tuned!

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Demo Impressions

Source: http://izzykarasu.deviantart.com/

Ok, so I'm a big Monster Hunter fan and should probably state that before I go into my impressions of the Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate demo on the Nintendo 3DS. I've been looking forward to this game for months and months, and with the demo finally coming out, I got a chance to see how the game will play. I've played Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for over 500 hours, and Monster Hunter Portable 3rd for over 200 hours. This game is the updated, upressed version of Monster Hunter Tri, which I put into the least amount of hours, in at about 60-70 hours. I barely scratched the surface of the online content, but I did finish the offline quests. Anyway, my point is that I prefer games with content rather than polish. However saying that, I did eventually get into Portable 3rd after a while. It has a really nice aesthetic and some really beautiful graphics for a PSP game. I didn't care for MH Tri too much. Playing with poorly implemented online gameplay mechanics and servers, weird, unpredictable people online swinging Switchaxes wildly, and a rather odd (and small) selection of Monsters throughout an online set of quests didn't really work too well for me. I really hope I enjoy Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate more than the original Wii game, but that is why my feelings for the game are slightly mixed. I still have that shit preordered, don't worry, I'll be playing it when it comes out.

So for those who don't know, the Monster Hunter games are somewhere in the grey area between action games and action RPGs, with no actual levelling up or stats for your character EXCEPT those derived from your gear, for which there are no pre-requisites. Instead, you collect items and materials from monsters you defeat and can forge weapons and armour sets from those items. There is always a massive amount of content in the Monster Hunter games, and with the addition of G-rank (the highest division of quests ie. Low Rank, High Rank and G-Rank quests) there is a lot more, and a lot of it will more than likely will require a lot of co-operation with friends or people online to get through.

Many people will know one thing about Monster Hunter in general. Its a difficult series - out of the couple times I've tried it so far; out of say three attempts at fighting the Urukusu (or Lagombi as its now called) in the Novice quest I beat it in about two of them. I'm really not used to using Ranged weapons such as the bow. I thought I was doing ok; the big rabbit was weak and limping to the next area, I was doing pretty well by using up my traps, bombs etc and then I ran out of time. Maybe I should stick with blademaster (I've always stuck with weapons I can block with: Sword and Shield, Lance, Greatsword, with the exceptions of Hammer and Longsword.) In terms of weapon types, it uses a good selection (a lot more than MH Tri, and about the same set we saw in MH Portable 3rd, well, we referring to Japanese audiences. MHP3 didn't release in the west.)

Graphically the demo didn't really impress me at first. Thats not to say the graphics are poor, no, absolutely not. The animations and shadows are incredibly fluid and smooth. The resolution of the screen was what confused me at first. Everything seemed very hard to read and appeared a bit smaller than I would have wanted. I'm not sure if this would be better on a 3DS XL or not, or if its due to the 3D technology of the top screen (I always seem to notice some fuzziness on the top screen) but something seemed a bit off initially. After putting some more time into it, I got used to the size of things, and after moving the 3D slider up for most of one of the quests, actually started to feel differently. Graphically it does use the technology pretty well. It somehow looks better than the Wii version.

One of the hit or miss areas for novice Monster Hunters are the controls. They often require you to scrunch the tendons in your hands into positions that they really shouldn't go, and develop something me and my friends call the "Monster Hunter claw." Tri Ultimate still has awkward controls, with the demo version not supporting the Circle Pad Pro. They've added some interesting new features though; a virtual D-pad on the touchscreen and a fairly useful (but possibly controversial) lock on function where you can automatically snap the camera behind you to focus on the large monster you're fighting. These are in an effort to make the game more easily controlled (and arguably accessible to newcomers to the series) and go some way to helping things in terms of the controls. I'm not sure if my gripe should be with Nintendo or Capcom, but the fact that the actual D-pad is directly underneath the Circle pad means its almost impossible to use both in tandem. But the other option like the lock on and the virtual D-pad mean that you won't be lost too often. I have to admit, when I first jumped into the water to fight the Plesioth, I could not even figure out how to submerge and swim underneath. Controls could still be an issue for putting people off this game. I'm really considering a Circle Pad Pro or even a 3DS XL to get a more comfortable experience out of this game and other ones.

The audio seems strong, with a lot of quality in sound effects and soundtrack songs. The only downside is that a lot of it is recycled from other games. And thats the story for a lot of the aspects of Monster Hunter. The series is solid, but doesn't actually change too much between games, unless of course you compare games from different genres i.e Monster Hunter Freedom Unite compared to Monster Hunter Tri. I just hope there is even a fraction as much content as there was in Freedom Unite, which can keep you occupied for hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours depending on your experience and enjoyment.

So for me, I'm definitely looking forward to this game, but with some worries. Will the Wii U and 3DS interchangeability work out as planned, will I get both versions and risk bankruptcy, will I have enough time for a massive time sink like this at a crucial time of my degree? I've got the game preordered and will be looking forward to jumping back into one of my favourite series on March 22nd.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate Demo Impressions

I've posted previously about some of the 3DS games that will be coming out in the next couple months, and some of them I was really surprised to see getting demos after the last Nintendo Direct presentation (correct me if I'm wrong.) For Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and the Castlevania title (its too long) it was just what they need. In a fairly quiet eshop environment, these niche titles could easily catch the eyes of newcomers to the series, people on the fence with the allure of a free demo version.

Aside...[I still don't understand why they need to limit the demos to 30 uses, or less in some cases. What is the advantage of that? And in fact, its easy to get around it. It counts every time you launch the software...and in this Castlevania demo and the MH3U demo, you can restart a new shot of the demo without quitting to the system dashboard. I don't actually know what happens when you run out of uses, but I guess this aside rambling has gone on too long now...]

So I'll be doing some quick impressions of the game (at least based on the demo version they uploaded to the 3DS eshop.) I should add, that I'll be doing a second demo impressions post shortly afterwards, with impressions of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. But for now, lets get into what I thought of the game, and my level of hype for this game, which releases on March 8th in PAL regions (at least the Europe portion of PAL.)
After seeing the trailers for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (see, theres a reason I was saying 'this game' instead of that mouthful) I was surprisingly ambivalent about the game-it was just lacking something...one of the special ingredients that great Castlevania games have. The graphics, characters and just overall aesthetic of the game didn't immediately jump out at me from the trailers that we saw many months ago. I was surprised by how a new Castlevania could be announced and I could be a little disappointing that it wasn't an all new Castlevania-instead they looked to be interested in making the Lords of Shadow thing something of a mini franchise. Now I liked the game, but it lacked the x-factor some of the GBA and DS metroidvanias had. Anyway, would my opinions change with the release of the demo?

First things first, I noticed the screen resolution and what I can't really describe very well-the 'zoomed-out' 2.5D feel to the graphics. Everything on top screen (where your attention will be mostly) is a little smaller than I'd wanted. I miss the days of big bold sprites in the GBA games like Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow. Initially this was weird, as I couldn't really tell what the enemies were actually doing, but on getting used to the screens and controls, you start to get quite immersed, especially with the 3D, which I really think adds to the depth and grandeur of the backgrounds. Its done quite well, and I can imagine me leaving it on more than other games, although against one mini boss they did fling an enemy right at the screen like in those silly 3D films which are horrendously overpriced at the cinema.

The controls are nicely mapped, with a lot of different options for chaining together intricate combos of attacks, dodges and blocks. Once you remember there is a dodge button that can lead into back or forward rolls, you won't end up dying so much (I admit, I struggled early on.) I'm really looking forward to the game when you will slowly unlock artefacts and relics to upgrade your character and add to the pool of moves you can make. Its always a satisfying feeling getting the ability to double jump for example =)

Combat definitely feels nice and fluid, as does the platforming, with the ability to grab onto ledges, hang and jump from said ledges, use the whip to grapple onto objects, and perform a nice range of attacks. In the 42 or so minutes I played the demo for (I completed it once) I never thought it felt repetitive or stale, and the enemies used a range of attacks against me, using shields, charges, ranged attacks such as axes and bombs etc. The bosses required even more strategy, and you have to use moves such as the double jump or roll to get out the way of some of their nastier attacks.
I really hope the full game won't feel repetitive, as I thought that was one downside of the original Lords of Shadow game on the PS3. I'm not a huge fan of action games such as Devil May Cry or anything, and felt the combat got a bit mindless at times, with even normal enemies taking way too much of a beating. Hopefully this one is more in the direction of the metroidvanias where you can get some ridiculously overpowerful weapon such as the Claimh Solais and tear through the enemies with zeal!




One thing I really like the sound of is the world building and story tidbits that the demo shows. It adds to the atmosphere of the game in the little scrolls you find (I can't remember what they are called.) They give you a little experience points each time, and I suppose that is one way to add incentive, but I really like the way they have little excerpts of stories and tales in them, sometimes relating to the area that you are in. I entered an area called the Crypt and immediately was drawn to the backdrop of the stage, where I thought I saw some kind of ethereal apparition dragging chains along behind it for a few seconds. I move on, read one of these scrolls on the ground in front of me, and it tells us:

"Heading into the depths of the Crypt, I hear the pitiful sobs of a woman.

Consumed by love for a knight who betrayed the Bernhard family, she threw herself into the pit, searching for him.
For centuries, her sorrow has echoed off the catacomb walls, under the light of the guardian angel."

You start adding things up in your head, connecting what you see in the backgrounds and environments with these scrolls. The result is a real boost to the world the game is set in, making it more atmospheric and eerie.These little dialogue breaks from the action impressed me with only two or so of them included in the demo, and look forward to playing the game and finding more of these. I just hope they are well written and add to the game. I don't want to end up skipping past the dialogue without reading it.

So I should probably wrap up now and go to sleep. Definitely interested in this game more than I was previously before the demo came out, and its way up on my list of games that are coming out soon. In fact, I preordered it today from ShopTo, partly to get some awesome looking posters as a preorder bonus, but mostly because I really enjoy the Castlevania games. Even the poorer outings in the series usually end up being pretty solid games, and I believe this will be a solid title, building upon the lore of the previous Lords of Shadow game, and taking it 26 years later.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate releases for the Nintendo 3DS in North America on March 5th 2013, Europe on March 8th 2013 and in Japan on March 20th 2013.

Ni No Kuni Demo Impressions

I'll keep this to a short impression of the demo, as I've got imminent exams on the way...and should really be studying and not writing blog posts about video games.

So the demo for Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch was released on PSN yesterday (or the day before that in America, I believe.) After wrestling the updated PSN store into submission (seriously, it took like 4 or 5 attempts to download just the demo) I got my hands on this demo. The game itself, I've been looking forward to for absolutely ages. Even despite the fact that it sold nowhere near as many copies in Japan as it should have. Studio Ghibli and Level-5 collaborating on a PS3 jRPG should definitely be an interesting project from my point of view.

Graphically, the game looks really nice. Its very sharp cel-shaded graphics, and I spent a good while just rotating the camera to look at the surroundings. It really reminds me of the look of Dragon Quest VIII and IX. It feels like those games until you get into battle, which is much more 'interesting' than the turn based Dragon Quest battles. (Although, I should add a caveat at this point. I'm a big fan of the DQ series, don't get the wrong idea. The enemies are awesome and funny, the battle system has been refined over the years and when you thrown in some monster collection from battles, you're on to a winner in my opinion. "if it ain't broke, don't fix it.")

Before I went off on a tangent, I was going to talk about the battle system in Ni No Kuni...

Some in game stuff now(below), and these are what the battles look like. Very clean interface and not at all cluttered. Smooth speech bubbles and timers for actions and defending (which you can hit a button to cancel out of when you need) You can move around the battle environment freely, as in some other games. This adds a whole different dimension to the battle systems (which I found difficult to get the hang of at first-in fact, I was beaten in the first battle as I didn't realise exactly what I could do.) Hopefully the final game will have some sort of tutorial system to ease new players into the game.

The demo offers two scenarios which you have 25 minutes to play through before they end. The first of the two more or less chucks you into battle against a boss right from the start, which can be very difficult..The second of the two takes place in a volcano and has really nice detail and effects in the environment. I didn't manage to beat the boss at the volcano, but got through the timed rush to the end of the area with fairly few problems. The first scenario took me a couple of attempts to get through. It looks like there is quite a lot to think about in this game, and it makes it difficult in that the game is fairly fast paced. There are a few ways to pause it, but not a pause button per se, its more just the going into menus that will end up giving you a bit of  a break if you need a "cuppa tea." Which brings me to my next point. The game has some..distinctly British localisation, similar to Xenoblade Chronicles or Dragon Quest VIII. While its something I can chuckle about being from Scotland, North American or gamers elsewhere might not get some of the nuances. It hopefully shouldn't be too confusing or anything of a barrier.

The game looks like it could have been the next Studio Ghibli film, with some really interesting character design and high production values. I just hope the game "gels" well together. It looks like the characters in the above picture have completely different styles and looks, almost different artstyles as well. It could end up being quite a fragmented final product, so hopefully it works, but from what I have seen in the demo, it looks to be good.

A couple other links for info and impressions on Ni No Kuni so far;

http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/12/06/10-thoughts-on-the-ni-no-kuni-wrath-of-the-white-witch-demo-sony-playstation-3/

http://zeboyd.com/2012/12/06/ni-no-kuni-demo-impressions/

Heroes of Ruin Demo Impressions

I've had my eye on Heroes of Ruin for a while now since its early production days when it was announced. Its an upcoming RPG for the 3DS in the style of Diablo 'hack and slash' loot driven action RPGs.
European regions received the demo on the Nintendo 3DS eShop a couple days ago, so after not touching my 3DS for a while, I checked this demo out. So here are my initial thoughts of this demo.

Gameplay

The action is fast and quite frantic. There can be quite a lot of things going on at one time on the screen, most of which is on the top screen. However, I didn't notice any kind of slowdown as a result of all the stuff going on. The controls seem quite tight, with attacks and special moves mapped to the face buttons, potions for health and mana mapped to right and left on the D-pad, and nifty options for speeding up loot management mapped to the shoulder buttons (L) and auto-selling stuff you don't need (or can't equip with your class) with down on the D-pad. So the controls succeed at speeding up what can be quite a clunky aspect of this sub-genre. I'm a bit concerned that this could be simplifying things too much though. I actually enjoy inventory management in games like Diablo II. The battles are fast and fun in this game, especially when teaming up with other players. That brings me to the 'drop in-drop out' multiplayer that they are trying to use as a selling point. While not quite as well polished yet as the company would like, it is done very well. I had a game open and was 'afk-ing' to eat my lunch, and heard some sound effects happening, so, thinking I was being attacked, looked over to find that another player had easily dropped into my game via the wi-fi to co-op with me. By the time a few minutes had passed, another two players had joined and the tempo really picked up. Needless to say, my lunch had to wait till later.

Quests and dialogue options are presented in a very slick, polished manner I found. Its good to have some options when it comes to RPGs like this. I hope they present some dialogue options that actually have profound effects on the outcome of the story, quests and NPCs throughout the game.

One other concern I have is the randomisation of weapon drops, stats and levels that you explore. Diablo games succeed because they do not get stale. There is such a wealth of content due to many stages being different each time, and the amazing abundance of items. I really hope this game doesn't dissapoint by having watered down item effects and stages.

Graphics

This is one of the areas that slightly let me down I felt. The camera is slightly too far out, and the developers seem to have opted for as detailed portraits and enemies as possible. The way the graphical engine works means that its a little too hard to see what is going on at times. I found myself holding down a direction and mashing on the attack button. Sophisticated things like blocking and dodging were way out of my comfort zone, at least for my 2 run throughs of the demo, hopefully they tweak the graphics a bit for the final release, just so we can tell whats going on.

Audio

In terms of audio, the game is average. Some songs fit fairly well with the tone of the game and the sound effects are satisfactory. Nothing amazing so far in the demo, but it does the job well. I'd need to see more of the game to judge this more effectively though.

There are a lot of questions however. Can it possibly compete with the other recent offerings in the sub-genre, Diablo III and Torchlight II? Will it be watered down to the point where there is not enough content, be it quests, items, or classes? Will the connection problems be improved on? Will n-Space and Square Enix's experience in this style of game be sufficient to deliver a satisfactory end product?

In my opinion, this is exactly the kind of game the 3DS needs to move to the next level. There were very few, if any games like this on the DS so this should hopefully set up some foundations for a decent RPG selection to be established on the platform. I should be picking this game up for some hack'n'slash loot awesomeness over the summer.

Links

Official Website
Eurogamer's Preview
RPGamer's E3 2012 Preview

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Impressions

I know I'm way behind on playing this but I didn't get a chance to pick it up until fairly recently. So now that I've finished my exams for my 2nd year of uni, thought I'd play through it and see what I thought. I didn't really like Final Fantasy XIII, but somehow ended up playing it for about 140 hours...think I was just trying to platinum it so I wouldn't have to go back to it. I got all but the Treasure Hunter trophy and gave up because it was too much to keep track of, and fighting the Tortoises was getting on my nerves.

So this game makes a lot of changes, some I appreciate and some I don't really. These are my impressions of the first 10 hours or so of the game. Ok bear in mind that there will be some spoilers here, so you've been warned! =p

- Graphically it is awesome, with some really over the top cut scenes (from what I can remember, they are more interesting than FFXIII

- Design wise, the areas don't seem as interesting or creative as the ones in FFXIII did. Lake Bresha in FFXIII had that wow factor - a crystalline lakeside is a lot more interesting than the areas I've been to so far in this game.

- The addition of the monster taming for me adds a lot to the game. I've spent a good chunk of my play time going back and getting some of the monsters I missed. It adds a lot to the possibilities for your team, but I wish you could have a smidge more freedom (for example, having 2 monsters on your team, or more than one human teammate.) For some of the bosses it seems you really need to go back and farm for some of the rarer monsters, which kind of seems dissapointing. You shouldn't have to have a 10% monster for your team. Arguably you could just level up whatever you have, but something seems slightly off with the system.  I like the addition of the monster system, however, I've found a lot of them are recycled or slightly modified from the first game, Final Fantasy XIII.

- The characters (there haven't been too many so far) have been fairly bland (but I get the feeling Noel's back story will be explained in one big twist at some point.) I'm also not entirely convinced by the character's reactions to the plot points. Its just so ridiculous the stuff that they are doing, and they seem to never bat an eyelid. I suppose I am taking it too seriously though... For example, I found the fact that Serah and Snow have been apart so long and then barely talk once they finally do meet up to be kind of strange to say the least.

- The addition of sidequests is fairly good, but there have only been a handful so far, and I just got onto Episode 3. That, and a handful of other stuff to do does make an improvement on FFXIII.

- The battles are fun (although jamming the x button for the most part does get a bit boring.)

- I've heard a lot of praise for the soundtrack but it hasn't really caught my attention yet. It has a lot of jarring unusual pieces which I'm sitting there through thinking "what were they thinking?" The Persona 3 and 4 soundtracks by Shōji Meguro were no doubt on their minds when they were making the FFXIII-2 OST.

- Changes to the Crystarium are a bit confusing and not particularly well explained.. So for a while (up until Episode 2 or so) I didn't even use it as they hadn't told me how to. Perhaps this was because in the first game people felt too limited by the slow spoon feeding to the players, but I could've used at least a hint. After pressing x a couple times and putting a few levels into different roles, I got used to it a bit more. It feels easier to go astray and level up your character wrongly. I felt like that when I hit the first roadblock boss (Caius in Oerba.)


- Really confusing time travel story. They overuse phrases like paradox almost as much as the Kingdom Hearts games overuse phrases like heart and darkness. They don't seem to care about the knock on effects of dabbling in the past, future and alternative timelines. And man, they don't do a good job of explaining what is going on, or just how things can be changed, even with the addition of the rather weird "previously on Final Fantasy XIII-2" when you load the game.

So the game has its good points and bad points. It definitely feels less linear and limited than Final Fantasy XIII, however I think it has a convoluted, confusing story and lacks a bit of polish and attention to things here and there. I'll definitely finish the story so I can fully review the game, and theres a chance I'm going to put a lot of time into the game trying to get all of the monsters (or platinum it depending on how long it takes.)

Hopefully this doesn't too negative, but there has been a fair bit that has annoyed me even though it seems a good game so far. Hopefully it helps people still on the fence about picking it up as well.