Now Playing - "Sticky White Stuff"

Merry Christmas people! Hopefully you had a good time so far...the year can really fly past at times. We've had lots of snow the past few days...what did you think I meant by the title? ;D Actually, its also a rather ridiculously named item from Demon's Souls.

I played a little bit more of one of my less played characters on Demon's Souls actually, one I am aiming to turn into a medium-heavy armoured melee build if I put more time into it. Some things are a lot harder with a melee class, but I think I'll appreciate the tanking abilities compared to my rather fragile Mage that I beat the game with last time.

Golden Sun (GBA) - Monday: got to Imil, icy town up north next to the Mercury lighthouse~how relevant for this time of year, the whole place here is iced up =p. Tuesday: didn't get to do much cos we went out at night again, Wednesday: after playing some Blazblue, played a couple more hours, getting through Imil Mines and Peak, and on to the stupid ass desert (I hate deserts in games...omfg, check out the original Crystal Chronicles for a bastard of an example) So anyway, I've got past the desert and done a bit more in the past few days, this game has a pretty good pacing, even if it is a bit too easy, it moves really fast. I'm around 10 hrs in and probably a little over halfway through. Did someone turn on Easy modo?! Next few days after that I blazed through right to the end. So at the moment I'm at the point where I can either go to the final stage of the game or go to the optional dungeon Crossbone Isle to get some more levels, gear and the final Djinn that I need for 100% completion. I'm definitely going to do Crossbone Isle before I go onto the next game, I'm just not sure when I'm going to do it.

Blazblue: Continuum Shift (PS3) - I played a little bit here and there of Blazblue after it finally arrived, but I've been a little bit dissapointed on quite a few aspects of this game. Maybe it was just the whole mess with Royal Mail's delivery failing across the country due to the weather and me having to wait a lot longer than normal for it. It was nearly to the point where I was going to try and get compensation for it not arriving. Anyway, once it arrived I tried it out and was dissapointed that they had really nerfed Rachel, my favourite character. Her moves have been decreased in damage and given some extra cooldown time in places, as far as I can tell. So I've been through the arcade mode with Noel (I got right to the end boss with Rachel and could not beat it... T_T) and the first Story mode section with Ragna. And I've played some multiplayer stuff online and with my friends but the game hasn't quite hooked me as the first game did. Perhaps I just need to give it some more time...There are too many games piling up for me at the moment though...

I got an Ipod Touch for Christmas so I've been buying a whole bunch of apps, including Chaos Rings, Infinite Blade, Plants vs Zombies, Robot Unicorn Attack (and the Heavy Metal edition) and Altered Beast. There are a LOT of awesome games on the IOS. "RISE FROM YOUR GWAVE!!"

So this coming week I'm probably gonna be trying to finish off Golden Sun, start up Castlevania: LoS or some other stuff. I'll be buying a few more games probably tomorrow actually..I don't know why..I have some tokens to spend on the PSN and in some Game stores, so thats my excuse =p

Hopefully you people have been having a good Christmas and holiday period! =D

What games to buy next?

I'm not finding much time to actually play games at the moment, but that doesn't stop me wanting to buy new games. European gamers are getting some good releases coming out over here, in my eyes at least. There isn't a big difference between the US release and our one over here, in quite a few titles.

I've now got a few titles on my radar, so to speak... Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman, Disgaea Infinite, Cladun: This is an RPG, Call of Duty: Black Ops (but I think I'll pass on this) and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. On this last one, I'm intrigued by the multiplayer, but I really think I should play the 2nd game before I try it.

Disgaea Infinite is a visual novel, and apparantely pretty short, but I will pick it up at some point when it is cheap.

We've got a few on the way as well; Hyperdimension Neptunia, and Blazblue: Continuum Shift (they have an annoying habit of pushing it back many times). I'm also thinking about Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, if I manage to finish the quests in the Freedom Unite before the release some time next year. The trailers look rather awesome. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is pretty much a must buy for me as well, although I might have to play through the 2nd game at least again before I play the new one. So, some good titles on my radar, might get some for Christmas hopefully =3 Way off in the distance most likely is Disgaea 4. I'm a big fan of the first 2 Disgaea games, and still haven't round to the 3rd, but I will. 

I already preordered Hyperdimension Neptunia on a whim. I hope I don't regret it...Other than that, I'm really considering Cladun, even though I've heard mixed things. 

Now Playing - "Hands off the panda!"

I didn't find a huge amount of time this week to play games unfortunately, but here are some thoughts on what I did play. The main game I've been trying to get through, and the one I've played a fair bit of is Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (PSP). I've now played through two of the three character's stories (Terra and Ventus') and while some things are starting to feel a bit stale, they change enough each time you go back to the worlds with the various characters so it doesn't feel too boring. I really didn't like the some of the quests where you needed to fetch x items to continue...that bit in Ventus's story where I needed to find the goddamn bits for Cinderella's dress actually made me put the game down for a couple days. Things like that and the minigames being incredibly unforgiving pissed the hell out of me. Actually, in some really intense boss battles the fiddly nature of the command deck did kill me when I had to stop moving in order to cycle through to the command I wanted to use (like a Cure spell). Still, I'm enjoying the hell out of the game for the most part. It has some really epic battles. It does kind of seem like the story is running a bit thin now that I've been through it 3 times (even though the timelines are slightly overlapping)-it seems like every main plot event has been already, and things might be different in the bit after all 3 stories (I hope that the finale is good.)

The voice acting is really dissapointing. I don't care how much people want to try and defend it. Its not good in my books. Aqua feels so awkward, like she is struggling with every sentence. Terra is fairly dull and lifeless. It does have some fairly good performances, but they aren't brilliant. Xehanort and Master Yen Sid were two that slightly stood above the rest. I feel I'm forgetting someone but perhaps that is it in a nutshell. Forgettable voice acting. The soundtrack isn't overly impressive either.

As much as I've ranted here, it is a pretty decent game and I'm looking forward to finishing it off to see where the story goes. Anyway, I reckon I need about 5 or 10 hours to finish Aqua's story and the game completely. Might be able to do that this week, we shall see.

Lunar: Silver Star Harmony [demo] (PSP) So I played some of the demo of this game and wanted to get through it to get the clear save game if I ever got the full game when it was released but I put the demo down. It was just frustrating me that I couldn't save in the middle of it-I had to put my PSP into sleep mode each time instead of turning it off. Also meant I couldn't play KH until I finished the demo. So anyway, my intial thoughts on the game. (Keep in mind the fact that I never played the original games) It looks to have a fairly cool 90s anime style aesthetic, for the most part good although some characters and monsters do look horrendous. It has one of the ugliest dragons I've ever seen, fullstop. It has feathers and some ridiculous looking things that look like dog ears. Yeah, no thanks.

It has a fairly strange look to some of the menus, texts, symbols and icons. I'd even go so far as to say it looks like a flash game similar to like Adventure Quest or some RPG that someone has made themselves on RPGmaker or some crap.

It has some fairly boring combat at times, and what really annoyed me was that the enemies appear on the overworld and dungeons (ok, thats not bad) and they RUN FASTER THAN YOU. So if I want to evade them and skip by them to get through the dungeon quicker, no that won't work. I'll need to get a bit of luck so they don't see me. Fairly annoying, but I am curious to give this a better shot. I may play through the demo when I have some free time and have a buildup of patience somehow...

Blazblue: Calamity Trigger (360) I played some more of Blazblue and actually won some games online! Not many, but I'm up to like lv16 or so on the multiplayer. Frustrating how good some people are at fighting games...I think I'll definitely get the next game though when it comes out. I like this game too much not to.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (DS) I didn't put much more time into this game this week. I finished up a story mission and thats about it. Did some exploring, levelling and getting demons but didn't make much significant progress. I think its a fairly long game, so like Etrian Odyssey it will have to have my full attention if I intend to actually finish the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSlY5TJWkfU

Sorry for the short post (with no pictures, videos or whatever)-I'm not on my laptop at the moment. Will try and make it more interesting next week!

Some PAL game release updates.

So it seems waiting (for long periods of time) is the right way to do things if you are a PAL gamer with interests in anything remotely niche as I've found out recently.  

Deathsmiles (360) For a long time after the US release it seemed like this game wouldn't be coming to Europe. I had considered importing it, but after reading up on the game, it turns out this one was region locked on the 360. Which is strange, because the developer Cave had intentionally left the region locking off a few of their releases to help the import community out. The strange thing is, I've not played many of these kind of games, and never played anything by Cave before, but after reading about it and seeing some video footage, I was really interested. Plus, the fact that this was the first one by the developer to actually come out in America was ringing alarm bells, and I had hoped it would come out in Europe and PAL regions as well. Well, it seems it will be. It hasn't been confirmed by Rising Star yet, but it will apparantely be coming out some time next year from them. I hope it isn't just a rumour, but I've found a few mentions of it online. Here's hoping! Gothic lolita characters, crazy bosses and 2D bullet hell shooter goodness-I'm sold!

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/40940/Cave-to-bring-boxed-shooter-to-West

http://uk.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/deathsmiles/review.html

Lunar: Silver Star Harmony (PSP) This one is confirmed to be coming over to our PSN sometime fairly soon I believe. First I heard of it was when I checked PSN the other night to find a demo up. I'd been interested in seeing what this game was like but after hearing mixed things, I decided the high price for importing might not necessarily be worth it if I didn't like the game that much. So I quickly decided to download the demo and then go searching for some news online. I've still not yet tried the demo (I'll play it and update this post once I've finished it) but it seems once the game is released on PSN (and it should be noted that it will be PSN only here) you will start your game with bonus gear of some kind if you decide to get the full game and still have data from the demo. So I'm definitely interested in this one as well. I'll try the demo and see if it will be my thing. It will be out in PAL regions on the 13th of October. 

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/09/24/game-arts-bringing-lunar-silver-star-harmony-to-europe/

Blazblue: Continuum Shift (PS3/360) Us PAL gamers had to wait a fairly long time to get the first Blazblue game, and while we've not had such a long wait this time around, it seems excruciating at times how long we have to wait. I can't really describe why I feel so maniacal about Blazblue...I didn't play that much online on Blazblue: Calamity Trigger mainly because I sucked, but I had a lot of fun with the multiplayer both online and with my friends in person. I got the original game on the 360 but I'm perhaps leaning towards the free online play of the PS3 version this time around. It would probably suit my sporadic use of the online features slightly better. I have seen a few imported PS3 copies in one of the shops around here, but I'm going to wait and pick up the special edition when it comes out here.

I'm hoping they clear up some of the stupid things from the story mode. To 100% complete character's story modes you need to lose to each opponent, as well as finishing some in certain ways ie. with Distortion Drives or whatever they were called. The story was about as clear as mud as well, but hey...I had some fun with it. The first game had really nice graphics, music and characters. Hopefully this one will build upon the first's successes.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (PS3/360) This is probably one of my most anticipated games coming out for the rest of the year, and it was nearly going to sneak under my radar until I did this post because I don't have as much time to play games or trawl gaming news sites now that I've started uni. Anyway, I have high hopes for this one and I really don't want it to be just another generic God of War clone. With the talent involved in the making of the game, I'm really looking forward to its PAL release date of October 7th, or some time after that when I end up grabbing it. It comes out October 5th in North America and apparantely December 16th in Japan. I don't know the reasons behind that, or if its true to be honest.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-09-28-castlevania-lords-of-shadow-review

Other than those, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona was released recently on the PSN, along with Front Mission 3. The SMT franchise gained a substantial amount of fans outside of Japan in the past year or so with Persona 3 and 4 getting released, and this is where the Persona series started. I've heard mixed things about the game but I am tempted to pick it up, and its good to see games like this coming out here, even if it is just on PSN. 

On another note, I took a look in one of the independent game shops in Glasgow and as always, saw lots of awesome stuff. On the import front they had SMT: Strange Journey, SMT: Persona (PSP), SMT: Devil Survivor, Disgaea Infinite, Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories and quite a few other titles I was interested in. I'm still looking out for Lucifer's Call (Nocturne) but I'm never gonna find it. I may ask them to order it in for me some time as a last resort.

Now Playing - "Player vs Fish"

Kudos if you know what games the quote in the title is from. ;D

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (DS) Getting pretty near the end of this, on day 6. Its getting tricky...So I've got to bring myself to GRIND and get through the boss I'm on at the end of day 6. I'd definitely recommend this to people who like Strategy rpgs or SMT games..my only real gripes is with some of the ridiculous cheap, hard muthaf@$*'in difficult battles... Seriously, when you need to protect civilians and they can get oneshotted...

I was feeling a bit washed out with the darkness, difficulty and grindiness of devil survivor, so wanted something more action-rpg like (fast and frenetic), so started up Kingdom Hearts II (PS2), as part of my RPG-marathon I'm taking part in over at backloggery.

So far, I'm about 12 hours into it, at Steamboat Willy's world (I forget the name) and quite impressed. The only flaw I can see so far is the ridiculous looping sound clips. Although they are quite hilarious to witness. "GET UP ON THE HYDRA'S BACK!..." over and over..I was late coming to the ps2, so never actually got round to playing a lot of these games for myself. I can see what all the fuss is about, with Kingdom Hearts-they are definitely rather good games. And playing through, I'm surprised at my inner disney fan...I watched a lot of Disney stuff as a kid, and its really cool to see something like this now, and still really enjoy it. 

Blazblue: Calamity Trigger (360) This finally got released over in Europe, I've been waiting so long for this damn game, and I've been enjoying playing this one. I've got in some games online after beating the arcade modes and some of the stories. I'm definitely not too good at it yet..I can't even win a whole match online T_T

I finished up Mass Effect 2 (360) earlier in the week, quite pleased with the game overall, apart from some niggling issues with the cover system. The story for me was slightly underwhelming, I don't particularly like that the majority of the game is spent recruiting group members and getting them loyal (seriously, its like 80% of the game or something.) Good game though, they definitely improved a lot of things from the first game. I still don't like the scanning of planets in the 2nd one though..

I'll be going back for a few more playthroughs of the 2 games at some point. Lots of replayability..and I really want to see how things will differ if I choose differently in the first game 2nd time round.

Other than that, just been working on grinding and hunts in Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)...still lots to do for the hardest couple left. And a bit more Pokemon Platinum (DS), just a few minutes here and there each day to see what swarming pokemon are present and if they will help with my dex completion.

Yeah, I've still not got Heart Gold or Soul Silver, I'm a little surprised myself. I'm holding off on that for now so I can finish off some games first. Probably get it before I go away on holiday if anything. Pokemon is like crack to me.

Blazblue kicks ass! =D

"Clearly those ostentatious eyeglasses do your eyes no good. Perhaps they would serve you better forcibly inserted into your mouth."

So Blazblue arrived the other week, and I've been enjoying it. I've just finished off all the character's arcade modes now, and working on the story modes now. I'm really impressed with the depth, they've taken a lot of things similar to the Guilty Gear games and utilised them here really well. I kinda suck, but hoping to get better as I go on. Rachel is awesome! =D

WTF! Blazblue pushed back again...

OMG...I've preordered Blazblue for the 360 from Amazon (its still not out here, yeah...) and this is the 2nd time it has been pushed back. I think the release date keeps changing..now it won't be here till the first of second week of April....

T_T

I guess I'll play some of the games I have in the meantime..but I wanted to play Blazblue...

Devil Survivor is awesome, but ridiculously cheap in places... ¬_¬

Recent Purchases #3 ~ Christmas games

I thought I'd do a quick roundup and talk a little bit about some of the games I got given, or bought with the money I was given over Christmas in a 'Christmassy' edition of this not-very-regular column of mine, Recent Purchases.

Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition (Xbox 360)

I've been wanting to play this for ages, like since it came out and never really got the game. So when I heard there was going to be a 'goty' edition released, I thought I'd wait for that. In fact, it kind of dropped off my radar for a couple months, so I don't know when it actually got released, but thought it would be one of the games I'd ask for. (I purposefully tried not to ask for many games cos I've got so many still to beat)

Definitely looking forward to playing this quite extensive edition of the game, with 5 of the DLC packs.

Castlevania: Judgment (Wii) My bro knows I love Castlevania games, so got this for me. So far I've just tried a couple battles in a few of the modes. I'm liking what I've played so far, apart from the graphics looking a bit odd and fuzzy, and some bizarre character designs by Takeshi Obata of Death Note fame. But the uniqueness and extravagance of these characters kinda interests me. They are like different takes on the original characters. There are some cool features in this game, like the wifi multiplayer options (I have no idea what it is involved) and the DS connectivity with Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, which I just ordered the other day.

Okami (Wii) 

I've wanted this game for ages, so was quite happy when my bro got me it for Christmas. It looks amazing, and I've heard really good things about it. Still not had a chance to start it. (I don't like playing too many games at one time, so my preference for RPGs causes me to get through games REALLY slowly lol)

Pikmin (Wii)

I loved this game when I played it on the Gamecube what seems like ages ago...I think it was the first Gamecube game we got. I think its pretty short, so I'll take a look at this soon when I get a chance. Along with Okami, think my bro might be playing one of them at the moment, so I'll finish off a couple of the games I'm playing first.

Alone in the Dark (360)

I've not played any of this series before, but having watched my brother play this a bit (its a shared present) I saw that the game has a few nice ideas, like the fire, but the camera angles seem a bit annoying at times, one aspect I think plagues these kind of games (then again, I have a limited experience of them)

I reckoned my Wii was a bit neglected, so when I got it back from my brother just before Christmas and set it up on my new TV I got for Christmas, I decided to buy these other Wii games:

Little King's Story (Wii)

Still not started this, but it got some really good criticism on RPGamer and a lot of other sites and it is pretty hard to find where I stay, so when I saw it in the shops, I picked it up just after Christmas along with..

Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)

This game is really cool, its very like Odin Sphere, which kinda makes sense seeing as how it is also by Vanillaware. Its a very short game, I beat it in around 15 or 16 hours for both stories in the game, Kisuke's and Momohime's. Its really well drawn graphically, I love 2D stuff when it is done well. There is a fair amount of backtracking and because the enemies aren't very common, a lot of the time you will be running through empty areas, albeit very impressive ones graphically. It has a similar system to Odin Sphere, with the forging of swords. You get Spirit for eating food, and with the souls you get from beating enemies, or collecting in the areas (like Rings in Sonic or something), you can Forge more powerful swords. There are 108, and I only got around 70 or so, so I think there is quite a bit of replayability, and a few different endings depending on what swords you have equipped at the end. Its a really cool game, but if there was a bit more variability and maybe a bit longer it would have impressed me even more. I mean its good, but I think I preferred Odin Sphere slightly.

And now, I've just bought Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and the sequel on the PS2, because I saw someone on Backloggery playing them, decided to watch a couple Let's Play videos and then got that wave of Nostalgia, so picked them both up on ebay for less than £6.50 inc shipping! Soul Reaver only cost me £1.15! :D They should be on their way in the post soon, and I'll definitely look forward to playing them again.

I also finally decided to pick up Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, as it is the last metroidvania game I need to play post Symphony of the Night. Some people have given it amazing reviews, even saying it is the best Castlevania! Wow, I'll have to wait and see.

I'm running out of stuff to say, so I'll leave it at that for now. I'll be talking a bit more about the games I've been playing(and beating! :D) over Christmas next.

Blazblue: Calamity Trigger (360/PS3)

I've been hearing about this from a lot of people playing this, and heard only good things. And thats not helping with the fact I need to wait till Q1 2010 to get the PAL release.... T_T

I love the Guilty Gear games even though I suck kinda hard at them, so I think I'll really enjoy this one (if I ever get to play it ><) This is made by the same studio (Arc System Works) and I love their 2D sprites, characters, backgrounds and music. Everything about the Guilty Gear games basically.  

Crazy characters it seems again, like this cat guy. I prefer fighting games with interesting, original characters. Kinda adds to the game for me. That, and interesting crazy moves, which Guilty Gear games usually have.

Roll on 2010! I must play this!