Recent Purchases #2

I picked up a few more titles I had wanted for a while. I'm paranoid when it comes to rare titles that I if dont get them they will become really expensive. Take the Tales games, Namco don't seem to print many of them for some reason and some of the games have become quite hard to find, Tales of Symphonia for example sells for anywhere between £35-60. There are a few Gamecube games that are quite rare now, ToS, Skies of Arcadia, Twilight Princess, and quite a few others. Anyway, here's some of the stuff I picked up~Its a bit of an action rpg fest!

Baroque (Wii)

I had my eye on this for a while, but having heard good things and (mostly) bad things about the game, I wanted to find out for myself what this is like. It is a port of the Sega Saturn roguelike, which also appeared on the Playstation and PS2. A lot of the criticism seems to focus on how hard the game is. Having not played many roguelikes I'm not entirely sure if I will like it, but I definitely like the look of the style of the game. Its nice and twisted =p

Anyway, I got it for relatively cheap (£7) so even if I dont like it, my pocket isnt hurting TOO much I guess.
The World Ends With You (DS)
I'm really liking this one, its quite hard to find in shops here from what I can tell. I got it over ebay for around £12 or so. It got a lot of game of the year and other rewards when it came out a few years ago and some people say it is among the best DS games. 

So far I've been really impressed with the style and hope to put more time into the story-its quite interesting, even if the main character is a bit of a douche! He seems like one of those cliched pseudo-antiheroes.
Tales of Eternia (PSP)
Its got some of the ugliest cover art I've seen recently, but I'd heard it was actually quite a good game and I'd seen it a while back in a second hand pawn shop, £11.95 or so was around about what it went for on ebay. It didnt get released in the US which adds to its value and it is quite a hard to find game, so I finally caved in and got it one day, cos I knew it wasnt gonna get put down in price, even if they werent going to sell it to many other people at that price...I should stick to actual game shops...

Anyway, its an action rpg on the psp, similar to many of the other Tales games. The character design doesnt look particularly nice, but I hope I like this one.
Tales of Vesperia (360)
I was saying that I was paranoid about games going up in price too much, which was mainly referring to this one. Its already worth about £35-40 or more and it didnt even come out that long ago here. 

 I quite enjoyed what I played of Tales of Symphonia (even though I got stuck and didnt complete it) and I've had my eye on this one for ages!
I more or less bit the bullet on this one, shelling out £30 for it from ebay. I've got a feeling the rarity of this one will make it worth quite a bit more than that in years to come. So I picked it up now to shut my paranoid self up.
It looks amazing on an HD screen and I cant wait to play it. I'll really need to play some of these games because my unfinished pile is growing and a lot of them i wont get around to playing for a while... T_T
There are a few titles though, that I must have! heheh, here's some of those that I will more than likely pick up at some point:

A Witch's Tale, for the DS-I just kind of like the style of this one, its cute but got a dark edge to it. Quite cool, even though its apparantely very easy. Thats not gonna dissuade me though, I played Magical Starsign which was very easy and I still enjoyed it. I kinda want to get FFIX as it would fill that gap in my Final Fantasy collection. I've been told I would like it, I probably will-it has Vivi! :3

Now Playing - "That lobster just got served! With cheese biscuits and mashed potatoes!"

More than a month since I last posted, thats terrible! Sorry =p

Uni has been keeping me busy, which kinda sucks, anyways here is what I've been playing when I get the chance.

The World Ends With You (DS)

I picked this up recently and started playing it, I'm only a few hours in at the start of the game, but so far I've been really impressed. I love the style of the game, which takes a lot of aspects of japanese culture-fashion, mobile phones, music and throws them together to create a really rich game world set in the Shibuya district of Tokyo.

The combat system is very unusual from what I can tell so far.  Its an action rpg, so it is quite fast, and the combat takes place on both of the DS's screens simultaneously. You control the main character Neku who looks strangely like Sora from Kingdom Hearts on the touch screen and Shiki on the top screen with the Dpad buttons. The character you arent controlling is controlled by the computer AI, but you can tinker with the options for that.

So far, I'm impressed with this, check it out if you can!

Final Fantasy V Advance (GBA)

Yeah, I'm still playing this, but I'm much further now-more than 30 hours into it and I might be getting near the end of the game soon. Its definitely becoming harder, some of the enemies and bosses are getting a bit more challenging. There have been quite a few funny moments, some cliched moments and some bits I quite like, the Forest of Moore for some reason, I quite liked. Its also been supplying me with some awesome funny quotes for the Now Playing titles =p It is kinda funny at times, but I do wish it was a bit more serious at times. Still, that would make it even more like the other FF games, which wouldn't necessarily be a good thing. I guess it's tongue-in-cheek style sets it apart from the others. Hopefully I can finish this one soon and give some more thoughts about it. 

Kinda lots of generic characters in this game though..Bartz and Exdeath don't really seem to jump out at me so far... 

Mwahahaha!

I've also been playing a little bit more Shadow of the Colossus, but the portable games are taking up more of my time since I always seem to be at uni and they are to hand most of the time. 

Ok, that was kinda sucky, but I might do a Game of the Month for October (as its almost over) and I'll try to post more to make it a bit more interesting on the blog =D

Game of the Month. (09/09)

Argh, I've been trying to think of something to post for this, but nothing really jumped out at me. And now the last day of the month is here so I'm having to think of something. I dont like to force my mind to get its answers if I don't have to. They should appear to me. Also I've been quite busy with uni so I've not really had a chance to play games or post on the blog. Thats what I get for saying I would do weekly and monthly column posts....

Anyway, without further ado, I bring you my game of the month. Its a relatively new one, it got released earlier this year, or 2008 in Japan.

Pokemon Platinum (DS)

I was gonna do another DS rpg, but I've not really played any of them to death quite as much as this one. Its addictive, simple fun, with a ridiculous amount to do for your money. The main Pokemon games are one franchise I don't really mind paying full price for. I mean, to illustrate my point, I've got over 140 hours on my Platinum save, and I'm still not even quarter through the pokedex (roughly). My Diamond save has a stupid amount of time on it-over 390 hours of play time. Thankfully I've completed the pokedex and done almost everything in it. 

For those who don't know, the Pokemon games haven't really changed much since Red and Blue first came out a few years ago, but the addictive, simple team based monster-collecting rpg style game was always a very popular formula, so why change it? In my opinion, they have always improved them. Sure, they wont be for everyone, and the graphics and story aren't amazing, but I see a lot of good points for the Pokemon games on the DS.

The games have wi-fi play now, which is a great improvement on the last generation of games on the GBA-Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Fire Red and Leaf Green. The wifi in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum allows you to battle friends (you have to exchange the rather clunky friend codes first) and trade with others as well. There is an option in the GTS building to trade with people you dont know (and whose friend codes you dont need) but you can only get pokemon that are already on your pokedex ie. you've seen them or something.

What I always like about the pokemon games is that there is so much you can do depending on what things you like, training up pokemon for battles or contests, breeding pokemon, catching and trading for pokemon to work on your pokedex, now there are a whole load more of things, finding fossils and treasures in the underground (which can also be done multiplayer locally), testing yourself in the Battle Frontier (I think its called that in this one.)

Now, with remakes of the Game Boy colour games Pokemon Gold and Silver on the way (HeartGold and SoulSilver), its the perfect time to dig your DS games back out, or pick one up if you dont have any. Catch some pokemon, or transfer them from your GBA games to your DS ones with Pal Park and have some fun!

Oh, and if you have the game, and can get on wifi, you can download an event item, which before Platinum, you couldnt do. You could only really get the mystery gift type things from events if you actually went to them. You can get Oak's Letter between the 28th September and 8th November, which has something to do with catching Shaymin, I believe. I havent read much on it yet. See the official site for more news on that.

Official Site

Gamespot

Gamerankings

I'd recommend the game to people who like simple, addictive and fun games, and if you like the kinda game where there is lots to collect (little monsters in this case) then even better, I'm sure you'd love the game. There is a lot of depth to the Pokemon games as well, if you read around the web. There are lots of hidden values and indicators which people have discovered from picking the games apart and playing them to death. The good thing is, not everyone needs to delve that deep if they dont want to.

Now Playing - "Yo-ho-ho, and stuff!"

I havent really had much time to play games because of uni starting up, but in my free time I played a little bit more of Final Fantasy V Advance (GBA) I was kinda inspired by Dissidia to take up my FF quest again. I'm gonna try and complete the rest of the ones I've not beaten. To date I've beaten FFI, FFII, FFIII, FFIV and FFVII, then a few spinoffs; FF Tactics: TWotL, FF Tactics Advance, FF Crystal Chronicles and maybe a few others that escape my mind, but I'm concentrating on the main ones. I was very tempted by the group playthrough that is going on at www.lusipurr.com but I didnt have much time during the week and in fact, earlier in the year a few people on the rpgamer.com forums have been playing one Final Fantasy a month this year. There is/was also the Final Fantasy marathon on the Backloggery, quite a few members seemed to be marathoning the games. I liked the sound of those, but havent really participated so far. Anyway, I'm getting vastly sidetracked again. Playing my unbeaten Final Fantasy games in order will look like this; V, VI, VIII, IX (I dont own it yet), X, X-2, XII. I dont wanna play XI very much lol...

I really like the way that FFV is quite funny and tongue in cheek at times, there are some awesomely quotable lines in it. It kinda sets it out for me so far from the other games. I'm quite a fan of the original few Final Fantasy games (I-IV, with II as a potentially weak link) and as such I admire the old school appeal and the job system in it (there are more jobs than I can shake a stick at) So far, a few bosses have been mildly challenging, although I've not had a game over screen or anything yet. When I last played Riviera, I didnt have any game overs the whole way through, and I came close to that in Chrono Trigger. I mean, maybe they aren't the most challenging games, but I'm proud of that! heheh...I died a few times in Symphony of the Night, which I beat, but only with the first ending-I'm sure there is more to do, but I couldn't figure it out what to do.

Musically, the game is pretty cool. I love the battle theme and the Battle on the Big Bridge song (even though I havent reached that point in the game yet, I've heard it countless times elsewhere)

Anyway, I'm hoping to play more over the weekend, as well as more of Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) 

I'm also very tempted to start No More Heroes (Wii) soon, but I'm still less than 10 hrs into each of FFV and Shadow of the Colossus, so I'm trying to resist the temptation and progress further in them before I start any other games. So if that was pretty boring for ya, sorry lol. I'll try play more games whenever I get the time =p

My mind meanders...

So that is me done my first week of first year at uni now. How did it go? Hmm, well its been alright so far, a bit confusing with all the different information that has been chucked our way ie. the Tutorials, Workshops, Labs and Lectures and their respective times and locations. And then there are the assignments and exercises we need to do online for each of my 3 courses, Engineering, Chemistry and Maths. Doesn't sound too bad you think? Well, Engineering 1 is split up into 4 different disciplines in the first year, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Electrical Engineering, of which we have to take at least 2. Maths is split up into 2 courses in the first semester, Applicable Maths 1 and Mathematical Methods 1, both compulsory. Each different course has different ways to check and submit your stuff online, MasteringChemistry, WebCT, myED, uni email, MapleTA. I don't see why they cant just make it more simple and user friendly and cut some of the crap ones out. Makes it pretty hard for freshers to actually understand what the hell they are talking about sometimes.

Then theres the labs, tutorials, workshops etc, I need to do 1 maths tutorial a week, 3 workshops for engineering over semester 1, which I need to put my name down for either Tues 2-5pm or Thurs 2-5pm in Weeks 2-4 for the first one, and the same again in subsequent weeks. Then there are the tutorials for Engineering, 2 of them every 3 weeks I think. And if I dont get in to the workshops or tutorials, I will lose marks. This is kinda a possibility for some people as there are like almost 400 people in the class and only a max of 70 or 80 I think they said could be taken in each workshop room, and less than that for tutorials I'd imagine. 

Half the time the lecture theatres are full and there are people sitting in all the stairs around the place =/

Couldnt the uni have made some bigger lecture theatres, or just split the class up into 2 groups for different times or location for the lectures? Sometimes it frustrates the hell out of me that universities can be so poorly organised. So far, I definitely dont like the idea of having to put my name down for each non-lecture class for engineering. They should have just assigned us times like the Chemistry lot did.

So the timetable is pretty confusing, I've already managed to miss 2 lectures in the first week, but so far I'm getting used to it and getting there on time surprisingly! One was just purely my forgetfullness, well maybe they both were. I'd seen that they had moved one of the Maths lectures to wednesday as a result of the Bank Holiday on Monday this week, but just forgot to turn up really. Today, the 2nd I missed was because the lectures are either in LT4 or LT5, I didnt double check my timetable before I headed into the one that they are usually in (LT5) and sat down for Maths at 9:00, then 45 mins through, I realised I was meant to be in Chemistry in the lecture theatre next door. -_- I take the maths lectures at 12 instead of 9:00 so I can get to my Chem lectures. 

And another kick in the teeth is the fact that I seem to have caught the fresher's flu...its ridiculous how many people are coughing in the lectures, so within a day or two I seem to have got the plague they all pretty much have. Haven't they heard of fruit and vegetable? lol, well I remember from my days in halls for my last degree that students aren't exactly the healthiest bunch. Still, I'm pretty annoyed I caught this...I've been trying to keep healthy and it hasn't kept it out T_T

Anyway, that was probably boring and too long hehe...excuse my ranting/ramblings...

Recent Purchases ~ J-culture ftw!

I've been trying to spend less money on games and get through my pile of unplayed ones, but sometimes I can't resist a good deal when I see it.

I picked up a few more games that I've wanted over the last few weeks. Thought I'd just say a little about some of them. 

Dissidia: Final Fantasy (PSP) I've kinda talked about this one enough I think. Got it a while ago off Amazon and got quite addicted to it for a straight 10 days in which I beat the main game..and unlocked a whole load more stuff to do. Its a really cool action RPG/Fighting game which although I'd recommend for fans of Final Fantasy series, it does eventually get a bit repetitive. There are flaws, but its a quite awesome game.

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana (PS2) Now that I finally got a hold of this from ebay for under £20 (I think) I have the 3 Atelier Iris PS2 games (which are quite rare here) and can start to play them at some point. They are quite cute sprite style turn based RPGs on the PS2.

No More Heroes (Wii) I picked this one up today for £6 used as I had my eye on it for ages since before it came out and for some reason my stingyness got the better of me and prevented me from buying it before it dropped in price enough. 

I love the look of the game, with it's crazy anime and j-culture references, insane style (the main character wins a beam katana in an ebay auction XD) and frantic action, I am really looking forward to playing this one. This, along with Okami and Muramasa, is one of the few games that I really like the look of on the Wii. There are quite a few others, but I'll not bother going into that just now.

Jeanne D' Arc (PSP) This hasn't arrived yet, as I just payed for it today and it is located in the USA. I'm pretty sure it hasnt seen a PAL release anywhere yet, and dont know if it will. However, I've heard really good things about it from a lot of sources on the net. (It must be true then.. ¬_¬) Its a turn based rpg essentially about an alternate retelling of Jean D'Arc's story. I'm expecting something quite similar to Final Fantasy Tactics with the religion themes etc. Looking forward to playing this one. [Hoping it doesn't get lost in the post]

I payed about £14 in USD for it, which I was quite pleased with. I thought it would go for more, but maybe it isn't as in demand as I thought.

Ah, I almost forgot. I think I'll make this "Recent Purchase" thing into a column that I'll do more of when I get a bunch of games I decide to talk about. So you might see more of them, but not that often (as I'm trying to buy less games)

As for what I am tempted by currently and might end up buying at some point...

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona on the PSP is looking pretty appealing to me right now, as is Okami either on the Wii or PS2. From what I've heard the Wii version, although it has slightly better graphics, has waggle and some glitches and bugs. But I really want to get Okami, it looks beautiful. Speaking of which, I can't wait to get Muramasa: The Demon Blade on the Wii, from the makers of Odin Sphere, it looks similar, but with a Japanese setting. It looks gorgeous! I must have a thing for eye candy in games, because I've recently been wanting to get a hold of Tales of Vesperia on the 360, the character designs and graphics look very nice. Its quite a rare game from what I can tell in the UK, and its going for £40+ May have to bite the bullet and get it before it goes too high. Also the Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al Revis limited edition on the PS2. I've had an urge to get that for a while, but I think I might hold off until I try out the Atelier Iris games first.

Halo: ODST (360)

More dredging of news from the internet =p

All this talk of Halo ODST has made me intrigued, I might have to look into it even though I was getting really really sick of Halo 3 recently. Me and my friends still ocassionally play online on it, but it seems to be losing some of its appeal somehow. Probably cos I've played it on and off since I got it near the release date a while back.

From Machinima, here's their opinion on ODST.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona (PSP)

This is one game I've had my eye on for a while. I quite like a lot of the aspects of the Shin Megami Tensei games and the Persona series is one of the SMT series that has become hugely popular recently with the release of Persona 3 and 4 on the PS2.

Now that it is released in English, I'm quite looking forward to picking it up at some point. It got released on the 22nd of September in NA (yesterday actually) and has already seen some quite average to good reviews.

According to Famitsu, its already sold 122,962 copies in Japan, and I think people will buy loads of copies in North America. Still no news of a PAL release, but that will probably be some time in 2015 lol (or maybe sooner) and I think I'll probably get sick of waiting and import an NTSC box which comes with the 2 disc soundtrack included.

RPGamer stuff (awesome site)

Wiki

Yahoo Answers - "How is babby formed?"

I'm starting to lose some hope in humanity...at the same time as falling on the floor and crying from laughing too much.

Some of these must be jokes, there is surely no way people can be THIS stupid. Right?

http://www.kontraband.com/pics/17531/How-Is-Yahoo-Answers-Formed/

http://nextround.net/2009/06/04/the-20-most-inappropriately-hilarious-yahoo-answers-questions/

http://thechive.com/2009/04/hilarious-yahoo-answers-15-photos/

http://www.sodahead.com/technology/the-best-of-yahoo-answers/blog-30817/?link=samf

Anyway, there are many others...but I'm losing IQ fast just reading them, so I'll leave it at that

Uni starts up again.

I had my first lectures of first year at uni today. This is the 2nd time I've been at uni now, as I studied another undergraduate degree (Earth Science Honours) for 4 years. Now I'm doing Civil and Environmental Engineering at Edinburgh Uni, quite a bit different, but there are some similarities with some Earth Sci stuff, like Engineering Earth Science. Basically, dont build buildings on the top of cliffsides. England seems to like doing that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holbeck_Hall_Hotel

It was a bit of a hassle getting up so early (I have like 9 o'clock lectures almost every day) but got there on time. 

So far, so good..but it seems I might be more busy and not really able to post here as much any more. My "o" button desnt seem to be working very much either which is pretty annoying. 

Anyway, 'till next time (when I'll try talk about something more interesting lol)

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! 

Rant Mode Turn On!

I dunno...some little, minor stuff really seems to annoy me at times. Like on Ebay, I occasionally buy stuff off there (mostly games) and little things piss me off. Like when I leave feedback for someone and the seller just doesnt bother leaving it for me. Thats not really the main thing though, as its feedback. I mean, the game arrived in a few days and everything, so I'm not entirely bothered about a little positive feedback. Still, if they see themselves as efficient sellers, shouldnt they give out feedback? I can see why they dont necessarily, some sellers might have a lot of transactions to deal with...but still, get with it people!

And other times, stuff hasnt arrived at mine. I've bought whatever items they might have been. Admittedly, I don't think it has really happened in a while, it was mostly back when I used to play CCG's and TCG's like Magic and Yugioh. It was pretty fricken annoying when I spent like a tenner on a card and they hadnt given the option for recorded or insured posting so when it got lost in the post, or they just didnt send it (its a goddamn possibility, and it makes sense) I was £10 and they could actually keep it or sell it again for more profit. So its fuckin things like these that piss me off about ebay, that and the stupid amount of money I end up spending on it. 

If they can change anything about it, sellers should be more flexible, they should offer other options for shipment, just as they do for payment options. 

I've also been getting dissapointed with football, both club (Celtic FC) and country (Scotland), performing badly... I mean, Hapoel Tel Aviv were so bad in the first half...how the hell did they manage to win in the end? Cos Celtic didnt go out and get more goals, and cos they got more and more into the game as a result of Celtic just becoming more slack....

And don't even get me started on Scotland's failure to qualify for World Cup 2010 in South Africa...

Gah..thats enough of minor stuff niggling at my brain like some kind of pestilence. Its not even that it annoys me that much, just slightly. Like this is a minor-rant, or half-rant.

Now Playing - Deicide

Dissidia: Final Fantasy (PSP)

I've been playing this a few hours every day since it arrived and I finally beat it today. Woohoo! Still, even postgame, there is a whole load more to do. I've beaten all the Destiny Odyssey stories and I've only beaten Shade Impulse with one character so far-Onion Knight. Out of all the characters I have at the moment, I'd say I like him the best in terms of fighting style.

Now that I beat the game (the credits rolled) and I unlocked a few more story chapters and a new mode~The Duel Colosseum. So I'm probably gonna take a break from Dissidia for a while and play some other games. Then I'll work on more Shade Impulse playthroughs with the other characters and then delve into the new story chapters.

Its a damn addictive game, moreso than I thought it would be, I've already put in about 50 or so hours in roughly 10 days. I'd definitely recommend it once again.

Its basically been all I've played since last time, but I've also played a couple hours of...

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)

 I put this on for a little bit more and bathed in the claret blood of a few more poor unfortunate Colossi. I'm getting more and more impressed as it goes on, some of the Colossi are really well designed and some of them take quite a while to figure out how to kill.

This one (pictured) took me a good hour (around the same time for me as the first two of them) to figure out the attack patterns, climb up to where I needed to and stab the crap out of it until it went down.

The sense of scale, not only of the Colossi but the game world as well really gives the game atmosphere. On the last one I beat, the 5th I think, you manage to attract this flying giant down near the earth and grab onto its wing. It then takes you around this lake and the massive ruined towers below. So with the wind and rain whistling by, you have to hang on for dear life and try and take this thing down. Here's a pic. The game is gorgeous for a ps2 game. The music really is amazing as well, it adds to the epicness.

 

If you can track Shadow of the Colossus down, I'd say you should. It and ico go for quite high prices at times, but not ridiculously so. They are really well praised games, and although I've not played Ico, I can see where all the hype has been about Sotc (I cant make that grammatically not fail somehow)

I'm also probably gonna play more of Symphony of the Night, but I havent really been able to break free of Dissidia yet... maybe now I've reached the postgame I might be able to.