Invalid characterset or character set not supported Guess what! I remember to update progress again!





Guess what! I remember to update progress again!
December 22, 2016

So, I'm currently working on my Silver Nornir review (another Kemco game). When that's done, I'll have Minelvaton Saga (absolutely horrid Famicom action RPG), Avernum: Escape from the Pit (really sweet Steam RPG) and Mass Effect (really good intro to really great series) to write, as my gaming productivity has been greater than my writing productivity. Oh, I have to post my Super Mario All-Stars review. I'll try to get that done after I'm done with this.

So, by system, here's what's on my agenda at the moment:

360: Mass Effect 2 is getting a large chunk of my playing time now. I've gone through Omega to get Mordin and now am doing Kasumi's loyalty quest and figuring out how this planet-scanning thing works before going back to get Archangel, since no one gave me anything to do other than "keep getting allies". Took a little while to get used to the combat system changes, but I'm getting the hang of it and liking most things. Personally, I wouldn't have stripped down the RPG elements as much as BioWare did, but I can understand why they'd want to focus more on the game itself than having all vendor trash weaponry and armor in every locker to keep me in menus, as well as trimming down the character enhancements upon leveling up, to make it a handful of things. Besides, at least right now, I think I'll be more than busy trying to obtain sufficient cash and minerals to get the weapon upgrades and lab improvements.

For Live Arcade, I made another go of it with Bastion. Getting an office chair, so if I want, I can sit closer to the TV than my couch was a good idea. I don't have the biggest screen on my TV and was struggling with this game due to small characters making it hard to see what was going on in the more frenetic fights. Up closer, not the same issues, so in one session, I made it further than I had in my previous attempt.

Wii: Getting close to being finished with Twilight Princess. I just got the boss key from City in the Sky, so it's that boss, as much optional "get hearts and items" stuff as I feel like doing and then the final dungeon. Fun Fact: That office chair is somewhat helping my Wii motion control performance. Not perfect, I felt more comfortable with my ability to get things to react as they should while sitting there. On the couch, I never could get that "sweet spot" where things react perfectly. Now, I can.

PS/PS2: Dragon Warrior VII, in which I'm up to the arena in the Dharma Shrine section of the game. Typically good Dragon Quest/Warrior stuff, with two notable flaws. First, the intro, where it takes forever to actually do anything. Which has led to a really slow-paced game. When you're about 20 hours or so into things and still haven't gotten to the part where you can change classes and get new abilities, while it takes forever to gain levels, it just feels like things are progressing at a glacial pace. Second, the format. As opposed to having a big world to explore, you have a bunch of small countries that tend to have 1-2 dungeons each, which makes this game really linear. It's basically a fun game that I struggle to get into.

3DS/DS: Speaking of fun games I've struggled to get into, this was my first handheld system and I notice that while I like all three games I've been working on for a couple years, I play through them so long that, well, I've been playing these three games for a couple years each and am at the 50-60 hour mark with all of them. I just made it to Chapter 5 in Bravely Default, so I might focus on it as it turns into a long boss rush for an eternity and boss fights can be fun and strategic (or at least tense, as my fight with Black Knight boy at the end of C4 was, with me trying to damage him while bringing people back to life after getting Minus Strike'd). OR, I could focus on Etrian Odyssey Untold: Millenium Girl. I'm on Floor 19, working my way through the fourth stratum. I still like building my own maps, although it's annoying to find enough different icons to handle all of F19's sets of teleporters. OR, what about Shin Megami Tensei IV? I had the most trouble getting into this one early on, but now, as I'm doing whatever for the Yakusa boss who's holding a Samurai hostage, I've noticed that my demons are handling the opposition with more ease, like I'm hitting my stride.

Steam: Avernum got me hooked on Spiderweb Software's games, so I moved on to the Avadon trilogy. The first one is much like a slightly stripped down Avernum that's more linear and focused on storytelling. Still good stuff, with you working for a "whatever it takes to keep the peace" authoritarian leader to quell incidents around the world. I guess it might be a bit annoying to know that choosing to fight the power is a worthless choice as (a) it leads to a boss fight considered horribly annoying and tedious by virtually everyone who's done it and (b) Avadon 2 assumes you sided with Redbeard instead of Miranda, so it's not like Mass Effect, where your choices have an impact on future events.

Android: Blood of Calamity is the latest Kemco game. Typical Magitec with subpar (by Kemco standards) aesthetics, but what seems to potentially be a decent plot (depending on how things go, as there's still time for it to suck..but Magitec has been better than their other companies at making stories with at least a bit o' depth). And a womanizing hero who has to constantly be reined in by his subordinate. That's, uh, a bit different.

ROMs: Live A Live for RPGs. A Super Famicom game with multiple unconnected stories that get connected by the end. The battle system is cool, the stories suffer (so far) from having very little depth. Bonk's Revenge for action. Basically seems to be Bonk's Adventure with minor changes so far, at least from what I can recall of a game that I last played when I reviewed it a decade or so ago. It's good -- just not captivating to me at the time.

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joseph_valencia joseph_valencia - December 23, 2016 (12:09 PM)
Live a Live is awesome. Wait until you get to the final chapter.

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