EmP's Pony Luv review

Remember this?

http://www.deagostini.co.uk/ilovehorses/

I love horses.

They're the best of all the animals.

*dies*

It is my humble opinion that you should specialize in reviewing animal sims. Nothing but animal sims.

This review made me laugh. Both at some of the lines and of the thought of you playing a game prominently featuring a pink loading screen.

Baha. That site's so girly. Though if you love horses, Lewis, you should've read my blog post around late September. That was fun. And I bet it'll make you soooo jealous.

I stand by what I said about this review yesterday. It's amusing, but it didn't really appeal to me the way your other horsey review did. Though I will add that I liked the intro and found that interesting. What FIFA review was this?

This review was pretty genius. I have absolutely no criticism to level at it. The pacing is great, the points are well made, it bashes without losing its critical value, the jokes are well timed and don't over repeat themselves, and your introduction is fabulous.

A brilliant review. Too bad it's for a depressingly bad game.

Well, zipp, if you liked this one so much, then you'll probably love this one.

I'm rather indifferent about horses but I remember constantly laughing at that website and magazine for about three weeks a few years ago.

As a football loving Brit, I have to say that how you switched from FIFA to a horse-sim was freakin' genius. However, I must point out that FIFA is spelt in all capitals. As a football-loving Brit I see it as imperative that the title world governing body is punctuated properly. XD

How could I forget that advert? It took over the entire country while it ran and I'd happily forgotten it after years of it playing in my head. You'll pay for this, Lewis!

Many thanks for the kind words, to the rest of you. Aside from WQ, of course, whose reaction to anything I write these days is "The review you wrote x years ago was much better!" It's comforting to know that I managed to pull this one off, review material considerd!

I'll capitilise Fifa when they're headed by someone sane, CJ.

Oh, hush, you whiner. This was the only one I said something like that about in a whiile. You can't expect me (or everyone) to love everything you write. Just like I don't expect you (or everyone) to love evverything I (or anyone else) writes. Besides, I told you this was good for the material at hand (or at least implied it); maybe you overlooked that part when I told so.

But if you prefer, I could just stop reading your reviews altogether. Or spout endless praise and keep anything negative to myself..

EmP is the best writer on the Internet. There, feel better now?

so EmP this game is better than Chrono Cross?

Chrono Cross...... now there's a rainy day review I need to write. Just because I haven't done so yet. My score will fall somewhere between EmP's and those given by rabid fanboys.

Which leaves all numbers ranging from 2 to 9. Keeps a touch of mystery to the proceedings. And anticipation, as none of you know when I'll bestow my CC review on you.

Which would make it quite the letdown if I forget all about doing it and I don't write one until, say, 2010. Also known as the year I will review Street Fighter 2010 (NES).

I think CC would garner a 6 or 7 from me, leaning more towards the 6.

/belated.

I love how Sporty's reaction to anything I score 2 is to point out how it must be better than Chrono Cross! I dunno, though; I think I'd rather play Pony Luv than CC; they're both pointless, but the former's over in half an hour, at least.

WQ has a point. I am the best writer on the internet.

Chrono Cross' experience system was the dumbest thing ever because you don't gain levels from fighting enemies, so you never become any stronger during dungeons. As a result, the battles never get any shorter and feel the same every time, which gets boring quickly. People say this system is great because you don't need to build levels, but you haven't had to stop and build levels in a Squaresoft RPG since maybe Final Fantasy IV. I even strongly preferred FF8's Junction System even if it was flawed and had a fairly steep learning curve (it's very easy to play FF8 in a way that it's absolutely no fun at all). Sportsman hates RPGs so I find it weird that he would enjoy such a boring one unless he likes that you can get by fairly well with fighting very few enemy encounters.

In summation, Chrono Cross is not very fun.

FF8 blows HUUUUUUUUUUUGE chunks.

CC may not be gold, but it's better than THAT, at least.

No it's not.

Hate FF8 or love it, it at least makes an iota of sense.

I played a few post-FFIV JRPGs; Final Fantasy VII, Star Ocean 2, about half of Grandia and Tales of Symphonia(sp), some LoD and FFX, and probably a few more that I don't remember off the top of my head. Nothing super new but then again there have been maybe three big name JRPGs released in the past 5-6 years. Anyways they have all involved level grinding, maybe not excessive but it is still there. Based on what I'm hearing the genre is getting better at eliminating this but it's still not there yet. I might be wrong since I haven't played a game from the genre in ages but this is was always a major problem to me.

There's level grinding in LoD?

I can see why you wouldn't like RPGs if you have to stop and build experience in games like Tales of Symphonia and FFX. FFX especially. I swear 75% of the enemies went down in one hit if you used the right character. Star Ocean 2 is tough, but maybe that's why I specifically mentioned Squaresoft? The thing about RPGs is a lot of stuff factors in to how you're going to play, how easy it'll be for you, etc and I don't think I really feel like writing a huge tome on my thoughts on such a thing. Sorry. Maybe I'll make a blog post about it someday.

WQ's right. Unless you spend weeks fighting random encounters it's pretty well impossible to level grind in LoD.

Newish RPGs I've played over the last year and level grinding: NOTE: This doesn't take into effect those hardcore message board strategies like beating FF XII with a L 3,2,1 or whatever party.

1. Dragon Quest VIII: A bit towards the beginning before you go to the first dungeon. After that, only after you get the ship......assuming you visit a bunch of places that the plot hasn't taken you to yet. Mainly because there is good, but expensive equipment in a couple of places you CAN get to, but you have to fight some tough enemies. Maybe also to beat Dhoulmagus. He's a tough one.

2. Final Fantasy XII: If you want to do some of the upper-tier optional fights, yes. If not, no.

3. Tales of Legendia: Nope.

4. Rogue Galaxy: A decent amount. Seems like when I'd hit a new area, I'd find myself having to get a few levels so as not to have to run through healing potions like crazy during encounters.

5. SMT: Persona 3: That's the foundation of this game's dungeon -- level grinding until enemies run from you and then progressing to where the new, tougher set of monsters is. The battles are short and fun, but I haven't found myself as enthralled with it as others. Haven't even touched it in two months or so. It seemed like when I found myself able to spend more and more time fighting in Tarturus, my enjoyment started to diminish a bit.

6. I know there's more, but my mind is blanking.....


With Chrono Cross, I'd call the combat and experience (or lack thereof) less of a problem than others the game had. You'd beat a boss to gain a level, fight 2-4 encounters with anything (because you did get tiny bonuses for your first couple battles after getting a level) and then try to avoid as much as possible until the next boss. It made the experience of playing the game a bit rushed, as you'd literally be trying to sprint through areas just to get to a boss.....but I think I'd have rather had that than a situation where I was stuck having to fight 500 encounters to get through a short dungeon. I was more annoyed with how the game decided to give us 40 interchangeable players (a couple of unique special attacks.....and that's about it) with stupid accents and a garbled and convoluted plot that stretched two parallel worlds where you'd get to explore the same places twice (I REALLY "loved" that second trip through the big dungeon where Serge has that fateful "turns into Lynx" moment around midway through the game). Yeah, compared to that, not having a reason to fight a bunch of minor battles didn't bother me. If anything, it made some of the more tedious aspects of things more palatable for me.

OD I actually didn't do much grinding in Persona 3 until I got to the optional dungeon. Basically once you get to the highest you can go in a month, you're strong enough for the next full moon.

I should reword that last post: those are post FFIV JRPG's off the top of my head that I've played, regardless of whether they required level grinding or not. I grew up on Western RPGs that usually do not require any sort of level grinding so maybe that's why I don't enjoy it at all. By the way this isn't the only grudge I have against JRPGs; I don't like many aspects of the genre that I don't want to get into.