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I just finished Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates on the DS last night, and I had a great time with it. The game was very solid, with a well balanced difficulty curve. The story was decent for the most part, but the ending was especially noteworthy - almost in a Hideo Kojima mental meltdown sort of way (which surprised the heck out of me).
Overall, I'd recommend it for anyone looking for a light dungeon crawler with a 'just deep enough' item creation system. And from what I've read, subsequent playthroughs allow you to keep all your stats and equipment, beefing up the difficulty to match. So I might give it another go fairly soon!
- EJ, The Epic Juicebox
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Now Playing: Persona (PSP) - Scribblenauts (DS) - Assassin's Creed II (X360)
I still have Final Fantasy: CC (Gamecube) sitting on the shelve, unopened.
I recently finished Midway: Battle Stations on the 360. It's an alright game, with a good mix of strategy and combat. I recommend it, to anyone looking for an inexpensive and short game.
Finished Operation Darkness on 360 yesterday... what a fab SRPG, i totally loved it. the camera sucks goat dong, but it was still a great game.
This morning i wrapped up Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 on DS. the TC series is just as fun as it ever was.. can't really get enough of this. good times.
I polished off the Ys I & II Eternal remakes for PC a few days back.
I feel like remakes are almost always never as good as the original version they're based on, but in this case I'm torn.
The enhanced boss fights are a great addition, and they managed to make some of the bigger, more monotonous dungeons (Darm Tower, anything in a cave) feel like they didn't drag the way they did back on the Turbo Duo, but I found myself longing for the original music and crappy sprites of the older version pretty frequently.
I polished off the Ys I & II Eternal remakes for PC a few days back.
I feel like remakes are almost always never as good as the original version they're based on, but in this case I'm torn.
The enhanced boss fights are a great addition, and they managed to make some of the bigger, more monotonous dungeons (Darm Tower, anything in a cave) feel like they didn't drag the way they did back on the Turbo Duo, but I found myself longing for the original music and crappy sprites of the older version pretty frequently.
If you have a Wii the Turbo versions of Ys Books 1&2 are on the virtual console. I downloaded it because I liked Ys 3 on the Genesis and Ys 6 on the PS2. The combat is kind of weird. You just run into the enemies. Do you actually push a button to make the player swing the sword in the PC remakes?
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It might not seem like it but there is actually a "system" in place. Hitting enemies head on is never good. It's best to hit them from behind or from the side, but when that's not possible, hitting them with your shield works as well.
And just in case "hit them with your shield" is unclear, I mean to say that you should try to be kind of off-center when approaching an enemy from the front, so that the "shielded" part of your sprite it what touches them. then you can just run them down.
Let's just say I found it more enjoyable than Brad, Boy, Gene and the other whiny bitches on this board.
Then again, I approached the game with very low expectations, especially since so many avowed fans were let down by it (on this site anyway).
All said and done - and taking into account that I barely watched anything said and done - I ended up liking the way the video game varied the game play, and that each act had its own atmosphere and identity, so to speak.
Since I've never taken the mythology or storytelling seriously, I can't presume to comment on what is (presumably) the defining characteristics of the game.
I did, however, generally enjoy the playing fields, despite the many shortcomings and lengthy cutscenes that were supposed to stitch everthing together.
The game remains a patchwork cut from its own cloth, and its difficult not to be struck by all the incongruous elements. Very little impresses in its own right, but the emperors new clothes never looked so bright and shiny.
The game gets a solidified 8 from me, although in its liquid form, the ratings tend to ebb and flow with the variable experience.
I'd even so far as say that this is the most enjoyable MGS game I've played - take that for its worth from a non fanboy who was barely paying attention to most of what constituted the 'game'.
Nice to hear you enjoyed it, idiot. To be fair I really liked the game myself, but when you actually sit through the cutscenes it's hard to not be disappointed.
I have a few questions though. How did you feel about
The microwave tunnel?
especially since you skipped all the other cutscenes. And did you bother to watch the ending, and if so, what about it?
As for my own "what I beat" update, I finally finished Ys III: Oath in Felghana and I think I prefer the original, ugly version pretty heavily in this case. The new gameplay is fun, and the redone music is top notch, but they "fleshed out" the characters and story, which really just means they anime'd everything up and made it somewhat more grating than before, and all of the redone dungeons seem like generic dungeons from any game ever. The dungeons in the old game had quite a bit more character.
It's not bad, but it really just made me long for running around like a human buzzsaw in the TG-16 version.
Well, if you ask me, people who chose to sit through MGS cut scenes need to get a life, quick pronto!
The storytelling is self important and insufferable, and the commentary nullified as a result.
I thought the microwave section did what it set out to do...create pathos where bombast tended to be the game's default setting. It was painful to 'play', but that was obviously part of the point.
And no, I didn't see what happens at the end, but the guy at my gym tells me that .....
Spoiler alert.
Snake ends up dying by his own hand anyway.
end spoiler
I expect that would piss off committed players/watchers - the pay off as kiss off.
Well, if you ask me, people who chose to sit through MGS cut scenes need to get a life, quick pronto!
The storytelling is self important and insufferable, and the commentary nullified as a result.
Please don't make sweeping generalizations about MGS cutscenes. I know MGS4's suck beyond their aesthetic properties, but the other games have better stories. MGS2 is nearly as bloated and batshit, but in a more perverse and fruitful way, and MGS1 and MGS3 are both satisfying pieces of storytelling, though MGS1 has some corny stuff in it that breaks the mood and MGS3 has poor translation, way too much exposition in the first hour, and takes the series deeper into supernatural territory in a way that doesn't always work. I think the difference is that MGS4 is the first one that seems to have been created just to make the fans shut the fuck up by giving them what they want. Fans do not know what they really want, that's why they're fans, and Kojima forgot this. He should have just moved on and made a new game, or given us the loopiest, most avant-garde MGS yet that answered a couple questions and left thirty new ones, not listened to his staff and killed Snake, and then moved on.
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THINGS I AM DOING:
-watching The Wire (****)
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-reading Infinite Jest (****)
Last edited by Snack Eater; 09-12-2008 at 07:17 AM.
Please don't make sweeping generalizations about MGS cutscenes. I know MGS4's suck beyond their aesthetic properties, but the other games have better stories. MGS2 is nearly as bloated and batshit, but in a more perverse and fruitful way, and MGS1 and MGS3 are both satisfying pieces of storytelling, though MGS1 has some corny stuff in it that breaks the mood and MGS3 has poor translation, way too much exposition in the first hour, and takes the series deeper into supernatural territory in a way that doesn't always work. I think the difference is that MGS4 is the first one that seems to have been created just to make the fans shut the fuck up by giving them what they want. Fans do not know what they really want, that's why they're fans, and Kojima forgot this. He should have just moved on and made a new game, or given us the loopiest, most avant-garde MGS yet that answered a couple questions and left thirty new ones, not listened to his staff and killed Snake, and then moved on.
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