Sno

After playing the game for a fair chunk of time, i realized that i was playing the game without the stand and without any cramps. I guess the training wheels are off, so to speak. I've got a handle on the free-roaming combat, and i do think it's actually a very excellent combat system, but the aiming and movement control remains awkward at times. It really stands out with the vehicles, or when it wants you to do rudimentary platforming. A lot of it just seems kind of counter-intuitive to the way people have learned to play 3D games, and it really feels like something that was designed by a team that doesn't have a lot of experience with 3D games. A lot has been said about the stylus aiming, but there's other things too. For example, on an analog stick you would gently and repeatedly tap in a given direction to to make small careful adjustments to your standing. It's something you do in so many games that you'll do it without thinking about it, but in this game that input can send you leaping to your death. (Gaaargh!) There's also some other things that the game should probably be a little more clear about, like how holding the stylus down on the touchscreen while in melee range of an enemy will let you strafe very quickly around it. Like i said though, once you've done the necessary mental gymnastics, it's a very good combat system, it's a very good action game. I love how the loot system works. For how intimidating it can seem to sacrifice two items to create one, fusing is actually really incredibly straightforward. I've really been enjoying messing around in the MP, there's not a lot to it, but it seems to hold up well under scrutiny. I was surprised by how many levels there are in the game, it goes on for quite a bit. Perhaps that shouldn't be a shock given how much other stuff there is. It's just so goddamned charming too, endlessly silly and self-aware. I think this is probably the best game on the 3DS right now, which is something i think i've said about the each of the last few 3DS games i have played, which probably says something about how rapidly the 3DS has accelerated in the last few short months.

I stopped playing when it looked like everybody else had given up, i wasn't sure if it would start back up and i didn't want to skip ahead.

Oh hey, so this PC version is going to have new bosses and areas, that's pretty awesome.

So Xenoblade has arrived in North American stores, and critical response continues to be universally positive. I picked up a copy and intend on playing it, i'm just not sure when. I've been reading it's around 100-120 hours, a very long game.

Oh man, we never finished that Killer 7 game club. That makes me sad.

When i first saw this trailer, i thought it looked awesome, just absolutely amazing. Then somebody pointed out to me that the surgical mask looked like a big dumb grin, and now i can't watch that trailer without giggling like an idiot. It's not really the game's fault, but the that dude's sprite probably could use a little tweaking. It seems like a very bad case of "once you see it, you can't unsee it."

It's like if a twelve year old had all the resources and drive in the world to put behind their naive thought experiments.

To my knowledge, it hasn't actually been made clear what involvement Suda had with this game, if any at all.

Ack, sorry. I didn't catch that you were playing through Vesperia.

I don't even really remember how it ended. I just remember it coming to this world-ending climax and then resolving abruptly at what seemed like three or four steps short of where it should have logically ended up. I had wondered if i got a "bad" ending, and i did, but apparently that doesn't really change anything. (Then there was that expanded PS3 version that was released only in Japan, i wonder if that altered the ending at all.) Vesperia goes to some unexpectedly mature places with its characters though, i found it quite surprising and entertaining. At times it almost rises above its generic JRPG narrative, but can't quite get there and sort of settles into a rut by the end.

Woo!

I have a friend who is way into Tales and has told me that there are basically two primary character designers on Tales, one that people like and one that people don't. The guy who worked on Graces and also designed specifically just that one single character in Xillia is the one that people don't like. Anyways, love it or hate it, whatever. The last one i played was Vesperia, and it had this awful meandering core narrative that never properly concludes, it is still just the most generic JRPG shit. I still loved that game though, i enjoyed the characters in that game, and thought the art was beautiful, and that the core game systems were still rock solid. It was one of the few JRPG's i've played in recent years that held my interest all the way to the end.

I don't have high hopes for this one, every piece of footage i've seen has looked kind of terrible, and not the right kind of terrible. Critical response is kind of all over the place too. I'll be curious to hear more about this one.

I don't know specifically what it's intended to mean, but it's to differentiate it from the first version of the game that had been released on the Wii. Well, ten years. The same shit they've been making for ten years. The current set of game systems the Tales series is built around was introduced with Symphonia. Graces probably isn't the game to be judging the Tales series by, given what i've been hearing about it.

He's apparently going to have a live streamed Q&A on the 14th, I am sure it will be highly entertaining.

Patrick Klepek was talking about this on the last Bombcast, all the backer comments on the kickstarter page are just people trolling the guy, it's hilarious.

The Genesis and SNES Shadowrun games were both very distinct and very cool RPG's. (I am particularly fond of that SNES one.) Shadowrun has always primarily been a pen & paper RPG though, and it sounds like this new game, should it be successfully funded, will be drawing primarily from that. If anybody is curious about the video games, HG101 had posted an article about them a few years back. Also:

Yeah, i'll offer some defense for that game too, it was a totally fine and interesting multiplayer shooter. (Had a really friendly player community too.) It just wasn't Shadowrun in the slightest, and it gained nothing from being branded as a Shadowrun game.

Oh god, oh god. I am pretty fond of Shadowrun. I am generally against this rapidly exploding trend of me-too kickstarters, but... There are some people i need to tell about this.

Hey! Hey! I like JRPG's! Sometimes, i mean... It depends on the game. I like the Tales series though. Anyways, i haven't played Graces and have no real desire to, it's been my understanding that it was one of the lesser flagship outings for the series. I'm pretty thrilled to hear that Xillia is probably coming over next, the buzz around that one was very positive, people seemed to like that game an awful lot. There's a remake of Abyss out for the 3DS right now too, i've always heard positive things about that game, but never played it.

This game sounds brilliant to me. It seems like it could also potentially be a great tool for teaching people programming fundamentals. (Speaking, admittedly, as somebody who is not a programmer. So, i don't know, maybe that's a foolish idea.)

By the time i would have cared, i was already on the internet. Whole worlds of filth were open to me, you know? So there was never any "forbidden fruit" appeal, and it always just seemed a little too sleazy anyways. Larry Laffer is not a character i want to roleplay. Also, Sierra. The abundance of no-win scenarios in their games really put me off adventure games.

In the main grand prix mode, the AI generally obeyed the rules the game had laid out, and in some cases couldn't actually drive the courses as well as the player potentially could. It was only the mission mode that was an exercise in super dickery. (To incredible degrees.)

Yup! I also have a weird Windows 95/98 follow-up pad Gravis produced, it was styled like an early PSX pad instead of a SNES pad. It was very nice, but it had absolutely horrendous drivers, it was impossible to get working. I don't know where i have that one, but it's probably around somewhere. It was really only useful for a lot of those early 2d sharewares, and for those it was great, it's a very responsive pad. Hey, hey... Alright... Here's another question for the topic. What was the first game you guys all played online, what was the setup? For me, it was playing C&C: Red Alert via dial up probably early in 97. Calling up a friend and telling them to make sure nobody in their household picked up the phone, because the next call was going to be the game trying to connect. Good times.

I still have mine. The only way any self-respecting kid could rightly play Commander Keen or Jazz Jackrabbit.