Collection of Mana
Collection of Mana
I bought Japanese copies of the three Shadow Hearts games for pennies earlier this year (including the Director's Cut version of II - no idea what it adds, but thought I might as well play the definitive version of the game), and I've been running through the series over the last wee while. For some reason I had it in my head that I had finished the first two back when they first came out, but judging by how much I remembered of them, I think I must have not played much more than a little of each, as everything after the first few hours in them was a total blank.
Having fun, anyway. Have finished the first one, and am about ten hours into the second. Finding the humour in II pretty hit and miss at times, and kind of bummed about its shift to a much more overtly comedic tone, as for all the first game's imperfections, I thought it struck a really great balance between comedy and horror that set it apart from most other JRPGs and made it really memorable. I also think the pacing in the first one was a lot better - it's comparatively short, so everything moves along quite quickly, while the first ten hours of II have been slow as molasses, and haven't been very compelling beyond the opening segments.
I'm sure it'll get better as it goes on, though, so definitely going to stick with it. Also, the game is far more polished than the first one (which was basically a PS1 game in PS2 clothes, and was oh-so-rough around the edges), and it still holds up pretty well, so even running through filler dungeons hasn't been too much of a slog. And Yuri (or Uru in Japanese) is still a babe, and I love him. <3 So still finding lots to like about the second one.
Also, I bought an old CRT video monitor (a Sony PVM) for retro gaming back in August, and these are the first JRPGs I've played on it (I've mostly just used it for Saturn SHMUPS and fighting games). Playing lengthy PS2 games on a little CRT again is bringing back a lot of fond memories (even if this screen would have cost a stupid amount of money back in the day, and is about a million times better than the cheap set I had as a teen), and it's been a really lovely way to run through a series that I apparently hadn't played as much of as I thought. So the nostalgia value alone would be enough to keep me playing. <3
Last edited by Elin; 27th-December-2019 at 01:15.
Dark Cloud and Ni No Kuni
Prince Of Persia T2T on Xbox.
Just finished Prince Of Persia WW and thought I might as well continue the story.
PoP WW is a flawed game, significant glitches and I particularly hated the auto-face which forced combat on you whether you liked it or not.
It is essentially a platform game designed with unmistakable old school 2D platformer thinking ie. so many trap areas require you to learn the route by rote, one failure at a time. Having to redo earlier areas then re-fight the same enemies half a dozen times sucks much of the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction away when you do finally get through.
The camera system was also highly annoying in many places and whilst some of that has clearly been addressed in T2T my short acquaintance with it suggests this game too is not without similar problems.
Still when WW was good it was very good and I'm hoping that is going to be true for T2T as well.
EDIT
Certain elements in PoP:T2T are irking me more than anything did in WW. The QTE* kills are just damned annoying because 9 times out of 10 whilst you get one guy there are two or more others who you'll have to fight conventionally. That becomes extremely tedious very quickly as they take longer to kill than even the toughest enemies in WW.
*QTE = Quick Time Event - a gameplay type I've always hated with a passion.
Last edited by TheAbysmalDark; 9th-January-2020 at 14:25.
Star Wars Shadows of the Empire on N64.
Spoiler warning:
Infamous Second Son.
Been playing a lot of the original Flatout on the OG Xbox. I start to work soon so my gaming time will be cut in half .
Mario Kart 8, with my dad. I got him hooked so he asks me to play it with him almost every evening.
Baseball All Stars 2
I'm playing it as well, currently at about 30% trophies. Going to platinum + 100% this bitch. It's awesome.
Been playing a lot of Batman: Arkham Asylum on PC. Got it a while back during the Epic Game Store free games. I think it was 2 or 3 Batman games. Beat the game on the PS3 a long time ago, but was nice to revisit it.
Mario Kart 8 - Wii U.
i am playing Crackdown 3 and the best ever user experience if i had. Amazing graphics. I always use logitech g413 gaming keyboard as it is quite cheap and effective. The one with the more normalized keys, as far as mechanical keyboards go it has a quieter sound than most when pressing keys. You can also look for affordable gaming keyboards list.
Last edited by TerryHiggins; 7th-November-2020 at 18:58.
Sunset Overdrive
FIFA 19.
I haven't played an entire season in FIFA or PES for years, so I wanted to do it once more. I didn't get FIFA 20 sinceit's not cracked yetI couldn't afford it. But the last season's edition is good just the same. The graphics are awesome, albeit the game itself isn't without flaws.