Completed: Xenosaga I, II, and III (beaten/completed on various dates)

System: PS2
Status: Completed (all of them)

The Xenosaga series is one that certainly aimed high, and ended up being completely forgettable (at least for me anyway). I loved the semi-predecessor in Xenogears, despite the utter wreck that is the second disc of that game, and this series seemed to do the same on a multi-game scale, they had high ambitions and designs, but ran out of steam/funding and ended up with much less. It certainly didn't help that all three games are very different in style and design, and their systems don't stay consistent, leading to no actual refinement, but wild swinging of things a game does well, and does poorly. The story between all of them stays consistent, but is basically inscrutable to anyone who doesn't read the supplementary materials, and likely suffers a great deal from the series being cut short(er) than the designers would have liked. I'll go through each game individually though.

Xenosaga I feels like the most direct successor to Xenogears. The combat system is very similar, in that you pick various attacks that add up to larger special attacks. The mix of mechs and ground combat works pretty well, though in general the special attacks of the characters fall far short of their normal attacks, so you generally won't use your spell abilities (not to mention the character that is focused on healing/special attacks can't take a hit). Overall game wise, the balance works out well, its fun to play, with only a few frustrations gameplay wise. The best part of the game is the side card game that is actually very fun to play and well designed, but doesn't make an appearance in any other games, and doesn't impact the main game in any way other than being an inefficient way of getting money. Overall, the first game is average, a decent RPG but nothing absolutely amazing, nor does it stand out in any particular aspect.

Xenosaga II is...much worse than the first game. They changed the art style around majorly, where the first was very animesque, the second shoots right to 'realistic' and is pretty jarring in the transition. The worst change though is the combat system. They take the 'combo' attack system, and remove most special attacks entirely from normal fighting. Your characters get only a few moves per round, and need to hit certain combos on enemies in order to start doing real damage, any damage before that is mostly scratch damage. So in any combat situation beyond common enemies, and sometimes even then, combat is a few turns of 'waiting' to build up attacks, then one huge combo boosted between characters to do as much damage as possible. It is very jarring to have to spend combat turns waiting, because if you don't get at least X number of attacks in to break their guard, you do nothing. What makes it worse is some enemies are immune to certain attack types, weak to things only one character does, and the like. In the end, you end up using a certain short list of characters because they can hit the most weaknesses and do the most straight up melee damage. If I had to score this game individually, I would put it way below par, the only real reason to play it is to see the story before the next game in the series.

Xenosaga III is a nice medium of art styles between the first two. Its not full on big-eye'd anime style, but not fully realistic either, and ends up looking the best for it. The combat system is a good medium as well, and it is quite fun to work through and doesn't make combat a  bore like the second did. This game seems to be where the designers finally settled down on one thing to do, and it works out quite well as they hit their stride. The sidequest system they shoved into the game though, is completely awkward. They basically formalized sidequests, but they did so in a way that if you aren't following a guide 100% through the game, you won't get everything from the sidequests, and will spend hours looking for random characters with no hints from the game itself. Thankfully, its not required to get to the bonus bosses, so no big deal there. The bonus bosses end up being cakewalks though, and the entire game does, once you get the robot summon spells near the middle of the game. The only limiting factor there is your MP, otherwise they will utterly wreck every enemy and boss in the game. The bonus boss is specifically designed to be killed by only those summon spells, leaving the otherwise well done combat system lacking...why bother, when you can one shot everything?

So overall, the series is...ok, the biggest problem is the utterly lackluster second game, which was a big hurdle for me to get through to the rather well done third game. I feel if they had made more of these games and finished the story it would likely be a more positive memory, but the problem is that audience isn't going to keep buying games if they suck in hopes you'll get better.

These are completed, all bonus bosses wiped out the first time around, so they are off my list fully.

Beaten: Silent Hill 2 (on 4/24/13)

System: PS2
Status: Beaten

Silent Hill is one of those franchises that the story is good...but the gameplay itself is lackluster. I don't understand what it was about Playstation one and two era horror games that felt that bad controls and overly complicated/frustrating puzzles were a necessity for horror.

On the positive note, the tank controls in this game are easily fixed by changing the control scheme. The puzzles and combat can be fixed by cranking both to easy (They actually have separate settings, which is nice), allowing you to enjoy the game without too much frustration. I know it feels weird to say such for a game, but you don't enjoy Silent Hill 2 for the gameplay, you enjoy it for the story.

Talking about the story goes too much into spoiler territory, so I will just summarize in general what everyone who has already played the game knows: It is a well put together, subtle story of personal horror, dealing with one's demons, and with multiple endings that are not caused by specific A or B choices, but by small actions through the game, such as looking at items repeatedly, staying close to a character, spending too long in an area, and the like.

It is a classic, and it is really sad the later games have gone more full action and ignored the story-based horror for more visceral big scary monster horror. Every monster in the game symbolizes something (as it should for Silent Hill, this isn't Resident Evil), yet later games tend to repeat the monsters without any care for their original symbolism.

I finished the game only once, so I  have one ending out of many. I'm not going to count difficulty to completion, just finishing all the endings.

Completed: Suikoden IV

System: PS2 (Playing on PS3)
Status: Completed
Currently: Got all 108 stars, beat both optional bosses, finally beat final boss...game locks up.

As the currently states, the game decided to add insult to injury, and froze up right as the final boss died. The sad thing is, I care so little about the finale of the story, that I'm not even going to try again. I got all 108 stars, I beat both optional bosses, I can call the game completed with no remorse.

The sad thing is, my last post was pretty bashing towards this game, yet I was all up for it redeeming itself. Random encounters are annoying, but it could be overcome. The game didn't even try. I truly now believe the horrendous amount of random encounters and the tons of bland characters that serve only for you to spend more money on leveling up weapons and getting gear serve purely to pad out the game. I believe my final time clocked out to be around 25 hours...at full completion. Yes, I followed a brief guide on collecting all the characters, and used Viki to teleport everywhere (you try spending hours just traveling between islands), but the game literally has nothing there. The stars serve no purpose whatsoever. They don't have any plot significance, even the ones you have to get beyond a few lines, and really don't contribute anything overall. The entire story is basically 'go here, do a naval battle, free the island, recruit more characters' rinse repeat for every single island. You will literally go to an island, blow up two ships, and step on the island with hardly any scenes to commemorate them being rescued or anything further.

The game is just offensive, all around. Too many random encounters, too many entirely useless characters, too many bland point A to point B events, a complete lack of any true story to the game whatsoever. This game is utterly terrible, and I now regret playing it even for completions sake...it just felt like a waste of time.

Oh, and the final dungeon, the pinnacle of the entire story? A spiral staircase. 4 screens of the same spiral staircase with random encounters. In addition to half communicated story that we long stopped caring about five hours ago.

I am so glad Suikoden V turned this shit on its head, or I probably wouldn't have many fond memories of this series. I need to play something to wash the taste out of my mouth...

Daily Review: Suikoden IV

System: PS2 (Played on PS3)
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Just allied with Middleport.

I was still in the mood to play more Suikoden after I finished III, and since this was the only standard Suikoden game I haven't finished yet (and I couldn't find I to do a full completion at the moment), this one went in. I had tried playing it before...twice in fact, and both times I had been driven away by the noticeable and obvious flaws with the game. I actually have a bit more will to finish it now, since Suikosource has great star lists that make it nigh impossible to miss stars, and make completion (and only having to play the game once), so much easier.

This is easily the weakest game in the entire series, which is sad because they had some good ideas. The naval theme to the game is unique and was what got me really excited about it at first, sailing around and fighting naval battles is a nice change of pace. The game returns to the more 'standard' combat and storytelling from the first two in the series, in that its turn based, and your main character is more of a blank slate, and doesn't speak except in choices you make. The runes have been changed back, so you no longer nuke your party with fire runes and the like, and everything is more reliable and standardized.

The problem is, in changing it back...well, the three heroes of Suikoden III were interesting and unique, and you could reliably relate to at least one of them. The rest of the cast was pretty interesting, though the optional stars were limited and optional for a reason. This game has far more pure optional stars to pick from, but most end up being standard 'after this point in the story, go back to this place, talk to this guy', and the characterization beyond that is nonexistent. Without the skill system from III, which was one of the best features, there is nothing to differentiate the characters beyond their stats, unique runes, and sometimes combos. Most of the characters I do quick upgrades to their weapons, take them to a few random encounters to get them to a decent level, then let them sit while I use a more standard team of reliably strong characters.

The main character is the worst offender in the entire lineup....he's dull, he's boring, there's no reason for him to be in the story beyond the rune he gets, which other than being the Macguffin the bad dudes are looking for, really has nothing to do with the story. Being a blank slate doesn't help, in a voiced game, it just makes him seem utterly dull and a passive person in all thats going on. Far more interesting and sensible characters, like the king of Obel, will step aside and state you should be leading...but why? The character was a knight trainee who got framed for murder...that's it. That's a similar plot-line to the first two games, but it doesn't work here. In I, you were the son of a famous general, inherit a rune that gets you hunted by your own country. Your character was defined by the people who worked for your father and stuck by you, and that drive to save yourself and fight back. In II, you were betrayed by your own country in a false flag operation, nearly killed with your best friend, and end up joining and leading the resistance against them. There, you were defined by your sister, best friend, and other major characters you picked up. In this game, the blank slate really has no characters that help to define him. You can choose two other recruits who accompany you through the first part of the game, but they give no reason for being so attached to you, and after the opening part is over, they really have nothing to do with the story. This lack of grounding makes the main character feel entirely out of place, as others come up with weak excuses as to why you matter.

The worst offense in the entire game though, is the random battles. To be fair, I've played games with horrendously difficult and common random battles. This game however, makes the triple offense of random encounters so common you could get in two or three just turning your ship around, the random encounters themselves rarely being of note beyond hitting the auto command or a set few commands to kill them quickly, and lastly...the world map being bare of any detail. Yes, the ocean is vast and mostly empty, but this is supposed to be an archipelago. In the entire game, there are 13 places to go. Only thirteen islands to visit, and several of them have nothing beyond a treasure hunting minigame or a few characters to recruit. Sailing to a new location means about a solid hour of sailing over featureless blue water, holding down R1 to go a little bit faster, and reading a book. Occasionally, you have to put down anchor and rest, but the encounters really provide no challenge, or add anything to the game. They just take up lots, and lots of time.

Gah.

Completed: Suikoden III

System: PS2 (Played on PS3)
Status: Completed
Currently: All 108 stars, extra chapter finished, so completed!

I love the Suikoden series, though I never really owned one until way later on, mostly due to getting the playstation very late in its cycle. I actually played it first by borrowing number 1 from a friend a few times, and beat that without owning it. 3 was actually the first one that I purchased, and since then I've gone on to get all 5 of the main series, plus tactics. I love collecting the characters, the well designed stories, and the very tactical combat the whole series has.

Three is no exception, and the series made a good jump to the ps2 and 3d at the same time. The 3d models are very clean and the art style ages very well, so much so I doubt this game will ever look truly bad compared to modern games. The story was well written and kept me going the entire way, even though technically this was my second time playing through (on my first I realized I had gone past the point of no return for getting all 108 stars, and kinda put it down, this was several years ago). The added fact that the second half can change in story based on which main character you pick, adds a bit of re-playability (though I doubt I will unless I try to do a challenge run). Overall it is one of the most solid JRPGs you can play, and I heartily recommend it to anyone.

My main complaints about the game are more comparisons to others in the same series, and noticeable parts where they changed things, and made them worse. The most noticeable part is the army battles. Where the previous two games took two completely different tacts (the first is more rock paper scissors with special cards, the second is more fire emblem), each time you felt as you gathered up your army and collected all the stars, that your options in combat were growing, and you were becoming noticeably more powerful as an army. Since you really don't get your castle till halfway through the game (where its clear you actually control an army), and since the story is split half the time, most of the army battles have predetermined rosters. In addition, practically every fight is purely scripted, you last a certain number of turns, something happens, its over. You can't really win, just not lose. Even later in the game, the second to last battle is specifically scripted to prevent you from winning too soon, which ended with me decimating the entire enemy army, then the last commander becoming invincible at half health and killing my units until the game finally ran its scripts, and let me kill him. The only battle you truly feel you lead your own combined army is the last one, and its a brief flirtation. The other major complaint is the stars of destiny seem...sidelined for this game. A full half are ones you get automatically through gameplay, and the rest are minor additions. I fully expect if I tried to beat this game with only the stars you get automatically, abusing the ones that are -very- powerful, the only major problem I would have would be the lack of blacksmithing over a certain point.

Still, as all my blogs tend to be, I write more about the little nitpicks than the overall good. I gave this a 4 star rating on my Backloggery, and would easily recommend it to anyone. Its a good game, whether you enjoy the series or not.

11/17: Quickfixes

Unfortunately, I've been stuck in one of those moods where I really can't get anything in particular done, so been pecking at a few games idly.

Name: Beyond Good & Evil
System: PS2 (Playing on PS3)
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Just finished the second story dungeon.

I feel really bad that I've never gotten to this game before, especially since I know it to be a solid game the few times I've booted it up and played it for a while. It also wasn't a big investment, and a great deal since I snagged it for 6$ from a Gamestop, like most of the later additions to my PS2 collection. I really have no complaints other than the strange graphical glitches that happen occasionally, which I have gathered come with the PS2 port of the game (and the PS3 may be making worse, I don't remember my PS2 doing the weird thing with the water). Overall the gameplay is solid, the partner system is fairly well implemented, there's nothing overtly annoying about any aspect of the game. The Pokemon Snap-like camera subquest is actually really fun, though once you get the radars that tell you where the animals you don't have are, it becomes rather trivial. Still, it seems a game that is full of collection sidequests, where the designers did their best to make sure they were not frustrating, which is always a good idea. Just need to put a few more hours into this and I can probably tick it off my completed list rather quickly.

Name: Wolfenstein 3-D
System: PS3
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Finished Episodes 1-3 on 'normalish' difficulty.

An oldie that I never got around to truly playing other than the horrendous SNES port I rented a few times back in the day. The PSN port does a pretty good job of capturing the game without mucking with it really at all. They even left in the old text screens after each episode advertising the next...along with all the cheesy text detailing you 'kicking Hitler's skull off'. Fun. My wife has all sorts of trouble watching me play this, and I have some issues as well, the game is smooth except when you start to turn (strafing and the like), where it gets a bit herky-jerky, and tends to give me motion sickness a bit. The damage also seems way out of line for the enemies even on the lower difficulty I'm on. One shot from pretty much any enemy can nearly kill you...or just nick you, and there doesn't seem to be much reason for the differences, not range or if you were moving or not. Still, the game is loaded with ammo (and all guns use the same type), along with plenty of health, so its really not that difficult. Taking it easy though so I don't make myself sick with the herky-motion. Twin-stick controls I think are the best way to play these old games though, its even how I prefer to play the original Doom 1/2 games now.

Name: RetroMUD
System: PC (Portal GT client)
Status: Null
Currently: Levelling up my Fallen alt, trying to get my Psi main money to train.

A real oldie for me, and a classic MUD, though the player base has shrunk in recent years due to a good solid year or so of crashes and unstableness. The core of the game is still great, with numerous classes, lots of options as to how to build characters, and all around freedom to do what you want. The community is always great for the game, and half the fun is chatting with the good people there. I really can't review the game much more than that, especially since a lot of it is personal experience, and not many people play MUDs anymore. Still, if I'm not playing something else, I'm playing this, much easier to cram in an hour or so of farming now that you don't have to worry about putting your gear in boxes if you carry it around.

Completed: Atelier Iris 2

Completed

Atelier Iris 2

System: PS2 (Playing on PS3)
Status: Completed
Currently: Finished everything.

So yeah, going to be a complete 180 on this from last time I posted, but I basically spent the last few weeks playing this solid (and Diablo 3), and at first, my hopes were rather high. The alchemy system in the game was very promising, the combat system was solid, they did a lot of things right in the game. The story wasn't the greatest, but it was passable.

Then the game just...died. The story went from passable to so full of glaring plot holes that I was yelling at the screen...to basically flipping the player off. The ending was a wonderful montage of 3 second clips that explained nothing whatsoever as to what happened, just showed the characters smiling then, roll credits. The game never followed through on any plot threads, and near the end of it, started doing things that just made me think 'Wow, my team is either stupid, or outright heinous'. It really does not make your team seem endearing when you destroy one character's wedding ring (albeit to save the world, but still), and then say he's being a baby because his wife will be mad at him. Two priceless objects (to the characters who they belonged to) are destroyed near the end, and its given about as much weight as stepping on someones toe. "Sorry for destroying this." "It does not matter, it was only a symbol to the entire kingdom." Practically quoted. The games story is so laughably paper thin you see where everything is going from the start, and any attempt at charecterization falls so flat it makes actually playing the game painful, because you know you'll have to listen to these idiots talk some more. Note to the creators, we do not need flashbacks for everything. This was a 20 hour game, there were upwards of ten flashbacks in the game, sometimes to events that happened literally five minutes before.

The combat system started out promising with all sorts of little options. Then as the game winded on, you realized rather quickly...that the designers didn't have any idea on how to make the game challenging, or to do a little difficulty curve to it. You are either curbstomping -everything- without grinding at all, or are up against something with insane amounts of HP. The post-game challenges seemed to be the most promising, but the enemies there (and the final boss) would basically one shot every character, so you learned to just keep tossing revives and not bother with healing. Most of the 'challenge' came from the fact that the bosses would heal themselves every turn naturally...which just made the fights even longer. I enjoy a good challenge, but the fights basically ended up being a challenge to see whether I would run out of revives first or win.

The item and alchemy system was by far the most promising part of it. Turning items you find into others with recipes you buy or find along the way. Certain items you could create more of with just mana, allowing you to make healing items as you go instead of buying them. The first thing you notice after a while though, is it is very trivial to just make 99 of all your healing items, and thus never run out. The second thing you notice is that everything pretty much uses the three or four most common mana types. The last thing you notice is there are about 15 types of mana, and some of them are used for one or two items. It felt like the designers just petered out on this part halfway through, and though you have tons of mana, you always need the most common ones, and almost never need everything else. The crafting system itself allows you to substitute different items to get different effects, but since most of the effects don't work on that item type, or are rather ill defined, you never really bother with this or even need to. The only time you do substitute is when the game points it out to you, and you realize you can make a truly different item...for the three or four items that actually works for.

The other aspects of the game are passable. The isometric view is interesting at first, but after a while you realize every dungeon is going to be square cubes going at angles, and it starts to look very fugly. The sprites themselves are well done, but battles are always zoomed out so far you can't see any details but for the brief moments it zooms in for an attack. The game is rather short, and that would have been fine personally, but near the end there's a very noticeable series of painful attempts to lengthen it out (fetch quests, dungeons with constant unending random encounters in a game that made a large point that after a while random encounters stop in an area, having to retread old areas constantly).

Most games leave me with a "Damn, I want to play more of that" feeling, even ones I'm somewhat ambiguous about. About six hours before I finished this game, I had the thought cross "I can't wait to finish this so I can play something else." While watching the ending, my thoughts were "Well, that is the game flipping me off." When I was finally finishing the post game, my last thought was "Thank god I never have to play this again."

Quick Fixes

Not that many this time around, just two, but I don't have quite enough to say about one or the other to make a Daily Review.

 So this kind of came out of left field, but I hit the fortune cookie option on the Backlog, and it gave me this. My wife bought it a while back from a Gamestop for about 5$, and neither of us have really touched it. Quick thoughts on it though: The art style is beautiful, the sprites on 3d backgrounds actually work really well, and the art in the battles is very well done. Not quite Valkyrie Profile 2 level, but hey. Another thought is that I'm really enjoying the alchemy system, since its mostly collect recipes, have the other character craft it, then you can make them with mana from then on. This means that healing potions almost never run out, since they need just 1 Wood mana, which you can get from anywhere. I have 99 of several items just to not let my mana go to waste. The combat system itself is rather fluid, though for some reason seems to have brief load times mid fight, as in a half second or so. Not a major deal, but it does make the otherwise fluid action kinda herk at times.

The title of the game is "God Catching Alchemy Meister" or Kamidori Alchemy Meister (kinda prefer the latter since the direct translation is silly), and yeah, its a great game. I'm always a sucker for strategy RPGs with very in-depth aspects of crafting and character building. This doesn't have so much on the character building, kinda leaning towards Fire Emblem in that they just level up, gain stats, and go from there. The main heroines get outfits you can make that radically change their stats and skills, and the main character gets far more customization through his menu, but mostly its just swapping gear. Still, the strategy aspects of crawling around the maps and fighting monsters, and collecting materials to make new items is pretty fun. The game is split up into chapters, and they do warn you when you're about to change chapters since you can miss out on quests. All the quests tell you what chapter you fail them on too, which is very conveinant. The only thing you'd have to look at a guide for is the level certain characters have to be at to get events. Of course, being a strategy RPG with set characters...some are rather useless or ungodly slow, and very hard to level to get those events (in this case, mostly the earth elemental Aht since she only moves 2 spaces). Also, yes, it is an adult eroge game. Doesn't change the fact that the game itself is damn good, dirty pictures or not.

Beaten: Front Mission 4

Beaten

Front Mission 4

System: PS2 (Playing on PS3)
Status: Beaten
Currently: Just beat the game, need to go again and do the optional simulators.

Ah, another game that while great, took me forever to beat. I do love the Front Mission series, especially this game with how it portrays fairly realistic mechs. Its a fairly old game by today's standards, but the graphics still look very crisp (barring the wonky trees of course), and the little details they put into the terrain and combat make all the difference in the game and its presentation. The only odd spot there is when people are talking, they have a still image with their jaw moving up and down...which...looks really weird. The voice acting itself is pretty good though.

The characterization and story of the game plays out well. It never gets too deep into philosophical nonsense that has nothing to do with mechs, instead pretty much sticking to the people, their job (or goal), and having you follow them along. The oddity being that the game actually has two stories, one based on a team in Europe, and one based on a team in Venezuala. You would think that with an RPG with two stories like that, eventually they would combine to one final mission...nope. Eventually they do contact each other and exchange information, but you never have a mission where you use both teams. So instead you end up ping-ponging between the stories, following and enjoying each separately.

The game play is fun and enjoyable, though very slow at times. Some missions you can chew through pretty quickly, others are rather rough, and you have to go slow so as to not make any mistakes and keep healed...and that can lead to a mission lasting thirty minutes or so. There is a quick save function so you can resume in the middle of a mission, but sometimes the objectives you need to accomplish are borked by early decisions. The AI is both stupid and brilliant at the same time. They tend to lock on to one target and never change no matter what happens, which is dangerous for you, but it also means they ignore more vulnerable targets. Units that aren't close to you will either get 'pulled' by you getting close, or are activated on a certain turn. Usually this means you slow crawl across the map, pulling units one group at a time so you don't get overwhelmed. The mech designing aspect is simple enough, and you can tweak it to your play style, though there are noticeably better styles than others. Still, with two teams who have different skillsets, you get to experience a lot of different mechs without having to retool everyone, or worry about switching guys in and out.

Overall, a very good game, and considering I got it used for like 10$ it was well worth it. All I have to do to complete it is to do the optional simulator missions, but that requires a replay through on new game+, given by the time I realized they were there, I was already past the point of doing them for the European team.