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2008 Gaming Report Card/Progress report

 
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Himuro

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:24 pm    Post subject: 2008 Gaming Report Card/Progress report Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

It's June, and that means we're halfway through the year. Rate and comment on all the games you've played this year so far.

My 2008 progress report:

Games completed

(psp) Crush
Pros: Extremely innovative puzzle game, hard difficulty, good story, excellent art direction and music.

Cons: Lack of replay value, and lack of modes.

Score: B+

(psp) Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles


Pros: Enough content to last a gamer for months. Ports and remake are excellent quality. Hard difficulty for the Rondo remake, DXC. Excellent level design. Lots of incentive to replay, lots of collectibles. Excellent music. Symphony of the Night port is the best version of Symphony available in English. Rondo of Blood is intact, 100% original game.

Cons: Graphics and controls for Dracula X Chronicles take a bit of time getting used to. Graphics are lackluster for DXC.

Score: B+

(psp) Parappa the Rapper

Pros: Perfect port of the psx classic.

Cons: Perfect port of the psx classic, thus, hardly anything new at all.

Comments: Thank you Qmark for giving the game for free since you're bad at it.

Score: B-

(psp) Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

Pros: Fun, albeit, not particularly deep battle system. Emphasis on positioning during battle make it a lot more interesting than Kingdom Hearts. Not a Kingdom Hearts clone. Great cast for the most part, Zack is the best FF main character in the longest time. Excellent graphics and art direction for a psp game. Great difficulty if you don't do missions because that's where most of your leveling comes from, and not story missions. Cloud gets stabbed in the gut, pulls Sephiroth's sword out in mid air and throws Sephiroth against a Mako reactor. FFVII nostalgia. Lots of missions with great rewards.

Cons: Shoehorned Dirge of Cerberus connections. Gackt. Mostly forgettable music. Loveless. Really bad writing. CAN ANGELS DREAM? Slot machine is the most retarded level up system ever, worse than FFII's. Can't skip cutscenes at all, Warning, having to watch the same limit break animations 9999 times in one fight can give someone a big headache, step back all the way to 2000,

Score: C

(psp) Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions

Pros: Final Fantasy Tactics in my pocket. Great translation, actually makes the story coherent now. Difficult, as usual.

Cons: Hasn't been optimized for the psp too much. Translations are a double edged sword; on one hand it's nice seeing story sequences retranslated, but it makes learning jobs and skills an almost entirely new experience because you don't recognize the skill names at all.

Score: B-

(xbox 360) Lost Odyssey

Pros: Jansen. Great difficulty if you challenge yourself on purpose. EXCELLENT experience system which nullifies grinding 100%, very similar to Suikoden in that regard. Great skill customization on characters, 1000 Years of Dreams. Excellent music. Jansen. Great cast, except for Mack who's awful. Decent story. Excellent dungeons with a lot of variety; some are reminiscent to Shadow Hearts (since it's made by the same people) and some are reminiscent to vintage Final Fantasy, particularly VI, where you have to split the party into teams and solve puzzles helping each other, switching back and forth. Great random battle rate; sometimes you won't get into a fight for 3-5 minutes. Fast battles. Formation system makes battles highly strategic, another similarity to Suikoden, although a lot harder. Excellent boss fights. Ring system makes fights funner than they should be because they force you to pay attention to the game instead of chatting on irc or reading The Onion. Game doesn't play itself, like FFXII. Jansen. Good sidequests. An airship, a submarine, emphasis on exploration. A mostly all adult cast in a jrpg is a breath of fresh air. Lots of loot, things to customize, create;etc. All around great rpg design overall, the closest we'll ever have to a psx era Final Fantasy.

Cons: A couple of cringe worthy moments. Mack is terrible. Don't see myself replaying any time soon.

Score: B

Games still playing

(ps2) Tales of the Abyss (still playing)

Pros: Nice art direction, decent music, Tear is a pretty good character, so is Guy.

Cons: A total step back from Tales of Symphonia. The sidequests are mostly awful, and it's impossible to do all the sidequests without a guide because they're so strict in regards to making a deadline. The game is entirely too linear, when other Tales games, specifically Symphonia, allowed for a lot exploration and had plenty of content which included some really fun sidequests. The dungeons, too, are a step back from Symphonia. They are hardly creative, Mew's voice makes me want to mute the tv when I solve puzzles. Combat is a step back, the controls feel clunky compared to Symphonia, Luke isn't fun to play as because his move list mostly sucks. The game is far too easy. FOFs are random and feel mostly useless. Terrible story, terrible world view, really annoying characters. The game is worse than Final Fantasy XII in the "Sorry Mario, the princess is in another castle" regard. almost every place you go to you find yourself hurrying to another place and it gets tiring. Horrible moonspeak used for phrases in the world, gobbletygook fonon seventh of the jappa jappa. Horrible world map. Average in almost every respect, the canned beans of the Japanese rpg genre.

Score: D

(xbox360) Devil May Cry 4 (stopped playing, not fun)

Pros: Nice graphics. Stylish combat. Devil Arm can be fun to toy with. Revving moves is genius, and needs to be in other action games. Revving moves makes the player feel like a champ; revving one move, doing the revved moved, and revving the REVVED move for a continuous onslaught of revved up moves is awesome and makes the player feel like he's the best in the world. Secret missions are great. Bosses can be fun.

Cons: Mostly average level design. The camera is not designed for platforming and yet they did it anyways. Non rotable, pre-fixed camera angles in an ACTION game is very last gen. The entire game screams last gen, it could have been done on the ps2 easily. Game is too easy. A skilled player shouldn't have to clear out boring normal mode in order to unlock hard mode. There should be a way to start on hard mode for series vets. Game has style but no meat, enemies are combo fodder and render little threat. Nero is Dante redux, so it makes you wonder why they started over with a new character anyways. The story is lame. Proud Soul system is annoying, as is making skills more expensive if you don't buy them. Red orbs are plentiful and feel like a waste. Repetitive; the game uses the same levels over and over and throws the same bosses at the player multiple times, and unlike in the first DMC the battles and strategies rarely ever change. Move list is limited, and extremely sparse. Game feels like a total step back after DMC3 which was all about variety. DMC4 is all about taking away variety for the sake of it. DMC4 proves the series formula is now stale and needs a reboot.

Score: D

(xbox360) Grand Theft Auto IV
(still playing, and haven't tried online mode)

Pros: Great attention to detail, takes time to get used to the car controls but they're great when you do. Great aiming, and good cover system (when it works). Best radio in a GTA. Good characters and story. New police system is pretty cool. Character perks are cool.Vigilante missions have been greatly expanded. Better than San Andreas. Amazing graphics. Being able to choose who to kill is really neat, and being able to determine who survives and who lives is really great. Not rags to riches. Great difficulty, the hardest GTA since GTAIII. Level 3 and 4 Stars are death sentences now, you will almost always get killed by the cops, so being able to get away from them is satisfying. Some good missions.

Cons: Characters constantly bugging you to hang out gets annoying. Lack of fun for "realism". Taking away traditional things that have been in GTA since III like R3 missions sans Vigilante. No gangs, no gang cars. When you drive too fast you get thrown from your car, which gets old past the first hour. City is too big, it takes too long to traverse. I mostly used taxis to get around, and for a game called Grand Theft Auto that's pathetic. Areas are too hard to memorize in part of the lack of R3 missions, and also because the city is treated like an actual city rather than a part of a game. No ability to hide in trash cans or in the dark if you've got a 1 or 2 star wanted level, you actually have to drive or walk out of the circle which can get tedious. You have to drive to a crawl in fear you'll get thrown out of your car. Missions are entirely linear, you can't shoot people while on chases because they're invincible. Lacks the non linear, open ended feeling of III, VC, and occasionally SA in regards to mission design. Missions lack variety. Motto for the game is slower, more "realistic", less fun. Half fun sometimes, half tedious other times.

Score: C+

(DS) Etrian Odyssey (still playing)

Pros: Map making makes the dungeon crawling more fun than it should be because of ocd, exploring each floor to the fullest is a fun experience. Extremely difficulty rpg'ing. Hardcore dungeon crawling. Create your own team with their own unique traits. Job system is excellent, you can choose to learn any skill at any time when you level up, allowing for some nice strategy. Status effects matter. FOEs. Minimalist story, the way it should be. Nice presentation, and good translation. Amazing music, Yuzo Koshiro is the shit. Proves that Atlus R&D1 makes better rpgs than everyone else on the block. FOE, FOE, FOE. Best game on the ds.

Cons: Too...long?

Score: A-

Overall: the console games released this year didn't meet their potential, although I loved Lost Odyssey. The portable games I've played this year have all been awesome, however. This summer looks potentially great, but I won't hold my breath. I'm mostly looking forward to the handheld games the rest of the year, which ave a killer line up.
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RedCydranth

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Quote:
(ps2) Tales of the Abyss (still playing)

Pros: Nice art direction, decent music, Tear is a pretty good character, so is Guy.

Cons: A total step back from Tales of Symphonia. The sidequests are mostly awful, and it's impossible to do all the sidequests without a guide because they're so strict in regards to making a deadline. The game is entirely too linear, when other Tales games, specifically Symphonia, allowed for a lot exploration and had plenty of content which included some really fun sidequests. The dungeons, too, are a step back from Symphonia. They are hardly creative, Mew's voice makes me want to mute the tv when I solve puzzles. Combat is a step back, the controls feel clunky compared to Symphonia, Luke isn't fun to play as because his move list mostly sucks. The game is far too easy. FOFs are random and feel mostly useless. Terrible story, terrible world view, really annoying characters. The game is worse than Final Fantasy XII in the "Sorry Mario, the princess is in another castle" regard. almost every place you go to you find yourself hurrying to another place and it gets tiring. Horrible moonspeak used for phrases in the world, gobbletygook fonon seventh of the jappa jappa. Horrible world map. Average in almost every respect, the canned beans of the Japanese rpg genre.

Score: D


I'm gonna disagree with this on all accounts (except that Tear and Guy are cool You were right there). I found the game to be very well made. If you can use the FOFs, they actually create quite an advantage. If they made them easier to use, the game would be really easy, so they made them tougher to use, but if you're skilled you can chain cast and get some real powerful effects. Useless is hardly the word for them, I'd say tricky. I never got the "Mario Syndrome" feeling from the game at all. I actually felt it went at a decent pace and progressed well. Perhaps because you decided to compare it to Symphonia the whole time instead of giving its own chance, you'd find it was a really fun game. Symphonia was a masterpiece and a series usually has its pinnacle, but that doesn't mean others in that series can't be good in their own light. As for the Seventh Fonon gobbledygook you blamed the game for being unoriginal and uncreative but when it actually used new terms and was creative, you bashed it. I think the fonon thing was very creative. I felt the story was pretty good, but not the most original. However highly original stories in games are becoming harder to find.

If I had to give the game a grade, I'd give it a B
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Himuro

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I stopped comparing it to Symphonia like 20 hours in because I knew I wasn't going to get the same experience. The pacing is really bad to me. I think I'm halfway through when I feel like the game should have ended already.

My problem with the terminology is that it feels like some shitty sci-fi movie where they throw in a bunch of retarded phrases to make the story seem "deep" when it isn't. The Seventh Fonon Morbid Eclesias Argath? "What is that?" "You mean you don't know?" ARGH.
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Their constant surprise at Luke's sheltered knowledge was quite overused as a teaching tool.
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

It got annoying and pretentious to me. In FFX it was fine because it felt realistic to me. They explained their culture, their way of life to Tidus and the terminology wasn't convoluted either.
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