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General Chat / Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

« on: January 25, 2009, 03:19:26 PM »

Got my PS2 working again so I popped in .hack part 1. It was one of few games I own that I only played for an hour to get a feel for and then never touched for ages. Beat the main story in ~12 hours and but it felt like it had only 2 hours of story-driven gameplay with the rest filler. Running through a generic dungeon to only get 5 lines of dialogue that barely advances the story is a terrible design. Also the battle system wasn't very challenging; the only place where I had to use any sort of strategy was the last dungeon, otherwise it was just have everyone spam skills and potions. Had to reset 4 times total, 2 on last area and 2 on the solo dungeon where I wasn't accustomed to using a potion everytime I took damage. However, I did enjoy the atmosphere and the story was decent enough so I ordered the other 3 sequels since I really hate leaving things unfinished.

Also started Valkyrie Profile Lenneth after finishing the extra content on .hack. I just started chapter 3 and the game looks beautiful. It took me a while to get accustomed to the battles and character customization but I have a pretty good hang of it now. I'm hoping all 8 chapters aren't all about recruitment and there is a lot more to the story past that.

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General Chat / Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

« on: January 20, 2009, 06:02:37 AM »

Haven't touched an JRPG since Star Ocean came out for the PS2 around 4+ years ago but decided to get back into the genre today after getting sick of spending all my free time on one game (WoW of course). I remember coming to this site way way back in the day and being upset about not being able to vote for my favorite characters when they went up against someone from a game I never played. Now that list of games is way larger and I have a lot of catching up to do.

Decided to start off light by playing Final Fantasy I on the PSP since my PS2 doesn't seem to work after not using it for a few years. Got through the main story pretty quickly with a Knight/Ninja/W. Wizard/B. Wizard easily without having to reset. The story was just plain bad (although I wasn't expecting anything) and it was a chore to get through the dungeons with all the random encounters combined with outdated battle mechanics. Cleared the Soul of Chaos dungeons as well while filling the bestiary with all the monsters inside. Stacking multiple tempers with a haste just makes all the bosses trivial. Only trouble I had was with Omega in the Water dungeon as I went in with 1/3 MP on my W. Wizard and was being stingy with my Dry Ethers.

Currently making my way through multiple Labyrinth of Time runs to get the last 7 question marks of my bestiary out of the way. The puzzles in the exclusive dungeon are probably the best part of the game but I encountered a weird bug(?) where the red seals wouldn't activate no matter what I did so I gave up there. Will plan on replaying this game eventually to get 100% on the artwork but it will def be in the far far future.  Would switch out Ninja and Black Wizard for Monk and Red Wizard next time.

I don't have a wide variety of games to play after this. I ordered Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth online which should be coming soon and have Golden Sun and Breath of Fire that I haven't played for the GBA but I really want to get my hands on a console game after FFI. I'm very tempted to get a 60 GB PS3 from ebay right now but they are so expensive. =(