Archive of ‘RPGs’ category

25
Jan
2020

We’re making progress filling that microSD up.

categories: RPGs; word count: 361 words

I decided to pick up the Atelier Arland series deluxe pack to have on hand to be able to play portably with Bub, as did I decide to pick up the Atelier Dusk series deluxe pack for the same reason… and I also got the Atelier Firis game on the Vita for that same reason, not knowing that the first two sets of these games had been released on the Nintendo Switch when I made the decision to get them, and not knowing that Atelier Firis was actually available on the Vita. The deluxe packs might have taken awhile to download on a decent connection, but we eventually did it, and I’m glad that I eventually did come to the conclusion that I should make those purchases. Bub likes games where you go out, scavenge, collect items to make items, and I like cute games, so these intersect in an awesome way for both of us. Each game also has about a hundred hours worth of play time if you play the base game through and then turn around and do some of the optional things in the game, so there’s also that… meaning that if we have them on a portable console we can take them with us to doctor’s appointments, on commutes, have them on hand in waiting rooms, so I really saw no downside to making sure that we have the Atelier franchise in portable form once I realized that we could actually do that. (And I mean, I can get past the whole “timed” aspect of these games. I can.)

The Atelier franchise is adorable enough that I can look past them being timed. Seriously, folks.

I know that I’ve mentioned the bane of my existence in the gaming world being timed games, not being allowed to explore to my heart’s content, but if the game is cute enough, I can manage to look past that. This is an example of a franchise that allows me to do so. Now, I might still voice complaints about the timed aspect of the games making… certain things difficult, but I can manage to look past that for these games.

24
Jan
2020

Persona 5 Royal: DLC for the price of a whole game.

categories: RPGs; word count: 347 words

And because of brand loyalty and my child’s cute face, I’ve been suckered into buying it.

This did spawn a bit of an interesting discussion amongst people in a chat that I frequent (friends? I can call some of them friends): games that I play with Bub. I don’t mind playing some slightly higher rated games with him, seeing as how he’s autistic and internalizes a lot of the experiences much differently than a neurotypical child his age might. A lot of conventionally frightening things do not frighten him. In fact, many of them amuse him. Things that “go bump in the night” don’t bother him one bit. Zombies make him laugh. Although I take care not to play particularly bloody or violent games with him because those games tend to bother me as much as the idea of playing them with him bothers me, there are certain games that may carry a slightly higher rating that I don’t mind playing with him on my lap or beside me, although that depends on the specific game itself… I put a lot of research into games before making the decision to play them with him. For instance, I care more about games that have characters heavy into cigarette or drug use. I care more about games with plots that involve child abuse or child death. Among the Sleep might be the only game to date that I have banned in our household for reasons having to do with plot. But Persona? I don’t mind that.

Well, except for the bit about “DLC for the price of a whole game”. I minded that, let me tell you. I really did.

But let me tell you, I wish that the DLC for this had been released as just that: separate DLC, and not for the full cost of a game. I feel like this makes those who plays Persona 5 play twice for it just for the DLC, and I feel like that penalizes the biggest fans of the game and the series… the ones you want to keep coming back.

23
Jan
2020

In case anyone is still wondering, yes…

categories: RPGs; word count: 449 words

Lightning Returns continues to annoy me, but I am going to see it to the end.

At some point. I’m not quite sure when that point will be right now, but I will see it to the end.

I suppose one of the biggest annoyances about games like this is that I like to explore and find things on my own time, and having the perpetual annoyance of a literal “Doomsday Clock” there reminding me that I only have so long to complete certain tasks (unless I want to fail the game and have to start all the way over) is literally rushing me around, and at that, forcing me to rely on a walkthrough when I mean, I could have just moseyed on around at my heart’s content… at least until, or unless, I needed one. There’s the fact that I want to see this whole storyline to the end, having liked both Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII-2 as much as I did, even though I liked both of those games for different reasons. But one of the biggest annoyances to me, if not the biggest annoyance, in a game is being forced to do something on someone else’s time, even though Chronostasis does make it a bit easier to… stall things, by literally stalling things (by literally stopping time for relatively short increments, even though you have to “earn” that by killing so many enemies that you have enough EP to stall time, which can be a bit difficult to do at certain points in the game, is this just me?).

Timed missions, I can tolerate. Where nearly the entire game, or the entire game, is timed, not so much.

Maybe I should have mentally prepared myself for this by mentally preparing myself for this.

For the multiple reasons that I have written about, I do intend on finishing this at least once, but I think that is honestly all I am going to give this game. This will probably actually be my least favorite Final Fantasy game for that one reason, and that one reason alone: the Doomsday Clock forcing me to practically rush through the game so as not to mosey on through so slowly that I actually got a Game Over and had to start the entire thing over again because damn it, that is what I like to do in games when you give me the chance, I do like to explore if you let me. And clearly this entire game is structured around not letting you explore because you have a clock constantly reminding you that the world as you know it is going to end in how many days?

02
Jan
2020

The 3rd Birthday

categories: RPGs; word count: 546 words

Parasite Eve was one of the greatest games of the decade, even though it was released in an era where we praised pixelated graphics and regarded them as being some of the absolute best for their time (isn’t it funny how things change over the course of several decades?). It also had one of the best ending songs I’ve ever heard, not to mention some awesome remixes. It really paid homage to the novel that inspired it, and the movie that came out afterward actually wasn’t half bad. Everything that paid homage did so in a great way.

The sequel to it that came out in 1999 was a bit dustier than the original, but when you have something that groundbreaking to live up to, you honestly can’t — or shouldn’t, for that matter — expect it to be as perfect as the title that came before it. But it was still a good game in its own right. The graphics were more polished, the storyline was still decent, and the tweaks that had been made to the battle engine still made for a compelling game that made you want to play all the way through to the end. And just like the game that came before it, the soundtrack was brilliant. The end song doesn’t quite have the punch that “Somnia Memorias” did, but “Gentle Rays” is still an extremely good song in its own right, and you can tell listening to the songs in Parasite Eve II that a lot of time and effort was put into the soundtrack. Things were still good.

Sadly, all I can say that I liked about The 3rd Birthday was the soundtrack. I played it for completion’s sake, having been an enthusiastic fan of Parasite Eve, wanting to finish the series out when I found out that a new game in the franchise was finally coming out. And when I played through it, all I felt like I was getting was fanservice, the “Parasite Eve label” slapped on a game that desperately tried to bring back old-school fans of the franchise to a game with better, newer graphics, a sharp soundtrack, and perhaps the world’s worst plot (seriously, read up on it if you haven’t already played it or spoiled it for yourself… the plot has so many holes it’s practically Swiss cheese, and it is that bad). You can listen to the soundtrack here if you’d like, as to me, that is the only redeeming quality that the game has. It became a shoot ’em up that tried way too hard to pull old-school fans in to the game, which dismayed those who liked the franchise for what it was, and the fanservice was — is, depending on whether you’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater at this point — incredibly over the top. For Christ’s sake, the more damage Aya takes during battles, the more holes you see in her clothing, and this is done in so obvious a way that you can tell it was intentionally done. Jesus…

I don’t want any more sequels if this is literally how they are going to be handled. I don’t. Just stop them here.

(And the irony? Because the game’s supposed to be an RPG, that’s the category I put it in.)

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