Krelian's Blog

Still playing a lot of games, and keeping the anime-watching and manga-reading to a bare minimum (still watching To Aru Majutsu no Index and loving it though). Anyway, before I get to the other titles, I wanted to ask some questions about one I tried to get into and couldn't: Persona 3. It seems to be quite popular all around, which leaves me wondering like hell what it is I've missed.

First thing that struck me was that the visuals were pretty impressive, and second was immense disappointment that I couldn't replace those grating English voice-overs with Japanese. Anyway, after playing for a while, I've decided that the game offers quite a bit of freedom, in all the wrong places. The combat is pretty dull, for the most part, made more diverse since you can collect and switch Personas (they decide your special abilities, basically) but I find that much freedom pretty crippling before I really get a feel for what the game is like and how it plays. But that's only a minor annoyance when set beside the fact that the game's battling takes place in a repetitive, randomly generated dungeon (I loathe random dungeons). And if that's not enough, your characters end up sick or tired if you attempt to make any notable progress exploring said random dungeon and you have to take them home and let them recover for a few days (which sucks since the major events in the game occur based on the date rather than your progress). The social side of things is a nice addition, but it ended up leaving me torn as you hardly have time to do anything as you try to juggle leveling up and exploring with boosting your character's social stats, developing your friendships with other characters (which translates to creating stronger Personas) and trying to keep healthy and well rested. It's especially irritating since your time is extremely limited through the day (you really only have time to do one or two things before the next one comes around). All in all, I didn't see anything that particularly impressed me (and quite a few things that did the opposite) and I found playing the game to be generally dull and tedious. Is there some big reason I'm overlooking that this game is so popular?

Anyway, on to other games. I've been plowing through Gears 2's toughest difficulty with a buddy of mine - we're making good headway, but damn is it hard. We're maybe halfway through the 4th act now (of 5 total) and after that it's on to playing "Horde mode" (basically getting together with a few buddies and weathering as many waves of increasingly difficult enemies as you can). In the mean time, I'm also playing through Chrono Trigger. It isn't as amazing as I expected it to be after hearing all that praise, but then it's also pretty damn ancient so I figure I would've been much more impressed playing it in my Super Nintendo days. I'm still waiting on Tales of Vesperia to arrive, and I'm pondering heading over to the mall or something and trading in Resistance 2 for a copy of Valkyria Chronicles, which I've been hearing great things about. I'd also like to snag a copy of Mirror's Edge (loved the demo), and then Call of Duty 5 as well.

Oh! I beat Folklore. Not sure if I posted about starting it or not, but I'm finished now. I'm pretty happy with it on the whole, but it gets a little dull and repetitive by the end - after playing through the same worlds and fighting the same bosses with both characters (their fighting style and a fair few of the enemies are different, but the scenery is always the same and you're just experiencing the same plot from a different perspective through most of the game). I couldn't work up enough interest to backtrack through the final area and collect the last few Folks I was missing. But I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself there - Folks are the enemies in-game. If you damage them enough with attacks they're weak to then you can basically absorb their soul and summon them back to fight for you later. That's how you get all your various attacks in the game. You can usually strengthen the ones you like by absorbing more of the same, feeding them certain items you find, defeating specific folks with them or just wiping out a certain number of any sort. Anyway, gameplay is pretty interesting, and surprisingly fun despite the repetition. The story is fairly enjoyable as well (as is the style of the game) but the voice acting leaves a bit to be desired and the writing is pretty awful at times. There are a lot of "Hey, I'm about to tell you about that thing but oh, wait, shit... looks like I'm out of time and you'll have to play through the entire next chapter to advance the plot any further." I mean, you pretty much have to do that in games - lead the player on with tidbits of information to keep up their interest - but I wish it wasn't so painfully obvious. All in all though, nice game. I like the artistic style too and the music is usually pretty good (though it all feels horribly out of place when you walk into the little Irish pub in town and they're playing the music to "You Raise Me Up" or something that sounds vaguely arabic.

Hmm, what else is new? I watched The Prestige and Catch Me If You Can, both of which I'd highly recommend. The former was just incredible, and the latter was absolutely hilarious - it isn't a comedy, per se, but watching DiCaprio's character con his way into loads of money and out of some of the tightest situations imaginable is great fun. The FBI actually catches up with him pretty early on, but he manages to convince the agent there to arrest him (Tom Hanks) that he's with the Secret Service and that he and his "partner" (indicating an unwitting neighbor escorting an elderly man to his car) have already collared the crook. He leaves Hanks holding his badge (a wallet filled with coupons and torn-off bottle labels and such) as he heads downstairs to "secure some evidence." Good times...

Okay, so I still haven't been watching much anime. Instead, as soon as I finished Fallout, I went and bought Resistance 2. I kinda regret that one, but more on it later because I only got a few hours of play in before buying Gears of War 2 the next morning. I have to say, I'm extremely impressed - it takes everything that was awesome about the original and builds on it. The dialogue still could've been better, but the storytelling, character development and cinematic quality have improved by leaps and bounds. It's easily my favorite of the standard FPS crowd.

Resistance 2, on the other hand, offers nothing but disappointment. There aren't many things in it that are even done as well as they were in the first game, let alone improved. They also completely butchered the co-op mode, my favorite part of the original, replacing it with some sort of random objective crapfest with downgraded visuals that look like they came from a PS2 game, or worse. It's fairly decent and playable, but has far too many flaws in every facet of the game to escape much from mediocrity. Which is surprising since it's been so well-received by the review sites - I wonder how much Sony paid for their high ratings...

Next on the list should be Tales of Vesperia - I ordered that one used since I haven't played it yet.

Okay, so I haven't been watching much anime or reading much manga, but can you blame me? As soon as I was finished with the latest Fable, Fallout 3 came out. Now, I've never been able to get into its predecessors (too old-school, unfortunately) but I've always heard quite a bit about how great they are. Lots to do, excellent atmosphere, and above all a great, dark sense of humor.

In any case, Fallout 3 definitely lived up to the hype. It's set almost 300 years into a future where science advanced quickly but everyone's sense of style remained stuck in the 1950's. Eventually there was an all-out nuclear war with China, leaving the USA a wasteland full of mutated animals and people, with the survivors struggling to eke out a living (or becoming bandits or slavers to make ends meet). You play the game as a character suddenly thrust into the middle of all that after an easy childhood in an underground shelter called a Vault. After being forced to leave the safety of the Vault in search of your father, you're free to do pretty much anything. For example, in the first city you're likely to find (which happens to be built around a live nuclear bomb), you can choose to disarm the bomb for the sheriff, or help a shady outsider rig the thing to blow and wipe the whole town off the map.

I've finished my first run through the game now, and I have to say I'm quite impressed. I had some difficulties navigating through the subways and sewers and such (which you have to use to get past rubble blocking in certain areas in downtown Washington DC - the game takes place there and in the surrounding wasteland), but my only major gripes are that the game caps your level at 20 (you can't improve any of your skills after that point, which leaves you shit out of luck when trying to pick certain locks and hack certain computers if you didn't devote enough points to those skills beforehand) and that the game is over once you finish the story, no matter how it ends (after some endings you could easily continue playing, doing sidequests and such). But yeah, despite those few things it's an amazing game - definitely worth checking out.

My brother got himself a 360 just this week, and we ended up heading over to Wal-Mart on a Friday night (disturbing, I know) to buy him a copy of Fable 2 so we could try out the co-op. As we were waiting for a herd of fat hicks to move from in front of the game cases (they stood there talking and making faces at someone's baby for a good 10 minutes), I noticed an interesting game in the PC section called Fate - the cover featuring an armored adventurer with his trusty dog at his side, and the backside delving into how you can learn magic, fight with various weapons, customize your character to your liking, etc. Seems just a tad like a ripoff to me, so we started calling it 'Fateble'

Anyway, I've finished Fable 2 twice over now and am in the middle of my third (and very likely final) playthrough - as a chick this time, actually. The first time, I chose the middle road, though I ended up being much more good than evil - second time through I was completely evil, growing nice demon horns and sacrificing my wife to the temple of darkness and such. This time I'm being a goody-goody. That makes it a lot harder to earn money, but in the end there's so much more real estate available and such - being good sometimes helps cities develop and expand, while taking the evil route leaves them run-down slums and such. Anyway, the game is great fun. I have a few minor gripes, but all in all the single player experience is excellent. Co-op, however, is much less so. You can't use your own character when you join someone else's game - instead you're stuck with one of six generic characters (good/evil/neutral, male/female) though you inherit all your character's abilities if you attach it to your savegame (you can split experience and gold earned between both characters). But what's worse, you're stuck with an obnoxious fixed camera that often makes it impossible to see treasure chests, where you're going, etc.

In other news, I finished the Hellsing manga. Pretty solid ending too... I can't wait to see the whole thing animated. Which reminds me, isn't it about time for another installment? Also, I decided to give Ikkitousen a second chance, though I'm still not sure why. Huge... tracts of land, I suppose =P

I'm awfully irresponsible. I should be sorting out unemployment stuff and looking for a job, but instead here I am planning on buying Fable 2 tomorrow and playing it ASAP. And then probably Fallout 3 after that, then Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, and possibly even Dead Space and Tales of Vesperia. I'm such an idiot =P But those "Who will you become?" Fable commercials are too catchy. I just can't resist.

I'm also about out of motivation to watch anything on my anime list, beyond the ongoing stuff that I'm currently watching or the old series I'm rewatching with my brother. So I guess it's a good time for doing some gaming (or if I was more intelligent, job hunting). Though speaking of new series:

I'm still impressed with Index - caught the third episode today and it's really looking like it'll be similar to Shakugan no Shana. I.E. a show that has a good balance between shounen-style action and character development/romance/drama. I've got high hopes for this one.

Not much to say about the first episode of Shugo Chara's second season, since it's mostly just a recap. Looks like Nadeshiko will be back though, this time as a man (aka the new Jack), so that should be interesting. As for the rest, I suppose we'll see as it goes along. I expect it'll be pretty damn good though.

I wasn't nearly as impressed with the new season of Clannad as I was with the original, at first, but it's quickly going on me. The level of humor isn't as high, but I like where the plot is going thus far. And I have quite a bit of faith in KyoAni, so I'm sure it'll be excellent.

The new season of Rosario, however, is exactly what I expected. Basically, mediocre but kinda funny, and much more interested in introducing new characters to the harem than developing the ones they've already got. Still, I expect I'll watch the entire show. I have to have a little mindless, cheesy fanservice to keep me in balance with all the more serious shows I'm watching.

Okay, so my brother came over this evening and decided to spend the night. We were up reasonably late watching anime, and he's not as nocturnal as I am, so he fell asleep there on the couch. I went on watching various new shows and such, and anyway I eventually got around to Kurozuka. I was watching the second episode, and all of a sudden he wakes up, sees a closeup of this ugly ass mask, and flips out. I laughed harder than I have in a long time. Now I've promised him to turn the image into a big poster to hang up over his bed. Here's the ugly guy in question (and for the record, his face is even worse than the mask):



Anyway, on to the anime. I caught the first couple episodes of Kurozuka, obviously. Pretty gory and reasonably interesting and well made, but it loses points for the crap intro music and for occasionally being confusing as hell. Hopefully it'll make more sense as the series goes on...

Ga-Rei Zero is big on the gore and a lot lower on the making sense as well. I only saw the first episode, but the only thing that really impressed me was the one chick spinning around and kicking ass with a motorcycle. The rest just seems hokey or cliche or confusing, though it looks nice enough. I guess we'll see how the rest goes...

Michiko to Hatchin is about what I expected it to be - awesome, with interesting characters and loads of style. The only thing I'm not particularly fond of is Michiko's voice, at least so far. Definitely looking forward to the second episode.

Shikabane Hime was pretty decent. Not particularly great or unique or anything, but enjoyable and reasonably well made. Should be fun to watch, hopefully.

To Aru Majutsu no Index is one of the first new titles I've watched to really turn my head... as in one I wasn't really expecting. In some ways it reminds me a touch of Bleach's opening episodes, except that the visuals are quite a bit higher in quality and the style not quite as awesome. Still, I'm excited about the rest of it. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that it manages a good balance between action and story/character development.

Macademi Wasshoi was thoroughly unimpressive. I haven't dropped it quite yet thanks to a few slightly amusing anime references - I'm holding out to see if it ends up being funnier over the next few episodes. Otherwise it's definitely getting voted off the island.

Also, after the third episode, I'm still just as infatuated with Gundam 00's latest season. Great stuff there - I'm really excited about where it's going. So much so that I can't even hold out the day or two it takes for Menclave to get their release out (though I'm archiving those, definitely)

Anyway, I'll probably have more new updates soon... I need to at least check out Casshern Sins and a few others.