• 1Jan 10

  The Day After New Year's

  Well it's here, 2010. To start off, I guess I'll just say HAPPY NEW YEARS GUYS!

  Can't say I'm super excited aside from the fact that Final Fantasy XIII will be releasing in 3 months! I haven't been really checking out any news about the game or look at the reviews of the Japanese copy just to save myself from spoiling the game. I heard that it's extremely linear, but who cares? Final Fantasy tends to be linear, no wait, JRPGs in general are linear. Also, what's wrong with linearlity? I think as long as a game does well in what it does (and that is to be superbly fantastic and memorable in every aspect with little flaws to bring it down), then it can be as linear as a linear algebra course. Anyways, enough about my love for Final Fantasy XIII.

  2009 has been a great year all around, here are some of my favorite games I played in 2009:

  BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (PS3, 360)
  

  

  

  BlazBlue is from the same makers of Guilty Gear. Fast paced combat combined with unique characters makes this one of the top fighters this gen. While it's no Street Fighter, it holds on it's own very well. Delievering crisp anime graphics, a powerful online system, 12 VERY different characters to chose from and a story that'll make you wonder if this is a fighter, or a visual novel.

  Impressions:

  -See previous blogs.

  Demon's Souls (PS3)
  

  

  

  Demon's Souls challenges players in this difficult but rewarding Action RPG. What stood out for Demon's Souls was the difficulty, the enganging combat, appealing atmosphere and unique online features. While the story isn't exactly top notch, and it isn't exactly welcoming in terms of casual players. It certainly surprised most, if not all, of us by winning Best RPG and GOTY here on GS.

  Impressions:

  -See previous blogs.

  Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1, Saturn, 360, PS3, PSP)

  

  

  Castlevania is well known for it's simple story of Belmonts vs Dracula while encompassing beautiful gameplay. Earlier sidescrolling versions of Castlevania often introduced frustration beyond anything as the aggravating difficulty and cheap level designs made many of us cry. Symphony of the Night changes that by introducing a Metroid-esque level design while controlling Alucard, Dracula's son. You'll explore the castle, and hopefully put an end to curse of Dracula.

  Impressions:

  -I felt that change in a game was often for the worse. I was wrong in Symphony of the Night, the easy to grasp gameplay and very Metroid like design makes this easily approachable by anyone, even those who felt the difficulty was a major put off in previous iterations. The game is at a fair length, with exploring a major aspect in whether you get a good ending, or the best ending. The gameplay is fun, Alucard is fitted with stats like levels and etc, giving it an RPG feel as well. Some say this is the best Castlevania to date, for me, this is quite possibly one of the best games ever.

  Knights in the Nightmare (DS)

  

  

  Knights in the Nightmare offers a confusing but new and fun strategy RPG to the DS. While not exactly user friendly, or exactly fast paced in terms of narration and story. It does offer a different kind of SRPG you've been used to, mixing SHUMP elements and SRPG, you get a game with a steep learning curve that's well worth the lesson.

  Impressions:

  -See previous blogs.

  Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth (PS1, PSP)

  

  

  Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is a port/remake of the original Valkyrie Profile on PS1. It offers a very different type of turn based RPG system. Setting characters to different face buttons and offering a fighting combination kind of battling. Similiar to the DS game, Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier to a certain degree. It follows the tales of Valkyrie, Lenneth, as she travels the world looking for worthy souls for Odin, who is preparing for a mighty war.

  Impressions:

  -My personal thought can be summarized simply as "best game no one has played". Why? Because aside from the very fun combat (though can get repetitive easily), it offers a rewarding story of up to 3 different endings, the best one requiring a walkthrough as you can easily mess up. You'll learn of the story of Lenneth, the souls she carries with her, and how her fate has come to be.

  That's all for now, so as to not make this any longer as well not to mention it's like 1:30 AM. So if you have any favorites this year, don't hesitate to post em! I know there were a lot of good games this year, I just can't remember em all

  • Posted Jan 1, 2010 10:25 pm GMT
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• 6Dec 09

  December 6, 2009.

  Nothing significant about the title or today, just couldn't think of an appropriate blog title

  Well it's been a heavy month all around, people getting banned, work overload, games started not finished, the usual stuff. I have this weird feeling this blog will be long, so bear with me.

  _______

  I'm sure most of you heard, but Oath got banned, as well as Animal-Mother. Both of which are very awesome posters that many of us in SW knew very very well. While I did hear Animal-Mother is currently appealing to the mods in reversing his ban, there's no confirmation if he's coming back. On the flipside with Oath, I suggested he attempt to appeal, but I haven't received word on how that is going or anything.

  It's a sad sad day when two awesome posters got banned, but we have to move on. SW always has a constant flurry of unresonable bannings, but even so, we should stay cautious.

  _______

  Demon's Souls (PS3) Impressions:

  About a two months too late to the party with this impessions blog but here it is. I'll make this short.

  The one thing that struck me as the most impressive with Demon's Souls was the overall atmosphere, it felt perfect, the tower gave you a good chill, the NPCs, the way they spoke, it all sucked you into their world. The music helped immensely with this. Overall, the world of Demon's Souls should impress you in every way possible. The huge boss battles, the enemies that lurked in the depths of a swamp. It worked.

  

  Towering over, the Tower Knight is a formidable opponent, how will you take it down?

  Controls are fairly simple, L1 is your left handed weapon, R1 is your right handed weapon. Unless it's a wand, usually the left hand always blocks, while your R1 is your main attack. R2 being your stronger attack. L2 being your parry if you can time it right. Square uses items, D-pad changes items, switches weapons in coresponding hand, Left changes Left hand weapon, Down changes Items, Up changes magic spell, Right changes right hand weapon. X is your action button, Circle being your dodge roll button or backstep, Triangle making you use your right hand weapon with two hands, providing stronger damage. Switching weapons or having the right setup (fast switching) makes it essential in certain boss battles.

  Speaking of boss battles, the boss battles in this game are immensely fun. They provide a good challenge to most of us, while some are easier than others, a quick trick or an obvious spell makes certain bosses a walk in the park. Enemies are also fairly dangerous in levels, if you're not careful, a mob of even the first enemies of the game can take you down without much worry. And that's the thing about Demon's Souls, you tend to lose fairly easily, sometimes for me, it just seems like an unresonable amount. Sure it adds to the challenge of not rushing in, but sometimes after dying from a boss, you just want to get back into the fight as soon as possible. In any case, some enemies just do an unresonable amount of damage in my opinion.

  

  Every enemy poses a threat, they also carry the one main thing you're after, demon souls.

  The concept of the game is simple, go through the worlds and collect souls, defeating the archdemon (the head boss of each world) and completing all 5 worlds. There is no order you are required to follow, you can complete World 5 before you complete World 1. You can complete them in a per stage basis. Every stage (except the last of every world) contains a Major Demon, beating them unlocks the next part of the world, as you slowly advance to the Archdemon. Defeating demons and bosses nets you demon souls. Demon souls is essentially your money and your EXP, after defeating the first boss, you gain the ability to level up by talking to an NPC known as the Maiden in Black. By spending souls you can raise specific stats, every stat raised = a level gained. You can also spend the souls you gain on items, weapons and upgrading your gear. So how you spend your souls is essentially up to you.

  Now let's talk about death. There is no "Game Over", or such screen in this game. Dying basically means that you 1) Lose your physical form, and now in Soul Form. 2) Lose all your collected souls. First, about Soul Form. Soul Form is the same as your body form except that you make less noise, you have this eerie glow around your character and your health is cut in half. Soul Form happens when you die in your physical form, course you can revive when you kill a boss or use items that can revive you. Another thing that happens when you die is you lose any souls you had on you, by revisiting the place you died and touching your own bloodstain you can regain them, of course, if it so happens that you die along the way, you lose your previous souls. So it's best to be cautious when having collected so many souls.

  Another thing Soul Form grants is not being attacked by Black Phantoms, Black Phantoms are people (real people) who invade your world to simply well, kill you. I believe to my knowledge or at least experience, they only invade when your body is in physical form. Speaking of Black Phantoms, there are also Blue Phantoms. Now what do these phantoms do? Simple, Demon's Souls has a co op feature that allows you to summon people (Blue Phantoms) to aid you when you have trouble. While Black Phantoms are people who invade your world (they too are in Soul Form). Basically it allows for PvP while implementing co op. A fairly good system, just a little troublesome to find friends.

  

  Onwards!

  The online component of Demon's Souls is fairly interesting. Connecting to the server, you are then able to view other people (represented by white ghosts form of themselves) play at the same time you are! You can also touch their bloodstains to see how they died, hopefully so you don't make the same mistake as they did. Another thing you can do is leave helpful hints in the floor for players to read, the way it works is that the more recommendations it gets, the more likely it'll stay. So if you were like me and spammed "White Sticky Stuff" all over, chances are, those messages vanish fairly quick The thing with the advice thing is that it gives you a bunch of words you can use to match together rather than typing it out yourself. I suppose to keep the text selection fairly moderate and appropriate.

  I believe that's all there is to it, oh and I already finished Demon's Souls awhile ago, I got the bad ending (accidental) and plan to do another playthrough. Enemies get harder and there are still a TON of things to collect and more room to upgrade my weapons. Overall Demon's Souls is a fantastic, a surprising RPG to have hit the PS3, surely most of us weren't expecting it from From Software.

  ________

  Knights in the Nightmare (DS) Impressions:

  This game isn't too old, but it isn't too new. I'm sure many of you DS players have heard of this game, the one with the incredibly steep learning curve, the tutorial that takes like an hour to finish. Yes, this is that game. With the same artstile as Yggdra Union comes this new tactical/shooter/action/not really sure game!

  

  The cover is fantastic, heck, it's even my current wallpaper

  Wallpaper

  To be honest, I don't even know how to explain the gameplay mechanics of this game. I don't fully understand 100% myself, all I do know is, is that it's fairly addicting once you get into it and understand the basics of the game. The story is extremely compelling, it's incredibly dark and full of mystery, though there isn't a true villain just yet (as far as I am anyways). The story takes place between heaven and the underworld, in such a land, the kingdom (can't recall the name) fell randomly to a horde of monsters. During such chaos, you, a memory lost Wisp has awoken, and will soon lead the fair nights to taking back their land.

  What should strike you as awesome first is the art**** It's extremely well done in my opinion. The atmosphere of the game is dark, foggy and full of mystery. It's perfect for the name, it reminds you of a nightmare.

  

  Boss battle.

  

  A simple enemy battle.

  The gameplay is simply a hybrid of different things, there's a few shooter elements such as avoiding on screen bullets with the wisp, tactical RPG wise, it follows with good unit placement, different kinds of weapons, elemental attacks, a ton of stuff in short. You control the wisp, selecting units to attack by charging up, performing powerful skills, collecting the drops of enemies so you can regain MP and perform even more attacks, getting hit by enemies means losing time, which you have a limited amount of, certain amount of turn limits means you have to finish the "scene" within a specified amount of turns. So the time limit isn't exactly punishing, but it's best to finish it quick to get a better grade, while you can always replay any scene and collect any items you missed. Items are vital as they can be key items in recruiting certain knights in specific scenes.

  I'm not too far, only on Scene 9 right now and it's getting to be addictive. At a bad time too...exams >_>

  Overall it's fairly good and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an awesome RPG on the DS.

  ________

  Other games I'm playing include Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. In Castlevania, I'm nearly done, I'm at the inverse castle just farming for some weapons, I won't make this blog any longer by doing an impressions for it. And in the case of Phantom Hourglass, just need to finish it before Spirit Tracks is released, beating Phantom Hourglass means completing my first Legend of Zelda on the handhelds, sad, I know

  Anyways that's all folks, stay clas.sy this month of December. Keep playing those games, stay in school, don't do drugs, yada yada.

  P.S I actually finished reviewing BlazBlue! Go check it out

  Listening: Whatcha Say - Jason Derulo

  • Posted Dec 6, 2009 11:27 am GMT
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• 19Oct 09

  Tagged by FireEmblem_Man

  Since he was just so persistent and I don't feel like studying for my midterm. Here it is, 5 random things (or possibly more) about me!

  1 - I'm into ecchi anime/manga/etc. I mean it might not seem obvious, but I am. On the contrary, I'm also at the same time very interested in romance anime/manga/etc. Combine the both together and it's freaking win. Also, I'm not too into yuri (girl & girl), so please keep that in mind

  

  A little ecchi, a little romance, mix em well and you've got my favorite kind of anime/manga.

  2 - Despite being Asian, I'm not actually that awesome in math, nor do I excel in games like DDR or Starcraft, in fact, I'm pretty white washed. Can't blame me, I grew up in a pretty diverse environment, not to mention I went to French Immersion for 8 years (Elementary school).

  

  I bet if I were to challenge them, I'd still lose. DDR isn't my forte, but I can still do a good jam on DJ Max Portable.

  3 - Extending my fact 2, I don't know a lick of Cantonese. I can't speak, read or write. I can simply understand. This is due to the fact that I was learning French and Cantonese at the same time when I was young, I got easily confused trying to juggle to the two. Not to mention I'm just terrible with languages. So for now, I just know English and French.

  

  Cannot. Compute.

  
  

  4 - Despite loving JRPGs to the max. I'm terrible at SRPGs, I haven't been able to complete Fire Emblem games, Disgaea games etc. The only SRPG I've EVER completed was Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions. I know it's a little sad but for some reason, I just can't do it. I'm not a strategic thinker. Despite that, I still play them from time to time simply because I enjoy them until they become unbearable for me.

  

  Forgive me, but I'm just...terrible at SRPGs.

  5 - I'm very very awesome. Though this fact wasn't reflected in the SW Awards, I simply believe it was because I'm too awesome for votes anyways, people are well aware that I am awesome and don't feel the need to elect me.

  ______________

  Ah let's see, who should I tag then...*checks randomly down friend's list*

  -TecmoGirl

  -aaronmullan

  -15th_archangel

  -funsohng

  -Oath

  Maybe a Demon's Souls impression next time, all I can say is, I'm lovin' it.

  • Posted Oct 19, 2009 9:12 pm GMT
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