The Gaming Thread

[gunsage]

I've seriously been wanting to try out Lost Odyssey. From what I understand, it's from the original creator of Final Fantasy or something. Also, definitely check out emus before you completely discard using the GB and if I may make some suggestions...

- Final Fantasy Adventure
- Final Fantasy Legend 3
- Revelations: Demon Slayer

And and...crap. I forgot what else I had in mind. Ah well. I was speaking clearly of ye olde GB and nothing else, but yeah, there's plenty of others out there. Does anybody else here use RPG Maker, have you found something better, or what? Personally, I think the best was 2003 version, where everything was side view much like FF6, rather than the old style of Dragonquest whatever. In any case, it's still very fun to play with and I've been using RPG Maker stuffs since the late 90s.

[Shangri-laschild]

I found my games for my gameboy the other day and finally went to go play them....only to find out my gameboy is broken. No clue what happened. Oh well. I'll just have to get my Zelda fix by finding the controller for the 64.

[Chanlin]

I havent really followed much of the previous threads leading up to here so I don't know if it has yet been mentioned.

I just picked up Lost Odyssey recently and I must say so far I am extremely impressed by the game. The concept is fairly cool with the main characters being immortals who have lost their memories. The plot unfolds as you make your way through the first basic plot of being sent off to investigate a huge magical device and the plot begins to unfold as the main character begins to remember bits of his past.

So far the game has great visuals, a very engaging and somewhat emotional plot line, and a well done combat/skill customization system. Basically the immortals don't gain abilities by leveling up but instead learn skills from equipped items or by learning skills that the mortal characters in your party have. Esentially any skill that any of the mortal characters learn can be taught to the immortal characters. The immortal characters truly are immortal as well and will auto-revive after 1 round of being KO'ed.

There is also a side sort of mini game called 1000 years of dreams in which you unlock various memories of the main character who has lived for 100 years. Each memory is a mini story in and of itself and has some very deep and philosophical material to it ranging from the meaning of life, the ability to stop and smell the roses so to speak, prejudice, imprisonment and the like.

Overall I say anyone who enjoys RPG's should most definitely check this game out.

[gunsage]

Something really cool happened to me yesterday. Some of my inspiration came back. I'm not much of a writer, but when a creative stroke hits me, it hits HARD. For about 6 hours yesterday, I fired up RPG Maker XP and hammered away on an RPG development first for me...good and evil plot branching. To be more specific, within the first 5 minutes of the game, you can choose to be utterly defiant after being found out to be a thief and the entire plot then focuses around how much of an evil bastard you are.

Or alternatively, you can choose to be cooperative and what is originally shown as something awesome because you're evil, is actually shown as quite sinister since you're taking the good path. Further, you're inducted into the warrior's guild and you get a healing spell as opposed to an attack spell before you leave the sewers. Fun stuff.

Beyond this I'm hammering away on Mana Khemia and plan on doing yet even more tonight. As far as Patapon and Crisis Core, I didn't play them while on vacation, but I'm heading back into them now. That's about it for now.

[gunsage]

To be fair, Atlus isn't a game developer but a game translator. All Atlus games are made by another company in Japan.

Well, right. In fact, I hadn't actually caught on to that until GK illuminated me to it. What I'm saying is much like Working Designs, I've accumulated quite a many Atlus titles or, to be fair, titles that Atlus had at least some part in "bringing over." Here's what I'd say so far as far as Squaresoft, etc.:

Longest Title
This was a tricky one. A lot of FF titles are expandable up to 100+ hours...well, the older ones, at least. If you want to be technical, FF11 would technically be the longest since it's a MMORPG. If we're not counting that, though, the top 3 would be...

Final Fantasy 1
Final Fantasy 7
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

FF1 took a collaboration between me and my bro back in the day, WITH STRATEGY GUIDE IN HAND, a year to beat. If it was clocking actual game hours, yes, it would be much less, but you get the idea.

FF7 was massive in sheer game hours, extras, etc. As a result, it was easily expandable up to 100+ hours, the only true contender to it being FF6...or so I thought.

Why is FFTA mentioned? Before I stopped playing, I still hadn't completed all 300 missions. I had completed MOST of them, though, including the "final mission." Twice. Yeah...my game time was as is, over 100 hours. This is yet another reason I'm interested in the upcoming FFTA2. Further, the most amount of gametime hours I've ever seen clocked? Disgaea - my roommates' files - 300+ hours.

Best Plot

Oh, this should be obvious. This is yet another reason I put 3 forward instead of just one.

Final Fantasy 7
Chrono Trigger
Xenogears

I know I'm going to be criticized, possibly heavily, for mentioning FF7 so much. This one's pretty valid, though, for a number of reasons, most of them would be obvious spoilers...like the final movie of disc 1...for example. There were often moments where the plot went to weird lengths, but typically it was pretty well grounded and not too terribly theorhetical, as seen in such titles as Xenosaga, Star Ocean 3, and really, even Valkyrie Profile, yet another reason I didn't bother mentioning it even though it's an awesome game.

I'd be stupid to not mention CT, though I'll probably be called worse for not mentioning FF6. Hear me out. CT should steal a number of categories and would probably mean more to me were it not for FF7. Enough about that, though. CT is awesome because it involves time travel, an impending apocalypse against an alien menace, and lots of different optional time stuffs you can do. As far as length, it's decent length, but not insanely long as seen in most FF titles, especially if you don't want it to be.

And where to start with Xenogears...well, let's see...it spawned a series that, while very VERY hard to follow, is very cool. The initial concept is a cool one in that it involves amnesia, hidden powers, and MARTIAL ARTS ZOMG! Well, that and giant friggin' robots. Si! If they had been just a liiiiiiittle bit better, Front Mission mentionables would be on here also.

Anyway, I think that's about it for that at the moment. As far as Mana Khemia goes, I'm about 14 hours in now and I can say that though the first few chapters fly right by, this game has DEPTH. There are certain areas that are quite shallow, unfortunately, as well. For example, you don't get exp and you don't level up. But you do gain AP which is used to gain abilities and stat upgrades that are unlocked by performing newer and newer alchemy fusions. There are elements from all Atelier games here and they're actually fused quite well.

Furthermore, certain "flaws" that were blindingly apparent in previous Atelier games are better, if not completely resolved. Here's what I've noticed so far...

Previous Atelier Games ----- Mana Khemia

Seems to load for various maneuvers - Does happen, but not nearly as often.
Audio problems - Absolutely none.
Prerendered backgrounds - Set camera angle, lots of sprites, but 3D.
Annoying voices, bad voice acting - Voice acting is very good, no annoying voices.
Timed dungeons, random encounters - No random encounters, there is a timer that causes day to turn to night which causes enemies to become much tougher, but dungeons are in no way timed...though some missions are.

Furthermore, if you enjoyed the prospect of school a la Persona 3, you'll definitely enjoy this one as you're off to alchemy school where you have assignments, jobs, character interaction, and all kinds of cool stuff. All in all, it's very well put together. Oh sure, it has its quirks, but if you enjoyed ANY of the previous Atelier games, this is a must have.

[lordlundar]

If you want when you play your villain, flag down someone in Corruptors of Fate and tell them Ruby Hawk sent ya. We're always looking for more peeps and though we are small, we have fun!

Though to protect our guild resources, we do have a recruitment policy in place. PM me if you want more info.

[Andara Bledin]

Heroes or villains? I play a villain on virtue and a hero on justice.

Both.

I'm a terminal altaholic, so I can never stop with just one... or tow... or ten...

I literally have a full stable on any server I play, no matter the game. When I was playing EQ2, it was the same, although I never paid extra for the extra character slots. I'm not about to pay just to support my altaholicism.

^-.-^

[LostMyMind]

Thus, I officially declare Atlus to be the 2000's Squaresoft.

To be fair, Atlus isn't a game developer but a game translator. All Atlus games are made by another company in Japan.

So Squaresoft still top (for console) for me.

[lordlundar]

Heroes or villains? I play a villain on virtue and a hero on justice.

[Andara Bledin]

Which server for CoH/CoV?

It is almost completely up to whichever group I'm hanging with at the time and what server they're on.

If I do go back, though, it'll probably be to hang with the Ars Technica crew. That's the group I'm hanging with on WoW right now. When I was hanging with the Gu Comics crew, it was on Guardian.

Heh. Just checked the Ars Technica gaming forum, and the City of Heroes thread that's still running was named by Nekojin: "City of Heroes / Villains Perpetual Thread v3: Spandex, Leather, and Catgirls, Oh My!" Anyway, that crew plays on Virtue, so it's most likely I'll be back on Virtue when I return.

^-.-^

[lordlundar]

When I'm not playing WoW, I can often be found playing City of Heroes/Villains or A Tale in the Desert.

Which server for CoH/CoV?

[Broomjockey]

Chrono Trigger.

There, it wins.

[gunsage]

Jeebus! I mean, really? Third paged? Anyway, as usual, I've been hammering away on Shining Force Neo. I'm likely to review that soon on here so you'll know why. I'm planning on picking up Mana Khemia today. This makes Atlus my top company right now...well...besides Nintendo, technically...as most games owned for a company. It used to be Squaresoft. Thus, I officially declare Atlus to be the 2000's Squaresoft. And really, I don't think I'm in the wrong for declaring this, given that I was a devout Squaresoft and even Square-Enix follower, but with as hit/miss as they've been, yup, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

In memoriam of this, what do you guys think are the best Squaresoft, Enix, and Square-Enix titles? I figure this'll be a fun contest that we can weigh with longest game, best graphics, best story, best music, best innovation, etc. And obviously, ALL Squaresoft, Square-Enix, and Enix titles are at play here. It'll be something I'll have to think about because I wouldn't want to do FF7 across the board (as it's apparent I'm a HYUGE fanboy), so this will certainly be interesting!

[gunsage]

Starting from the top...

Bully was a great title for the PS2, but unfortunately, they didn't add much when converting it for the new systems. One system they ought to port it to is the PSP. That'd be cool. I need to go back and figure out the exact error I was getting, but yeah, I don't think it completed the install sequence. On a slightly unrelated note, I couldn't get Grandia 2 PC working either. Not really trying to monopolize the page, but more or less just keep it as current as possible so you guys don't have to go searching for it.

Also, definitely interested in Brawl, but I've yet to get a Wii. While I'm at it, Patapon's not bad, especially for a $20 game, but think about it like Loco Roco. It's bright, colorful, quirky...but you'd probably be a little pissed if you paid over $20 for it. That's not to say it's a bad game. In fact, it's actually pretty fun, but mostly in small doses. Still loving Crisis Core and again, I definitely recommend it if you like FF7.

[lordlundar]

Be thankful you weren't in the private beta. They planned for a launch 3 months from when I signed up, and, well here's the list:

In my 2 weeks of testing I found:

- 20+ bugs that should never have been fixed before the ALPHA test.
- Half of the combat engine just started
- Top end aggressive NPC ships in starter spots

And they had a glitch which put the Spanish starter town on PvP. Now why is this so bad? When a town goes on PvP, it's open PvP, where there is no level minimum or maximum. If the country that holds the town loses the PvP time, they lose a town and cannot use it. Now this is the Spanish starter town, and if Spain lost it, there just went a faction in the game, as you could not spawn at the time.

This was the second time that the devs did this to Spain, and their response was "Oops, lets see how it goes." With a portion of potential clients losing any incentive to play. It wasn't so much the turning on PvP, as I can see it for testing. Heck, I wanted to see what would happen if a nation lost their starting town. The piss off was it happened twice in a week, with no warning, and a number of players having a lot invested into the town. Combine that with the flippant attitude of the devs, and I had enough. And they expected this to be launched in 3 months? HA!

I suppose I owe SoE a thanks on buying the company and holding back launch to actally fix most of the crap. To me, it just seemed like the devs just don't care about the game.