11th
October
2008
posted in jrpg, review, tales-of-vesperia, xbox-360 |
31st
May
2008

Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis is a spiritual sequel to the Atelier Iris series of role-playing games from Gust and publisehed by NIS for the PlayStation 2. The game’s focus besides the usual combat is that of alchemy, using easily-obtained ingredients in new recipes to make more powerful items and battle equipment. The game plays much like its earlier cousins, though adds in elements possibly inspired by other more recent RPGs such as Final Fantasy XII and Persona 3, helping to freshen up the series. While it’s not a perfect game, it definitely is entertaining if you have enjoyed other games in the series.
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posted in Uncategorized, jrpg, mana-khemia-alchemists-of-al-revis, playstation-2, review, rpg |
17th
February
2008

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is a non-traditional RPG developed and published by Atlus, which has several elements of old-school RPGs combined with dating simulation aspects to create a very unique game. While this uniqueness makes for a good starting game, it has a rather long time commitment to complete (70 hours or more) and suffers from being overly repetitive in gamplay and graphics about halfway through, unfortunately about the same time that the game’s story takes an interesting turn.
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(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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posted in jrpg, playstation-2, review, shin-megami-tensei-persona-3 |
13th
January
2008
Final Fantasy XII, the latest entry in Square Enix’s premier role-playing series, moves away from several of the common aspects of the series, such as replacing the common turn based system with active-time combat system that utilizes “gambits” to automate much of the gameplay, a broad character customization system through licenses, and a plot that seems more mature than previous titles. At the core, most of these elements work - they are fresh ideas, and for the first 10 or so hours, make the game really enjoyable. However, there are serious balance issues with the game that make the customization almost seems to prevent given any character a strong unique focus, and there is grinding — a lot of grinding — more than I felt has been needed in previous games to get past certain bosses, only to leave long sections that follow a cake walk.
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(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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posted in final-fantasy-xii, jrpg, playstation-2, review |
6th
January
2008
Now that we’re in a gaming slump, I am going back to titles that I need to play through and finish; FFXII is first on my list, then Persona 3, then I plan to run through both KOTORs and Jade Empire, pending.
So I’m about 25+ hr into FFXII (around 70% complete) and I will say the game really forces you to grind more so than other RPGs of recent. The mid-game bosses really require you to have your HP and MP up, as well as good defense and offense, and the only way to get all of those is to spend time in the fields to get the experience and then collect the loot to sell for gil as to get weapons and armor. It’s a bit annoying after so many games where having characters not active in the party still earned experience, to come to FFXII where you need to rotate characters frequently to keep all their levels up, however, with the gambit system and this rotation, you learn to experiment with the automatic actions to make fighting, healing, and the like all nice and easy.
Still, of the 25 hrs I’ve played, at least a third of that is in the grind (returning to previous fields/dungeons either for hunts or just to build up XP), and that is an awful lot compared to other RPGs. I already feel exhausted to this point in the game.
posted in final-fantasy-xii, jrpg, mid-game-thoughts, playstation-2 |
31st
December
2007
posted in eternal-sonata, jrpg, review, xbox-360 |
31st
December
2007
posted in blue-dragon, jrpg, review, xbox-360 |