31st May 2008

Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis (PS2) - Review

mana khemia cover

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.

Review helpfulness: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
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posted in Uncategorized, jrpg, mana-khemia-alchemists-of-al-revis, playstation-2, review, rpg | 0 Comments

29th March 2008

kill.switch (PS2) - Review

killswitch kill.switch is Namco’s attempt in 2003 to create a new type of third-person shooter. Considering other games at the same time, the general game was rather poor, but there was one aspect of this game that made me interested in playing it, that being the cover system, which has been stated to be the predecessor to that used in Gears of War and other tactical third-person shooters. It is interesting to see how close to what we see in games today was already present in kill.switch, though the game suffers major faults from being too short and too linear throughout.

Review helpfulness: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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posted in kill-switch, playstation-2, review, third-person-shooter | 0 Comments

7th March 2008

.hack//G.U. Volume 3 (PS2) - Review

v3-cover .hack//G.U. Volume 3: Redemption is the third and final entry in the second .hack series, published by Bandai-Namco, which allows you to continue your progress from the previous games in the series. The series ends somewhat predictably and not too impressively, and while there are some changes in the battle strategy that come about due to the higher difficulty of the monsters that you face, this also manages to help expose some of the weaker aspects of the game’s interface and hardware limitations that would have been nice to identify a couple titles back.

Review helpfulness: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
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posted in dot-hack-gu-v3, jrpg, playstation-2, review | 1 Comment

2nd March 2008

Destroy All Humans! 2 - Review (PS2, XBX)

dah2-cover Destroy All Humans! 2 continues Pandemic’s mix of open-world and shooter, mixing up the formula from the first game a bit without affecting too much of the humor or other aspects to make a pretty decent sequel. Unfortunately, some of the changes come at the expense of making the game almost a non-challenge to complete, and thus resulting in a title, while interesting, is hard to spend an appreciable amount of time playing.

Review helpfulness: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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posted in action, destroy-all-humans-2, open-world, playstation-2, review, xbox-1 | 0 Comments

2nd March 2008

Destroy All Humans! (XBX, PS2) - Review Repost

dah_cover Destroy All Humans! is a pretty tight game, satirically capturing B-movie alien attacks with a GTA-type approach to gameplay; it’s only flaw seems to be a lack of being completely original.

(This is a review that I did before I started grading games, so the grades are based on my retrospective opinion of the game.)

Review helpfulness: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
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posted in action, destroy-all-humans-1, destroy-all-humans-series, open-world, playstation-2, review-repost, xbox-1 | 0 Comments

24th February 2008

Killer7 (PS2, Wii) - Review Repost

killer7-cover Killer7 gained hype both through amazing stunning graphics, and word of mouth as being a piece of art rather than a game. While the end product is a strong, plot-driven game with graphics that still live up to the initial reports, the end result has some rough spots, with the game itself getting in the way of being able to appreciate Killer7 as art.

The game takes place “now”; you play as a member of an elite assassin group called Killer 7 (hence the title), which (at the start of the game) seems to be made up of 7 distinct persons but that are able to switch places with themselves at will. The backstory is developed throughout the game, and explaining more would be definitely spoiling. Your key enemy are various members of a anarchist organization called “Heaven Smile”, which have found a way to dress themselves in small, undetectable but deadly explosives and thus are able to easily get close to their required targets (including yourself). Meanwhile, the launch of a huge number of missiles appears to be ready to wipe Japan off the map; it is possible to stop it if the right people can be taken out in time. The fate of the nation states of the world are at hand, and only the assassination group of Killer7 can determine the end result.

Review helpfulness: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
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posted in action, killer7, nintendo-gamecube, playstation-2, review-repost, third-person-shooter | 0 Comments

24th February 2008

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (PSP, PS2, Wii) - Review

harvey-birdman-cover Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law is High Voltage Software’s and Capcom’s take at taking the natural extension of the Ace Attorney games into the popular Adult Swim cartoon as to make a humorous adventure-type video game. Unfortunately, the game may capture the same game mechanics as the Ace Attorney series, but the integration of the animation against the typical adventure gameplay makes for an extremely awkward and extremely short title.

I will note I played this on the PSP, but I expect that there’s little difference in the PS2 and Wii versions from what I’ve read.

Review helpfulness: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
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posted in Uncategorized, adventure, harvey-birdman-attorney-at-law, nintendo-wii, playstation-2, playstation-portable, review | 0 Comments

17th February 2008

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (PS2) - Review

persona3-cover

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.

Review helpfulness: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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posted in jrpg, playstation-2, review, shin-megami-tensei-persona-3 | 0 Comments

13th January 2008

Final Fantasy XII (PS2) - Review

ffxii-cover.jpgFinal 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.

Review helpfulness: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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posted in final-fantasy-xii, jrpg, playstation-2, review | 1 Comment

6th January 2008

Final Fantasy XII (PS2) - Mid-game Thoughts

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 | 0 Comments

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