4# lanruoJ emaG

[John]

.ereH tsoP

[Dade]

Ya know, it's been a long time since I've posted.

Haven't really played any games lately. FFXII has been sitting dormant in my PS2 for about a week and a half. I love the game, but other things keep pulling my attention away from it.

The Wii hiding in my closet it starting to stare at me. I'm saving it as a present for my whole set of friends for christmas. Must resist urge to hook up and play Zelda.

Then there's good ole World of Warcraft. Still farming away at honor points on my freshly level 60 rogue. Still a few to go so i can get my High Warlord's Blade and have been helping Dagg and his wife level a bit. Should probably start hitting some of those higher end 5-man dungeons to get geared out.

[Jimmy]

Finished the Lakebed (a.ka. Water) Temple in Twilight Princess. It still stands that I hate the water dungeons in Zelda games. The boss was awesome though! Then I proceeded and am still wondering "WTF?" a bit from the plot twist, but not really worried. Now I have to go see a guy named Auru at Lake Hylia.

Sweet game, sweet game.

[Degolas]

Zelda - Turns out I wasn't at the Forest Temple. I am now :P

Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz - Main game is really good, the old party games...not so much.

[Losfer]

Randomly playing bits of Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones at night when watching Star Trek / losing my grip on consciousness.

[CluelessWonder]

Nancy Drew:  The Creature of Kapu Cave -  This game is really short.  I mean I was genuinely surprised when the ending came.  I thought for sure it couldn't be ending so soon.  The puzzles are straight forward; I didn't even need to consult a walkthrough for the game.  The only thing is there are a lot of chores you have to do to get money (big island bucks) and that was a little tedious.

[Dincrest]

I'm an hour or so into Children of Mana.  I'm playing this through to review it for the site.

[Dade]

I'm an hour or so into Children of Mana.  I'm playing this through to review it for the site.

So how many swords of mana are you willing to put into your eyes, Neal?

[Dincrest]

What can I say, Dade?  I've been a glutton for punishment all year this year.  Look at the 2006 games I played/reviewed:

MS Saga for PlayStation 2- not very good

Contact for DS- absolute biggest disappointment of the year.  

Touch Detective for DS- I liked it, but it wasn't as good as it could've been

Exodus Guilty 2 for PC- Only one measly puzzle and a pretty average story until the sucker-punch twist at the end.  I like the series, though.

(The one truly good game I reviewed in '06 was Trace Memory, but that's retro.)  

And the site needs a review of Children of Mana, so I decided to do it since I got the game dirt cheap.  Don't worry, I'll make up for it with Hotel Dusk (I have high espectations for that one) and some fresh and sexy Hirameki stuff in '07.

[ZE GRAND MASTER]

Got Zelda: Twilight Princess for GC yesterday. Haven't played a great deal of it yet, but after I've finished the tutorial section it'll get a lot better.

[CastNuri]

Finaly Fantasy XII with the little sister. We're around 20+ hours into the game...

Code:

We've wondered around the first sandsea to whatshisname's tomb (to recover the shard that proves Ashe's lineage). Completed the whole map and now on our way to check out the next sandsea. Our characters range from level 15 to level 17. Balthier is such an amusing character.

On my...err...13th collosus in SoTC.

[Jimmy]

I went snowboarding after a Yeti in Zelda. I've now made it to the Snowfall Ruins (at least I think that is what they were called). Game clock is at twenty hours.

Still much in love with it.

[Eusis]

Been messing with other Zelda games for short spurts, and compared regular and Master Quest versions of the first OoT dungeon. I'm kinda see-sawing on just how good TP is, given that I felt very disappointed at the amount of side stuff to do and find (still sizable, but there really aren't any bonus items ala magic wands or special arrows to find), but it's still an amazing game. And I judged LttP as the best because of just how great I found it as a kid, and the fact I could go and replay it, fully enthralled again... However, TP has left me hungry for more Zelda, despite having taken 65+ hours of gameplay to beat, and I don't recall any Zelda ever having that effect prior.

Maybe I'll come to a more solid conclusion as to which is the best after I've replayed the other bigs ones, but that likely won't happen until I get through stuff like Okami, VP2, and FFXII.

Edit: TP also comes off as the most linear of the Zelda games, save perhaps for Minish Cap. Fairly straight field areas like Death Mountain, and you can't sequence break whatsoever the dungeon progression. Plus while not as bad as SoTN, some items get mostly ignored after you earn them, which makes the linearity of the second arc of dungeons pointless from a gameplay perspective (from a story perspective though, it's fine).

[Sazabirules]

I just beat Final Fantasy 12. It's one of my choices for GOTY. Now I'm going to go back and beat Disgaea 2 and Okami.

[Dincrest]

Who'd have thunk it?  I'm about 6 hours into Children of Mana and given what everyone else said about the game I was expecting a complete piss-poor atrocity... but the game's not that bad.  It ain't Seiken Densetsu 2 or 3, but it certainly ain't Tecmo: Secret of the Stars either.  

Way more fun than Contact, that's for damn sure.  Now THAT game was a boring, plodding, monotonous, completely un-fun dungeon crawler.