The NEW Game Journal

[Yoda]

The platforming in el shaddai is unforgivably imprecise.

If anyone felt bad for not getting this game when it came out "to support unique games" don't. It's less than mediocre.

[Dice]

The platforming in el shaddai is unforgivably imprecise.

If anyone felt bad for not getting this game when it came out "to support unique games" don't. It's less than mediocre.

Use that green ability thing.  Never had a problem.
The game is good, but hard to do more than one run through.  It's unique, fanciful, and a good-bizarre.  But the game is pretty merciless in providing guidance in any sense.

--Movin' on.

Beat the main arc in Graces.  The first five minutes of the f arc are more personal and [therefore] meaningful than the whole friendship platitude themes of the first part of the story.  Sophie reflecting on her nature and on life and deal and all that is deep shit.  Seriously... no more fucking friendship jabber.  It's balls.

Started up Xenogears, initial impression: good!
I didn't give this the time or credit when it came out (I was...11 or 12? Maybe?).  But it does look pretty good.
Few things:
Awkward interface.
Obnoxious interface (I love/hate the ROCKET WHOOSH when saving the game xD)
Dan is the most unfortunate looking child in the world.  Clearly good genes went to and only to the sistah.
Something about Fei's appearance pisses me off.  ...I think it's the hair.
Can't wait to play more. :D

[MeshGearFox]

Dice:

@ Xenogears:

I actually love the game's story (outside of its weird tendency to make cringey pop culture references; also it handles Fei's psychoses in a... weird way). No, it doesn't always make sense, but... I actually think this adds to it in some ways. I loved the stories in Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Legend of Mana, and a lot of the SMT games. And in all of those cases, a lot of things are left open to interpretation or left intentionally obscure.

One of the reason's CT's story resonated with me is that you never do get a concrete explanation as to what Lavos is or where it came from. Some of the characters speculate, but you never get an answer. It's an open question instead of a mystery that is presented and summarily resolved in some key plot twist (and I think that CC never resolved much about Lavos' nature, and in fact made it more obscure, bugged a lot of players, but really, if they HAD explained it, that would've been the most boring way out).

XG's sort of similar. It spins out a lot of vignettes about the history of the world. Implies things. References wars and major events, but never really gives you a complete explanation of what they are. It's something that bugged the hell out of me when I played it, but... looking back it's something that also gave the story a life of its own.

What DOES bug me about the game is that, being a PSX era square game, the balance is shot all to hell. I recall a lot of the magic being of very questionable utility although I sucked 100000x dicks at gaming when I was in 9th grade and playing through it the first time. Also the combo system is awkward. Outside of a few cases, there's no reason not to just spam the current best combo. Shadow Hearts Covenant and Legend of Legaia did similar things to XG in that sense but handled it better since they took major cues from fighting games.

Also Norturne Sewers is the shittiest dungeon in a videogame that is not Daggerfall or Phantasy Star 2. Everyone bitches about Babel. Fuck that Babel was sort or awkward and not exactly /fun/ but it was deeply memorable to me and kind of epic in its own right.

Anyway I can't really save if XG is a good game or not. it's definitely NOT mediocre. And I really do feel that it's a very relevant game to JRPG culture and should totally be played.

Anyway.

Bangai-O arrived today. It's fun. Translation is very engrishy. I... sort of feel like that's on purpose. Everything ELSE about the story is like, this psychotic parody of 80s anime that it'd just feel weird without the engrish.

VO:OT - Getting a better handle on this. In particular how much emphasis is placed on maneuvering around. Like the huge brown robot dude is pretty impervious to being shot by the blue robot guy. So you have to get close to him and stab him, while not getting shot., because he can stun you. Which is sort of interesting to actually pull off.

I'm liking the Dreamcast as a whole so far. It's... not really a hardcore gaming system, I guess, but a very relaxy one? Not to say the games I've played for it have been overwhelmingly easy -- they haven't, really -- but just kind of mellow or leisurely.

FF:CC - I wanted to play this but have no idea where the hell my copy is. Checked three places at parents house. Doesn't appear to be in my apartment. Blarge. I did find my KoF99 manual at least. And a copy of Magical pengel that I had no recollection of ever buying.

Probably should clean my room.

Considering taking up animal crossing again to fill the void in my life.

[Vanguard]

Been playing DQIV this weekend. Finally got to the 5th chapter. I'm grinding in the casino to get that Falcon Blade. Got 23k coins so far, only 42k more to go.

[Yggdrasil]

The platforming in el shaddai is unforgivably imprecise.

If anyone felt bad for not getting this game when it came out "to support unique games" don't. It's less than mediocre.

I agree that the platforming is imprecise, but your definition of mediocre annoys me greatly.

[Yoda]

How El Shaddai is anything but mediocre is hilarious. Ok I'll give points for art style and solid combat.... but:

horrible platforming
terrible story (with such a good set up they deliver on nothing. There's almost no exposition of any kind)
you pretty much fight the same 3 enemies over and over
sloppy production all around. Transitions from cutscenes, horrible lip syncing, almost no explanation to what the power ups are (why the hell am I picking up bones of Ishtar, besides the game told me to?)

Just because it's unique and Japanese doesn't mean we have to think it's all that. It's a bargain bin game at best. Like Dice said, take it for what it is. But I refuse to believe there weren't times when she didn't have probs w/ the platforming.

[Yggdrasil]

Might have to do something with how much we expect from our video games nowadays. I enjoyed El Shaddai for what it was, not for what it should have been or I wanted the game to be. Simple as that.

[MeshGearFox]

Returned to AC after not playing it for awhile.

Talked to some pink wolf.

She said I'd been gone for 54 months.

Where did my life go :|

[Eusis]

El Shaddai seriously does seem like a game you'd pay $10, $20 at an extreme for just for the visuals. But I got bored in a rental, so maybe even that's hard to justify.

[Vanguard]

I have like 52k coins now. I got super lucky in one streak yesterday and won 15k. I'm thinking of hooking up my hero with the Falcon Blade, getting the Spangled Dress for the sisters, and grabbing a Meteorite Bracer or three. With the girls running at double agility with Poison Moth Knives paralyzing every foe, and my hero getting 2x attacks per turn, I can't see how we could be stopped at all.

[kyuusei]

Close to beating Mass Effect 3...... again. Much more war assets this time though. Thessia makes me weepy.

[Yoda]

Fuck Thessia. Those stuck up bitches.

I loved the Turian moon level. That's when it was plain that ME3 was going to be one hell of a ride.

[kyuusei]

I'm not a big fan of the asari but fuck Cerberus.

Menae = getting Garrus. That's good enough for me.

[Yoda]

After finishing the game I'm pro-Cerberus

I just get lost in the Illusive Man's eyes

[kyuusei]

You do realize that blue doesn't mean paragon in that instance, right? :P