The NEW Game Journal

[Dice]

Says the fella who played star ocean and xenoblade?

Admittedly Star Ocean barely qualifies as sci-fi at all

And Eus-y....  really????????

Sure you get plopped on a backwater world.  But did you forget the area-51 looking aliens (let alone visiting IT in SO4), the time travel, the big-ass space ships, the gun-weapons, the virtual-reality shit, a place in SO3 actually being called "Firewall", the... the.... fuck I mean, really????  It AIN'T?? D:

[Eusis]

Barely IS a bit of a stretch, but when you spend something like 75% of the playtime in generic fantasy areas, yeah, it's kind of screwing up there.

Amusingly the twist probably DOES make it one of the more sci-fi entries anyway.

[Dice]

Barely IS a bit of a stretch, but when you spend something like 75% of the playtime in generic fantasy areas, yeah, it's kind of screwing up there.

Amusingly the twist probably DOES make it one of the more sci-fi entries anyway.

Naw man.  Naw.

[Aeolus]

Barely IS a bit of a stretch, but when you spend something like 75% of the playtime in generic fantasy areas, yeah, it's kind of screwing up there.

Amusingly the twist probably DOES make it one of the more sci-fi entries anyway.

Naw man.  Naw.

Hate to say this but SO games have about as much SyFy tech in them as a Tales Of game. Just replace time travel with the occasional space ship and ancient cities with moon bases and you're done. Hell SO games are basically Tales Of games but with crappier magic systems and more nonsensical plots.

[kyuusei]

Mass Effect 2. Recruited everybody who's not a DLC character. Did the Collector ship, Garrus and Thane's missions.

Then I offered to test out Garrus' reach and my flexibility.

[GrimReality]

Skyward Sword - Finished up the Lanyru Mining Facility. The boss there was surprisingly easy. Once again, though, I found the dungeon to be extremely well designed and fun. This game is really impressing me on the design front.
Now I've got a harp to play with.

As for the small genre discussion going on: In this day and age to only be playing jrpgs just seems silly to me. There are so many great games out there in almost every genre. The only genres I'm not interested in are sports and music games. Otherwise if it gets good reviews or good worth of mouth I'm willing to try it.

[Dice]

Barely IS a bit of a stretch, but when you spend something like 75% of the playtime in generic fantasy areas, yeah, it's kind of screwing up there.

Amusingly the twist probably DOES make it one of the more sci-fi entries anyway.

Naw man.  Naw.

Hate to say this but SO games have about as much SyFy tech in them as a Tales Of game. Just replace time travel with the occasional space ship and ancient cities with moon bases and you're done. Hell SO games are basically Tales Of games but with crappier magic systems and more nonsensical plots.

You start half of them within a futuristic-Earth setting. o__o
SO1 is the only one you can really argue that for since most of it takes place in "the past", while visiting "future" elements is like going to your friend's house to pick something up.
SO2: the second half (Nede) looks like a modern-day earth setting.  Hell, even elements of Expel had technological prowess.  The game starts with your being transported Star-Trek-style across the universe.
SO3: You start on a futuristic resort, visit a new-advance-dimension of super-advanced people, and technically end the game where the "universe was created".  NOT sci-fi???  NOT?
SO4: You've lost your mind if you don't think this one is sci-fi.  One dungeon is dedicated to lizards in space and you visit Area 51 itself in some retarded plot twist.  Half the peeps on your team are made from crust of sci-fi stereotypes.  Unless a giant robot on your team isn't sci-fi.

Can we agree to disagree or compromise your error in NOT calling it sci-fi by calling it a hybrid sci-fi/fantasy genre?  Clearly being solely one or the other is neither here nor there, and I am almost dumbfounded that I had to explain the above.

Skyward Sword - Finished up the Lanyru Mining Facility. The boss there was surprisingly easy. Once again, though, I found the dungeon to be extremely well design and fun. This game is really impressing me on the design front.
Now I've got a harp to play with.

As for the small genre discussion going on: In this day and age to only be playing jrpgs just seems silly to me. There are so many great games out there in almost every genre. The only genres I'm not willing to try are sports and music games. Otherwise if it gets good reviews or good worth of mouth I'm willing to try it.

Lanayru was an incredibly clever dungeon.  The boss was easy, and I think they make a point of that later on (you'll see).

And yeah, agree on the JRPG bit. I blame their inability to deliver as of late as a reason most should also look to greener pastures.

[Maxximum]

Picked up Arc the Lad on PSN. It had a nice little USA flag slapped on the thumb, giving me hope that if this made it over then maybe the rest of the good stuff will make it too.

[Aeolus]

Barely IS a bit of a stretch, but when you spend something like 75% of the playtime in generic fantasy areas, yeah, it's kind of screwing up there.

Amusingly the twist probably DOES make it one of the more sci-fi entries anyway.

Naw man.  Naw.

Hate to say this but SO games have about as much SyFy tech in them as a Tales Of game. Just replace time travel with the occasional space ship and ancient cities with moon bases and you're done. Hell SO games are basically Tales Of games but with crappier magic systems and more nonsensical plots.

You start half of them within a futuristic-Earth setting. o__o
SO1 is the only one you can really argue that for since most of it takes place in "the past", while visiting "future" elements is like going to your friend's house to pick something up.
SO2: the second half (Nede) looks like a modern-day earth setting.  Hell, even elements of Expel had technological prowess.  The game starts with your being transported Star-Trek-style across the universe.
SO3: You start on a futuristic resort, visit a new-advance-dimension of super-advanced people, and technically end the game where the "universe was created".  NOT sci-fi???  NOT?
SO4: You've lost your mind if you don't think this one is sci-fi.  One dungeon is dedicated to lizards in space and you visit Area 51 itself in some retarded plot twist.  Half the peeps on your team are made from crust of sci-fi stereotypes.  Unless a giant robot on your team isn't sci-fi.

Can we agree to disagree or compromise your error in NOT calling it sci-fi by calling it a hybrid sci-fi/fantasy genre?  Clearly being solely one or the other is neither here nor there, and I am almost dumbfounded that I had to explain the above.

It was more to be taken that most JRPGs have SciFi elements to them like that dungeon in FFI that houses the fourth fiend but are not classified as SyFy. I'll cede the point on SO4 since they actually tried to implement actual space travel in that one but the others are hop from one JRPG world to another less JRPG but still JRPG world. Also I don't count where they start as within ten minutes you're typically on JRPG world #1 (20 minutes if you're talking SO3, 10 minutes to get off of JRPG world #1 in SO1 for the brief cutscene that pushes it into SyFy territory, nada for Rena's story in SO2, and god knows what the fuck for Blue Sphere).

Plus Nede and TEH 4TH DIMENSION were closer to modern day Japan levels of tech with a bit of fantasy tech thrown in for both good measure and so some self proclaimed god can can explain how it can throw lazors and large numbers at you before throwing lazors and large numbers at you. (especially in the latter's case where you end up visiting a miniaturized expy of Akiabara for crappy minigames (BUNNY RACING!!! :arghfist:) and backtracking to the main world).

[Klyde Chroma]

Says the fella who played star ocean and xenoblade?

Admittedly Star Ocean barely qualifies as sci-fi at all while Xenoblade is... in some ways it comes off more as sci-fi flavored fantasy, in contrast to fantasy flavored sci-fi you might see in, say, Dying Earth works. Still, you definitely shouldn't rule out genres if the work sounds interesting enough to you.

That about sums up why I enjoyed both Star Ocean and Xenoblade..... but don't get me wrong, I am not defending my stance or position on the matter.... I am bias and rule things out I probably shouldn't based on the fact that A) I tend to have a pretty good idea of what I like and what I dont as far as RPG's and games are concerned and B) There are way too many "I can't wait to play" titles sitting on my shelf to entertain any more "possiblies".

But like I said once again, I am not defending what I said.... it was accurate and it stands... however nothing in life is black and white... certainly not our tastes and affinities which change and shift all the time..... that being said its silly to think when someone says they like or dislike something, that exceptions don't exist which you can split hairs over.... Particularly when it comes to such subjective matters as to what qualities qualify a title for a genre....

That being said I will re-phrase and expand on my statement..... With the exception of Xenoblade (and the Xeno-series), Star Ocean and a few other select titles (loved X-Com as well...) I pretty much can't stand giant robots unless they are sentient and relatively creepy to me in some sense (ala Evangelion).... I can't stand when sci-fi is primarily space based..... I can't stand D&D styled western fantasy with the exception of Tolkien's and Terry Pratchett related stuff (though Pratchett is European)....  And yes, I am relatively close minded... LoL.... The end

[Akanbe-]

Motherfucker.  I knew I shouldn't have gone to that trashed Reaper so soon.  The game pushed me along from there so fast that I still had three or four loyalty missions left to do when the suicide mission triggered.

Made it through all the way to the end without a casualty.  Beat the last boss without a casualty.  Then, after all that, I had to see fucking Jack laying dead on the ground literally five minutes before the credits would have rolled.

Good thing I didn't overwrite ANY saves.  :P Gonna wind the clock back to an old save and do this shit right on my next day off.  I will accept nothing less than perfection.

I tried to do that, but i fucked up the renegade/light options and I can't soothe any of the fights that break out.  I haven't touched it since, but maybe I should.  I'm pretty much right there.

[kyuusei]

^ Can you go to an earlier save and do more missions that will get you morality points? The bitchfight is easier if you have high Renegade, I found the other to be a tougher one though. I think my Paragon was too high :p I had to go back to the one whose loyalty I lost and use the red text and I regained loyalty.

Or alternatively, go to a save where you haven't done the all loyalty missions for the people involved. I know I'm saving some of those for last to make the fight breakups easier.

Anyway, I downloaded all the DLC today because I'm insane. :P Not Cerberus though, that one is EXPENSIVE. I'm gonna do the DLC and more loyalty missions as time allows.

[Akanbe-]

^ Can you go to an earlier save and do more missions that will get you morality points? The bitchfight is easier if you have high Renegade, I found the other to be a tougher one though. I think my Paragon was too high :p I had to go back to the one whose loyalty I lost and use the red text and I regained loyalty.

Unfortunately not, I only kept one save point.  I tried doing the second part before, but since I screwed up my paragon and renegade levels like an idiot, I can't do either. 

[Eusis]

Can we agree to disagree or compromise your error in NOT calling it sci-fi by calling it a hybrid sci-fi/fantasy genre?

Thing is this was brought up as a point of someone not liking sci-fi to begin with. At worst being half straight fantasy diffuses the other science fiction half, and given how it's generally more than half the game that's typical fantasy it's easy to see why it isn't as likely to bug people who don't like sci-fi, the point in doing this stuff to begin with in fact. I think when you keep the sci-fi THAT completely quarantined off then focus 66-90% of the gameplay on generic fantasy areas and their plots then it really does call into question how much of a claim it has on being "sci-fi" despite intros and the occassional bone.

Not enough experience with SO4 there though, although it does sound like the overarching plot's more fantasy than science fiction, bu t not in a way most people are thinking when they discuss this.

It was more to be taken that most JRPGs have SciFi elements to them like that dungeon in FFI that houses the fourth fiend but are not classified as SyFy.

Please stop, that has nothing to do with awful channel renames or syphilis.

[Darklight]

Picked up Arc the Lad on PSN. It had a nice little USA flag slapped on the thumb, giving me hope that if this made it over then maybe the rest of the good stuff will make it too.

I've really been meaning to play this, I got my hands on 1,2 and 3 from a pawn shop a while back. Maybe let us know how it plays out? Reviews are quite positive.

Me? playing King Of Fighters Orochi, can you say camp? yes i love the kof series