The NEW Game Journal

[Annubis]

Picked up my Vesperia new game+ a bit and I kinda just realized at the beginning... was there ever a main Tales game with a bad intro? Seems they've always put a lot of effort in their intros.

[MeshGearFox]

Picked up the Storm Owl, speeder bike squidfuck, and Slash Beast heart tanks in MMX4, got the jump boots, and beat Electronic Spider with nothing but clout.

I think I prefer the shorter and more focused levels of X5. The longer levels in X4 work some of the time, like in the jungle and ice stages, but Slash Beast and Storm Owl's stages have very long portions of just going left without a lot happening, and the two parts of Slash's level are... almost identical.

On the other hand I would've loved it if X5 had more levels to compensate for them being shorter.

Also picked up King of Dragon Pass from GOG. That game's neat. I'm failing miserably at it. I think.

BTW dincrest have you ever played King of Dragon Pass? It's very visual novel-ish despite being a 4X strategy game at heart.

[dalucifer0]

I'm in Chapter IV of Tactics Ogre: LUCT. My characters are a bit overleveled. I spent a couple hours grinding near the end of chapter three to get a Dragoon and to get him some good skills so that he could take out all of the dragons I have been fighting lately. Really enjoying this game and wish there were more Tactics Ogre games and less Final Fantasy Tactics Advance games.

[Esper_Crusader]

More Counter Strike lately along with Walking Dead, Rainbow Moon and D3. I think I might pick up GW2 later in the week too.

[Dice]

Picked up my Vesperia new game+ a bit and I kinda just realized at the beginning... was there ever a main Tales game with a bad intro? Seems they've always put a lot of effort in their intros.

Graces' animation took a huge dip in quality (see a part where Hubert is walking, his arms have an awkward frame where they just appear in front).  The big schtick with excited fans on Xillia is that UFOTable renewed those standards (and how, by doing two [almost] separate openings for Jude and Milla).

Playing Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.
Still the best KH game, IMO.  I freaked out a bit when I thought, "Oh shit, I should check my Drop Gauge!" only to remember you are free to roam. So yippee.  I don't like how fast the "transformation"-thing boosts up, it sucks that it does that minor pause to combat (made worse if you chose not to install), but I like that you keep skills for good, and they're not linked to Dream Eaters.  But, there is no hack n slash more fun to just go crazy in, I love the freedom and amount of attacks you get.
Major gripes: the boardgame is seriously fucking rigged, the racing game is less intuitive than Mario Kart for SNES, the worlds are boooring.

[OrsonFury]

Currently juggling a few games. Xenoblade on Wii, Diablo 3 on PC, YS6 on PSP. Although I'm determined to play and beat every YS game... my interest in YS6 is waning. Between the "now loading" black screen of death at every turned screen and clunky controls when performing special attacks, I find it's easy to want to give up on the playtime.

[MeshGearFox]

wrt Ys 6.

While normally I don't really consider a controller over a requirement in comparison to a keyboard... that game really is one of the few that isn't playable without a thumbstick controller of some sort. Also I don't recall the PS2 version having that many load screens.

Beat Izzy Glow in MMX5. MMX5 is starting to give me panic attacks now for some reason so I think I'm going to quit playing it.

[Monsoon]

I always thought X5 was a little underrated.  It has a lot of bullshit trappings surrounding it (countdown nonsense, no X4 armor if you pick Zero for stage 1, silly Guns n Roses translated names) but its action is pretty good and it looks fantastic if you compare it to X6 or X7.  I still think X5 and X3 are the weakest of the first five X games, but then again I love the first five X games. 

Played more Fuuin no Tsurugi today.  Picked up Forblaze and recruited Sophia, Cecilia, Miledy, Perceval, Igrene, Fa, Garret, and probably someone else I'm forgetting.  I think the only new units I'll end up using are Miledy (she had GREAT levels after I started using her and she's at level 18 unpromoted) and I guess Fa. 

[Aeolus]

I always thought X5 was a little underrated.  It has a lot of bullshit trappings surrounding it (countdown nonsense, no X4 armor if you pick Zero for stage 1, silly Guns n Roses translated names) but its action is pretty good and it looks fantastic if you compare it to X6 or X7.  I still think X5 and X3 are the weakest of the first five X games, but then again I love the first five X games. 

Played more Fuuin no Tsurugi today.  Picked up Forblaze and recruited Sophia, Cecilia, Miledy, Perceval, Igrene, Fa, Garret, and probably someone else I'm forgetting.  I think the only new units I'll end up using are Miledy (she had GREAT levels after I started using her and she's at level 18 unpromoted) and I guess Fa. 

You forgot about the terrible Virus stages/bosses (fuck Black Devil), the fact that you can get almost totally screwed over by the RNG if you dump all your upgrades onto Zero then lose him to the Zero Virus, the fact that you need to assemble your armors before you can use them, the uselessness of the Gaia Armor, the uselessness of the Z-Buster, and the uselessness of many of the boss weapons. But saying that X5 is a better game than either Xs 6 & 7 is like saying that it's a better game than the PC Megaman games.

[GrimReality]

Moving along in Dust. I'm about 10 hours in and my complete % is only 40%. There's a lot to do and find here. Plus, whenever you get a new ability, you want to go back and access the areas that you previously couldn't. It does get a tad repetitive, but it's still fun as hell. I'm even getting used to Fidget. She's amusing at times. It helps that all the voice acting is so well done.
I'm determined to buy the soundtrack the moment it becomes available.

[MeshGearFox]

I always thought X5 was a little underrated.  It has a lot of bullshit trappings surrounding it (countdown nonsense, no X4 armor if you pick Zero for stage 1, silly Guns n Roses translated names) but its action is pretty good and it looks fantastic if you compare it to X6 or X7.  I still think X5 and X3 are the weakest of the first five X games, but then again I love the first five X games.  

Played more Fuuin no Tsurugi today.  Picked up Forblaze and recruited Sophia, Cecilia, Miledy, Perceval, Igrene, Fa, Garret, and probably someone else I'm forgetting.  I think the only new units I'll end up using are Miledy (she had GREAT levels after I started using her and she's at level 18 unpromoted) and I guess Fa.  

Isn't the countdown timer thing sort of irrelevant? It seems like you'd HAVE to try to actually run out of time.

Also aren't powerups shared between X and Zero?

Anyway, beat the Squid level. My main complaint about the game is that it's... really easy.

[Aeolus]

I always thought X5 was a little underrated.  It has a lot of bullshit trappings surrounding it (countdown nonsense, no X4 armor if you pick Zero for stage 1, silly Guns n Roses translated names) but its action is pretty good and it looks fantastic if you compare it to X6 or X7.  I still think X5 and X3 are the weakest of the first five X games, but then again I love the first five X games.  

Played more Fuuin no Tsurugi today.  Picked up Forblaze and recruited Sophia, Cecilia, Miledy, Perceval, Igrene, Fa, Garret, and probably someone else I'm forgetting.  I think the only new units I'll end up using are Miledy (she had GREAT levels after I started using her and she's at level 18 unpromoted) and I guess Fa.  

Isn't the countdown timer thing sort of irrelevant? It seems like you'd HAVE to try to actually run out of time.

Also aren't powerups shared between X and Zero?

Anyway, beat the Squid level. My main complaint about the game is that it's... really easy.

The countdown is pretty irrelevant since not only are you given enough time to go through all the stages once, but IIRC even when time's up it simply skips to whatever plan to stop Eurasia from getting colony dropped before giving you the outcome.

As for powerups, it only includes the chips that you can equip (although there are X and Zero specific ones), boss weapons, sub-tanks, and armor pieces (though only X can equip them). Unfortunately the health and energy enhancements are strictly kept to the one that received them, which gets confusing when you're switching up between the two while beating the stages the first time since I believe the chosen upgrade goes to the one who has the upgrade show up on the Parts Completed screen and not the one who made the initial choice.

An example of what I'm babbling about would go like this:
- X clears the Skiver's stage and gets the weapon and the screen asking whether you want extra life or energy.
- Zero then clears Axl the Red's stage and makes his choice. He gets whatever the previous choice was.
- Dynamo rears his smug head and Zero is sent to knock him around a bit. He gets the choice he made after completing Axl's stage.
- X takes on Grizzly Slash and gets to make the choice, but at this point he still has no extra life or energy due to Zero claiming both Skiver's and Axl's designated upgrades.
- Ultimately there are only seven of these upgrades available per playthrough since the first boss will only relinquish his weapon.
- They will appear one in-game hour after the decision to make them comes along.
- And the Life+ and Energy+ upgrades are simply referring to the ability chip that comes along with the usual extra life or energy (and are the only reason to ever want to pick energy over life (unless I'm incorrectly assuming that energy upgrades increase weapon energy instead of damage to bosses)).
- And of course the same thing applies to the one who picks up the various heart tanks.

The tl;dr is that if you go through the entire game as X and collect every available health and energy upgrade then select a stage to go through as Zero you should definitely notice that he'll have piss for health.

[Yggdrasil]

*sigh* Man, checking PSN and not seeing Metal Gear Acid 1&2 there yet is pretty disappointing.

Anyway. I have been into Uncharted 3 multiplayer again, Naughty Dog did a good job with the last patch and didn't fucked up the game for those who are not interested in the DLC (and there's a ton of DLC for UC3 multiplayer).

[Annubis]

Yakuza 4, the game where when you conquer a girl, you have some intimate time together at the batting range.

[MeshGearFox]

So I managed to find DS games.

MM ZX Advent - Not too far in this, but I'm digging it. Atmospheric, reminds me a lot of MML stylistically, and lots of toys to play around with.

Legendary Starfy - Really hoping the levels in this game quit being so completely empty. In world 1, but everything so far has just been a non-interactive maze with enemies that don't attack.