The NEW Game Journal

[Lard]

Radiata Stories.

Fuck the Non-Human path too, it's a pain in the ass and the best characters are like half as good as the A-listers in the Human path.

Thank you for correcting my doofishness.
I will follow your advice, oh wise one.

[Klyde Chroma]

Is PSP region free?

Yes.  I have a ton of import PSP games.

Best way to play Tales of Destiny 2 and Breath of Fire 3 (which I just decided to start 2 days ago)!! PAL imports btw... thus no translation necessary.. and on that note....

I remembered Breath of Fire 3 rocking.... I knew I loved it.... but these memories were all crafted and stocked up in me nah-gun upon the titles release many moons ago... But wow... I had no idea NO RECALL of just how much this rocked... talk about classic-gaming-greatness... between this and the .hack series right now I don't even care to check siliconera daily ATM-LoL

Also just want to extend a quick thanks to Dice for sharing her experience with BOF3 a month of two ago and inspiring the decision to move onto this play-through... And additionally, to Aeolus for the his ultra-in-depth answer to my ZX question.

Now if I can just discover the 8th day of the week to find some time for my current gen titles (some of which are officially about to be labelled backlogged in the interest of these classic gems...) I would be set....if I can't have the 8th day I'd settle for the 25th hour I suppose....

[dalucifer0]

Nearing the end of Tactics Ogre. I remember at the end of Chapter 1 I only had six hours put in. I thought the game would only last 20 hours. I'm at 40 hours now and I may need to do a little grinding to get more abilities and shit for my characters.

[MeshGearFox]

Got the remaining Heart Tanks in X5. Lasers in Virus Level 1 aren't hard. Black Devil is a mofo.

Liking Solatorobo a lot more than I thought I would, probably because OH MY GOD DOGGY PERSON LOOK AT THIS CUTE LITTLE TEETH.

[Monsoon]

I swear to god, if I hear the lilting coo of ONE MORE GODDAMN SAPIENT SKY CHICKEN... I just might snap. 

...beat City in the Sky, now looking around for a Piece of Heart since I have 4/5, then I'll go fix the big mirror.  Woo comma splices!

[MeshGearFox]

Are you still playing Twilight PRincess or do you mean the other game with the sapient sky chickeOH MY GOD THE PANDA IN THE WOW AD IN THE SIDEBAR IS FUCKING ADORABLE LOOK AT HIS LITTLE TEETH!

[Aeolus]

So between all this talk about Megaman games, especially the ZX games, which I haven't played since release, which I've been meaning to rectify as of late, which would also break the glut of RPGs I've been playing, so I've decided to satisfy an itch and replay ZX1 and remind myself just how much I currently loathe Crapcom. Turns out: A lot.

Seems I had forgotten one aspect/plot thread of ZX1 that Prometheus and Pandora had a hand in removing Ciel from the Zero series from the picture. Not a particularly big detail on its own but the fact that the third ZX game, had it been made, was apparently going to go back and have you play as one of those two (in much the same way as the first two ZX games gave you a choice between protagonists of differing genders) as a prequel to the first ZX game it would've likely gone into how Ciel lasted for the hundred(s?) of years between games. But like the Thomas going nefarious on Mikhail's ass and Model Z being up to something, it too will remain a permanent loose end.

Anyways I'm currently dicking around in Sector M which is like right up and close to endgame. Have all four Life Ups and three of the four Subtanks. Also have five of the eight equipable upgrades and all but Model P's weapon energy levels maxed. I think I've gotten every consumable too (as well as high scores at all the arcade games). No Model Omega, but I'm playing on my DSi currently so I haven't unlocked the boss rush yet.

[Ranadiel]

Ugh, I have so many great games in my backlog, but almost all of my systems are currently in storage(along with most of my games) ten states away. x_x Cannot wait till I can get things out of storage.

Till then I am stuck playing Leged of Heroes III as my last game with me that I have not beaten. I think this is my current record holder for the longest time between buying a game and actually playing it. Five and a half years. I really can't say that I am regretting not playing this game because I'm not interested in the story and the battle system is fairly bland. Oh well I guess it is marginally more interesting than replaying a game I have already beaten.

I remembered Breath of Fire 3 rocking.... I knew I loved it.... but these memories were all crafted and stocked up in me nah-gun upon the titles release many moons ago... But wow... I had no idea NO RECALL of just how much this rocked... talk about classic-gaming-greatness... between this and the .hack series right now I don't even care to check siliconera daily ATM-LoL

Weird, I recall finding Breath of Fire 3 to be my least liked of the four "proper" Breath of Fire games. It has been a while since I played it, so I don't really recall why I disliked it. So I'm curious, what exactly is it that you enjoy about the game?

[Aeolus]

Actually the second is the least liked of the first four BoF games. Mostly due to the abysmal translation, obnoxious sequences like Sima Fort and the final dungeon, all the ridiculous backtracking, the one-shot nature of Ryu's dragon transformation, the crappiness of some of the characters (fuck you Jean), the ridiculously high encounter rate, the ridiculously high need to grind at every turn, and so on.

At least the music and artwork was good (probably the best part), the plot was decent back when it was new (but now suffers from the same fate as FFIV in the beaten into a cliché department), and the shaman transformations okay (for as long as they lasted which was somewhere along the lines of not very long to not at all).

[Maxximum]

I liked the second BoF, though I never did beat it (have restarted at least twice). If I remember right Kat (think that was her name) had this bizarre skill path where some of the abilities she gained would cost much more then her max mana pool at that level. My favourite BoF has got to be 4 though.

[Mickeymac92]

I actually liked 4 the least, but I can't remember why. I loved the first 3, though. BoFII did have problems, but they were all par for the course for its time. I've yet to finish any of them, though. Not unlike most games I own.

[Kevadu]

I finally got a Vita a few days ago and I've bene playing Time Travelers (import).  Why on Vita?  Because I've heard the PSP version is a bad port that runs like crap and the 3DS is region locked.  Anyway, it's a pretty cool game.  Initially I wasn't quite sure what to expect from it.  The multi-character story and quicktime events almost made it looks like a Japanese Heavy Rain, but make no mistake:  This is clearly a visual novel at heart.  You don't have the freedom of movement of a game like Heavy Rain.  The major difference between Time Travelers and most visual novels is how...dynamic it feels.  You aren't just reading text while looking at static pictures, the game is constantly in motion.  There's a ton of action: car chases, shootouts, you name it.  Really, this is a visual novel with the style and presentation of a hollywood blockbuster.  Or another way of putting it, it's a visual novel with actual production values.  The story is pretty interesting too, and I like the way the different character stories intersect, giving it an almost Pulp Fiction-esque feel.

On the other hand, the quicktime events feel like an totally unnecessary addition.  At least they're easy, I haven't failed one yet.  But when they're that easy, why are they even there?  Especially since you're just going to rewind time if you fail.  They don't enhance the game in any way.  But they also don't seem to happen that often, so they're not really in the way.

Visually the game is a mixed bag.  It's bright and colorful and animations are very well-done and fluid.  But I have to say, it's pretty obvious that the 3DS was the lead platform.  This game does not make use of the Vita's hardware capabilities.  They did up the resolution for the Vita, but with over five times the pixels of a 3DS that just makes the relatively low polygon count models and low-res textures more obvious.  The models aren't terrible, but the textures are incredibly bland, making everything seem lifeless and sterile.  The combination of decent resolution but lack of detail kind of reminds me of PC gaming in the 90s...on a 3DS it probably looks great, but upping the resolution and nothing else for the Vita isn't the way to go.  At least it runs nice and smooth, not a hint of any slowdowns.

[MeshGearFox]

So between all this talk about Megaman games, especially the ZX games, which I haven't played since release, which I've been meaning to rectify as of late, which would also break the glut of RPGs I've been playing, so I've decided to satisfy an itch and replay ZX1 and remind myself just how much I currently loathe Crapcom. Turns out: A lot.

Wait so are you made about ZX1 itself, or just Capcom for being like OH HEY YOU KNOW THAT WHOLE STORY WE HAD GOING HERE yeah fuck you guys you're not getting it neener neener.

Anyway, I loved BoF2 when I started playing it but the sheer brokenness of it gets overwhelming the further along you go. Nothing... works quite right. And the balance wrt spells being useful is just way the hell bad.

Oddly I hated BoF4 until I started playing it again this summer at which point I really got into it. Wouldn't mind picking up a copy of BoF3 sometime but it goes for quite a lot. I mean it's not like I don't have a shitload of money, it's just that I'm cheap as hell.

Anyway, beat the black devil in MMX5. Wasn't really THAT hard. Also greatly appreciative that the game lets you change armors and save between Virus levels.

[Aeolus]

So between all this talk about Megaman games, especially the ZX games, which I haven't played since release, which I've been meaning to rectify as of late, which would also break the glut of RPGs I've been playing, so I've decided to satisfy an itch and replay ZX1 and remind myself just how much I currently loathe Crapcom. Turns out: A lot.

Wait so are you made about ZX1 itself, or just Capcom for being like OH HEY YOU KNOW THAT WHOLE STORY WE HAD GOING HERE yeah fuck you guys you're not getting it neener neener.

Anyway, I loved BoF2 when I started playing it but the sheer brokenness of it gets overwhelming the further along you go. Nothing... works quite right. And the balance wrt spells being useful is just way the hell bad.

Oddly I hated BoF4 until I started playing it again this summer at which point I really got into it. Wouldn't mind picking up a copy of BoF3 sometime but it goes for quite a lot. I mean it's not like I don't have a shitload of money, it's just that I'm cheap as hell.

Anyway, beat the black devil in MMX5. Wasn't really THAT hard. Also greatly appreciative that the game lets you change armors and save between Virus levels.

The second one.

As for the BoF series:

- The first is very bare-bones and uninteresting to say the least, but it was still well made with a solid enough of a gimmick to separate it from the pack.

- The second is as I mentioned above. The neat details are drowned out by the painful grind that you're constantly enduring, especially at the end since you need like an extra 10 levels to make it through the final dungeon while running off of shaman fusions, roughly 30 without.

- The third is where the plotting and mechanics starts to improve. Still turns into a slog at times though. Also I disliked the art style at first but over the years I've come to become indifferent to it. The minigames are also rather annoying more often than not. But still an improvement overall.

- I haven't played the fourth but my impression from it was that it was a further improvement in the plotting over the third.

- Haven't played the fifth but who doesn't know how it threw out the baby with the bathwater, even if the series sort of needed it. And even if I did it wouldn't be very comparable due to the entirely different nature of the game compared to the first four.

- Command Mission continues to be a stealth BoF except with a shit plot and Ryu and crew getting replaced by a pair of Maverick Hunters (and Axel) and their merry men (and Axel). It has the unique party member gimmicks and a mess of furry races in the rogue's gallery. On the other hand it is short and doesn't require that much grinding.


The tl;dr is that if you're counting ALL the BoF games then Command Mission is easily the worst (which is why nobody considers it to be one).

[Mickeymac92]

I've only played the GBA version, but I found the first Breath of Fire incredibly charming and fun. I had to force myself to put it down at times. This is really tempting me to go back to the BoF series...

Too bad the coin told me to go play Final Fantasy VI. I hope I don't hate this game as much as I usually do.