The NEW Game Journal

[Dice]

Really enjoying Odin Sphere. Just found out Odin had been manwhoring himself with the enemy.

I couldn't help picturing it after... it was weird.

[Monsoon]

Beat Torchlight II, level 55 Engineer.  Focused on 2H weapons, Flame Hammer, Ember Hammer, Healing Bot, and a BUNCH of passive skills.  I put one early point in Seismic Slam but it stayed there.  Of the Engineers 9 passives, I had points in 6 of them.  Probably should be 7, since I didn't get much mileage out of Seismic Slam, and my ratio of Flame Hammers to Ember Hammers was in the neighborhood of 30 to 1.  MVP skill is a tie between Flame Hammer and Heal Bot.  The former is maybe the best level 1 starting skill I've ever used in my RPG lifetime, and I can't possibly think of a TL2 Engineer that doesn't need a Healing Bot. 

So, my favorite parts of Diablo Clones are getting loot, making character builds, and multiplayer.  Torchlight II absolutely DOMINATES all three categories, and has nice detail and variety in its maps and dungeons.  It's not fair to compare it to a grand open world game with a superior map like Dark Souls or even a good Zelda game, but it's way better than Diablo Dos and just about every other Diablo Clone that I've ever played.  I fuckin' love this game and I've already started a dual-wielding Berserker build, a tri-element Embermage build, and a second Engineer build that's a bit more of a tank. 

[Lard]

I couldn't help picturing it after... it was weird.

The only thing weird was you picturing it.

[Yggdrasil]

I thought it was leaps and bounds better than P3 after playing both. Kind of like New Vegas after playing FO3.

I never felt that P4 took itself seriously like the other games did. That always annoyed me for some reason.

[Aeolus]

I couldn't help picturing it after... it was weird.

The only thing weird was you picturing it.

Yeah. I mean, come on, he's the Norse equivalent of Zeus. Well okay, he's not THAT promiscuous, but still, there is a reason why he's referred to as the "All-Father".

[GrimReality]

Corpse Party is slowly getting annoying. For one, I just keep walking around the same areas over and over again. Then there's the sudden death sequences with no explanation, and no hints whatsoever as to how to avoid it.
for example, in chapter 2:

Code:

I manage to find this lever, which in turns opens up the way to a second lever. I then pull that one, which initiates a sequence which shows one of the kids getting killed. Then my character goes over there and ends up dead as well. This happened to me 3 times.

I'm probably stuck checking gamefaqs because I have no clue what to do. We'll see. I'll try again later.

[Dice]

I couldn't help picturing it after... it was weird.

The only thing weird was you picturing it.

Yeah. I mean, come on, he's the Norse equivalent of Zeus. Well okay, he's not THAT promiscuous, but still, there is a reason why he's referred to as the "All-Father".

He's like a football player amongst kids - he's ten times the size of everyone else... how can you NOT picture it?!

Lots of Kirby...
Kirby 20th Anniversary Collection:
-- GB titles are terribly dry.  Classic or not, they're tough to really chew into -- first game didn't even have abilities, so easy to kinda put off.
-- Kirby's Adventure for the NES was an amazing title, even for its time, even now... but this version lags when "too many" 2D animations are going off...or just the spark ability going off... so that's a bit of an issue.
-- Kirby Super Star is fantastic and a classic and favorite in my list of "top games evar".  One odd thing is that there is no button to get rid of your ability, you have to make a partner and kill him off or just let him live.  Anyways, still one of my favorite games, I think it's love.
-- Kirby's Dreamland 3 is fantastic, but ultimately I think it really suffers stiff controls hampering quality gameplay.  Rick the Hamster and Chuchu sucks.  Love the "added objectives" of collecting Heart Stars.
-- Kirby 64 is also amazing.  Some abilities are just a mistake, some are so much fun, and some are just game breakers.  What upsets me with a game like this is it feels too short for all the abilities you can toy with; I guess that's a reason for having three shard a stage to help you vary it up.  The bosses really took a level in hard too, but I love that there is always a creative way to use an ability for a few of them.

I'm so so sad Amazing Mirror didn't make this list -- if there's any 3DS title worth download on the Virtual Console, it's this one.  I wanna take a star off this Anni Collection just for omitting this one.. I wanna take another star off for changing basic controls between titles.

I also was feeling this pink vibe and got Kirby's Return to Dream Land.  I'm so, so sad I ignored it for so long -- it's a lot of fun.  It's on the easy side, but it's really great to see a game that goes back to more Super Star like game play.

[Mickeymac92]

Okay, so every time I go to play Lunar, I end up playing Persona 3 instead. So I guess I'm maining with P3 for now...but I'll get to Lunar soon enough.

Anyways, I had realized I wasn't far into Persona 3 FES after all, so I decided to restart and do things better now that I know to just rush to the boss area and then grind. I'm on April 23rd now. I actually almost beat the boss on my first try, but then I decided to see what happens when I use agi on one of the boss creatures and got by butt kicked. =( Now I gotta wait a few days until I can go back. Think I'll join the track team in the meantime.

@Dice - I never really liked Kirby, but I do love Kirby's Adventure. You're right that it's very impressive, even today. I'm also looking forward to playing Kirby's Return to Dreamland someday (soon, hopefully).

[Annubis]

Having been so generously (thanks Tooker) offered Torchland, I put GW2 aside yesterday and gave it a spin.
After 2 hours of gameplay I'm fairly impressed. Given that this isn't even the latest in the serie, it's still seems like a solid title.

I like how in 2 hours I found 4 uniques... while in 103 hours on D3 I found ONE stinking legendary (terrible stats)... and it was monk only... and I don't have a monk.

[GrimReality]

OK, Corpse Party is starting to irritate and frustrate me. I keep getting "Wrong End" without any clue of what to do. I check gamefaqs and realized that by not doing a certain thing I ruined the whole chapter. How stupid. I had to start Chapter 2 over again. I get past the part where I was stuck before but then get irritated by the idiot blue ghost boy. I just said screw it and turned it off. This started out intriguing and quickly devolved into "not fun" territory. I may or may not be done with this nonsense. I'd like to see how the story plays out, but the gameplay sucks.

[MeshGearFox]

Trying to figure out how to reset a GBA save... state on the cart. My copy of Gradius Galaxies already has stuff unlocked :(

Anyway, beat the first real boss in Megaman Zero 1. Feelin' pretty huzz about that. It only took me god knows how many tries. Can you still beat him even if you fail to save the reploids in the smash pit?

Actually, Zero and Warioland 3 have me both thinking about Metroidvanias lately. And why I sort of dislike Symphonia of the Night in retrospect. I kind of want to write about my thoughts on this when I get them more organized.

[Aeolus]

Trying to figure out how to reset a GBA save... state on the cart. My copy of Gradius Galaxies already has stuff unlocked :(

Anyway, beat the first real boss in Megaman Zero 1. Feelin' pretty huzz about that. It only took me god knows how many tries. Can you still beat him even if you fail to save the reploids in the smash pit?

Actually, Zero and Warioland 3 have me both thinking about Metroidvanias lately. And why I sort of dislike Symphonia of the Night in retrospect. I kind of want to write about my thoughts on this when I get them more organized.

You can totally kill the boss regardless of whether you complete the mission or not, but letting the Reploids get smooshed will tank your mission completed score (which, in all honesty, you shouldn't give any fucks over anyway since the only thing a high rank unlocks in Zero 1 is a room with a Cyber-Elf in it; and you only need an A rank for that (and you easily get that by acing the prologue mission since only need this until you first access the main base)). For that matter, you might as well use Cyber-Elves since some of them offer rather useful and permanent buffs like extended/double health, subtanks, longer invincibility frames, and so on.

[Dice]

More Kirby Return to Dreamland.

Wow!!  You beat all 5 worlds and it then just opens up the whole game again.  One thing I admire about the series is its knack to make some pretty creepy bosses (even contrast to the fact you're playing through bubblegum, rainbow, sunshine levels that were taken from a kid's dream world).

Case in point: Zero2

MUTHAFUCKA IS CRYING BLOOD AND IS SOME SORTA ANTI-ANGEL.  Nightmare fuel....

Funny enough, abilities I hate taking on tend to be awesome for bosses.  Hi-Jump is crap unless the game throws it on you, Tornado is too unpredictable, and Stone too slow.  But come boss battles, I find they work the best.

[Yggdrasil]

Does anyone has heard about "Manhunt" by Rockstar? I remember seeing the game mentioned in a magazine being way too violent, on gaf there is a thread about gory kills in games and a lot of people mentioned Manhunt so me always being so curious I saw some parts of a walkthrough in YouTube and read about the game in Wikipedia. And oh boy, this game is something...

The deaths you see in God of War III are over-the-top and gory but Manhunt takes the cake even with the graphics being in PS2 level. I mean, Jesus man.

[Mickeymac92]

I remember reading a lot of stuff about it in the news and on Webcomics. I think it was pretty controversial...