The NEW Game Journal

[D-Rider]

I am playing two weird ass games at the moment.

Asura's Wrath:  This game is not very fun to actually play, but it's oddly compelling.  It's literally all flash and no substance, but the flash has got me hooked.  I've never played anything like this before, and that's a rarity in this day and age.  I dig it.

El Shaddai:  Man, the look of this game is impeccable.  It's beautiful at times.  It's too bad this art style is shackled to one of the most mind-numbing action games I've played in a long time AND shackled to some of the most nonsensical story bullshit I've ever come across.  I played it for just over an hour, and I have a feeling I won't be going past that point for a while. :P

[Dice]

El-Shaddai's battle system is actually pretty in-depth and... um, Japanese-y.  It's about timing your attacks, not button-mashing them or anything.  :P

I personally loved the game, but it's definitely a hard sell.  The bit with the designer jeans?  Fucken awesome haha

Baten Kaitos II -- I'm doing the Pac-Man sidequest (clearly Banco loves themselves), and I'm scared of fuck up.

[Yoda]

No amount of style can make up for El Shaddai. Sure the combat is fun and tight but outside the boss battles you're doing the same shit over and over again. Also, the platforming is god awful. At best it's a good bargain bin purchase.



On the other hand, Darksiders is one of the best "gamer's games" I've played in a long time. Tons of fun that one is.

[Lard]

Disappointing to hear you guys didn't like El Shaddai. Was hoping the game was good.

[Yggdrasil]

El Shaddai is good, just enjoy the experience and don't let anything bother you.

[Dice]

El Shaddai is good, just enjoy the experience and don't let anything bother you.

That was it for me.  I'm the type where style CAN outweight the experience.  I think Legend of Mana is an almost *perfect* title in this regard, and I can play it again and against just to see the world.
No one would ever pick Twilight Princess as a favorite, but it's mine for being the most atmospheric Zelda title.

I liked it, personally.  But I definitely understand why people wouldn't dig it.  I think it's just one of "those" titles; some will vouch for it, some would rather spit on it (I think reviews show that polarization as well).

[Yoda]

Current game agenda:
Finishing up Darksiders 1
playing RE6 and Blands2 co-ops
Megaman Legends 1 for fun here and there.

After Darksiders I'm going to tackle either:
Xcom
Vanquish
Binary Domain
Ass Creed: Bhood
or
Dead Space 2

[Dice]

Ass Creed is always a good bet for good times and fun conspiracy theory.

Vanquish is bad ass, but can be really...hm, tricky?

Dead Space is the shizz

Xcom I haven't seen score less than 80%.  It's apparently really hard, but I'm glad to see it get love.

[(Tunnels)]

Xcom

XCOM XCOM XCOM XCOM XCOM

[Lard]

That was it for me.  I'm the type where style CAN outweight the experience.  I think Legend of Mana is an almost *perfect* title in this regard, and I can play it again and against just to see the world.

I am glad to see someone else on the boards give LOM some love.

[Akanbe-]

From today forward, other video games cease to exist.  Guilty Gear is all that matters.

And maybe MoP =P

[MeshGearFox]

Legend of Mana has the advantage of being an action RPG. Its biggest flaw was that it was too easy, and that's the kind of flaw that's mostly mitigated by bashing the shit out of stuff with a spear being inherently fun.

A turn-based RPG that's way too easy? There's nothing inherently fun about picking options from a menu.

(Same principle also applies to Dogs in Robots 2).

[Lard]

A lot of people I saw complained that it wasn't SOM 2.

I think the same way that people were expecting Chrono Cross to be CT 2 and they got something they weren't expecting, so they threw a hissy fit.

[Aeolus]

Legend of Mana has the advantage of being an action RPG. Its biggest flaw was that it was too easy, and that's the kind of flaw that's mostly mitigated by bashing the shit out of stuff with a spear being inherently fun.

A turn-based RPG that's way too easy? There's nothing inherently fun about picking options from a menu.

(Same principle also applies to Dogs in Robots 2).

I don't think being too easy was the problem (although it was an element of it, especially with the bosses), but that half the game was obfuscated by SaGa levels of undocumented bullshit and the other half was either boring or worthless.

Sure the game had some great plot arcs but how many people reached the end just by going through the Dragon arc (which is the only major arc that's self contained)? Meanwhile, you could easily make some really gamebreaking weapons just by spending five minutes in the forge (provided that you have the necessary materials on hand and a good recipe online otherwise you'll be spending hours grinding materials and cash and trying to explore at least) but no amount of time spent in the instrument workshop could make magic not completely worthless (since you can't do more than insert coin into wood to make a flute). And even your party members fall under the same circumstances what with NPCs being the most straight forward and the most useless and Pets requiring meats and produce but with a few exceptions are also mostly useless compared to Golems which require your leftover forged/tempered equipment.

Also not helping matters is just how much the Mana series has borrowed and based itself on SD3. I mean, there's a ton of references in LoM but most of them are going to go right over the heads of those who haven't emulated SD3 yet (of course every other game since then has basically treated SD3/LoM as the only Mana games; including Sword of Mana). It's like playing OG Zelda and Zelda II then skipping all the way to WW and wondering what's with all this Hero of Time business because OoT never left Japan.

[MeshGearFox]

Legend of Mana had materials named after SD3 towns and statues of the SD3 guys in Geo. Those are pretty minor references.