The NEW Game Journal

[Lard]

I picked up Ocarina for the 3ds yesterday. I'm determined to sit down and finish the game at some point this year.

[Aeolus]

Beat the Minotaur and Medusa in SMTIV today/yesterday.

Now dicking around in the underground.

[Dice]

I picked up Ocarina for the 3ds yesterday. I'm determined to sit down and finish the game at some point this year.

I *Hate* the childhood arc of that game, I hate the dungeons, I hate the tools you get, I hate the bosses, and I hate the people you meet (except chillin' in Zora's Domain, that place is lovely even when in a dated game).

But man I love the adult-dungeons.  The Forest Temple is probably one of my favorite Zelda dungeons.

[Lard]

What's wrong with the childhood stuff?

[Starmongoose]

She literally says what she doesn't like about it in the post!

"I *Hate* the childhood arc of that game, I hate the dungeons, I hate the tools you get, I hate the bosses, and I hate the people you meet (except chillin' in Zora's Domain, that place is lovely even when in a dated game)."

[Dice]

What's wrong with the childhood stuff?

It's, for lack of better words, just childish.  It's easy and it's drawn out three full and lackluster dungeons (Jabu Jabu maybe being the most of an exception, but the fact it's this awkward and poorly mapped escort mission more than makes up for whatever uniqueness it has).

I simply found the adult dungeons both literally and metaphorically "grow up" nicely.

Tales of Xillia -- Playing NG+ and bored of it.  I'm doing trophies because they aren't terribly hard, and while I'm glad a lot of them aren't "Do this 1000x" (although very few are), but man..it still feels like it's too much to do the ones that ask you to do something a mere 100x.

I also feel weird with anime where you have sweet Elize and her cute little tiny nose...and Rowen's elongated old-man nose that looks incredibly "human" to Elize's "anime nose".  (or with computer keys: going from < to , ).

Nunace aside though, I think the best part of this games is when it reverts to more "traditional" Tales interaction through sub-events. Previous Tales games had a knack for having the party stand around in a group and chat -- just chat.  I found more character development happens in these little conversations but also help to flesh out the plot and are a lot more meaningful than the whole of the "grander cinematic action sequences" that make up most major story sequences.

[MeshGearFox]

The child arc dungeons were really simple, also the mandatory boomerang action in Jabu Jabu's belly was wagalhguahlhg since you can't aim that thing. I should finish OoT sometime -- up to the Spirit Temple.

Anyway...

Rondo's Stuff - Level 4 is massively harder than Level 3 for me, and a lot more interesting. Then again I kept falling into the bad path in Level 3 I think. Maybe the one with the MEdusa Headz is better.

Xenoblade - Up to the mine in Colony 6. I think I'm overleveled still.

Spectrobigins - Vaguely Raidoish? Seems alright? Not something I really feel like playing right now but it was cheap as hell.

IDK this weather has me in the mood to play COMMANDER KEEN or CONTRA or something.

--- edit ---

Murgatroyds - Got the letter from Anju to give to Purple Billy.

[DPB]

Growlanser IV is getting better now that I have more than three characters in my party. Magic still seems somewhat feeble compared to physical attacks - I don't have any AoE spells yet and it takes forever to charge up spells to higher levels, during which time you could have made a few attacks. The only real advantage at the moment (aside from taking out enemies weak to magic) is being able to target from any range.

The story has picked up a lot too after finally leaving the military academy. It was getting a bit old going back and forth to the same place over and over again.

[(Tunnels)]

Played through Catherine in the past couple days.  The first time I played I stopped around the 6th day after I found out a missed out on helping bar patron achievements and that killed all my drive to keep playing. Well, lately I wanted something short and decided to give it another go. I used a guide to help me with the bar patron decisions, since I don't see much achievement in helping out the people since it's literally making an a or b choice.

Anywho, it was a fun experience overall. It felt awesome in the last few stages where I made use of all I learned from playing. It may not be anywhere near  Dark Souls difficulty, but this is another game where it doesn't really hold your hand; you gotta keep trying until you figure out the best way to overcome each climbing obstacle. I started out bad, just pushing and pulling randomly until something worked, but those last few stages I started to think faster and know how I was I supposed to overcome each challenge.

I got the

Code:

Katherine true ending

and was pretty pleased with it. It felt fulfilling, if a bit saccharine.

Gonna give Radiant Historia another go. For those who've played, about how long would you say it is?

[GrimReality]

I've played through 11 episodes of Asura's Wrath. What a nutso game! I'm finding it rather fun, though. The fighting is kind of repetitive, with a very limited amount of moves, but it's still pretty intense. I don't even mind the QTEs all that much. They work well here. I'm even intrigued as to the cheesy anime-style story.

[sandiny0ursh0es]

Pokemon Black 2: Beat Pokemon League in one try yay. My entourage consisted of an overpowered Roserade (pretty much used this Pokemon like 50% of the time), Samurott, Probopass, Chandelure, Krookodile, & Altaria. Now I'm debating if I want to continue on with post-game stuff or move on to something different.

I finally purchased a Vita and already have enough games from Playstation Plus to last me for the rest of the year (been downloading free Vita games for months). First up is definitely Zero Escape.

[Tomara]

Gonna give Radiant Historia another go. For those who've played, about how long would you say it is?

45 or so if you want to do everything. It's well worth doing everything.

[Aeolus]

What's wrong with the childhood stuff?

It's, for lack of better words, just childish.  It's easy and it's drawn out three full and lackluster dungeons (Jabu Jabu maybe being the most of an exception, but the fact it's this awkward and poorly mapped escort mission more than makes up for whatever uniqueness it has).

I simply found the adult dungeons both literally and metaphorically "grow up" nicely.

From what I found, I always considered the first dungeon to be either too short or too early in the game; it's effectively a tutorial dungeon. Dodongo's Cavern wasn't too bad except that it was too big, and that making Bombs into a dungeon item rather than something you can straight up buy or find felt like a cop-out (although it's more or less the game's Power Glove). And Ruto was a load in Jabu Jabu's Belly with her respawning all the way back to the beginning if you screw up somewhere, plus visually speaking, it was a clusterfuck. The Slingshot and the Boomerang were okay in that they were effectively the child's gimpy Bow and Hookshot equivalents. Of course with the way the game was structured, that meant that the Boomerang was mostly useless outside of retrieving Golden Skullata Tokens and the Spirit Temple, you could tell that this was an item that they could barely implement and held off on making you do anything substantial with it. And the lack of dungeon music beyond ambient sounds in both Dodongo's Cavern and Jabu Jabu's Belly didn't help matters either.

The child arc dungeons were really simple, also the mandatory boomerang action in Jabu Jabu's belly was wagalhguahlhg since you can't aim that thing. I should finish OoT sometime -- up to the Spirit Temple.

Xenoblade - Up to the mine in Colony 6. I think I'm overleveled still.

The Boomerang could be kinda aimed, but using it without having to come to a complete stop was a pain. Thankfully, every iteration of the Boomerang since then has been better than OoT's.

One thing to note about the Colony 6 mines is that once you complete them you'll be locked out of the latter half of the area (the big open shaft part) for the rest of the game. Fortunately its not a big problem here as there aren't any unique monsters in the area and all the locations and landmarks shouldn't require going too far out of your way for, if they're even off the beaten path to begin with.

Gonna give Radiant Historia another go. For those who've played, about how long would you say it is?

45 or so if you want to do everything. It's well worth doing everything.

Yes, this. Dooo eeettt!!!

[Ranadiel]

The topic of OoT's childhood dungeons has just brought back my childhood memories of Jabu Jabu. I hated that dungeon so much for two reasons.

1. I didn't realize I could leave it, so after I died I was effectively stuck at 3 hearts because I found almost no hearts in the dungeon itself.

2. There was one fight with those things that hide in the ground that I just could not beat with three hearts for the longest time. Finally won it when I discovered that you could target them and then boomerang them to death. But still, Jabu Jabu was my most hated dungeon of my childhood. That or the Water Temple. Damn water related dungeons. >.>

[Dice]

That or the Water Temple. Damn water related dungeons. >.>

I actually liked taking on the Water Temple when I was...y'know...a bit older, and a bit wiser n' all that.
Of course, the 3DS' item swapping made this significantly easier to manage, so I should shut up.\

Also, I loved the water temple in Twilight Princess (definitely, and hilariously, simpler), but I also think that -- while I disliked most of Skyward Sword -- the Ancient Cistern was a beautiful and amazing place (WHERE FINALLY NINTENDO FOUND OUT THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO REPRESENT "WATER" AND "DUNGEON" TOGETHER BY THROWING IN A FUCKING BUDDHIST MYTH AND DUNGEON-ING IT).

And yes!  Radiant Historia is a great damn game.  Certainly, whoever localized it deserves a round of applause, I think that's certainly a game that's made better for how effectively its story is told.