On a completely different note - I'm getting into Starcraft II, only a few years after everyone else did - Does anyone still play?
The storyline is great. Then there are challenges that are fun and hell/frustrating/challenging. The online is fucking ridiculous. It was fun until the casuals dropped off, then everyone you played was a wannabe pro who constantly watched gametape to mimic the pros and cared about their clicks per minute and all of that. I'm not on that shit, so I just stopped playing online. Not trying to be a dick, but you seem like more of a hardcore gamer than me, so the online community (which is great) might be your thing. I just couldn't hang.
I'm somewhere in between - I was fairly competitive / wannabe pro in my CS1.6 days, but I was never any great shakes at RTS, and I don't have as much patience with the WANNABE PRO thugs. I've evened out a lot and am a lot more low-key and am just in it for the ride now. That said, I have enough fun becoming better at something and simply playign a game with friends (something I haven't done online since middle school) I think I can still get enjoyment out of it despite my utter failings at even winning 1v1s in Bronze League (though there was one guy I battlecruisered... that was fun)
The Devil May Cry HD collection is out and everyone who likes action, killing, swords, monsters, guns, or demons should pick it up because DMC1 is the greatest action/platform/hack and slash of all time. Action is good, bosses are challenging, enemies are never total pushovers, and the Gothic castle atmosphere is delightfully creepy. Very, very well done game. And GODDAMN Dante Must Die mode is hard enough that the memory of the Nightmare 3 fight made playing Dark/Demon's Souls not even intimidating. God of War 3 and Ninja Gaiden may have been flashier, and Ninja Gaiden has the "get stunlocked and killed by offscreen enemies with no warning whatsoever" element that I guess some people liked, but nothing I've played since has required the technical precision of Dante Must Die in this game. Every enemy has a distinct strategy, which is something you hardly ever see anymore... As much as I love God of War, the basic strategy for winning most fights is "square square triangle magic quicktime event." Trying to just run up to everything and hit it with a basic combo in this game will get you ruined, seriously, as quick as it will in Demons' or Dark Souls. And this was back in the day when games still came with awesome costumes and unlockables you earned (or cheated, I guess, if that was your thing... Pretty sure it has real life cheat codes!) instead of paying for. Very rewarding. The collection also has DMC 2, which threw out everything that was good about the first and sucks all the balls, and the Special Edition of DMC3 which, while not as atmospheric, technical, or challenging as the first, is way more frenetic and flashy. And you get to play as Dante's katana wielding badass brother Vergil, which is a whole new level of cool. DMC HD Collection. Out on 360 and PS3. Buy it, play it, get your ass kicked by it, beat it, love it.
The first one was great, the combos were awesome and the fights were fun. God forbid you put the game down for a day or two, when you come back, you'll have no fucking idea what you were doing, what you were supposed to be doing and sure as hell no hints as to what to do it. The one thing I like about "modern games" is frequent narrative so if you put the game down for a bit, you won't get lost.
Impulse purchase tomight and bought the new Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City". The best comparison I could make to this is Mortal Kombat vs that Sub Zero game, fucking blasphemy. The gamplay is clunky, graphics are nothing impressive, and the cover based system is frustrating. 1/10
No specific questions really, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't the same old cliched JRPG that is damn near unplayable to a western audience like most of them are these days. FF13 was the last one I played, and it was only just passable in my opinion (I finished it at least). I did play Xenogears and all the Xenosaga games and really liked those, but that was a long time ago. I'm going to give it a shot and hope I like it. After all the COD and everything else I've been playing, it looks like a pretty appealing change of pace.
Final Hallway 13 was pretty much one long FMV disguised as an RPG. I will say though I thoroughly enjoyed the battle system since it required you to stay on top of battles instead of just auto mashing attack. If you liked Xenogears, Saga, et.al then you'll probably like Xenoblade since it was made by the same people, although apparently it was named something else at first but had the Xeno name added late in production.
The battle system is a good blend of the western rpg style and a more traditional jrpg. Have you played FF12? That what the battle system is most similar to, but unique from that in many ways. I say give it a try, it's a really good game by any standards really.
I've heard from a few sources that FF13 Part 2 doesn't have a true ending. Supposedly, the plan is for Square Enix to release a paid DLC later on in the year that has the actual ending. If true, that would be the most greedy, blatantly cash-grubbing, offensive DLC of all time. Worse than the whole Mass Effect 3 controversy. Is the part about FF13 Part 2's ending accurate?
Well its been flying about now that Eve-Online and the connected game Dust 514 are going to be connected in some shape or form. Everyone called bullshit. Holy fuck they made it work.
Say what you will about CCP - they're absolute garbage at a lot of things, active game balancing and customer relations among them - but they have some fucking vision. The question with them has always been implementation. I guess we'll wait and see.
I haven't actually played either of the FF13 games. When the reviews for the FF13 came out it just didn't seem like a game I wanted to play, so I didn't. I see no reason to play the sequel without playing the original. I was referencing FF12 as a similar game to Xenoblade.
I don't know about that, but I do know that it has several endings ala Chrono Trigger, but more fleshed out. I believe that the original ending is canon, but I'm not really sure. It also Spoiler gives you a "To Be Continued" bullshit message, but from what I've heard if you get all the multiple endings and fragments there is one ending where you get extra scenes afterwards, but quite frankly I'm not going through all that shit. It should tell you something that the same guy who went to all the trouble to collect each and every single tail in FFIV: The After Years is unwilling to go through the completionist bullshit this game throws at you. After I beat this game I went back and re-played the end of FFIX just to remember what a satisfying ending looked like.
I played through and got the final ending on XIII-2 (which I actually liked more than XIII). The "special" ending was a huge letdown, and was seriously pointless. It was: Spoiler The main antagonist, Caius, basically does a monologue about how he ended up winning and what he plans to do now. To say it was disappointing was an understatement. It added literally nothing, and was NOT worth going through and getting. As for DLC, I've heard they're doing DLC for Lightning, Snow, and Sazh (which is already released), but I haven't heard about any DLC alternate ending. If anything, I'd guess they're aiming at Final Fantasy XIII-3. I personally was so annoyed with the secret ending that I decided NOT to download the DLC, even though I did enjoy the game.
I'm playing through FFIX right now on PSP. God this fucking game was great. It makes playing 13 hard. I am having fun with the "hunts" in 13, all of the exploration is hard. It is fucking annoying that you can't sit there and clear it out, you reach that Crystarium cap and have to come back to it later. I'm heading to the tower in 13 and as soon as the Crystarium opens up again, I'm going right back to the open space. They've had some fucked storylines before, this takes the cake. I mean, I just don't get it, and barely have a feel for the world unlike every other game where you got lost in the world and cared about it.
Say what you will but Spoiler the ending in FFIX felt complete. And the music fit perfectly. When Garnet just dives into Zidane's arms as the crescendo occurs I shivered. And then the small moments, when he gives her a small smile and a shrug and she punches him as he embraces her...I teared up a little bit ok? Fuck you. A close second for me ending wise is FFVI, because the rundown of all the characters as they leave Kefka's tower always brings a smile to my face. Ok, sorry for the FF fanboyism.
It may be because it was the first Final Fantasy game I played and completed, but FFX will always hold a special place for me. Not only was it the first FF game I beat, but it was the first RPG that I put 80+ hours into, doing all of the side quests, leveling my characters up, and beating all of the optional bosses. Nostalgia plays a big part in it, I know, but damn that was a good game.
FFX is definitely in my top 3 (along with 7 and... Tactics, maybe, if that counts), but goddamn if the sidequests to get the ultimate weapons weren't tedious as all hell - dodge 200 lightning bolts? Finish a chocobo race with a time of 0.00 seconds? That fucking butterfly game? Whatever. I'm pretty sure I eventually finished them all, with the possible exception of the butterflies, but I remember distinctly that in my excitement after beating the chocobo race I forgot to save and got Malboro ambush-fucked. GG please come again. Also, why the fuck did blitzball never get its own game? I'd buy it. Hell, why isn't it a real sport yet? I picked up FFX like 2 years ago to replay it and spent most of my time just playing this minigame and assembling the most badass unbeatable squad there was. Shit was real. I also spent an inordinate amount of time playing that card game from FFIX, even though there were no tangible rewards whatsoever as far as I know. That was fun as hell.
I liked Final Fantasy 9 - I seem to be in a very firm minority here though. The FF13 hallway was frustrating but had a good battle system and I really enjoyed a few of the characters - though what was really frustrating was fans saying 'Oh it gets more open at the 20 hour mark' ... seriously?