[Sting]

Playing Dragon Quest 8 and I have to say this is one of the better RPG's I've played on the ps2. Does it beat out FF8? Possibly. Won't know until I get a little further. One thing that's for certain. It beats out that garbage that is FFX. (As well as Star Ocean 3 and Kingdom Hearts.)

I'm pretty much enjoying every bit of the game. I never did have any problems level grinding. I like the idea of getting rewarded skill points for leveling up instead of finding materia and drawing magic.

I won't go into full details until I beat the game or get a little further.

[Sting]

I've played a couple of games since being in Arizona.

Phoenix Wright - Justice for All:
Grade - B

Good: Looks good. Addictive. Requires you to do a lot of looking and thinking.

Bad: Annoying characters. (I only like 2-3 out the bunch) No replayability.


Apollo Justice - Ace Attorney:
Grade: B

Good and Bad: Same is PW. Just there's a lot more annoying characters this time around.

I just started playing Tales of the Abyss. Still near the beginning of the game trying to learn the ropes of everything.

I also have Okami on the way.

[Sting]

Triple post..... Oooo

Update on Tales of the Abyss.
Grade - A

This is perhaps the best RPG for the ps2. (This or Dragon Quest 8) I gotta try out the Shin Megami Tensei games, but I'm not so certain if I really want to now.

Anyway, we have an annoying main character, Luke, whose been imprisoned, so to speak in his home (castle) for his entire life. What makes him annoying is that he's like Vegeta but with a whiner voice and completely stupid/naive when it comes to the real world. What makes him likable (for me) is that a lot of the things he says is hilarious (It's not suppose to be funny, but it come out that way) He's a lot more tolerable than Sora and Fayt. There are other characters that far makes up for Luke's idiocity. Jade, Guy and Asch are my favorite characters. Jade is very sarcastic and Guy has a phobia of women, and both lead to some very funny skits/conversations.

Gameplay wise, it sort kind of blows turn based rpg's out of the water. I'll say it's almost on par with KH2 gameplay but it has some setbacks. Now if anyone has played Tales of Symphonia, you know you can't run around the screen. It's too linear. Tales of the Abyss, you can run around freely, but you have to push and hold a button (L2) to do so. Make matters worse, you can't attack while you're running around. That defeats the purpose of running around. (All of this is in battle btw)

The battle system, as I said, blows turn base rpg's out the water once you get use to everything that is. They have limit breaks, but they're called Overlimits and they're prettiful to look at, too.

It don't have the best voice work, but it's decent. It don't make you want to stab your ears unlike Star Ocean 3. The music on the other hand is really good. Perhaps not the best music in a game ever, but it is pretty good nevertheless.

I'm still not done with the game, but I think I'm about at the midpoint now. 50+ hours and my party is between level 39 - 44.

I have Okami now, but have not played it yet.

[Rigor Mortis]

A kid protagonist that Fab can LIKE? I must look into this game!

Like I already said, I finished OOE. I'll give it a B-.

Good:
- Challenging at times
- New sprites instead of recycling old ones like other castlevania games. At least until you get further into the game.
- RPG element with the map and villagers

Bad:
- VERY Short
- Very few glphs and glyph unions. It had potential.
- No weapons to equip. Glyphs suck compared to weapons.
- Same "story" as past three DS games
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[Sting]

I have to warn you, that is if you do check it out. That boy will piss you off. Might even force you to give up on the game. (Jade and Guy kept me in it.)

If I have to do a comparison, I'd say, think Shinji and Yusuke. I know I said Vegeta, but that's mainly because of his "royalty" status.

[Sting]

I take it back, Kal, do not buy Tales of the Abyss, that is if people wallowing in self pity pisses you off. While a fun game, this guy is just, too idiotic for words.

He turns into Shinji all the way in the 2nd half of the game, and I'm just sick of him. If it wasn't for the battle system and other characters, I'd be sending this game back right now.
________________________________

I think I've played enough of this to give my final thoughts on the game. Seeing how I've finally exceeded the 100 hour mark, (and I'm pretty much at the end) I officially give this game the "longest game"... That I've ever played, and I'm not done with it yet. Eldrant is the longest dungeon I've come across.

And I think I just might go ahead and head straight to the final fight (if that's possible) instead of collect the rest of these items. I just beat Sync for the last and final time. My patience has grown very thin over the last couple of hours and I'm tired of collecting stuff, lol. That's what I get for looking for games that're long.. I don't know if I want any more long games, haha.

It's been quite a blast despite my frustrations with Luke.

Story - Heh, Luke has killed what I've collected of the story, lol.. Ok, I won't blame him. I forgot almost everything, and I wasn't paying much attention anyway even though I've read almost every single skit that popped up. Nothing really sunk in. (Short attention span.)

Graphics - When it gets to the anime clips, it looks great, but I just found out that Production I.G. did the animation for the anime parts, so I expect nothing less than stellar. In-game graphics and whatnot I wasn't really impressed with it. Kind of bland compared to some of the other rpgs I've played for the ps2, but then the graphics aren't that bad either.

Characters - Everybody except Luke and Mieu was great. Luke was pretty good early on in the game. I'd say he really started pissing me off the closer I got to Akzeriuth, but he really got on my nerves after beating Van the first time. Jade and Guy are still my favorite characters along with Asch and now Tear. While I've never hated Tear at all, she's grown onto me. I've never liked Mieu from the start. It's a personal thing, don't worry about it, lol.

Audio/Music - Honestly, the only time I'd really paid much attention to the music was while on the world map and traveling in towns. And this walkthrough I was using kept talking about this and that song during fights and boss fights. Honestly, people actually pay attention to the music in the middle of fights especially when things get hectic? Especially in boss fights? I had a hard time trying to focus on the music when I was fighting the God Generals because they were throwing out Arcane and Mystic Artes, and I was trying not to get myself killed. Anyhow, the world map music, I suppose sound pretty decent.

Voice work was actually pretty good. Though, there were some parts that I found myself trying to skip... Mainly when there was some extention to a word... Mieuuuuuu >_<. Kirk Thorton (Jade) is really good here, but he's pretty good in majority everything I've heard him in, but I enjoyed hearing him in this. He probably has the best voice for anyone that does a lot of talking or someone that's informative.

Luke: 69 (probably 70)
Tear: 68
Jade: 68
Guy: 67
Natalia: 65
Anise: 64 (maybe 65)

Gald: 200,000+
Encounters: 600-800+ (can't remember)
Hits: 60 (I suck, lol)

Oh yeah, even though I beat her for the final time, I still think Legretta is the scariest woman ever out of all the games I've played so far. I think she might've scarred me for life lol.

Final verdict: A

Despite Luke killing my experience and I'm a graphic whore, I still had a blast. Once I beat the game, though, I have no intentions of playing it again. Putting up with Luke again is torture on my soul lol. (Sucks because you can't skip the scenes either.)

Now I'm gonna get back into the Metal Gears and finally start Okami soon.

[Rigor Mortis]

Warriors Orochi 2: Yawn.
I really can't give this anything but a bad grade because I feel like I've played it a billion times already. With the same boring formula, killing a million soldiers in one sweep doesn't help with anger anymore.

Chrono Trigger DS: A
I'm currently at the point where I just got off the Blackbird. The only differences I notice so far are a chance in item names, script rewritten in some places and Frog speaking normal English. The animated cut scenes are also neat. The SNES version certainly had none of that.

If I could play anything over and over, it'd be this game.
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[Sting]

Ninja Gaiden 2 - B+ (Finally got a Xbox 360)

Like the first Ninja Gaiden, your worst enemy here is there camera. Sometimes it puts you in positions where it's close to impossible to see what's going on. Good thing you can control the camera though. In the middle of a fight, though, it's so hard to get the camera into a position to where you can see because you're constantly being swarmed by enemies.

Even though I've never finished the game, this is my 2nd time playing it. The first time I got as far as getting my Scythe (That was in either chapter 5 or 6). This time I'm just getting up to the 4th chapter. Working my way up to getting my dual swords.

Now I just gotta get Devil May Cry 4.

[Rigor Mortis]

Currently giving Chrono Cross another chance. I'm looking at this game like it's a 10 pound burger. It's THAT hard to want to finish it.

The battle system is overcomplicated button mashing. Leveling up stats are random and don't happen with regular battles. There is no story.

Kid is annoying as hell too.

I'm only dragging my poor self through this game to see any connection to Chrono Trigger. I'm wondering... Why are Magus (Guilde) and Frog living in the same era?
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[Sting]

I still can't bring myself to play Chrono Cross. There are times when I think I might want to buy the game again just to give it another chance, but just getting past the first 10-20 minutes is a hassle to me since I found it to be boring. And then I hate the idea of leveling stats instead of leveling up in general. I like to level grind.. sometimes.

I'm still playing Ninja Gaiden 2.

[Sting]

I stopped playing Ninja Gaiden 2 for a bit. While it is a good game, I really see no reason for me to continue playing it other than the thought of completing it. There are achievements to be met and all, but it's not really worth it IMO. None of the weapons you obtain during the story, nor your health carries over to a new game. With that said though, I have about maybe 2-3 chapters left of the game.

Final verdict for NG2.... B- (O_O)

Now a game that's currently my favorite on the Xbox 360, Devil May Cry 4 is better than NG2 in terms of replayability. (NG remains the best when it comes to fighting) People seem to have a lot of issues with Nero simply because he's the leading character instead of Dante. (He's on the same receiving end that Raiden was in MGS2) I really don't care about that since it's still a fun game, and Nero's not a bad character anyway. I suppose my only gripe with all of it though is I'm not seeing where he fits into this yet. Does he have a relation to Dante and Vergil or not? How did he obtain the Devil Bringer? I'm on mission 11, and none of that's been answered.

Holding off on final verdict until I beat the game.

[Ultimate Kaiba]

last played: final fantasy tactics A2 (nintendo DS)

Grade= A

You can get hooked on this game and time flies as you play
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You cannot kill me, for I am the shadows, and shadows never die!!

[Sting]

This hasn't been posted in for quite some time. I haven't really had the time to play games like I wanted to. The last two games I've completed were Ninja Gaiden 2 and Gears of War 2.

Ninja Gaiden 2 - B

That camera and then some stupid water level truly kills this game. Seriously, what's his name (Itagaki?) was smoking something crazy to come up with the idea of fighting on water because it's ridiculous. You can't really do much comboing on water let alone the enemies are flying around you or shooting at you with rockets. Other than that it's still a good game.

Gears of War 2 - B+

I'm not really all that big on multiplayer games, but give me my single player campaign mode and I'm all for it. Marcus Fenix is my kind of character. The thing I didn't really care for in this game is the stop and pop (cover fire) method of the game. I'm more of a Halo-ish type of player. I like to run in guns blazin and gungho. But still the characters (Marcus really) made this game interesting.

Oh yeah, even though I can't stand the main character, I've been having a craving to play Tales of the Abyss again (too bad I traded it in.). I also want to start playing Tales of Vesperia. (playing RPGs at the moment is a no no for me.)

I have a 2 week vacation coming up soon (starting May 21.. I think) so hopefully we'll be able to start soon enough.