The World of Insufficient Light

Unlimited SaGa
The SaGa series includes the three Final Fantasy Legend game boy games (which were very strong for their era), the three Romancing SaGa SNES games (which never made it to the states, though one has a fan translation and one was remade for the PS2; both are on my backlog), the two SaGa Frontier games for PS1 (flawed, but very interesting) and this one, Unlimited SaGa. I really, really wanted to like this game. I even overcame some of my usual rpg prejudices for it (I hate breakable weapons, for one thing; and I'm not a huge fan of non-intuitive levelling systems). But there was just too much to overcome.

( Too bad, it's that bad )

Full Metal Alchemist
Over the last few months, Jethrien and I have been watching Full Metal Alchemist, which I would very much recommend. It's a really impressive blend of silliness and angst (reminding me a little of Buffy in terms of making the two work together, though the sensibilities are different). Despite the fact that it apparently overtook the manga halfway through and the anime writers invented the rest, I thought it held together impressively well (really impressive conservation of detail) and ended in a satisfactory way.

In terms of non-spoiler details: Edward and Alphonse Elric are brothers who, when their mother dies, attempt to use alchemy to bring her back to life--an incredibly forbidden act. The series follows them afterwards as they deal with the consequences, learning about the meaning of family, the horrors of war, and being adults and the choices that entails.

( Spoilers behind the cut. I also will warn that there may be spoilers in the comments. If you plan to watch this, you'll be happier not being spoiled. )

Lunar: Dragon Song
This is, amazingly, the worst playable game I've seen in a very long time. Possibly since Secret of the Stars on the SNES. There were so many ideas that could have worked, but just didn't. And there wasn't anything that made me turn it off in disgust, just a lot of things that added up to make me think, "Hunh, that was awful."

( But tell us what you really think. )

It's not like Unlimited Saga, where one bad mechanic (the reel system) spoils an otherwise really clever game. It's not like Breath of Fire 2, where an excellent game got an awful, awful translation. It's not like The 7th Saga, where executive meddling during localization turned a decent game into a terrible one. It's like they tried a whole bunch of "creative" things that weren't actually good ideas to disguise the fact that they had barely an hour of actual game. (I played 5 hours normally, which got me about a quarter of the way through the game. Then I plugged in an action replay to cut out all of the grinding. Another five hours and I was nearing the end of the game...)

Warriors Orochi 2
Just for the record, I love the Warriors series, and I think the two Warriors Orochi games have been my favorites of the lot. They clean up a number of the gameplay issues that earlier games had, have tons of characters and unlockables, and though the plots are mostly silly, they're not retreading the same material for the 6th time. And the biggest advantage I've always felt was that the series remains, as guadium_et_spes described DW3, "The most fun you'll ever have pressing the attack button over and over." There's a fair amount of the combat system really, but it's easy enough as a game that your non-gamer significant other will enjoy playing it with you.

( Comparisons )

Overall: A++ Would Buy Again.

Summation
40" (or larger) HD TV: $1,000
XBox 360: $300
Final Fantasy 13: $60
Ikea TV stand suitable new TV: $200
Trip to Ikea: 1 day plus borrowing/renting appropriate car (or +$100 for shipping)
Dealing with Comcast: ~several days of my life

Playing FF13: ~~Priceless~~ Apparently not worth it, after all...

PS3 vs 360: Decisions, Decisions
Amazon.com helpfully sent me the new FF13 trailer this morning. Bastards.

( PS3 and 360 games that interest me. )
So, PS3 will have a side-story Final Fantasy game, the Nippon Ichi releases, and a better Katamari game. 360 seems to have a better overall catalogue including several jrpgs that I’m very interested in. What am I forgetting, here?

(Also noteworthy: I’d really rather avoid dealing with DLC/patching; my TV is not cool enough to derive any particular benefit from HD or blu-ray; the Wii is out of the running based on my experiences playing it at parties; and I have some 40 games in my DS/PS2/Gamecube backlog. Oh, and work and classes.)

Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits
I hadn't heard much about the Arc the Lad series before I started playing Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits. It was mostly that I bought it (used for $5) on the strength of the continuing series. I read a Let's Play of the first game before playing this one, which actually gave me a better idea of what I was in for.

( What I was in for. Includes some spoilers. )

All in all, defintely worth my $5, and while it would probably be much more enjoyable if I'd played the entire series, I still found it clever and entertaining.

John Tucker Must Die
Following the last session of my first Winter Intensive course, I decided to watch a dopey movie to relax. I was pleasantly surprised by John Tucker Must Die. ( It was really funny, actually. )

Net Present Vocals
For all of you who never thought you'd see me playing beer pong:

The Net Present Vocals present Carol of the Kegs.

Vampire Comics
Judd Winick's Blood & Water was underwhelming. It plays very much like a feature film in terms of content and pacing (which makes me wonder if it started life as a screenplay) and is a pretty standard "joining the supernatural world" story: Man is dying, becomes vampire, accidentally unleashes horrible evil, turns out to be the specialest vampire ever, beats down evil and wins girl. The characterization isn't bad, and the art is decent, but I've just read this same story too many times at this point.

I picked up the first two volumes of Angel: After the Fall this past week, and while the first was all right (there are some interesting things happening to Angel and crew following the end of the series, Joss Whedon goes crazy when he isn't limited by an F/X budget, and most of my criticisms of Buffy Season 8 apply), the second volume contains three issues of redundant flashback vignettes and a dozen pages of random pin-ups. How was that worth my $18?

Legacy of Ys, Cooking Mama 3
My introduction to the Ys series of games was Ys III: Wanderers from Ys on the SNES. I thought it was a fun game, basically a cross between RPG and side-scroller, but insanely hard--I could hardly get through the first dungeon without both level-grinding and a Game Genie for invulnerablility. ( The details of Ys follow. )

Cooking Mama 3: Shop & Chop has some lovely improvements over previous incarnations, and some additions that don't quite work. ( Changes to minigames, additional sections. )

It's been a very DS weekend. I have Nostalgia and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story to add to my list, too.

If you liked the last thread of bad jokes...
Here's another one. (Yes, it's a TVTropes link, but it's not a terribly dangerous one. Mostly bad jokes, very few references.

At the zoo, a group of porpoises were telling the visiting kids to do all kinds of bad things. After a talk with the zookeeper, they promised to be nice if he would bring them some mynah birds. The zookeeper agreed, so he walked past a sleeping lion to get some mynahs. On the way back, he was stopped by a police officer who arrested him for transporting mynahs across a sedate lion for immoral porpoises.

A random comment worth sharing
This was posted on TVTropes, and I just had to share it:

If I understand this correctly: you can use Contact Other Plane to contact a deity. If a deity used it, there's a chance he might contact himself. Any time the spell is used there's a percentage chance that the deity lies, so he might end up lying to himself.

New Super Mario Brothers Wii and Lego Batman
Hung out with

edgehopper last night, and he actually keeps up with new games and systems, so I got a chance to try out some games that have been interesting me for a while.

( Reviews of New Super Mario Brothers Wii and Lego Batman )

Have conquered bread
The way-too-much leftover bread has been turned into pumpkin bread pudding. Inedible stale leftovers are now tasty tasty breakfast! Success!

Animal Crossing
Animal Crossing: It's like the sidequests without all of that rpg stuff getting in the way.

( My thoughts )

Shadow Hearts
The original Shadow Hearts definitely has a more connected story than From the New World, being more linear and sticking to the "dark horror" mood throughout. It's significantly less effective as a game, though, having made compromises on the wrong things.

( This review includes plot spoilers, in order to discuss the characters and major plot events. )

All in all, I give them a lot of credit for a good plot and sticking well to their chosen genre, but the gameplay is B- at best and the whole thing feels like it needs editing to clean it up. I'll probably pick up a copy of Shadow Hearts: Covenant (the second game in the series) at some point, if I can get it cheaply, but I won't bother looking for Koudelka (arguably a prequel, the first game by this designer).

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
When they said this was the hardest of the Metroidvanias? They weren’t kidding. I beat Asia of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow without any assistance. I played Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance on emulators, so I used some save states here and there to save some time. For Portrait of Ruin, I only needed my Action Replay to beat the Whip’s Memory and the Death-Dracula fight.

This game? I barely made it to the third boss before the frustration got to me.

( Order of Frustratsia )

Jughead's Hat!
Ever read an Archie comic? Ever wondered why Jughead wore a beanie that looked vaguely like a crown? Turns out, not only were they once in style, but he was probably named after it.

Learn something new every day!

Dragon Warrior 3 Remix
Having classes doesn’t mean I’ve had to give up video games completely, just that I’ve needed to be rather judicious with my game-playing time.

After trying the NES version and the GBC version of Dragon Warrior 3, and giving up on both less than halfway through out of frustration, I finally got all the way through the game, playing the new fan translation of the SNES Remix version of the game.

( Details and commentary on beating DQ/DW games )

I find it amusing that the Dragon Quest series has taken up so much of my gaming time the last year or two, after being mostly off the radar since my childhood.

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