A land war in Asia, part 2/4: PlayStation 2
The PS2 has been the centerpiece of my backlog since buying it for myself as a graduation gift in early 2005. I went for a premodded one, hoping to get at the games that never saw a European release, without being forced to import every title. The fact that US games turned out to be so much cheaper in general was a pleasant surprise at the time, so I've ended up importing far more than I expected to. The end result is that I'm now positively drowning in PS2 games, mostly RPGs, with no end in sight.
I have at least kept up a steady average of 1 finish per month, and in 2008 I kept it up nicely with 12 finishes.
1. Rogue Galaxy, January 3rd
2. Shadow Hearts: From the New World, January 19th
3. Atelier Iris 2, February 1st
4. Fatal Frame, April 27th
5. Fatal Frame 2, May 17th
6. Onimusha 2, June 10th
7. Metal Gear Solid 2, June 21st
8. Tales of Legendia, July 21st
9. Metal Gear Solid 3, August 24th
10. Atelier Iris 3, September 29th
11. God of War 2, December 25th
12. X-Men Legends 2, December 27th
Rogue Galaxy, a 50 hour RPG with only token attention to side quests, was obviously not a 3 day finish. I'd actually hoped to close 2007 with it, but late on New Year's Eve I realized I wasn't going to make it. I finished off the final dungeon three days later. Looking back, I enjoyed this one a lot, and some of the side activities (most notably the item creation through assembling your own factory) were a lot of fun. The dungeons themselves got a little long and repetitive before the end. The final boss is a nasty surprise in the sense that every character in your party has to fight some part of it individually, so if there's anybody you haven't used much, you're in for it. Thankfully easy enough to fix by running them around in the final dungeon for a bit to play catchup.
Shadow Hearts: From the New World is that game that just didn't do it right. Given that it's built on the same engine as Covenant, also features pseudo-historical 20th century settings, and goofy characters in an otherwise fairly serious storyline, it had all the ingredients, but made a major mistake somewhere in cooking them together. The game starts fairly strong with interesting sidelines like springing Al Capone from Alcatraz and fighting off mobsters in a Las Vegas hotel, side by side with a big talking mafia cat who also strives to become a movie star. But the game loses steam in the second half where the trio of Big Bads spend hours preparing something evil for the world without much immediacy to it, while your party explores one Incan ruin after another and they all just sort of blend together. This is the only Shadow Hearts with which I was grateful when it ended. And I didn't even try for the best ending.
Atelier Iris 2 is an acquired taste, I think. I loved the original and I liked this one well enough to see it through, but it's a little less freeform and a lot more one dungeon after another and creating the prerequisite new items in beween. It is also very easy right up until the final boss, who'll send you home crying and forced to finally pay attention to what skills you equip on your characters (pro tip: you need to get their speed up so you can interrupt those nightmarish attacks of his). Nonetheless, I love item creation and it still plays a huge part in this game.
Fatal Frame, the game of hunting ghosts with your camera, is just plain scary. Forget Resident Evil, heck, even forget about Silent Hill for a moment. Fatal Frame messes with my mind like you wouldn't believe, especially when played in the dark. This is one of siara79's favorites and she casually beat it in my presence as early as 2005, and now I finally got myself to replicate the feat. Twice. Then I went to see her in summer and we beat it a third time together. My greatest pleasure with this game may be in showing it to every one of my guests and enjoying how much it creeps them out.
Fatal Frame 2 wasn't quite as powerful. Much of the reason may be that it offers an easy difficulty mode, which I picked, and as such most battles weren't of much concern. The game does feature two ghosts which are initially invulnerable to your camera and can kill you with one light brush, but they are mostly easy enough to avoid. Not so much fun when later on your inept main character drops the camera and runs away, only to be cornered by one of these ghosts and having to play cat and mouse with it for quite some time before she can escape. And the default ending, while hinted at, is still one of the creepiest moments in the series. The "best" ending achieved on hard difficulty (well out of my reach, I assure you), isn't even that much happier, and non-canonical as far as I know.
Onimusha 2 kept taunting me long after I finished the original (short but difficult) and 3 (longer but easier), but I finally struck it down this year. Originally envisioned as a survival horror with samurai swords, but not quite as scary because, well, you have a big sword, Onimusha had Resident Evil style controls until the third incarnation, so 2 still feels pretty limited in how much you can maneuver. I much prefer the free roaming of the later games, myself, even if it means the enemies are a lot more mobile to compensate.
Metal Gear Solid 2 is something I finally got around to this year despite owning it for years. I finished the original MGS first (PlayStation 1 game, hence not listed above) and then just went through the games in order. I don't do well at stealth mostly because I'm too impatient to wait and carefully analyze enemy maneuvering, and so I picked Very Easy as my difficulty, figuring that was about right for me. Turns out I sold myself short - this level earns its name. I breezed through the game, killing and tranquilizing enemies as I went, rarely dying in combat. Plenty from falling, though.
Tales of Legendia isn't the most exciting Tales game around, mostly owing to its very simple combat. You don't just get away with mashing X and sometimes throwing in whatever skill you learned last, it actually seems to work better than trying to figure something out. Limit breaks can be stored up by hitting enemies enough times, so save one for a boss battle, use it right away, and you basically start them at half health. It isn't until the final stages that you may need to break out your healing items at last. Legendia does have a lengthy postgame which delves more deeply into each individual character, but I didn't play that far. Credits was enough for me for now - too many other games to play.
Metal Gear Solid 3 was inevitable after finishing 1 and 2. Remembering I had made 2 far too easy for myself, I chose Medium difficulty this time around, and had a serious challenge on my hands. Without my overhead radar, I had a hard enough time finding my way by checking the map a lot, let alone getting a good grip on where my enemies were and what they were doing. Snake's impressive hand to hand combat is something I didn't figure out until the endgame, at which point I was flinging soldiers around with such ease that I wished I'd discovered it sooner. Nevertheless, I got through, and finishing the entire trilogy in one year is something I'm pretty proud of. I'm not so hung up on the story that I'm going to run out for a PS3 just to see it through, however.
Atelier Iris 3 was equally inevitable. It got so so reviews and I can see why. An oft heard complaint is about the timed dungeons, that after your clock runs out, unceremoniously kick you back to the entrance. I didn't mind this so much actually, as it introduces the need to go through them quickly. Likewise, finish battles in few enough turns and you get no time penalty, which means you really want to learn how to do this. A larger problem is that the game is built up entirely of side quests, mostly fetch and kill, and to advance through the story you have to brave the same five dungeons dozens of times to gather enough points to start the next chapter. I was well and truly sick of each one of them some 3/4ths through the game. Oh well - at least I could still create lots of cool items.
God of War 2 I held off on until I had a visitor who enjoys God of War a lot. Together we played it nearly to completion, although not quite. After she was gone, I figured I did want to see it through myself, so I restarted, this time on Easy difficulty,and breezed through it in just a few days. I like God of War well enough for a little thoughtless and brutal combat and the occasional puzzle (some of which I regrettably did have to look up), but I'm not nearly good enough at these games to try for harder difficulty modes or unlockable challenges. I've only ever finished the original on the lowest level, too.
X-Men Legends 2, finally, was born of a need for something simple to play. Work really got to me the last few months and I found that whenever I was home in time to still pop in a game, I was far too tired to bother with something that required a focused effort. Enter X-Men Legends 2. I put it on medium difficulty, set the game to automatically assign stats and skills on level up, and even to automatically equip the best of all the items I picked up. Then I stuck with the default party for the entire game, controlling Wolverine 99% of the time (switching to Magneto to create the occasional bridge only), and I breezed through it without a hint of trouble. I did have to promise martin_g to play Marvel Ultimate Alliance with a little more flair, actually trying out different characters. :P
Coming up next: my PC finishes. There aren't many.
I have at least kept up a steady average of 1 finish per month, and in 2008 I kept it up nicely with 12 finishes.
1. Rogue Galaxy, January 3rd
2. Shadow Hearts: From the New World, January 19th
3. Atelier Iris 2, February 1st
4. Fatal Frame, April 27th
5. Fatal Frame 2, May 17th
6. Onimusha 2, June 10th
7. Metal Gear Solid 2, June 21st
8. Tales of Legendia, July 21st
9. Metal Gear Solid 3, August 24th
10. Atelier Iris 3, September 29th
11. God of War 2, December 25th
12. X-Men Legends 2, December 27th
Rogue Galaxy, a 50 hour RPG with only token attention to side quests, was obviously not a 3 day finish. I'd actually hoped to close 2007 with it, but late on New Year's Eve I realized I wasn't going to make it. I finished off the final dungeon three days later. Looking back, I enjoyed this one a lot, and some of the side activities (most notably the item creation through assembling your own factory) were a lot of fun. The dungeons themselves got a little long and repetitive before the end. The final boss is a nasty surprise in the sense that every character in your party has to fight some part of it individually, so if there's anybody you haven't used much, you're in for it. Thankfully easy enough to fix by running them around in the final dungeon for a bit to play catchup.
Shadow Hearts: From the New World is that game that just didn't do it right. Given that it's built on the same engine as Covenant, also features pseudo-historical 20th century settings, and goofy characters in an otherwise fairly serious storyline, it had all the ingredients, but made a major mistake somewhere in cooking them together. The game starts fairly strong with interesting sidelines like springing Al Capone from Alcatraz and fighting off mobsters in a Las Vegas hotel, side by side with a big talking mafia cat who also strives to become a movie star. But the game loses steam in the second half where the trio of Big Bads spend hours preparing something evil for the world without much immediacy to it, while your party explores one Incan ruin after another and they all just sort of blend together. This is the only Shadow Hearts with which I was grateful when it ended. And I didn't even try for the best ending.
Atelier Iris 2 is an acquired taste, I think. I loved the original and I liked this one well enough to see it through, but it's a little less freeform and a lot more one dungeon after another and creating the prerequisite new items in beween. It is also very easy right up until the final boss, who'll send you home crying and forced to finally pay attention to what skills you equip on your characters (pro tip: you need to get their speed up so you can interrupt those nightmarish attacks of his). Nonetheless, I love item creation and it still plays a huge part in this game.
Fatal Frame, the game of hunting ghosts with your camera, is just plain scary. Forget Resident Evil, heck, even forget about Silent Hill for a moment. Fatal Frame messes with my mind like you wouldn't believe, especially when played in the dark. This is one of siara79's favorites and she casually beat it in my presence as early as 2005, and now I finally got myself to replicate the feat. Twice. Then I went to see her in summer and we beat it a third time together. My greatest pleasure with this game may be in showing it to every one of my guests and enjoying how much it creeps them out.
Fatal Frame 2 wasn't quite as powerful. Much of the reason may be that it offers an easy difficulty mode, which I picked, and as such most battles weren't of much concern. The game does feature two ghosts which are initially invulnerable to your camera and can kill you with one light brush, but they are mostly easy enough to avoid. Not so much fun when later on your inept main character drops the camera and runs away, only to be cornered by one of these ghosts and having to play cat and mouse with it for quite some time before she can escape. And the default ending, while hinted at, is still one of the creepiest moments in the series. The "best" ending achieved on hard difficulty (well out of my reach, I assure you), isn't even that much happier, and non-canonical as far as I know.
Onimusha 2 kept taunting me long after I finished the original (short but difficult) and 3 (longer but easier), but I finally struck it down this year. Originally envisioned as a survival horror with samurai swords, but not quite as scary because, well, you have a big sword, Onimusha had Resident Evil style controls until the third incarnation, so 2 still feels pretty limited in how much you can maneuver. I much prefer the free roaming of the later games, myself, even if it means the enemies are a lot more mobile to compensate.
Metal Gear Solid 2 is something I finally got around to this year despite owning it for years. I finished the original MGS first (PlayStation 1 game, hence not listed above) and then just went through the games in order. I don't do well at stealth mostly because I'm too impatient to wait and carefully analyze enemy maneuvering, and so I picked Very Easy as my difficulty, figuring that was about right for me. Turns out I sold myself short - this level earns its name. I breezed through the game, killing and tranquilizing enemies as I went, rarely dying in combat. Plenty from falling, though.
Tales of Legendia isn't the most exciting Tales game around, mostly owing to its very simple combat. You don't just get away with mashing X and sometimes throwing in whatever skill you learned last, it actually seems to work better than trying to figure something out. Limit breaks can be stored up by hitting enemies enough times, so save one for a boss battle, use it right away, and you basically start them at half health. It isn't until the final stages that you may need to break out your healing items at last. Legendia does have a lengthy postgame which delves more deeply into each individual character, but I didn't play that far. Credits was enough for me for now - too many other games to play.
Metal Gear Solid 3 was inevitable after finishing 1 and 2. Remembering I had made 2 far too easy for myself, I chose Medium difficulty this time around, and had a serious challenge on my hands. Without my overhead radar, I had a hard enough time finding my way by checking the map a lot, let alone getting a good grip on where my enemies were and what they were doing. Snake's impressive hand to hand combat is something I didn't figure out until the endgame, at which point I was flinging soldiers around with such ease that I wished I'd discovered it sooner. Nevertheless, I got through, and finishing the entire trilogy in one year is something I'm pretty proud of. I'm not so hung up on the story that I'm going to run out for a PS3 just to see it through, however.
Atelier Iris 3 was equally inevitable. It got so so reviews and I can see why. An oft heard complaint is about the timed dungeons, that after your clock runs out, unceremoniously kick you back to the entrance. I didn't mind this so much actually, as it introduces the need to go through them quickly. Likewise, finish battles in few enough turns and you get no time penalty, which means you really want to learn how to do this. A larger problem is that the game is built up entirely of side quests, mostly fetch and kill, and to advance through the story you have to brave the same five dungeons dozens of times to gather enough points to start the next chapter. I was well and truly sick of each one of them some 3/4ths through the game. Oh well - at least I could still create lots of cool items.
God of War 2 I held off on until I had a visitor who enjoys God of War a lot. Together we played it nearly to completion, although not quite. After she was gone, I figured I did want to see it through myself, so I restarted, this time on Easy difficulty,and breezed through it in just a few days. I like God of War well enough for a little thoughtless and brutal combat and the occasional puzzle (some of which I regrettably did have to look up), but I'm not nearly good enough at these games to try for harder difficulty modes or unlockable challenges. I've only ever finished the original on the lowest level, too.
X-Men Legends 2, finally, was born of a need for something simple to play. Work really got to me the last few months and I found that whenever I was home in time to still pop in a game, I was far too tired to bother with something that required a focused effort. Enter X-Men Legends 2. I put it on medium difficulty, set the game to automatically assign stats and skills on level up, and even to automatically equip the best of all the items I picked up. Then I stuck with the default party for the entire game, controlling Wolverine 99% of the time (switching to Magneto to create the occasional bridge only), and I breezed through it without a hint of trouble. I did have to promise martin_g to play Marvel Ultimate Alliance with a little more flair, actually trying out different characters. :P
Coming up next: my PC finishes. There aren't many.