Christmas is a time for finishing games
This Christmas was spent at home in PR with kechaera and the rest of the family. Mom's surgery went well, she was back home looking as lively as ever. She still has some more chemo and radiation therapy to go through now, but things are looking good.
My parents were kind enough to indulge our gaming addiction providing unrestricted use of the TV, comfy couches, late wake up times, and plenty of food. As a result several games were finished.
Broken AI of Mana (aka Heroes of Mana):
This game consists of sending recycled character designs from FFXII: Revenant wings through a reused and dummed down Real-time Strategy engine (also from FFXII Revenant Wings i'd bet) into a standard Mana game plot. The games cute cheery county fair save/load screen music seems at odds and out of place with the often dark story and cut-scenes that usually preceed it. Also, much of the drama in the story seems forced, such as the Rydia-esque rescue from overwhelming odds when party members who had tearfuly left the party not 1 cut sceen ago make a triumphant return, or when the main character's fiancee, who we have only heard of in passing, makes her apperance only to meet her tragic end in the next cutscene.
Stil, the single worst feature of the game (single hadedly responsible for turning a 15 hour game into a 20+ hour game due to erepeated failed missions) is the fact that not allowing allied units to walk through each other in a RTS engine when enroute to a destination is plain bad design. It leads to units deciding tat the shortest distance between two points is going all the way around the map through enemy territory.
Chocobo Dungeon:
Fun quirky little dungeon crawl with everyone's favorite yellow chicken horse. Amusing reuse of music from previous FF games gives you a nice treat every time you enter a new area. The game is fairly easy to play through with some challenging areas, nothing too frustrating and follows the standard dungeon crawl format. Only complaint is that the post completion dungeons are hard to find and even though with an FAQ I know how to access them, I have no clue how one is supposed to come accross them during regular play, that and the minigames are impossible, there must be some trick I'm not getting.
Assassins Creed:
Very pretty, lame ending, not even pretending to resolve anything, just setup for a sequel. Other than that, what he said.
Although I will say that I found faffing about fairly entertaining and still enjoyable despite the repetitiveness. My biggest complaint is that the game quadruples in difficulty for the last 2 missions.
Eternal Sonata:
Fun Musical themed co-op RPG with a refreshingly active and challenging combat system. The story revolves around Chopin, yes Chopin the composer, and a magical world he may or may not have dreamt of during a serious illness. Although not finished, kechaera, vendross and I logged a surprising amount of play time on this one before we had to leave and are eagerly awaiting the day when vendross finishes it and mails it to us.
The story is slow, shoujo anime ish, and written by a cross between a pacifist, an environmentalist, a political suspense author, and the person who wrote Marmelade Boy (only without the love triangel thing). It's shoujo in the way that I love and Marisa hates, in that the story revolves around minutia and trivial little things in the character's lives that are fairly unimportant and yet endear you to the characters (if you can withstand triviality of it all) instead of having a strong plot drving the story. It's like that anime about the girl making coffee, only more intersting.
It's definitely something you have to be in the mood for, fortunately I had been wanting a nice sweet story after al the epic storylines of recent games, so thise one fit the bill nicely. And with 15 minute cutsceens, it's like watching anime while you play a game.
Also you get Chopin history lessons while some of his works play in the background. I find them amusing and fun but kechaera and vendross seem to find them boring and complain at the narration's musings as to what Chopin may have felt at certain times in his life.
Well that's all for the video game reviews. Maybe some more posts later.
kechaera forgot to look under the bed for her 3 kings day present this morning... tsk tsk tsk.
My parents were kind enough to indulge our gaming addiction providing unrestricted use of the TV, comfy couches, late wake up times, and plenty of food. As a result several games were finished.
Broken AI of Mana (aka Heroes of Mana):
This game consists of sending recycled character designs from FFXII: Revenant wings through a reused and dummed down Real-time Strategy engine (also from FFXII Revenant Wings i'd bet) into a standard Mana game plot. The games cute cheery county fair save/load screen music seems at odds and out of place with the often dark story and cut-scenes that usually preceed it. Also, much of the drama in the story seems forced, such as the Rydia-esque rescue from overwhelming odds when party members who had tearfuly left the party not 1 cut sceen ago make a triumphant return, or when the main character's fiancee, who we have only heard of in passing, makes her apperance only to meet her tragic end in the next cutscene.
Stil, the single worst feature of the game (single hadedly responsible for turning a 15 hour game into a 20+ hour game due to erepeated failed missions) is the fact that not allowing allied units to walk through each other in a RTS engine when enroute to a destination is plain bad design. It leads to units deciding tat the shortest distance between two points is going all the way around the map through enemy territory.
Chocobo Dungeon:
Fun quirky little dungeon crawl with everyone's favorite yellow chicken horse. Amusing reuse of music from previous FF games gives you a nice treat every time you enter a new area. The game is fairly easy to play through with some challenging areas, nothing too frustrating and follows the standard dungeon crawl format. Only complaint is that the post completion dungeons are hard to find and even though with an FAQ I know how to access them, I have no clue how one is supposed to come accross them during regular play, that and the minigames are impossible, there must be some trick I'm not getting.
Assassins Creed:
Very pretty, lame ending, not even pretending to resolve anything, just setup for a sequel. Other than that, what he said.
Although I will say that I found faffing about fairly entertaining and still enjoyable despite the repetitiveness. My biggest complaint is that the game quadruples in difficulty for the last 2 missions.
Eternal Sonata:
Fun Musical themed co-op RPG with a refreshingly active and challenging combat system. The story revolves around Chopin, yes Chopin the composer, and a magical world he may or may not have dreamt of during a serious illness. Although not finished, kechaera, vendross and I logged a surprising amount of play time on this one before we had to leave and are eagerly awaiting the day when vendross finishes it and mails it to us.
The story is slow, shoujo anime ish, and written by a cross between a pacifist, an environmentalist, a political suspense author, and the person who wrote Marmelade Boy (only without the love triangel thing). It's shoujo in the way that I love and Marisa hates, in that the story revolves around minutia and trivial little things in the character's lives that are fairly unimportant and yet endear you to the characters (if you can withstand triviality of it all) instead of having a strong plot drving the story. It's like that anime about the girl making coffee, only more intersting.
It's definitely something you have to be in the mood for, fortunately I had been wanting a nice sweet story after al the epic storylines of recent games, so thise one fit the bill nicely. And with 15 minute cutsceens, it's like watching anime while you play a game.
Also you get Chopin history lessons while some of his works play in the background. I find them amusing and fun but kechaera and vendross seem to find them boring and complain at the narration's musings as to what Chopin may have felt at certain times in his life.
Well that's all for the video game reviews. Maybe some more posts later.
kechaera forgot to look under the bed for her 3 kings day present this morning... tsk tsk tsk.