Video game update
I haven't really posted anything on LJ lately, so I'll talk about my video game progress.
Jeanne d' Arc
I finished Jeanne d'Arc for the PSP a couple months ago. It was a very solid SRPG, but nothing really groundbreaking. Beautiful anime-style cutscenes, easy-to-learn controls, and an interesting storyline peppered with quasi-historical events (like demons invading France, of course!). Some nice combat features were:
- Unified Guard - Place characters adjacent to each other and when they get a defensive bonus when they are attacked.
- Burning Aura - If you strike an enemy with a melee attack, a burning aura gets placed on the opposite side of the target. Making an attack while standing in the aura gives you a tremendous boost in damage.
- Godspeed - Certain characters get special armlets which allow them to transform into Holy Warriors (or whatever they're called). When they kill enemies in this form, they get an extra turn. If you play your cards right, you can essentially get them to rampage all over the map picking off near-dead opponents.
Also in the game was a skill synthesis system. Each character can equip skills which give them additional abilities or attributes. You can also combine these skills to create new skills (although the combination process consumes the skills that were combined). Some skills are available at town vendors, but most are obtained through killing enemies who will randomly drop them (each enemy does have a loot table so it's not *completely* random). Once you complete a map in the Story Mode, you can replay it as a Free Battle, so it's nice to be able to create much more powerful skills than what you'd normally have access to by farming certain maps. The most powerful skills don't really show up until the post-game segment after you finish the story line.
But like I said, it's a very solid game. Maybe not as deep as Final Fantasy Tactics, but it's still entertaining and fun.
Etrian Odyssey
Then I started playing Etrian Odyssey for the DS. It was a toss-up between this and Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, but I was in the mood for some old-school dungeon-crawling and that's exactly with Etrian Odyssey is. It's essentially like those old computer RPGs in the 1980s like Wizardry or Bard's Tale except it has a cute little mapping feature which uses the stylus. This was perfect since I hate using the stylus in DS games. It usually feels really contrived, like in the Castlevania games when you're drawing the runes to defeat the bosses.
Anyway, I just beat the storyline to that on Wednesday. It didn't really make a whole lot of sense, but who cares, I enjoyed the gameplay. It's really not the sort of game you can rush through though as you are forced to spend time leveling your characters. That being said, it's perfect if you're just sitting around killing time anyway as it is turn-based so you can idly play it while also doing other things.
There are nine character classes in all (you need to unlock two of them though) and only five party slots, so it's fun trying out the different class combinations and seeing how they work together (for me at least). You gain skill points when you gain levels which you can allocate in different ways to give your characters different abilities or boost their attributes. It's impossible to max them all out as your characters are capped at level 70, but there is a Rest feature that resets your skill point allocations but at the cost of 10 levels. You can also choose to Retire a level 30+ character which removes them completely but lets you start a new character with bonus skill points. I mistakenly thought that you get the same amount of bonus skill points at any level that you qualify to Retire at, but the higher your level, the more you get (I think it goes in 10 level increments though). If I am enough of a masochist, I may retire all of my current level 70 characters (who were all the results of Retiring between levels 30-50) and level all of the new ones up to cap. That's mostly for completion's sake since you can finish the storyline without unaugmented characters.
One interesting thing that was not part of the Wizardry/Bard's Tale-like games is that selling the drops from monsters will sometimes allow the item and weapon shops in town to sell more goods. Some of the monsters also have rare drops that will only have a chance to drop (it's not guaranteed) if you kill them in a certain way (for example, with a Fire spell or with a Bow attack or within a certain number of turns).
Most encounters are random, but there are a few F.O.E. monsters (I forget what that stands for) which appear on your map. These are generally tougher than the monsters you usually encounter on that floor and if they see you, it's possible that they will advance towards you and enter the fray if you take too long fighting (they move every turn you are in combat so if they see you and the monsters you are fighting aren't dead yet, they will actually join in and fight you). There are also boss monsters that don't move but are even harder than the FOEs. There's an in-game clock and after a certain number of days, the FOEs and bosses can respawn.
After you beat the story's end boss, you open up an additional 5 floors to explore which is considered the post-game. I'm still working my way through there.
Guitar Hero 2
Since I got my ferrets, I haven't really played my PS2 much since that wakes them up and it's unhealthy for them if they don't get enough sleep. Well, I finally moved my TV up to my room last weekend, so I started playing Guitar Hero 2 again. I only ever beat the Hard mode, so to unlock some of the other guitars, I've been playing the Easy and Medium modes, both to beat and to 5-star all the songs. I'm not sure if I can 5-star all of the Hard songs since I can't seem to 5-star Misirlou. And I'm still stuck on Freya in Expert mode. Fuck those stupid triplet chord sections in the middle (or at least that's what I call them; they tire my wrist out like crazy).
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
I love the SMT games. Or at least, the Persona games, since there's only been one official SMT game out for Region 1 (SMT: Nocturne). I have that one too, just haven't played it yet.
I'm not sure how it fits into the SMT universe as you start off the game in a really strange place called the Junkyard. Basically there are 6 tribes and the protagonist is the leader of one of the tribes. During a skirmish with another tribe over a strange artifact, something strange happens and hijinx ensue. This mostly involves everyone turning into "demons" and devouring each other. And a naked girl starts singing or something. Anyway, it's certainly interesting.
SMT:DDS supposedly uses the same Press Turn combat system as SMT:N in that you get one action hexagonal boxes per character (and your party starts off with 3 people, so you get 3 boxes). However, these boxes have either full or half states and depending on your actions, they get used at different rates. For instance, a regular attack uses one full box, but passing a character's turn only uses one half-box. Also, critical hits and using an attack that target's an enemy's weaknesses also use half of a box. However, missing an attack consumes an extra full box and if they are actually shielded against that type of attack, you lose two full boxes (which is essentially the rest of your turn since you already used one box for your own action).
Furthermore, when doing a half action, it takes the half from full boxes first. Only if there are no full boxes remaining will a half action consume a half-box. Full actions use whichever box is next, no matter if it's a half or full box. This potentially allows you to have up to 1 extra turn for each character in your party if you plan out your attacks right. However, the enemy has just the same advantages and disadvantages of you. Except for the bosses, who seem to get way more action boxes than you do. Oh well, life isn't fair.
Player abilities are dictated by a skill grid based on Mantras. Killing enemies gives you Atma which goes towards your mantra experience bar. You can also eat enemies with what are called Hunt skills. These generally only work when they have low health or are in a Frightened state (which occurs if you keep exploiting their weaknesses). When that fills up, you master that mantra and gain new skills. Then you can buy new mantras at save points. The mantra grid has several distinct lines of progression to it, so that you have to master each previous mantra in a certain line to get the most powerful skills. Or you can just buy a lot of the low-level starter mantras. Each successive mantra seems to have a larger atma bar to fill up. They also cost a lot more money.
So far I'm enjoying it. It's an eat-or-be-eaten world and the combat system is fun. I have to pay attention though because sometimes the enemies will put up shields and I'll make the wrong attack and lose my turns.
Other games I'm interested in, but don't really know much about are:
- Baroque for the PS2 - This looks like a remake of an earlier Saturn game which plays like NetHack. It's not for everyone, but I liked NetHack.
- Arcana Heart for the PS2 - A surprisingly deep, but cute-looking 2-d fighting game. That's all I know about it, it wasn't at the Gamestop I checked today.
- Rondo of Swords for the DS - Yes, I am an Atlus whore. Anyway, this gushing review on GameFAQs tells me absolutely nothing about it and I couldn't get a good feel for what kind of game it was from the back of the box. I will probably still pick it up, as my DS game library is pretty small (unless you count my GBA game collection).
Anyone know anything about these games?
Jeanne d' Arc
I finished Jeanne d'Arc for the PSP a couple months ago. It was a very solid SRPG, but nothing really groundbreaking. Beautiful anime-style cutscenes, easy-to-learn controls, and an interesting storyline peppered with quasi-historical events (like demons invading France, of course!). Some nice combat features were:
- Unified Guard - Place characters adjacent to each other and when they get a defensive bonus when they are attacked.
- Burning Aura - If you strike an enemy with a melee attack, a burning aura gets placed on the opposite side of the target. Making an attack while standing in the aura gives you a tremendous boost in damage.
- Godspeed - Certain characters get special armlets which allow them to transform into Holy Warriors (or whatever they're called). When they kill enemies in this form, they get an extra turn. If you play your cards right, you can essentially get them to rampage all over the map picking off near-dead opponents.
Also in the game was a skill synthesis system. Each character can equip skills which give them additional abilities or attributes. You can also combine these skills to create new skills (although the combination process consumes the skills that were combined). Some skills are available at town vendors, but most are obtained through killing enemies who will randomly drop them (each enemy does have a loot table so it's not *completely* random). Once you complete a map in the Story Mode, you can replay it as a Free Battle, so it's nice to be able to create much more powerful skills than what you'd normally have access to by farming certain maps. The most powerful skills don't really show up until the post-game segment after you finish the story line.
But like I said, it's a very solid game. Maybe not as deep as Final Fantasy Tactics, but it's still entertaining and fun.
Etrian Odyssey
Then I started playing Etrian Odyssey for the DS. It was a toss-up between this and Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, but I was in the mood for some old-school dungeon-crawling and that's exactly with Etrian Odyssey is. It's essentially like those old computer RPGs in the 1980s like Wizardry or Bard's Tale except it has a cute little mapping feature which uses the stylus. This was perfect since I hate using the stylus in DS games. It usually feels really contrived, like in the Castlevania games when you're drawing the runes to defeat the bosses.
Anyway, I just beat the storyline to that on Wednesday. It didn't really make a whole lot of sense, but who cares, I enjoyed the gameplay. It's really not the sort of game you can rush through though as you are forced to spend time leveling your characters. That being said, it's perfect if you're just sitting around killing time anyway as it is turn-based so you can idly play it while also doing other things.
There are nine character classes in all (you need to unlock two of them though) and only five party slots, so it's fun trying out the different class combinations and seeing how they work together (for me at least). You gain skill points when you gain levels which you can allocate in different ways to give your characters different abilities or boost their attributes. It's impossible to max them all out as your characters are capped at level 70, but there is a Rest feature that resets your skill point allocations but at the cost of 10 levels. You can also choose to Retire a level 30+ character which removes them completely but lets you start a new character with bonus skill points. I mistakenly thought that you get the same amount of bonus skill points at any level that you qualify to Retire at, but the higher your level, the more you get (I think it goes in 10 level increments though). If I am enough of a masochist, I may retire all of my current level 70 characters (who were all the results of Retiring between levels 30-50) and level all of the new ones up to cap. That's mostly for completion's sake since you can finish the storyline without unaugmented characters.
One interesting thing that was not part of the Wizardry/Bard's Tale-like games is that selling the drops from monsters will sometimes allow the item and weapon shops in town to sell more goods. Some of the monsters also have rare drops that will only have a chance to drop (it's not guaranteed) if you kill them in a certain way (for example, with a Fire spell or with a Bow attack or within a certain number of turns).
Most encounters are random, but there are a few F.O.E. monsters (I forget what that stands for) which appear on your map. These are generally tougher than the monsters you usually encounter on that floor and if they see you, it's possible that they will advance towards you and enter the fray if you take too long fighting (they move every turn you are in combat so if they see you and the monsters you are fighting aren't dead yet, they will actually join in and fight you). There are also boss monsters that don't move but are even harder than the FOEs. There's an in-game clock and after a certain number of days, the FOEs and bosses can respawn.
After you beat the story's end boss, you open up an additional 5 floors to explore which is considered the post-game. I'm still working my way through there.
Guitar Hero 2
Since I got my ferrets, I haven't really played my PS2 much since that wakes them up and it's unhealthy for them if they don't get enough sleep. Well, I finally moved my TV up to my room last weekend, so I started playing Guitar Hero 2 again. I only ever beat the Hard mode, so to unlock some of the other guitars, I've been playing the Easy and Medium modes, both to beat and to 5-star all the songs. I'm not sure if I can 5-star all of the Hard songs since I can't seem to 5-star Misirlou. And I'm still stuck on Freya in Expert mode. Fuck those stupid triplet chord sections in the middle (or at least that's what I call them; they tire my wrist out like crazy).
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
I love the SMT games. Or at least, the Persona games, since there's only been one official SMT game out for Region 1 (SMT: Nocturne). I have that one too, just haven't played it yet.
I'm not sure how it fits into the SMT universe as you start off the game in a really strange place called the Junkyard. Basically there are 6 tribes and the protagonist is the leader of one of the tribes. During a skirmish with another tribe over a strange artifact, something strange happens and hijinx ensue. This mostly involves everyone turning into "demons" and devouring each other. And a naked girl starts singing or something. Anyway, it's certainly interesting.
SMT:DDS supposedly uses the same Press Turn combat system as SMT:N in that you get one action hexagonal boxes per character (and your party starts off with 3 people, so you get 3 boxes). However, these boxes have either full or half states and depending on your actions, they get used at different rates. For instance, a regular attack uses one full box, but passing a character's turn only uses one half-box. Also, critical hits and using an attack that target's an enemy's weaknesses also use half of a box. However, missing an attack consumes an extra full box and if they are actually shielded against that type of attack, you lose two full boxes (which is essentially the rest of your turn since you already used one box for your own action).
Furthermore, when doing a half action, it takes the half from full boxes first. Only if there are no full boxes remaining will a half action consume a half-box. Full actions use whichever box is next, no matter if it's a half or full box. This potentially allows you to have up to 1 extra turn for each character in your party if you plan out your attacks right. However, the enemy has just the same advantages and disadvantages of you. Except for the bosses, who seem to get way more action boxes than you do. Oh well, life isn't fair.
Player abilities are dictated by a skill grid based on Mantras. Killing enemies gives you Atma which goes towards your mantra experience bar. You can also eat enemies with what are called Hunt skills. These generally only work when they have low health or are in a Frightened state (which occurs if you keep exploiting their weaknesses). When that fills up, you master that mantra and gain new skills. Then you can buy new mantras at save points. The mantra grid has several distinct lines of progression to it, so that you have to master each previous mantra in a certain line to get the most powerful skills. Or you can just buy a lot of the low-level starter mantras. Each successive mantra seems to have a larger atma bar to fill up. They also cost a lot more money.
So far I'm enjoying it. It's an eat-or-be-eaten world and the combat system is fun. I have to pay attention though because sometimes the enemies will put up shields and I'll make the wrong attack and lose my turns.
Other games I'm interested in, but don't really know much about are:
- Baroque for the PS2 - This looks like a remake of an earlier Saturn game which plays like NetHack. It's not for everyone, but I liked NetHack.
- Arcana Heart for the PS2 - A surprisingly deep, but cute-looking 2-d fighting game. That's all I know about it, it wasn't at the Gamestop I checked today.
- Rondo of Swords for the DS - Yes, I am an Atlus whore. Anyway, this gushing review on GameFAQs tells me absolutely nothing about it and I couldn't get a good feel for what kind of game it was from the back of the box. I will probably still pick it up, as my DS game library is pretty small (unless you count my GBA game collection).
Anyone know anything about these games?