So what're you playing nowadays?

And the first three games are much better.

Unfortunetly there's SOOOOOOOO much text in them they are unlikely to ever see light of day in the US unless like with Ys a company buys the fan translation.
(Maybe there's hope for XSeed and Steam in that department....they have PC versions)

i finished Unchained Blades recently. it's a straightforward dungeon crawler for PSP with some nice twists and good music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc1x9Tmc … B382EB60C. pretty well-made game overall by former Lunar/Grandia staff. if you like the genre, give it a try.

I finished Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance and absolutely loved it. Made me wish I had played all the others. So I dug out my GBA Micro and my copy of Chain of Memories and I'm starting again with it. Not sure how it will go - I have memories of being totally bored with it and it's the main reason I never continued with the series until now. Maybe it will have aged well.

May pick up the DS ones too.

Aside from that, mostly still playing Theatrhythm, which I love. Thinking of getting Kid Icaras Uprising...

About the Last Story - I believe it was a review on Kotaku said that turn the battle from automatic to manual and then you should feel less like you're on autopilot.  try that maybe?

James O wrote:

About the Last Story - I believe it was a review on Kotaku said that turn the battle from automatic to manual and then you should feel less like you're on autopilot.  try that maybe?

Doesn't really make a difference. Instead of rushing into a mob of enemies, you're now rushing into a mob of enemies and hitting the A button as many times as possible. I'd rather save my thumb.

Amazingu wrote:

The Last Story is a horrible disappointment in every single way.
The Kotaku review was more positive than the one for Xenoblade, which is definitive proof that Jason Schreier is a bloody idiot (if his old JRPG columns on Joystiq didn't already prove that).

Knowing how much you love Xenoblade (as any reasonable human being would), Wanderer, I can tell you that you're not likely to start enjoying The Last Story at any point.

It's not terrible or anything. Some of the character interaction is interesting and the art design is really quite lovely (even if, like Xenoblade, the system can only do so much with the ambition). The game just fails to come together as a complete experience.

(I actually had more fun in the thirty minutes of the Sleeping Dogs demo than the four hours I've played of The Last Story.)

Tried 12 more games:

Madden NFL 13 (360)
-The demo doesn't do a great job of showing off the new physics engine, but I enjoyed what I played. My biggest complaint is the how much the uncanny valley affects the visuals of this game.

NCAA Football 13 (360)
-Similar to Madden but not as fun for me since I couldn't care less about college football.

NFL Blitz (360)
-Where the above football games are too complex and realistic, this one is so simplistic that it's really not much fun at all.

Tecmo Bowl Throwback (360)
-Too slow-paced and methodical for my playstyle, but at least you can swap between 2D and 3D graphics if you so desire.

Backbreaker Vengeance (360)
-By far the most fun of the the five football games I tried in this round, Backbreaker Vengeance is the "VR Missions" of football games: rather than be a full fledged football game, this one is a collection of running challenges with far better physics and animation than any other football game out there. Unlike the real football games, this game is intense and really makes you feel like you're out on the field in the middle of things instead of just watching a puppet simulation.

Paya & Yo (PS3)
-Another PSN art game, Papa & Yo is a basic environmental puzzle game whose major selling point is the dark part of its creator. I liked what I played, and I might pick it up when it gets cheap, but it's not worth the $15 to me.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)
-As tired as I've become of the "New Super Mario Bros." art style and tropes, and as uninspired as the "collect 1 million coins" metagame is, I must grudgingly admit that this game is fun, and that I like it.

Street Fighter x Tekken (PS3)
-I haven't had time to learn the intricacies of the game system yet, but on the surface, it's pretty fun to play. I don't forgive Capcom for all the DLC nonsense surrounding this title, but for the $20 I paid for the core game, I have no regrets, and I'll get the DLC when it goes on sale.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure HD Ver. (PS3)
-At $20, this is a ridiculously overpriced port of a game I imagine very few people have any interest in, but it's actually quite fun. The STAND system is something I personally haven't seen in a fighting game before, and it makes for an interesting dynamic. Seeing a real story mode in a fighting game is also most welcome.

Retro/Grade (PS3)
-If you took Rock Band's "note highway" gameplay and mixed it with a side-scrolling schump played in reverse, you'd get Retro/Grade, an incredibly addicting addition to the PSN. Recommended.

Rock Band Blitz (PS3)
-Speaking of Rock Band's "note highway" gameplay, here it is in its most pure form: a purely score driven note highway experience played with a controller. It's decent, but Retro/Grade is much better.

Dungeon Twister (PS3)
-A conversion of a board game, I lost interest in the demo pretty rapidly, but if you like board games that really make you think hard about your moves before you make them, you might want to give this a shot.

Tried nine more games:

37 Days to Die (360)
-A top-down twin stick "box" shooter like Geometry Wars, but with a color switching mechanic like Ikaruga minus the ability to absorb bullets. Not bad.

48 Chambers (360)
-I guess you'd call this an action/puzzle game. You try to maneuver a ball through a set of obstacles as fast as possible while collecting as many points as possible. It's only fair.

Aban Hawkins & the 1000 Spikes (360)
-For masochists only. This game starts you off with 1,000 lives and then proceeds to kill you cheaply over and over.

After Dusk (360)
-Piss poor Metroid-style sci-if side-scroller. Avoid.

Akane the Kunoichi (360)
-Reasonably decent action platformer.

Allied Assault Squadron (360)
-Lame 1942 clone.

Apple Jack 2 (360)
-Very average platformer with some creative enemy designs.

Astralia (360)
-Interesting mix of top-down free-scrolling shooter and strategy. Give this one a shot if you have time.

Rainbow Moon (PS3)
-Most fun I've had with a Strategy/RPG in ages. Lovely visuals and music, and fun gameplay. The story isn't much, and the controls occasionally irritate, but I can't tell you how happy I am to see an SRPG where you can actually explore and walk around instead of just having a big map with battles on it. It basically feels like an Action/RPG with SRPG battles (both fixed and random ones, only the former of which are required -- random battles can just be ignored if you don't need the XP).

xplojin. wrote:

Windows 95 & 98 CD-ROMs

What's that supposed to be? There's basically just one type of filesystem on CD-ROM media, ISO9660 (different versions + Joliet/RockRidge/etc. extensions). Windows should read all of them (minus RR perhaps, but I doubt you'll find many discs with it).

Just finished Bloodrayne Betrayal on PSN (it's free for PS+ members!).
It can be quite frustrating at times, mainly because the controls aren't quite as responsive as they should be and often NEED to be, but I still found it a very enjoyable platform romp.

I know I spoke out a bit harshly against the old Castlevania games recently, but if you're looking for something that's pretty much a modern evolution of the classic gameplay in that series (albeit without a whip), this might be of interest. I liked it!

So I scrapped my plan to restart Seiken Densetsu 3, at least for now. Instead I started Wild Arms 3 and so far I'm really satisfied with my choice.

The introduction is probably one of the best I've ever seen in a game. You have some sort of pre-prologue (very cinematic) which then branches off into four separate prologues, each corresponding to one of the four characters.
During these you get to know a bit about the past of the character and it also serves as a tutorial for some of the gameplay mechanics. Once you complete these the "real" intro sequence starts.

I think this is a very clever choice. You're not bombarded with too much information at once, making it easy to memorize the important stuff. And once the game really starts, you know at least the gameplay basics and you have a rough overview about your party and what motivates each of them.

What I'm missing is some sort of quest log. For me the intervals between playing a game can get quite long, so this would help me out a lot. I hotfixed this by just writing down the current objective on a sheet of paper when I quit the game.

I was quite surprised the first time I continued the game, because it features an animated intro sequence. I then figured out that it also featured an ED sequence, when quitting the game through the save system (and not just switching off the console). So it "works" kinda like an anime episode. Made me smirk

Anyway, I don't think this needs to be mentioned, but the music delivers

Been playing Dragon's Dogma a lot.  I'm on my New Game +++ with my character Lv. 68.  My pawn is the same level as me.  My main goal is to Dragonforge all my favorite gear at the end of the game and have them all in my continuous New Game +'s.  How ever many times it will take to beat the game

I will say this about Dragon's Dogma....It has the best combat of any RPG ever, of all time.