I feel slighted by your verbal scissors.
Do you morph into a bike PERCHANCE?
I call dibs on the Prissy Whore that betrays you at some point and then feels remorse and saves you later.
I think we should be the villains and destroy it.
Yeah, I do. By the time I'm done with both DDS games, I think I'm going to be clinically insane . Episode II happened with some staff changes...and it got a new director and composer, and the original scenario writer left. They decided Xenosaga fans wanted more action and less plot and it ended up kind of a big silly mess. The original writer listed all the changes they made from her script on her official website, and it became clear about 40% of the plot was left on the cutting room floor. Xenosaga fans love plot and that pissed us all off. Yuki Kajiura wrote a beautiful soundtrack for the game, and they didn't even use 90% of her songs. Instead they used Shinji Hoseo's songs, which were a bunch of horrible techno that everybody hated. They used his songs for all in-game things and a few cutscenes, and then just a few of Kajiura's songs for most of the cutscenes. She wrote some absolutely amazing pieces I listen to on the soundtrack all the time that they didn't even touch. While I personally like Episode II's battle system because it was faster, they got rid of the all separate Techs from Episode I. And instead of everybody having their individual spells, everybody now learns from one huge pool of skills. But they still aren't the same, and the battle system is very original, so whatever. They also entirely got rid of shops, equipment, and money, although there are skills you learn and then equip up to three at a time. Anyway, with Episode III the new director finally got it right. Think of it kinda like how they smurfed up Devil May Cry 2, learned from their mistakes, and then were able to make DMC3, which is the greatest of all 3 in my opinion. And thank God Kajiura did the entire soundtrack for the last Episode, and they actually used her big opera-like and emotional songs for bosses and events n' stuff instead of just ignoring them like they did for Episode II. Ep II is not as bad as critics make it out to be, it was just too much change right on the heels of Episode I, and it feels too different for some. I already knew all the changes they had made for the better or worse before I picked it up, and since I wasn't so blind-sided by it I don't think I minded as much as others did. Episode II is still a good game, but it's the weakest of the three big time. END RANT.
Gears is a good game, but an unfinished one and ... Well, you're going to hate me for this, because it's just whining, but the slow moving text and slow moving deathblows kills it for me. I can't even begin to think of playing that whole game all over again and watching 80 hours of horrible translation and Citan taking his sweet ass time to hit them with this sword. Of course, Episode I has long ass techs, too, but thankfully the second and third have faster animations for things. I'm just a Xenosaga fanboy myself. I played Gears first I think but ended up liking it less in comparison. And Devil Summoner does have an action type battle system, but DDS is giving me enough of a nervous breakdown as it is with its random encounters and it's not a road I'm taking again any day soon.
Yeah, I heard Nocturne is insanely hard too. In fact, I got told by Shane that DDS is easy in comparison and now I want to vomit on the game. Devil Summoner looked intriguing, but when I read Gamespot's review and they said it had some of the most insanely high random encounter rates of all the SMT games I was put off ;-;. I've had that before I'll get something new and have odd urges to play something I've owned forever. Usually it happens with Xenosaga with me, though . Xenosaga is greater than all other things in the cosmos.
Hey we were sending PM's alright, that's why the usernote usage went down. Yeah I know, but I thought I would surprise you. Grandia III - I'm about 15 hours into it and really like it. It's kind of hard to describe it, but I'll say it's like FF X (GameArts decided to finally add some good cinematics to it) mixed with the traditional Grandia style. It's definitely an improvement over 2 and Xtreme. Also the environments in this game are truly breathtaking. I swear you will just stop and rotate the camera around just to look at everything. Of course they're not all like that, but a majority of what I saw so far was really pretty. The funny thing is that while the environments are some of the best I've seen in a video game. The actual characters themselves are only slightly above average, It's no FF XII. In the end though, I didn't really mind all that much. Is it just me, or is FFX becoming the single most copied RPG next to maybe, like, Dragon Quest 1 since it invented the general setup. Those environment pictures are freaking beautiful. I'm glad to see they put some real detail into this one. I think the character models are pretty good but yeah...not much is gonna compete with FFXII. That's okay, though...budgets are budgets ;-; Another new thing in this installment is the surprising rise of difficulty. Grandia 1 is a breeze, 2 is pretty much the same, Xtreme is only slighter tougher than the last two, but 3 does have it's share of tough fights. I'm sure it's nowhere near as difficult as DDS, it's just weird for a Grandia game to get a boost in difficulty. I'm sure you'll have no prob with it, the difficulty would only be tough to people who haven't played many RPG's. I think I remember someone else telling me this one was harder than the previous titles. That's good to me . II was pretty easy, though that little Aria girl with those eyes gave me some trouble. Now with all the negative things I heard about the story, I'm actually quite surprised that it did turn out to be pretty good. Now it does have some cliches (SP) (you know most RPG's have them, so people have to stop whining). Like I said before though, I'm only 15 hours into it, so it could go down hill. By cliches do you mean spunky young male and reserved healing female and quiet grumpy character etc.? What exactly are you doing in it ;O Running around and collecting or preventing a predictable series of events, probably -_-. Well, I'm still glad to hear it's gripping you more than you thought. Now it's not all perfect, Grandia has a way of throwing in overly long (for the lack of a better word) fighting areas. It would go good, with the story picking up and then you'll be thrown into an area crowded with enemies and the next save point is 30 + minutes away. (I do fight every enemy, so that could be why, the enemies all appear on screen, as with all the previous Grandia games. Thank god this series never went for random encounters, ugh. Since I have no life, I won't mind spaced out save points too much. The good thing about DDS is that save points come very often, but considering any encounter can suddenly kill you before you even get to go, it's not much consolation. Okay, I could keep going with the good and a little bit more of the bad, but that's just too much for one day. I'm not going to recommend it to you quite yet, but I'm really enjoying it myself. Plus if you look at my new avatar, I <3 Yuki. His dreams and love of flying actually seem real, it's not just something that the developers added at the last minute. Even though he did crash 18 planes, <- don't worry it's not a spoiler. Yuki is a cutie ^_^. Good to hear his dreams of flying is an actual plot point and not just something that gets mentioned for no real reason like Vaan in XII. Hope you had fun reading that because I'll get some more to you soon. Glad your enjoying DDS though, I think I'll pick that one up on my birthday in March. My birthday is in March too. We're going to be turning 21 around the same time XD. I'll have to beat DDS and start 2 by then and give my final vedict. The first DSS cost me about 80 bucks and that was a used copy. It's pretty hard to get a copy because Atlus sucks like that. The second one, however, only cost me 30-ish. I think DDS merits a buy at a regular price, but that's a hard sell when it costs so much used. I would only recommend DDS if you can access GameFAQs while playing it. The dungeons are old-school big time. They are long and nothing but a series of hallways. It doesn't matter where you are, be it a building or a huge ship, it's just a bunch of hallways. You get used to the feel of it, but the puzzle design still kills. A lot of it is ridiculous switches and confusing trial-and-error-crap that is annoying. For instance, this last dungeon I had to go through water tunnels. I could only move 8 times before I was sent back to the beginning. This degrades to a guessing game of going North, West, or East and hoping you find the exit? That's stupid -_-. When will game developers learn that people hate stupid like that. I'll admit I've been using a guide for almost every single puzzle in this game because they aren't fun; they're annoying. I had to stop playing DDS coz Indigo Prophecy came in the mail. It's not that I'm bored with DDS at all, but Indigo is supposed to be pretty short, like 7-10, so I wanted to play that first. When I get a lot of games at once I get this "rushed" feeling I can't supress ^-^; I like to finish the short ones first and then take my time on RPGs. Rushing in an RPG only leads to catastrophe. Plus the opening of Indigo hooked me to its story for good.
Mr. Rise doesn't usernote with me like he used to I'm a fair way into Digital Devil Saga now. It's one of the hardest RPGs ever created, but I had heard all Shin Megami Tensai games are like that so it's to be expected. I like it a lot. It has an intriguing plot with a great art style to it. But there is some bad stuff going on here too.The random enounter rate gets a little insane. And it's uneven too. I'll get in a fight for every two steps or sometimes go two rooms with nothing. It makes no sense. I enjoy challenge, but fighting for my life in every single battle can be stressful, but overall it's quite fun. I'm glad to see an RPG not be easy for once. It gives battles a purpose, because if you don't do what you gotta do you will die in about 3 seconds. Battles are hard but usually swift so it evens out okay. They're usually so fast that the random encounter rate doesn't seem so bad. The turn based system and overall setup of it has a nice feel to it and I like it. The skill system is "Mantras" and is sorta like an open-ended Sphere Grid but is a thing all its own. It's complicated to explain but easy in execution and is a nice system. The main character doesn't talk and I don't like that. Everybody else has great voice-acters, though. However, I've was told that DDS2 contains a lot of plot twists and stuff and that the main character does talk in 2 so I'm kind of looking forward to getting to that one. Well, there's my update How's that Grandia III going for you.
