Too many games, too little time

Dear children and elders,

I come to you with a maddening query.

I sit upon a mountain of games, each with more hours of gameplay than you can shake a proverbial stick at.

Yet, I cannot decide between them. I waver, eternally, over the power buttons of my myriad consoles.

So, if you can, help me decide!

I have :

Odin Sphere
Shin Megami Tensei III : Lucifer's Call

Tales of Vesperia
Lost Odyssey
Final Fantasy XIII
Eternal Sonata

Deus Ex : Invisible War
KOTOR
KOTOR 2
Dragon Age
Borderlands
The Witcher : Enhanced Edition

I realise now, that perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned FFXIII as there could be potential bias from where I posted it. But, I trust that you'll be sensible in that respect.

First off, Final Fantasy XIII. Play frisbee with it until bored.

Next up, Lost Odyssey. :3

Does Lost Odyssey culminate in deicide?

I've had a tendency lately to kill gods in games, lots of gods. Started with Infinite Undiscovery and peaked recently with killing the source of all Gods in the Digital Devil Saga duology.

Well FFXIII is quite possibly the worst game out of the ones listed so you can avoid that for starters. You wouldnt do too bad playing Deus Ex Invisible War. Not up to the quality of the original but still a good game in its own right.

Dragon Age. Then both KOTORs. DXIW is worth a play, it's still a good game, people just bitch because DX was so damn sublime that "good" looks like "steaming turd" next to it.

I didn't like Borderlands one bit. But that's just me.

I'd say KOTOR 1 and 2, the Witcher, and then Dragon Age. That should keep you going for months and months.

I'm in a similar boat, so I can only be of so much help.

I often find myself in this situation, I usually just play an hour or so of each and see which grabs my attention the most.

Out of the games on that list I'll say Odin Sphere. Despite the slow down it's the best game on that list if you ask me. After that I'd go with either Deus Ex: Invisible War, Shin Megami Tensei or Lost Odyssey from what I've heard of them (I haven't played any of them yet). I'll second Kentarou's recommendation of FFXIII frisbee and say that I hated KOTOR. The gameplay wasn't very interesting and the story was horribly predictable and cliche as far as I'm concerned.

Lost Odyssey is worth playing if only for the Thousand Years of Dreams; these are basically short stories that you can read when Kaim encounters things that stir his memory. Some of them are just brilliantly written and the music can be a perfect accompaniment. Apart from that, the game was fairly forgettable in my opinion.

FFXIII to be contrarian.

I should probably add that I've played every game on the list, bar ToV and The Witcher, at least a little. I was up to the second, maybe third disc on Lost Odyssey when I stopped. I think I'd just gotten the immortal queen after beating up the annoying douchey army guy in the tank.

The Thousand Years of Dreams are nice, until I realised that all of them are basically "Hello, Kaim is immortal, by meeting people and experiencing their loss he realises that it's better to be mortal and short-lived because you value life infinitely more. But Kaim will never truly understand or experience that because he will live forever. You may now cry."

They are faultlessly written and quite beautiful, but they're all basically the same.

I vote MegaTen. When on the topic of deity-cide (SPOILER)going through the True Demon path, Lucifer was training you to raise an army to fight God.

Odin Sphere has amazing final bosses. You should play it through to the end!

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Originally Posted by Lindy

I should probably add that I've played every game on the list, bar ToV and The Witcher, at least a little. I was up to the second, maybe third disc on Lost Odyssey when I stopped. I think I'd just gotten the immortal queen after beating up the annoying douchey army guy in the tank.

The Thousand Years of Dreams are nice, until I realised that all of them are basically "Hello, Kaim is immortal, by meeting people and experiencing their loss he realises that it's better to be mortal and short-lived because you value life infinitely more. But Kaim will never truly understand or experience that because he will live forever. You may now cry."

They are faultlessly written and quite beautiful, but they're all basically the same.

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I agree. Every story did carry the same message, and the very first one you get to read is arguably the best of the lot. And first time I played I stopped at the exact same place you did, I finally picked it back up a few months ago and managed to finish it. You still have a long way to go if you ever feel like playing again.

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Originally Posted by Vermachtnis

I vote MegaTen. When on the topic of deity-cide (SPOILER)going through the True Demon path, Lucifer was training you to raise an army to fight God.

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Yeah, I already know how SMTIII turns out. I never thought I'd get a copy, so I'd read up on the story and all beforehand.

All of the games are basically a big middle finger to YHVH/God.

I'm recommending Shin Megami cause the game was really bad ass and kinda destroyed my expectations in JRPGs. Though I would also do Lost Odyssey since it sounds like you're almost finished unless you are planning to start a new file. I have my own mountain of games to get cracking on though...

*goes back to playing Sword of Mana*

If you're like me, you'll play the ones that are known to be the shortest and have the least replayability first, because that will allow you to actually move on to the next games easier. While FFXIII is long, especially if you want to get all achievements/trophies, it was very much a "Okay, that's that done, I'm probably not going to play that again for years upon years to come." That makes moving on to the next game much easier than, say, a game which you can keep playing for months due to high replayability (Borderlands or Dragon Age).

I enjoyed FFXIII well enough, but I would say Lost Odyssey is the best of the three games you have listed that I've actually played (LO, FFXIII, Dragon Age).

Personally I think you should just burn DE:IW. It's the poster child for what console-ization can do to ruin a game as well as being one of the worst sequels of all time. It's kinda like the Matrix sequels. You're better off being in awestruck wonder of the first without being tainted by the latter.

It's so obviously an incomplete game. It's frustrating to read datacubes referring constantly to elements that were supposed to be in the game but obviously didn't make it (red greasels, etc.) I wish they would've at least cleaned out all of the references to the stuff that could've been awesome but didn't come to pass.

Add on top of this that the game is quite old now and hasn't aged that well really. It's terrible to play a game that sucked from its outset that is now aged. At least fantastic games that aged poorly can be appreciated for their design at the time or for nostalgia.

God this game makes me angry. If you insist on playing it then do it first and get it over with.

I've had the same problem for years across multiple platforms ranging from NES to 360 but I've slowly been dwindling it down. I generally start with the earliest console first and then work my way up. After Lufia 2 I'll be done with SNES! :p There's plenty of times where I'll play a newer game because it just looks awesome and I don't want to wait forever. I recently beat FFXIII and am getting close on Persona 4. I also just beat FFIX again. Every now and then I feel like replaying a game instead of starting a new one.

The KOTOR games are glorious. However I side with BoB here.

Every game has to end at some point. It has a limit.

On a sidenote, maybe you should stop buying games until you're ready to play them. :p

That don't make no sense!

But new games keep coming out!

I wouldn't give DX:IW the harsh review Yearg did. If it had been released by itself it would be remembered as a fairly good shooter which did some interesting things. It only seems bad because it is in the shadow of quite literally one of the greatest games ever made.

New games will always come out. What's the point in buying them all if you're never going to play some of them? You'll never catch up!

I for one feel that I miss far too many games even though I devote a fairly significant chunk of my resources to them :(

I lack the time to play my games. But then, I have to balance them with keeping up with the odd TV series, sport and Danielle. And, rather notably, one of the games I play is Football Manager 2010 and that requires so much time it's insane. I think when Civilization V is out Danielle and I will need to book some time off work. xD

Dragon Age and then the KotOR. You need that so you can play TOR when it comes out! Because you have to play it because it's by bioware, it's star wars and it's an MMO!

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Originally Posted by Loony BoB

On a sidenote, maybe you should stop buying games until you're ready to play them. :p

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Well...

I bought Eternal Sonata when it first came out, but I was playing WoW at the time, so I mostly played that. Then something new came out, and it got sidelined. Lost Odyssey was something similar. I think Odin Sphere was sidelined by Persona 3, which was then sidelined by Dead Space and other games.

I bought Vesperia on release, only to realise I had other stuff to do.

I bought Borderlands to play with a friend when my TV broke and I only had a PC, then I got a new TV to play Bayonetta. Which I finished quickly so I could play Mass Effect 2, then rocketed through that and finished it the day before the Bioshock 2 release. I bought Dragon Age and The Witcher when they were on offer to play AT SOME POINT.

I downloaded KOTOR 1/2 on a whim, along with DXIW.

And I bought SMT III because it's so insanely hard to find, and I managed to snag a copy for just £20 so I couldn't say no to it.

Let's not forget I have a DS too! I currently have the new Zelda DS game waiting SINCE CHRISTMAS, SMT Strange Journey on the go and Infinite Space and KH:358/2 Days waiting for me.

So yeah. Lots.

Oh and I'm also playing Aion at the moment too...

EDIT : Just found that backloggery site and considered filling out all the games I have on the go there, except that I realised it would take me a large part of an evening to do so.

>>> Compulsive buyer..:luca:

Seriously. xD Perhaps, as I said, you should wait until you have time to play the game before you buy the game, as that way you will get to play what you pay for. :) There's no point in buying a game if you never play it, obviously.

I intend on buying roughly ten games a year at most going forward, and only will play one MMORPG at any given time (if any at all). When I get bored of or finish a game, I buy a new one. There are some games I consider "must have" and will buy them on release date but more often than not I'll play those the day I buy them - even if I'm in the middle of another game, I still have to at least know what I've got!

Still, must be nice to have enough money that you can buy games without ever needing to play them. How about you just send some of the money (or games!) my way. ;D

Definitely have to throw out Lucifer's Call! The best RPG I've ever played (and replayed).

If you liked DDS, a few things to note. I feel that the story in SMTIII is better told and more interesting, but it's also much more "in the background" than DDS' story. It's much more event-driven rather than character-driven, although even on that note I think SMTIII has some of the best characters I've ever come across in the genre.

Also, the game is a lot harder and more open-ended, so just be prepared to have a rough time in spite of the similarities the two battle systems share.

I rarely have the time or inclination to replay games, and even when I try I usually get bored within hours. I've played SMTIII from start to finish a good four times, and I suspect more playthroughs lie in my future. ;)