Suikoden IV is the only one I have played. I remember finishing it but not getting all 108 characters. I also remember some runes being very OP and the ship battles were awesome even though they weren't very challenging. Agreed on some dull environments. I liked sailing from one port to another buying and selling goods for a profit.
Spyro 3!!! Not sure if I prefer it over 1, but I definitely love it. One of the best platformers of the PSX/N64(/Jaguar?) generation.
I'm discussing my 108, er, 111 favorite games of all time in THIS THREAD so go check it out and join the conversation!
The last good Spyro game.
54. Tekken Tag
Another Tekken game?? Don't worry, there's only one left after this
I'm lumping together both of them. Tekken Tag Tournaments 1 and 2 are about beating up your opponent in some time paradox where there dead are brought back to life and a 40-50 year old Michelle looks like she's 17. Also, does it bother anyone else that she supposedly adopted Julia but Julia looks JUST LIKE HER?! What are the chances she adopted her clone now really. Anyways I'm getting off topic. Michelle is pretty cool regardless.
In Tekken Tag Tournament you pick two characters and you swap between them while beating up another tag team. Some health will recover on the one not currently fighting depending on the damage bar. It fights like all Tekken games where the buttons correspond to different limbs. It also has large amounts of characters from the entire series, so even if your favourite was killed off, you can use them in the Tag games.
I like both games a lot and my favourite part is having pretty much all of the characters available. There's so many to choose from and you can use two at once, which is fun. Tag 2 is pretty much an improvement on Tag in every way, but I have a few issues with it. I feel like the sexualization is starting to get over the top, and not just for characters like Anna where I expect it, and the customization system is a really big step down from 6, in my opinion, which was disappointing because it was one of the things I was looking forward to most. But aside from that they are both incredibly fun games and I really enjoy them. Especially since the first one had bowling at that was incredibly fun!
Favourite character: Lili sM1UJIs.png
Honourable mentions: Xiaoyu, Anna, Jun ZL49LVy.jpg5K10BYG.jpgGav3Ij2.jpg
Lili has dethroned Xiaoyu has my favourite Tekken character since Tekken 6. I just enjoy using her more. But Xiaoyu is still really up there and I like how quick and agile she is. Anna and Jun return as favourites for the reasons I listed in my Tekken 2 review. I like Jun almost purely out of nostalgia though because I don't click that well with her fighting style.
I got to play this with my brother and nephew and I kicked so much ass as Nina.
53. Ni No Kuni
Ni No Kuni is about a young boy named Oliver who ends up in a strange and magical world and becomes a wizard to save his mother. While he's there he learns about “soul mates”, people who are connected to people from his world, he restores broken hearts, and he meets some new friends.
This game has a lot of stuff to keep track of. You can catch and tame monsters and also evolve them. The monsters will do a lot of the fighting for you in battle. You learn spells which not only work in battle, but serve a wide range of purposes outside of battle as well. Such as unlocking locks, growing plants quickly, or speaking to ghosts. You also get a cauldron for items. Another part of the game is taking certain heart qualities (such as enthusiasm) from those with an abundance and giving it to the “heart broken” to make them feel better. You also travel between the two worlds to find people's “soul mates”, because helping one from one world will generally help the other. There are 3 playable characters and they can each have a certain amount of monsters available to use in battle.
General impressions:
This game is beautiful, there's no doubt about that. You're basically playing a Studio Ghibli film. A very very long one. While I love the art style, the beautiful and wonderful world, the likeable protagonist, and the interesting story, something about it is just... off. I can't figure out what. Maybe it's just too much stuff going on and it makes it too overwhelming. I don't know. But on paper it is an amazing fantasy game and I'm glad I played it and I would certainly play it again. There is an incredible amount of detail in it, from your magic book actually being a book with wonderful drawings and such to the fact that this is one of the only games where the character uses stairs properly. Major points in my book just for that one thing.
Story:
The story is very interesting, although it has some glaring faults to it and is incredibly slowly paced. But it's actually very good, it kept my interest and it kept me wanting to see more and play more. The plot twist near the end with (SPOILER)Pea was excellent and touching and it had some incredible fantastical moments that just suck you right in.
Gameplay:
There is so much going on in this game I don't even know where to begin. It's very interesting to me to have magic more useful outside of battle. I loved collecting heart pieces and helping people out. The monsters were cuties and I liked using them, but some of them were infuriating to catch. The game is a lot of fun, but it's hard to keep up with everything, especially if it's a game you put down for a while and come back to. As I mentioned, for all of its good qualities on paper, something is a bit off about it and I often found if I played it too much I would get big headaches, which was pretty odd. And this game is long. This game is very very long. Also each area provides a considerable difficulty spike, but it doesn't take long to catch up.
World:
Beautiful, stunning, gorgeous. Seriously, I would play it just for the beautiful world. They tricked me at first with the smaller map but it is vast and fun to explore. There are too many gorgeous areas to count, but the towns also feel lively and vibrant, especially when you help out the townsfolk. It's just great, top 5 video game worlds for me easily.
Characters:
This is the weak point for me. I like the characters just fine but I don't love any of them and I hate our last entry fellow. There's lots of cute and nifty monsters to use though. And Oliver is a cool kid with a touching story. But overall they didn't really stand out to me, which is a shame.
Overall this game is absolutely beautiful when it comes to world, graphics, and story. The game has a lot of elements to it but it somehow manages to be less than the sum of its parts, and so that is why it is so low on the list despite it's strong qualities. Excellent fantasy game, though.
I really enjoyed that game but the combat was just awful. I mean "awful" is too strong...I just hate not being able to truly control my characters. Very clunky and poor support AI. Gorgeous world though, and sweet story.
I never beat the final boss
I'm discussing my 108, er, 111 favorite games of all time in THIS THREAD so go check it out and join the conversation!
I really need to get this and finish playing it.
52. Tales of Legendia
Last one for tonight! Tomorrow we finish out the 50's, so we will be about halfway done, whoooo~
Tales of Legendia is about Shirley and Senel as they end up on a giant ship and Senel has to rescue her because she holds some kind of special powers or position in society, although what exactly it is is not known at first. Senel teams up with some others with similar goals as he attempts to get her back from those who would use her.
This game is a bit different from most Tales games of the time, but it still had it's similarities. X button attacks, O uses arts. Attacking restores the TP needed to use arts. Pressing a directional button with O uses different arts. In this game there will be some sort of... gel bubbles in certain paths, protecting chests usually. Entering a fight while inside one of these will trigger a stronger than usual monster. The game also has block puzzles to do in most dungeons. There are 8 playable characters with 4 used in battle at a time.
General impressions:
I was a bit nervous to try this one because it's the black sheep of the Tales family. Sure enough, it wasn't as good as the others I had played. But it was still quite good, especially later on when things start to pick up more. The characters were interesting and the story was excellent. The gameplay is alright but certainly the worst from the series. But despite its faults, it kept getting better and I would definitely play it again.
Story:
The story is the best part of the game. It's hard to go in to much detail without spoilers, but it really had me interested when things started to pick up. I liked learning about the different types of people and how the world got to where it was. I also really like the deconstruction that this game used. The main character views his previous lover as perfect and she's shown as such in some flashbacks, but as time goes on you learn that he was seeing her through rose-coloured glasses (SPOILER)and she was actually kind of a jerk. She did do some good things but she wasn't the perfect maiden we were led to think she was. I really liked the story, although it did feel a bit slowly paced at times.
Gameplay:
One of the weak points. It isn't as fun as the rest of the series, the 2D battle screen gets a bit confusing and difficult, and the block puzzles were awful later on. The AI is also a bit stupid and your main healer likes to not heal until the last possible second, which often leads to dead characters. Cooking was much less exciting. But other than that it was fine.
World:
The world actually has some very interesting locations that I had a lot of fun exploring. The world felt very large and vast and there were some very pretty places. The best thing about it though was the teleport things they had everywhere to minimize back tracking. It was an excellent feature and took away the potential for something tedious.
Characters:
While this game by no means has my favourite characters in video games, they are overall well written and interesting. A lot of them felt and acted like real people. It was actually hard for me to choose favourites because they don't stand out much, but their interactions and scenes are well written and I like the cast more as an ensemble than as individuals.
Favourite character: Norma OtFQadR.jpg
Honourable mention: Shirley SGjV5kO.jpg
Norma was just a big silly goofball and some of her stuff made me laugh out loud. She just brought a lightheartedness, and she was silly and goofy and fun. She was also pretty positive and picked herself back up when she was down. Shirley is generally hated and I can see why in some instances. Her voice is annoying and she gets kidnapped a bajillion times. But she's a heroic and selfless character deep down and she has some of the most interesting development and scenes, especially with her changy parts.
Overall this is a weak entry for the Tales series, but still a really good game overall. Good characters, great story, so-so gameplay. Good history to it as well. A lot of fun and I will definitely play it again.
Ni No Kuni is awesome in many aspects, but something is off indeed. The game does way too much handholding, and while the battles can be challenging the actual puzzles and fetch quests are mostly lame. The characters literally tell you which spells to use to solve a quest/puzzle, and you can only cast them and finish that quest until you have talked to them enough. Let me think for myself please, I'm not dumb
But man does this game go out with a bang. It has one of the strongest endings I have seen in a long long time.
51. Bravely Default
Woke up early today
The game centers largely around the four Crystals, which at the beginning we see engulfed in darkness. Meanwhile, one of our characters hometown is swallowed up by the Earth. He teams up with the vestal of Wind and two other companions as they attempt to revive the Crystals.
This game plays like some old school Final Fantasy games with some differences. You have 4 characters, all 4 usable in battle. There are many job classes to choose from and each serves its own purpose. You can switch to any of the ones you have anytime outside of battle and for any character you want. In Bravely Default, jobs are obtained by defeating enemies of the job at certain points in the story or through sidequests. It also has the Brave/Default system, where you can borrow against or save up turns in battle.
General impressions:
This game was one of the reasons I got my 2DS. I was so excited to play it. But every time I went to get a new game, I was never in the mood for this one. Eventually I was and I picked it up and for the first few days I could not put it down. My 2DS was constantly on the charger because I was draining the battery like a crazy person. I was so interested, so excited. But I noticed that the further in I got, the more my interest waned. I realized I didn't really like the characters, the story was incredibly predictable, and the game was really kind of hard, even on easy. I still like the game, don't get me wrong, but I suppose it didn't live up to what I expected it to.
Story:
At first the story really grabbed me. I couldn't wait to see what happened next, to get the next character, to go to the next area. What was going to happen!? As it went on though, I realized the story was absurdly predictable. I saw pretty much every twist coming, and that's saying a lot because I'm really bad at that. Especially the (SPOILER)“Things aren't black and white!” twist because Edea spent the whole game shoving black and white morality down my throat at every opportunity. If they'd been a bit more subtle about it, it would have had more of an impact. Instead it was “Okay, when's the reveal, let's get on with it.” But the story is still pretty solid and I liked that the villains for the most part had some depth to them instead of just being evil badbads.
Gameplay:
I'm split on this so I'll start with the negatives. I like to play video games ALONE. I won't even VS players in fighting games anymore, I'll just take turns. I want to play games A L O N E. I don't want to turn on StreetPass, I don't want to connect with other players, I want to play it as if no one else exists. I hated that this game penalized me for that. Oh you want to rebuild the town? Well it's going to take 10 years because you prefer to play without linking to your friends. You don't get the special friend attacks. And we are going to remind you every time you boot up the game that you will not have it as easy because you play by yourself. I don't play with other people. I don't like that. Awesome if you do, but don't penalize me if I don't. Also this game was hard and really repetitive towards the end and also in dungeons. Now that that's over with, this was refreshing if you enjoy games like FFV and the job system. I LOVE the job system. So many jobs, so many cute outfits, they get to keep those jobs in scenes. So much fun. The Brave/Default option was also really cool and made the regular fights much quicker and easier. It was also good that they had battle and difficulty settings.
World:
The games world was quite interesting and I did like it. The towns were very pretty and artistically done and I always liked seeing what the next town would look like. Very pretty, great diversity. Only negative I can think of were the repetitive dungeon maps. Other than that, no complaints, really great world.
Characters:
Another weak point for me personally, although a lot of people love the characters. I thought I would love Agnes and made her my main lady, giving her my favourite job classes and such. She is a good person but I don't know, she didn't stand out to me. I didn't really like the others, although I didn't dislike them either. I guess Tiz would probably be my favourite of the bunch, but not enough to give him his own section in this review. I'd say some of the villains were more interesting to me. But I did enjoy their interactions and little character skits.
Overall this is a good game, especially if you like old school Final Fantasy. It definitely goes back to its roots. It was a bit repetitive and predictable, but it's good fun to play, especially for fans of the job system.
I wouldn't mind another go at a Tales game someday, and Bravely Default too. Hopefully they get a port to a console I currently make use of sometime.
I expect I'll buy Ni No Kuni sometime.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
Norma is great. I thought she was a really funny, fun character. She attacks with bubbles for Pete's sake.
BD fairy is creepy as smurf.
50. .hack
Bit of an early schedule today. Let's finish up the 50's!
50. .hack//series (Infection, Mutation, Outbreak, Quarantine)I'm including all four games in the series because it's hard to judge them individually. It would be like judging each disc of the PS1 FF games individually instead of as a whole. Anyways, these games are about MMO players in The World as some strange junk goes on. People playing the games are going in to coma's in real life, and newbie player Kite gets some weird messages and powers. It soon becomes obvious that this isn't a typical video game and Kite and his gang need to set things straight before more people get hurt.
This game is a single player RPG meant to mimic an MMO, since an MMO is the setting of the game. So in the game you go to different maps by entering different keywords, you have safe zones, and you call up your party members to come join you instead of them being readily available at all times. Sometimes they will be busy with “real life” and will be unavailable to you in game. There are also some sidequests to do and such. Each character has a job class that he/she specializes in. There are a lot of playable characters, some story mandatory, and some you can recruit by doing sidequests.
General impressions:
I actually didn't know what an MMO was when I started playing this, but that didn't stop it from being fun! It should also be noted that this game is more than just a game, it's got a whole experience with it. You even get short movies to watch with the games to show what's going on in “the real world” as you progress the story events in game. There's also an anime that is pretty connected, but it isn't necessary to watch to complete the game. Because it has so much around it, and you even get like a little messages thing and you can customize your background before you officially join the game and stuff, it really makes for a very immersive experience, something I enjoy a good bit.
Story:
the story is excellent and really had me hooked. I was a bit creeped out and scared, but excited and wanting to know more and see more. I wanted to understand what was happening and why. It has some very interesting lore to it, it's well told, and overall is just a very gripping story. The story is by no means a horror, but it does have some thriller aspects to it, which is a genre I really enjoy. Great story.
Gameplay:
The game is really fun to play. There's a bunch of maps to explore, the world really changes with the events, and even the menu screen before entering the game itself is fun because you can customize it and stuff. I like the realism aspect of not having everyone available to you at all times, although it was a bummer sometimes to not have access to a character you use frequently. The sidequests and mini-games and such were also much fun.
World:
My biggest complaint here is that some of the maps get repetitive. But other than that it's good, it has some nice locations, and it changes with the games and the story, which was pretty neat. Nothing special but not bad at all either.
Characters:
With so many characters, there's bound to be some you like! There were quite a few I really enjoyed using and it was interesting to see some of the personalities you got along the way. There was also a good variety so you could adjust your parties for your personal play style.
Favourite character: Mistral BQx2uW7.jpg
Honourable mention: Elk, Natsume sicaiSs.jpgocn6Y9X.jpg
Mistral is sweet, bubbly, and kind. She's also fun to have around and makes some silly comments. (SPOILER)I was sad that she became unavailable for a good chunk of time, but overall she's a great character. Natsume was very naive and had low self-esteem, but she melted my heart and I liked having her around. Elk has one of the saddest stories and I couldn't help but feel for the poor guy.
Overall great game with great atmosphere. Excellent story, really fun to play. The games cost an arm and a leg now though, which is a shame because I really like them and wish I could play them again.
This evening we kick off the 40's, yaaay!
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