Now Playing

[Cheetah]

Tales of Xillia is pretty good. I played through it quite quickly and did about half of a second play through, which is very unusual. I found Tales of Graces to be better in almost every way, but still haven't finished it. I'm looking forward to Tales of Xillia 2 next month, the collectors edition is tempting, but crazy expensive.

[3lric]

Finished Earthbound Uncut, it was quite good, all the little changes with the dialogue and such were a nice touch, though seeing Ness walk around naked
later in the game was a bit odd O_o.

After that I went played through Illusion of Gaia in a day and got all 50 red jewels and actually beat the hidden mansion (something I was never able
to do as a kid) Very disappointing to find literally no reward for this :/

So for those that I don't talk to on IRC (cuz you don't flippin log on) I've been ordering a lot of reproduction carts recently (sorry, I like hacks)
Tomorrow I expect arrival of:
(This list is technically my NOW PLAYING list)

Legit Games:
Faxanadu
StarTropics
StarTropics II

Reproduction:
Lennus 2 (With english patch, and custom Paladin's Quest 2 label)
Chrono Trigger Retranslation (no, not that well known one, that one sucks, I went with a lesser known one on RHDN that I played a while ago)
LoZ: Parallel Worlds Remodel (always been a huge fan of Parallel Worlds, which I ordered a cart for some time back, eagerly awaiting the Remodel ver)
Terranigma (NTSC and English Patched)
Tales of Phantasia (English Patched)

Next Purchase:
Gunmans Proof
Star Ocean
Bahamut Lagoon
Romancing Saga 3
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I know some people may see reproductions as pirating, however, I only order games that I cannot normally acquire
in English or with a certain mod, I know there is emulators, but I much prefer original hardware.

It's also nice to be able to get repros for less than 50 bucks a pop when they used to cost around a hundred bucks
each. I was the foolish kid who traded things that were good for things that were bad (Traded my copy of Earthbound
and the Strategy guide for a GBA and FFTA the day of FFTA's launch) so it's nice to see my cartridge collection growing
again.

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Tales of Xillia is pretty good. I played through it quite quickly and did about half of a second play through, which is very unusual. I found Tales of Graces to be better in almost every way, but still haven't finished it. I'm looking forward to Tales of Xillia 2 next month, the collectors edition is tempting, but crazy expensive.

The tales games are one series I've never gotten to get into due to always playing other things, the only ones I got to play was the
ones on the PSX (Destiny IIRC?) So I'm quite excited for the arrival of Tales of Phantasia so I can finally play through the series.

[kyozo22]

Just finished Grandia 2 (hardtype patch), Borderlands 1 (awesome game!) and also the Breath of Fire 2 SNES retranslation mod. It was sweeeeet!  Oh, and Tsukihime. Just finished Tsukihime as well.

I'm going to be moving onto Borderlands 2 in a couple weeks, once my dongle arrives (birthday present from my brother) so I can co-op through the storyline. Would love to do some GTA 5 online but my damn PS3 keeps overheating!

Been playing through the .Hack series recently and loving it - dat Mac Anu theme is fucking gorgeous! Also starting to invest some time into the Fate/ Stay Night visual novel now that ufotable are confirmed to be re-making the anime (maybe they'll actually focus on just one route this time so it won't be COMPLETELY INCOHERENT and unfocussed.  )

[Cheetah]

Overheating PS3 sucks. I had my heatsink repaired a year ago, and just last night it started spontaneously shutting down again. Going to clean it and try to give it better air flow.

In the mean time I got Steamworld Dig for sale of 3DS. It is an addicting little game. I played through it in about 5 hours over about 7 sittings. I would have played it a lot more if it had bonuses or unlockables, but sadly none to be found. Still trying to find the motivation to take on a new large RPG.

[3lric]

Overheating PS3 sucks. I had my heatsink repaired a year ago

Heatsinks don't get 'repaired'. They are pieces of metal to draw heat from one place to another.
It's most likely an issue with either too much or not enough thermal paste. Both easily fixed.


About halfway through playing Terranigma and Lennus 2. Lennus 2 is awesome and a very good
sequel to Paladin's Quest, anyone who was a fan of the first game should try out the second.
Though I'll say the english translation is often a bit to self aware and silly at times, it doesn't take
away from the enjoyment of the game.

Terranigma is also a fantastic end of the series (Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma) though
most people have played it already so I don't have much to add here.

New games coming by mail this coming week to beat the following couple weeks:

1. Ganpuru Gunmans Proof
2. Breath of Fire II (patched with Retranslation patch and other fixes)
3. Bahamut Lagoon
4. Tales of Phantasia (finally)
5. Harvest Moon

[Kaijyuu]

I played a few hours of FFTA2.

It's surprisingly good. Not fantastic, but enjoyable. Seems to mix a lot of the strengths of FFT and FFTA (and some Tactics Ogre), and reducing the weaknesses of FFTA. Ain't perfect by any means, but an actually kinda fun game.

Also I'm very glad I decided to be juvenile and name the main character "Stupid." It makes everyone treat him like the annoying brat he is. Cid: "Let's go, Stupid." "Hey Stupid, look at this." Etc.

[Celdia]

Didn't feel like this warranted a new topic and I don't think we have a "hey look at this youtube video" topic - or if we do I'm too lazy to fight the Search function to find it - but here's something I'm 'Now Watching' instead of 'Now Playing'. The topic of the video made me think of Arena more than anything. I know there is some thought given to the staggered unit priorities between teams but does it go any further than that? Can it?

[Kaijyuu]

Finished FFTA2.


Color me overall impressed, though admittedly this might be because my expectations were incredibly low. Unlike FFTA, I'd actually call this a pretty good game. Again not perfect by any means, but I enjoyed it overall and am continuing to play the post-game.

Unlike FFTA, the story wasn't brain meltingly stupid nor 100% sanitized of anything dark or objectionable. There's actually people facing consequences for their actions. There's no shying away from topics like attempted murder. The idea of two people with magic books chronicling their life and painting themselves as protagonists going head to head was an interesting one.

As for problems, the gameplay still has problems. Early on I felt I had almost 0 meaningful character customization (everyone felt identical), later on I still only felt I had a little, stat growths are too damn important later and can make your units irreparably useless, and item stats are so close together they seem nearly completely interchangeable. Learning skills from items cause most of this; you still need to be useful when you're wearing something from the start of the game. Also the game could really use a reintroduction of charge times; the current magic system is better than FFTA due to everyone starting at 0 mp, but it still lacks strategic depth in comparison to FFT.

Some quests seemed to have unfortunate implications. Too often I felt I was protecting some poor rich and/or powerful person from those unruly commoners. Particularly bad was one quest where you helped a giant potion making corporation destroy small businesses; the small business owners were painted as whiny because they couldn't make as good a product for as low a price. It's like the writers saw what wal-mart does and thought wal-mart was somehow the good guys.
Also there were an uncomfortably large number of people who did bad things out of "jealousy." Because people with power got there entirely of their own merit and everyone who complains is just whining and wanting to cheat their way to the top, right? Ugh.


Despite my complaints, good game overall. Doesn't live up to FFT but sure as hell did a way better job than FFTA.

[Rufio]

Did you play FFTA2 or read Atlas Shrugged?

Sounds like a story written by Randroids.

[Kaijyuu]

I get the feeling at least one of the writers was one, but it doesn't spoil things overall.