Wow, a post!

I haven't posted anything in quite a while, so here are my thoughts on Arc Rise Fantasia.

OK, so I'm not very far in this game, but I can give some first impressions. The graphics are pretty good for a Wii game, the music is OK (it's composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, but it's not as good as his work from Chrono Trigger or Xenogears), and the battle system is turn based but at least attempts to be different from other turn based games. So far, the story is also pretty good, but it is a little cliche. Overall, it seems pretty solid.

I do, however, have some major gripes with the game. The voiced dialog sounds completely unnatural, but not in an amusing way like Grandia. It sounds like the voice actors are all reading the script for the very first time, and that's not the worst of it. The female lead, Ryfia, is often monotone and emotionless. It also sounds like her voice actor speaks English as a second language. Now, in a way, that English as a second language thing could be a good thing. I mean, there is supposed to be a bit of a language barrier between her and the other characters... However, when you combine that with the monotone and the fact that it sounds like she's reading it for the first time, you end up with one of the most irritating characters in the gaming universe.

My other main complaint is the uneven difficulty level. Even when I fight every battle, upgrade all my equipment, and stock up on all my consumable items I still have not beaten a boss on the first attempt. And when I do win, I can't find a reasonable explanation as to why I won. For example, I died fairly quickly at the second boss during my first attempt. On my second attempt, I won fairly easily, but I hadn't changed up anything. I didn't level grind, I didn't upgrade anything, and I even used the exact same skills and spells in the same order as my first attempt. So why did I win?

Still, I am not very far in this game, and this is not a complete review. I'm hoping that as I progress my opinion will improve, but as of right now I have to recommend that only fans of JRPGs pick up this game, and even they should consider something else because there are plenty of solid JRPG choices on the DS and PSP.

Gaming Gripes

Well, I haven't made a blog post in a while so I thought I'd address a few problems I have encountered while playing my current favorite game, Left 4 Dead.

I don't know how many people encounter this, but it seems to me that there are a lot of cheaters in Versus mode. Usually they cheat as survivors. The only cheat that I know for a fact I have encountered enables the survivors to see the outlines of the infected. The time to get suspicious of this is when a really terrible team does really well as survivors. If they split up and still do really well even when multiple special infected gang up on them, then it is time to test them. This is fairly easy to do, because the cheat seems to have a weak spot. It seems that your outline appears whether you have spawned or not, so if they try to chase and run you down before you spawn, you know they are cheating.

Another far more common problem in Versus mode is griefing. For those who don't know, griefing refers to actions that are taken during a multiplayer game that are intended to anger or frustrate other players, and these actions can usually be done without taking advantage of any glitches or alterations to the game. Common forms of griefing in Left 4 Dead include team killing, self killing, constantly calling votes, or using the communication systems in a distracting manner. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief in this game, simply calling a kick vote against a player is not griefing, and just because your teammates want to kick you does not give you the right to try to pull off a team kill.

Well, I think that is enough of a rant for now.

gamerDNA.com

I have been using this site a lot lately. It's one of the coolest sites I've ever used. The idea behind it is fairly simple. You enter your game collection and some other information into the system, and it tries to find other games and players that match your interests. It then will follow your gameplay activities, and for some systems this following is totally automatic. The community there is also really friendly, and it is relatively spam and forum troll free. I could keep going on about why I like it, but if anyone wants to know more the best way to learn it to check it out. http://www.gamerdna.com/

High Speed Internet

Well, there is now high speed internet at my folks' house, so I will probably make an actual blog post sometime soon.

This is Frustrating...

Take a look at
this review. I normally really like this guy's reviews on anime, but I think he has made a textbook example of a bad review.

First, let me say something. I loved Trinity Blood, but this is not the reason I disliked this review. In fact, feel free to write your own review that just blasts Trinity Blood into a million tiny pieces. Just don't make the same mistake this guy did. I appreciate a well written review even if I don't agree with it.

The big mistake this guy made was not watching the full series. I do not think this was fair, because the later episodes of a series actually address a few of the problems he had with it. I just do not think you should judge a series like this after watching 1/3 of it, especially if you claim to enjoy the genre.

Now, I'm not saying that reviewing all things based on a partial experience is a bad idea. Some videogames are marred by the fact that they have sloppy controls. Sloppy controls alone can ruin a game. But then again, if you actually know the game has sloppy controls it is fair to state it. But to base a review on guesswork is not fair. This guy acted like he had more knowledge than he actually did, like he actually knew where the series was going, like he knew the characters weren't going to develop, like he knew the plot holes weren't going to be filled.

The fact of the matter is that had he watched more of this series, he would not have had the same complaints about it. I'm not saying that he would have liked it. He might have even hated it more, but at least he would have had enough information to actually know he didn't like it, and enough information to write a fair review about it. As it is, he wrote a review partially based on things he couldn't know, and this kind of arrogance is the problem I have with most reviewers today.

I didn't intend to write that much... Anybody else care to weigh in?

Spring Break is Over...

Dang, my spring break just ended and I had classes today. I am not too enthusiastic about it right now because I really needed more of a break than I got. My grandmother had a heart attack recently and I really want to go see her, but one week is not enough time to drive all the way to the southeastern corner of South Dakota from the western side of Montana. Well, it's very possible, I just wouldn't be able to spend much time there... I guess the weather is pretty bad there anyway...

On a lighter note, I managed to get a new copy of Blue Dragon for $10. It's a pretty fun game, and it is well worth the $10.

Still Can't Decide... A Brief Post

I still can't decide what new game I want, or even if I want a game. I think the last set of Gurren Lagann came out, and I might buy that instead. Also, I think I should spend some more time with games that I already own... I'm still no where near close to beating Tales of Vesperia after giving it 20 hours. Also deserving of more time are BioShock and Battlefield: Bad Company. I'm a bit frustrated with both The Orange Box and Devil May Cry 4 right now, and I will never play Sega Superstars Tennis again. What a turd that game is...

I won't even get into my list of retro, Wii, and DS titles. That would be ridiculous.