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[Cless]

Christ. I... completely forgot how amazing Final Fantasy VI is. The new localization is nearly giving me the feeling of playing it for the first time... all over again. This game consumed me for about three years straight back in the SNES days.

I love how this game has such a broad cast and no clearly defined "main" character... it's just a bunch of people working together. The soundtrack is perfection, every single piece is wholly appropriate where it is used, and most of it highly memorable and brimming with beautiful melodies. The perfection of the soundtrack adds an atmosphere that as of yet has been unmatched by any RPG, ever. Then the story, which takes you through some of the coolest and most diverse places has a really great flow to it. No wonder I went through this game somewhere between 20 and 30 times back in the day (seriously).

Best numbered FF game of all time. I can't believe I went actually went through a phase at one time in my life where I decied to turn anti-FF elitist and bash the game's weak points.

[Leroy]

Christ. I... completely forgot how amazing Final Fantasy VI is. The new localization is nearly giving me the feeling of playing it for the first time... all over again. This game consumed me for about three years straight back in the SNES days.

Heh, I remember playing and beating that game SO many different ways. My favorite was getting Locke to Odin at the lowest possible level and then having him equip Odin all the way to level 99. The results were delicious. I also once beat Kefka before he even managed to get out his pre-battle speech, that was a trip.

I love how this game has such a broad cast and no clearly defined "main" character... it's just a bunch of people working together. The soundtrack is perfection, every single piece is wholly appropriate where it is used, and most of it highly memorable and brimming with beautiful melodies. The perfection of the soundtrack adds an atmosphere that as of yet has been unmatched by any RPG, ever. Then the story, which takes you through some of the coolest and most diverse places has a really great flow to it. No wonder I went through this game somewhere between 20 and 30 times back in the day (seriously).

Yup. I always loved that there wasn't a central character, though Locke has been and will always be my favorite Final Fantasy character. I also liked how this was one of the only games I've played where the bad guys wins. Okay, so you eventually get to have the good guys win, but Kefka destroyed the world first! Awesome. Yes, the soundtrack is perfection. The town theme for the world of ruin is probably the most depressing piece of video game music ever.

Best numbered FF game of all time. I can't believe I went actually went through a phase at one time in my life where I decied to turn anti-FF elitist and bash the game's weak points.

Shame on you. Even when I was at the height of my hatred for modern Final Fantasy games, I always remarked how incredible II and III (as I knew them for so many year) were.

I haven't played my GBA one yet.. as I'll probably be sending my DS to Nintendo to have them replace the bottom screen (hopefully) and I've still got a GBA SP to tide me over while the DS is away.

[Goshi]

Best numbered FF game of all time. I can't believe I went actually went through a phase at one time in my life where I decied to turn anti-FF elitist and bash the game's weak points.

Thats because FFVI is really that awesome.

The new localization for the game is really good. The world map looks ugly on the GBA one though but thats minor and can be ignored. The music did take a hit though, not a terribly big one but it can be a problem.

[Cless]

The world map looks the same to me as it always has... slightly vertically sloped mode7. The only thing that bothers me is that it has an inconsistent framerate.

Music is fine for most part to me. It never quite sounds as "full" as the original, but I actually find myself liking some of it more. Only a couple tunes really got raped though. "The Unforgiven" especially.

[Cless]

So I finished Ar tonelico. It was pretty decent. Gameplay never really got interesting... it's always super easy. There are some fairly deep micromanagement systems in the game, but with its kindergarten level difficulty it's practically just extra unnecessary fat. I don't know what monkey decided this was all well and balanced, but... I never got a game over. Ever. 90% of my single character deaths were either from cheap instant death attacks or me experimenting with things that gave a character essentially 0 defense.

The music, art, and the girls were the strong points of the game. If you get into the girls enough, you'll probably be feeling a little empty after the game's over... they're pretty much the focus of the game and extremely well developed, moreso than most RPG characters out there.

Voice acting in both languages is pretty meh. English had some decent voices but the directing is a disaster. Japanese gives typical eardrum-splittingly high-pitched anime voices to the girls. I settled for the English...

That said, NIS America's localizations have taken a fair nosedive since they opened their office here. Disgaea was great, though it was done by Atlus. Phantom Brave was completely spot on. Makai Kingdom's came out quite good (though I noticed a few funny engrish errors in that game). Disgaea 2 was loaded in typos and grammatical errors, and voice acting quality took a slight dip vs. previous efforts.

Ar tonelico builds on Disgaea 2's localization failings and takes them further. I swear there's an even higher ratio of typos and other textual errors in this game. A lot menu text reads really odd and is wordier than it needs to be... I've even seen some cases where the text isn't even complete... it's just abruptly cut off.

I dunno what's going on with NISA, but I kinda wish I could get hired by them and help beta test their games and maybe go through their text files and do some editing. I seriously cannot believe that half the errors I notice get missed in their own internal beta testing. I don't even have access to the debug mode!

Too bad I don't live anywhere near LA...


Oops. Turned that into half of a rant. But I guess I should think about what major console game to play next. I just upgraded the hard disk in my PS2 from a 10GB to a 250GB, and got one of those awesome wireless logitech controllers. Maybe I should finally get off my lazy butt and finish Tales of the Abyss. Though Ocarina of Time is coming to the Wii VC tomorrow (improved framerate FTW).

[Phren]

Haha, I mostly agree with you on Ar Tonelico. The game itself is astoundingly easy. And the major part of the interest is the depth of the relations with the girls. I thought the cosmosphere bit was well done for the most part (ie, a character praising themselves just says how important they are to them, rather then coming off as arogant. etc)
But seriously, it looks like they ran a quick spell check, skipped a proofread, and started shipping.  : /

Plus, they have NO grasp of relative terms rules - (more/most, er/est)
"more and more strong"? lol

[throughhim413]

I'm currently playing Tales of Destiny PSX.  I also played a little bit of Tales of Eternia PSP over the weekend, but the rest will have to wait until after I'm done with Destiny.  I've also got my replay of ToP PSP and a playthough of ToP: Narikiri Dungeon in the works.

[Cless]

Well, I just pulled out a game I've had for over two years now but never had the uh... courage to play. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Bought it when it came out and never opened it. Now it's worth a fairly crazy amount in this condition so there's no way I'm going to open the real copy... so I'm playing by alternative means.

Pretty surreal game with a really cool atmosphere. Should be a fresh experience...

[Kogahazan]

Since I'm real damn busy this quarter, I'm playing short games that I'm already close to finishing or won't take long to finish. Rez-PS2 (May take a while actually, but trippy as hell so it's kewl), Kamen Rider Kabuto (Beat Survival Mode with a few Riders already, once I beat it with the rest, I'm done... what is it about people in costumes with poses that's so appealing?), Melty Blood: Act Cadenza (not really, have to go through survival mode with over half the characters still, plus multiple times with Hisui&Kohaku and Neco-Arc. Playing it because I'm slipping back into MB again), and Soul Calibur III (my dormmates racked up a sizeable battle count and I barely touched the single player modes, nor does it look like I will need to for other than my own personal fulfillment).

[Cless Aileron]

Oh geez.  I ended up having a bunch of games in my Now Playing list.

I'm still playing Twilight Princess.  I manage to get to the Arbiter's Ground.  I haven't started going through the dungeon.  Been collecting Poe Souls and then I also should go back and find the warp in the Gerudo Desert.

Also went back to playing Tales of Symphonia PS2.  Well, I've been making progress in the game and got Volt.

Now, today, I've gotten two new games plus a rental.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC).  I got a new graphics card earlier this month and what do I do?  Get a PC game.  I only got to play this for an hour and a half and I'm already loving it.  The graphics are great, even if my setting is at medium quality and it makes me what to explore this huge world.  The combat is also well done.  Already showed that it's a great game.

Metal Gear Solid:  Portable Ops (PSP).  I had to adjust to the different control style of the PSP.  After that, I was able to play.  Will play further and can't wait to see the story too.  The graphics are impressive, there's no doubt in my mind with that.

Call of Duty 3 (Wii).  This is what I'm currently renting.  First off, the controls...I feel pretty iffy on.  It's pretty hard for me to play this first person shooter with the way the controls are set up.  Outside of that, not a bad first person shooter but the controls does feel unrefined.

Oh yeah, I'll be real busy playing this time.

[Leroy]

I thought Call of Duty 3 on Wii was a good example of what to expect from FPS games on the system. It was immediately more fluid to me than playing with a dual analog setup.. but it did feel like it needed some work. It made me pretty hot for Metroid Prime 3 (or hotter, I should say).

[Leroy]

(I wanted a relocalization, not a terribly literal retranslation... cough Sky Render).

Awesome. Just.. awesome. *laughs*

[Cless]

Man, this game, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, is most the most hardcore I've played in YEARS. I'm getting killed even in regular encounters. This game can be incredibly brutal, but there's strategy to getting out of everything...

[Phren]

Nocturne is almost unrewarding to a degree with how tough some of the fights are.(not so much the single battles as the long trudges through them) Finding monsters with diarama/mediarama helps immensly, and well as documenting and explioting weaknesses (and avioding strengths) to net more turns. And everyone's fashion sense frightens me. (a suit with yelow diamond-polkadots? Where's the realism?) I moved on when they started adding in flying snakes that stone you on a regular basis..

Picked up Lunar Knights for the DS. I never played, for the record, any of the Botkai GBA games, but this looked interesting. The iosmetric view makes it a bit tricky to get used to moving, but most rooms open up and you can mostly ignore your aligntment while fighting. It's not bad so far, but a little bland in its approach. Touch screen-wise, they add a LOT of "you need to use the stylus for this for no reason" parts of the menu that switch all to quickly to "you need to use the buttons again now for a sec" parts of navigating the games otherwise simple menus. On the bright spot, there are space-shooter stages which operate by tapping enemies as they appear to have your ship fire on them - hopefully before they fire on you. Should they get a shot off, you move your ship by draging it around with the point of the stylus. So, it gets to be a little hectic constantly switching between tapping and dragging your ship out of the way, but it is fun. Mostly though, you're playing a dungeon-crawler and a game of keeping an eye on the life and energy gauges of your two characters, one of whom is at an advantage weather it's day or night (the sky is shown on the top screen)

[Goshi]

I need to consider getting that actually. I love the Boktai games since they play a lot like the old school Metal Gear games only with a few extra things.

Well I finished another playthrough of Kingdom Hearts II.

Also I finished the second Phoenix Wright game a few days ago. Case 4 was awesome.

[Carnivol]

Been putting Radiant Mythology away for a few (not that I've been able to "play it" a lot, as I'm mostly just going back'n forth between the computer and PSP, checking that things behave).

Currently, Crackdown (360) and Excite Truck (Wii) is getting my gaming love, with some Lost Planet (360) multiplayer with some friends on the side.