But she wasn't in Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker :V

I thought it was a slight letdown from the first one. Still worth getting if it's cheap.

Ys games are on sale on Steam. I tried the demo of Ys Origin and I liked it, but damn I suck, can't beat the boss, lol... Considering that one, or Oath in Felghana. Should I? Anyone care to sell me on, or warn me about, those games?

I actually haven't played Ys Origin too much, but I love the series in general, and Oath in Felghana is one of my favorites in the series. It's not a terribly deep game and the story won't blow you away, but it is a real fast and fun action RPG with an outstanding soundtrack. It's a stellar remake of an originally rather mediocre game. And the last boss is a hell of a fight. I'd play it for the soundtrack alone, honestly.

The Oath in Felghana and Ys Seven, to me, were merely okay. Fun little action RPGs with alright stories.

And then I played Memories of Celceta. Not only was the combat a lot more fun (especially when you get Frieda, holy shit), but the story was actually pretty engrossing--nothing super complex or anything like that, but I cared about the characters and I sincerely wanted to know where the story was going (never played the original Ys IV). Also, can I just gush about the artwork for a minute? Because Memories of Celceta's art design and character portraits are fucking gorgeous. Oh, and it's on my beloved Vita, so now I've yet another great RPG on that poor, neglected gem of a system.

Found a box with some old games this afternoon. Some are playstation games (either illegal or original ones) and some are old computer games that I might have download some things for in order to be able to play them again.

Played Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and I'm currently stuck at the final boss. The other levels are fun to play but definitely not as long as I imagined. Still, a pretty cool game and one of my childhood favorites. Next game I'll play is either Donald Duck Maui Mallard, this crazy platform disc featuring Aladdin, Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehoc, Rayman, Earthworm Jim, Gex and more, Jungle Book, Worms or The Lion King.

Did you pick up Demon Gaze, Mind Zero or Conception for Vita? I have all three but haven't started any of them, nor looked into how they actually are.

It's almost done I think. The main hero finally is starting to stop feeling sorry for themselves and there's apparently a so-so plot twist.

It's a task that needs to be completed. If I can finish Final Fantasy XIII I can finish this. At the very least I'm curious what the worst modern JRPG is. For awhile FFXIII didn't have any competition.


About Hyrule Warriors, all I need to know is that you can play as Midna. Arguably, my all time favorite game character. Throw in Fi doing these mystical magic dances and powerful Master sword attacks and I'll probably be getting this game.

I never played one of those beat up insanely large mob type games. I guess it's OK if this is my first introduction to those.

Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Uhh... Where were you during the Summer sale? The new X-Com: Enemy Unknown (I preferred the original title of UFO instead of this Americanization) went for under seven euros during it while bundled with two DLCs and Enemy Within it was under ten. The Bioshocks... Well, I've only played the first one and while the only "FPS" I've played on the consoles is Metroid Prime and its first sequel, I don't think the gameplay was much like that at least. It didn't differ from other action-focused (think Doom, Quake, Unreal rather than Rainbow Six, yeah I'm old) FPSs in terms of gameplay. The setting and plot is very well thought-out even if the plot was rather superficial really.

I only checked sporadically (lest I ruin myself financially) but it's good to know it's been receiving discounts like that already.
Oh, and I didn't mind the first bioshock. I meant to say Bioshock Infinite. Two weapon limits, sitting in cover half the time waiting for a regenerating shield to recover, enemies that jump in from the rafters when the first wave is dead, that sort of nonsense.

Honestly, I thought it was pretty bad. It's very short and felt like they decided to go for shock and awe value over anything else. The Deus Ex like mechanics from the original aren't there anymore and the atmosphere just... didn't do much for me. Sure, they refined the combat, but it just felt really generic and boring to me pretty quickly in. The first game is a lot weirder with some weird design choices (I recall the hell train thing being weird?).... buuut it was memorable and cool stuff.

Worth noting they were handled by different devs. The guys who did the first game did the Riddick games, which I personally think are fantastic and oozing with atmosphere. II just felt really generic in comparison to me. Very weird and unsatisfying ending too.

We finally might disagree on something. (but it's scary to argue about XIII)

Anyways though, I thought XIII-2 was a big step up from the first game.
- Battle system open from the start
- Better characters, Noel should have been the main for the trilogy. Yeah I like Serah more than Lightning, because she doesn't speak in Shitspearean.
- Suddenly this composer really grew on me with this one, the game was loaded with like 10 battle themes which is always cool to see in a JRPG.
- Great final boss.
- A recurring villain? Wow!

Also I'm a few hours into Lightning Returns and it seems fairly terrible so far.
- Lightning, not like I wasn't expecting it though. Worst character in the franchise? She gets my vote.
- Fuck the time limit. I can be okay with these, but when specific times trigger missions, events, doors, etc, it's fucking annoying.
- Battle system is cool and a bit more manual than the other two, but for whatever reason... it's just not as exciting to me. The lack of a party is awkward.
- Music downgraded somehow?
- It's too open. Wow, am I saying that when XIII was too linear? But maybe I should just say, the dialogue is just so godawful the NPC's are the most boring thing I've ever seen. But... this is how this game appears to be driven, by incredibly boring and dull NPC's. The most interesting plot point so far has been about saving this white chocobo for whatever reason.

Might keep at it just so I can say I've beaten the trilogy (someone want to hand me a poop molded trophy?), but yeah. It's kind of insane how bad this trilogy was in a lot of key departments. Seriously, someone tell me what the plot is to the XIII trilogy. Go ahead, try.

Seems like odd timing since I just recently reviewed XIII-2

PS: Reviewing for GameFAQs kinda sucks since they frown on swearing and they're really pissy about spoilers, so I had to add a bazillion spoiler warnings so they wouldn't cry at me.

I dare you to play Lightning Returns.



The trilogy in a nutshell.

God forbid even the creators know what these games were about.

Thank goodness most of the key staff, director, writers, etc, are not working on XV. Hallelujah.

I have Lightning Returns (bought it because my brother really likes this trilogy for some bizarre reason). I watched him play until I saw that they brought back the young version of Hope. WHO THE FUCK WANTED THAT? He's probably the whiniest, most annoying character in the history of the series, at least in XIII-2 he'd grown up and at least acted like a level headed adult instead of that sniveling little shit he was in XIII. I don't want him back, take him back, why is he young again if time stopped completely when he was an adult no fuck you I'm not playing to find out fuck you you suck.

He's your main guide/narrator who usually interupts you or reminds you about stuff endlessly every 5 minutes.

It's as nightmareish at it sounds. Game really needs a Turn Off Hope option.

Well, I bought Ys: The Oath in Felghana and I'm at the second boss and... getting murdered. I think I'm gonna like this game. Dark Souls? Psst, I beat S&O at level 1 and this game frightens me. And I'm playing on Normal.

For all you Souls fans around here, have you guys heard about Lords of the Fallen? Looks pretty damn cool to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQU4NlHi3xA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAB1PBgW8Y4

Hitting this October.

Yeah, the gameplay videos look promising. Shameless Souls rip-off, and I don't care for the Blizzard-like art style or the lame angry bald white male protagonist, but it could be good. I'll be on the lookout for it, maybe get it on sale on Steam or a PS4 Xmas gift or something (once I get a PS4...).

This talk about Ys made me remember I bought Ys Origin last year and still haven't played it...

Lords of Fallen looks nice, excluding the Kratos look-alike. Souls styled games are always welcome. Too bad I don't have a ps4 or a pc strong enough to run it,

The Ys talk got me to buy Oath of Felghana on Steam. Pretty fun so far, the combat is pretty satisfying. I got to the first boss and got owned, might wait til I get a better controller since my damn jump button is sticking.

Just bought all the Y's for the sales. Wonder if they're the Mana-esque games I'm always craving?

I've never played Mana, but I like the combination of action RPG and more typical JRPG story/characters. It's a nice combination compared to action RPGs with skimpy stories or stories that try too hard and suck (Elder Scrolls...Skyrim is basically an action RPG isn't it?). And it's cool to have a JRPG with action RPG combat rather than turn-based typical style...there's quite a few JRPGs like that around, has been for a while, but I never played many of em. Legacy of Legaia might be the closest I got and that's still pretty traditional/turn-based in comparison.

I just had the urge to go waste money on second hand games/electronics, heres my loot.

http://puu.sh/a6EVd/f762cba0aa.jpg

like £42 for all that

Dude you've been missing out. They're basically the best example of that. I go back to Secret of Mana / Seiken Densetsu 3 more than FF4/6, CT, etc whatever. The gameplay is so damn good and fun. The games are gorgeous too and the composer is incredible. Very simple stories, but I've always thought the atmosphere was dense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THuw9I4RcyQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cce28S6ht3I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVOXiofGVHc - bricks shat

Seiken Densetsu 3 especially, lends itself well to replays. You get to pick 3 of 6 playable characters, there are 3 main story paths, manual stat distribution, the game opens up completely in the second half (you go about killing dragon gods across the world), and then there's two points in the game where you change classes (two branching paths) for each character that have very different skills/magic, so it's fun to experiment. It's had one of the only good GameFAQ's boards I've ever liked, very active over a decade and plus some.

They can be pretty damn tough too the first time around, especially SD3. The bosses don't really fuck around.

Secret of Evermore was great too with the same battle system. The battle system in these is just incredible to me and I'm sad it didn't carry over into the PSX a bit. I'd take them over the Quintet stuff too (Terranigma, Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia), since you actually get a controllable party instead of one (those are a bit more Zelda-ish though I guess).

The Souls stuff almost feels like the closest thing to the satisfaction that the Mana/Evermore games give me.

Legend of Mana was a major step down to me because of the world building mechanic, only two playable characters I think, and they dropped some of the RPG elements. Different composer too I think.

I love my SNES Mana.

Oh shit, Secret of Mana. I played through most (all?) of it co-op with a friend waaaay back in like 1995, and it was a blast. Didn't even really realize there was a sequel... kinda makes me want to pick both of them up for future play. But I see Seiken Densetsu 3 was only a Japanese release. I guess you need an adapter to play it? Or was there any SNES-compatible version?

Sword of Mana (GBA) is also an excellent title in the series. It's sort of a remake of the first Final Fantasy Adventure, but plays almost exactly like Secret of Mana with a few more features. You only get two characters in your party, but it has day/night mechanics, plus you can collect materials from rare monsters to forge weapons. Definitely worth checking out if you like the series.

Haha everyone getting Ys too... Dammit Steam, put an affiliation system already, I want my percentage.

I played Secret of Mana with friends a few years ago, and I thought it was good but kind of overrated. I really, really hated how you couldn't dodge some enemy or boss attacks. Like, if they would cast a spell, and you'd automatically get hit; no dodge or block system or anything you could do, as if it were a turn-based RPG. And the cooldown on normal attacks really annoyed me. It's fine on special attacks, but normal ones? Make swings or animations slower, or give enemies more HP or whatever, if you don't want the player to just button-mash, but the cooldown thing isn't a good solution at all, it really annoyed me. Oh yeah, and the charge levels thing that made this annoying noise.... that got annoying fast. Is SD3 like that too?

So far I'm enjoying Ys a lot more than SoM. And holy hell is it kicking my ass. I finally beat that second boss (I understood a mechanic that helped quite a bit, but it didn't make the fight trivial or anything, I still had to work for it), but the third one kicked my ass yet again, and I already unlocked the "Consult a FAQ already!" achievement for dying 10 times on the same boss. I knew it wouldn't take long... Well, now I'm in a mean-looking lava level, so things are getting from bad to worse. Yup, I'm digging this game.

Evolution 2014 is streaming this weekend, if y'all are into pro fighting game tournaments.

Yeah I got buddies in Vegas competing atm. KI pool is somewhat small so I'm expecting to see them on stream.

Just wait until you get to the final boss. What an amazing fight that was.




I loved Sword of Mana. It was arguably the last true Mana style game in the series, I think. I liked Legend of Mana on PS1 a lot, but Heroes of Mana and Children of Mana on the DS left a lot to be desired. I loved the original Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3. Dawn of Mana remains on my shelf, unplayed.



You can bypass the region locks with certain cartridge adapters, yeah. Alternatively, a lot of clone systems (like the RetroN3 / RetroN5) will play games from all regions. But for an English version, you'd need to play a ROM. Realistically though, if you really want to play it on an actual system, you can actually buy SNES reproduction carts of Seiken Densetsu 3 that have the English patch applied and I believe support 3 players. It'll cost you like 60 bucks or so, but it's a pretty common repro.

Pffff wasn't I just telling you that this game looked cool and you were complaining about how dumb the "bumper combat" sounded? Fie!

Uh, yeah, I'm not interested in the old games with their bump combat systen. Origin and Felghana don't have that, though, so I checked out the Origin demo on Steam during the Sale, and liked it. So I bought... Felghana because it was cheaper (and people on GAF recommended to start with that one first). If I keep liking it (who knows, it might become a repetitive slog at some point, though I hope not, I'm still early into the game), I'll pick up Origin during the next sale.

Still have no interest in playing Ys I & II and its silly bump-into-enemies combat though.

I like how the item finding jingle is the same as Metroid's, haha.

I'll be checking it out when someone uploads all of it on Youtube.

My predictions for Ultra Street Fighter IV:

-Infiltration with Akuma/Gouki. Giving a top tier character added buffs is a bit silly. With one of the world's best players having that as his main character, I'm guessing Evo is his. He plays methodically so the few added nerfs won't affect his gameplay.

Everyone Sako seems to use got buffed so Sako will do good with Evil Ryu or Ibuki. That's my 2nd vote.

This is just going by observed performance in past tournaments. For all we know, Daigo got ungodly good with Hugo or something.

-Out of the new characters we'll see Decapre rank the highest. Decapre is gimmicky enough that people can exploit her this early. When I played her she was fairly risk free. Poison puts on good pressure, but I'm of the mind why use Poison when Juri can put on the same pressure but better? But conceptually she's easy to grasp so we'll see some Poisons. Elena is good at low level play but I don't see her dominating. Rolento has annoying moves like Blanka but I don't see him being competitive at high level play yet. I don't think Hugo can handle fireballs well enough to be used competitively when the other grapplers seem to do better.


-My main character is Rose and they made her a lot better now. So we'll see more Roses than usual and Roses place much higher. Some guy from Europe did very well with Rose and he'll place higher this year.

Sony having a Flash Sale with a bunch of 99¢ games on the PSN Store, mostly PS1 classics, if anyone's interested:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=853501

Been playing Pullblox World and Guacamelee over the past few days. Both are pretty fun, 15 plus hours on Pullblox and counting.

There's already been a couple of nutso choices. You should watch it, dude. Put it on in the background or something. I'm here to see how far Poongko goes because of Seth's nerfs, and I want to see how my most valuable player, EMP Dieminion, fares with his Guile. He's been a consistent top four and top eight, so I'm always excited to see how far he goes.

Also, Gootecks' Rose was knocked into the Loser's Bracket really fucking early, which I found pretty funny. I was always hoping he's go back to Balrog.

I like Dieminion's Guile. He makes Guile a sentinel pretty much commanding his space.

Watching a little bit of it. I don't know a thing about Smash Bros and it looks funny. People spazzing and dashing like a few pixels all over the place.


I saw K Brad's Cammy almost lose. Really close match. And for the first time I saw a Dudley doing good.

Any of the commentators would wipe the floor with me. The game is still new and they completely understand all the buffs, nerfs, and red focus techniques. It's crazy.

I like Dudley. He reminds a lot of Guile and Cammy in that they have to play patiently, but once they get going they're hard to stop.

In for Legend of Dragoon, might pick up the Wild Arms titles as well. Thanks for the heads up.