26.12.09 / RPGs, impressions, ps2, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: also sprach zarathustra, labyrinthos, ps2, rpg, shion, xenosaga iii
Security in all the installations in this series has been bad, but I think Labyrinthos takes the cake for WORST ever in video game history. It’s a very important building handling all kind of top-secret experiments and materials, and they’re expecting an attack from the Federation at any moment! They even said there were Federation moles around, didn’t they?
So from the second we took those guards out on the first floor, every single door, lock, window, everything in the building should have been locked down tight and a non-stop flood of security should have poured in. Labyrinthos shouldn’t have keycards just lying around for people to pick up, and every elevator should be guarded tightly, especially in an emergency. And haven’t they heard of fingerprint and retina scanners? Well actually they have, because Kevin had some in his room, so why don’t they bloody use them!!!? Haven’t they heard of encryption? How can I just stroll casually up to the Vessels of Anima, enter a few commands and have full access to the system? And when I do that, they still wait till I’ve stolen 3 of them and outfitted the E.S. before having any sort of reaction to my intrusion. Ridiculous.
I was flabbergasted, all the way through the dungeon. I was expecting some sort of trap or ambush at the end, like “We saw you coming all along, now die!” ‘cos they have to have security cameras in a place like this, right? I know they do because I saw the footage, but somehow they’re incapable of tracking us on the cameras and blocking us off, or setting traps for us? Who runs this installation, a bunch of muppets? No wonder they got wiped out, with intelligence like that.
Anyway, I’m having fun finally finishing this series off. It would help if Shion wasn’t such a stubborn, whiny bitch, but that’s what the Mute button is for. What an annoying bitch.
This game needs more chaos!!
31.07.09 / Japanese, RPGs, otome game, ps2, tokimeki memorial / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: idea factory, L2 Love x Loop, otome game, ps2, tokimeki memorial
I’ve been so caught up actually playing games I haven’t been following game news as much as I used to. Nothing too big going on right now, but an upcoming PS2 otome game caught my eye on Famitsu just now. It’s called L2 Love x Loop. If I tend to focus on PS2 and DS games in this blog it’s because those are the two main things I play on, though I also own a PS1 and a Wii.
Anyway, Love x Loop’s premise is like this: the heroine Nanami lives with her older sister in a futuristic setting where robots are at war with mankind and humans have been reduced to living in ruins. On Nanami’s birthday her sister is kidnapped in a robot attack, and she finds a mysterious robot just lying around. Now through the powers of this special robot she resolves to go back in time and change the past so that the future won’t have to be so crappy any more.
I remember someone with a plan like that, I think his name was Trunks and it didn’t work out quite as planned. Then again it did work out for someone else named Crono so we’ll see how things turn out 
Anyway, this wouldn’t be a real otome game without bishies, would it? Yup, so somehow Nanami finds time out of her very busy time-travelling sister-saving world-changing schedule to romance a few cute guys. What I’m really worried about, though, is that old guy in there.
See him? He’s creeping me out. I can’t imagine…you know…even though I did hook up with the headmaster in Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side, but that’s different! Really! *ahem* According to the official blog he’s the man who gave the robot to the main character, so maybe we’ll be spared the geriatric kissy face.
Old guy worries aside (or maybe because of them) I’m really looking forward to this game. The story sounds fresh, the bishies look fresh and different and screenshots I’m seeing look lovely.
L2 Love x Loop from Idea Factory comes out August 20th in Japan. I’ll probably get it a month or two afterwards, based on the reviews.
14.06.09 / RPGs, persona 4, ps2, videogames / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: atlus, chie, persona 4, ps2, soundtrack, yosuke
Meh. Whatever. I liked Persona 3 better.
There, I said it. No one will deny the gameplay elements in P4 are better. In particular it feels really good to be able to hit Square to move around the map. When exploring you can count on an easy supply of Goho-Ms to get out of the dungeon at any time. You can control your party directly. You can control your party directly. You can control your party DIRECTLY. Etc, etc, it’s improved over P3 is every way you can imagine.
When it comes to other elements though, I find it sadly lagging behind P3. Firstly the story feels really trivial. In theory a serial killer in a small town should make for a really tense and gripping game, but nobody really cares in the game. When someone close to them dies, they don’t even attend the funeral, and only one or two people seem to care. The townspeople go about their business just as usual and let their children run around town like nothing’s going on. For your party, which has appointed itself unofficial detectives, solving the mystery involves entering the TV once in a while, saving someone, then getting on with the rest of their lives. There’s never a sense of fear or urgency about the whole thing.
The characters are boring too. In fact I’m bored just writing this because it was such a dry game. I didn’t find the lame attempts at humor amusing at all. The crossgender beauty pageant was a flop, Teddie was just annoying, Chie was a faint shadow with no real presence, Yosuke was meh in battle and meh outside, it just goes on and on. Not to mention if you don’t do their S. Links then their character development stops right after you face their shadows and is never referred to again. Haa.
The soundtrack was another let down. P3 was one of the few games where I rushed out and got the soundtrack right after finishing it. To be honest P3′s soundtrack got on my nerves in the beginning, but in some sort of perverse Stockholm Syndrome way, by the end of the game I loved it. P4…I remember the battle tune, god knows I heard it often enough. That’s it. Yah.
The graphics and colors in P4 somehow managed to be grayer and blander than P3′s, maybe to showcase the fact that it’s set in the boring countryside. The whole thing looks washed out, the blurry dungeon effects gave me a headache and writing this review is giving me another headache so I’m quitting.
I didn’t dislike P4, but I didn’t quite like it either. Plop down, do some S. Links (only good one was Death, IMO), do some more S. Links, fight and clear a dungeon in one day, do some more S. Links. Dating sim with fighting, I can live with that. And now that it’s over I can live without it.
