DS Game Impressions - Bleach, Dragonball Z, Infinite Space, Lufia

While going through and deleting a few half-baked reviews, I ran across this one that I had completely forgotten about from a few years ago, so here it is!

My friend lent me a few DS games that I wanted to play but didn't have, so I tried them out and have collected a few impressions of them here.

Bleach: The 3rd Phantom
I know very little about Bleach, but that isn't a big issue for this game.  It is set before the events of the anime/manga so it's more of a prequel.  It's a strategy RPG like Disgaea, so I was happy to dive in and give it a try.  You move on a grid, but thankfully can attack in a square around your characters, instead of the usual "plus" pattern.  When you choose to attack an enemy, the game will show this confrontation from a different viewpoint.  It switches to a side view, and the animations for the attacks are really cool and fun to watch.  Sometimes the attacks will include a special attack, adding to the damage done.

The only thing I don't like are the skills you can use in battle.  Most cannot be used after you move, making healers almost useless.  Also, you need to equip your items to use ahead of time, which I didn't catch on to at first.  The stat and skill upgrades are nice, though.  Upgrading your weapon can give you more skills, extra power for ones you have, or other bonuses.  You need to unlock one before the next in the line can be used, so planning is essential, since I don't think you can have all of them.  The game was so fun that I bought my own copy.  Now if only they made it so it didn't write "Bleach" somewhere on every screen in the game...

Dragonball Z: Attack of the Saiyans
Brought to my attention by Mole during one of the recent podcasts [recent at the time of original writing -editor], I decided to check it out, since I am a fan of Dragonball Z and turn-based RPGs.  First off, the game looks good.  The map sprites are cool little super deformed version of the characters and the battle animations are nice to look at.  The battles themselves are turn-based (as mentioned previously), where you can attack, defend or use a skill.  Skills are powerful, but costly.  They can be upgraded with points obtained from victories and new skill can be revealed when certain skills level up.  There don't seem to be many skills to learn, and it takes awhile to get enough points to buy anything.  There's also a "sparking" meter, which is presumably used for super moves.  Until you get those (I haven't yet), the meter is pretty useless.

Story-wise, the game starts just before the martial arts tournament when the Z fighters first see Picollo Jr. (the young one).  Along the way, you take control of different characters and do various unimportant tasks.  It takes over an hour to get Goku in the part, and then fight Picollo.  After that, you resume doing unimportant things that presumably lead to the fight with Napa and Vegita.  While it's nice that they don't just rehash the show/manga plot verbatim, the things you do just don't feel special or interesting.  Also, story bits in the game seem to take longer than they should, since there is a small pause after a text bubble goes away and before characters do their emoticons.  They also do them frequently, which just made the uninteresting story bits take that much longer.  So while the game looks good and the battles are fun, the story makes the game actually kind of boring.  I don't know if I'll play it much more.

Infinite Space
This is a game that's been on my radar for awhile.  Space exploration and battles with grid-based equipping.  It sounded really fun, but the price and availability has always been a drawback.  When I started, the first thing I noticed was the graphics.  It reminded me of the Transformers DS games which kind of looked like crap.  Ugh.  Well, I can look past that, especially for an RPG, so I dove further.

It was a letdown.  The space battles are interesting, but get annoying pretty quickly.  Most things in the game are not explained well at all, adding to the frustration.  The more I played the game, the less I liked it.  Some are small gripes, like your initial target in space battles is not the ship in the front, which you actually NEED to attack first.  There are plenty of big gripes too, like the computer AI being almost perfect.  I didn't even get the melee battles, but I read about them, and it seems I dodged a bullet by not getting that far.  As sad as it is, I'm going to pass on it and save that chunk of change.  I'll happily give my friend back his copy.

Lufia
Last but not least is Lufia.  This is a series I really need to get into, since I enjoyed the original on SNES back in the day (and I still need to get my own copy of that).  I have the GBA one, and should really play more, but I wanted to give this one a try since I've seen it for pretty cheap.  First off, it is an action RPG, not a turn based, but that wouldn't be enough to deter me.  The combat is ok, but not that great.  You don't get many moves so it's not as fun as it could be.  You get a pretty effect on your attacks midway through the combo, but all they seem to do is obscure parts of the screen for no benefit.

The combat can be a bit wonky, mostly from using the d-pad to move in the 3D space (it would be perfect for the 3DS circle pad).  It's easy to get hit, and you take more damage than you might think.  This is offset by the "retry with level boost" option on the continue screen.  There's also a lot more platforming than I would have guessed, and it's about as bad as you'd suspect.  While the game is funny and doesn't really take itself seriously, it's not as fun as the old Lufias.  A bit disappointing, and fans are better off skipping this one.

Marvel Heroes Omega (PS4) Closed Beta Test Impressions

Marvel characters meets Diablo-like gameplay?  Sounds like a great idea.  I have played a few hours of the PC version, but early on my computer couldn't handle it, so I waited until I got a machine that could.  Even so, it was a game that I really wanted to use a controller for, and was very happy when it was announced to be moving to consoles under the slightly changed name of Marvel Heroes Omega.

There's a new intro mission that has you play as a few of the Avengers while introducing controls and key aspects of the game.  After which you will then do the old tutorial level, the Raft.  If my memory serves me correctly, this Raft mission is a bit stream-lined from its old version, and I like this one better, mostly because it feels shorter.

It's a good thing too, since story progress is saved by character.  So, if you switch to a new one, they want you to do the Raft again to get a level and some starter gear.  With so many characters already available to try (and more that I have to wait patiently for), it's a nice idea, but there are easier ways to just try a character out.  First, there is a training room hidden in the list of teleport locations, which lets you attack a set of dummies to try out your powers.  If you want live combat, you can just enter the first street zone and run around beating up a few punks to see how it feels.

So how does it play on a controller?  For me, it's great.  You move with the left stick, and the face button uses your moves.  Several moves don't have a cooldown, so you can either hold down the button or press it continuously to use the moves.  Holding down the L2 will give you access to another set of four moves once you have them unlocked.  Setting what skill was on what button was easily done from the skill menu, too.

L1 will use a healing item, although I wasn't sure how many I had.  Maybe it isn't limited, but a cooldown?  The right stick doesn't move the camera, which I thought it would.  Instead it...does nothing?  I'm not sure what it, R1 and R2 do.  I imagine one would do the ultimate skill, but I didn't play far enough to find out.  I should when there isn't the looming threat of a character wipe, though.

However, the biggest thing I was excited about was the inclusion of couch co-op.  Many of you may know that I play several games with my awesome wife, and after sinking hundreds of hours into Diablo, Marvel Heroes Omega is a game we were itching to try.  It took a bit to get everything lined up (she apparently couldn't actually pick a character to join unless I was already in a mission), but after that it worked out really well.

The second player is basically sharing the account of Player 1.  This is good because you only have to buy characters for one account to get the benefit for others.  Inventory is shared, too, which is good (easy to give pieces to other characters) and bad (capacity will get filled faster).  With loot still being character specific (a choice I'm not too keen on), it helps to not have to trade or drop it so the other player can use it.  Of course starting inventory limits are not conducive to my play style (I'm a hoarder), so I know I'll spend some G to increase it.

As much as I enjoyed the game, I of course had a few problems as well.  Some of the UI text is absurdly small, even on a 55" TV.  I imagine (and hope) that will be fixed by launch.  I also would have liked a help page that showed the controller layout, since I had a devil of a time trying to log out the first time.  It turns out it's cleverly hidden in the lower right corner of the screen when you first open the menu.  I guess I've played too many other MMOs, since I was looking for it in the options, and other places for several minutes before I just saw it sitting there, laughing at me.  Lastly, when you level up and gain a new skill, it puts it on a button.  Fine, but it tends to duplicate it, or just put it over one you had before if you've set up the buttons manually.  It's not game breaking, but it's weird and annoying.

It's safe to say I had fun in the closed beta for Marvel Heroes Omega.  I set out to try different heroes to see who I might have to buy, and to play some couch co-op.  Both goals were met, so now I have to wait patiently for the open beta, and then the game's launch!  I'm definitely looking forward to that.


The Good:
Lots of heroes to choose from, controller works great...and did I mention couch co-op!

The Bad:
Some UI elements aren't optimized

The SaHD:
Really, really looking forward to when my boy Juggernaut is added.  And of course Venom!

(Founder's Pack / Closed Beta access codes for Marvel Heroes Omega were provided by the publisher)

Then and Now: Mad Max (PS4)

Back in 2015, I tried out Mad Max when I was at PAX Prime.  Sorry, PAX West, because we don't want to offend people by pointing out where it started.  Anyway, I have finally got around to playing the full game, and I wanted to take a look back at my initial impressions, and see if any changed for the full release.

Then:
"Even though Mad Max was releasing soon (when I was at PAX, it just came out yesterday), I figured why not check it out.  As another WB game, it too lifts the combat from the Batman Arkham series, but then adds some Grand Theft Auto driving.  That was fine.  After looting a few things and fighting three guys, I then had to do car combat.  Aiming while driving was somewhat automatic, which was nice, but it took me a bit to understand that.  If you are in the right position, you can shoot the gas tank on the back of an enemy car and it will explode.  However, it is hard to get into the right position.  That said, I ran out of ammo and was reduced to ramming the objective vehicle to try and complete the mission.  That was long, annoying and boring.  So hopefully it isn't quite so bad in the full game.  Overall, the on foot segment was fun but the driving wasn't."

Now:
This short demo was actually pretty representational of the final game.  You drive around...a lot, get to a place, fight some guys, then do it again.  Combat is fun, but strict.  You can't really mash your way through it, and you can easily miss the counter timing if you do mash.  By default, your health doesn't replenish automatically in or out of combat, so there is incentive to fight well.  You can either drink water, eat dog food (eww), or eat maggots (ewwwwwwwww) to restore health.  I don't think it's a great system, but it at least encourages you to do well.

The driving is a little less painful than my initial impression.  There is a sideswipe maneuver that you can use to damage cars next to you.  Plus, you can do a chunk of damage if you ram them while boosting.  I'm not sure if either of these was in the demo I played, since it didn't tell me about them.  Even so, I'm not too keen on the car combat.  Ramming stuff is fun, but trying to circle around so you can actually hit the other cars is not.  Shooting their gas tanks works fine, but ammo is very limited, at least at the point I'm at.  Also, every bad guy car is faster than mine, which is kind of dumb.  Annoying to fight, and hard to escape.  I'm not looking forward to taking down convoys.

I will definitely give the game its due for having a lot of stuff to do, even if it takes a bit to drive to it all.  There are lots of side quests and other distractions, which I have fun doing.  Especially the scarecrows.  It is so satisfying when it all works and you boost through something and it explodes.  I also like that for big enemy camps, there are things you can do to make it easier to assault them, such as take out snipers, break gates, or silence the war crier.  A big thumbs up for amount of content.

Overall, I'm liking the game so far, even if there is a lot of driving.  It's a part of the Mad Max DNA, and I can make do while actually doing the stuff I find fun.  I have to hope that when I get stronger car parts it will be less painful to have a car fight.

Bravely Second: The Finale (Hour 60+)

First off, since this is the end of the game, all but the end of this section is going to probably be filled with -Spoilers-, so hold off reading until you have either beat the game, or don't care.  However, I will throw in a Good, Bad and SaHD section past that, at the end, to sum it up as best I can.

-Spoilers-

I cleaned up the last summon I needed, Giratabulu, and also snagged the last side quest for the Templar job.  That extra HP should come in handy.

While a lot of stuff from the first game was recycled, not everything was.  Two of the jobs didn't come back.  The Vampire I only really miss for its passives, and the Sage job was late enough that I didn't get much time with it last game.  Even so, plenty of jobs from last time were near negated by new ones, so it seems odd to toss those two when they could have done it to add more jobs.

Speaking of the Vampire job class, there is a point where you have to go back to the castle, even if the master is gone.  I really didn't like this dungeon the second time around.  For starters, you can't raise or lower the encounter rate.  I could deal with that, but the enemies are annoying, so I want to turn them off.  There are cerberus enemies that have a very damaging counter attack, even if you miss.  There are also some chomper enemies that will poison counter any physical attacks.  Even ranged ones.  That's...a very far poison aura.  Ugh.

They also cram some extra story in this dungeon.  Personally, I thought it was kind of dumb.  They really go to great lengths to shove the new characters' backstories into previous characters' backstories, with mixed results.  Plus, and this is an extra (SPOILER) tag for you, they also undo any sympathy you might have for Janne.  They want you to feel sorry that his family was killed, but his father defended the church that caused the plague, so he's kind of an ass.  He's not much better than Yew's father, so Janne should just shut up about it.

The top culminates with a boss fight against the Yokai.  It's about time she gets her comeuppance!  Except she has a multi-hit instant death attack.  Yeah, she has balance in spades...*rolls eyes*

So after beating her, the weird pillar things spotted around the world finally have a use.  They contain the special sin monsters that power Yokai's job abilities.  Sadly, they are some of the most gimmicky fights in the game.

First was Satan, the sin of wrath.  He's a dragon.  So, the dragon sin of wrath?  Anyway, it just berserks you, and there's no item or ability to fix it.  Sucks, but I was able to power through.

Second is Lucifer.  It has a very strong counter move, but that's about it.  I was able to defeat it the first time.

Mammon, the sin of avarice (greed), just stole BP from me.  It can evidently steal stats, too, but it didn't do that to me.  Other than that it would just hit physically or use blizzaja.  It wasn't an easy fight, but it wasn't that hard, either.

Fourth I went to fight Asmodeus, the sin of lust.  Boy, is this fight terrible.  It can remove you from battle by absorbing you.  The only way to come back is for Asmodeus to do it.  Nothing else work, just waiting and hoping.  It doesn't even have to return you if the random number doesn't come up, which is crap.  If everyone is gone...game over, man.  Not fun, but I did manage to beat it on the second try, once I knew about its tricks.

I got sick of the gimmicky end game fights, and just decided to end the final boss.  So you fight Anne and kick her little...oh, wait, you probably won't the first time.  She has a skill that reduces a target's max HP to 1.  Yup, that's cheap.  The only way to fix it is to cast Undo, but you have to know that ahead of time and have the skill equipped.  I just started smashing her, with plenty of resurrection mist to go around.

So on to the final boss finally then?  The first form at least.  It has a skill that commands one character to kill another.  It's not automatic, so why should I listen to that jerk?  Oh, because if you don't, he will hit your party with just under 100,000 damage.  Fair!

Yup, another stupid gimmick for a boss fight.  I'm sensing a trend here.  Anyway, after beating that form, the second form...was surprisingly normal.  It did buff its hands, but they were pretty easy to kill so it didn't matter much.  I just attacked and healed as normal and it eventually died.  It was really refreshing to just have a normal RPG fight at the end.  Final boss destroyed at just over 70 hours!

I then decided to pick off the last three sin bosses.  First was Belphegor (sloth).  It shifts its weakness after an attack, so my usual strategy didn't work at all.  Everything that it wasn't weak to would heal it, even attacks without elements.  Yes, again, that is a dumb decision, but I still killed him after working out a battle flow.

Second was Leviathan, the sin of envy.  Boy, I don't envy people who fight this boss.  I had originally tried this fight before beating the game, and was likely the cause of me just going to beat it instead of putting up with this nonsense.  It's one of the super bosses from the town in the first game, the four snakes.  This stupid thing is the source of the multi-hit instant death attack that Yokai does.  Plus, as an added bonus, Leviathan will brave to do it multiple times in a turn.  Yeah, stupid.  I was able to get two part members immune to the death portion of it, which helped.  It eventually went down like all the others.

Last was Beelzebub (gluttony).  This fight was pretty easy, since the gimmick is one I've seen before.  Every few turns he would use the gluttony skill, which lets him absorb anything as healing.  I tried a few things, even healing him, to see what would work.  Just waiting it out is the best option.  After a few turns, he will spit acid at the party, which does very little damage if you don't attack him beforehand.  Last sin down, so the Yokai is ready to be mastered!

There were also two bonus dungeons that opened up after clearing the main story, so I decided to check them out a bit.  I could tell they were going to be annoying, so I instead spent some time to grind up jobs to get the mastery (level 11) for them.  I realized I would have to sink even more time into the game to go through with it all, and decided to call it (for now).  I wrote some notes in the 3DS' game notes section, and stopped playing just shy of 80 hours.  Fun game, but the story went on a bit too long and the gimmicky fights near the end soured some of the experience.  Good game, though, and worth playing!

-End Spoilers-

< Hour 40-60

The Good:
Most of the new jobs are really good with some great new skills.  Chain battles are fantastic, as you can grind really fast with less running in circles for battles.  Overall the game was really fun.

The Bad:
The gimmick fights near the end of the game.  The story felt like it went on for a bit too long as well.

The SaHD:
I was annoyed I didn't get my preorder costumes, but you can buy them in the game...for way too much pg.

(Bravely Second Collector's Edition was pre-ordered and purchased on release day)

Bravely Second: Hours 40-60

Early on, I fought a boss that was a mechanical bird (apparently being ridden by the two stupid soldiers that desperately want to be funny and replace Biggs and Wedge.  No deal.)  It looked fine, but could also transform in battle into the form of a person (it's called the giant form, but it isn't that big).  This made it instantly cooler, and I really liked the look of the boss.

It was also a pretty easy fight, thanks to the Exorcist job.  The third skill it gives will restore 30MP each turn, which is amazing for mages, and totally worth the equip cost (which is a paltry 1 slot).  This meant I could spam the most powerful bishop heal on everyone each turn for free (and actually get 6 MP back!)  Needless to say, a lot of fights got easier after that, especially the following boss.

I got the airship too.  It was pretty obvious, but somehow stranger than the airship from the first game.  Speaking of which, where is that?  Anyway, getting the ship and airship felt really close together and a little odd.  You have to stick with the stupid canoe for way longer than you get a ship.

-Spoilers-

I fought another boss that may be more annoying than Geist.  Coincidentally, it is his son Revenant.  True to his name he is a ghost (although not a zombie that Hawk has to put into a soul orb).  He's annoying and an asterisk holder.  Basically, he can possess one of your party members so he has access to their abilities and you can't damage him.  He really liked to possess my fighters, and use steal breath.  This would of course heal him, and not the body he was in.  However, damaging him while he was in a body would only damage the body and not him...which is pretty broken in his favor.

Actually, many of the gimmicky asterisk boss fights are like that.  The battle is really skewed in favor of whatever dumb gimmick the job has to show it in a better light.  Often, when you then get these jobs, they are nowhere near as good as advertised.  For example, the swordmaster.  The reason that fight can be hard is he is very counter-heavy.  If you attack him, even with splitting your moves between magic and physical, he has 2-4 chances to counter you for big damage.  If you guess correctly (unlikely), they you are fine.  However, reversing the roles, you have a 1 in 4 chance of him hitting your one person.  The odds are not in your favor and set up an unrealistic scenario for the job's effectiveness.  I feel like Revenant's asterisk is going to be similar.

I also finished chapter 4, which results in you getting the bad ending.  Anyone who played the first game will understand that you have to get this "ending" to further the story.  They kind of hit you over the head with what to do, but I foolishly thought it would all be automatic.  It wasn't, and that meant I would have to basically do the whole game over again, because I missed the tiny window where I was actually supposed to do something I don't normally do.  During the Kaiser fight at the beginning of the game, you have one action, where you can only really attack.  Hence, why I thought it was going to be automatic, since I couldn't do anything else.

Except, I could use the hourglass.  Considering how often I used it before now (maybe twice), I totally forgot it was an option.  It's what I was supposed to do.  Thankfully I didn't get to far in repeating the whole damn game because of a slight mistake before looking it up and shaking my head.  A better idea than the first game for sure, but still annoying.

I like that in the new world/run, you still fight the asterisk holders again, but they tend to team up, so the fight is different.  You still know how to deal with them, but there is at least a small twist to keep them more interesting.  However, they do team up Geist and Revenant, which could potentially be a horrible combination.  So, I abused the SP (hey they wanted me to use it...) to break the damage limit and hit them with specials to drop them fast.  I figure why not, since I don't want to put up with their crap again, especially not together.

-End Spoilers-

Returning to the world map shows several side quests.  This is the chance to redo them and pick the other side.  So, that was how I spent the next few hours, since I did want to pick up all of them, but a few were a top priority.  First stop, the red mage.  After that my intention was to get the monk.

However, I got a little mixed up and did the performer fight instead.  You see, some of the side quest have you do the whole thing again, and some you can skip to the end.  I didn't know this and talked to the person for the performer v pirate side quest, which is just the conversation and then the fight.  While it is something I would have done eventually, I was going to put that one off till last.  I then went and got the monk, so I was a happy camper.

One cool thing besides being able to skip chunks of some of the quests is that the dialogue changes.  Edea remembers the arguments, so she just sums it up for the people, which usually confuses them a bit.  Bravo to the developers for making it more player friendly!

I cleaned up the rest of the jobs before continuing the story.  I did mess up one other time, returning to the wrong dungeon and did the knight job fight instead of the ranger one.  Oops...again.  While doing this, I came to the realization that many of the jobs from the previous game have been toned down, or outright outdone by the new jobs.  Dual wielding doesn't seem as good, and neither does the dragoon.  White and black magic are terrible compared to the bishop and sorcerer.  It's sad to see the classics treated this way, but it does make the new jobs at least appear very useful.  And I suppose that means you can skip the side quests, although I don't know why you would want to.  At least some of the passive skills are still awesome.

During this whole time, I managed to fine tune my boss setup and make it even better.  I'm a big fan of spellcraft, but had not even begun to understand how great it could be.  I would have my healer set up a benediction mist to heal a lot of HP at the end of the turn for a few turns, and could have them default while it was down to recover the BP it takes to keep a continuous chain of it.  The other mage would do any other healing that was needed, or attack with elemental weaknesses.  Tiz and Yew, who I had as physical damage dealers (one as a bow thief and the other a hunter), would default to build up to max BP, then unleashed it all in a turn.  Barrage made this a little more effective than just attacking each turn.  It wasn't foolproof, but it was very safe, effective and I loved it.

-Spoilers (again)-

The final boss of chapter 5 was really annoying.  It was a Ba'al that had a mirror coat that reflected all damaging attacks.  It starts with 100%, and each reflected attack will take 20% off of this.  So 5 attacks and it's down, right?  Sort of.  At the end of each turn, it will automatically restore 20%, so each turn you have to suffer at least one reflected attack.

So how best to beat this?  I tried being clever, and reflecting non-damaging spells like Antidote and stuff, but that didn't seem to lower the percent.  Fine, so I try to reflect a heal spell.  No dice.  I eventually figured out to hit it with my mage(s), so the reflected damage was negligible, but they go at the end of the turn, so I still have to eat one attack before damaging it.  I got he bright idea to knock down the shield, then blow an SP point to use a special and break the damage limit.  Ha!  Smashed him down good...and then he just gets to full heal because plot.  So, rinse repeat and then...the fight ends, but 'story wise' he wouldn't die.  It was resolved, but the fight was really stupid in my opinion.  However, it was just a portent of things to come...

-End Spoilers-

< Hours 30-40  |  Hours 60-??

Bravely Second: Hours 30-40

When starting this block of time, I decided to go back to the previous two side quest dungeons to mop up the treasure chests I missed.  This brought me back to the blue chests.  At first I thought the thief would be able to open them, but later realized that would be an unbalanced choice for the first side quest.  So, it must be sometime later in the story.

Then I finally got the long-awaited chef asterisk.  It's called patissier or something that you have to say nasally (I just call it chef because I don't care about it).  The fight to get it is interesting to say the least.  They introduce a new status ailment, ghost, where you can only cast magic.  While you also cannot be hurt or healed, a ghost counts as a dead party member for game over purposes.  I had to reset because I didn't know this crap and picked a character who was a fighter to be a ghost.  Oops.  The chef himself isn't too much of a threat (although he can charm, which is super annoying), but the people with him can be tough to deal with when he's feeding them.  Eliminating them made the fight much easier.  I still can't take pride in his defeat...I just beat up a pastry chef.

I finally got the boat too, so I could replace the canoe and actually travel around the world.  While Setzer's gambling ship and the whale ship were cool, the hot springs ship is...well, unique.  Silly, too.  Are they again trying to out-do the the previous game where your ship was a city?  Feels like it.  Maybe they wouldn't have to try and out-do the first game if they didn't recycle so much from it.

At this point I also had the game take all of my workers off their jobs at Fort Lune.  I have no idea why.  It did this at some point before, and it is annoying.  I may have only lost a few hours of work each time, but I'd rather know why it did this at all.  I don't remember this problem in the first game.

Two side quests fell during this time frame.  The first was the hardest choice I've had to make in this game.  It was either the monk or the valkyrie.  I've become fairly desensitized to the moral quandaries of each side quest, sine they don't really matter outside of which class you want.  However, I really like both of those classes (even though I constantly refer to the valkyrie class as dragoon).  I always like the monk class in just about every RPG, and the dragoon has jump (which is very useful and strong) and crescent (strong and super useful in the previous game).  I ended up going with the dragoon, simply because I didn't have many classes that use heavy armor, but I already had a good one that used light armor.  One problem down, one to go (although I am very much looking forward to getting the monk later!)

On the opposite end of the spectrum from the previous side quest we have the pirate job versus the performer.  Wow, what a choice.  I don't like nor use either of those classes, so it was a case of "which is less bad?" to figure out a...winner.  I decided to get the pirate job, so I sided with the ever annoying Praline.  At least I can punch her in the face later.

I managed to master (level 10) my first job class too-- the thief.  It's so useful in this game and I really like the changes they made to it!  Steal Life is wonderful.

What better way to close out this session than with the worst boss from the demo-- Geist!  As much as I hated him, fighting him in the demo did help prepare me for what it was like to actually fight him effectively.  He wasn't nearly as hard, so I have to assume they toned him down.  I saved my specials for when he summoned helpers, which would eliminate them.  Without backup, he has to either undo damage to himself or a heal that I did, neither of which will actually help him win.  I was very glad to finish him off!

< Hours 20-30   |   Hours 40-60 >

Witch and Hero (3DS): the Good, the Bad and the SaHD

The Good:

Playing as the knight, you have to prevent enemies from destroying the witch by...bumping in to them.  As you progress further and further, there are more, harder enemies and you have to purchase upgrades to keep the knight strong enough to keep the enemies at bay.  The game is pretty fun and has good pick up and play value with bite-sized missions.  

The Bad:

The game gets more difficult pretty quickly, which necessitates grinding.  At least it pads the playtime?

The SaHD:

I bought it for a dollar on the e-shop, and I've put at least 3 hours into the game.  While I'm not keen on the grind-heavy nature of the game, it was worth the price.  It's a game I can come back to for a bit every so often.

(Witch and Hero was purchased from the 3DS E-shop)

Bravely Second [Demo] (3DS): the Good, the Bad and the SaHD

The Good:
Meaty demo that gives you a good taste of the final game.  Once I understood how to use it effectively, the "One More Fight" mechanic is great.  It's free and you can easily play it for 8 hours+!

The Bad:
The second to last boss fight is brutally hard.  Even harder than the final boss of the demo on the hard setting.  Ugh, such bad memories.

The SaHD:
I'm glad that there are bonuses to transfer over to the full version, but some of them are really tedious, like filling out the beastiary.  You have to fight each non-boss monster something like 100 times.  Yuck.  The bonuses are nice, but not worth seeking out in the demo, unless you are killing time until you can get the full version.

(Bravely Second [Demo] was obtained as a free download from the Nintendo E-shop)

Battleborn [Beta] (PS4): the Good, the Bad and the SaHD

The Good:
I can't overstate how much I appreciate that there is a story that can be done solo or co-op.  I'm bad at the competitive portion of most games, so I like having a fun option for people like myself.

The Bad:
The game is fast paced and hectic...I didn't always know what was going on.  Plus, the story missions were pretty hard.

The SaHD:
I tried one round of the versus.  I was on a team of low level people (1-5), and our opponents were very high level (20-50+), so it was really unbalanced.  There was a vote to surrender only 4 minutes in, and it just seemed to instantly pass without me even getting to vote.

Yeah...I'm definitely interested in checking out the campaign levels, but will likely not put much time into the versus modes.  The game felt very much like a fast-paced Borderlands, which isn't a bad thing.  Just one I would have to get used to.

(Battleborn [Beta] was obtained as a free download from the Playstation Store)

Far Cry 3 (Xbox 360) Early Impressions

Yes, Far Cry 3 came out a few years ago, and since that time I've heard a lot of good things about.  It sounded fun, but I kept putting off getting the game.  I recently got it for cheap and tried it out.

You know what?  I'm liking it.  The story is pretty interesting so far, but I know it doesn't get as cool as it could have.  The missions aren't too hard yet, and there seems to be a good amount of them.  In general, there is a lot of stuff you can do based solely on the map in the game.  Similar to Assassin's Creed, there are tower-like areas that show you chunks of the map.  They have some challenges scattered around that give extra experience or items.  It also marks the different areas that animals roam so you can hunt them.

You could hunt for extra money, but the real use of the animal pelts is for crafting.  All the upgrades that allow you to carry more things (items, weapons, ammo, etc.) are made from this menu.  It's pretty cool, but can be a pain to carry around all the pelts in case you need them.  Probably my second highest complaint is that the inventory system seems small.  Items don't really stack, so if you grab a lot of stuff (like me), you eat up a lot of space with stuff you will use in the future.  It's not a deal-killer, but kind of annoying.

My biggest complaint is fighting animals.  Using guns and stealth kills works wonderfully when against other human opponents, but small animals that run up to you and bite...not so much.  It's less a problem with the game than it is very annoying.  Plus, if you snipe an animal, they are pretty good about running up to fight you.  So I'm supposed to believe that animals can trace the shot?  That's nigh impossible, but whatever, video game stuff.

Far Cry 3 is definitely a game I like so far, and will come back to when I have the time.  It could easily keep me occupied with the variety of missions and things offered.  The level up system is neat, with three skill trees full of skills.  Gunning non-animal enemies is fun.  The water is a bit scary, since I'm like that, and the sharks don't make it any friendlier.  It reminds me a lot of Dying Light, which is a good thing.  Playing the game reminds me that I need to play more Blood Dragon as well.

Yakuza 5 (PS3) Early Impressions

So in the past few months, I've gotten review codes for several RPGs and longer games.  In an effort to actually show that I am (slowly) working on going through them, some will get broken into two posts, one about early impressions I have with the game, then a more full-featured review when I've put a lot more time into the game.  Yakuza 5 seemed like a good candidate for this, since I was told to "take my time" with it, in an effort to see and review all the game has to offer.

Firstly, I have not played any previous Yakuza games.  Sure, I've wanted to, but never bought one or got around to trying one.  I thought they were more open world games, something very much like Sleeping Dogs, but they aren't.  There are times you can roam around, but you can't just do whatever you want, willy-nilly.  There's usually an actual goal, like get something at a store or go home for the night.

It's actually a very story-driven game, which surprised me.  Even though this is the fifth entry in the series, there was enough explanation during the first sections that I got a sense of what was going on and who certain people were.  I didn't feel aliened (yet, that could change) as a new player, which I really appreciate.  It's likely that if I had played the others, I would get a greater understanding, but so far nothing has been confusing.  Anything that needs explaining has had just enough that I get it, but not so much that it brings the story to a halt.

There is fighting in the game, and it is more like a 3D brawler.  You get combo moves, a block and even special "Heat" moves when a meter is filled.  You can even grab guys off the ground or just stomp on them.  My first fight ended when I did a giant swing to a prone opponent (it was a Heat move), but it didn't have the full space.  So, I just smacked him into the wall (ouch), dropped him and did a jumping stomp.  It even has that Batman: Arkham style slow-mo camera for the end, which can make dramatic endings that much cooler.

The enemies quickly learned to block, so we will see if the combat gets annoying or stays fun.  I'm anxious to see how the rest of the game turns out, but so far I'm liking Yakuza 5.  Kudos that the fifth entry isn't confusing to a new player!

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC (PSP) Early Impressions

Before now, I had heard of Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky and how great it was.  Sadly, I had not played it yet, but got the chance to review the second chapter of the saga, not so strangely entitled Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC.  Being an RPG, it is a longer game, so in an effort to have something on it out in a timely fashion, I figured I would break it up into two parts: one an early impressions about my first few hours with the game, and then a full review later on.  Maybe not the best idea to make more articles when my plate is already full, but I do plan to do this for at least a few games.

The first thing that struck me before I started was: it is two downloads.

Wait, what?

Yup, when the game came out in Japan years ago, it was on two UMDs.  Wow, that's actually kind of impressive.  So when it was made a download, it is just two separate downloads, each one is one disc.  It's... weird for a digital release, but that's probably the only way to make it work.  I just have to keep straight which download is which disc.

The game picks up right where the previous game left off.  Well, I assume it is right after, as it seems like the story starts right at the end of the jolly festivities that would accompany some triumph in battle.  I'm sure this is great for the people that conquered the first chapter, but some kind of explanation of what was going on would have been nice, even if it was optional so returning players could skip it.  I'm sure even fans of the first might not remember some things, considering the gap between the games.  Honestly, most direct sequels do this, and it was a little disappointing to see it not done here.

My solution: play some of the first game.  Maybe that's a good reason to split the review in two.  Luckily it was on sale when SC came out, so I picked it up and played a few hours to generally learn some backstory and game mechanics.  That should make this chapter a little easier for me to understand.  It helped some, but not as much as I'd like.  A lot of references to characters and events from the previous entry still eluded me.  Yes, I should have played all of the first before, but I still feel some optional explanations would have been great.  Maybe as the story goes on, the previous events will sink into the background, but I feel there will still be some cameos and plot points that will leave me confused.

In all fairness, the game does cover a few previous plot points.  However, they seem to be the most spoiler-y ones.  Want to know more about this random character name we threw out?  Too bad!  Hey, this girl you are going to meet is a secret princess, and that old mayor was secretly evil!  Yeah, that might have been better to not say, but sure why not.  It's almost the exact opposite of what I would want the game to do.

Anyway, we will see how that goes later, and move on to the combat.  It's a turn-based affair, but has a unique layout to the map.  It is separated into a griid, and you can move around like an SRPG, but the game isn't one.  For one, you can't move, then attack as two separate commands.  If you select attack, then a target, you will run up and attack.  If you cannot move that far, you will get as close as you can.  If you select 'Move', then that's all you do.  There's no bonus for attacking from the sides or behind as far as I can tell.  So while it looks like an SRPG at times, it is a straight-up turn-based RPG, which is great.  Remember how fun those were?

You also get magic attacks, which are derived from elemental crystals that you equip.  Without going in to too much detail (in this part), these crystals will bestow different status effects and affect what spells you have access to.  It's a cool system that gives some good customization.  Plus, healing spells heal a set amount, so you can give them to fighters and still have it as a viable safety net.

Besides HP and AP (Art Points for magic, basically MP), there is also CP which is used for personal skills and even super moves.  These points are built up by taking and dealing damage.  When you have at least 100, you can use your super move, and even butt in and use it on the opponent's turn.  Some turns have bonus effects, and this is a way to either steal them, or prevent the enemy from using one that you would rather they didn't.

The only problem I have with that is it didn't feel like it rewarded me for using it.  I would jump in and steal the critical turn, but it didn't seem to help in the long run.  Battles felt pretty hard in the first few hours.  It may be because I didn't transfer a save file, but that isn't really good balance.  Every time I lost a fight through some annoying means (exploding enemies, etc.), it made me question the "awesome" nature of the game that I'd heard so much about.  Getting a preemptive strike helps a lot, so I'll try doing that more often and see what happens.  Plus, the starting level difference should even out the longer I play.

I'm definitely playing more, but it seems like I am in for the long haul.  The prologue itself took me 4 hours, which is pretty crazy.  Look forward to a full review of Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC in the future!

Summer Gaming 2015 Wrap-up

Since it's around the time where summer ends (my kids have gone back to school but I haven't), I figured I should wrap up my summer gaming to see what I actually played some of.  Sadly, I didn't do as much as I had planned to, mostly thanks to having so much stuff to review.  So, I guess not that sad, since it's good to be so busy with official reviews!  On to the wrap-up:

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time
It definitely reminds me of the previous entries in the series.  I kind of liked the three original games, but didn't finish any of them.  I kind of get tired of them at some point.  Thieves in Time had the nice aspect of having you use different heroes at different times.  I think one of the other games had that too, and it's pretty cool.  I don't know if I'll play it much more, but I could easily go back to it at some point.

Front Mission Evolved
Normally, I'm not allowed to play Front Mission games.  I tried back when 3 released years ago, and got a little mad at it.  Or a lot of mad, considering how unbalanced and cheap the AI is.  Anyway, I convinced my wife to let me try this, since it is a third person shooter, not the terrible SRPGs (yes they managed to ruin a great combination of robots and SRPGs).  While it is essentially a Front Mission skin on a third-person shooter, it isn't bad.  I only played two levels or so, and it was just a fairly standard TPS where you shoot enemies, shoot collectibles and get to the mission markers.  I'd like to at least finish the campaign someday, since it would likely only take a day or two.

Hunted: The Demon's Forge
I will admit I have a certain fondness for generic/average games.  Hunted: The Demon's Forge definitely fits that bill.  It is a fairly generic action RPG, but it does have co-op.  You have to do the game's first level/tutorial before you can do that though.  I did the first level, and it is a lot longer than you would think.  I'd like to play more and try out the co-op, I just have to find some time to do it with my wife.  Other than that the game was ok.  The story isn't very good but it does feature the voice work of Lucy Lawless!

Bulletstorm
Bulletstorm is pretty funny, in an immature kind of way.  I like that it's an over the top shooter and doesn't take itself too seriously.  It's pretty fun, and definitely one I will go back to and finish off the campaign.  I don't really know anyone else that plays it, so sadly won't do much of the echoes mode. but I will at least get my money's worth from playing the story mode.

Army of Two: The 40th Day
I did like the first Army of Two.  It wasn't great, but had some good moments.  Frustrating ones, too, especially on the hard setting when you had to rely on the AI.  The sequel seemed like more of the same, which is good.  They added some moral choices and unlockable weapon parts.  Fun, and I would like to go back and finish the campaign before moving on to the third game in the series, which was a Games with Gold freebie.

Gears of War: Judgment
This was another Games with Gold freebie from a few months ago.  I do like the Gears of War series, and was looking forward to trying the finished Judgment.  I know it gets a lot of hate from the fans, but so far it isn't bad.  It does try a few new things, like the "classified missions", which give additional challenges if you choose to do them during your missions.  The tower defense-like sections were cool too.  Another game that I want to run through the campaign and finish the story.

Crimson Dragon
Crimson Dragon was pretty fun.  The first few missions were rough until I got to the point where I could hire a wingman.  I hired my buddy's dragon, who was a higher level, and it made the next few missions much easier.  Controls are ok, and this type of game controls better to me not inverted.  Still, it takes a bit getting used to that.  The camera is the thing I have the most trouble with.  Your view swings around a lot, which makes aiming much more of a pain than it should.  I guess they wanted to make it harder, but I wish your view wasn't moving all around while you are trying to aim and dodge.  I didn't get motion sick, but sick of the cheap damage and enemies escaping!

There's also a few sections (notably boss fights) where you enter a free-flying area.  Reminiscent of the "All range mode" from Star Fox, these sections are a pain in the butt.  I really hated them, as the controls just felt sloppy.  It was too hard to do anything meaningful, and you get hit a lot from off screen.  Making the boss fights have at least one section like this is horrible.  Overall, though, the game was kind of fun, save for a few annoying parts.  I wish I could have tried the multiplayer, but it seems like everyone moved on already.  Of the games I intended to play over the summer, this was the one I put the most time into.  Having bite-sized missions and a daily login bonus sure helped!

Dragon Quest Heroes (PS4) Import Preview

The second game that my buddy David lent me is Dragon Quest Heroes.  In a similar vein to Hyrule Warriors, it is the merging of Dynasty Warriors and another property, the Dragon Quest series.  It has some new characters, but most playable people are from previous games.

To separate itself from the actual Warriors games, this one has MP for "spells" and even the ability to summon monsters to help defend certain areas.  The spells are flashy and good at hitting areas, but I'm sure there's more to the whole system that I just didn't understand.  The monster summoning is pretty cool, but they aren't that strong, so make sure to check up on them.  It's at the least a new and unique system to add to the Dynasty Warriors tried and true gameplay.

I played a few stages, and actually lost one or two, mostly because I couldn't read what I was supposed to do.  I quickly figured out what to do, so the language barrier isn't insurmountable.  It does make it harder to figure out what the skills do.  Definitely look up some translations or better yet, wait for the localized version.

To me, the biggest negative of the game is its fanservice.  Usually I love these things, but the sound effects and music in the game is too retro for its own good.  When something like Final Fantasy or some other property uses older music or sounds, it is sparingly, or it is the same tune but with updated instruments or something like that.  The music and sounds of DQ Heroes just feels too antiquated when compared with the fresh visuals of the PS4 graphics.  It's a weird juxtaposition.

Even so, I really had fun with the game for the few hours I played it.  I would have played it more, but I'd rather know exactly what I'm doing and what is going on, so I am content to wait for the localized version this summer.  So far, Dragon Quest Heroes is very fun!  It felt more like a Warriors game than Hyrule, which is a plus.  So why not call it Dragon Warri.... oh, right.

Onechanbara: Z 2 Chaos (PS4) Import Preview

A few weeks ago, my friend David lent me two Japanese PS4 games.  The first was Onechanbara: Z II Chaos, which is headed to the US later this year.  David first got me into the Onechanbara series a few months before the last one in the US came out on the Xbox 360, several years ago.  I liked that entry overall, and was anxious to try out the latest game before it came to the states.

There are two new protagonists, Saaya and Kagura, joining the original girls, Aya and Saki.  After a few introduction stages, you have all four ladies for the remaining stages that I played.  You also get 4 or 5 different stages that you can choose from.  However, it didn't seem to list what was the next one, so I just choose one.  It was stage 9, when it should have been 4.  Uh-oh.

It actually went ok.  I choose another stage, and got 8.  They weren't next to each other, so I don't know what the "correct" order is.  I didn't see an option to choose again, and if I loaded the game, it saved me in the stage.  Since I didn't outright fail these stages (but got close on the boss on stage 8), they might scale them slightly to your level.  Hopefully I'll know more when it comes to the US.

Each character gets a few different weapons to equip, and you can switch between your equipped ones on the fly.  I did find some fit my playstyle more than others, and Saaya and her chainsaw was my fourth spot on the team, as I found her really good.  She was my ringer!  The game was more difficult than I though it would be, but I'm not sure if it's because of the stage selection thing mentioned above.  Being able to understand what all the equipment and upgrades I could purchase would do would help a lot.  I'm still looking forward to the US release of this game, as it seems a good successor to the game I played some seven years ago.

Wait, seven?  Yeah, I think it has been that long since we had a localized Onechanbara.  At least we are getting it here... (looks sadly at Sengoku Basara)

Bravely Default Demo Impressions

The demo for anticipated RPG Bravely Default hit the 3DS e-shop recently.  The graphics are very similar to Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light, and it's supposed to be.  The characters are super-deformed 3D models, and they look pretty good.  The 3D effect in the game is what you would expect.  It works fine, but not amazing.  The music, however, is good.  I especially like the boss music, but it's all good and fits the areas well.

The battle system takes normal, turned-based RPG combat, but adds a twist.  The 'default' function is basically the guard, as you will take less damage, however, it also will save the point you get that turn for use in a later turn, so in effect, you can stack your turns by defending.  The 'brave' function will use those turns to unleash several actions in one turn.  Now you know where the title comes from.  Also, you can use brave without using default beforehand, but you will put off your turn until your points equal zero (you get 1 point per turn).  It adds some strategy to the mix, since you can try to save your turns until the enemy is open, or send yourself into the negative to end things early.

Borrowing from the best Final Fantasy games, the job system is also in place in Bravely Default.  You pick one class to be, and you can choose the action abilities (magic, etc.) from one other unlocked class.  You can also equip a few passive abilities that you have learned.  Each passive costs a certain amount of points, and your characters have a max of 4 points.  There are some really good ones, like 'multitask', which sometimes allows you a second attack if you choose 'attack' that turn.  This was amazing on the ninja job, since it can dual wield without penalty, and each hand attacks separately.  So, you could have four attacks in one turn, just by picking attack.  Combining it with brave... well, that is some good damage.  Another useful skill was 'buff up', which increases your attack and defense by 5% per turn, and it stacks up to 50%.  This was really useful for boss encounters, since those last enough turns to make the skill worth it.

The demo is basically a series of quests that are taken one at a time.  I found that after each one, I needed to grind for a bit to raise my level and afford some better equipment before being able to tackle the next.  It reminded me of old-school RPGs, for better or worse.  At first, I didn't like that I could only take one quest at a time, but there's less than 10 in the demo, so I understand why.  However, the fairy on the menu screen (I didn't catch her name if she gave it) would tell you what the quest is, so you don't have to look it up on a sub menu if you forget.  You could complete all of the quests in about 7-8 hours, and I put 9 into it to max out the level (20) and all the job classes for all the characters.  That's really substantial for a demo.

The final thing thrown into the demo is a sample of the town building aspect.  You get a villager, and they can clear away debris for space to build facilities in your town or build/upgrade a facility.  It takes time (during play or sleep mode) to clear it and build the shops, and each villager shortens the time needed.  To get more villagers, you have to use street pass.  I was able to clear it all and fully upgrade each shop without any other villagers, it just took a few days of sleep mode.  I'd much prefer to actually get some more villagers, since they will directly carry over to the full game when it releases.

Bravely Default was a really good demo that let you play the game, but not actually a part from the full version.  It lets you experience the town building, battles, quests and some of the job classes.  You can put several hours into it, which is great for a demo, and certain milestones (bosses defeated) will unlock items for the full version.  If you like job classes in RPGs, or old-school turn based RPGs at all, give the demo a try and have some fun!

Destiny of Spirits (Vita): Beta Impressions

Destiny of Spirits is a free to play RPG on the PS Vita.  For battle, you use a party of three monsters to battle other monsters.  There is a little meter under each monster that fills, and when filled, the monster will attack.  Each monster also has a special ability that uses a communal SP meter that refills between missions.  The targets and menu options are mapped to the touch screen, and it responds really well.  Just like most RPGs, there is an elemental chart where each element is strong against one element and weak to another.

The game breaks the world up into a grid, and places you on it according to your location.  There are a few missions per area, and once you finish them, a boss fight will appear.  If you defeat the boss, that area becomes purified, and you can choose to do more missions in neighboring areas.  I like that it your location changes your starting point, plus it shows you where your friends are on the map.  Monsters you can get from summoning are dependent on region (America, Europe, Asia, etc), which would bother me more, but you can get those from the destiny summons (more on that below).  Plus, it is really easy to send friend requests to other regions, and you can trade for monsters you may not be able to get.  I wasn't able to try the trade function yet, so it might not be that easy, especially if you have to coordinate it.

There are several ways to get monsters for your party.  When starting out, the game gives you one.  To get more, you can spend Summoning Stones, which can be obtained from winning battles, and at least in the beta, as a bonus for logging in.  These can be spent to get a random summon, either common or uncommon.  Destiny Orbs can be used to summon a random uncommon, rare or super rare monster.  There may be something above super rare (maybe ultra rare?), but I didn't see it.  Some Destiny Orbs were given as login bonuses, but I suspect those will be purchasable in the store (the store option didn't work in the beta).  They could be used to heal your party (they will heal after 30 minutes), increase your total monster capacity, and summon special monsters.  The special monsters are only available for a certain time, and the ones in the beta were related to the Playstation cats (Koro and Toro I believe) and the characters from Gravity Rush.  A pretty cool idea that they have Sony themed characters that you can get for your party... maybe we will see some God of War characters in the future, too.

The other ways to get more monsters was a destiny summon that you can do once per day.  When you log in, you can choose a person taken from a random list of other players, and it will summon two of a random monster and give you each one of them.  It's pretty nice, and I actually got a rare monster or two out of it.  You can rarely get a monster as a reward for a mission, and you can also "hunt" them.  For this it requires location data, so if you use your Vita while travelling, you can probably get some nice new monsters.  I was only able to use it once, unfortunately.

To make the monsters stronger, you have to fuse others into one of your choosing.  You can fuse up to five at a time into a chosen "base" monster.  You get more experience if they are the same element, and presumably, more for rarer monsters or ones with higher levels.  It would have been nice if you could see how much experience you are going to get before you fuse them, to see if it is even worth it, or if it's better to fuse more than two at a time, but they don't tell you until after it's too later.  It wasn't that hard to get more summoning stones from fights so you could get more monsters to rais the level of the ones you like, but I would like to get the most out of what I'm giving up.  To finalize the fusion process, you need to spend Spirit Points.  For those of you keeping score, that's three different kinds of numbers you need to be aware of when not in battle.

You can also use the Spirit Points to "rent" a monster from another player for a mission.  It's a nice function, since the person you rented it from will get some of those points.  It also allows you to try out other monsters you may not have yet, or get help from a higher level or an element that could help you out.  You can't pick which monster it will temporarily replace, which is not a great thing, but you get plenty of Spirit Points, so it was a good thing to spend them on.  Also, if one of the random people on your list is a friend, you get a discount for renting their monster.

Every day you play Destiny of Spirits, your luck and elemental affinity will change.  Affinity will change which element of your is stronger in battle, so take advantage of it whenever you can.  Luck affects things like critical rate, drop rate and acquiring rarer monsters from the random drawings.  If you are so inclined, Destiny Orbs can be used to boost your luck (or drop it) for the day.  I think I got "average" luck every day I played (all 7), and didn't spend any orbs to increase it.

Besides the special monster availability, the other timed event during the beta was a special raid boss encounter.  The raid boss could appear in any zone you were in, but you could choose not to fight it.  It's HP would not deplete if you lost, since you are meant to take it on with groups of other people.  The one I fought was totally beatable solo, but I took me two tries and several monsters to win.  Beating the raid boss at different levels and more times gives several rewards.  The one I wanted was the playable version of the raid boss, but I didn't fight her enough.  Still, I thought it was a neat idea to put into the game so players check back to see what new events will keep them playing or get them back into the game.

Destiny of Spirits was pretty fun.  I'm not sure how intrusive the shop will be, and how much money you will need to put in to get the Destiny Orbs, so it could still go horribly, horribly wrong.  It used the Vita features well, but the reliance on having an internet connection can make it hard to play on the go (unless you have 3G), since I had to be close to my Wi-Fi access point to not error out.  That also made each facet of the game take a bit too long to load.  Other than that, I liked the game and will definitely try the full version when it comes out.  It's a good pick up and play game.

PAX Impressions: "Mighty Monday": Part 2

Part two will deal with PS4 launch title Knack and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, which had its demo on the PS3.

Knack
This is the launch title for the PS4 that I wanted to play the most.  I'm not the only one since the line was at least an hour and a half.  Watching the people in front of me, I could see there were a few different levels in the demo.  After completing a section of one, it would jump to another part later in the game.  Each one had a different part of Knack's growth, from little knack getting the wood power-up, larger Knack with the wood power and a building sized Knack that could throw cars and was running around a city.  Most people got to play at least two sections...but not me (d'oh).

My portion of the demo was after Knack had acquired the wood power, so he was a step larger than his normal self while powered up.  It essence, the wood gave him a second health bar.  I made my way through the enemies and rudimentary platforming without much trouble, until the spear enemies appeared.  Before that, the enemies with crossbows were annoying since they back away from you while shooting, making it take longer to get to them since Knack doesn't really have a ranged attack.  Then the armored/ robot spear-toting enemies came in.  They would charge their lance and then throw it.  The first time one hit me, I died.  "Wow" I thought, "I didn't notice I was that low on health."  The next time, I grew suspicious.  The third time I specifically watched my health and the spear killed me in 1 hit (or did 75% damage, both of which are ridiculous).  Yeah, pretty stupid.  Knowing that, I targeted them first and went through without a hitch...until the next section.  I actually wanted to try it, since you fight the Shrek-looking orcs and you are outside.

Terrible enemies aside, I like that there were differing locales shown in the demo stages.  There was a cave, a wooden fortress and even a city block.  Knack's super moves were cool and useful, but if you die and restart a checkpoint, you don't get them back if you used them.  Another terrible decision, but hopefully they will change it for the release.  All in all, not bad, but not as fun as I had hoped.

Final Fantasy 13: Lightning Returns
I was fully expecting not to like this game, but came away pleasantly surprised and actually wanting to play more.  For a little background: I played and beat Final Fantasy 13.  I liked it enough, but it was far from the best FF game.  I only played the demo for Final Fantasy 13-2 (I do own it and will get to it one day), but really liked the changes they made (even though the main guy looks like he came from Kingdom Hearts).  Since I feel they are dragging out FF 13 for too many games (just about any other Final Fantasy game would be better), I was not expecting much from Lightning Returns.

However playing the demo changed that.  It was really fun.  You have 3 attacks and a block assigned to the face buttons.  Each attack costs a certain amount of your meter, so you have to weigh attacking more times or a stronger attack.  It's pretty action-oriented, so you will have to manually block enemies' attacks (hence the block button).  Multiple attacks can stagger an enemy, letting you do more damage.  If you've played FF13, the stagger concept should be familiar.

The best part, however, is that Lightning can equip 3 different "classes" (maybe more in the final build), and switch between them at will during battle.  All 3 have their own separate action bars, which makes the combat fluid and fun.  As a mage, throw a few high-powered fire spells, then switch to sword fighter (I don't remember the in-game class names, sorry) and unleash a flurry of weak attacks.  If they are still alive, switch to the third class and use their attack.  As long as you don't pick all of the costly attacks, you can keep up a near constant barrage of attacks to some poor sap.

The enemies you fight will appear on the map, and if you hit them with your sword, you will lower their HP before the battle starts.  Hitting them from behind will lower it even more.  However if an enemy catches you before you attack them, the battle will start with Lightning's HP lowered.  There's also some platforming and climbing over obstacles and whatnot to round out the demo.  I wasn't really interested in the game before, but now I'm hoping to play the final version, since it was surprisingly fun.

E3 2013: Nintendo Direct Impressions

Ah, Nintendo Direct.  I'm a fan of these, since to me, it shows that the current E3 is not really the future of the game industry getting out its message and previews of new games.  That aside, Nintendo opted to have another Nintendo Direct in lieu of a huge stage conference.  They had some really good trailers in it, too!

First off, we got some new info on the next set of Pokemon games, Pokemon X and Y.  They now have a release date, October 12, which is always good news.  In an effort to balance out Dragon type Pokemon, they are adding another type- Fairy.  Yeah, I know...  Well, dragons did need to get knocked down a peg, since they made ice types harder to get, and the ones from Pokemon Black and White were just terrible and ugly.  They showed the first 4 fairy types, one of which is...wait for it...a new Eevee evolution.  Who didn't see that one coming?  The rest are: Jigglypuff (might be useful now? ...No, I doubt it), Gardevoir (awesome Pokemon, even if I can't spell it's name correctly) and Marrill.  I'm not sure how a water balloon is a fairy, but whatever.  There's also a mode that allows you to play with your Pokemon like Nintendogs.  I don't think this is necessary (or wanted by the older fan base), so hopefully I can ignore it entirely.

A few other games were shown: a new Mario or two, Pikmin 3 and some of the two "new" Legend of Zelda games.  I don't really like the Mario games, including the new Mario Kart (shocking, I know, considering how much I loved the first Mario Kart), and I still haven't gotten around to trying Pikmin (I have one of the remakes on Wii).  As sad as it is, I don't like the Wind Waker art style and I'm not really a fan of the 3D Zelda games, so I'm not really excited about that.  The re-imagining/ sequel to A Link to the Past does look really cool, as that is my favorite Legend of Zelda game.  A day or so after their Nintendo Direct, they talked more about it.  It seems Link now has an ability to make himself a 2 dimensional cave drawing looking thing and travel along walls.  I have no clue why in an actual 3D game, the hero has a power to make himself 2D.  Almost seems counter-productive.

Before I get to the final awesomeness of what all they covered, I want to talk about the new game being made by the team that made Xenoblade.  It looks similar, but you can also summon a "doll", or giant mech suit that you can pilot in battles or even while moving around the map.  As a robot fan, and fan of the team's other works, Xenoblade and Xenogears (currently my third favorite game of all time), I want to play this game.  If I don't have the Wii U by the time that game comes out, I will probably get it.  The game is right now just called "X" (which looks a lot like the Xenogears/ Xenoblade "X" in the titles), so hopefully it gets a real name soon.  Maybe Xenodoll?  Oh, and at least one of the mechs you run around in can transform.  I can't wait to roll out, even though the game appears to have multiplayer.  As long as I can play the whole game solo, I will be a happy camper!

Now to the star of the show...Smash Bros!  Being developed by a team at Namco Bandai (whom I affectionately refer to as "Bamco"), there were some trailers released that showed three of the new fighters.  First up (in reverse order of excitement) is the nameless Villager from Animal Crossing.  Yeah, I don't care either.  Next up, the generic Wii Fit trainer girl.  She'll likely be a joke character, like Game & Watch, so I don't mind her, even if there were much better choices for a character (the princess from Archaic Sealed Heat?  Anyone?)  However, all other character reveals shall pale in comparison to the character I was pulling for last game.  The one, the only, super fighting robot...Megaman!  Yes, the Blue Bomber, in a 3D-ified version of his 8-bit self has finally come to the world of Smash Bros!  He's a perfect addition.  They showed several of his moves, but I'm still hoping he has a similar mechanic to Kirby, but he copies the move of the last opponent he killed.  The only sad part is Nintendo (or Bamco) is picking up Capcom's slack.

Since some of Nintendo's games from the show floor were also playable at Best Buy stores, but curiously not in the area near the Nintendo of America headquarters, I'm sure some of these will be at PAX Prime so I can get some first hand impressions.  Check back in September!

E3 2013: Sony Conference Impressions

As we did with the Xbox One, let's start with the things that make people think that Sony "won" E3 (I wasn't aware it was a contest): it doesn't need to connect to the internet and Sony won't require DRM.  These both are pretty much what the PS3 already does, so it shouldn't be that much of a surprise.  While Sony won't require the DRM, they did say that the publisher has the final say on if that is imposed or not.  Much like the online passes that people hated, I can see this making people mad later on down the line.  I'm not saying that third party companies will have a one use key code like the Xbox One, but you can't rule it out.  Also, since the next gen will undoubtedly push digital sales even more, there's a chance that the Xbox One's ability to transfer the ownership of a digital sale might give it an advantage.  Of course, third parties might just have the same transfer system for both systems and it will be a moot point in the end.  Time will tell on those fronts.

The price, however, is a lot more attractive than the Xbox One.  It will be $400, a whole hundred less than its competitor.  This price doesn't include the camera though.  Again, I doubt I will be buying one at launch, as I learned my lesson doing that with the Wii and 3DS.  It comes with a 500GB hard drive, but no word yet if it is upgradeable.  Given how happy I am with upgrading the PS3 HD, I'm hoping it is.  Ideally, I think a 1 terabyte would be the best for me, given the push to digital releases will fill up 500 even faster than last gen.  As for the look of the console itself...well, I'm not a fan.  It looks too asymmetrical to me.  It's a parallelogram and just does't look right to me, since it will take up a bit more space looking like that.  Granted it doesn't need to look good to preform, but it couldn't hurt it to look better.

Let's move on to the games.  As with most presentations, we got a lot of cinematics and not much gameplay.  Mad Max, The Order: 1886 and Infamous: Second Son look nice, but I'd like to see gameplay before deciding.  The Order has a nice setting, and I'm digging the steam-punk looking weapons, but I'd like to see if it's third or first person and if there's any multiplayer before getting too interested.  My friend remarked that he will buy Second Son since it is set in Seattle, which we live very close to.  Later there was a video showing the gameplay of Second Son, and it looked pretty fun.  I wish they would have shown some of that during their conference.  Another extremely pretty game they showed was Dark Sorcerer.  It had a funny trailer, but again, I want to see what kind of game it is before caring too much.

They did show some in-game footage from Final Fantasy Versus 13, now renamed Final Fantasy 15.  Yes, I'm too lazy to use roman numerals.  Anyway, it looked too action oriented.  Yeah, I might end up checking it out, but I'm not holding out too much hope.  After Final Fantasy 10, the series really fell again for me.  I kind of enjoyed 13-2 so far, but the rest were not that fun to me (even though I completed 13).  Also their second MMORPG, Final Fantasy 14, is coming to consoles at some point.  Yay?  I might try it if it were a free to play game, but I don't think it is.  The races of that game and FF 11 were not appealing at all to me, quickly turning me off.

Playstation Plus will continue being a great value by adding PS4 to its family.  There will still be the current benefits (yay free games!), but now will be required to play games online, similar to Xbox Live.  I'm fine with this, since Plus was a great purchase for me, even just for the free games.  I don't play online games very often, but I understand that it will be a deterrent to some.  Let's hope their network improves since it will no longer be free.

Just like the Xbox One, I'm hoping some of these will be playable at PAX Prime.  At the very least, I'd like to use the controller to see how it feels compared to the PS3 one.