Memoirs of a PAL RPG gamer. (News/releases/etc)

[admeister]

[Bish]

Oh man oh man oh man, Shoji Meguro.
Top picks for me: contextually, it'd have to be The Battle for Everyone's Souls as you fight Nyx in P3. Epic. The Almighty of P4 just doesn't have the same kick, I feel. Heartful Cry is aptly named as you fight against your fellow SEES members for the keys to decide MC's fate. Heaven is also a standout as Nanako's dungeon, also the only dungeon in the game to have lyrics. Living with Determination Iwatodai Station remix, too. The normal one is when you deal with the Sun Arcana, and it's such a depressing social link, but when the remix crops up after you refuse to kill Ryoji, it really does enforce your character's choice to fight and live. Interstice of Time is essentially the same one and a half minute tune looped over in variations (for each dungeon in FES), but if you listen to it as a whole, it slowly becomes it bit more complex with each iteration, but the last one they strip back all the layers and just leave the piano, and it's simplicity and somewhat depressingness is magical.
Moving onto Devil Survivor, Action is generally good, Battle Beat and Deep Night always pumps me up for a fight.
For general catchyness, P4's opening, Pursuing my True Self and Persona PSP's Dream of Butterfly.

Phew. So. Moving off of the SMT series, the Chrono series.
Orchestral version of Chrono Trigger. I think it's because the SNES was the first console I really got stuck into gaming (I had a NES, but I didn't play it obsessively), that Chrono Trigger also invokes memories when I hear its music.
Guardia Millenial Fair, Wind Scene, Frog's THeme, Robo's Theme (moar like Rick Astley's theme, amirite), Ayla's theme.
Chrono Cross: Time's Scar, Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World. I love the latter because I believe the first time you hear it is on the world map in Another World. It's got this lovely sense of longing, which is so fitting for a moment in the game where you're stranded in a world you know nothing about.
OKAY, I HAVE BEEN TYPING THIS FOR 40 MINUTES NOW (although I got interrupted by a phone call), MAYBE I SHOULD STOP.

PS. There are also more awesome Chrono Cross tracks, not just 2.
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[UWSguy]

Was anyone disappointed with P4's opening song after P3's? It is a tough act to live up to.

Also Burn My Dread, while awesome, has some of the most hilarious pronounciation ever. It's something you don't notice at first but once you do you can't unhear it. Things like 'A Flaming S-Word'.

[lexielab]

I received an email from Nintendo today informing me that the second AFL Grand Final has interfered with some of their scheduling:

[admeister]

Silly men and their little ball! We have real games to attend to.

[UWSguy]

Though DDS seems to play second (or fourth) fiddle to the rest of the SMT series in terms of popularity I always really liked 'Hari-Hara' and 'Hari-Hara - Second Movement'. Great final boss music.

Also Nocturne - 'Fierce Battle' sounds awesome and demonic.

Also (2) while not an RPG this song from GGXX2- Midnight Carnival always reminded me of SMT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_S43AP1tgc

[lapzod]

It's been a while since I've posted in here. I'm still cracking through Dragon Quest IX and I'm almost at the end. (I've been reading the walkthrough, just to see where I am in the game. One more Fygg to go, I think, then I imagine there'll be a little after that and I should be done)

I ordered both Valkyria Chronicles 2 and Persona some time ago and they arrived last week. Now they're sitting on my desk, taunting me with their shiny plastic sleeves.
I also picked up the first Yakuza game, purely on the comment someone made in here about it being similar to Shenmue, plus any story about Yakuza has to be worth playing...right?

I agree with the music in Persona 3 being amazing. The soundtracks get a bit of a bash every now and then.

[neoxman]

I've just started playing Ys: Oath in Felghana and Ys Seven recently and I think i'm in love! Never played a Ys game before these and regret not getting into them sooner >_>.
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[Pagan's Mind]

[Spacecow]

I think this would have to be my first venture into this thread for a post.

I like RPG's but clearly not to the amount that some of you do.

Anyway, Kyle Clarthy saw in the recent purchases thread a post by me mentioning I tracked down a copy of Folklore and I was asked to give my thoughts on it (he was considering getting it).

It is a Third Person Action/Adventure/RPG released in 2007 exclusively for PS3. Plot centres about two characters, Keat (a detective) and Ellen (some chick in search of her mother). They both are called to the city of Doolin for different reasons where they see a woman fall off a cliff and die. They then proceed to the 'Netherworld' where they try to speak to the dead woman.

First of all I've only played it for 30 minutes so not very much to comment on yet.

I've finished the Prologue for Keats. Question: Are the characters meant to be played intertwiningly (eg: Do a chapter for one and then do the respective chapter for the other)? I'm not 100% sure, but I assume so?

Graphics for the main part hold up very well for a 2007 release but I noticed some of the background textures weren't the best (I recall a gate in one of the opening sequences looking very 'blurred and fuzzy').

Story is quite interesting so far. The characters are also interesting, especially Keats. Somethings have been introduced but not yet fully explained (albeit I have only played 30 mins).

Gameplay is solid so far. From what I can tell you've got the actual world which has no combat and is mostly adventuring and the 'Netherworld' which is the combat aspect. The combat has you capturing 'folk' (dead people souls) and using them to administer attacks. 'Folks' can be levelled up to become stronger and different 'Folk' are assigned to the face buttons. Sixaxis implementation is not really my sort of thing at all and this also holds true for this game. To capture 'Folk' you swipe your controller in an upwards direction while holding R1 (L1???, one of them).

With regards to cutscenes you've got your traditional ones with voice acting (which is quite good by the way) but also a large amount of 'comic-book' style mini cutscenes with no voice acting. The comic book style ones are interesting but my only issue with them is that they generally go way too slow (there's quite an amount of them so I try to go through them quickly) and while there is a Fast forward button it fast forwards all 'slides' of the cutscene. I would have much prefered it fast forwarded to the end of the current slide so I could keep up with reading all the speech bubbles rather than miss out on some that I am not quick enough to read.

I didn't like the fact that there rarely was a prompt to interatct with a person/object. You got your main "Exit" and "Save" Prompts shown as boxes on screen when close to Doors and your Notebook respectively but none when you were near a person. Thats probably a decision by the developer with a mind to the artistic view of the game though. The graphics/style is so good that they wanted you to focus on that rather than crappy little prompt boxes.

I installed to hard drive so loading was acceptable (3-4 second load between different areas). Something I was interested in was looking at the whole menu implementation of the game. It was released in 2007 so it had the 2007 PS3 set up architecture in mind and it shows. With multiple screens popping up to save settings when changing options (no background saving for changing of options) and also multiple screens for installing to hard drive. Also something that had me surprised was that I was able to access the XMB while installing the game data to my hard drive. I don't recall this with other games I think (I could just be making this up though and it could be standard on all games )?

Anyways that last paragraph was getting dangerously close to incoherant irrelevant rambling so I'll stop there.

All in all Kyle Clarthy, quite an interesting game so far and I will definitely be continuing this (If my fricking homework lets me, ). It's becoming increasingly harder to track down to so it's best to try to get it sooner rather than later.

A definite recommendation from me.
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"Everything's coming up Milhouse"

[Ryvenor]

If i remember correctly, story-wise, you should play Ellen's chapter first and then Keats'.

Ellen Chapter 1 > Keats Chapter 1 > Ellen Chapter 2 > Keats Chapter 2, and so on.

[Spacecow]

[grim-one]

Breaking news! GOG.com got Planesape: Torment! I knew it wouldn't be long after Baldur's showed up on there =)
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Steam:grim_one | PSN/Live:najakh | Flickr

[UWSguy]

Thank God, an ex girlfriend borrowed it from me and then moved to India.

Now they just need Star Trek: Klingon Academy and Homeworld Cataclysm up there and I'll be sitting pretty.

Speaking of not that, I was wondering what everyone's favourite genres are outside of RPGs. I've noticed amongst my friends that most of those who like RPGs also really love survival horror (Silent Hills and Fatal Frames).
For me, I also like survival horror (though it can get a bit much for me at times), Japanese action games (DMC, Onimusha: DOD, Bayonetta, DS Castlevanias) and certain types of FPSes (corridor shooters like Doom 3 and Quake 4, FEAR... not a big fan of COD, Halos or anything else that is open).
So how about you?

[orsonic]

For me, I love racing games and arcade fighters.
Racers usually GT5 or Mario Kart and Street Fighter/Tekken/Blazblue.
Have to agree on the Japanese action games too!
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[Jahanzeb]

Love fighting games(mainly 2D fighters now, sorta grown out of 3D fighters), platformers, stylish action, scrolling shooters, rail shooters and action adventure.
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Now Playing:
Sonic Generations

[Bish]

[lapzod]

[OropherX]

Everytime someone mentions Chrono Cross/Trigger music a part of me dies. Like, WHY OH WHY did I not stay longer in the line with my chrono trigger DS when Mitsuda was at WAICon earlier this year. In fact they should had put an annoucement on PA "attention all con-goers, Mitsuda will be leaving the building in 2 minutes" >_> Oh well I'll get over it one day, hopefully... no I won't. But yeah, Time Scar is a track which will be immortalised.
I also like this track from Arc Twilight of the Spirits, one of my fave PS2 RPGs (every game which lets you view the story from two different perspectives = win)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6tX5S-gM0Y (how do you embed youtube vids in this forum?)
By the way I recently ordered a copy of Grim Grimoire. I'm expecting it to be as awesome as Odin Sphere and Muramasa, don't let me down Vanillaware!
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[Kyle Clarthy]

I tell you what, after finishing Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, there's a number of things for me to share.

The game had me hooked from go to whoa, and any bad taste 358/2 Days left in my mouth was gone. It's a very impressive game, no doubt about it and it's sure to be enjoyable by any KH fan.

There are a few people who complain and moan that the entire KH franchise is disjointed, hard to follow and really convoluted, but geez ... I don't know about everyone else, but it seems easy enough to follow to me. And sure, it might not be the best story, but they tell it with a great deal of polish and "heart" and that's all that matters to me. In fact, I feel as if a lot of things to do with KH were explained fairly well in this game. Sure, more questions have arisen, but it's pretty obvious that is going to happen. Not everything can be solved and we need something to keep us coming back.

I've noticed, too, that a lot of people, especially when concerning this installment, are saying things in regards to how the game has a bit of an identity crisis. It seems like it doesn't know whether to go completely dark or not due to the fact that there's Disney characters in there dragging it down into G rated territory. I think this is a pretty lame thing to say, too, as I felt that the game was perfect the way it was. A lot of Disney films have dark themes, but they also have a lot of humor or lighthearted moments, and I feel that Kingdom Hearts thrives on that: it's a lot of fun one moment, reliving scenes from childhood memories, and then you see the darker side and as a result, I feel you grow to love the characters even more and hate the villains an equal amount.

I don't really see anything wrong with that. I also felt that the writing was pretty good this time around. It seemed to me that, especially in the first game, a lot of the writing/dialogue was quite ... basic, I suppose. And a lot of jokes, especially by the Disney crew, fell flat because they were written in "just because" they were memorable lines or something. In this game, the dialogue just seemed so much more realistic (in context.)

I do see what's wrong about the minigames, though ... they need to clear out! There was no way I was going to attempt to pass every minigame with each character, complete the arena (which sort of sucked, I thought! Bring back the original arena, I reckon!) and track down every item and enemy and so on until the secret ending was unlocked. No way! I feel as if the minigames are rigged a lot of the time, and the controls are usually quite clunky. Also, the command board (Monopoly ripoff) game was ... less than stellar. I played it a grand total of two times. I got sick of Aqua doing a little jig every time something went her way. And it was even worse when Pooh pooed all over me.

I loved the combat, and I loved finding new passive skills through command melding. It was actually enjoyable to grind, as I know the game isn't too long and can be completed quickly, but I dragged it out as long as I could and knowing that I was learning new passive skills made it worthwhile and gave me something to work towards. Mickey's D-Link was invaluable, I thought, and I actually liked the concept of D-Link's ... but I do miss having my team following me around.

[OropherX]

I'm currently overleveled playing as Ventus. Spent so long looking for the last piece of clothing for cinderella's dress... didn't realise you could spring jump one of the forks the other way to get to a new area =/ I like D Links although I only used it early on for Aqua's cura until I buy cure and when I need to attack fast as terra i switched to Ventus's. Melding is definitely the best part, especially when a rare command pops up which breaks the game. I mean, I'm only 2 hours into ventus's story and already have an omnislash type move which uses up 2 slots =P Also playing on proud mode seems to be paying off, I would not have liked to have to collect everything to unlock the movie. Now to get these mid semester assignments out of the way so I can 2 day marathon finish ventus then aqua then final episode.
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[Ryvenor]

Birth by Sleep is an awesome game! Im currently playing the through my last character (Aqua). Enjoying her story the most so far, and she is one tough chick!

The only complaint i have about the game is Terra's storyline. I wasnt a fan of it...it doesnt take a Keyblade Master to relise the hunched over creepy old guy is secretly evil and trying to do evil things. Terra just felt a little to stupid and was been stringed along far too easily.

[Kyle Clarthy]

[tallkid123]

I'm playing Terra's storyline at the moment. His VA was initially atrocious but its sort of grown on me because of how stupidly naive he is.

Combat is a thrill. I love how you can do physical attacks, shotlocks, command decks, finshes and different command styles. It's insane.
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[Robo]

Okay I'm kinda stuck on Persona 3's last boss
I'm really really hating Nyx especially when he/she/it starts spamming moonless gown.I mean it's bloody insane, the luck the constant screwing over seems kinda like "screw the rules I have money" but replace money with am death.

I tried 6 times managed to get to the final acrana (Death) half health with it spamming the above move. I was doing fine till it got a critical on MC then I knew I was in trouble and out of nowhere Megidoloan .

as for stats my party is MC, Mitsuro, Yukari and Akihiko.
I think I need to grind to get Yukari the move Mediarahan.
My main Persona is Cybele with 70 in all stats besides luck (99 ).

Thanks for listening guys, I will beat Persona 3 eventually.