Review: Ys 7

Buy Ys Seven at Amazon.com

I don't use my psp for a whole lot other than the terrible and probably illegal task of playing old ps1 games. The handful of games I've bought for it probably have dust on them and the DS has more of my attention than ever.

That is, until I saw this little gem during one of my last days at *insert hellish corporate game selling store here*. I am a sucker for Limited Editions and Japanese RPGs. E, however, knowing my impulsive desire to covet and collect these sorts of things wouldn't let me buy it. He also unfortunately knows that I never play anything on my PSP.

Solution? Play it and see if I like it.

This was probably one of my greatest RPG experiences. It's, at the very least, on my Top 5 of all time.

Story
Isn't that the reason people play RPGs? It's mine, anyways. (I guess some people like fighting and grinding but those people are certifiably insane.) From what I understand now, all of the Ys games are different sections of the main character's, Adol, really long ass adventure. Knowing nothing of the other games or the series, I dove right in - it's very newcomer friendly. The story itself is incredible. There's something happening at every turn and nothing feels like a fetch quest, EXCEPT THE FETCH QUESTS THEMSELVES. E and I have been talking about how awesome certain ideas would be if we could make our own RPG - well, Ys 7 beat us to them. It's all absolutely incredible. You're an adventurer who's just passing by, the king wants to give you a task! Lo, it becomes more than it seems at first. Cliche, but played out oh so wonderfully.

Gameplay

Action RPG. Not quite hack n' slash. This game is comprised of having a party of three characters and you get three different attack types that are effective against the three different types of monsters. Go figure. So obviously you should carry one of each at any given time. But don't worry about who you want - just pick your favorites and go! Your reserve party members, get this, level up alongside you. You can only control one at a time though but it's easy enough to switch off. 

There are a myriad of special attacks that you learn through your weapons. And I love the shopping/equipment system - you can, of course, purchase your weapons and armor OR you can use the various materials to forge together even more powerful weapons/equipment/ and even rare items. This is the only way, in fact, to get everyone's best gear at the end of the game. And as for those items - this game DOES require a fair bit of strategy - with single person only items, you can carry a max of 5. For items that heal the entire party? Maximum of 3. This kind of sucked at the last boss when there were 3 forms and all my characters were split up to fight them. You just have to fight smarter. There is no endurance with spamming items to be found here.

Graphics/Sound

This game has some of the crispest (is that even a word?) graphics I've seen in a long time and a stellar soundtrack. I was pleasantly thrilled when new music played. Definitely worth getting just on that aspect alone.

Overall

This game is like a nice boy your BFF hooks you up with. He takes you out to your favorite spot for dinner and lets you order any and everything you want, gets you a nice bottle of wine, takes you home and makes the bed shake in a truly memorable way and then clobbers you over the head the next morning. I was so mad at the end of game boss fight. That's truly how it felt though and it was probably the best video game experience of my life. Or at least my best on the PSP.

A++++++++++++++++ Would date again.

-A

Review: Crimson Gem Saga (PSP)

I really want to love this game. I do. It has a very nostalgic charm to it that appeals to every memory I have of old-school RPGs. But I can't play it, I just can't. I've officially ground to a standstill.

Story

You play as Killian, a knight-in-training who at the beginning of the game is graduating from Green Hill Academy as salutatorian. Thus begins a series of near-misses and general hijinks that lands our hero square in the middle of a quest to find all of the Wicked Stones, cursed artifacts that someone blah blah blah. Basically you play fetch through various dungeons with forced sidequests until something good happens I guess? The plot really wore thin when I ran out of party members to meet, so maybe the ending is awesome, but I'll never know.

Gameplay

The game is a traditional turn-based RPG. You have a menu from which to select general physical attacks, special skills (like magic), items, etc. You earn XP and SP, the latter of which you spend to unlock skills on a Skill Tree. Each character has their own specific skills, but some of the skills are a combination move which requires all related party members to have the skill. But not only do you have to unlock the skill, you also have to then learn the skill: yes that's right, you basically have to dump SP into one skill twice, without even knowing if you'll like the skill or not. Cue me skipping over a bunch of crap skills to get to the good stuff.

Graphics/Sound

One thing this game excels at. The sprites are all gorgeous, the menus are well-designed and clear to understand, and all of the locations have their own personality. In the beginning the major scenes are all voice-acted, but after a while the voice-acted scenes appeared less and less, to the point that I eventually started playing the game on mute.

Overall

A big batch of mediocrity with a bow on top. I would only recommend this for someone who really loves grinding, and someone who really loves grinding. Also someone who really loves grinding. The SP requirements and the skill trees are godawful timesinks, and when you have to commit that much time to Press X to Win combat, why the fuck bother.

- E

re: new releases

+ The goal of this project is to ultimately complete every game in our collection. Normally adding more to the collection would seem counter-intuitive, but considering the volume of new releases vs. the volume of games that have come out over our gaming lifetimes, I think we'll simply have to reach completion by sheer inevitability. So that said, I want to go ahead and post a couple of the titles I'm pretty stoked about for next year:

- Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (DS)
- SMT: Persona 3 (PSP)
- Okamiden (DS)
- Pokemon HeartGold (DS)*
- The Last Guardian (PS3)
- Lost in Shadow (Wii :( )
- Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (Wii :(( )
- Monster Hunter 3 (-tri) (Wii :((( )

... though that last one, being a console MMO, is outside the scope of this project.

I'm going to have to make Ico and Shadow of the Colossus a priority before June so that The Last Guardian will be feasible. I think I'll take those two on in the months prior, to play them as sort of a trilogy/marathon.

+ Apparently we need a Wii, esp. since we have things on that system that are out and need to play, but aren't on our list since we don't own them yet (the list is short: No More Heroes and Zelda: Twilight Princess are about it).

- E

* A will be getting SoulSilver.

PREVIEW: Lunar Silver Star Harmony (PSP)

Holy god. I cannot wait for this to come out.

http://media.psp.ign.com/media/143/14349376/imgs_1.htm

I didn't even know there was a limited edition until the other day. 13 bromides and a soundtrack? A nice homage to Working Designs if I've ever seen one.



So excited!

Lunar was a significant part of my childhood. I remember the first time I bought it, seeing the opening theme for the first time....listening to the soundtrack. All very significant. Redundant much?

Needless to say, my copy is already preordered! E and I really shouldn't be buying new games - that's the point of this blog and how the whole concept got started - let's clean out and actually PLAY the ones we already have instead of spending money on new stuff that will most likely just sit on our shelf. I've already beaten this game numerous times and you know what? I'll do it again on the PSP.



It even looks like they updated the sprites and character portraiture. It's so bright and cute!

For some reason, E never got to play this. It's on our backlog list, since he absolutely MUST play it but I'm not sure as to whether it'll be a console review or a singular review for him. I think it'll be the latter, since I have NOTHING but great things to say about it.

God why are so many good games coming out so soon!? I cannot afford them! ;_; Definitely preorder this though, since the first one was SO hard to find and I'm not sure how this one will fare though. No use in taking chances though!

So what games are you looking forward to?

- A