Post everytime that you buy a new game...

[BlueCrab]

I hate worthless exploration and dead-ends.

...That's the point of RPGs. Exploration is what immerses you into the world. Dead ends are what make it a game because it's a challenge of choices. The entire time I spent on FF13 I kept asking myself, "Why even stop the cutscene to allow me to run 10 feet down this path and then cue another cutscene?"

I dunno how I ended up on the innermost part of that quote, considering I agree with what you said there about exploration being the point of RPGs...

[Jeeba Jabba]

Haha. Weird. It was Boney who said that.

[Specially Cork]

I hate worthless exploration and dead-ends.

...That's the point of RPGs. Exploration is what immerses you into the world. Dead ends are what make it a game because it's a challenge of choices. The entire time I spent on FF13 I kept asking myself, "Why even stop the cutscene to allow me to run 10 feet down this path and then cue another cutscene?"

That's why I wouldn't call myself an RPG fan. I can't spend 100s of hours exploring and developing my character in games like Oblivion. I just get bored. I like the whole "interactive movie" thing. If a game serves me up a story and characters I like along with a fun battle system...that's pretty much all I need. I can understand why it's not for everyone though. It's personal preference. FF13 is a very concentrated mix of several things I like, which is awesome for me.

[Jeeba Jabba]

Also... HOLY SHIT Valkyria Chronicles is amazing. I am in love. That is all.

[Eckostyle]

PS3 40GB

Unreal Tournament III
MGS4
Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom
Modern Warfare 2
Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

[Eckostyle]

God of War Collection
WarHawk
SOCOm Confrontation

[BlueCrab]

Also... HOLY SHIT Valkyria Chronicles is amazing. I am in love. That is all.

I guess I'm going to have to get that at some point in time (when I have more time to play games/have worked down the stack I already have/etc)...

[DaMadFiddler]

Do I even need to say it?

[Eckostyle]

Resistance 2

[melancholy]

I personally find one tunnel hidden behind 20 dead-ends and random battles more annoying. Plus every review I've read indicates that it opens up later and the battles get much more difficult. Still, much like FF12 I can see this game's opening 10+ hours being a major hurdle in any future replay I do. Handholding should always be optional.

The reviews I've read basically say that the "opening up" takes place in the last two chapters (so about the last 1/10th of the game), and even then, its basically "here's a field with a bunch of tunnels, go down each one and kill the guy at the end."

I really hope it gets better than this, but I'm overall pretty disappointed this far.

Really? I heard after 25 hours in a 60+ hour game, around the halfway point.

Either way, it's playing out a lot like Final Fantasy X in terms of exploration and linearity, which just so happens to be my favourite game of all time, so I'm loving it right now. I love linear well-paced gaming, I hate worthless exploration and dead-ends.

According to IGN, you gain the freedom to explore around Chapter 11. The game is supposed to be 13 chapters.

And after 12 hours of gameplay, I must say, this is quickly becoming the second worst numbered Final Fantasy I've ever played. I don't mind linearity in these games (I thought FFX was great), but this game has become far more restrictive than I could ever imagine. Leveling is determined by the completion of story arcs, and each area is set up with a set number of enemies in a set pattern of encounter. And the difficulty spikes through the roof when you fight a summon. Oh, and since you can't progress your character until you complete a chapter, forget trying to grind to beef your character up against that tough fight.

But gameplay isn't my only problem. The story so far is just weak compared to past games. The characters are mostly uninteresting and don't give me that immediate sense of connection that I get from past Final Fantasy games. I also am having extreme difficulty wrapping my head around the game world they have created. I just can't make sense of this Cocoon that they are in and how exactly it is laid out. I wish I had a world map to help me make sense of the random areas I am traveling to.

[Specially Cork]

First of all, it's worth noting that Chapter 11 is around 10x longer than the other chapters. You can easily spend 30+ hours on it completing everything. It's almost like a totally different game.

But...yeah, I dunno. The geographical linearity hasn't been an issue for me, but they've completely crippled character and party development for 90% of the story - something I wasn't really expecting. I understand it was for narrative and I admit that the party does eventually come together under far more believable circumstances that most other JRPGS (I always wince at some of the empty decisions characters make when they put their lives on the line for you). However...20+ hours? Really? Its tedious. It's a waste of what is, eventually, an awesome battle system.

My biggest problem with all this is it cripples the replay value - something that I have always admired FF games for having. The first half of the game doesn't just have anywhere else to go - it doesn't have any other way to play. Not a single option to experiment.

This whole game stinks of FF8. All style, no substance - the wet dream of a bunch of videogame developers simply trying to push hardware to its limits.

What's worse - that same hardware makes this game seem worse than it is. This generation of consoles has heralded in a huge amount of attention to detail in gameplay - and it's all missing here. Every standard JRPG trope is present, and it shows up more than ever.

I'm stll looking forward to seeing how it all ends, but there's no way it will find a home in my heart like others have.

And the characters...everyone has a flaw, and at some point they fart and it disappears. Great development there.

[Jeeba Jabba]

Panzer Dragoon, Sega Saturn

[melancholy]

Picked up my DSi XL earlier this week. And my cousin threw out his Wii because the disc drive was broken, so I snagged that from him. He even gave everything that came with the system, including the original box. I'm debating either replacing the disc drive or just attaching a hard drive to it.

Also got:

Lunar Silver Star Harmony Limited Edition (PSP) - $40
Knights in the Nightmare (DS) - $15
Lair (PS3) - $5

[BlueCrab]

Lunar Silver Star Harmony Limited Edition (PSP) - $40

I suppose that this is just another remake just like several times before? Anything interesting or different about it than the other 4 remakes of it (which I actually have all of, sadly).

[melancholy]

Lunar Silver Star Harmony Limited Edition (PSP) - $40

I suppose that this is just another remake just like several times before? Anything interesting or different about it than the other 4 remakes of it (which I actually have all of, sadly).

I don't know, I've not ever played the originals to be honest. I have the Sega CD one, but I didn't acquire it until around 2005, so by then I didn't have any draw to play much of it (not to mention how big of a pain it is to hook up that monstrosity of a system). I did play the GBA version like crazy, though I heard that version is a re-imagining of the original and nothing like it.

Anyway, from what I've read the PSP version uses the same story, but the entire game has been redrawn from scratch. So though it plays like the original, the graphics are supposed to be amazing. Anyway, I don't plan to try it until I finish Miles Edgeworth sometime this week. I only play one game at a time, and this is next in the queue.

[BlueCrab]

Lunar Silver Star Harmony Limited Edition (PSP) - $40

I suppose that this is just another remake just like several times before? Anything interesting or different about it than the other 4 remakes of it (which I actually have all of, sadly).

I don't know, I've not ever played the originals to be honest. I have the Sega CD one, but I didn't acquire it until around 2005, so by then I didn't have any draw to play much of it (not to mention how big of a pain it is to hook up that monstrosity of a system). I did play the GBA version like crazy, though I heard that version is a re-imagining of the original and nothing like it.

Anyway, from what I've read the PSP version uses the same story, but the entire game has been redrawn from scratch. So though it plays like the original, the graphics are supposed to be amazing. Anyway, I don't plan to try it until I finish Miles Edgeworth sometime this week. I only play one game at a time, and this is next in the queue.

The GBA version wasn't that much different than the PS1/Saturn versions, as far as I can remember... The story did get changed a bit between the Sega CD version and the later ones, but I don't remember it being that much different between the PS1/GBA version.

Not that it really matters to me how nice the PSP version ends up being, as I don't own a PSP... but yeah, at some point I might (although with how much Sony has pissed me off with the whole Other OS thing on PS3, maybe not)...

[Specially Cork]

I only briefly played the PS1 version, but the visual difference in the PSP version is amazing. This isn't some cheap remake.

[Eviltaco64X]

Kirby Super Star (SNES, rebought)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2, rebought)

[melancholy]

Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love
Need for Speed: Shift

And I'm probably going to pick up another new game tomorrow once I sell off Final Fantasy XIII. Once I hit Chapter 10, the game became even worse. I loaded my save, played 5 minutes, and decided I'm finally done with this terrible game. Worst Final Fantasy ever.

[Specially Cork]

Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love
Need for Speed: Shift

And I'm probably going to pick up another new game tomorrow once I sell off Final Fantasy XIII. Once I hit Chapter 10, the game became even worse. I loaded my save, played 5 minutes, and decided I'm finally done with this terrible game. Worst Final Fantasy ever.

It only gets worse from there. What they meant by "it all opens up later" was:
- There is one single big area, exactly like the Calm Lands from FFX but a little bigger
- There is a single optional tunnel to explore

Imagine my dissapointment when I was expecting a whole other world to explore.

Then you just carry on down a linear path again to the end of the game. Yeah you get hunts to do but...you still have an easily reachable level cap until you beat the story. The last 5 hours of this game forced me to fight through monsters that gave CP I could use in a post-game mode I didn't want to play.

There are some postive outcomes from some of the decisions they made, and I've tried my best to defend it, but after browsing my games library I had to admit to myself that:
- It's the worst PS3 game I own
- Its the worst FF game I have ever played (and I liked all the others, including X-2!)

I'm now playing Valkyria Chronicles and loving every second. Why Squenix can no longer make an FF game with an atmosphere and cast like this is beyond me.