Every year as summer gets closer, I always feel the need to go back and replay some final fantasy game. It’s usually either FF9 or FF7, those being my favorite. Sometimes I touch upon X or X-2, but not so much.

I’m having a hard time deciding what I want to do though. I’m kind of a perfectionist. Kind of though. So I’m more of a procrastinating wanna-be. Something tells me I’m probably going to end up playing X-2 just to get through it, because I never have, and what’s not to love about three girls kicking ass in pretty outfits and all that jazz. But I’ve always wanted to attempt this. This problem is, I’m stupid, and I don’t know how using my PS2 would work as far as saving game files. I’ve tried to read up on PS1 and PS2 memory card things, but I’m still unsure if I can save games on my PS2 that are actually PS1 games, because of the differences in how they save. I guess I should try it myself, but I am lazy and want to play different games.

Oh decisions.

-Redi

(If anyone could help, that would be great!)

Let me start off by saying that I LOVE this game and became completely addicted to it once I stuck with it. This tends to happen with most RPGs and myself, but a good amount of the time I don’t see it through until the end, until about a year later because the first try I got stuck on one part and never picked the game up again. Until that year later. Perfect example would be Kingdom Hearts 2, because I hated Roxas… and that’s very silly because it was only the beginning of the game, and that year later when I picked it up again, I missed him when he was gone (bawwwwwwww) but this isn’t a Kingdom Hearts 2 reviewish thing so I’ll shut up about that now.

Anyways, Tales of Vesperia is an average JRPG, with a decent storyline and whatnot. It doesn’t really do many things mindblowing as far as that goes, but the characters really grow on you. Yuri is a troublemaker with good intentions and has such a strong, although a bit twisted, sense of justice that he’ll do whatever it takes to make things better, no matter the cost. Estelle is a sheltered princess that only thinks of others. Repede is a dog. Karol is a crybaby. Rita is TSUNDERE. Judith wears almost no clothes. Raven likes that Judith wears almost no clothes. And Flynn is a non-playable character (see BAWWWWWWW ಥ_ಥ).

Also, I don’t feel like spoiling anything at all so I won’t. And now that I’ve said that, all that will flow to my fingertips will be spoilers which I will delete, retype, delete, retype, then most likely delete this entire post and do it over again. The usual.

The combat system that I mentioned previously having trouble with is now very easy and smooth to me. I said that I didn’t like how long that it took me to get off my ass if I was knocked over, and how I failed at combos, but now I can say that I’m decent at pulling off nice combos and I don’t fall on my ass often because I learned how to guard. Har. Combat can be described as… feeling real (as real as a video game can get especially if you have never fought with swords, magic, and/or yelled out incantations such as DEMON FANG! or BLAH BLAH BLAH, TIDAL WAVE!). While in most games you can just spam attacks over and over or have a never ending combo, while that is possible in Vesperia (see BLAH BLAH BLAH, TIDAL WAVE! (also known as WHAT THE WHAT THE WHAT THE WHAT THE etc)), when you finish that combo, the pause afterwards makes sense.

It’s kind of hard to explain, but someone who is used to kicking ass without a small break in between will have a little bit of trouble getting used to the combat system, in short.

The scenery in Vesperia was always really nice, although the last dungeon got to be an eyesore after spending a while trying to find my way out (because I fail and got lost). Usually the colors were bright but not too blinding (except for the last dungeon…!) and I never needed to adjust my brightness. This is important because I hate doing that. I don’t know why, it’s just a pet peeve that if a game is too dark and I adjust the brightness, then go into an area that’s bright and have to do so again… just ugh. ಠ_ಠ

Sidequests were fun and there’s plenty of them to do, but if you missed something during your playthrough, chances are you can’t go back and do it. You’ll have to just wait until you start a new game and get to that part. This has kept me from completeing the collector’s book, which I need ONE ITEM to do so (this is not sidequest related but at the same time… kind of is).

ONE ITEM!

I know, Estelle, it’s horrible.

Overall, Tales of Vesperia is a really nice game that you’ll get at least 40 hours of enjoyment out of (if you’re a normal person who has a life they actively participate in, otherwise you’re like me who spends at least 150 hours getting the most out of one playthrough and grinding and blah). I am not going to address the PS3 Tales of Vesperia with two new characters, a bunch of storyline added, and a bunch of other stuff added, because that will make me sad if said content does not come via DLC (because if there’s more to the story, I want to hear it ಥ_ಥ).

Now I’m going to go speedrun Vesperia for that achievement (because I am a freak) and then hopefully play Eternal Sonata, which I was able to pick up a while back!
（´･ω･`）

I PROMISE I WILL NOT NEGLECT YOU AGAIN. MAYBE. NOT PROMISING ANYTHING, ACTUALLY. I DO ENJOY CAPS LOCK QUITE A BIT, YES.

-Redi

On my birthday I was given F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. When I played the demo, I have to admit I was genuinely freaked out but I liked it. I haven’t played the original F.E.A.R. game but I’m slowly picking up the back story to all of it. So far, what I’ve learned is that some scientist type dude locked his daughter away and did mean things to her. Now she wants to destroy everything. Awesome.

I’ve gotten to a decently late point in the game now and overall… it doesn’t scare me so much as it does startle me. Maybe it’s because I’m desensitized or something, but it appears the game depends on cheap scare tactics more often than not, and the story itself doesn’t really disturb me. Not to mention that Alma looks like the girl from the Ring. And the Grudge. And other ‘horror’ movies with some little girl that can twist her head around in circles and puke on you (though that’s the exorcist and the little girl didn’t have black hair… but there’s a theme here).

I’ll most likely finish the game this weekend and say how much I liked the ending, probably while spoiling it completely, if I don’t decide to play some other game.

The list of games I have to play and beat is slowly growing. That’s bad.
TR: Anniversary (get past dumb water puzzle)
TWEWY secret report things and just overall completion
Rune Factory (marry some chick with giant boobs and become master of all MONSTERS and storyline blah)
Fallout 3 (stop putting off beating the game and rush through the storyline with a level five just so I can get the achievements (because I am an achievement whore))
Tales of Vesperia (get over lesbian porn name and try not to care about getting EVERYTHING the first playthrough)
F.E.A.R. 2 (get unstuck from current level and beat game while trying not to stare at dead girl boobs)
Mirror’s Edge – Hard playthrough? (I JUST WANT THE ACHIEVEMENT ;_;)

I hate procrastinating. At least I can pronounced it correctly though.

-Redi

It was burning a hole in my pocket anyways.

First one I’ll talk about it Rune Factory for the DS. Yet another game that I wanted ever since I heard about it from Sally (stop making me want games that are especially hard to find). Ignore that last part of the () bit, because I wasn’t actually looking for it. No, while on my quest to get one of two games that I was actually looking for, I just happened upon it in the used games section of an undisclosed video game store. But the truth remains that it is still hard to find at stores, because it is older and the only games you find at stores nowadays are the popular ones that are less than a year old. Unless it’s like… Halo, or something.

Rune Factory is basically Harvest Moon with monsters. I’ve been a fan of the Harvest Moon series. It’s cute and fun, and just for lazy people like me who have the far off wish of living on a farm and being a hard worker (which you obviously aren’t if you play this game (that’s a lie don’t take offense (but it’s true in my case))).

Anyways. I haven’t played much of it yet because I’ve been sick today and a bit preoccupied with my other game, but from what I’ve seen of it thus far… it’s pretty. Prettier than Harvest Moon. And very cliché. Oh woe is me I am a boy with no memory…! Well… I haven’t seen many other games with farming and monsters and dumb hoes, besides Harvest Moon, with a boy with no memory but… THE IDEA IS CLICHÉ, ALRIGHT?

SECOND GAME – GO!

Tales of Vesperia (and I so desperately want to type Vespyria even though it’s wrong.)

I had two options before I chose this game. Tales of Vesperia or Eternal Sonata.
Now, I had gone to various websites trying to compare the games to each other. What I found helped… but not really.
Game length – Tales wins.
Music – Eternal Sonata wins apparently.
Content – Tales.
Pretty factor – Eternal Sonata.
Battle Systems – Tales and Eternal Sonata were tied.
‘Kay, so Eternal Sonata is short and pretty, while Tales is… a Tales game, from the Tales series. Right. Didn’t help.

Luckily, the guy at the counter happened to have played both games and kindly let me drill him for information that led me to my decision. Thanks, video game store guy. You are my hero.

Let me start by listing what I like about this game already.
The main character – Yuri. I had a good chuckle when I heard his name, but that’s because I’m a pervert. Secondly, he looks like a girl which makes it even better. Thirdly, he’s a sarcastic son of a bitch.

Sounds like Angst’s cousin.

I also find it kind of humorous that when my brother walked in on me playing the game, he recognized the guy as the faggot with purple hair from the game his girlfriend rented a while back.
The second thing I like about this game is how pretty it is. If I have to wait for Eternal Sonata, this will definately keep me satisfied for a while.

See?
Also, the battle system… it’s different.
It would appear I don’t have to control my allies in battle at all. Just lesbian porn, purple head. He’s fairly easy to control, though the holding-down-two-buttons-to-move-freely turns me off. And I don’t like how abruptly my combos can end, as well as how long it takes me to recover from being knocked on my ass.

I haven’t gotten far in this game either, so I have to keep my mind open. So far, I’m impressed. The voice actors aren’t that bad either and the cutscenes are pleasant. The little skits I come across every now and then are nice as well, even if they are just pictures of the character’s heads talking to each other. Also cheesy battle phrases are cheesy. But I’m growing to love them anyways.

Let’s see… I have to finish Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, Tomb Raider Anniversary, Rune Factory, Tales of Vesperia, and the mini side quest things on TWEWY.
My reaction is this:

I’ll get it done eventually.

-Redi

BUT I CANNOT SEEM TO EXPLAIN HOW MUCH I DON’T HATE THIS VIDEO:

Man. Just what I need to brighten up my day.

-Redi

You know, let me start this off with a thought. Here I was, sitting here thinking that Kingdom Hearts was the only FRIENDSHIP POWER! game. Now, after saying that, let me say this:
Damn you, Square-Enix. Damn you and your spikey hair fetish, your angst fetish, your friendship fetish, your skinny beyond belief fetish, your one-character-has-to-be-mysterious-and-another-a-dumbass fetish, your MAKE-PEOPLE-BAWWWWWWW fetish, and all other fetishes that you have that I don’t WANT to even think about.
ಠ_ಠ

By the way, stop reading here and skip down to the next section seperated with a horizontal rule if you don’t want to be spoiler’d. But if you didn’t want to be spoiler’d, I think it’s a bit too late considering… previous posts. Not that anyone reads this thing, anyways, besides people who have already beaten the game and are probably just humoring me because they’re awesome. （´･ω･`）
Also the title kinda spoiler’d anyways. YOU JUST CAN’T ESCAPE FROM KNOWING SOMETHING YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO KNOW. Soooo sorry (but not really.)

So last night Angst and Ass-For-Brains adventure came to a close. It was dramatic, full of little twists and turns that screws with your head to the point of… hey that’s what I originally thought happened, WHY’D YOU HAVE TO SCREW IT UP? Anyways, one thing that I liked was how Angst and Girl-Who-Wears-Revealing-Clothes were brought back together! And then a cheese filled romantic scene came up, and it all faded to black…

At least, that would’ve been nice. Angst is too much of a pansy to make a move though, and it didn’t help that Ass-For-Brains was standing right behind him. Girl-Who-Wears-Revealing-Clothes probably was intimidated, thinking she might get raped or something.

So, here I am, resisting the urge to go back to my last save and level up all the pins that need leveling, moving on and kicking some giant iron tits ass, laughing at the man under his own garbage pile masterpiece, and then raging at creepy shades dude. All was going well, then JOSHUA has to appear and be all like ‘HAY I M THE COMPOSER. AND YOU KNO WAT? SHIBUYA IS GOIN’ DOWN. NOW SHOOT ME IN THE FACE OR ELSE I’LL SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE.’ Right, well, it would appear my comic a few posts back wasn’t COMPLETELY accurate, as I discovered the post afterward via day cutscene, but at the same time… No, actually, no, it WAS completely accurate, just missing crazy math man who says zetta too much and has a giant cult that you can find on any gamefaqs/gamespot forum.

By the way, I don’t completely understand what’s the big deal about crazy math man. I don’t find him funny, I don’t find him sexy, I find him very annoying. Maybe because I hate math. Who knows.

Either way, I wasn’t too surprised that Joshua was the composer. I wasn’t too surprised that he came back mainly because Shiki was there too. I wasn’t too shocked that he popped up when he was supposed to be ‘dead’, which I didn’t fully believe in the first place. He had some crazy powers, obviously, so him going out just because of a crazy math man EXPLODING ALL OVER HIS FACE AND BODY AND EVERYWHERE (I had to toss that in somewhere) was not going to take him out. After all, he can just throw his clothes in the washing machine with a little bit of Mascui-out (this is dirty don’t click LOL) and they’ll be good as new! And his hair… well I imagine it needed SOMETHING to stay in place the same way the whole time.

What type of hair gel do these kids use anyways? That’s what I wanna know.

Long story short:
I liked this ending, KIND OF. It had it’s emotional moments and the twists and turns and battles kept things flowing pretty well. However… as many twists and turns the ending had, it was almost… expected. The storyline had already shown me that pretty much, things aren’t always as they appear, or something they really ARE as they appear, but they just decided to throw in some other thing to make you think ‘Oh, maybe that happened instead! Because there’s so much evidence to prove this!!!’ but really, it was just a small distraction.

YOU GOT ME, TWEWY. I WAS DISTRACTED. But not surprised.

I guess Mr. H really was right though.

Link here.

That picture was tossed at me by Simon and Sally, and I find it cute, but I have a lot of criticisms with it. Roo as JOSHUA? Oh no, sir. That cannot be. If Roo should be anyone, it would have to be Rhyme, because Tigger and Roo are bestest buddies! And Rabbit as Shiki? IS IT ONLY BECAUSE HE’S TALL? BECAUSE I DON’T SEE TITS THERE. If ANYONE should be Shiki, it should be Piglet (even though he isn’t a girl but see reasoning over in the next sentence)! Piglet is Pooh’s bestest buddy! And Joshua should be… well, either Rabbit or Owl. Probably Rabbit because he always had a stick up his ass anyways.

Though, one could argue that Piglet is Rhyme because of his thinking ways, but Roo always looks out for Tigger anyways. Bah. PICTURE IS NOT CORRECT, BUT IT IS STILL CUTE, SO I GUESS I DON’T MIND THAT MUCH.

Now I’m gonna play through the chapters and unlock all those report things, as well as play through Another Day… which appears to be based around Tin Pin Slammer. Which I hate.
Just think pokemon cards, Redi. Pokemon cards. PIKACHU, I CHOOSE YOU!

-Redi

P.S. Also, this comic is mildy humorous if you don’t mind being spoiler’d/already know what’s going on/don’t care and just want funny/respect me enough to humor me and click on this link/want me to stop making more categories for why you would click on this link.

Kingdom Hearts.

Oh ho, what a joy…

Now, I’m not talking about the original Kingdom Hearts. I played my heart out (har har) on that when I got that for Christmas a few years ago along with my Playstation 2 (I’m spoiled). I can safely say I enjoyed the game, with all it’s good life lessons on friendship AND HOW FAR FRIENDSHIP CAN GO. FRIENDSHIP, FRIENDSHIP, ALL THE WAY! JUST OPEN YOUR HEART, GUYS, IT’S OKAY (but don’t let the little black ones get it!). Does that last part of the previous sentence make me a wee bit racist? Hope not. Just in case though- Hilary Clinton needs to get laid. That wasn’t racist but I was insulting a white person. A white woman. And besides, she has no heart.

Anyways, Kingdom Hearts. I enjoy the series. The first game really was good, the story line was compelling, and there was just something about fighting little creatures with supposively no hearts (I will elaborate on this more later) and saving the worlds. The disney worlds (all over the universe… is that some form of advertising disney world?) ANYWAYS I NEED TO CONTINUE ON. Kairi was adorable (second game I don’t care for her much, don’t know why), Riku was badass but I think he was riding Ansem’s dark power too long (teehee), and Sora was a dumbass. Less so than Beat from TWEWY, but still… I think his hair was so big to hide his lack of brain. But with the lack of brain he had A WHOLE HEAD (and heart, har har (I gotta stop doing this)) full of hope FOR FRIENDSHIP. AND SAVING THE WORLDS. I think this picture describes it all rather well…

I got Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (for the Game Boy Advance) afterwards when it came out, and let’s just say… I didn’t get very far. Hell, I think I fought like three battles and tossed the game into my GBA games bag where it collects dust even now. I never got used to the card system, as well as the graphics of the game. I was too used to being able to pull off mini button combos on my playstation and hearing the characters voices and just… so many things that Chain of Memories couldn’t do. It didn’t capture me like it’s predecessor did. It’s not that I wasn’t fond of my game boy advance, it’s just that, Kingdom Hearts didn’t fit there.

Then came Kingdom Hearts 2. And at first, I hated it. I didn’t like Roxas. I couldn’t, just couldn’t get past his days in the game for whatever reason. I don’t know what it was. Maybe because it was rather slow paced. Maybe it was the controls. Kingdom Hearts opened up in a similar matter, I mean, you had to run around and do little missions, collect some things, but it still seemed to have more variety. Something was just… off, like in Chain of Memories. I guess I’m not much for change when it REALLY comes down to it. I set the game down. I hadn’t even gone through all of Roxas’ story. I didn’t care, I wanted my bubbly, stupid-as-hell friendship man and his wacky disney side-kicks.

After a few months of eyeing the case, I popped it back in again and was determined to play through it all. I did, but only because a flaming red-head whose hair defies gravity EVEN more so than Cloud’s from Final Fantasy VII. Axel (who shall also be called Fire-Crotch), the one who made me feel remotely bad for Roxas, because they were the bestest of friends and Fire-Crotch was a wee bit ticked that Roxas got his butt kicked and forgot all about THEIR FRIENDSHIP (this is a reoccurring theme in Kingdom Hearts, don’t you know?) HOW DARE HE. By the way, this mini comic is cute, and is how I see their friendship going (it’s a little hard to see what Roxas is saying because the artist had the BRILLIANT idea of putting thin, yellow Roxas lines against a white background. Good going, sweets.)

CONTINUING ON. I played Kingdom Hearts 2 all the way through. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me become a little bit of a fan girl. And it led me here, to this moment. The moment I pop in Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories (by the way, what the hell is a Re: for? Seriously.) We’re diving headfirst into the past (at least, taking half a step back).

Here’s where the title comes in, folks.

Listen to the fourteen year old boy’s voice. Sora’s voice (you know, Friendship man. You know, the one with spikey brown hair and really really red pants.) I wish I could find another video with a cutscene from the original Kingdom Hearts to let you hear his original voice… Oh, puberty’s hit but it’s the high pitch, low pitch stage.

Also yes I realize that this game was voiced after Kingdom Hearts 2, where Sora (and his actor) had already matured. And the actor stayed the same, blah, blah… But this is why games should be released in the right order.

I haven’t gotten to the battling part yet because I’ve been too busy spewing my childhood memories all over this post and having too much fun with the pictures and video clips and everything (it’s just so fun). In fact, I’m paused on that cutscene up there. Sora’s face is in a funky position because I knew when I heard that voice I had to post. So, before I jump in, my predictions for the battle system ARE:
I’m gonna hate it.
I’m gonna hate it so much that I’ll be good at it.
I’m gonna hate it so much that I’m gonna kick SO MUCH ASS that I won’t have to stand it long.
And if I don’t hate it… well, disregard above but keep the ass kicking anyways.

I’m not sure how well the battle system will work on the playstation 2, since it’s definately different from combos and whatnot in the other two games. Cards… think pokemon, Redi. Remember the good ol’ days, when you pulled out that Mew card and made that little boy cry because I took his holographic Charizard… Time to play.

-Redi

I picked up Legend a while back and I enjoyed the game, although it was very short in my opinion. I had the PS2 version so I was used to the standard playstation controls, as all of the Tomb Raiders that I’ve picked up were on playstation consoles. This one, as mentioned before, is one the 360 though, so that’s a small change that I’ll have to get used to.

As I started the game, I immediately turned around and jumped off the cliff. Good start. I didn’t mean to, it was just an accident, but it appeared that it was just a warning for things to come. Yahtzee’s description of the camera angles is fairly accurate (meaning they like to center around Lara’s ta-tas) and I found myself falling off ledges more than I grabbed them. This wasn’t a good start, as I spent nearly twenty minutes trying to get to a dumb artifact because it didn’t register that I wanted to grab onto the ledge (this wasn’t the camera’s fault though, it was auto grab’s fault). I finally learned my lesson after falling and killing Lara for the fiftieth time (I couldn’t stop laughing at this point), switched to manual grab (because I realized that I’m a big girl and I can do things myself!) and finally got it.

Trial and error is probably how I’ll play this game by. It’s a good thing there’s a checkpoint after nearly every little thing you do, otherwise I’d be pretty screwed. Anyways, about that title up there… Oh, I did mention this was a remake of the first game, right? Well, I remember back in the original Tomb Raider when I first had to jump that pit to get to the other side. I was a small child back then and every little thing scared me. I didn’t have the controls down yet, so into the pit I fell, and then I heard… the roar. That pit is in this version of the game too, and the bear has an even fiercer (is that even a word) roar than ever before. And he was a big fat meanie. But I shot him in the face twenty, thirty times and he went down. Scared the hell out of me though and reminded me of my hate for the bears. The bears always scared me, until I got to the muscle monsters… I can’t wait to see those things again, really.

I’m gonna go fall off some ledges now and murder me some bears. Hope Lara gets to keep her tits, they like to lunge at those.

-Redi

By the way, Beat’s a dumbass.
I’m gonna go and try to play through week three now, bye.

-Redi

Joshua is a giant rooster. And by that I mean cock face.

-Redi