February 25, 2018
What I’ve been playing – Tales of Vesperia PS3 (Japanese)
It has been an interesting replay for sure. I’m glad I saved it for now. The language is not difficult, but I appreciate the characters’ speaking styles more now that I get how they work. I remember some things from 2008 when I played the xbox360 english version, and I know they changed some things for the PS3 version, but still… I’m not going to trust my game clock to tell me how far in the game I am as I have been taking breaks and leaving the game on, but I am roughly level 20-ish, I just made it across an ocean, and I have 5 party members, if that helps you figure out how far I am. My thoughts below:
- Was Yuri such an ass? He probably was. But I still like the fact that he has attitude. He really picks on Karol and it’s not as much in good fun as I had thought…
- Patty’s introduction was weird. It totally interrupted the rhythm of the game. As an actual character I’m not sure about her.
- I kind of really want to shake Flynn. Argh!
- I hate not being able to backstep. I haven’t learned the skill yet. So frustrating coming from later Tales back to this one.
- I didn’t know about secret missions, but I managed a few. Not going out of my way to do them.
- Still struggled mightily with the one boss with paralysis-spewing flowers.
- VAs are good and appropriate for the characters.
- Some of the music in ToV really sucks. Some of it is good. Not a soundtrack I would buy new; maybe I’ll pick it up if it’s like $10 used. Otherwise, youtube is good enough for the random itch
I’ll be playing through the game mostly on Sundays, so it might take a few months, but it’s definitely going to be completed this year. Not sure I’ll be playing any other Tales games this year, unless I pick up Tales of Rebirth in Japan. I’ll save a Zestiria & Berseria replay for another year.
February 11, 2018
What I’ve been finishing – Phantom Brave + Persona 4 Arena
I just finished up Phantom Brave and the story mode for Persona 4 Arena. Brief thoughts on both below.
Phantom Brave had a really mediocre story, but the gameplay was really good. There are a lot of ways to break the game but I didn’t really get into grinding in bonus dungeons and changing titles. Instead I had enough fun with the main maps, figuring out who to confine, where and when, and how to clear them, and doing a bit of grinding to power up weapons and get skills. If you are someone who needs a plot to play a game, then unfortunately there is nothing to rescue this game for you. But if you like a unique take on doing a tactical game, then it’s definitely more fun than Growlanser 2/3 and Disgaea 1 was for me on battle system alone. Those other games win far out on the other stuff, though.
Persona 4 Arena’s story is very text heavy for a story mode in a fighting game. Way more than the two Blazblue games I’ve played the story mode of. I used the game as Japanese practice; otherwise, I’m not sure I’d really be up to do the path of every character in about a month’s time. Once you go through a few characters’ storylines, you pretty much know everything important. So you might as well start off with your favorite story characters. Battles for the story mode are not hard; I barely understood the mechanics, only playing around with Challenges later and finding out how much I missed. I pretty much could mash attacks and dodge with R1 and be very successful. The story was fun enough but not to the level of the main games, and not because of the text being too long at times. There’s just not that much to it in the end; some plot holes are probably filled in Ultimax, but I’m still not sure I need to read more than a plot spoiler summary at this point. Not enough compelling moments in the actual story in-game for me. Oh well…
Plans next up are to continue with .hack//G.U. (enjoy the plot, the gameplay is serviceable), decide whether to play Trails of Cold Steel in English or just go with Japanese versions, continue slowly working through Radiata Stories, and maybe Tales of Vesperia PS3 for more Japanese practice. My grant revisions should take priority but I like to procrastinate…
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