Calling this week's blog a full-on Sparky's Update would be unfair since I haven't played anything new this week of particular note. I've been devoting most of my time to Borderlands 2, Ni no Kuni, and WWE '13, most of which you've read about from me before. Borderlands 2 continues to put out pretty great DLC, and I'm still madly in love with badass ranks. WWE '13 has been a continued mixed bag, but it's overall a pretty fun WWE game. And yes, Ni no Kuni still continues to deliver the goods. I'll spend a bit of time talking about Kuni's few negatives, just to kind of balance things out from last week's RPGasm.

Probably the biggest problem with the game is that you might require a bit of grinding if you aren't keeping up with current side quests and bounty hunts. Remember when I said last week that some quests bump up the experience gain? Well, I'm not entirely sure that it wasn't just that one quest. Some areas seem to have more experience, but I didn't take copious enough notes when playing to really get a scientific feel on that. Anyways, if you do bounty hunts in areas you've long since passed, you'll find the hunts easy but slightly tedious due to backtracking. None of the game's dungeons are particularly big, so this isn't a huge deal. Just pay attention to your quests and try to group as many together as you can.

The other (small) problem is that I'd have liked a few more interesting quests in the latter third of the game. The character interaction and dialogue keeps me from getting bored with exploring the world and solving quests, but some variations in quest types introduced in the latter half of the game would have gone a long ways towards making the game feel less grind-y. New monster types start to dwindle too by the latter third, which is sort of a bummer. Sure, there are plenty of variations of monster types, and these are usually more than your usual palette swaps, but if there's a sequel to this, I really hope they invest a lot of time into creating and introducing all sorts of new monsters.

Keep in mind with these complaints that this is still a terrific game and is definitely one of the best RPGs I've EVER played. Not just this generation, either. This will very likely stand the test of time and be a game I play ten years down the line with the same sort of giddy nostalgia I get when I replay the best Final Fantasy, Suikoden, or Wild ARMs games. It definitely draws a lot upon the creations of others, but it does so with such care and refinement that it, in itself, becomes a fantastic game.

The iPad Corner

-Pixel People is pure evil. It's essentially a bare-bones city builder, but the catch is that your new buildings come from splicing two people together. Everyone in the game has a job, and by combining two compatible job types, you get a new person entering the town. Of course, this being an iPad game, there has to be some element of frustration in its longevity, and that comes from the rapidly increasing cost of expanding your city. It nearly doubles every time, and if you're not careful about balancing your new residents with decorations and businesses, you'll find yourself drumming your fingers for hours in the iPad waiting for the correct amount of money to come in. That might turn some of you away, but at least give it a shot.

-Tiny Tower is another build-a-business game. You start with just a couple of floors, and add new businesses and residential areas in what I assume is a limitless tower building. Each new floor costs a certain amount of in-game cash, but unlike Pixel People, the cost never feels excruciating. It's a simple formula, but it's a terrific amount of fun to just poke in for a few minutes, set your businesses up for the day, and let it go.

The Rest

-Despite its neat concept of the life of a food taster for a ruler in a fantasy kingdom, Poison Study never quite did it for me. It's a relatively brief novel, and it goes by super fast. Most annoyingly, every sentence is dripping with drama diarrhea, complete with disgusting little floating chunks of cliched descriptions. It's the sort of novel you read and immediately forget, which is too bad. The writer showed some promise with the concept, but the execution is so poor that it's not worth it.

I think that's really about it for this week. Anyone reading or playing anything particularly fun? Got any fun plans for Venereal.... uhhhh... Valentine's Day?