Three japanese games, all of which not related by series, but that's not stopping from serving another blog with three games I talk about in detail.

GAMES!!!!

Originally a game that wasn’t at the top of my Gamefly Q but they decided to send it to me anyway. Fine by me, as I was definitely wanting to play this one for while. In fact, I played through it twice, if only because I ended up buying the DLC on a new PSN account I made this last weekend (though apparently I could’ve just started the DLC there, but I chose to go through it all again). I’ve gone through the main game twice and the Part IV Episode Pack once, and you know what? I don’t really care if it’s barely a game, but this is no doubt one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had this year. I’ve been paying attention to what games would go on my Top 10 GOTY at the end of the year, and this one is candidate number three.

The game part of it isn’t the main draw, even though for what little there is it’s a bit of light fun. I was intrigued at the idea of what’s basically an interactive anime. I like watching anime, so this would be right up my alley. This being a video game rather than an actual anime kinda gives it more impact to me than it would otherwise. The stuff that they show in this game is stuff that would seem common to someone that watches a lot of anime, but for video games, this has some of the biggest, craziest most elaborate things going on that hardly any other game seems to match. Even if the frame rate ends up going into the single digit, it’s worth it just to see just how many ships in an armada the game tries to cram all onto one screen.

The visuals are extremely impressive in the context of the medium it’s in, and the same goes for the story. There is a small parallel between this game and the first God of War, involving the protagonists being betrayed and their families being killed/taken from them. Some sort of reasonable justification for why the main character is so angry all the time. Again, if it was done as a regular anime, it wouldn’t be anything special, but because it is technically a video game it’s more so. Plus, so long as the protagonist himself is not shitty I can find myself getting immersed somewhat into that role.

In fact, I found myself extremely engrossed in what was happening as the second act was wrapping up. This is spoilers if you haven’t played it yet, but I could not ignore talking about this particular scene.

The main game is an amazing ride, right up until you play through True Episode 18, and when you feel like you must buy the DLC because you loved the main game so much that you have to see how it really ends, despite how gross it is putting the true TRUE ending in the DLC. Regardless, I payed my seven bucks for it and got four more episodes to play and they were amazing as well. The final episode in particular has quite possibly the greatest Quick Time Event ever made in a game ever, right at the climax of the battle. I had a similar feeling in me from episode 12 that I felt during the final battle, right up to the credits. I said that the main game was an amazing ride, but now that I’ve seen it to the very end, DLC included, I can say it was a very memorable ride.

And then of course there’s the small slideshow bit right after the credits that is goddamn amazing. Holy shit.

Crazy that one of the most fun experiences I’ve had in video games is barely a game. But then again, I had a hell of a time with Neptunia mk2 even though the stuff I enjoyed was not the gameplay itself. It surprised me in spots and even sucked me in, showing off things on a humongous scale that I’ve hardly seen in video games. It’s worth experiencing.

This isn’t the first time I’ve played Bayonetta, but it’s been a long time since I have. Although that was on the 360 playing through the first third of the game, around the time it came out. I don’t have a 360, but there were people I knew that had games I wanted to play that I had no access to. Fast forward to now, and I borrowed a PS3 copy of Bayonetta from a friend of mine, despite knowing that I would be playing the inferior version, even with the patch that was released for it. And you know, I still wish I had a 360 for this game, but I’m fine for now having finally played through to the end of Bayonetta, and despite inconsistent framerate, I still feel confident saying it is the best character action game I’ve ever played.

Early last month I played through Devil May Cry, Bayonetta’s predecessor. Finishing that game and going back to this makes me appreciate the variety in the combat of this game. Devil May Cry had a set amount of moves you could do with the attack button and you could mix them up however you were able to, while using your guns to juggle enemies and keep the combo going. Here, you still have your guns, but you’ve got punch and kick buttons that let you string together various combos. Having an actual evade button rather than pressing the jump button and pushing the left stick in a direction is so much better. And while DMC let you switch weapon sets on the fly, Bayonetta lets you customize your sets and the ability to switch between them in game is instantaneous, rather than the brief animation Dante does when switching between weapons. For most of the game I had the Scarborough Fair in hands with Onyx Roses on my feet for Set A, and for Set B the Shuraba in hand with the Durga equipped to the legs. There is just so many ways you can approach the combat, and it all feels good.

Last time I played this game I was about a third of the way through, somewhere before the second boss chapter. Having played through it all and seen everything for myself, there is some amazingly crazy shit that happens. The Hang On and Space Harrier/After Burner segments were a ton of fun, and the major boss battles put the stuff in DMC 3 to shame. While those games have you fighting on a relatively stable battleground, boss fights in Bayonetta can involve you jumping around on floating rocks or even on a missle. It gets nuts, and it’s still unfortunate that the framerate on PS3 can’t display it at 60 FPS. Even when there aren’t bosses, the level design in general is really good. Especially when you get to walk on walls and ceilings that it gets rather cool.

Some point in the future, whether I decide to buy a 360 or if the next Xbox will be backwards compatible with 360 games, I do hope to play the 360 version of Bayonetta, the way it was intended. Even with being stuck with the inferior version of the game, I was able to still have a large amount of fun. Well, except for the quick time events that result in death if you fail them, those pissed me off a couple times. Still a great game.

Now this is indeed an intriguing game. This game is generally liked, while people here on the site are rather divided on whether they like it or not. I for one enjoyed just about everything in Catherine. Yes, even the block puzzles.

I say just about everything I enjoyed, but the one thing I actually didn’t like was Vincent. Specifically, whenever Vincent’s in a situation with either Katherine or Catherine and is trying to hide the fact that he is cheating. And yet I don’t think the stuff he says would’ve pissed me off had it been just a show or something that I was watching. But as a video game, I find it hard to connect to Vincent when he’s fumbling his way through breaking off from any of the girls. When playing the Persona games, the protagonists were not only silent, but you were presented with plenty of dialogue choices to give your input and affect the characters around you. Vincent is not such a character, and even with only playing through it once, I feel like the main bulk of the story remains the same, no matter whether you try to get back with Katherine (which is what I wanted) or break up with her. It’s only the texts you send and the questions you answer in the nightmares that affect what ending you’ll end up with. In fact, the cutscenes would probably be slightly forgivable if they didn’t show the meter fluctuate whenever Vincent freaks out. Always feel like that should indicate a dialog choice or something should come up, but it never does. Regardless of those gripes, the story told I found was pretty good. More so as something to watch, not so much play.

Everything else I like, including the divisive block puzzles. There are people who either love them or hate them, and I am in the former. For one I was playing it on easy, so I’m sure that had an influence in that, but the puzzles were good. Having the undo button is really handy for those times when you push a block the wrong way, and it’s not infinite. Even during the boss stages when something is chasing you I don’t feel frustrated. Again, probably because I played on easy, but starting the stage off it’s easy to climb up the blocks fast enough that you have enough time to figure out a more difficult block formation, and even then, figuring those out doesn’t take too long either. There were only a few levels near the end where I looked up a vid on Youtube, but that was rare. Nothing about it was frustrating. Some people dread leaving the bar because they’ll have to do the block puzzles. I however dreaded finishing the block puzzles because I’d have to watch Vincent do a shitty job of hiding his affair.

Speaking of the bar, that part of the game is really great as well. Just a great place to learn about the characters in the world, learn beer trivia, and play the Rapunzel arcade game. The beer trivia in particular was very interesting, and while I don’t plan to drink any alcohol ever, it was still fun to learn something new about a mixed drink or sake every night. You’ll also learn during that period of different people who die from the nightmares, and I only managed to save the journalist. Guess I ended up talking to him the most of the other victims, as my routine was talk with Toby, Orlando, and Jonny, drink until I am drunk, talk to Erica, Boss, and whatever other people I came across, with one of the mainstays always being the journalist. It’s a really fun place, and even though I’d rather not drink beer, the atmosphere of a bar seems rather appealing.

I’ve only played through the game once, getting the second best Katherine ending. I’ll probably want to play through the game again sometime, but the only reason I played through it this week is that I was the only one home, so no one in the family would over hear the things being asked or see Catherine nude. Still, I felt it was a great game, aside from my complaints with Vincent and not a big enough feeling of choice throughout the story. Enjoyable none the less.

And the Rest

Max Anarchy Demo

I made myself a Japanese PSN account just to play this demo. I had not looked at anything about it since when it was announced, and back then, I didn’t really have much interest. Now it’s out in Japan, and the stuff I’ve seen and played is actually pretty cool. Sucks that the game is already localized but Sega is dragging this out until next year.

Things Other Than Games

Well, this last week I was completely on my own, with my parents out of town and my sister dog sitting. Yesterday my mom got back, and my dad will be coming on Monday.

Work continues to be tiring but rewarding. The manager talked with me about the possibility of changing my work schedule to Monday through Thursday, with Monday not having to get in as early. Having to get up at 4 in the morning three days in a row sounds better than four, so I agreed. So now I work at the start of the week and still have the weekend off, with my paycheck every other week

Speaking of which, after last week's payday, I went ahead and bought that new hard drive I had my eye on for a while. I bought it with Super Saver Shipping on Amazon, so it won't be coming until some next week. It'll be nice to start downloading more games without having to uninstall games. It took me a year and half on this computer of mine to use up nearly 500 GB. With a 1TB drive coming, and since i plan to transfer my game stuff on to there, it should still take me some time to get close to filling it up. Oh, and I'll be getting some extra sticks of RAM courtesy of my dad, pushing the amount from 4GB to 8GB. Kinda unnecessary, but whatever.

In Conclusion

Well, that's it. Another three game blog. I've got a copy of Breath of Fire III I need to play, but I should probably focus on wrapping up Psychonauts so I can write about that for next week. Not to mention I've started playing inFamous again.

I mentioned it here and there throughout the post, but I made myself a new PSN account, no longer stuck under the sub-account label when I made my first years ago. Instead of making it a variation of "Alaska_Gamer" I chose to make it something I could still use when I'm no longer in Alaska, because surprise, I don't plan to live here forever.

So, the name is ArclightBorealis. Took me quite a while to come up with. Terrible with names.

And now that I've been playing my PS3 again, what with my new account and all, I'm gonna be signing up for Playstation Plus once I get my paycheck next week. Pac Man Championship Edition DX is free on the service this month so I HAVE to get it. Also, inFamous 2. Never got to doing an evil playthrough. And LittleBigPlanet 2. Damn, I already got a new hard drive for my computer coming, wish I had some extra storage space for this 40GB PS3 I have. Whatever, I'm hoping that this will get me to keep playing it more often.

Peace.