_hojo:welcome to Earth

_I played Earthbound for the first time a few weeks ago. I’ve been trying to write a blog post about it. But…it’s been hard. I’m trying to come to terms with the game. Trying to decide what my actual stance on it was. Trying to put into words what I felt about it. It’s been hard. Now some time has passed…and things haven’t really gelled in my head. But I figure I’ll shit something out on it anyways. No time like the present, right?

Gendo – Back to Basics; or a short conversation on two Neo-Old School Games

Well, I’d like to start off this post with apologizing for not posting in such a long while. For what ever reason I seemed to have forgotten this blog existed (not true), and haven’t written anything in 3 months. Truth is, I think I was just lazy and didn’t really have anything to talk about, but now I do and I promise to write more often for the benefit of the blog.

So what am I talking about today? Recently over the years of 2008 and 2009 we’ve seen a little bit (read: little) of a resurgance in old school type gaming. That is, games that are either unabashadly old school in style, such as Mega Man 9. Or games that are rooted in old school stylings, but bring something new to the table or have the look and feel of a new game, such as New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Incidentally these are the two games I’ll be talking about today.

Updates on my MMOs.

I grinded today.

_hojo:Final Fantasy 3/6 – the CES run

_Earlier this year, I happened to be browsing the “in-depth FAQs” for Final Fantasy VI (originally released as FFIII in the US) on GameFAQs, when I stumbled upon an interesting idea. “Beat the game using only the 3 characters you’re required to get during the 2nd half of the game.” I thought to myself, “What an interesting idea, especially since I’ll be using a lot of Celes and Setzer.” See, I oftentimes never use Setzer when i play FF6, and while Celes does get a decent amount of forced play throughout the game, I usually find myself dumping her for Terra once I get her back in the party. I was also looking forward to seeing the changes that would occur plot-wise, as there are many decisions the game expects you to make that aren’t actually required. Not much, really. But there were still some humorous back doors taken by Square when you don’t do all the optional shit.

_hojo:Metroid Prime (Metroid Prime)

_Oh, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes…why are you so shitty? OK, maybe might be a bit harsh. Actually, it’s really harsh. It’s not actually that bad. It’s rather enjoyable. But why is it still so shitty? I find myself asking this question…and I’m not sure of the answer. I’m hoping that by the end of this post, the answer will become clear to me. Join me on a journey through space and time to find the answer to the unanswerable. OK, not time. And it’s not unanswerable either, but at this point, I’m just kind of going with the flow and I have no idea how this is going to end. Should be fun, though…right?

_hojo:Let’s go get the gold! Front Mission 4

_Never trust the opinions of people you don’t know and/or can’t name off the top of your head. Case in point – Front Mission 4. I had heard that FM4 was a vastly inferior game to FM3, and not worth playing. But when I think back…I have no idea who I heard that from. If I can’t even be bothered to remember who it was that recommended/derecommended something to me, why am I even bothering to trust their opinion? FM4 isn’t the only time that this has happened, and I’m sure we’ve all fallen victim to this trap before. But the fact remains: I shouldn’t have listened to people I don’t know.

_hojo:Hello Tree-Oh Dust

_The Halo series has long been a source of fun discussions. Intelligent conversations such as “Halo? More like GAY-lo, amirite?” and “LOL Halo is shit and all the fukin XBox fagz know it they only like it becuz its all dey got we got Killzone and Resistence and Call of Duty have fun with your shitty game faggot!!!” and “HALO IS THE BEST SERIZ EV4R!!1!” have thankfully graced our lives since the first game landed alongside the original Microsoft-Box in 2001. Putting aside all those wonderful points I just brought up, I will now delve into the newest release in the series, Halo 3: ODST. Or to get more into the spirit of the game, come with me as we drop into ODST. If you know a little about the story, you probably just let out a quick chuckle, then shook your head at the bad pun. If you didn’t, the connection goes over your head and it just sounds like a typical overused subject line in reviews. Don’t worry…the sentence was both of those things.

Gendo – The Day The Earth Stood Bound

Just recently Starmen.net held an annual event that they like to call the EarthBound Funktastic Gameplay. I don’t much about it personally since I’ve never really followed the goings on of Starmen.net too closely, but by chance I found out about it through Lyndis of The Backloggery. I’ve always been a fan of EarthBound and an annual playthrough of the game sounded like a lot of fun. Personally I hadn’t played Earthbound since I was a kid so I figured this would be a good chance to get reaquianted with the game. People seem to throw around a lot of praise for EarthBound, lamenting it as beeing underrated and perhaps one of the best RPGs of all time. This recent playthrough reminded me why EarthBound truly is one of the greatest RPG experiences out there, and why more people need to play this oft ignored gem.

Noi – Guess whose still in the blog?

A Slaves to the Grind post from me? Shocking, I know. This just goes to show just how far I’ll go to distract myself from actually working on my college. So after almost 8 months from my last post, here’s a brand spankin’ new post from moi. Just don’t get used to it.

So, time to do what I actually joined the blog to do: RPG report! Or at least, report on the last few ones that I’ve played, seeing how I actually haven’t had the time to sit down and actually play a console game, so I’m just sticking to portables as of late.

_hojo:Jessica Quest 8

_The Dragon Quest series is one of the longest running and most influential series in the history of gaming. Released in Japan in 1986, it popularized many of the standards found in modern day turn-based RPGs, and is one of the most successful game franchises of all time…in Japan. In the US, the series (long known under the name Dragon Warrior, due to copyright issues) has long been overshadowed by the Final Fantasy games. Most gamers have played at least one FF game in their lifetime, even if they’re not fans of the RPG genre. I’ve often heard people say, “Well, I figure that the series is good enough to get 12 installments, they must be the best! So…might as well try out the best there is to try, y’know?” Funny enough…Dragon Quest saw its 8th installment on the PS2, but i never once heard anybody use that excuse to play it. I guess a series has to hit double digits before people start to make that assumption. Anyways, despite being a big fan of RPG’s, i had managed to go through 25 years of non-death without playing a single Dragon Quest game. Sure, I can make excuses. I didn’t get into RPG’s until 1994, when i played Final Fantasy 3/6, and another Dragon Quest game wasn’t released after that point in the US until 2001. I was scared of the 100+ hours DQ7 promised to require of me. I was too busy playing Xenogears. Excuses, excuses. But that’s all in the past now. I rectified the absence of Dragon Quest in my life last month by playing through Dragon Quest VIII. And it was good.