What are you playing right now #2

[Gare]

Well I started Final Fantasy Type-0 again. Last time I played all the way up to the final mission and then quit. Decided to do start from scratch again. Still amazes me how awesome this game looks, it's really pushing the PSP's graphics to the absolute limit.

[Sheik]

Started Tomb Raider, and it's nice. Nothing groundbreaking, yet.

[Elin]

Well I started Final Fantasy Type-0 again. Last time I played all the way up to the final mission and then quit. Decided to do start from scratch again. Still amazes me how awesome this game looks, it's really pushing the PSP's graphics to the absolute limit.

Only played a little of it myself, way back when it first came out, but yeah, seriously pretty game. Is it any good? It seemed not bad by what I played.

Current games on the go:

Bravely Default
Playing it on and off in cafes and stuff when I'm out on my own, and I'm about eighteen hours in now. It's the sort of game that I think I would have liked a lot more six or seven years ago, as these days I don't really have much interest in messing with ability setups and suchlike, and just like games with fun stories that I can follow without putting too much thought into gameplay mechanics. But for those who loved stuff like Final Fantasy V, I think it's a very worthy spiritual successor. Music still rules, too~

Xenosaga 3
Playing it slowly because once it's over (and I've gone through Xenosaga Freaks and Xenosaga DS), I will have played the whole series in Japanese, and won't have any new Xenosaga to look forward to ever. ;__; I still think it's one of the best RPGs in the PS2's illustrious library, though, even if it's really only of substantial interest to those who played the other two. The visuals still look great, the cutscenes are as nicely directed as they were in the last two games, the battles and loading times are super-quick, the music is fabulous, and the fact that it's a couple of games' worth of storyline condensed into one game means that there's almost always something exciting going on. I personally have a whole lot of love for Xenosaga 1 for lots of reasons, but it's a divisive game, and had Monolith brought a XS3 level of quality to the series from the start, things might have been very different. Shame~

Ys Seven
Replay with the Chinese PC version to try and get myself back into Chinese. Still just as much love for it as on the first time through. My Chinese is super-rusty, but I kind of almost remember the script, and that plus the Chinese I still remember and KANJI POWER from Japanese is more or less enough to make it enjoyable. 我会努力的！

Kingdom Hearts
Picked up my French replay of it again after dropping it at the Ariel the Little Mermaid world just before leaving for Japan, and I'm just before Hollow Bastion now. Thought it was an okay-ish game back when it first came out and I played it in English, and feel basically the same way now playing it in French. Not bad, but not that great to me either. To its credit, I guess it's aged quite well? The graphics still look nice for an early PS2 title, and outside of a few dodgy camera moments, it still plays quite nicely. Downloaded the sequel in French, too, and might replay that one afterwards.

[Chicken Boo]

Guacamelee on PC

Ahh finally!

[Gare]

Only played a little of it myself, way back when it first came out, but yeah, seriously pretty game. Is it any good? It seemed not bad by what I played.

Been a while since my original playthrough but yeah I remember having some fun with it. It's not too bad at all, despite frustrating me here and there. Probably not the "BEST FF IN THE FRANCHISE" that people are hyping it up to be, though. For some reason when a game is untranslated, it is suddenly elevated to divine status by some fans.

[SOLDIERSeeD]

Now that I have some spare time after exams and Chemistry lab sessions, began playing through a bunch of JRPGs and visual novels. Currently playing Clannad and Sol Trigger on the PSP and both are great games. As for Sol Trigger, only completed the prologue but it's a quite pretty game with a more traditional turn-based batte system. I'm quite fond of the more sinister atmosphere of the game and hope that the story continues to entertain (love games set in crapsack worlds like FF type-0 or Xenogears/Xenosaga, if the story is compelling). Read that there are 3 routes in the game with a After Story part where you play as the MC's son (Farel's his name I think) and been quite interested how that plays out (reminds of Agarest Senki).

[Gare]

Now that I have some spare time after exams and Chemistry lab sessions, began playing through a bunch of JRPGs and visual novels. Currently playing Clannad and Sol Trigger on the PSP and both are great games. As for Sol Trigger, only completed the prologue but it's a quite pretty game with a more traditional turn-based batte system. I'm quite fond of the more sinister atmosphere of the game and hope that the story continues to entertain (love games set in crapsack worlds like FF type-0 or Xenogears/Xenosaga, if the story is compelling). Read that there are 3 routes in the game with a After Story part where you play as the MC's son (Farel's his name I think) and been quite interested how that plays out (reminds of Agarest Senki).

There are only really two routes, Ema/Sophie and Fran. Ema/Sophie are pretty much exactly the same, with only 1% difference in dialogue here and there.

Also, rather than "after story", I'd call it the "entire second half of the game". It's considerably more light-hearted than the first half, but I kinda enjoyed it more.

[SOLDIERSeeD]

There are only really two routes, Ema/Sophie and Fran. Ema/Sophie are pretty much exactly the same, with only 1% difference in dialogue here and there.

Also, rather than "after story", I'd call it the "entire second half of the game". It's considerably more light-hearted than the first half, but I kinda enjoyed it more.

Haha, so that's how it is. As I said, I only completed the prologue (literally Chapter 0) and only read a tid-bit about the game here and there so my knowledge is pretty much non-existent
Hmm, so only two routes huh? That's fine I guess, means I don't have to replay it that often, which is a bliss considering the mountain of back log I have accumulated the last tow years T-T

[Gare]

Haha, so that's how it is. As I said, I only completed the prologue (literally Chapter 0) and only read a tid-bit about the game here and there so my knowledge is pretty much non-existent
Hmm, so only two routes huh? That's fine I guess, means I don't have to replay it that often, which is a bliss considering the mountain of back log I have accumulated the last tow years T-T

Yeah, basically between Ema and Sophie, pick whichever you like more. Of course you'll get some extra scenes/romance with the selected heroine, so in that sense there are indeed three routes, but in the grand scheme of things the ending is the same for those two.

From what I heard the real differences show up in Fran's route, and the ending is different too, but I've yet to play that one.

[Pokemongenius]

Zelda Phantom Hourglass again and now at last Castlevania Lords of Shadow.

[Ikusagami]

Sometimes you hear women complain about guys who keep one eye on the television during sex (though I'm guessing the guy has more to complain about if he's that easily distracted ), so I can only imagine how Assassin's Creed II feels that I've been thinking about my PC98 backlog and collecting Chinese RPGs the entire time I've been with it.
I'm sure Ezio has a complex now, and will turn to prostitution in order to seek validation and attention.

I'm enjoying it more in the final stretch, being done with all that extra crap --like ridiculous platforming dungeons for the Assassin Seals, and the dozens of viewpoints I feel obligated to climb out of OCD neccessity-- but, in short, I find the game too damn long for being so repetitive. I've heard people gush about all there is to do in AC games, but it all feels like slightly different variations of the exact same thing. The variety doesn't feel varied.

[FlavaFlave]

I've been really busy lately, but the only thing I've managed to really play is Final Fantast XIV a Realm Reborn. I've been playing the PS3 version, and have not tried the PC version.

I got pretty lucky and managed to log on the second day, but the game randomly assigned me a server and it happened to be a JP server. I actually didn't even realize this for a few days since everyone was speaking english, but then everything really crashed out towards the end of the first week with the game. After the big maintenance day, I was able to join a NA server and meet up with a few friends, and finally got down to business.

First off, I've never played an MMO - in fact I generally loathe them and their communities, but this game was relatively cheap, free 30 days and it's Final Fantasy (even though FF has been shit for several games now), so I had to give it a shot. The game is pretty good, and it actually feels like more of a FF game than anything I've played out of the series in quite some time. It plays much like FFXII, but the best thing IMO is that the game has the old school FFIV-VI aesthetic going on - all medieval/fantasy stuff. Some people even have their own walking mechs straight out of FFVI. It's real cool to see stuff like that, and the armor sets and things are very old school and look great. The game is actually really easy to play solo as well, which is nice since most MMO's shoehorn you into playing with people. There are main dungeons that you must enter with a party of 4, but there's an easy way to group up with randoms that are around the same level as you and tackle the dungeon. The game obviously shines when you play with a friend, but it's totally manageable on your own (until high levels of course). That's another thing, there's no real grinding in this game - there are plenty of annoying fetch quests, but the XP they dish out is huge, and usually better equipment comes along as a reward too. Chocobos and airships unlock early as well making travel much easier - and you can also teleport easily to hot spot areas.

Now for some complaints - The game loves to break up your parties, which is annoying and makes me feel like they really tried to make a single player game. There are so many times where i'm just trying to knock out a story quest, or a guild quest and it makes you leave your party because it MUST be played on it's own. For a game that wants you to work together, it strangely makes you go solo way more than it should. The map could also use some work - it's hard to tell what area a quest related item is in and sometimes you can spend a lot of time aimlessly wandering around. This is probably alleviated a bit on the PC version though because menu navigation is pretty awful on PS3. That's another thing - the game plays fine for the most part with a controller, but the targeting system can be total hell sometimes when trying to cycle targets. Another issue that arises more frequently are disappearing people and invisible enemies. Yes, the servers are loaded right now, but the PS internet just can't handle this game - you try to get into a FATE/Instance (where you fight a nasty battle that anyone can join), the PS3 has trouble loading more than 20 people on screen - that basically means you can't hit enemies, or get any xp, or anything for that matter. This is not a problem on PC - two of my friends are playing it on there and there can be hundreds of characters on screen at a time. And my final complaint is that while there is a metric shit ton of stuff to do in this game, it's ultimately pretty easy especially if you just stick to one guild and a job type. I'm already level 40 (out of 50) and nearing end game content and I only play a few hours a night... i could feasibly be done with this game before my free trial is up - which is good because then I don't need to waste money.

So anyway, the TL DR version is: this is a really good FF game, and really a pretty light MMO. It's got some issues, but for $30 and a free 30 day trial, you could knock this sucker out with some dedicated gameplay.

[Inferno.]

I've currently got Final Fantasy VII and GTA V on the go. The latter taking priority.

5 hours into FFVII, the game's a lot easier to play when you're older than say 14 and understand the materia system a bit better.

[Zaladane]

I've currently got Final Fantasy VII and GTA V on the go. The latter taking priority.

5 hours into FFVII, the game's a lot easier to play when you're older than say 14 and understand the materia system a bit better.

Out of Midgar by now I take it?

[Ikusagami]

Xenosaga 3
Playing it slowly because once it's over (and I've gone through Xenosaga Freaks and Xenosaga DS), I will have played the whole series in Japanese, and won't have any new Xenosaga to look forward to ever. ;__; I still think it's one of the best RPGs in the PS2's illustrious library, though, even if it's really only of substantial interest to those who played the other two. The visuals still look great, the cutscenes are as nicely directed as they were in the last two games, the battles and loading times are super-quick, the music is fabulous, and the fact that it's a couple of games' worth of storyline condensed into one game means that there's almost always something exciting going on. I personally have a whole lot of love for Xenosaga 1 for lots of reasons, but it's a divisive game, and had Monolith brought a XS3 level of quality to the series from the start, things might have been very different. Shame~

Fist bump for XenoLove.
I gotta say, I didn't think the last game was a very good ending to the series, though. A good game unto itself, but not as good as the first two (yes, I even loved Episode 2).
I think if they'd started the story in media res, like the original Star Wars trilogy, it would have played out better than failing at a six game series, and so chopping out a couple episodes from the middle, and then smashing the last two together in a rather obvious fashion. The climax(es) in particular felt badly rushed, and almost haphazard, and the need to tie off dangling plot threads (including those which never even saw development) by having every extraneous character rush in WWF style to get killed in the end. . . I think it's really tragic when you consider what the series could have been as a whole. (it could have been Xenogears!)

--And an irrelevant tangent (I'm known for these): Soraya Saga needs to start writing for Monolith again. Xenoblade was an outstanding game, but I nearly hemorrhage at the thought of what it could have been had she penned the scenario.