This Month's Haul: February

**Finch** · 15 Feb 2006, 02:19 PM

Hooray for games i already own on a portable. This is only my second time buying Tales of Eternia, but the third for Breath of Fire III. Hooray!

Tales of Eternia's amazing for the zero load times. It's all of seven seconds when you start it up, and then none at all when you're playing. Somehow the game doesn't look as good on PSP as i remember. It has been a few years since i last played it, so maybe i'm just remembering it wrong.
I need to dig the Playstation version out of storage to compare the voices, but they also sound worse than i remember. They might have just lifted them off the original English language release, but i'm not sure.

Breath of Fire III looks a lot better but suffers from pretty inexcusable load times. They're not terrible, but it's a lazy, lazy port. No surprise, really. The graphics look reeeally nice here, even if the PSP's refresh rate ruins it just a little. From what i've read, the fishing game's expanded too. D: Where's the quick save feature? Tales has that!

**Chux** · 15 Feb 2006, 03:33 PM

**bahn** · 15 Feb 2006, 04:23 PM

Originally Posted by Cowdisease

I remember Bahn saying that it is okay, and here's a quick review from the Shoryuken blog.

I have read that the buttons are cheap and could become unresponsive in a couple of months, but that could just be ramblings from joystick snobs. They usually mod joysticks with a stick and buttons from Sanwa, but the DOA joystick is a bitch to mod as indicated in this Shoryuken thread.

Oh, and congrats on the marriage proposal. Is he going to make you sign a pre-nup?

It's more than just "okay", it's an excellent stick. Not sure how the joystick snobs reached the conclusion that the buttons will eventually become unresponsive (perhaps they just compulsively mash?) For me, this joystick greatly improved my overall execution percentage.

I especially appreciate the fact the stick isn't too large unlike most conventional home arcade sticks. It's small enough to rest comfortably in your lap, which is how I use it while playing on my PC monitor. It should be noted too, the stick clicks -- which I know tends to annoy most players (anyone who's savvy enough though can open up the stick and remove the part that's responsible for the clicking).

Price: $59.99

If you have any other questions -- let me know and I'll answer them to the best of my ability.