Completion Thread 2012: Hai! Dekimashita!

[MechDeus]

Citizen Kane was the only movie I was forced to watch as part of class in high school that I not only stayed awake during the whole time but also enjoyed.

[Pineapple]

11. Deathsmiles (iOS)

Beat arcade mode with Windia, 40,800,121. I don't think I died the whole time, but I got hit by a couple of random things that set off a bomb. Great game, I'll keep coming back to this one. Haven't tried smartphone mode yet, but I didn't read great things about it.

[Vasteel]

Panzer Dragoon Saga

This was the first time I've played it since release. The years have not been kind to it, but not in the sense I expected. The graphics that blew my mind have indeed aged very poorly, but I suspect that was true even a year or two after it came out and was not helped by the fact I played it on an HDTV. However, the art design itself is still fantastic and creates a really cool atmosphere.

No, what really struck me was the characters and plot which I remembered as being some of the best to ever appear in a JRPG, and blew Square's stuff out of the water. Not so much: Azel is a stereotypical anime character, and if you gave Edge amnesia, he'd be the dude from any other 32 bit RPG. More than this, the enemy variety is way too low and the game is much, much too easy. And even with the short time it takes to play through (You can easily finish it in a weekend, which I truly appreciate) there feels like there's some padding. In some ways, the game feels like it was rushed out.

Still, as I mentioned, the ambiance is killer, and I will definitely play through it again.The game truly is one of a kind, and I love it. But I think it's also a game you had to be there for .

[GohanX]

I played it for the first time a year or so ago, and I think you are spot on. One thing I would add is the combat, for the most part it is great. The random encounter rate is a bit too high for my tastes, but understandable considering how short the game is.

I do wish more companies would make small, good RPGs that can be completed in 10-15 hours. I love the genre, but don't have time to play anything for 70 hours.

[Yoshi]

We'll have to discuss this en route to Greenville. I played it at launch and have not played it since, so I am the polar opposite of you two.

[Tain]

I only played it in late '98, but I buy what Vasteel's saying. The game is mad easy by genre standards and I do remember some pretty repeated enemies.

Still really liked it at the time.

[Mzo]

The game is super easy and looks like shit, but I remember it having a pretty good story and being generally pretty unique in a lot of ways. That helps a ton imo. It really, really looks like shit though, even on the day it came out.

[No One]

It was waaaaaay too ambitious for the hardware, although I do remember thinking the on-foot town bits looked pretty nice by any objective standard back then. I can't think of many games in which the art design and soundtrack gelled as well as in PDS/Azel. I haven't played it since it was new and can't remember much of the plot, but I can still vividly recall some of the music and settings.

[Rocca]

33. Ys: The Oath in Felghana


Beaten on Normal. Fun game, fourth time running through an iteration of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys and liked it. I have a dumbass friend who complained about the boss fights being terrible, but if you aren't new to patterns in boss fights they aren't the end of the world. The hardest one, depending on leveling is Chester towards the end. Aside that, it's the staple classic things I love of Ys that persist here (small, slowly progressive rise in elemental based equipment, top-down action and Falcom JDK Band music.

34. Ninja Gaiden Plus


I forgot how much I disliked the industrial settings of the game in the first half, but how you visit more varying areas after Tairon (lava pits, ice caverns, underground aqueducts, etc). I beat the original Ninja Gaiden on Master Ninja, which took me...something pathetic like close to a year, but it was a fun bout. Wasn't really in the mood to prove myself or try to see if I could still get'er done, mostly because I don't care about trophies anyways and they all boiled down to (Do these things 1000 times). What if I'm just better with a Kitetsu or True Dragon Sword? I shouldn't have to use the other weapons so forcefully. Of course, if they made the trophies less ridiculous like performing 100 kills with each, that would give a great incentive to get a run of all your tools in one playthrough, if possible. Fun game and I'm glad I bought it..for...the fourth time...but I think I'm done. Hopefully they are smart and release a Sigma 2 for Vita as a cash cow to fund their next game at some point (see: Ninja Gaiden Sigma 3).


35. Super Stardust Delta


Beat all modes and loved it. Not much to say here. Although it makes me wish Geometry Wars 2 were portable in some form (Vita form).

36. Lost Odyssey


94 hours of pain, 94 Levels. Kaim, Seth, Ming, Sarah and Jansen. I remember why I stopped playing this now. It does many things really well (camera work, character development, music, idle stances during random battles are always cool, Kaim's single unshakeable strand of hair) and other things like jittery frame rates, forcefully classic "difficult" setups and random encounters pretty much ruined the experience. It's a shame, too.

Part of me thinks I just played it for Takehiko Inoue's art. Damn it. I guess I'll just read Vagabond again.

[007bond]

2. Midnight Club Los Angeles (Complete Edition) - 360 - very mixed feelings on this one. The open world setting and car selection was fine. The driving felt pretty good and it seems like all the ingredients are here for a very good racing game. But the super rubber-band AI, awful car balancing, and the sometimes poor checkpoint/navigation indicators made it an often frustrating experience. There were a few times I wanted to throw a controller and plenty of cursing.

The car balancing/cars the AI shows up with to races was my single biggest complaint. For example, you show up in a decent Mitsubishi Evo yet the AI has Exotics that are way faster (even in races not labeled as "hard" difficulty). So either you can get extra frustrated or you are better off racing way slower cars for the majority of the game to avoid that problem. Or you grab one of the few motorcycles since they can destroy most of the cars in any race.