libromanic.com » Gamer’s Central

Games, games, games

Sarah — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 08:34:42 +0000

These past few weeks have seemed quite heavy on the game-playing for me. I’ve started playing with my PS2 again, after a break of a couple of months. The game I’m playing now is Persona FES, which is a Japanese-y kind of RPG.

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In the game, you play a boy�attending school during the day. At night, there is a period of time called the “Dark Hour”. Only certain people are aware of this time, others become unconscious. Of course, you are one of those that can detect this special time, and your task is to check out this huge tower called Tartarus. During the day, you go to school, and are able to create Social Links with other people, as well as increase your Academic / Charm / Courage stats. And by night, you battle in Tartarus.

It’s fairly interesting thus far, I’ve reached level 20+ in Tartarus. The annoying thing about the game is the tiredness factor, after battling in Tartarus, either myself or my party members will get tired. If you continue battling in this condition, your characters will fall sick, and take even longer to recover. I seem to be getting tired all the time! Oh, and another thing that causes you to get tired is by studying late at night.

Other than my PS2, I’ve also been playing with my DS. I started playing Spore Creatures about two weeks ago, it’s quite a cute game! You are a creature that has the ability to evolve, and you can get new body parts by completing quests / fighting other monsters. You get new arms, legs, tails, mouths, and more! Each body part has a different functionality, for example, new arms will give you higher attack power. There are many creatures on the different continents that you explore, some are enemies, and some can become your friends. You can befriend them by “cuddling” them, which involves moving your stylus back and forth across their bodies, or by dancing with them, which is a mini rhythm game. Once you’ve made friends with them, they may give you a new body part. You can also ask them to join you in battle!

It’s a mission based game, and is fairly straightforward. In fact, I finished the game over one weekend! The one thing I found annoying was one mini-game which had to be completed in order to proceed with the storyline. You had to throw stones at these creatures who were coming to steal your food. I found it really difficult, it felt like a lot of random tapping on the screen to try and guess where the creatures were going to go. I almost quit the game because of that part, but after some perseverance, I finally managed to complete it.

After Spore Creatures, I moved on to Puzzle Quest – Challenge of the Warlords. It’s basically a Bejewelled game, but with a twist! There are elements of RPG-ness in the game, you play the part of a Warlord, trying to complete various interlinked quests. As you play Bejewelled, each coloured tokens collect Mana / Experience Points / Money. With enough Mana, you can cast spells on your opponent. It’s not as simple as it sounds, because your opponent takes turns with you, and also can attack you! It was really attention holding, and one of my colleagues and his wife are now hooked on it as well.

Puzzle Quest didn’t hold my attention for too long, I moved on again shortly after that to Rune Factory – A Fantasy Harvest Moon. I loved Harvest Moon on the PS1, no other Harvest Moon game entertained me as well. I tried a few on the PS2, but it didn’t seem that good. With Rune Factory, all that has changed. It combines Harvest Moon, and RPG! You play a farmer (of course), and you get to do the standard Harvest Moon things, like plant crops, fishing, mining, but you also get to fight! There are monsters that appear in the caves, and you have to defeat them, and the boss, in order to proceed to the next cave.

A few comments, I find the RP a bit annoying. In order to do anything (eg. chop wood, break stones), you need RP. And RP runs out really quickly! In the previous Harvest Moon game, you could regenerate your health really easily, by sitting in the hot springs at any time of day. For this one, you can only do it once the hot springs opens, which is at 3pm. So, I run out of RP in the morning, and need to wait till afternoon before I can do anything else! Also, collecting wood seems to take ages. In order to upgrade your house, you need wood, which can be obtained by chopping the logs / stumps. In the previous game, you could also buy the wood, but here, you can’t. Which means waiting ages for wood to grow, and chop it! I’m still playing it at the moment, but I’m not sure how much longer I will last, unless I find another way to replenish my RP quickly.

DS Review – New Super Mario Bros

Sarah — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:44:06 +0000

New Super Mario Bros
Genre: Platformer
My rating: 7.5/10

I said a few posts ago that there would be reviews of the DS games I’ve played so far. Well, the games are beginning to pile up, and if I don’t review some of them soon, I’m going to forget which ones I’ve played already!

The first one I played was New Super Mario Bros. Weird title, isn’t it? NEW Super Mario Bros. So, if they have a sequel, it would be Newer Super Mario Bros? Anyway, I wanted to test out my DS Lite on a familiar game, so that I could have some form of comparison. My brother used to play Mario Bros when I was a small kid, so I kind of knew what it was all about.

I booted up my DS Lite, and began my adventure. It looked a lot better than what I expected, keep in mind that this was the first game I ever played on a DS. The graphics were pretty cool, for some reason, I always thought that the graphics on a DS weren’t good. Of course, I was comparing it to a PSP! The sound quality was not too bad, full volume is a bit soft, but it was clear.

I think that for all people who used to like any version of Mario, they would love this game. It seems to stick quite closely to the original Mario Bros, with a few variations. It’s a standard platformer, where you need to go through the different worlds to save the Princess. As with all Mario games, you can grow to different sizes, but what’s new is the super-sized version where you can romp through the level for X seconds without getting hurt, as well as a mini-version which allows you to get to all the small areas.

There seems to be room for ’side-quests’, where you collect Star Coins. If you reach a certain number, you can access special areas. Now, I haven’t played it fully, so I don’t know whether these are side-quests, or necessary to complete the main story-line. In my opinion, it should be a sidequest, as it’s not so easy to collect all the Star Coins. Each level has three Star Coins, some are in plain view, and others aren’t so easy to find.

Well, I honestly can’t go on and on about this game, because I’ve not played it for very long! I’m more of an RPG gamer, and this game is so totally not my style. For one thing, I have a problem with timing my jumps, and in this game, you need to jump a LOT. I always seem to end up jumping over enemies, instead of on them. And instead of jumping over fireballs, I jump into them. Hehe, that’s why I’ve rated it only as a 7.5, I’ve minused a few points due to my lack of skill in this game which isn’t how it should be scored, but hey, it’s my rating, I can do what I like! :p Other sites have given it up to 9.5 out of 10! So, if you’re a Mario fan, don’t hesitate anymore, go out and get it!

Behold the birth of a DS gamer!

Sarah — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:18:42 +0000

I have fallen into temptation…whilst chatting with Ee Leng on MSN, I have somehow been convinced to purchase a Nintendo DSLite. Not only that, but I’m pretty sure that I will eventually buy a PSP too! It’s amazing what peer pressure can do to a person. :p

I checked out the prices at Sungei Wang about two weeks ago, when I was down in KL. At that time, I wasn’t even sure whether I should get a DSLite or a PSP. The graphics on a PSP are so awesome, and Final Fantasy I and II have been remade for the PSP, whereas the DSLite has the more original games. Finally, I decided that IF they had the Crimson / Onyx DSLite, I would get that, otherwise I would get the PSP. Looks are very important to me, I didn’t want the normal pastel-looking DSLites (in the same way, I can’t stand it if I buy books in the same series, but done by different publishers!).

So, in Sungei Wang, I started asking around for the price. I had done my research before going, so terms like “R4 + SD card” and “high speed memory card” were coming out of my mouth. The crimson / onyx DSLite seemed to be sold out in most shops, and the one that had it was offering it at RM780, because it was a special edition colour. Hmm, don’t know if that’s true. On Amazon, it seems like it’s just a normal colour. I didn’t really want to get it from Sungei Wang, because if there was a problem in the future, I would have to go all the way down to KL to get it fixed, but I got the general idea of pricing.

A week later, I made a trip to Digital Mall. And after a bit of bargaining with the salesman, I got myself a brand new Crimson / Onyx DSLite + R4 card + 2 gig SD + casing for RM750. I brought my toy to work on Monday, and I’ve managed to get a staggering amount of over 300 games to play! Now, all I need are more hours in the day to split between watching TV, reading, cross stitching…who needs work anyway?

FFX-2 Completed!

Sarah — Thu, 26 May 2005 03:02:31 +0000

Well, after 32 hours or so of playing FFX-2, I have finally completed the game! I know it’s a girly-type game, especially the modes of fighting, where they interchange between different outfits that give them different types of abilities (?!?). However, once I start a game that I REASONABLY like, I always feel compelled to finish it, and try to get the maximum score/finish all mini-games, etc. That is the reason that the games were created, right? Too bad I hardly ever manage to do it, after playing it for some time, I always get bored, and finish it off. So, for this game, I achieved 91% completion, which I suppose isn’t too bad.

Here’s a breakdown of the game:

Category	Score	Comments
Storyline	7	This game is a continuation from FFX. It picks up two years after Yuna defeated Sin, together with the assistance of her guardians. She has become a sphere (treasure) hunter, together with Rikku and Paine. She recently found a sphere which contained images of a guy that looks like Tidus (her sort-of boyfriend who disappeared at the end of FFX). So, she’s going around Spira, trying to search for more spheres which may lead to her finding Tidus.

Fighting mode	9	It’s a typical turn-based Final Fantasy game, with a few differences. If you do not act fast enough, the enemies will constantly attack you without waiting for you to take your turn. However, if you manage to time the attacks correctly between the three girls, you will score combinations, which increase the damage output. But what I like about the fighting modes, is that there are many different types of “dress-spheres” that you can use. Eg. Black Mage, Thief, Warrior, etc. Each dress-sphere has different abilities, which you can get your characters to learn. Thus, you can battle each monster using unique abilities.

Graphics	9	For me, since I started playing the FF series from FFVI onwards, the graphics have gotten better and better for each game. In one word – Amazing!

General		Although this isn’t the best game I have ever played, I definitely would replay this again some time, if only to try and aim for 100% completion! It should be easier each time you play, because the New Game Plus feature allows you to keep all the dress-spheres you have already found, as well as the abilities already learned.

The only issue I have now is….What game should I play next? =)