I have finally beaten Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete.

What a game. I really enjoyed it from beginning to end. I'm looking forward to playing the second one, which everyone says is better than the first.

That's because it is, Ix.

I suck at finishing video games. I accept that now. So instead of worrying about choosing a game that I will hopefully beat, I'm just picking them spontaneously and seeing if any of them stick.

Right now I'm playing Dragon's Curse on the Virtual Console (formerly a Turbographx-16 game). In it, you play as a warrior who quickly gets turned into a fire-breathing lizard at the start of the game, and it's your goal to remove the curse and become human again. But not before being cursed with other forms, as well. What interested me about the game was that each form you're cursed with comes with their own abilities, which you use to explore more of the world. And there's equipment to buy and health upgrades to locate. It's almost like a primitive Metroidvania, in a way.

Very primitive, actually. The game's not really that great. Level design is a mixed bag. The castle I'm stuck in now is basically just a hallway, but it follows a cave with some tricky platforming. Most of the combat involves hitting things with your sword (which has terrible range, by the way). There are some power-up items you can use, but they come in limited supply, and getting a Game Over means losing them all. There is a "fairy" sort of item that revives you when you die, but saving your progress doesn't save those, so you lose them if you turn off/reset the game. Also, the save point at your home base is the only one in the entire game. So travelling through a long dungeon and dying on the boss there rather sucks. So far, that's happened more than once.

Oh, and speaking of bosses, you can't open your menu during a boss fight. So better make sure you have the right special item equipped before you go in. I learned that the hard way.

Fully agree. It's also one of the first games I can think of that has a massive set of post-game content too.

Plus, I hope you stuck around to listen to the Outtakes.

Not too much to update this week as I've focused almost entirely on Persona Q, but I have reached the final dungeon.

New acquisitions are FF4: The After Years on Steam and FFX/X-2 HD on PS4 but I have no clue when I'll get to them.

Also managed to beat the main game for Battleground Z in the 3DS Streetpass Plaza but I doubt I'll bother to 100% it. Mii Force is so much better.

Haven't really posted much in here in a while, though there probably wasn't much point. None of the games I've been playing really needed updating. Stuff like Binding of Isaac, Path of Exile, etc.

But I have been playing Evil Within. I was really hyped for the game as it was made by the father of Resident Evil after having left Capcom. So my expectation was high. Out of the 15 chapters of the game, I'm mostly through 7. And honestly, I'm incredibly disappointed. The story is non existent. I've played several horror or zombie based third person shooters like Dead Space, Last of Us, Resident Evil, and so on. And they all had stories that were really fun to keep up with as the game progressed. But in Evil Within, there is absolutely NO story development what so ever. Story progression can be simplified as such:

Step 1: Main character travels through a few maps alone, no dialog.

Step 2:Main character meets up with one of the other characters briefly introduced at the beginning of the game.

Step 3: They share this conversation: Main character: "Are you okay?" Other Person: "What's going on?!" Main character: "I don't know, but we need to move."

Step 4: Main character and a temp character will travel through a map, and something will happen that separates the two.

Step 5: Go back to step 1.

It's been SEVERAL hours of this, and I'm getting really tired of it. It is very boring and offers nothing in the way of maintaining my attention. What also doesn't help is that the gunplay in the game is just so same-y as all aforementioned games I mentioned. And what's even worse, the game isn't even scary. Like, it's mildly creepy at best. I find myself continuing to play just in hopes of SOMETHING eventually happening. Both SK and Ix have played and beaten it, and they say it gets better, but I just don't know if I can slog through however much is left to get to that point.

Started Breath of Fire II, yesterday. Decided to try the retranslation patch. The original game had such a horrid translation, I figured that maybe a bunch of stuff was lost in translation. Unfortunately, the opening is still pretty dang confusing. What's surprising, though, is that the dialogue more or less is the same as the original, just with more clarity and detail. Either the retranslation is just an interpretation of the original translation, or the original translation deserves more credit than I've given it.

That said, even though the retranslation isn't telling me anything new, I am enjoying how much more detailed it is. It feels more like a serious attempt at an RPG. I especially like the extra emphisis on Bow being a dog.

Oh sorry, I mean "Bosch". For some reason the retranslation changed a bunch of names, for characters, items, and enemies. I'm sure part of it has to do with more text space allowed (character names can be 6 long instead of 4, now), but come on, that'd be like if the next Final Fantasy VI port changed Terra's name to Tina. I don't care if that's her Japanese name -- nobody here calls her Tina.

Also, they changed how the dialogue boxes and menus look. I wouldn't mind this if not for the fact that they're so dang ugly. The dialogue boxes are such a deep shade of blue that they look completely out of place with BoF2's graphics. And the menus were given a picture in the background that makes the text harder to read.

As far as progress goes, "Bosch" has left my team.

Currently replaying Final Fantasy 7 for like the 1,000th time in my lifetime. This time on Steam, since I've never played the PC version before with the 'fixes' from the PS1 version. Currently about to brave Gaea's Cliff.

Mixed in with that is finishing up Dark Souls and still going through Arc Arath. Once these are finished I will do some backlog of games that I've 'beaten' but haven't done everything in. Like Lost Odyssey and Final Fantasy 13.

There isn't much to FFXIII, but I have been putting off doing the 64 or so missions that opened up in ... I've done everything else, might as well get that out of the way.

Gaea's Cliff, eh? I do enjoy a little ice climbing.


Glad to see Arc Arath has not bored you of playing it, yet.


I'm about to tackle the Fanatics' Tower (or whatever that tower is called where you find Strago hanging out with a cult devoted to Kefka and there's a nice shiny Gem Box relic waiting for you at the top) in FFVI. Then a bit of grinding to learn certain spells on everyone, and then the final dungeon. This is probably only the second time I ever played where I am challenging myself by not appropriating the Ultima spell. Instead, I would like to try out the sword you can get in place of the Magicite, the Illumina.

'course to get the Illumina you have to receive the Ragnarok sword and trade that in at the Colosseum. Unfortunately, the Illumina is worse than the Ragnarok. Both of them will siphon MP when swung, Ragnarok will randomly cast Flare (non-elemental) while Illumina will randomly cast Holy.

Progress this week was really good as I beat the main story for Persona Q using the Persona 4 team and had enough time left to start NG+ and clear the first labyrinth with the Persona 3 team.

Focus on that changed after obtaining Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed and Puzzles & Dragons on 3DS. Played a bit of both games on the P&D cart but have been more focused on Neptunia U. So much that I just have one trophy left for Platinum despite only having the game for a few days. It's short, but pretty addictive.

Final Fantasy: Record Keeper: This game is mostly grinding and waiting for stamina for refill. Still, I am almost done with leveling all of my non generic characters to 50. Today starts a new event where I can get FF XIII's Vanille too.

Dungeon and Dragons: This game is pretty fun. It plays a bit differently than I thought it would, and I'm liking it. I am torn between playing the Mario Bros edition or or D&DZ.
Mario Bros edition is more straightfoward, while the other one has more of an RPG feel (an RPG with a basic story, but I'm here for the puzzles anyway)

Also, waiting patiently for Splatoon.

Did you mean Puzzles and Dragons?

Yeah, that's what I meant. I remember editing it, since I did notice the error. It seems I never click on the "submit" button. Oops!

Lost a lot of progress this past week due to my 64gb Vita memory card suddenly crapping out and becoming unreadable by both my Vita and PSTV, so I had to start Neptunia U completely over and played the hell out of it to get back to where I was and then finish obtaining the Platinum trophy just last night.

Streetpassing has also worked well this week as I managed to beat the initial 5 islands of Ultimate Angler and am now working on the extra ones.

And, even though Splatoon came out on Friday, I wasn't able to pick it up until Saturday and still haven't had time to fire it up. Likely not until tomorrow along with Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven.

Been playing Splatoon. Got to the final world before I got my first Game Over (though I came close several times before). I like that the single-player mode has substance. Even has a few features that would be cool in future online maps.

I just finished Splatoon's single player mode. It was insane what they expect you to do on the final fight. But somehow I managed without ever getting a game over. That said, the single player campaign is actually pretty nice. It also unlocks about two sets of clothes and a good number of guns, so it's definitely worth going through to get those things for multiplayer.

Also, I beat Bayonetta 2 finally. It's something I've wanted to play for the longest time now, but things kept popping up. Bayo 2 is legitimately the most fun I've had with a game in a very long time. The story was a little easier to follow than the previous game, and it was decent. The combat was even more refined from 1 as well. Just a good game all around.

Still haven't gone back to Evil Within though. It just isn't able to hold my interest like the previously mentioned games. Which is sad, I really like survival horror...

It took a while courtesy of tiresome evenings due to a heavy work week, but I finally got to try out Splatoon on Wednesday evening and admittedly had to stop myself after World 1. I also obtained Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven and got a very good first impression from that, again having to stop at a good point rather than getting absorbed for hours that I didn't have. Same with Adventures of Pip on WiiU.

Also obtained Pac-Attack on WiiU VC and the Steam versions of Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth 1+2 but haven't done much with them yet since the former is one I was curious about and had never played while the latter are remakes of games I've already played and those are often saved for later.

Full progress in titles has pretty much been in Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus, which I platinum'd last night, and Ultimate Angler on 3DS by completing all of the islands but still have to catch every species and obtain every type of rod.

Big day for me:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656 ... hievements

Ctrl + F the word Platinum.

I never post in this thread. I should! IT'S GONNA BE A DOOZY!

And endless backlog of Steam games. A not so endless backlog of 3DS and Wii U games. But that's later maybe.

I've been playing pretty cas' stuff recently. Usually, before bed I try to get some Pokemon Shuffle in. I haven't been playing much, so I don't have the Ampharos stage to cheese level on. As a result, I am having SO much trouble trying to catch Shaymin which is pretty much gone in a day or two since it's an event. I beat him once, and dropped a Great Ball on his ass. 52% Catch Rate, HE GOT OUT. NOOOOO. I probably won't catch him.

Puzzle & Dragons is what is in my 3DS right now. I think it's a cool little game, especially at a budget price. While Nintendo mainly showcased the Mario side of the game which seems to be a bit more basic, the other side is a full and true RPG where you fight battles using the puzzle mechanic. I'm not that far in at all.

So this is a weird one, but I've also been playing the Adventure Bar Story demo on the 3DS. It works as an RPG with simulator elements where you are trying to restore a failing restaurant. It reminds me a lot of Recettear, and I'll probably buy it eventually.

Then, there's also Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. The expansion for the game is coming out very soon, and I'm working on getting up to date with all the main story quests they've added. What blows me away is the fact that it is awash with updates while WoW is stagnating on the same old crap. I love crafting and gathering on my Vita before bed as well, it is super chill.

LASTLY.

SPLATATATATTTATASPLATOON.

I beat all the amiibo challenges except for the Inkling boy and girl final boss runs. The girl requires you use a charger, and the dude a roller. I just that final boss. I will do those eventually. The squid has some of the EASIEST missions, but some of the HARDEST. The invisible ink level with limited ink. The sponge levels with limited ink. I was really happy to beat the invisible ink level with the limited ink.

Also, the Inkbrush is my new best friend, *coughcough*, as is Kelp Dome. SO MUCH TURF.

Adventure Bar Story is pretty fun. It feels like a combination of a lot of various game ideas (Recetter, Atelier, etc.) while still feeling original.

This week kind of balanced itself out with new buys vs. beats. I bought Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy on Vita but it didn't grab me like Demon Gaze did. Also obtained Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure and LEGO Jurassic World, the former I've 100%'d anything that wasn't an Endless mode and have cleared all four movies in the latter with about 75% completion already.

Also took the time on Saturday to finish 1P Mode of Splatoon. Best final boss ever! Maybe someday now I'll bother to play it online.

The real highlight of the week was finally getting my hands on a physical cartridge of the NES Dragon Warrior III!