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EXTRA ENTRY.- March 2016 Video Game Haul

In fact this is actually January + February + March 2016 Video Game Haul but since it’s pretty much too late to blame me for being a lazy ass piece of human let’s just compilate everything.

Fun fact: When I first was planning to buy my PSP, I was only planning to use it to play Persona titles, especially the first Persona and Persona 2: Innocent Sin, however I came to a conclusion. If I’m going to buy a console, even if it’s second hand, I better have to invest in some other titles you know? It would be a waste of money to just buy a console for 3 games and end it at that, so, while searching for some games to possibly buy, I came across this one. To be honest, I’m not quite sure about what the game is about… I mean, I know it’s a J-RPG! Also that it’s based from a manga/novel, however, not quite sure about the story, but again, it’s a J-RPG, and by the looks of it, about saving the world because it’s only in YOUR-and-nobody-else’s hands. What actually lured me in was the graphics and, I know this may sound pretty strange, the text font.The graphics look pretty darn amazing for the PSP! Like what a PlayStation 2 would have to offer, which is incredible because even now, not even most of the 3DS games try to pull these graphics off. And yeah, I know, how can a text font lure you into a game? Thing is, this text font is the same text font they use for most other RPGs and games of the PlayStation and Gamecube era (examples: Tales of Symphonia and Chulip), and the one it reminded me of the most was Dark Cloud, one of my favorite games of all time, so of course, if it reminds me of a game of my childhood, might as well give it a chance, no matter how weird the reason may be! Not exactly amazingly hyped about this one to be honest, but still looking forward to it. I bought this one in Amazon.com; at first I was planning to buy it at last, but when I decided to check the game out on Amazon, it had a single brand new copy at about 20 dollars so of course I couldn’t let the chance go, and indeed, it was all nicely wrapped and so! I believe complete copies of this game are quite scarce now, so I’d recommend looking on both Amazon and eBay if you want a C.I.B. copy. Not quite sure that this game is in the Playstation Network, so if you don’t have the resources to buy a physical copy, I recommend emulating it.

First of all, the Female Protagonist path is not cannon and never will be. Now, proceeding to checking this one out: I’m actually hyped to play this one! I know it might seem like, ironic and kinda well… foolish (no in-game pun/reference intended) to play the Portable version just after playing FES, but thing is I’m pretty intrigued by the Female Protagonist path. I know the game has a lot of limitations and downgrades, especially the way of playing which reduced the game to a Visual Novel-esque kind of game (which I absolutely hate they decided to make this decision but oh well, I can cope with it) but it makes me interested to see how they pulled everything out you know? Especially since it’s even a more popular version than FES among fans, for some unknown reason. Also, well, I probably didn’t explained it, but yeah, although this version just cut out the 3D gameplay, they decided to rescue some of it by including the original Male Protagonist and a brand new Female Protagonist, which will now have the chance to do new Social Links with all of your male members in S.E.E.S. and some other new character ones, which of course wasn’t done in FES and the original because no one wants to see a sausage party (but damn right I want to see one).The story remains practically the same, except with a few new events and conversations. Also, the new Social Links between your team mates will provide new backgrounds to them, thing that the original and FES did not, and in my opinion was a very big mistake, because who wouldn’t want to see more insight into Junpei, Shinji, Ken, even freaking Koromaru and precious husband Aki? Also one big improvement about this game is that now you can take control of your team mates just like in Persona 4, and I’m pretty sure there are many more improvements but I’m not sure as to what those would be. I got my copy on Amazon.com at about…. 38 dollars I believe? Physical copies of P3P have risen in price like crazy, and I’m not sure why, but then again, the same is happening to Persona 2: Innocent Sin, so it might be connected due to their age. I honestly recommend, if you want a complete copy, to try eBay, chances are you might get it at a lower price than Amazon, but of course, you can always download it on the PSN at a lower price on your PS VITA and PS TV, that’s if you don’t mind digital downloads of course, unlike me.

Including Xenoblade Chronicles X, this(these) game(s) right here is(are) the very one reason as to why I want to buy a Wii U. Bayonetta was one of those games that was showered with praise, calling it like a “life-changing” experience of some sorts (I legit heard some people call this game that, no joke). The game originally was released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 around 2009/2010 and it was loved by everyone, however, curiously enough, the sequel to the original Bayonetta, Bayonetta 2, was released for the Nintendo Wii U (I’m not sure about the reasons right now, something along the lines of development not occurring if Nintendo hadn’t intervened, but not sure, might as well investigate them when I make a review of the game, sorry!). The game story is about this witch called, well, Bayonetta, and her adventures, to keep it short. I’ll be completely honest, I have never played Bayonetta, and I’m not familiar with the story either, which is actually the best! Because I want to play this game blind, not knowing anything, so I don’t spoil myself, and also to build the hype up. What I can tell however, is that Bayonetta has grown to be loved by many fans, and to actually become a wide known icon, with some people even getting into fans of the Devil May Cry series about which protagonist (Dante or Bayonetta) is more powerful; she definitely has made an impact in the gaming world. She also has made her way up to games like Smash Bros (but that was, well, pretty much being called for). Now, the interesting thing is that, although this game is not particularly that old, this version that you see here, the one with both games (1 and 2) for the Wii U, has actually grown to be quite expensive as of March 2016. Starting in December 2015 copies of this version were getting hard to find, up until Nintendo announced the release of stand alone Bayonetta 2 (meaning no bonus disc of 1) that copies of this version skyrocketed in price, however I was lucky enough to get this version! This one copy I actually bought it in a store in my city, which I never tend to do because video games in Mexico are way expensive than they should be, but since this was the last copy they had and because it had already risen in price, I bought it at an amazingly decent price, which would be about… 62 dollars or so. Chances are copies of this version will be hard to find on stores, not even in GameStop, especially since the re-release of stand alone Bayonetta 2 which is at a price of about 30 dollars. If you want this version due to Bayonetta 1, I’d recommend places like eBay and Amazon.com but I wouldn’t really count on it, it has grown to be pretty expensive, so might as well recommend you to buy it on the Nintendo e-Shop.

Possibly the only Wii title I’m really looking forward this year to actually play. Games like Fragile Dreams are the reason as to why I continue to look forward into obscure artsy video games. Fragile Dreams tells the story about Seto, a boy that was living with a scientist (I believe?) until his death, so Seto decides to embark on a journey to the outside world, a land deprived of humanity due to extinction, and is now looking forward to meet still-living people. Landscapes of abandoned cities, parks, subway stations, or any areas are my absolute weakness, I just love the feeling of loneliness and abandonment they evoke, and this game is full of them. I haven’t played any of it, and I’m unfamiliar with the stories, but by the screenshots and what people have to say about the game, I can tell I will love this one as much as I can; I just fall so easily in love with games with such atmospheres and ambiances, so so easily. This game, however, has been highly criticized for its gameplay, due to it being called too… inconvenient, to say the least; even so, I’m still really hyped. It might sound pretty strange to anyone, but I call Fragile Dreams the “Rule of Rose” for the Nintendo Wii. Both games game been criticized for its kinda “awful” gameplay but praised for their wonderful atmosphere and storyline, and not only that, but Rule of Rose has become a game of collection, with people paying insane amounts of money to get a copy, while Fragile Dreams has been currently rising in price, due to being discontinued by Xseed Games. Fragile Dreams was originally at the low price of 20 dollars, both on Amazon and the online store of Xseed Games, but since its discontinuation, the game has grown to be at the price of 60+ brand new and 35+ used, which is kinda ridiculous, especially since, just like Rule of Rose, this game is of very short length (about 15 or 20 hours of total gameplay). For this game I paid about 39 dollars, complete in box; I know I probably payed almost twice for what it’s worth, but I honestly believe I will absolutely love this one, I just cannot repeat myself enough. I don’t believe this copy is available anywhere digitally (on e-shops, I mean) so if you would like to get a physical copy, I would try in eBay mostly (wouldn’t really count on Amazon on this one) or if not, emulate it with any resource you have.

#video game diary #extra entry #nintendo #sony #wii u #wii #psp #brave story #persona #persona 3 #persona 3 portable #p3p #bayonetta #atlus #xseed #xseed games #fragile dreams

11.- Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES

Release Date: April 2007 (Japan) / April 2008 (North America) Developer: ATLUS Platform: PlayStation 2

Start / Finish: December 3, 2015 / January 31, 2015 Play Time: 100 hours (The Journey) + 34 hours (The Answer) Review: 9.6 (The Journey) / 8.0 (The Answer)

Persona 3 is mostly known among players and big gaming sites for having one of the darkest stories for a PS2 game. You start as a transfer high school student, whose name is upon to you to decide, however, for this review, I shall name him just the same as its manga adaptation: Minato Arisato; who recently moved to Tatsumi Port Island and will know attend one of the major schools around the area: Gekkoukan High School. Minato, however, experiences a phenomenon that nobody else experiences: just about when the clock strikes midnight time stops,his entire surroundings turn into a murkish green color, and every single person turns into a coffin, and not only that, but every electronic device stops working. To him, this event lasts about an hour, after that, everything goes back to normal. Due to his expressions, the player can guess that this phenomenon is usual to him, that he has experienced this every single day of his life. It was just around midnight too, when Minato was just arriving to Tatsumi Port Island, when he gets off the train he starts experiencing this strange phenomenon as usual, so he decides to continue his way and go to his next destination: the school dorm, known as the Iwatodai Dorm. When he enters he meets a strange boy, that tells him about how his fate will have unexpected twists and that he should not regret the choices he is about to make; right after that, something he never saw coming happens: other students aside from him are also experiencing this phenomenon. The next day, right after his first day of class, back in the dorm he is informed about everything that’s happening: the strange phenomenon that occurs at midnight is called “The Dark Hour”, a time that exists between the end of a day and the beginning of the next day; people transform into coffins, and people who don’t either are pray for strange creatures known as “Shadows” or have the potential to unleash a power known as “Persona”. All of the students that live in the Iwatodai Dorm, have awakened to this potential, and are able to summon their own Persona, meaning that Minato himself is also able to summon his own persona; also, the students living in this dorm, all form part of an organization or as they call it “school club” known as the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S.), and their main goal is to use their powers of “Persona” to eradicate the Shadows, beings that feed on people’s minds and erasing their will to live; not only that, but also their other main goal is to explore this place known as Tartarus, a tower that also appears during the Dark Hour, strangely in the same place as Gekkoukan High School. However, Minato, unlike his dorm mates, has a special unique characteristic: he can summon multiple Personas, making him into the strongest weapon S.E.E.S. could have. Minato decides to join the squad, not only to investigate about Tartarus and the Shadows, but also to seek information about why he is able to experience the Dark Hour.

Before proceeding to my own conclusions and reasons as to why I love this game, I’ll move on to some other aspects of the game, especially the gameplay. The reason this game became a huge success among the gaming community was because of the way this game makes you experience its content: its a mix of your typical turn based J-RPG and social life simulator. During the day you are able to go to school, answer questions related to your classes, and also interact with several people (either classmates or people you meet on areas outside of school). Interactions with people will establish events known as “Social Links”; each Social Link will be represented by an Arcana (you know, the ones from the Tarot and stuff) and spending time with each of these people, will strengthen your Social Link, giving you the benefit of fusing stronger Personas respective of each Arcana; you can establish friendships or even romantic relationships with some of your classmates by choosing some specific choices (but no same sex relationships because you know, protagonists can only be straighties!!!1). During the night, you explore Tartarus, a tower that extends up to the sky. Your goal is to go through every single floor of Tartarus and explore every part of it, gaining all of the information you can about the place up to the top. However, as easy as this might seem, the tower is infested with Shadows, and that’s where the turn based J-RPG comes into play: Minato along with his team mates will enter battles everytime they encounter a Shadow, and is up to them to destroy them using their physical attacks or using their respective Personas. Also, during every full moon, you will encounter stronger Shadows, which you’ll have to destroy or else they will cause chaos among the city. Now, the game is not exactly hard per se, but thing is, no matter which difficulty you choose, strategy will be an almost forced requirement for you to play this game. The enemies are not the most difficult, but some bosses get really unfair if you are under leveled or don’t know how to properly destroy them. Not only that, but the game was the first game among the Persona titles to include the most unfair battle characteristic: if your main character dies in battle, in this case Minato, no matter if the rest of your team mates are still alive, you will lose automatically, and, depending on which difficulty you have chosen (either Normal or Hard) your progress will be lost and you’ll have to start over again from your last save file. Among other unfair characteristics is the infamous “Tired” condition: every time you explore Tartarus along with your team mates, if you spend a lot of time in the tower, some of your characters will get tired, making them unusable the next time you want to explore Tartarus until they get better. Despite all of the small “difficulties”, which I like to call more as obstacles, the way this game plays it’s amazing, and it makes you understand why is so beloved.

Of course, there might be a few things I dislike about the game, such as the Automatic Battle Death and some aspects of the difficulty, even no significant dungeon additions when exploring Tartarus, but the thing I probably despise the most is also one of the most important in Persona 3 FES: The Answer. The Answer is an epilogue to the original story known as The Journey, since explaining the story of The Answer would be the biggest spoiler to the Journey, the only thing I will talk about it’s the gameplay and some of its aspects. The main point of the Answer is to explain what happened after the ending of the Journey, and mostly WHY did the end of the Journey happened, it also gives you a few insight to the pasts of the characters, to their lives; aside from that, the only thing the Answer has to give you is gameplay, tedious gameplay. The Answer has an average length of 30 hours, 3 or 4 of these hours are actual story, the rest is just battles and grinding; this epilogue is supposed to introduce you to new dungeons in the similar style of Tartarus with a harder difficulty, but thing is, this whole thing is pretty damn unforgiving. Not only you have to grind like there’s no tomorrow in order to fight bosses and proceed, but several factors such as strategy and even LUCK, are involved, making this sidegame the most broken thing in the Persona series. The worst part of all is probably that the story it provides it’s not even that good... I mean, the background of the characters and the explanation of why did the events in the Journey happened, are actually very well done, they’re intriguing and make you want to see more, but enduring whole 25+ hours of battles just for that? It’s not worth it, at least not for me. I’ll have you know that the Answer does not include any aspect of the Social Links or the school life or anything, is just battles and some side story, it’s just an small addition after all, but, in my honest opinion, a very bad one, but even still, an important one within the series.

#video game diary #persona 3 fes #persona 3 #atlus #rpg #playstation 2 #persona

10.- Star Fox Adventures

Release Date: September 2002 (Japan & North America) Developer: Rare Platform: Nintendo GameCube

Start / Finish: January 14, 2016 / January 18, 2016 Play Time: About 14 hours. Review: 9.0 out of 10

#video game diary #nintendo #gamecube #star fox #star fox adventures #rare

9.- Persona 4 Golden

Release Date: June 2012 (Japan) / November 2012 (North America) Developer: ATLUS Platform: PS Vita / Playstation TV

Start / Finish: December 27, 2015 / January 13, 2016 Play Time: About 87 hours. Review: 10 out of 10

Aside from the story, the gameplay is pure magnificence. It plays as an usual turn based J-RPG, where you get stronger by leveling up and obtaining stronger weapons, with only a few enhancements, but nothing notorious of a RPG. However the best thing itself of the game is the summoning of Personas. While your teammates can only summon one unique Persona, you, the main character, can summon over 170+ Personas, each one with different skills and abilities and also categorized by the different cards of the Major Arcana (the Tarot is also a big key element of the game). The most fun part (and probably, at some point, difficult) of the gameplay is choosing which Personas to use, which can also be subject of fusion. By fusioning select Personas you can create completely new ones, and not only that, you can also add part of their skills, making them even stronger than they originally were meant to. To make even stronger Personas, a key aspect of the game (previously introduced in Persona 3) known as Social Links is present. The way Social Links work are similar to that of a social simulator: you befriend people, each one of them representing a card of the Major Arcana (let’s say, for example, the Star Arcana), and spending time with them, listening to their problems, and choosing certain options may conclude on Maxing the Social Link, allowing you to level up greatly Personas of that certain Arcana and also permitting you to create the Ultimate Persona of each Arcana (in other words, the strongest possible Persona of, in this example, the Star Arcana). Completing Social Links end up in creating strong friendship bonds with the people or even romantic relationships (only available to Social Links with girls because you know, it’s okay to show a homo kind-of-antagonist but don’t put that on a Social Link, complete bs). However befriending people is not the only thing that works as a Social Simulator of the game, you can also attend school and participate in class lessons by answering questions, and also taking part-time jobs, so it’s not just a boring grind fest of a typical J-RPG.

#video game diary #persona 4 #persona 4 golden #atlus #rpg #playstation vita #playstation tv

EXTRA ENTRY.- December 2015 Video Game Haul

December is still going on for myself (my lazy ass excuse for forgetting often posting to this blog) so I thought it would be nice to show some of the small additions to my gaming collection!

This right here is probably the best investment I have ever done in the entire year. Originally, the Playstation TV wasn’t in my list of “Consoles to get”, due to me thinking that it was only an “expansion” of the PS4, but that of course was my first mistake, but it’s completely justifiable. The original purpose of the Playstation TV isn’t to enhance the PS4 experience via a router (from what I got), but mainly to work as a home console version of the PS Vita, which is supported by the fact that the Playstation TV is actually called the PS Vita TV on several parts of Asia. Promoting the Playstation TV in both America and Europe as a “better Playstation 3 and 4 experience!” is honestly a huge bad mistake, actually resulting in complains from some buyers due to expecting nicer and better gaming modes, which were originally intended to be side aspects of this console. That aside, yes, I repeat myself, the main purpose of this console is to play PS Vita games, that’s basically it. Now, onto the console: pure bliss, the end. The PS TV has the same operative system as the PS Vita, even the same interface and such. Just like the PS Vita, the PS TV has many similar aspects, among the most important ones: being able to play PS Vita games and being able to purchase PSP, PSOne and Digital videogames. In short, this is the inexpensive home console version of the PS Vita and it’s great. People may be thinking that it actually might be a bad idea to play PS Vita games on it since some of them make use of the touchscreen and touchpad function, well no worries! The PS TV works by using the Dualshock 3 and 4 controllers and here is the magic of this: pushing the left joystick lets you use a pointer that works just as the touchscreen in the Vita, and pushing the right joystick lets you use a pointer that works just as the touchpad. Basically the only downside to this is that unlike the PS Vita, the PS TV is not portable, which may not be entirely impossible due to this next aspect, the size: it’s so tiny! I seriously haven ever seen a console be so cute for some reason. There is a size comparison between the PS TV and the iPhone 4, just in case you wonder how tiny it is. To power it you need to connect it to an electric outlet and use a HDMI cable to connect it to your TV (and I suppose even computers too maybe?), so it might work as portable of some sort. Seriously this is an amazing investment if you desire to play PS Vita games but you just don’t have the enough economical resources to buy one. You can pretty much get the PS TV in bundles or just the console itself. The PS TV itself (only console + cables) has an official cost of about 80 dollars, but you can pretty much get it at about 40 or 50 dollars at most places (and I’m talking Walmart, Best Buy or Target places). The PS TV Bundle (which includes the console + Dualshock 3 controller + 8GB Memory Card + cables + The Lego Movie Videogame digital code, basically the best version) has a cost of about 100 dollars, but search it on stores, it’s way cheaper than that! I got the PS TV bundle on Amazon at the price of 67 dollars, it was an amazing steal, and I’ve seen it at about 70 dollars on stores like Walmart. If you’re the kind of person that goes digital on pretty much all your games, then I suggest, if you plan on getting this console, to buy this bundle; although the PS TV has an internal 1GB memory like the Vita, the 8GB is what you will need, AT LEAST. Seriously, this console is pure bliss, if you really want to experience PS Vita games (and even some PSP or PSOne games) and you’re pretty much short on cash, get this version, you won’t regret it at all.

People might bash me on this one but the Mario Party games, including the latest additions, are probably one of my favorite series of all time. The first 3 games are pure classics, and the GameCube ones are amazingly fun as well. I will side with you though, from the Wii releases onward the games have been on a downfall, but they’re still pretty enjoyable in my opinion! It might sound a bit stupid, but one of my many dreams of all time has been to collect all of the Mario Party games (the main ones of course); I have the first 3 for the Nintendo 64, 4 and 6 for the Nintendo GameCube, and 8 on Nintendo Wii, basically I was missing 5, 7, 9, and 10. I was planning on getting 9 for some while, but thing is, for reasons unknown (seriously, I don’t know what the hell is going on with this one) but Mario Party 9, despite all the reviews and all the buyers opinions, is still as pricey as the day it came out. I don’t know if it’s because there are such low official copies available or something, but you can’t seem to get even a used version of this game unless it’s at the price of 50 dollars. That was my main reason to not buy this game yet due to it’s price, however, this copy you are observing right now, was actually a Christmas gift. My family has known since basically my childhood, that Mario games are my favorite ones, and to be honest, it’s still true! (They are really amusing, even if the games have been milked as much as possible). My brother just saw that I truly got into gaming these last months so he decided to buy me a game, of course he didn’t know what to get me (since I pretty much not talk about it) but he decided to get me this one, since he saw I didn’t had this one yet, and here it is! It was used, and from Gamestop (ugh, at the store I mean), so of course chances are it didn’t had a manual with it and it was right, but hey! It’s a gift, I can’t get picky about it, so I decided to be thankful and enjoy it just like it is. I have seen that this game is actually pretty fun, that it isn’t so bad, so I’m going in with a nice attitude in general, hoping it might be as fun as they say.

So hey, you remember how I bought basically most of the Persona games but haven’t really played any of them? Well... I needed to complete the main entries so here it is! In my excuse, I actually bought this one while having been playing Persona, Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Persona 3 so I was able to say that I officially started with the Persona games. To be honest, of all the Persona games this one was the most anticipated for me (I know, basic af bitch, sue me). Although all of the Persona games concepts and stories had sparked an interest in me, who can resist a murder mystery RPG game? It just sounds pretty good. And yes, I know, I should have started with the original PS2 game instead (the one that still had the Shin Megami Tensei trademark), but to be honest I’m all up for enhanced versions, I mean, more story and more elements within the same game, it’s just better, the way I see it (doesn’t mean I won’t play the original version too though), and also I just needed an excuse to buy a PS Vita game for my Playstation TV. So yeah, this is the 4th entry in the Persona series, you play as the Main Character (who goes by the name of Yu Narukami, but it changes depending of what P4 media you are fan of) who just got transferred to a small countryside town, where just right at the moment he steps in, the town gets involved in a series of murder cases, while at the same time, a strange rumor about watching a turned off TV at midnight of a rainy night goes on by the school grounds and the town itself; slowly you get caught up in these events along with your new friends and that’s basically how the story starts. Along some of the new additions to the original game are new difficulties, a new dungeon, better interface, and a few more Social Links. This is a must for a PS Vita or PS TV, so if you’re planning to get one of those, consider this game from the get go. I actually bought this one from Gamestop (I know but I just can’t seem to find the game anywhere else! For some strange reason big stores are not carrying it) at about 20 dollars. Since Atlus has this recent policy of not including manuals along the game cases and actually putting them as digital, well, that’s the reason why it looks so blank. Also, as a side note, I didn’t knew PS Vita game cards are so tiny! If you have big hands like me you’d like to be careful to not lose it or something among the lines.

#video game diary #extra entry #playstation tv #nintendo #wii #mario party #ps vita #persona 4 #persona 4 golden

EXTRA ENTRY.- November 2015 Video Game Haul

Best way to cope with academic responsibilities is to buy some video game classics, and, why not, even new recent releases too, so here I present everyone my video game haul for November! On a small side note, I should stop buying Persona games without having even played one, for real.

Describing this one is pretty much awkward since it’s not really a video game but anyways. Funny story, I actually got my Persona games before getting a PSP; I was really infatuated with the whole concept of Persona 1 and 2, so I decided to get my hands on copies of them before they raised prices. Of course I was planning to get a PSP before hand but my impatience was actually worse. I was planning to buy one online for about 75 dollars, complete with charger and everything, but I decided to look for one in used video games places in my city. I wouldn’t really mind how an used PSP looked, and the model it was, since the only reason I would be using it would be for playing games and that’s it, the PlayStation Network has been deactivated for this platform, so of course the only way you could use it right now would be for physical UMD discs, which I’m really into right now! This PSP is the first 1000 model, and I got it in a small local video game store (where they actually only fix computers and stuff but these stores as of now also decide to take advantage of the situation and sell video games and consoles) along with its charger and 3 video games for about 50 dollars (actually 850 Mexican Pesos but that would be an approximate of the currency as of November 2015), it was such a steal! The only flaws this console has are that the UMD slot is kind of out of place, it’s like sticking just a bit out from it’s original place, but it doesn’t affect gaming so it’s okay, and the screen also has some weird internal scratches, so weird small lines appear in some places, but nothing too drastic, for 50 dollars this is actually way better than what I originally expected. I will only be using this PSP to play about 10 games overall, so buying a used console is actually a well made decision. I was actually going to start playing the Persona games I got, but unfortunately this PSP doesn’t has a Memory Stick and I swear I cried in despair for about 3 hours. Using a Memory Stick Duo, these kinds of memories are now hard as hell to find in stores, not even in my city and not even in tech stores across USA, so I had to buy one online; I bought one barely yesterday, so it should arrive in about a week, in the meantime, I will play some more 3DS and soon some PS2, Wii and GameCube games.

For the first time every in like 10+ years I actually bought a brand new game few weeks after it was released whoa! Actually no, it has happened before with Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, but whatever. I have actually been keen of Rodea since the trailer was announced, it looked pretty good! It was developed by the creator of the Sonic games, so a lot of elements reminiscent of the of the original games are present in this one. I’m not really sure about what the story is about, since is mostly focused on gameplay, but it seems like your typical “try your best to save the world!” story, so I’m not sure as to what to expect. The actual only reason I got myself interested in getting this game quickly, was because apparently the first print run of this game includes the original Wii game! This game was originally supposed to be released for the Wii, but since developing time was around the Wii U release, they decided to move it as a Wii U title, however when the release date came, they included the original Wii copy to present how the original game was supposed to be. For this very reason, the game has gotten insane negative reviews, many people complain that the Wii U version has awkward and bad gameplay mechanics, and they recommend you to actually play the Wii version instead. I actually don’t have a Wii U (soon to be though!) so I’m not really sure as to what they are talking about, but I will be checking out the Wii version in some point. I’m not particularly sure if future copies of this game will include the Wii version, I honestly think that they will but in case they don’t, hurry up and grab yourself a copy. ATTENTION: Do! Not! Buy! Your! Copy! At! Gamestop! Seriously, these guys suck like you have no idea. I don’t know if it was my copy only, but when I bought it, not only it included the usual price sticker at the right upper corner, but it also got a “sealing sticker” right in the opening crease, instead of being wrapped in plastic wrap like it usually is. I was pissed about this, but that was only the beginning, for some reason this fucking sealing sticker uses a shit ton of sticker glue so if you try to remove it carefully it will still leave some residue on the box. And not only that! To top it all of, the residue is actually a bitch to come off! So if you want to avoid a complete hour of cleaning your box, buy your copy somewhere else. God, and probably my copy was one of the ones they actually have to “promote” the game, you know the ones in shelves, so this pisses me even more. I don’t usually have a problem with Gamestop with Used games and with some Brand New Games, but they really crossed the line with this one. I didn’t payed 60+ dollars for that shit, but whatever. Excuse my bad language, I just needed to vent it off.

#video game diary #extra entry #nintendo #sony #psp #radiata stories #shin megami tensei #persona #hotel dusk #rodea #atlus #wii u #playstation 2 #nintendo ds #innocent sin

8.- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3DS

Release Date: June 2011 (Japan & North America) Developer: Nintendo EAD Tokyo + Grezzo Platform: Nintendo 3DS

Start / Finish: November 1, 2015 / November 14, 2015 Play Time: About 29 hours. (Including Master Quest) Review: 9.6 out of 10

Story wise I don’t need to say much. The story is perfect, and the progression of events is almost flawless. It’s just too good. The same goes with your objectives, they’re clear and show no difficulty. The puzzles the game present are also at perfect difficulty, they’re not hard and requite just the basic amount of reasoning, so it’s enjoyable in pretty much all the way. The main story actually took me about 12 hours to finish, wanting to re experience this game of course I had to take my time. Now, onto true hell, the Master Quest. Beforehand, I knew that Master Quest was basically supposed to be the game but “reversed”, in short explanation, if in the original game you had to go to the left, now in Master Quest you’re supposed to go to the right. I never really thought this would make the game more complicated in any sense so I decided to roll with it, but what caught me off guard, and this is probably the most important and notorious aspect of the Master Quest version, are the dungeons, temples and the puzzle solving. Good gracious everything is different! It’s not just reversed, every single room in every dungeon has different and even more complicated puzzles. Being the first time I played Master Quest, this really was confusing (if you want more insight about it just know this: within the first 15 seconds of entering inside the Great Deku Tree I died, oh yeah, cause damage infliction also increases too) but I wasn’t annoyed by the difficulty increase in puzzle solving, I personally like bigger challenges! But what really becomes frustrating is the logic behind these puzzles and the location of items. There are some items that if it weren’t for some guides I found on the internet, I would have no idea at all as to why I couldn’t proceed. Not only that, the logic some puzzles use is ridiculous, to say the least. The original game puzzle solving is perfect, everything is located in the place it needs to be and how it needs to be, in Master Quest is not. You have to be very very cautious and perceptive of not losing any small detail, if by any chance you do, then you’re in for a world of confusion. This really becomes annoying in some dungeons, can’t really name one in special because all of them are just crazy in their own way. Not only that, it also ruins every sense of logic presented in the original game, especially in the Spirit Temple, cause, you know, pressing a switch and letting a treasure fall when you’re an adult will be present when you’re a child (like, what?); sorry for being very picky about this aspect, but is just that the original version does everything in an almost perfect way, the Master Quest, pretty much ruins these details, but no matter, it still was enjoyable at most parts despite this minuscules flaws.

#the legend of zelda #ocarina of time #nintendo 3ds #zelda #nintendo #grezzo #video game diary

7.- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time

Release Date: December 2005 (Japan) / November 2005 (North America) Developer: AlphaDream Platform: Nintendo DS

Start / Finish: October 28, 2015 / November 1, 2015 Play Time: About 15 hours. Review: 9.0 out of 10

#mario and luigi #partners in time #nintendo ds #nintendo #alphadream #rpg #video game diary

6.- Time Hollow

Release Date: March 2008 (Japan) / September 2008 (North America) Developer: Tenky, published by Konami Platform: Nintendo DS

Start / Finish: October 16, 2015 / October 24, 2015 Play Time: About 8 hours. Review: 7.8 out of 10

#time hollow #nintendo ds #tenky #konami #nintendo #visual novel #video game diary

EXTRA ENTRY.- September 2015 Video Game Haul

September truly was an amazing month for collecting these gems. Even the unique and beautiful Rule of Rose made way into my collection! Now, let me tell you all about them.

#video game diary #extra entry #nintendo #playstation #avalon code #chulip #rule of rose #persona 3 #lost kingdoms #time hollow #we love katamari #atlus #gamecube

5.- Contact

Release Date: March 2006 (Japan) / October 2006 (North America) Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture Platform: Nintendo DS

Start / Finish: August 1, 2015 / August 29, 2015 Play Time: About 16 hours. Review: 8.9 out of 10

To this point, people may think that this game sounds good for any standard Japanese RPG, but here are my main points as to why I have some problems with it. First, is the gameplay. I spent about 16 hours in total with this game, pretty standard for an RPG. But the thing is, that a good 4 hours of them, in other words, 1/4 of the game, was mere grinding and collecting money. The game gets insane hard at some points, especially when discovering new areas. Monsters sometimes are overpowered, making them pretty hard to beat. And in the other hand, we have the collecting money thing. At some points in the game, you will be required to gather huge amounts of money to progress, which you have to be careful with, because you also need a lot of healing item, which are not cheap at all, in other words, you need to gain money for both items and for progression in the story, having to spend large amounts of time in dungeons trying to collect coins, making it frustrating at points, but still tolerable. The second aspect, and the most important one, it’s the story. The problem with the story, it’s that it just tells the most important aspects. Let’s say, you get to a new island, and the Professor gives you a new objective, that’s basically it, you have no idea of what to do, you have no idea of where to go, you are on your own now. Which, in my opinion, I don’t find this bad at all, I love exploring in a videogame, that’s the main reason as to why I expect to spend my money on it, so I can enjoy every single aspect on it while exploring and so on, but it does get pretty frustrating at points, and it’s understandable why some people wouldn’t want to get into it. Another important point, it’s the ending. I’m not spoiling anything, but the ending, at the most important part of it, doesn’t provide an explanation as to why it happened. It focuses on other aspects, but not the main one, leaving all of your adventure you had to go through, in a really big gigantic question mark. And that’s really not a way to end a game, not if you want it to be a success, not at all. Supposedly it includes a post-game state, in which you can continue exploring from your last save, and taking in account that it has a lot of side stories and items to be found, it might provide an answer to the ending, but other than that, it doesn’t give you any answer on its own.

#contact #nintendo ds #nintendo #atlus #grasshopper manufacture #rpg #jrpg #video game diary

4.- Trace Memory

Release Date: February 2005 (Japan) / September 2005 (North America) Developer: Cing Platform: Nintendo DS

Start / Finish: July 20, 2015 / July 26, 2015 Play Time: 8 hours. Review: 8.3 out of 10

#nintendo #trace memory #another code #two memories #cing #video game diary

3.- Zero Escape: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors

Release Date: December 2009 (Japan) / November 2010 (North America) Developer: Chunsoft Platform: Nintendo DS, iOS

Start / Finish: July 11, 2015 / July 18, 2015 Play Time: About 24 hours. Review: 8.7 out of 10

I have been praising this game but, what actually is my problem with it though? Overall, this game is amazing, it has an amazing and mind blowing story, with puzzles that, although they aren’t difficult, or at least to me, they increase in said difficulty towards the end of the game, but they don’t make them impossible, just perfect enough for solving. The thing is, the story itself is very, very deep. If you haven’t been paying attention to it since the beginning of the game, then you are going to be very lost at the end, believe me, which is a bad thing, because even if you don’t understand a simple detail, it’s going to be relevant at some point, and even if you were paying attention the whole time, this minor detail may make the story a bit confusing. Also, as usual with visual novels, it has different endings, this one has 3 Bad Endings and 2 Special Endings (1 of this is actually 2 in 1, quite complex to explain); to get the other endings you have to make careful choices in the story, because they might affect the story completely. Now, my problem is not the fact that I have to play the entire game again to choose other options, because they actually let you fast forward through conversations, which is very useful; the fact is that to get the “true” ending, you must do a really very minor detail, and seriously, this is very annoying, because of this: if you don’t do this minor detail, the story will progress and you will get a bad ending, but if you actually do the minor detail, the story will progress IN THE SAME WAY of the bad ending, but it will trigger other conversations (not related in any way to this detail) and will change the course of the story, which seriously, it’s just plain ridiculous. And not only that, you have to play the game AGAIN after doing the altered Bad Ending to get the True Ending, which is just... I don’t know... annoying in some way, but to counter this, the actual true ending is really mind blowing! Something you never expected to see coming to you, and I can understand why people and critics labeled this game as “Story of the Year”. So, yeah, it may be a tedious process, but in my opinion it’s quite worth it.

#zero escape #9 hours 9 persons 9 doors #nine hours nine persons nine doors #nintendo ds #nintendo #video game diary #chunsoft

2.- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Release Date: November 2011 (Japan & North America) Developer: Nintendo EAD Platform: Nintendo Wii

Start / Finish: July 6, 2015 / July 14, 2015 Play Time: 44 hours. Review: 10 out of 10

#the legend of zelda #skyward sword #wii #nintendo #video game diary #thank you mr. Satoru Iwata

1.- Xenoblade Chronicles

Release Date: June 2010 (Japan) / April 2012 (North America) Developer: Monolith Soft Platform: Nintendo Wii

Start / Finish: May 27, 2015 / June 20, 2015 Play Time: About 90 hours. Review: 9.5 out of 10

#xenoblade chronicles #nintendo #wii #rpg #video game diary

0.- Prologue

Start New Game? Yes.

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////GAME DIARY////