Some Other Castle » star ocean

Some Other Podcast, Episode 40: Midget Zombie Clowns

Leah — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:23:21 +0000

We hope everyone has had/is having a perfectly wonderful holiday season! We know we are; after all, thanks to this week’s special guests, Dan and Joe, we finally get to gorge ourselves upon the long-awaited Fudgie the Whale! What better way to celebrate the coming of the new year than with chocolate crunchies and talk about (what else?) VIDEO GAMES? Rather than our usual setup, we have a chat about the games that stood out for us in the year 2009. Do you agree? Let us know!

Link the halls with boughs of holly…. (in no particular order and probably missing a few… gimme a break, I was drinking…)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Forza 3

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

Pokemon Platinum

Resident Evil 5

Wii Sports Resort

Chronicles of Riddick

Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story

Shadow Complex

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Punch-Out!

Katamari Forever

Gyromancer

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Guitar Hero: Van Halen

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Week 12: Loose Ends

Leah — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:47:21 +0000

I’ve never actually played a Ratchet and Clank game before; yeah, I know it’s a really big series, and being a fan of platformers (although not, of course, a bigger fan than I am of JRPGs), I probably should have picked one up before now to give it a whirl. I didn’t, though. After the all-encompassing sea that was Star Ocean, though (haha! See what I did there?), and before that, the fifty-plus hours I spent traversing Tales of Vesperia left me needing something a little lighter to cleanse my gaming palette. Ratchet and Clank is proving to be just the thing.

I’ve been kind of half-heartedly playing a bit here and there of R&C in the midst of the other stuff in my systems, but the bigger games just kept sucking me back in, so now that I’m devoting my full attention to it (or as full as my attention gets, anyway), I am happy to report that I’m thoroughly enjoying the game. There’s just something about beating the crap out of robots with a giant wrench that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Although I mostly only use the Combuster gun-wise (and the Predator gun is quite fun as well), it’s nice to have a wide variety of shooty-things available to me, and since ammo is plentiful, I can mess around with different stuff pretty much freely. I also have to say that it’s a nice little change to be playing something in which I feel like I’m making quantifiable progress pretty much every time I pick it up, as opposed to Star Ocean, where managing to find three blue roses was a good session.

Not that I’m busting on Star Ocean, mind you. As of last writing, I’d finished the main storyline, but I hadn’t finished the post-game content. Well, as of THIS writing, I still haven’t finished the post-game content, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m not going to. I ploughed my way through the first of the two bonus dungeons, arriving at the final boss with Edge at level 102 (yep, 100 is apparently not the max level… I wonder what is?), and I just got smacked. Like, it wasn’t even close. I had zero chance. Rather than pumping more time into grinding levels so I could go on (and we all know how much I looooove doing that), I decided to call it quits on Star Ocean. I feel like I accomplished all I needed to, and I’m not disappointed with my experience overall. I certainly feel like I got my money’s worth.

Right now, the only other game I’m really playing is Henry Hatsworth; I finally got around to playing it on my shiny new DSi (well…. shiny is a metaphor in this case, as the actual finish is matte), and yes, as promised, the increased screen size is very nice. I’ve still only managed one more level’s progress since last time, but at this point in the game, I feel like that’s pretty much cause for celebration. This bitch gets HARD towards the end. It’s a challenge that I enjoy dealing with, though, regardless of how many times I may scream POPPYCOCK! Hey, he says it, why can’t I?

Recap:

Current backlog total: 118

Now playing: Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3); Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS)

New games added: Docomodake BOING! (DS); Afro Samurai (360); Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom (360); Growlanser: Heritage of War (PS2); Tomb Raider Anniversary (PSP); Astonishia Story (PSP); Ys: The Ark of Napishtm (PSP) (Come on, there was a buy 2 get 1 free sale!)

Games completed: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360)

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Week 11: Just When You Thought It Was Over….

Leah — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:28:27 +0000

Yeah, I was kind of under the impression that when I defeated the final boss of Star Ocean, around hour 59, that the game would be over. Not so! During the movie-length cutscenes that followed the battle, I idly flipped the page of the strategy guide which had become pretty much permanently glued to my lap to find…. two more dungeons. So really, I tried, but I’m not done yet. I am in hour 64, though.

I have mixed feelings about the inclusion of extra content after the end credits to a game have rolled. On one hand, extra content is always good, particularly if I was enjoying the game to begin with. More is better, right? On the other hand, though, why not simply include that content within the game itself? That’s what side quests are for, in my opinion: to give you something to do outside the main storyline that serves as an acceptable alternative to running around in circles grinding levels. It’s a minor complaint, I guess, but I did find myself a little irked at the way TLH set things up. That said, these dungeons, or at least the one that I’m currently dealing with, are full of some pretty serious motherfuckers. They are not kidding when they tell you that the difficulty curve here is more like a difficulty cliff-edge. I smacked around the final boss of the actual storyline with little trouble; in fact, throughout the game, I never lost a boss fight. Not once, actually. Just as a for-instance, the boss that I most recently fought in the current dungeon (called the Cave of the Seven Stars) slaughtered my entire party multiple times… I never actually lost, due to swapping folks out and resurrecting them, but at the end, Mr. Edge Maverick was the only one still standing. I’m glad he was, too, because I would have lost about an hour and a half of play if he’d dropped.

I didn’t purchase any new games this week, but I did purchase a new system… sort of. That’s right, I caved and picked up a DSi (it’s black). What this practically means for my gaming queue is that I ditched all but two of my GBA games (Final Fantasy V, which I have played many times before, and Tales of Phantasia, which I have not). I obviously don’t actually have a system to play them on at this point, but I figure I’ll probably just snag a used SP when they price-drop a little more, as they are sure to do due to the current influx. I’m told that Henry Hatsworth looks quite snazzy on the bigger screens, but I have yet to play since I picked up the system, so I suppose that remains to be seen.

Recap:

Current backlog total: 112

Now playing: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360); Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS)

New games added: none

Games completed: none (balance!)

Some Other Podcast, Episode 6: Porn and Pokemon

Leah — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:49:43 +0000

Hi, kids! Did you miss us? Yeah, us too. But you really have to stop calling so late…. people are going to talk. Instead, you can listen to us ramble on about Elaine’s tentative steps into the RPG realm, the problems with collector’s editions, and the perils of importing fancy shinies. I also do a lot of crying in this episode. Thanks a lot, Squenix.

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Pokemon Platinum

Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton

Rock Band: Beatles Edition

God of War 3 collector’s edition vote

Patapon 2

Nintendo DSi in pink!

Final Fantasy XIII demo with Advent Children blu-ray

FFVII on PSN in Japan

Break music is “Wild Pokemon Battle Music” from Pokemon Platinum.

Do you see how happy mail makes me? It sort of compensates for all the crying I do. So send us more at podcast@someothercastle.com!

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Weeks 8-10: Poppycock!

Leah — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:03:19 +0000

I know, I know…. lazy Leah, right? Sorry for the gap between updates, folks, but to make up for it, I *do* have a significant amount of progress to report! As of this writing, since last time, I have finished one game, blasted through most of a second, and put a cool twenty or so more hours into a third. I’ve purchased a few more as well, of course, but let’s just overlook that for the time being….

First things first: it’s true, ladies and gents…. I have, in fact, finished Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. Not even just finished, actually, but rather stomped. Massacred. One might even say trounced. I hunted down those little punctuation marks scattered all over my beautiful galaxy and I wiped them out for good. I really don’t want to know how much time I spent doing so, but at the end, it felt good. Kind of. You know, in a “wow, I really have absolutely no life” kind of way. Hey, whatever I can get.

Upon completion of Puzzle Quest, I picked up a different variety of puzzler on my DS (the system really seems to be good for that these days, and as long as they continue to be of this quality, I am certainly not complaining about that). I’m speaking, of course, of Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, which Elaine started before me and has been talking up so much that I could hardly wait to get started. I was rewarded when I did, because the game is fantastic. I love that although you do have to keep track of both screens, you don’t have to manage both together; the platforming gets put on hold when you need to go fool with your puzzle screen. I’ve reached a point where the game is getting really hard…. like, I-may-want-to-tether-my-DS-to-my-wrist-so-I-don’t-chuck-it-through-a-window hard. Here’s the major difference between this and the last platformer I tried to trudge through (Prinny….. remember Prinny? God, I do.). I want to keep playing Henry Hatsworth. I enjoy it, because it’s not punishing, it’s just challenging. It’s not impossible, it just takes a few tries (or in some cases…. many tries). I didn’t enjoy Prinny. I wanted to stuff Prinny down a garbage disposal. That’s why Prinny got traded in post-haste, while Henry Hatsworth is still in my DS (waiting for the blasted thing to charge back up, because I’ve run the battery down yet again). So yeah, I yell at the little British dude, and the phrase “Are you FUCKING kidding me?!?” leaves my mouth a lot (and it’s always that specific phrase…. I dunno why, but it always seems appropriate), but the important thing is that I’m still playing. I’m in what I believe is the second to last world, and if the goddamn Puzzle Realm is this tricksy, I shudder to think what the world after it is going to be like. I intend to find out, though.

Up until I finished Questing, I’d kind of been neglecting my other main game of the moment, which is, of course, Star Ocean. No more, my friends! Now that the galaxy is safe from glowing punctuation, I have returned to saving a different galaxy from what ails it. I’ve actually put a considerable amount of time into doing so…. I’m in hour 45 right now, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. I’m not even off of disc 2 yet….

I understand that I have, apparently, inspired a few folks to play Star Ocean themselves after hearing me ramble on about it, so if you are one of those people, or if you simply don’t want to have the plot spoiled, you may want to skip the rest of this paragraph. I won’t be too offended. For anyone still reading, though, I have to rant just a bit about something that happened circa hour 42 that really made me angry. It’s what I like to call the “Final Fantasy VII syndrome”. I didn’t get particularly attached to Aeris (in fact, I only used her when forced to do so) but I know people who did- who, in fact, spent a great deal of time leveling her up as far as possible, only to have her cut in half at the end of the first disc. (Yup, Aeris dies. Sorry kids, statute of limitations is up on that one.) I had Faize in my main party ever since he first showed up; when I started messing around with different combinations of characters as you gain more recruits, my two constants were always Edge and Faize. I even took Reimi out eventually, but never Faize. So OF COURSE, in hour forty-fucking-two of the game, they took him away from me! I was PISSED! Now, granted, they do give you Arumat as a sort-of replacement, and he’s far more badass than Faize was (and less girly to boot, if considerably more emo), but it’s the principle of the thing that matters. I was completely comfortable having him in my party, and then I had to rearrange everything this far in. Not cool, Squenix. Not cool. I think I’ve pretty much settled on a core party for now unless they take someone else away from me: my frontline fighters are Edge and Arumat, my caster is Myuria (who is a raging badass if set up correctly) and my healer is Sarah (who is annoying as hell, but extremely useful as long as you turn her voice off in the options menu).

Okay, spoilery ranting over. You can come back now. It’s the end for this week, though, so just check out the stats.

Recap:

Current backlog total: 117

Now playing: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360); Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS)

New games added: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (Wii); Peggle Dual Shot (DS); Pokemon Platinum (DS); Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (PS3); Gardening Mama (DS); Rhythm Heaven (DS) ….remember though, that’s three weeks’ worth! That’s not so bad, right? …….right?

Games completed: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (DS)

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Week 7: Addiction

Leah — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:37:37 +0000

A few days ago, I made a comment to Elaine that pretty much sums up my recent gaming habits, and it was this: I can’t just like a game; I have to be obsessed with it. That’s about where I am this week. I’m still playing Star Ocean (even though it’s gotten weeeeeeeird), I’m still pretty much ignoring Ratchet and Clank (even though I really do enjoy it when I get around to it), and I’m right back to my old habits with Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. There’s Resident Evil 5 as well, but that’s a bit of a different story.

Let me start off by saying that yes, I do realize that I am playing a science-fiction/fantasy game. I know that this isn’t real. These are fictional characters. I get it. So when I say that the believability went straight out the damn window with Star Ocean, you can probably take that with a rather large grain of salt. I don’t want to spoil anything for folks that are playing the game, so I won’t go into much detail, but I will say this: up until the thirteen or fourteen hour mark, there was a certain degree of consistency involved with Star Ocean’s story. Then, things kind of went off the rails. I believe the phrase, actually, is “jumped the shark.” I really, really want to give details here, and I can’t figure out how to start without spilling pretty much everything, so let me simply say that while I was playing, I was giving a sort of running commentary to Elaine, and her replies mainly consisted of expletives and capital letters. I think she was a little confused. I know I was. Anyway, now there’s a cat girl, and a chick with wings, and the cat girl wants to eat the chick with wings, and… well, that’s beside the point. I’m still playing; in fact, I think I’m playing more than before. The gameplay hasn’t changed a bit, after all, and the story… well, the story is fucked right up, and I kind of want to see what happens next. After my departure into Crazyville for a few in-game hours, I appear to be back in… Consistencyland? (It’s the best I could do…) I’m curious to see where the next diversion takes me.

I’ve never been that big a fan of the Resident Evil games (not that I have anything against them, really, I’m just too slow to get the hang of the controls for the most part), but the fifth installment, I have to say, is pretty awesome. If I were playing it by myself, I don’t think I’d be having nearly as good a time with it, but since they made co-op play such a big part of this, I’m really enjoying the game. Elaine and I have been playing it in chunks, and contrary to what I’ve been hearing, I think they actually got the “scary” part down pat (particularly with those damn dogs). Ammo is scarce, enemies come in swarms, and the bosses require some creative thinking and quick moves. If you’re not on your toes, you’re zombie food. That’s scary to me.

And then there’s Puzzle Quest. Sigh. Puzzle Quest and I have…. something of a history. The first installment of the series was the very first game that I played on my pink DS (after I traded in my original silver system), and the cart didn’t budge for literally months. Not because I wasn’t playing it, mind you, but rather because there was just SO MUCH to do that the game kept on going forever. I’ve said before that I’m glad there wasn’t a game clock, because I don’t think I would want to know; there isn’t a game clock in Galactrix either, and I’m equally glad. It’s only been a week, but I shudder to think about how many hours I’ve already pumped into questing the galaxy to challenge all comers to a rousing match of Bejeweled. It took me a while to get used to the new board, which is hex-based instead of straight up-and-down like the first game, but now that I’ve found my stride, I find it very hard to put down my DS (not without One More Match, anyway). I think the fact that I am a very task-based person plays into this game’s basic premise very well; I love methodically working my way through the side missions of every planet out there before I go back to the main quest line, because I just can’t bear to leave any little silver question marks or exclamation points on the board. And there are plenty to clear. Like, right now. I, uh… have to go…. take care of….. stuff…….

Recap:

Current backlog total: 112

Now playing: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360); Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3); Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (DS); Resident Evil 5 (360)

New games added: Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS); Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume (DS); Suikoden Tierkreis (DS)

Games completed: none… shame on me

Some Other Podcast, Episode 2: Tequila of the Dead

Leah — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:28:06 +0000

What better day is there to drink and talk about games and drink than St. Patrick’s Day? Yeah, that’s what we thought too. To make up for the delay caused by my zombie plague, we are extra awesome this week, even though we forgot to introduce ourselves: for those of you not paying attention, I’m Leah Haydu, the one who talks too much, and the lady over there with the actual technical knowledge and the bat is Elaine Stryker. Tune in for discussion on Resident Evil 5, Bioshock 2, the DS as a puzzle platform, and more! Just remember, zombies love tequila too.

Linkity link link links:

Resident Evil 5

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Peggle DS

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Bioshock 2

The Behemoth (make sure you check out the trailer for Game 3!)

New Play Controls on the Wii

Break music for this episode is from Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy.”

Feeeeeedback! Send it to podcast AT someothercastle.com, pretty please. I like it when people write things to us. Keeps the violence at bay….. sometimes.

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Weeks 5 & 6: The Plague Intrudes

Leah — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:11:31 +0000

The reasons I didn’t update my backlogged adventures last week are twofold: first, because I came down with a nasty case of the death (this is also the reason the podcast has been delayed), and second, because…. well, because not much happened in Week 5. However, I have made some progress since then, and I’ve also made a resolution, which I’ll hopefully be able to stick to (although really, I’m not holding my breath…)

My resolution is this: unless it starts with the words “Disgaea,” “Fire Emblem,” or of course, “Final Fantasy,” I’m not buying any more tactics games. I’m done. I never finish them, and they generally end up frustrating me, because I’m not very good at them. They’re tricky, though, because they like to masquerade as the type of hyper-Japanese game for which I have a regrettable weakness. What this ultimately means for my backlog is this: aside from weeding out a bunch of those games which didn’t make the cut (I’m not listing them all, but you can check out my backlog page if you’re really interested), I also stopped playing Ninjatown. Ninjatown was great for the time that I continued to manage progress through it, and it almost made me forget that it was a strategy game because it was just so gosh-darn cute. Eventually, though, the truth will out, and once I got to a particular stage that defeated me a solid dozen times in a row, I decided it was time for me to pack up and move on. That’s about when I made my resolution, too, so there has been a noticeable reduction in backlog size as a result.

Okay, I have another confession to make. I…. I sorta like Star Ocean. Just a little, I swear! It’s really pretty, and the battle system is addictive…. truth to tell, I’m a little afraid I’ll end up like I did with Tales, just playing in ridiculous chunks until my friends are worried about me. I do have one complaint, though (well, aside from the voice acting, which is downright abysmal in a couple of cases…. Lymle, I’m looking at you), and it’s at least partially of my own making. Right now, the game just seems really *easy*. I don’t need for it to be cripplingly difficult or anything, but I’m beginning to wish I’d picked the next difficulty level up (I went with the easiest… yes, I know, cop-out, but after my last experience with the series, I wasn’t taking any chances). As we’ve discussed before, I am a bit of a completionist, which often leads to me being a bit of a leveler, by necessity if nothing else, but I haven’t even really done that much of that, and I’m still tearing things apart with minimal effort. This is a complaint you won’t often hear from me, but I find myself wishing it were harder (hehe, that’s what she said).

Upcoming will be Puzzle Quest: Galactrix as well as Resident Evil 5; the first I’m playing at the same time as my esteemed colleague, and the second we will be playing together, so it should be good times all around. It’s good to have someone else to help you scream at things.

Recap:

Current backlog total: 109

Now playing: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360); Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3); Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (DS); Resident Evil 5 (360)

New games added: Phantasy Star Portable (PSP); Avalon Code (DS); Resident Evil 5 (360)

Games completed: Ninjatown (DS); a bunch of strategy games (various)

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Week 4: I Don’t Even Like Star Ocean

Leah — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:08:14 +0000

I believe we’ve already discussed my brief tryst with Prinny, so I think we can consider that particular subject closed. However, I did start some actual enjoyable games this week, including one that I’m still a little iffy about, but about which I am trying to keep a cautiously optimisitic outlook.

I’m kind of a Square Enix fangirl. I know, right? This is clearly new and shocking information. However, I’ve just never been able to really get into the Star Ocean series, which has always disturbed me. I feel like I should like it, but I think the thing that’s always thrown me off is the battle system. I’m not really a fan of real-time combat in the first place, and when you add in the fact that, in the last Star Ocean game I tried (it was Till The End of Time, incidentally), the AI appeared to be functionally retarded, I just ended up dying a lot, which isn’t fun for anyone. In fact, when I played TTEOT, I was still laboring under the belief that it was a sin to give up on a game once I had started it (a view which I have long since abandoned). I got something like 22 hours into the game, and I’m pretty sure at least 20 of those hours were spent cursing and/or throwing controllers. My roommate and friends actually had to stage an intervention and remove the game from me by force to get me to stop playing it, for my own good. True story.

Anyway, it took me a long time to convince myself that the Star Ocean series might be worth another try, and so it was with a certain degree of trepidation that I purchased the newest entry for the 360, The Last Hope. I’m about two hours in at this point, which is just far enough for me to have watched roughly an hour’s worth of cutscenes (oh, Square…), gone through the tutorial portion, and bumbled around getting used to killing stuff for a bit. So far…. so good. I’m much happier with the AI this time around, and, perhaps due to the fact that I just spent all that time on Tales, real-time doesn’t give me nearly as much trouble anymore, so the combat is much better than I remember. You actually build up your own bonuses via your actions in combat by adding tiles to what they call a “Battle Board;” for instance, if you pull off a Blindside attack, which essentially amounts to dodging around an enemy while they’re busy trying to pummel you, you get a tile that awards you 10% extra experience at the end of each battle, until the board is broken (which happens if your party leader suffers a critical hit or is incapacitated). I really like this feature, and I’m curious to see how it’ll affect the rest of the game.

I also started Ratchet and Clank for the PS3, a game which I’ve had, sealed in plastic, pretty much since I got the PS3. I’ve actually never played a Ratchet game before, but I really enjoyed the demo, so I went ahead and picked it up. Platformers done well are a beautiful thing, and based on what I’ve seen so far, this qualifies. The graphics are lovely, the controls are simple and responsive, and the weapons and dialogue are amusingly cute while avoiding being too kiddie. I kind of wish I’d played this sooner.

I did complete LocoRoco 2 this week, and even though that’s one down from the backlog, I have to say I’m sorry to see it go. I mean, really, how many games let you pull out a boss’s nose hairs…. nay, demand that you pull out a boss’s nose hairs? Just one. This one. I’m very concerned about my Mui Mui, though, and will likely return to this game to make sure that they have a properly outfitted home, free from Bui Bui invasion. I fucking LOVE this game.

Recap:

Current backlog total: 113

Now playing: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360); Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3); Ninjatown (DS)

New games added: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360); Legacy of Ys: Books 1 & 2 (DS); Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (DS)

Games completed: LocoRoco 2 (PSP)