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The Review : Is Brave Story a Proper JRPG?

As you can tell, I really love classic style console role-playing games, and Brave Story is a perfect old school example of one. Brave Story is a new game, but everything about it feels old school. You have this unremarkable kid who ends up becoming the savior of a world, loyal friends and companions he meets along the way and evil enemies he must defeat, rivals he takes back on the right path and plenty of adventure along the way.

The mechanics of Brave Story are not too complicated. You have your primary attributes which grow with experience and get increased by equipment. As you level up, you learn new skills, and as your party members grow fonder of you, you learn new unity skills, which are combo attacks involving multiple characters. Your companions can change their weapon and armor, while the main character’s sword upgrades during the story. Each character can also equip three accessories which are either found, bought or crafted, provided you find the right recipe.

Brave Story - Screen 1

The graphics are in the 3D anime style, with the level of quality close to the PS2.

There are plenty of characters in Brave Story, but you are slightly encouraged to choose a fixed group to play the game with. Still, switching isn’t impossible and if you like, you could max out every one of them.

Brave Story also includes plenty of side quests, which provide rewards in the form of new crafting recipes, equipment or various other items which help you on your main quest. You can also catch birds in special mini games, which you can then use in bird fights and acquire even more rewards this way. There’s plenty to do aside from the main quest and you don’t have to wait until you reach the end game to do a lot of those things. It is, however, much easier to complete the side quests once you can freely fly around the map.

Once you come to that point, you also get to visit an extra hard bonus dungeon, where you can fight a special boss, for even more rewards. The graphics are simple, but nice and the characters are very detailed. The sound is just as good. Brave Story looks and feels like one of the classic PlayStation era JRPGs so any fan will truly love it. In any case, if you love a good JRPG, you won’t go wrong with Brave Story. It’s one of the best games of this genre the PSP has to offer. While we’re at it, I should also recommend watching the Anime. It has different characters, which appear in the game as cameos you can actually play with for a while.

The Verdict

Score: 9/10

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The Review: Is Final Fantasy II – Anniversary Edition Worthy of Its Legacy?

This was the other remake I completed on my PSP and I have to say, it’s just as good, even better than the first. I must admit, I haven’t played this one in its original edition so I have nothing to compare it against except various reviews of the original by other people. Again we have the beautiful high resolution (for the PSP screen) 2D graphics, the recognizable Final Fantasy music and the good old Square style which seems lost on the newer games. Again, not much has changed from the original, other than the addition of the optional dungeons. Again, we have the pure retro RPG experience.

Final Fantasy II - Anniversary Edition - Screen 2

Everything looks beautiful. The graphics alone would have been upgrade enough.

So why is it better then? Because the original Final Fantasy II was better than the original Final Fantasy I. It had a more complex story, a more complex level up system and many of the “rookie” mistakes of the first game were fixed. This time, there are no levels and no experience.

Whatever it is that you use in battle is what increases after it. Use sword attacks? Your sword skill and offensive physical attributes increase. Get hit by spells? Your spell resistance goes up. Use a spell? Its level will increase. This is a system that is extremely simple to use and understand, but that at the same times creates a huge complexity in your choices. There is also no limit to it. If you use your characters in a certain way, you will get your tanks, mages, healers, and other typical roles, but there is nothing stopping you from doing some grinding and building up characters.

Final Fantasy II - Anniversary Edition - Screen 1

The high resolution 2D graphics look amazing. They boosted the spell effects to.

As I understand from other people, this system was also a bit of an issue in the original game. You could abuse the system by attacking your own party members, which would always give a more sizable increase compared to regular enemies. You were even encouraged to do so to go past the pretty high difficulty level the original game was known for. I don’t know if they really changed this, but throughout my playthrough of the remake, I never once felt the need to do this. At a few points, the difficulty of the game would increase quite a bit, but with a bit of smart spell use, my characters would quickly catch up.

The Verdict

To conclude, Final Fantasy II – Anniversary Edition is true to its roots and a great Final Fantasy game. It gets an absolute recommendation from me.

Score: 9/10

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The Review: Is Final Fantasy I – Anniversary Edition Worth It?

Since my PSP finally got hacked, I can “afford” to play games on it. Final Fantasy I – Anniversary Edition is one of the games I managed to complete in the last few months. All in all, it’s a remake true to its roots. Not much in the mechanics has changed, but the whole game received an excellent graphical face-lift, without losing its retro charm.

While the DS remakes of Final Fantasy are fun, the 3D graphics aren’t really that nice and, in my opinion, take away from the experience. On the PSP, however, Square decided to stick to 2D sprites, but made them in beautiful, high resolution which looks excellent on the PSP screen. The characters, backgrounds, enemies, effects, everything has been upgraded.

The mechanics of Final Fantasy I, however, remained the same. You get to choose between several classes, which differentiate in their stat growth on level up, equipment they can wear, and the maximum spell level they can eventually use. Each class can also, in mid to endgame, be upgraded, allowing for even higher level spells and more equipment. Final Fantasy I was one of the first proper console role playing games so the mechanics are pretty simple for today’s standards. This is why those who played these games in the past will love them, while those that started gaming recently might find them a bit dull or tedious. The frequent random battles do not help with this.

Other than the graphical upgrade, Final Fantasy I – Anniversary Edition also received a set of bonus dungeons, each with an elemental orientation and each unlocked after killing the associated elemental boss in the main story. The dungeons hold strong opponents and extra treasure, but not much else.

All in all, this is a game that true fans of the franchise should definitely play through. As for everyone else, try it. Some might give up after a while, but for those that stick with it to the end, it will be worth it.

The Verdict

Score: 8/10

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Devil’s Tuning Fork

I downloaded this free game because I found the concept interesting. Basically, you are blind and you use a tuning fork to navigate around the world from a first person perspective. You use the left mouse button to fire a high frequency sound which then bounces of walls and outlines the area around you, or you can use a slower frequency sound with the right mouse button in order to detect weak floors and stuff like that. You can also use a charged up sound which is then fired to an area you target and then it spreads from there. This is used to outline distant areas or trigger bells and stuff like that.

Anyway, it’s an interesting concept, which looks great, but I’m not really sure how good the game is. It feels more like a novelty than anything else. There is a story somewhere in there to, and it seems to be scary or something, but I didn’t really feel it, as it’s to abstract.

Rogue Survivor

A zombie survival roguelike, of all things. Again, I’ve found this to be an interesting concept, but it’s still really early in development so it feels a bit cumbersome to play. Still, this looks like it could become the next minecraft/dwarf fortress if done well. I haven’t played it to much, but I will definitely follow it along.

Well, as you see, I decided to do something about my lack of playing games lately. I will try to find a cool game every now and then to “review” and even provide a link if the game is free. There are really some gems out there that should be discovered by more people so hopefully, a couple more will discover them thanks to a post here.

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After lots and lots of justice dispensing and pure, 100% heroism, I managed to rescue 6 out of the total of 8 orphans, but the major still wasn’t satisfied. I also made a unicorn crap himself, helped a Leprechaun escape from the Leprechaun mafia, helped a guy build a high class village for the rich and wealthy, brought some stone and dirt for food for a really, really poor village, reconciled a smelly farmer and his wife, killed some demons, exorcised a village full of ghosts, killed a bunch of orques and all kinds of truly, truly heroic stuff.

More DeathSpank Art

A truly heroic man, that DeathSpank.

Since the major would do nothing, I decided to try and go find the other two orphans, at the castle of lord von Prong, the big boss behind the artifact and orphan theft. As luck would have it, they were looking for the remaining six orphans so, since I already had them, they decided to lower the drawbridge and let me in. I killed a bunch of orques in there, saved the last two orphans and ran into a locked gate.

I decided to go and return all of the orphans to the major, who organized a huge press conference, got some major publicity for his election and, in the end, instead of giving me the promised 100 000$, game me an I.O.U., stupid major. I went to talk to the old retarded grandpa to ask how to open the locked gate and, more importantly, how to defeat lord von Prong. He said that I need a sword, the Pronginator 3000 or something, and he will make it for me, if I get him the ingredients. He needs some 6×6 plain pelt, a lock of von Prong’s hair and some demon ore.

First I went and got the ore from the Demon Mines, that was easy enough. Then I went to look for the pelt salesman on the road east of town. He wasn’t on his usual spot, but I did find some dragon poo there, and more of it down the road. I followed the trail of poo to an old orc camp, where I found and defeated the dragon. Turns out, the dragon ate the salesman, so he climbed out of him now. I bought the plain 6×6 piece of pelt, and all that was left was the lock of hair. I remembered there’s a wig that von Prong wore in his museum so I went to try and take it, but the guards wouldn’t let me touch it. I asked them when they are leaving and they said at pi’o’clock, when it’s lunch time. I spoke to the guy next to the clock outside, but he wouldn’t ring the bell, since it wasn’t pi’o’clock yet. He also said that there’s a song that the lord usually sings which always brakes the clock, so I went back to the museum and played the song on the record player there. The clock shattered and the orque outside asked me what time it is. I said it was pi’o’clock, so he rang the bell and the guards went for lunch.

I took the hair and brought all of the stuff to the retarded grandpa. He gave me the sword, so I went back to the castle, where I promptly kicked von Prong’s ass. The mysterious, yet strangely attractive red-haired woman appeared again and thanked me for killing von Prong. However, she also said my mission is not over and revealed that von Prong was wearing the same type of thong DeathSpank was wearing. The difference is, my thong gave me the power to be the dispenser of justice and a hero to the downtrodden, while his just corrupted him. Anyways, there are more people in the world with the same thongs, so I have to deal with them to.

That, however, is a story for another time, since the narrator is really tired now.

THE END.

A Poster for DeathSpank 2 - Thongs of Virtue

A Poster for DeathSpank 2 – Thongs of Virtue

Anyways, see you guys in the next episode…

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It’s time to dispense justice!

After Shank, it was time to tackle this gem. Now, before you say anything, the game is simple, somewhat dull even. What saves it is the awesome humor. Without humor, I would play it for an hour and probably leave it. With it, I will probably complete it soonish.

DeathSpank Art

DeathSpank, a true Hero!

Anyways, our hero, DeathSpank, was looking for a powerful artifact, called “The Artifact”. He was lead to it’s location by a young boy, but they got ambushed and the boy got killed. He managed to finds the hut of the witch who allegedly holds the artifact, but she said it is stored in the nearby Demon Cave and I have to get a few items before going there.

Long story short, I helped a lazy fisherman, saved a little girl’s lemonade, err, I mean potion stand, killed a bunch of little monster thingies, destroyed a huge slime, stole cherries from a farmer to color some white horns red and give them to the witch, kicked the crap out of some demons, literally and eventually entered the Demon Cave. I got The Artifact, in spite of warnings from a guardian monk and went to give it to a mysterious red haired girl that asked me to get it (the motivation).

Before I managed to do that, I was ambushed by Orque and two of his orque bullies, got all of my stuff and the artifact stolen and left on the road. The red haired girl found me, told me where the nearest town was and said I should help the town with an orphan issue. I went there, got a new sword from an old retarded grandpa in exchange for an extra spicy taco, kicked the orque bullies’ asses, and got my gear back, then I saved two of the orphans, gave an escort to a merchant, killed Orque, cleared a monastery inhabited by very loud monks, hunted some Blinks, killed swamp donkeys in the swamp, explored two caves, killed some pipsqueeks and bigger pips, found another Demon Cave and found another girl in there.

The demon guarding her actually wanted me to kill him so he could be free of her, and soon, I found out why. She wouldn’t get in the bag so I could save her. She said I have to give her candy first before she will be getting in any bags, so I had to go buy candy at the town store. I was ambushed by orques on the way there. I gave her the candy and then she wanted a cell phone, so I had to go buy a cell phone at the town store. I was ambushed by stronger orques on the way there. Then she wanted a pony so I had to go buy a pony at the town store. I was ambushed by bigger orques on the way there. After all this, she said she wanted a daddy. I would have been touched by this, but by that time, I really, really hated her. Even though DeathSpank is prohibited by law to have children, he decided to be her daddy for a day and finally got her into the bag. I went back to town and left the game.

You can probably expect an update tomorrow.

“The evil of devils cannot compare to the evil of men because men are jerks.”

– Some Jerk