Game Journal: The Vast Star Ocean

I'm still thoroughly engrossed in Star Ocean: The Last Hope. I'm finding that the closer to the end of the game I get, the more there is to do. There isn't much I skipped in the first half of the game, but I have yet to step foot in the coliseum on Roak for anything other than continuing the story. There's also a handful of shop orders that I didn't finish on Roak and a metric crap-ton of quests and shop orders that I have to finish on En II. (None of that will make sense if you haven't played the game quite a bit.)

This isn't even beginning to mention the new quests and private actions that are now available on all the available planets, or the crafting I'd like to do to outfit my characters with the best weapons possible before the post-game dungeons. Its like an RPG overload, but I'm determined to work through it and at least have a crack at those uber-hard bosses and areas that are only available after you beat the main game.

At the same time, I'm poking around in Chrono Trigger (DS). I know it’s a sin among RPG fans, but I never played the game in any previous incarnation and am actually starting to believe a handheld platform is one of the best ways to experience some of these old-school RPGs via remakes and ports. I'll talk about this more in my review, but it lends itself very well to the whole idea of portable gaming, given the frequency of places you are allowed to save your progress (unlike some new handheld RPGs).

In addition to all that, my brother an I worked through a few levels on Braid the other day. That game hurts my head with its complex puzzles, I'm beginning to thing its too hardcore for my tastes. Perhaps hardcore isn't quite the word - too flat out confusing (although I'm sure my brother would disagree). While it introduces a new and often-praised mechanic, it seems to me that its just a different, slightly less annoying way to fit a "trial and error" system into the game. Instead of "start from the last checkpoint" its "rewind time and do it over until you figure it out". In fact, sometimes I think a "start from the last checkpoint" mechanic would have been quicker and less tedious. (Review inbound for this title, as well.)

Star Ocean, Braid and The HotSpot, Oh My!

Star Ocean: The Last Hope came out yesterday, and I spent approximately nine hours playing it. The review scores so far have been a bit higher than I expected for a JRPG - 8/10 from IGN, 4/5 from X-Play. Those are not bad scores by any means. Considering the fact that I'm a fan of the genre, some of their cons would likely not even register with me. I'm sounding a bit reserved about this game, don't you think? I mean, it’s the Xbox 360 system-seller for me, its why I bought a 360 in the first place, it’s a game I've been looking forward to for quite a while. Why am I not gushing in joy about this latest Star Ocean?

Trust me, there will be plenty of time for gushing when I finish my review. I don't want to jump to conclusions or spoil that review by discussing things before hand. I'd like to play at least 30-40 hours before I finish things up and put the last polish on, even though I've started the review already. Its more than the bullet-point pros/cons list I've had in the past, and will hopefully be my new standard for game reviews here.

In other news, I wanted to buy Braid ever since I played the demo and this week is probably the best time to do so, since the game is being sold at a discounted price to Xbox Live Gold members. I bought it and played through the first level (which was on the demo, so I breezed through it). I likely won't continue until I'm done with Star Ocean, but I wanted to get it this week anyway, since its discounted by 33%.

What else do I have on deck after Star Ocean? Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride and Tales of Vesperia most likely. I can finally dust off my DS for some portable gaming action.

I also must say, I love The HotSpot, GameSpot's weekly podcast. Those guys crack me up. I used to listen to it all the time, but since I didn't have an iPod for a while, I wasn't able to listen to it at work and didn't have time at home. I can once again (new orange 16GB nano) and it is glorious!