I meant to post here not long after beating StarCraft II‘s Terran campaign, and to devote an entire post to my impressions of the story and campaign structure, but I got sucked back into Dragon Quest IX so quickly again. Also, I’m a procrastinator.

Seriously, though, DQIX is incredibly addictive. I finally saw the credits roll yesterday afternoon, and though the basic meat of the plot is relatively straightforward and shouldn’t take too long to complete, thanks to all of the other things to do, my beat time was 125:27:02. And there’s still a lot more left in the postgame! However, I’m not even thinking about that stuff right now. For the time being, I’m Dragon Quested out.

"Darlin', when I squint my eyes at you, you better listen."

What else has been going on with me, gaming-wise? As I said before, I beat the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty campaign. The missions had an incredible amount of variety compared with the original and Brood War, but in general, they also felt easier (it must be noted here that StarCraft II‘s campaign has difficulty settings; I played the entire thing on Normal). The easier, more diverse play compliments a story that, while serviceable, lacks some of the raw… je ne sais quois of the previous games. Certain things, most notably Raynor’s relationship to Kerrigan, are less ambiguous, and there is more humor and in-joking than ever before. One minor pop culture reference in particular was, while silly, somewhat anachronistic considering the setting.

Some of this can be attributed to the new structure in place for the between-mission bits. Instead of a dingy briefing room with an android adjutant, where you are a commander working with General Duke or whoever, you are an observer aboard a battlecruiser, with Raynor as your main character, a detached sort of avatar. A more human angle has been given to the story in the form of Raynor’s conversations with his shipmates and others, but in exchange, something has been lost. I’m not sure which approach I prefer.

The character models and voices are also worth mentioning. Raynor still has his smooth Southern drawl and still squints when he’s upset, but his face is no longer lean, but meaty, and he has an equally meaty build to go with it. His hair is darker as well. Kerrigan, in brief glimpses of her old human form, is more fair-skinned than I imagined her to be through StarCraft‘s crude character portraits, and I’m not too crazy about her new voice. Mengsk and Zeratul fare better, and in general, the new characters are well done.

I think I have a pretty good idea of at least some of what the next campaign, the Zerg one, might bring. It doesn’t have quite the same magic as the original (and its expansion), but StarCraft II is still damn good, and I’m looking forward to the rest.

Light Cycles!

Another thing I played recently—well, more like messed around with: Kingdom Hearts II, believe it or not. Compared to the original and even the low-key GBA spinoff Chain of Memories, KHII felt like weak sauce, dumbed down with a convoluted and contradictory story, QTE-style special attacks, and some Disney worlds that, design-wise, paled in comparison to their Kingdom Hearts equivalents. However, it did have some redeeming qualities, like the improved Gummi Ship schmup sections, a certain visually stunning minigame in the Hundred Acre Wood, and a few great worlds, like Space Paranoids, the KHII home of Tron.
 
My husband became curious about the upcoming movie Tron: Legacy after we saw a trailer before Inception. Neither of us had seen the original Tron, though I was familiar with its reputation as an early pioneer in the field of computer animated special effects, and so we rented it. Tron wasn’t very good story-wise, but it was a visual treat, and reminded me a lot of its appearance in Kingdom Hearts II. Wanting to show KHII‘s Tron world, Space Paranoids, to my husband, I fired up the PS2 and loaded up my starred save game. Unfortunately, I had forgotten how to travel between worlds, so I did a lot of needless backtracking before finally caving in and looking up how to do it. As I traveled through Space Paranoids—including Light Cycle and Solar Sailer rides—and recalled my experience playing through the story bits, I saw just how much of the movie had made it into the game. In this respect, Space Paranoids is no different from most other worlds in the series, but considering that I hadn’t seen Tron until now, it was neat to gain this new perspective on it.

The last couple of games on my recent agenda have been Plants vs. Zombies and Kirby Super Star. In the former, I killed lots of time in two (successful) attempts to get a couple more Steam trophies. The latter’s last and toughest minigame took me a long time and many attempts, but I finally beat it on the last day of August. I had a good time with both games, though Kirby took a little while to grow on me.

That’s about all for now. The next game I plan on starting is Metroid Prime (the Wii-enhanced version), and after that, Etrian Odyssey II. I’ve also been neglecting my Pokeymans, so I suppose I’ll have to pick up Platinum again as well. Oh, and I’ve added some more links to (where else) the Links page. On a related note, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve also made a few small cosmetic changes to the site over the past couple of months. I don’t know if I’ll do any more such tweaking, but it’s certainly not out of the question, and if you spot anything that looks out of place in the meantime, please let me know.

I’ve been back for awhile now, but have been either too lazy, busy, or tired to update this place. I did, however, post at my CAG blog; there, I shared a whole set of photos from the Dragon Quest IX launch event that took place a little over a week ago at Manhattan’s Nintendo World Store. There were lots of people, demo stations, freebies, and frozen treats from a Dragon Quest-themed Mister Softee truck.

This slime is almost as big as my backlog!

Funnily enough, although I got DQIX a day early, I didn’t actually start playing the damned thing until the following Monday. I’ve played quite a bit of it since then, though. It’s an unusual game for the franchise, in terms of how it breaks with tradition, though I don’t have anything bad to say about it so far. I do wish the dungeon designs were more puzzle-intensive, along the lines of certain ones in earlier Dragon Quest games, but that sort of thing doesn’t seem to be Level-5′s strong suit. This game also seems to have eased the difficulty in certain subtle ways, which I feel ambivalent about. On the other hand, a feature that I really like reminds me of one of Earthbound‘s best: enemies—which are all now visible on the field—are likely to run away from your party if you’re too strong.

I’ve also made a lot of progress in Pokemon Platinum. Actually, that was the only game I played on the trip, which means Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes has been relegated to the backlog for the time being. Later, I put Platinum down upon starting DQIX, then picked it up again this weekend. I’m currently up to five gym badges and am beefing up my team before taking on Pokemon Gym #6 (not its real name).

Along with the DS RPGs, I’ve been plugging away at Kirby Super Star, but I don’t know when I’ll beat it, though I’m very close to being done with everything, save the minigames, which I’ve mostly ignored. And then there’s StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, which will arrive here in less than ten days in all its Collector’s Edition glory. Right now the plan is to beat DQIX before SC2 gets here, which will leave my August free for a super-long, and super-shiny, Terran campaign, plus some possible multiplayer and/or modding.

Oh, and my birthday happened. One of the presents I received was an Amazon gift card, which was spent in part on a used copy of Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, an Atlus-published roguelike I’ve had my eye on. It’s now in the backlog pile, along with Clash of Heroes. Plus, I preordered Etrian Odyssey III, which is due out in September, since I had to have that artbook.

Every year, gamers complain about the “drought” that happens in the summer. Pssh. Even without Dragon Quest IX and StarCraft 2, I would be overwhelmed; there’s just so much in my backlog, and so much more I haven’t even picked up yet, like late-winter and spring releases Bayonetta, Nier, and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Come the fall, while my husband is consumed by Civilization V and World of WarCraft: Cataclysm, there will be the aforementioned Etrian Odyssey III, along with Rune Factory 3 and, if it turns out to be any good, Front Mission Evolved. Then there’s the “epic” games that I will not get right away but will likely pick up sometime, namely Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Disney Epic Mickey.

I want more “drought” time, dammit!

Rather, it’s Steam’s fault as to why I haven’t been posting here lately. They had a sale on Tropico 3 that I couldn’t pass up, so I bit on that, and also finally picked up Plants vs. Zombies, and ended up being hooked on them both. Oh, and if those two weren’t enough, on the same day I bought them, Kirby Super Star came out on Virtual Console! It’s been a long time since I purchased three games in one day, and I think three downloadable titles all at once is a personal first.

You said it, Crazy Dave.

Plants vs. Zombies was the first of the three I dove into, playing all the way through to the end of Adventure mode and then some, until all the minigames and other extra game modes were cleared. Tropico 3, being a management sim, was a much lengthier time-sink, moreso when taken into consideration the fact that a fair number of the campaign’s missions simply require you to stay in power for a set amount of time, rather than just amass a certain amount of resources or some such. Both games had their share of quirks and annoyances—the latter moreso than the former—but I’ll get into those later, really. I also have to beat Dragon Quest V, but one reason I’ve been putting that off, besides the PC game distractions, is that I don’t want it to end…

Have to play more of Kirby Super Star as well. Did clear the first two platforming games in this most unusual collection of little Kirbies—neither of which did much for me—awhile ago, but recently I went back to it and made some more progress in “The Great Cave Offensive”, a treasure-hunting platformer which is pretty decent. I’m still dreading additional attempts at the racing/eating game against King Dedede, which gets especially tricky on the third course (no pun intended); they’re the types of races where memorization will doubtless play a big role in beating the damned things.

Also, been going back to Pokemon Platinum every once in awhile. I’m currently somewhere in the third gym. Party-wise, Bronzor’s kicking ass and Combee is the cutest thing to happen since Piplup. One thing that’s annoying about only playing Pokemon occasionally is that all the berries that I had planted die out. Oh well. However, I’ll be going away on a trip at the end of the month, which will, hopefully, give me ample opportunity to rebuild my berry hoard.

Finally, I made an attempt at Cave Story‘s Sacred Grounds (aka “Hell”) a few weeks ago. This required playing through the entire game again in order to unlock the place, and although the WiiWare version’s “easy” mode made this a snap, I messed up one of the requirements more than halfway through and had to start all over again. The second time around, I got the secret, “hardcore” version of the Last Cave and, after the endgame, was able to descend into the even more intimidating Sacred Grounds itself. I managed to make it all the way to the first form of Hell’s final boss before dying, and this, remember, was on easy. There’s no way I would’ve made it that far in normal mode. Anyway, after giving up, I looked up a speed run on YouTube (spoilers, of course). Braggadocious, of course, but more importantly, insane.

Coming soon, some reviews! That is, if I’m not sucked into more PC games this week…

Here’s the second part of my PAX account. By the way, I’ve started that photo gallery on deviantART, but I’m still looking for pics. Thanks again!

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One quick note before I begin: I’m looking for PAX East cosplay pics on deviantART. If you see (or have added) any over there, please post a reply with a link or links; thanks.

Now, on with the post, which is rather long, even though it’s just the first part. Co-starring my partner in crime; some of you may know him by his old FFVII Citadel handle, Cyrus Dogstar.

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I apologize for the lack of posts lately; it’s been a busy holiday season. Since I last wrote here, I’ve beaten Radiata Stories, read most of the holiday issue of Edge (purchased in large part because I wanted to see why they gave Bayonetta a 10[!!!]), did the Christmas thing (Ratchet & Clank was my sole game gift, but just everything else I got was great), played a lot of Planet Puzzle League, started playing the DS port of Chrono Trigger (which is excellent), played with pets, did the New Year’s thing, bought my first game of 2010 (Forza Motorsport 2, Platinum Hits version), came back home, ordered pizza, put stuff away, and now… here I am again. Oh, and I played the Torchlight demo this afternoon; good stuff, but I have a tendency to drop Diablo-style games after awhile, so I won’t be getting this one, at least not right now, even though Steam’s $5 sale price expires after today.

D:

There’s a lot I want to write about, and plan on doing so throughout the month. For now, though, a backlog update. I usually do these things in the spring, but I figured that it would make more sense to move these posts to the beginning of the year, which is when I’m setting my gaming goals and starting the year’s Beaten Games Tab anyway. So, yes, I have a lot of games to play. Again. And I think Rogue Galaxy is now in its fourth or fifth year of having gone unplayed.

With that said, here’s my must-play games for 2010:
• Rogue Galaxy – For obvious reasons.
• Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story – The other DS RPG I brought with me to play over Christmas/New Year’s. Sadly, I haven’t gotten around to starting it yet.
• Chrono Cross – Sometime before March, or PAX East, at least.
• SMT: Nocturne and SMT: Persona 3 FES
• Tales of the Abyss
• Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
• Halo – I’ve had this in my PC stack of shame for years. Figure it’s about time I pop it in and see what all the fuss is about.

Out of my twelve 2009 must-plays, I managed to beat eight of them, gave up on one due to annoyance (Billy Hatcher), and never touched the final three (the non-Digital Devil Saga MegaTen games). Not too shabby, methinks. And while I’m at it, here are all of the games I beat in 2009. If all goes well, the 2010 Beaten Games Tab will be posted on my LJ account tomorrow.

More later, including my annual Roundup. Stay tuned…