Can you dig it? OK, check this: some online games are free to play, but they trick you into wasting hundred of dollars buying pointless baubles that make your character look like a faerie princess or something. But some of them are actually pretty good! And some are really awful.
Here's some that I played:
Need for Speed World
It combines all the thrills of fast-paced NFS racing action with RPG grinding and F2P cash grabs. For a few bucks, your level can advance faster! Fun! But the game itself is actually pretty solid, if you're just interested in single player racing and the always-good pursuit mode. The graphics are pretty good too, almost as good as a retail title.
Definitely worth playing.
Lord of the Rings Online
Went F2P just within the past few days, so I decided to jump in and check it out. Basically, this is your go-to F2P MMO now. It's solidly built, focuses more on PvE and solo'ing, and just overall looks and feels like a real game. I haven't played as much of this as some of the others, but I've seen enough to know that this is some good stuff.
Definitely worth playing.
Dungeons & Dragons Online
This is Turbine's previous MMO before LOTRO, so you can expect a similar level of quality. It plays out in much of the same way as it successor and injects more story into the game than most other F2P games. With LOTRO F2P now, it's kind of hard to really recommend it though.
Worth playing.
Monster Forest
An anime-inspired frolic through bright colors and non-threatening situations. On the other hand, it's surprisingly fun and has a nice, detailed art style. It's also got turn-based combat, pet collecting, farming, and other little additions that manage to set it apart from the crowded pack. The real downside is that it's painfully easy, with leads to boredom after a while.
Might be worth playing.
Aika Online
A bit of a standard WoW knockoff with all your favorite fantasy tropes, but it does have nice, speedy combat and detailed characters. Story's pretty thin and it features a decent amount of grinding, but it's certainly not all bad. I've played it for a few hours and I have enjoyed it so far.
Worth playing.
Shaiya
WoW knockoff big time, might be an even worse offender in this regard than Aika Online, but that impression could come more from my disdain for the drab art style. Either way, it's a lot like Aika Online, but less fun. It's reasonably well built, but...
Might be worth playing.
Mabinogi
Another anime-inspired romp through non-threatening situations. It's a bit more deep in the skill system than Monster Forest and there's enough going on to make things interesting. But the combat is painfully slow and awkward and the dungeons are bland and lifeless.
Might be worth playing.
LaTale
A 2D side-scrolling MMO with cutesy anime visuals and lots and lots of costumes and hair to spend your hard earned American dollars on to fund Asian gold-farming sweatshops. You filthy traitor. It's kind of fun and the graphics are nice to look at, but the combat and movement feel slow and awkward, when they should be really fluid.
Might be worth playing [but you should probably just download Maple Story].
Ranking:
1. Lord of the Rings Online
2. Need for Speed World
3. Dungeons & Dragons Online
4. Aika Online
5. Monster Forest
6. Mabinogi
7. Shaiya
8. LaTale
All of these games are free to download and free to play [provided that you don't enter the game's official store].
Wow... Sure, it doesn't look as good as this same game using "normal" methods, but this is intended as a proof of concept. It won't be something that can be done right now, they're using 4 servers linked together, but think of 5 years from now and we may see GPU/CPU combo chips that can do this themselves, stacking up with other rendering tricks as people learn how to properly make use of this method. The point is just how amazing what it does can do it. I'm in awe over those reflections, but really that's EXACTLY the only way that surface CAN respond to light reflection, which is all ray-tracing is. It's also extremely processor intensive, hence why it's taken so long to get to this point.
Quote:The company behind Mafia Wars and Farmville doesn't like to talk about the sad addicts who fuel its profits. But it does quietly run a special store for them, where imaginary credits are bought with very real bank transfers.
The minimum purchase in Zynga's underground "Platinum Purchase Program" is $500, payable by wire transfer (see email below). The reward over buying online with your credit card: Extra points with which to buy virtual goods for the company's Facebook games. If you refer a friend to the program, you get even more points. Zynga, meanwhile, gets word of mouth, which is especially important since Zynga keeps this bulk sales program hush hush; it's not mentioned on the company website, nor within its games. If you Google for it, you'll get a few complaints for disgruntled customers and a couple of posts from a blogger named "Loot Lady," who writes that it was "hard to find a lot of information out about this" program.
Well, naturally. With top-drawer partners like Apple and Google, Zynga is not going to be keen to draw attention to how much of its profits come from obsessive online gaming junkies, many of them underaged or low income, like the unemployed disabled man the New York Times discovered was spending 16 hous a day on Zynga's YoVille.
But it is keen to tap the market. Indeed, when it comes to game design, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has a predatory attitude toward gamers, and has told his programmers that pumping up profits is more important than the experience of actually playing the game, ex employees say in an excellent new SF Weekly cover story. Disillusioned employees have even reportedly given Zynga an unofficial motto: "Do Evil," an inversion of Google's informal slogan "Don't be evil."
Having explicitly aimed to get people addicted to its mindless, low-quality games — SF Weekly writes that titles like Zynga's are built around a "compulsion loop," which sounds about right — Zynga's not just going to leave money on the table. By setting up a non-refundable, bank-to-bank transfer program, as documented in the Zynga email we obtained and have reproduced below, the company can avoid giving a cut of the revenue to credit card companies and processors. More importantly, the program allows gaming addicts to feed their addictions more conveniently; on Facebook Zynga's game stores can top out at $50 or $200 in virtual credit at a time, effectively turning away the company's best customers.
It's not a pretty notion, the idea of grown humans throwing huge quantities of perfectly good money into electronic addictions. Then again, it's not exactly novel one, either. Zynga deserves credit, at the very least, for going with the tried and true solution of keeping its junkie-serving business in the shadows, rather than throwing it onto the open web in some misguided gesture of transparency. Drug dealers have been doing it this way for centuries, with good reason.
Quote: In light of Zynga’s phenomenal rise, one former senior employee recalls arriving at the company eager to discover what new business practices were driving its success in a market where other popular Web 2.0 ventures struggled to make money. What was Zynga’s secret? Not long after starting work, he got an answer. It came directly from Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus at a meeting. And it wasn’t what he expected.
“I don’t f**king want innovation,” the ex-employee recalls Pincus saying. “You’re not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers.”
Workers at Zynga were fond of joking (albeit half-seriously) that their firm’s unofficial motto was an inversion of Google’s famous “Don’t Be Evil.”
“Zynga’s motto is ‘Do Evil,’” he says. “I would venture to say it is one of the most evil places I’ve run into, from a culture perspective and in its business approach. I’ve tried my best to make sure that friends don’t let friends work at Zynga.”
“We’ve never before seen this kind of deliberate unconcern for the aesthetics of the experience,” says Ian Bogost, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and founding partner of Persuasive Games. He says Zynga’s market-driven approach to the development of simple but addictive applications is “like strip-mining. They don’t really care about the longevity of the form or the experience. … That sort of attitude is the sort of thing you usually hear about from oil companies or pharmaceuticals. You don’t really hear about it in arts and entertainment.”
One of the more common complaints among former Zynga employees is about Pincus’ distaste for original game design and indifference to his company’s products, beyond their ability to make money. “The biggest problem I had with him was that he didn’t know or care about the games being good — the bottom line was the only concern,” a former game designer says. “While I am all for games making money, I like to think there’s some quality there.”
Recettear is a doujin soft game that was, for several years, only available in Japanese. But a newly-formed company has given it a professional translation and an American release on Steam, Impluse, and Gamer's Gate. There's also a demo that gives a pretty good idea of what the game is all about.
And what the game is all about is operating an item shop in a fantasy world, for the purpose of paying off an enormous debt that the main character's absent father incurred. You can pair up with a warrior and go dungeon trawling or you can buy goods from the local merchants, or just plain locals, for resell. Selling involves finding the right price that a customer is willing to pay, which can require some negotiation. You basically have two tries to get the right price before they get upset and leave, so start with an optimistic price and then go down from there.
The dungeon aspect puts you in control of the warrior character as you fight through randomly generated dungeons, the warrior keeps all the gold and the main character collects all the items. That is, of course, if the warrior doesn't get knocked unconscious before finding the exit. If that happens, you get to pick one item to take back.
Everything in the game is based around time. Going to the dungeon takes time, opening the shop for a while takes time, and so on. Since the main character is in debt, that means regular payments to the debt collector. So you have to keep up with buying and selling or else the main character winds up homeless and broke on the street.
I played the demo a while back and it was pretty fun. Not overly complex or filled with an amazing story, but it's a fun little game. To go along with this, the price is only $20.
The Rune Factory series is a spinoff of Harvest Moon, which should be immediately noticeable upon playing any of the three games [2 on the DS with another on the way and one on the Wii]. The major difference is that Rune Factory adds a fantasy bent and combat. Although the combat isn't enough to stand on its own, it adds more things to do and mixes up the age-old farming formula. In terms of weapons, there are swords, axes, hammers, spears, and magic staffs. Each has two different kinds of attacks, one that's the regular attack and another that takes longer to perform [and more action points] but does much more damage. Also, monsters can be befriended and, once this is done, will act in much the same capacity as animals in the Harvest Moon games, although some monsters can actually be given tasks to perform around the farm.
Most of the farming aspect plays out exactly the same as in Harvest Moon, so it doesn't really need to be mentioned.
Basically, think of Rune Factory as the ultimately refinement of the Harvest Moon formula. It's got some great additions and it also takes away some of the aggravation and unnecessary tedium. For example, your characters has a magic spell that automatically transports him to the beginning of a dungeon or, when outside of a dungeon, back home. It makes it much easier to wander a long way from home since you don't have to worry about getting too far away that you can't make it back in time to sleep or to meet an NPC, as they all have their own schedules.
Another thing is that the game looks really good, way better than most Wii games.
Yes, this thread is about 18 months late, but it's not like we talked about it when it first came out anyway!
Some thoughts on all the games I have for a platform- 32X
Titles, in order, in the first post: After Burner, Doom, Fahrenheit (32XCD), Metal Head, Mortal Kombat II, Space Harrier, Star Wars Arcade, Supreme Warrior (32XCD), Tempo, Virtua Racing Deluxe
Second post: Knuckles Chaotix, Motocross Championship, Virtua Fighter
After Burner
--
Good port of the arcade classic scaler-style rail shooter, the first good port of the game. It does run at a lower framerate than the arcade game and is a little blockier, but it looks and plays great. Now that there are perfect ports on the Saturn, Dreamcast, and PS2 this one doesn't matter as much as it did when it came out, but still, it's a very good port and it's great to have -- the Genesis scaler games were almost all awful. As for the game itself, I do find After Burner to be somewhat annoying. It's just too random, you get hit by missiles that you couldn't even see coming far too often. I did manage to beat the game on Easy (when you get game over in this version you get sent well back, so it is a challenge -- another reason to get this version, other ports just have infinite continues from the stage you're on), but the deaths are just too random for me to beat it on Normal. I like Space Harrier more. Still, 32X After Burner Complete is fast, smooth, and great looking. It's too bad they didn't make a 32X scaler racing game like Power Drive, Outrun, Turbo Outrun, or Outrunners, it'd have been just fantastic to have... Oh, on a 6-button controller, you can use the Z button as a fire button. That's awesome, it's kind of like a trigger. You want a 6 button controller for this game. :)
Doom
--
32X Doom looks decent graphically and has a fairly smooth framerate, but features-wise is quite disappointing. I like the SNES version, but this one... yes, the graphics are better than on the SNES, but some other things are seriously lacking. First, 32X Doom has the fewest levels of any released version of Doom -- it only has 17 levels. The original PC game had 27. The Jaguar version, which the 32X version is a port of, had 24, two of which were new, so it had 22 levels that were modified, geometry-reduced versions of the PC levels and two new ones. SNES Doom had 22 levels, though the five levels removed from that version are completely different from the five removed on the Jaguar and its ports -- play both versions and you play all the PC version levels. In comparison, the SNES version actually uses almost unmodified versions of the original levels, which is one reason I like it. (The PC game is from 1993, the Jaguar and 32X versions in 1994, the SNES and Playstation in 1995, the 3DO in 1996, the Saturn in 1997, and the GBA in 2001; all console ports except for the SNES are conversions of the Jaguar version) SNES Doom also has a fantastic soundtrack -- they did a great job making SNES versions of the music. On the 32X however, music is one of the game's greatest weaknesses, While it does at least have music, unlike games like Jaguar Doom or Doom 64 which only have atmospheric sounds, the 32X version's music is so pathetically awful in comparison to the PC or SNES music that it's really sad and makes a big negative impact on the game. So yes, the resolution is higher than SNES Doom, the visuals clearer, and the framerate better, but the levels are less accurate, the music is much worse, and the game isn't a straight port of the PC game like SNES Doom is -- Jaguar Doom and all its ports drop the level map between stages, the episode breakdown (so it's just one "episode"), the between-episode story texts, and more, all things the SNES has. Both versions only have a single facing for enemies, so they are always facing you and can't turn and shoot at eachother and things like that, for space reasons on the carts. In 32X Doom you just have a level select at the main menu -- you can start from any of the 15 main levels, flat out. The only ones you'll have to work for are the two hidden levels. SNES Doom had a somewhat annoying episode select system, and also had no saving, but the 32X's solution is kind of lame really. The biggest problem, though, is definitely the lack of levels. Why is Episode III completely missing from this version? It's pretty sad, and really hurts the game a lot. Still, it does have two or three stages not in SNES Doom, which is nice, and the smooth gameplay is fun. Also this cart is extremely common and cheap, probably the second most common 32X game after Star Wars Arcade, so most people with a 32X will probably end up with a copy at some point. It's worth a try, even if it is disappointing -- but don't expect anything from the music!
Fahrenheit (32X CD)
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Fahrenheit is a live-action video FMV game which includes both Sega Cd and 32XCD versions in the box. The 32XCD version has much better video quality and many more colors in the video, as you'd expect. The five 32XCD games are all FMV titles that use the 32X for better video, and it makes a real difference -- the Sega CD's tight color limit was a big problem, and the difference is huge. As for the games though, they're still live-action-video FMV games, so don't expect much... this one is probably one of the better ones, but it's frustrating. In Fahrenheit you are a firefighter going into burning buildings, trying to find people to rescue and dangerous objects to remove. It's first person, and you go between screens with the arrows then look around and choose what to interact with. Some things will damage you, others help you. It's kind of frustrating and random, the game involves a lot of memorization. The later levels are mazes which are pretty confusing to navigate; even the first, simple level can be a little confusing because of the first-person perspective and how it can be hard to remember exactly what is in each direction at all times. Still, for an FMV game, it's not bad. Hard, but not bad.
Metal Head
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Metal Head is a textured, 3d first person mech shooting game. You walk around in a mech shooting enemies. The graphics are maybe the most impressive thing about this game -- it is the only US-released 32X game with textured polygons, and is one of only two on the platform. However, while impressive for the system, the graphics definitely have aged a lot, and the gameplay is really only average. You walk around, shoot enemy vehicles, walk more, shoot more... you do have missions, so you sometimes have to do something other than shoot, but usually the missions just involve going somewhere and killing the enemies along the way. Levels are rectangular and full of buildings, but the minimap makes it easy to navigate. There is a map, which is nice, and a run button, which is great because the default walking speed is very slow. This is another 32X game that benefits greatly from the 6 button controller, and uses the buttons. Overall Metal Head is okay, but not great.
Mortal Kombat II
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MKII is a good game, and is my favorite game in the Mortal Kombat series. This is a fine version of the game, on its own. However, it's just not that improved from the Genesis, and it's debatable as to whehter it's even as good as SNES MKII. And because of that, it is a little disappointing -- people got the 32X for a sort of next-gen experience, but the games that didn't use polygons often struggled to look much better than Genesis games, greater color use aside. That was particularly true for games like this one that are quick ports of Genesis titles. They did add some things -- there are more colors used in the characters, there's more blood in the backgrounds, etc -- so this is the superior version of the game compared to the Genesis -- but somehow, I'd expect more. Still, it's a fine version of a classic arcade fighting game, so it's well worth having, particularly if you don't have the Genesis or SNES versions of the game.
Space Harrier
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Space Harrier is a true classic, and one of my favorite rail shooters ever. Like After Burner, Space Harrier is a mid '80s scaler game which finally got its first good home port on the 32X. However, like After Burner, Space Harrier is also a game which isn't arcade-perfect on 32X, but does have arcade-perfect releases on Saturn, Dreamcast, PS2, and Wii. The Wii Virtual Arcade version even has motion-control aiming, which is awesome. This 32X version is still great, though, and like After Burner, does make itself worth playing for fans because of the continue system. Both games use a limited continue system where, when you get a game over, you can only continue from two or three points in the game, so you must beat six to eight levels without getting game over. None of the later home ports of the games work like this, so it makes the 32X versions both harder and well worth a try. And 32X Space Harrier is great, a near-perfect port of the game. This really is a fantastic game, with a lot of levels, a very high but doable as you memorize the levels difficulty level, bright, colorful visuals, great art design, and more. Space Harrier is a great game that is a lot of fun to play. It's hard, but worth it. as you zoom along the color-filled stages, shooting a wide variety of crazy creatures and avoiding obstacles. Just get used to hitting that fire button a lot, you'll need to mash A (or B, or C, they all do the same thing) as fast as you can pretty much the whole time you're playing. :)
Star Wars Arcade
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Star Wars Arcade was a 32X launch title in the US, and it was the only system seller the system had in its first holiday season in 1994. The game sold very well, almost 1:1 with the system in the US in holiday 1994. As a result, it's very common and cheap. This is fortunate, because despite some flaws, Star Wars Arcade is a great game well worth getting. Star Wars Arcade is a port of the Sega arcade game of the same name, and is a 3d, shaded polygon space flight combat game. In addition to the original arcade game, there is also a longer Original mode available, so there are two missions to try to complete. You control an X-Wing (single player) or a Y-Wing (2 player co-op, one player flies and the other shoots), destroying TIE Fighters, going over the Death Star surface, going through the Death Star trench and blowing it up, and more. It's a lot of fun. However, it's not perfect. There are two major flaws in the game. First, turning is very slow and stiff, and you have extremely limited up-down movement -- for the most part you just turn left or right and fire. It feels almost like you're on a flat plane, not in space. This is a little disappointing, space fighters do not handle like this. The later 32X title Shadow Squadron had a vastly improved 3d flight system which did allow for full, acrobatic 3d flight, but Star Wars Arcade doesn't have that at all, sadly. Second, the trench missions are incredibly hard and frustrating. To date, I haven't managed to get through either the trench or "flying through the Super Star Destroyer's superstructure" missions yet; the framerate seems lower, and the controls just are not good for flying through tight spaces like those. Even so though, Star Wars Arcade is a great game. The Star Wars theme is great, with the classic music and settig, and the gameplay, through annoying at times, is mostly good. Overall I like the game despite its flaws.
Supreme Warrior (32X CD)
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Supreme Warrior is an utterly abysmal, atrocious FMV game that's so bad that even by the incredibly low standards of Sega CD FMV games, it's a bad game. The good-quality video of the 32X CD gives it a good first impression, but as soon as the actual gameplay starts and what the game actually is is revealed, that quickly fades away. Supreme Warrior is, as the name might suggest, a fighting game. The game is a first person fighting game where your opponent moves around in front of you while you try to use your attacks (have a six button controller, the game is even less playable without it) to hit them. You've got a block and various different kinds of attacks. Read the manual, the moves are not listed in the game and you must know them well, and practice them, to get anywhere, because the enemies are brutal. Honestly, I haven't beaten the first fight yet, and I don't know if I ever will. The learning curve to figuring out how to not lose is high, and the game is so incredibly unfun that it doesn't give me any kind of a reason to want to even consider spending that time. It's a very frustrating game where the enemy moves around in front of you doing stuff while you press buttons trying to figure out what in the world you're supposed to be doing... and supposedly, even if you do figure it out, it's still not fun. Don't bother with this game, it's very, very bad.
Tempo
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Tempo is a Sega, 32X exclusive 2d platformer from the creator of Bonk. The game is good, but as with many 2d 32X games, doesn't really look like something that HAD to be on 32X. It does have cool looking spinning and bouncing backgrounds, and more colors on screen than the Genesis could do, but for the most part it's pretty much a Genesis game. Tempo has varied, colorful levels and settings, as you control your anthropomorphic bee (or whatever he is) through his "funky" adventures. Yes, the theme's kind of lame, but oh well, it's amusing at least. :) Tempo is also somewhat slow paced compared to Sonic, so don't expect to be blazing around in this game; instead, you need to take your time and explore to find the many secrets and hidden items in each level. Sadly the game does not have a save chip on the cart, so you need to write down passwords, which is pretty lame for a first party release. Oh come on Sega, why were you so cheap? At least it has the passwords, but still. Overall Tempo is a decent platformer, worth considering. It's not a great game, and I do think it's a little disappointing, but it's alright.
Virtua Racing Deluxe
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Virtua Racing Deluxe is a great polygonal 3d racing game. The game uses shaded polygons and has a nice, stylistic look. 32X V.R. Deluxe is a vast improvement over the Genesis version, with more tracks, more cars, and much better graphics. The game has five tracks, two of which are new and 32X exclusive (that's right, they do not return in the Saturn or PS2 versions), and three cars, two of which are new (and again, don't return in exactly the same form). The game is very fun to play and challenging, and it does have a two player splitscreen mode too. The framerate is solidly playable, the graphics look nice, it's really fun... this is one of my favorite 32X games. It does have a downside, though -- there's no circuit mode or anything, so it's just single races, and the US and EU versions of the game do not save anything. This means that there's little reason to play for any reason other than what you can invent in your head, because nothing is saved and there's no circuit or championship or anything, either. The Japanese version does have a save chip in it and will save your times, but it's region-locked so you'll need a modded Genesis (or a Japanese Megadrive) to play it. If/when I get such a setup I'll definitely get a Japanese copy of the game, because it'd be fantastic to play a version of this game with saving! As it is it's an outstanding game, but with that it'd be even better.
Some thoughts on all the games I have for a platform: Playstation
I'd been thinking of doing something like this for a while, but finally got around to actually doing it. I don't know why I started with the PSX, you have to start somewhere I guess...
I'm not using the word "review" because I only would use that for games I've beaten or at least played a LOT of, and with only two exceptions, the only PSX games I've beaten are the fighting games and shmups. (The two exceptions are Threads of Fate and Tenchu: Stealth Assassins)
Note that I have no import titles for Playstation -- these are all US releases.
I've done A-L, which is about half, so far; I'll post the second half after I write stuff up for those games, probably in another post. :)
Activision's collection of 30 classic games for the Atari 2600, Alundra 2, Ape Escape, Battle Arena Toshinden 3, BattleTanx: Global Assault, Board Game Top Shop, Bomberman Fantasy Race, Bomberman: Party Edition, Brave Fencer Musashi, Bubsy 3D, Bushido Blade 2, Castlevania Chronicles, Clock Tower, College Slam, Colony Wars: Vengeance, Colony Wars, Crash Team Racing, Croc 2, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, Darkstalkers 3, Darkstone, Dead or Alive, Destruction Derby, Dino Crisis, Driver, Evil Zone, Fear Effect, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy VII, Ghost in the Shell, Grandia, Granstream Saga, Heart of Darkness, In the Hunt, Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu, Jet Moto, Kartia: The Word of Fate, The King of Fighters '99, King's Field, Koudelka, The Legend of Dragoon, Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (Four Disc Collector's Edition)
Activision's collection of 30 classic games for the Atari 2600
--
Okay collection of 30 Activision games for the 2600. It does save, but only a game in progress -- it's just rom emulation here, no high-score saving here. Write them down yourself or something. That really is a problem with these games, most of which have no ending, you just play until you lose... I really don't get why so many games back then had no endings, it's bad design really I think. And with a modern collection at least figure out how to save the scores, that's the only thing the games have, score... still, the games are classics, and the emulation is okay. The manual is nice and has a little blurb for each game, explaining the difficulty/game select options. (Oh, you can save a game in progress, but that's all.)
Ape Escape
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Decently good 3d platformer game, and the first major title to require the dual analog controller, which obviously makes 3d platformer games much more fun. It's not the greatest game ever, but it's okay. The levels have a decent amount to do in them, and the platforming can be fun. I didn't get that far into it before quitting, though. Graphics are okay for PSX 3d, but aren't great.
Alundra 2
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Bland and not that great 3d action-RPG. Nothing special here, it's neither great or awful. Not too fun, but not the worst game ever. I haven't gotten that far in this game...
Battle Arena Toshinden 3
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Mediocre third game in the Toshinden series, and the worst game so far. Toshinden 1 is a far better game than this. There are lots of characters, and you can choose 30 or 60 (with limited graphics in 60 fps mode) fps modes, but it's just far too slow and not very fun. Play a better fighting game instead.
BattleTanx: Global Assault
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Mediocre PSX version of the N64 classic. The N64 version is a favorite of mine, I've played many hours over the years and really love it. This one just isn't the same, though. First, the campaign. There are more levels in the single player campaign in this version, but they are shorter and smaller, so the overall length isn't that different. The PSX version may be slightly longer, but the levels are more boring and less fun because of their reduced size and complexity, so overall the N64 version is definitely superior. Cutscenes are fully voiced FMV now, instead of pictures with text; it's really not an improvement, they made the story even stupider. I mean, the intro before the first level... they made it so that now Cassandra personally attacks Madison and the baby, and Griffin shows up to save her, but instead of shooting Cassandra, who is just standing there right in front of him, he just leaves, "never actually defeat the bad guy" style. Um, no, that's not what happened in the original... on the N64 Cassandra never has a face-to-face meeting with our heroes, it's just that her army is attacking. The change was for the worse, that's for sure. And then from there you go to the new, smaller, less interesting levels, and it may be hard to see why this game was so great on the N64. At least the graphics are decently good, for a PSX game.
Multiplayer was one of the great strengths of BattleTanx on the N64. The four player multiplayer, with numerous modes, and the two player campaign, were both fantastic. Well, the game is two player only here. Even though otherwise it's not that different, some smaller map sizes aside, that limitation really hurts the game a lot. Again, much better on N64.
Board Game: Top Shop
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One of my most recent PSX purchases, and I haven't played it yet. It's a boardgame where you buy shops, stock them, move around and try to dominate the mall, etc. Sounds a little like Monopoly with anime characters, but we'll see. It was a cheap budget release in all regions, so my expectations aren't too high. Could be okay, we'll see.
Bomberman Fantasy Race
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Okay but not great 3d kart racing game with Bomberman characters. Poor graphics, mediocre options... don't bother, I think.
Bomberman: Party Edition
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2d classic Bomberman, with 5 player play. Nothing original here, but a fine, solid 2d-style Bomberman game. Not much to say really... it's Bomberman, just like it usually is. It is nice to have one 2d Bomberman game on each system, though. It's not too compelling in single player though, as usual for 2d Bomberman, so this is mostly a party game, as the title suggests.
Brave Fencer Musashi
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This is a game I really should play a lot more before reviewing. As far as I've gotten it seems pretty good, though the graphics aren't great, but I got stuck not too far in and stopped. I think one problem I have is that I played Threads of Fate first, which sort of is like a sequel to this game, and has better graphics and gameplay, so going back to this one is tough. Still, it is a pretty good game. It has a simple but amusingly comical story, and fun 3d plaform-RPG gameplay. It feels somewhat 2.5d, as you are often going right or left, but areas are 3d and you do move around in 3d. It's a good mix and works well.
Bubsy 3D
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Bubsy 3D is widely despised as one of the worst 3d platformers ever, so my expectations were absolutely bottom of the barrel when I got it. Well, I was quite pleasantly surprised -- Bubsy 3D really is not that bad. The controls are a challenge -- this is a d-pad only game, as expected for an early PSX title, and the controls really suffer for it. It's too bad that there wasn't a version of this game released on some system with an analog controller, it'd make a huge difference. Also, the controls are slippery so landing on platforms can be tricky. Finally, for the graphics, at the time textures were the new big thing, so the fact that it has lots of shaded polygons instead, with only some that are textured, bothered people. Today this shouldn't be too much of a problem though, it gives the game a different style. The graphics actually are reasonably good. The game has a sharp, clear look that I almost never see in Playstation games -- it almost makes me think it's running in hi-res or something. There are a good number of levels, and there are things to go back and find in them too, after you beat them the first time. Really, once I got used to the game's eccentricities, I found this game to be both fun and quite challenging. It is frustrating and hard so it's easy to give up when you die over and over trying to figure out your way through the complex, jumping-puzzles-between-lots-of-small-moving-platforms-over-bottomless-pits-filled levels. Still though, that kind of thing is both fun as well as frustrating, so it's not all bad. Overall, it's really not that bad. Yes, I can easily see why Mario 64 destroyed it in the press because Bubsy 3D is nothing like that and obviously is much simpler and inferior, but on its own, really, despite some definite flaws, it's a decent game.
Bushido Blade 2
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This is a great, and original, 3d fighting game. The concept is a more "realistic" weapon-based fighting game, where a single hit can kill. The game's theme, though, is very much anime-styled, so the "realism" is only in the combat system, really. Still, it's a very good game, unlike anything else. The challenge and uniqueness of the system really makes it interesting, and fighting game fans should consider this a must play. It's a lot of fun, and has good replay value as well.
Castlevania Chronicles
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This is a port of the Sharp X68000 (a Japanese computer) game Akamajou Dracula, or Castlevania as we know it. This was the game's first Western release, and it's a great, but very difficult, classic-style Castlevania platformer. The game has good 16-bit graphics and sound, a good length, and lots of challenge. I haven't finished it; it's very difficult. Still, if you can find it cheap, buy this game -- it's very good. It's great that we finally got this "lost" Castlevania game.
Clock Tower
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This is actually Clock Tower 2, the sequel to a Japan-only Super Famicom (also later remade for PSX, also Japan only) game called Clock Tower. The Clock Tower series is a horror series, but the first three games for the SFC and PSX are not the Resident Evil clones you might expect. Instead, they are classic style graphic adventure games with a horror theme. There are two main playable characters and several secondary ones you play as for short periods of time, and there are many paths through the game -- like the first game, Clock Tower 2 has lots of endings, most of them bad endings where the characters get killed, as you'd expect from a horror game. Your goal is to survive the second appearance of the evil killer with the giant sissors who terrorized (and killed) his way through the first game. This is a direct sequel, set several years later; it must have been be a little confusing for US audiences, given that we never got either version of the original title. Still, it has its own story, and does stand on its own decently well enough that it works, and it's great that we got the game -- we didn't get many graphic adventures on consoles! Talk to people, pick up items, solve puzzles, try to avoid the killer, and try to defeat him somehow... I'm early in the game of course, but it's fun. Oh, it is slow paced -- slow text speed, slow walking speed, only somewhat useful run. Oh well. The graphics have average prerendered/drawn backdrops (no Resident Evil quality stuff here) with mediocre 3d polygon characters. It's obviously not a big budget production, but it's fun.
College Slam
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This is a Good port of this "NBA Jam TE with college players" game Acclaim made. And it really is NBA Jam T.E., it uses the same engine and has an identical set of options, just with college teams instead of pro. That's good, because T.E. is the best NBA Jam game, but this is not quite as good as the original. Still, it's a fun game, and does have 4 player multitap support, which is nice. The 2d graphics also work well.
Colony Wars
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Haven't actually played this game yet. This game does work with the Playstation Analog Joystick, so if I ever get one I can play it with good controls... that's cool.
Colony Wars: Vengeance
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I played one mission of this game, a while ago. I thought that space combat games like this are no fun with a gamepad, but really should be played with a joystick, and quit and never came back. What it is, though, is a simple 3d space flight combat game. Fly around and shoot the baddies. It's not much compared to an X-Wing or Wing Commander game, that's for sure... not terrible, I guess, but nothing too interesting.
CTR: Crash Team Racing
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CTR is a good 3d kart racing game, in the Mario Kart mold. Playstation fans like to say that this game is better than MK64 or DKR on the N64, but I definitely disagree. It's an okay game, and for PSX 3d the graphics are decent, but in both gameplay and graphics this game gets blown away by any of the Rare or Nintendo N64 kart racing games, no question about it. The game mechanics don't match up, and the graphics of course aren't even close. It does have 4 player splitscreen with a multitap, though, so at least there it is even.
Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
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I've always liked Croc. It's a 3d platformer game from 1997 that started development before the release of Mario 64, but came out the year after it. I first played the demo of the PC version of this Argonaut classic back in the '90s and liked it, and it's just as good on Playstation. It does take a while to get used to the jumping, because making jumps can be a challenge due to perspective issues and the controls take a little getting used to, but you do eventually get used to it, and the nice graphics, cute and fun characters, and good gameplay and level designs hold it up even so. Good game, in my opinion.
Croc 2
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Croc 2 has better graphics, better controls, and a bigger, contiguous world, but I don't think it's that much better than the first one. It's not worse either though, which is good -- it's most just similar, and maybe slightly better. It is, obviously, another 3d platformer, and Croc has another adventure to go on. The controls are definitely better this time, and the analog support is good. I like the overworld too, it's better than the simple level-select system of the first game. It's too bad that the Croc series didn't continue and that Argonaut is out of business now, I'd love to see another Croc game. You can't have too many cute, high quality 3d platformers starring adorable cartoon-style animals. :)
Darkstalkers 3
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Darkstalkers 3 is a great 2d fighting game. This version isn't the best version of Darkstalkers 3 (Vampire Savior in Japan) graphics or load times-wise, but it makes up for it with an unbeatable in the series lineup of extras. Saturn Vampire Savior may have shorter load times and better graphics and animation, but the PSX version is the only one with multiple hidden extra options menus, modes to play the game with the "Vampire Hunter 2" and "Vampire Savior 2" rulesets instead of the basic original "Vampire Savior" one, music options so you can play with any version of the soundtrack from the original game up to Darkstalkers 3, the Original mode where you color-edit a character and then build up their level in fights from 1 to 99, and more. It's a great package, and any Darkstalkers, or 2d fighting, game fan should get this. The Darkstalkers series isn't as well known as Street Fighter, but it's a great series of simple but fun fighting games. Darkstalkers characters are unique and really cool looking monsters with simple, straightforward movesets full of basic quarter circles and stuff -- this is not a hyper-technical fighter, but one designed to be easy to play and fun. It works, the game is fun and the characters are just awesome. Have the manual though, as with most fighting games of this era, that's where the moves are listed, there's no ingame movelist.
Darkstone
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This is a port of the PC Diablo clone of the same name. The PSX version is a little cut down from the PC original, losing things such as the voice acting in towns (on the PC townsfolk all talk, here it's just text) and more, and the game requires a full six blocks of memory card space to save, but it's a decent Diablo clone, and fans of clickfest action-RPGs should give it a try. It's not too bad, flaws aside, and while the graphics are quite simple and low detail top-down 3d, they work and look decently good.
Dead or Alive
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This is the best version of this classic 2.5d fighting game. Like Virtua Fighter, Dead or Alive is a Sega Model 2 arcade game with polygonal graphics, but no real 3d movement -- the 3d is mostly for show. It is a fun game, though, surprisingly so -- I wasn't expecting to like this game that much when I got it as I do not like Virtua Fighter very much, but I got hooked and played it a lot. The game has its own style and isn't that much like Virtua Fighter, aside from the hardware and superficial basics. It's a fast, fluid fighting game with a decently varied character list and a good amount of stuff to do. You have a punch button, a kick button, and an "avoid" button that sort of is 3d movement, but not really, and takes some time to learn how to use. Simple, but it works. Arenas are squares, but instead of VF-style automatic loss when pushed out of the arena, the outer area has an explosive floor and if knocked down there, the hit player takes damage and gets blown into the air. It's a cool effect, and makes for some different gameplay. While graphically the PSX version is about even with the Japan-only Saturn version of the game, they look different but which is better is a matter of opinion (though one the Saturn usually seems to win), features-wise the Playstation blows the Saturn away -- it has one new character, Ayane, who in my opinion is the best one in the game, and increases the costume count from two to four costumes each to three to twenty. The female characters in this version have 20 costumes each, and the male ones 3-8 or so each. You unlock one costume each time you beat the game with the character, so you'll need to beat it a lot of times to get them all, which I did, eventually, because it was fun. Other than arcade mode costume unlocking there's not a lot here, but it's a fighting game so what do you expect? It's got some odd "30 battles" and "100 battles" where you fight that number of fights in a row and see at the end what your win percentage is, but you can't unlock costumes (or anything else) there so it's of limited use before you've gotten them all, and even then, 100 battles is a lot and gets boring played all in a row. Oh, yes, the breast bounce in this game is truly crazy, it's by far the most in the series when on. It is optional, though, the game has a great options screen with all kinds of options for not just that but also arena size, making the whole floor explosive, etc. Overall, good game. Simple, but fun. This is the best version -- the many added costumes and Ayane more than make up for the perhaps slightly weaker graphics.
Destruction Derby
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A good, early Playstation racing game. It has the bad 3d graphics you expect from the early Playstation, and no multiplayer without a system link cable, and is only analog with a neGcon or wheel, but the gameplay is much better than the visuals. I remember playing the demo of Destruction Derby 2 for the PC back in the mid '90s and really liking it, but while this game isn't quite as good as the second one, it is still good. Destruction Derby is a racing game where car damage is central. Cars all have damage zones, so different areas take different damage, and you, or your opponents, will be eliminated if you or they take too much damage. The amount of damage you can take is not too high, so the first two Destruction Derby games really are quite challenging. Still, it's pretty fun, and I definitely like the game. There are both racing series and crash arena modes, and both are fun. But yes, the graphics are pretty bad.
Dino Crisis
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Resident Evil with dinosaurs. (What, isn't that pretty much a complete review of this game? :) It's okay.)
Driver
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Driver is a port of the PC game of the same name. I got the PC version of this game back in 2000 or so when it came out and loved it, with one major qualm -- the game was insanely, "not fun anymore" hard. The first mission, in fact, is probably the hardest first level of any game I have ever played in my life. The "tutorial" level is a complete nightmare that will haunt your dreams... As for this PSX port, it's the same thing as the PC game, but with the expected much worse graphics. The graphics are okay for the Playstation I guess, but Playstation 3d looks pretty bad compared to PC 3d of the same age, so that's not saying much. At least you do get the same huge cities to drive around in and the same driving action, though. Driver 1 is by far the best game in its series, because it's the only one with no guns and no killing -- Driver is not Grand Theft Auto, but its own thing, entirely focused on driving missions where you get from point to point and evade the police along the way. You can't run over pedestrians either, they're there but always avoid your car. Instead of trying to be GTA like the series has tried to do since this one, Driver 1 is focused and great at what it does. It's far too hard, but a great game -- though play it on the PC if you can, the graphics there are far better.
Evil Zone
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Evil Zone, or Eretzvaju in Japan, is a quite original 3d fighting game from Yuke's, who mostly makes wrestling games but made this as well. The game is both simple and complex, with many moves that have very basic, unified commands, and utterly unique gameplay. There is really nothing else out there like this game, and that's too bad because it's probably my favorite 3d fighting game on the Playstation. Evil Zone almost feels like a projectile-heavy 3d fighting game version of Super Smash Bros., in its simplicity -- moves are all done with a single or double tap of a direction arrow and then a button press, no complex button moves (not even quarter-circles) here -- and there are only two buttons, an attack button and a block button. That's all. Despite that, there are over 12 moves at your disposal, including different moves for single and double taps of a direction followed by a press of the button, plus several moves that change depending on how far you are from the other character, and a few that change depending on how you press attack -- the long-distance grab for example has two attack patterns, and you switch by pressing attack again after you start the move. The characters and story are heavily anime styled, and all characters are based on an anime stereotype. In fact, the Story mode for each character is designed like an anime series, with different, and character type appropriate, plots, "episode intros", and "next episode previews" before and after each fight. Story mode fights are one round matches, so the game moves quickly and you only need to win once to move on. There aren't a huge number of characters, but there are enough and they are varied enough; the base moves are similar for all characters, but each one has their own twist on things.
It's very difficult to describe Evil Zone to someone who hasn't played it, really -- it just plays so differently. You need to learn all the different kinds of moves to get good. While the controls are simple, the great variety of moves available means that the game is by no means simple or easy. The moves include a long-distance grab (that can be avoided by moving outside of the target circle or attacking the other player), normal projectile attacks (done just by hitting attack from a distance), stronger projectiles, a jumping attack, a move where you fly towards the opponent fast and try to repeatedly hit them, the charge move (hold the button) which charges a meter in your health bar, so that the less health you have, the faster you charge up meter levels -- a great and balancing mechanic that gives the player who is behind a chance, the super attack (a projectile which uses a level of charge power) which does huge damage if it successfully hits the enemy (plus there's a special animation for each character if you finish someone with the super attack, sort of the "fatality" move of the game), melee attacks, and more. It may sound confusing, but using the moves is simple and you learn them with time. Great game, lots of fun.
Oh, one last thing -- Titus, the Western publisher, did censor the game. They changed all characters under age 21 to be "21", and censored Erel's (one of the female characters) outfit as well, to cover more skin through texture color change. It's kind of lame, but oh well. Oh yes, and the voice acting is kind of bad, but it fits with the game perfectly -- perfect bad English voice acting for the somewhat lame, stereotypical anime knockoff stories the various characters have. It's good stuff. :)
Fear Effect
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Survival horror game on four CDs. I haven't gotten past early on disc 1, so I can't say too much except that the prerendered backdrops look very nice, and the game seems promising, for fans of the genre.
(Note -- I sort of have Final Fantasy VII, but only discs two and three, not disc 1. I haven't played this on the PSX really. I played the PC version demo back in the late '90s, but nothing since. I know stuff about the game, sure, but don't think I should say anything, I haven't played it myself enough.)
Final Fantasy IX
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Okay game, very nice backdrops with Playstation 3d polygon models -- they tried, but there's only so much you can do with PSX 3d so the bad polygon visuals definitely stand out on the nice CG backdrops, and battle mode looks worse. I also always have disliked that Final Fantasy style of "two lines of characters jump forward and hit eachother" battles, and the amount of grind always required in this game. Still, it seems okay. Nice graphics, okay story, some decent gameplay, through the first few hours. I don't know how much I'll actually play it though. I'm not exactly a series fan...
Final Fantasy Tactics
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Because I am a strategy game fan you might think I'd love this, but ... eh. This was one of the first Playstation games I bought, but I've barely touched it in all that time, and I didn't get past a couple of missions into the game before quitting. It's okay, but not great. The 3d visuals are not so good looking, the story is depressing, the camera can be a real pain...
Ghost in the Shell
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Another one I haven't played yet. I will say though, they made a GitS game and you play as... a Tachikoma? Huh?
Grandia
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Fantasic RPG! This is one of the best RPGs of the generation, no question. I'm pretty far into it, maybe 30 hours (that's almost halfway, this is a long game -- I'm near the end of disc 1...), and it's one that I keep going back to now and then to get farther in. The characters, music, world design, and artwork are fantastic. It's an upbeat, uplifting game most of the time, which I like in RPGs -- among JRPGs, after Skies of Arcadia, Game Arts' Lunar and Grandia games are my favorites. It's such a great counterpoint to your usual depressing Final Fantasy grindfests. The negatives are few, but important -- the game is fairly easy, so most of the time there is little challenge. As a result, even though the battle system is great and actually has some pretty interesting depth, you are rarely actually required to learn it -- you'll barely have to even think about learning the depth of the battle system, because it's so easy that just setting everyone to basic attack will work 95% of the time. It's unfortunate, really. I mean, I would not want grind, I hate that far more than the game just being a little easy, but I'd like if it was challenging enough that you did have to think and use the depth of the system. I prefer thought in my RPGs, JRPGs are just too mindless and repetitive for me to find them fun way too much of the time. Grandia does not escape that. Also, though the art design is fantastic, the 3d polygonal graphics are technically iffy, due to the limitations of the platform. Oh well, not everything is perfect, and overall, Grandia is a very, very good game. Justin, Feena, and the others are great, likable characters, the story is good, and the game has a sense of adventure and exploration matched by very few other JRPGs. It's a great game.
The Granstream Saga
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This game is an action-RPG from some of the people behind SoulBlazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma. It's not quite as good as any of those three games, but it is good. The 3d graphics are somewhat simple, and some people complained that the people do not have faces, but it's really not so bad, and the game is fun and has a solid anime-style story. My main complaint would be that it's too easy to get lost in the dungeons, and you do not have a decent map, as you really do need. It can be frustrating and made me want to stop playing several times, due to the irritation factor of the dungeon designs. Still, it's a pretty solid game, probably a little under-rated.
Heart of Darkness
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This game was long in the making, and released on PSX and PC in 1998 after many years. It was made by Eric Chahi, the developer of Out of this World, and has quite similar gameplay to that classic platform-puzzle game. Like in Out of this World, the graphics are beautiful, though hand-drawn here instead of polygon style, and the game is a sidescroller where you need to figure out the right action at each moment or you die. Once you figure out what to do it's easy, but before that point it's quite hard. The game has a fun, cartoony story and some nice cartoon-style character designs and cutscenes, as it tells a story of a boy trying to save his dog from monstrous shadow creatures which kidnapped the dog. It's a two disc game because of the cutscenes. Good stuff. :)
In the Hunt
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Submarine-themed Irem shmup with fantastic, Metal Slug style 2d artwork. In the Hunt is one of the last games that the people who would later leave to form Nazca and make the Metal Slug series made for Irem before leaving the company, and it really does play sort of like "Metal Slug: Submarine Edition". The art design is the same, and has that same extremely detailed and amazing looking style. The shooting action is frenetic and extremely well designed as well, with lots of variety and challenge. The Playstation version is by far the superior version, versus the Saturn -- that version has only the original arcade PCM (chiptune) soundtrack, lots of slowdown, and no saving, while on Playstation the game saves your high scores, has a Playstation-exclusive CD audio soundtrack option as well as an option for the original PCM music, and has much less slowdown. This game is kind of hard to find (I was lucky to find a cheap copy), but recommended!
Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu
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RPG I knew little about before playing. I haven't gotten far, but based on impressions from playing for a few hours, it's actually pretty good. The story is fairly generic, but is told well. The background art is prerendered CG, and looks fantastic -- this is a good looking game. As always the polygon characters look awful in comparison, but oh well. The gameplay is simple RPG fare with a Pokemon dash, but works well enough. It's not incredibly deep or complex, but it's a decently good game.
Jet Moto
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Futuristic hover-ski racing game. The horrific early Playstation graphics hold the game back for sure, and do impact fun. The bad controls do not help much either. Really, this game isn't that good. Maybe if you don't mind the visuals and can get used to the controls it could eventually be fun, but I didn't have that much patience... it's this kind of thing that is why I disliked the Playstation back in the day, really. I had a little hope for this game, but it's just not very good.
Kartia: The Word of Fate
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Kartia is a somewhat little known strategy-RPG, but it's good, I think. I only got a few missions into it, but the story's somewhat interesting anime style stuff, and teh gameplay is fun enough for a Tactics Ogre/FFT-style game. Pretty good. (As usual for JRPG fantasy worlds the world makes no sense though, the mixture of stuff from different ages is so bizarre... still though, good game. Not the greatest, but good.)
The King of Fighters '99
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KOF'99 on the PSX has some nice added features, like color edit mode, but the load times are just too long. I love the KOF series, and SNK fighting games in general, so this was one of the first PSX games I got when I got the system in early 2006, but while it is still good, the loading is very annoying and makes it so the game just isn't that fun. You wait too long. And supposedly KOF'95 (the other US PSX KOF release) has even worse loading... I do not want to even try it. Play this somewhere where you don't have to deal with all the loading -- it's a fantastic game, great fighting game all around.
King's Field
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I bought this Story of the Tamamayu game a while ago, but never have really played it for more than a few minutes... it's a first-person action-RPG. Doesn't look incredibly intresting, but I haven't played it for long either. This is actually the second game in the series, the first one was Japan-only (and also was on Playstation).
Koudelka
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Actually the first game in the Shadow Hearts series, this four disc game stars the female character Koudelka, who is also on the cover. It's kind of a horror RPG, and that's the problem -- it's half survival horror game, half random-battles JRPG, and the battles ruin the pacing and tension of the survival horror side of the game. The story's interesting survival horror style stuff, I like the characters, and the battle system is a pretty good, strategic combat system with a grid your characters move around on, but the issue between the contrast between battles and survival horror style tension really is an issue that hurts the game. It's also somewhat short, despite being on four discs. Still, it's not bad, and overall I like the game, I think. Koudelka herself is kind of cool, none of the Shadow Hearts games have a female main character.
The Legend of Dragoon
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Another RPG I haven't started yet.
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (four disc collector's edition ver.)
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Ah, Lunar 1, a true classic and one of the best RPGs of the 16-bit console generation... this 32-bit remake is arguably the best version of the game. Some people prefer the Sega CD original, but while that version has some advantages over this one, I like the PSX version more overall, I think. Some of the changes, like making Luna playable for many hours instead of just for a few minutes, was definitely for the better. Making the enemies visible instead of having random battles is also fantastic, that's a great change that makes the game a lot less annoying. The redone visuals are also great looking -- the game's 2d and looks fantastic. The battle system is the same as in the original version, and is just as great here as it was on the Sega CD. The music is outstanding, too -- I really love the Lunar game soundtracks. The characters and story are great, too. The story is a classic by now of course, but it's a good one, sweet and romantic with lots of optimism and a human focus. It's really too bad that the game's a little expensive, because it's such a great game; any JRPG fan should definitely try out Lunar and Lunar 2 for the Sega CD or Playstation (or Saturn, if you know Japanese)!
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