Showing posts with label PSP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PSP. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Gunhound EX (PSP) Impressions
I finally opened Gunhound EX which I got back around Valentine's.
It is a doujin PC game ported to PSP by GRev. It is a love letter to
the Assault Suit Valken games. The first level is pretty dang awesome.
The second level is almost impossibly hard unless I am missing a big
thing. See it is an escort mission with forced scrolling. This snake
thing is coming up from behind and I can' go meet it so it just ends up
in my escorting thing and wrecks it before I can murder it. I'm not
even sure I can murder it. It is hard. Game is conflicting.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Corpse Party (PSP)
me: my little sister can't possibly need to pee this badly!
Friend: what?
me: Corpse Party has a large part of the plot be about a 14 year old that needs to use a bathroom and no she just won't go anywhere in this other dimension haunted school. She's Moe with a capital M.
Friend: ugh
Moe is what happens when anime fans stare at their own navels so much that it comes out the other side or something.
me: it gets kind of boring with how absolutely freaked out the female cast gets at everything. Also that they sound ~moe~ and not like actual high school girls
that's a good description of moe
Friend: yeah, so what you are saying is Corpse Party is probably skippable.
me: yeah I suppose.
it's interesting in how effective it is at being a horror game with 16 bit graphics
on the other hand what I just describe above gets in the way of that
Friend: i would love to see more exploration of using lower end graphics for horror. I think something that makes LSD such an effective little game is that weird uncanniness of 32 bit graphics.
and 16 bit could definitely be used similarly, yeah
me: nodding my head
Friend: if only japan didn't have its whole moe thing
me: it also makes me curious if there are any other really good RPG maker games out there (probably, I'm not going to look for them though)
Friend: yeah, i imagine there are. i always kinda meant to investigate RPG maker, as I think it could be used as a very strange and effective tool for telling stories, if people could get past RPG tropes and such.
me: oh okay here's a reason to skip CP (honk honk honk). There's a somewhat pivotal scene of a girl being strangled. Our still of course has a panty shot.
Friend: goddammit japan
why do you have such a gift for taking things that could be interestingly traumatic, and then always adding such a creepy perversion to them?
it really is some kind of cultural gift they have
me: :|
really Japan.
REALLY JAPAN?
Guess ~my little sister~ just had her first cycle.
Friend: oh jesus
seriously? they found a way to go super seiyan moe
i picture a fat otaku kid just spontaneously getting blonde hair sticking straight up at that exact moment
me: I wonder if the xseed translator banged his head at this part
I would hope
Friend: i would definitely hope so
just smashed his head into his desk and sat there and thought "really? is this what I have worked towards for however many years now?"
me: oh okay yep netherworld hell hole. Time to talk about his problems with asking girls out to his super saiyan moe sister that just arrggggggg
Friend: wow, this sounds like an anime/moe trainwreck
me: I've done my best to avoid it but yeah we are in moe hell. All the Hell, All the Moe.
me: this game made me realize I'll never hear the equivalent in japanese of, "I love you, but seriously SHUT UP."
Friend: welcome to the abyss, rudie.
haha, just not a thing that happens in japan?
me: in the language yeah. It's a pretty good phrase.
there's no "shut up" in japanese the closest is "you are loud."
Friend: haha, that is kind of amazing to think about
intsead of a command to another person (shut up), you have a suggestion that the person is bothering you.
that says way too much about how the world is viewed in japanese linguistics
me: it does.
Friend: so basically Corpse Party sounds like it might be a "State of the Moe" address on your PSP.
me: more like a dictionary definition
modern moe is more than this. I'm curious how much of this game has been changed since 1996
Friend: ah, fair enough.
still, potentially useful for someone, as moe as proven a hard term to define
me: it's your 14 year old younger sister that has all the life skills of a 3 year old.
Friend: haha
and somehow you are supposed to feel some degree of affection and possibly sexual desire for her.
me: pretty amazing that not just one person's standards get fucked that badly but enough for a (sub)culture.
Friend: yeah, that is the spectacular thing about "moe"
like if it was just one dude somewhere making silly games/comics about his little issues with young girls, that would be one thing
you could say "well, at least it's only that weirdo" but no
we have like an industry built on it
anime/manga/fig
me: I wonder if a lot of these problems aren't based around Japan thinking High School was the best years of their lives (versus College)
Friend: eh, but in small town america, that kind of thinking is stilla ctive as well
though it takes on slightly different tones in the US
Friend: but i think part of it probably has to do with some sort of innocence longing tied into the love of nostalgia
Monday, June 6, 2011
Jikandia (PSP)
An Action RPG where you set how long you want to play and it builds a stage out of that time. That sounds awesome doesn't it? Then you hear it's made my IdeaFactory (IdeaFuck) and run the fuck the other direction.
But it looked so almost good I had to try it. I ended up quitting for reasons that weren't IdeaFactory's fault. The game is pretty basic jump, swing sword, hit things, fight boss. It feels about like a good flash game and looks about as good as a good flash game. The combat isn't going to win any awards, but it works for the concept and I could almost see it as a timewaster if I actually played video games as time wasters instead as entertainment.
Have you played BlazBlue's story mode? Also published in the US by Aksys games? Well all the story scenes are like this:
But it looked so almost good I had to try it. I ended up quitting for reasons that weren't IdeaFactory's fault. The game is pretty basic jump, swing sword, hit things, fight boss. It feels about like a good flash game and looks about as good as a good flash game. The combat isn't going to win any awards, but it works for the concept and I could almost see it as a timewaster if I actually played video games as time wasters instead as entertainment.
Have you played BlazBlue's story mode? Also published in the US by Aksys games? Well all the story scenes are like this:
Hiliarious.
Jikandia's unvoiced dialog is about the same. Maybe that's not a turn off for you, but it sure was for me.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Knights in the Nightmare (PSP)
Well this post was certainly in a long time in the making considering I bought this game when it was released in the US. I sort of put it off because it has just obnoxious amounts of loading particularly at the beginning.
loading.
now let's talk about equipping weapons
loading.
Here's how to equip weapons.
loading.
woah that's great thanks for telling me that!
Then again every single mission is.
status screen.
loading.
pre-mission cutscene
loading
flavor text for the area you are fighting in.
loading
2nd pre-mission cutscene.
loading
mission load out
loading
Mission actually starts.
Somehow I enjoyed this game despite this! So that's a pretty big accomplishment. Oh another huge complaint. The second half of the game is completely and utterly frivolous. You can tell for some reason or another they were told to make the game twice as long. As soon as you meet the final boss: quit playing. The following 18 missions are where the level design completely falls apart.
So I can actually talk about the game now: It's a SRPG-Tower Defense-Bullet Hell-Mp3 Organizer. Every review I read said the battle system is intensely complicated to understand. It kind of is, but once you figure it out the challenge sort of evaporates. It's a really neat system that is extremely confusing for the first third of the game and then you get a hang of it and that's about it. The game does start at the extreme deep end (the tutorial is kind of worthless.)
So let's see how I can describe. You control a little wisp. It's the soul of a dead king that is trying to take back his kingdom from the head of the Underworld, angels, his backstabbing Cardinal, and the numerous monsters he kills along the way. The journey to the castle is pretty neat and then it ugh...
You don't have a life bar you have a Timer 60 seconds. It doesn't drop on it's own. It only drops when you get hit by enemy bullets or are charging an attack. You don't attack directly. You use your now dead loyal knights to attack. But they don't attack directly you first have to click and drag a appropriate weapon for the knight's class over to the knight. Each class can only face two of the possible four directions (which is why the level design completely falls apart because it no longer takes into account the different knights.)
And you don't get just one set of 60 seconds. There are several rounds to each mission. Between mission you have a slot machine that comes up to decide your random enemies. Your goal each time is (on a separate bar) have a straight line of kills. On a boss it's just to kill the freakmonster.
All the character art for this game is straight-up ultra gorgeous. It's pretty amazing how much character they get out of a single image for your knights and the villains.
I really did enjoy the first half of the game and strongly recommend if you want to play the most hardcore-instant street cred game you can get. Fun fact: I had to explain this game to a nurse. They then said they enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII.
Getting to the POINT WHERE YOU SHOULD STOP is about 20 hours. Which is a good length. Though it's on portable systems, it requires so much concentration it's impossible to play if you're in a place with distractions or life happening. I guess the later half of the game somewhat soured me, though the first half is pretty great when you don't know what the fuck you are doing but you are trying to survive.
loading.
now let's talk about equipping weapons
loading.
Here's how to equip weapons.
loading.
woah that's great thanks for telling me that!
Then again every single mission is.
status screen.
loading.
pre-mission cutscene
loading
flavor text for the area you are fighting in.
loading
2nd pre-mission cutscene.
loading
mission load out
loading
Mission actually starts.
Somehow I enjoyed this game despite this! So that's a pretty big accomplishment. Oh another huge complaint. The second half of the game is completely and utterly frivolous. You can tell for some reason or another they were told to make the game twice as long. As soon as you meet the final boss: quit playing. The following 18 missions are where the level design completely falls apart.
So I can actually talk about the game now: It's a SRPG-Tower Defense-Bullet Hell-Mp3 Organizer. Every review I read said the battle system is intensely complicated to understand. It kind of is, but once you figure it out the challenge sort of evaporates. It's a really neat system that is extremely confusing for the first third of the game and then you get a hang of it and that's about it. The game does start at the extreme deep end (the tutorial is kind of worthless.)
So let's see how I can describe. You control a little wisp. It's the soul of a dead king that is trying to take back his kingdom from the head of the Underworld, angels, his backstabbing Cardinal, and the numerous monsters he kills along the way. The journey to the castle is pretty neat and then it ugh...
You don't have a life bar you have a Timer 60 seconds. It doesn't drop on it's own. It only drops when you get hit by enemy bullets or are charging an attack. You don't attack directly. You use your now dead loyal knights to attack. But they don't attack directly you first have to click and drag a appropriate weapon for the knight's class over to the knight. Each class can only face two of the possible four directions (which is why the level design completely falls apart because it no longer takes into account the different knights.)
And you don't get just one set of 60 seconds. There are several rounds to each mission. Between mission you have a slot machine that comes up to decide your random enemies. Your goal each time is (on a separate bar) have a straight line of kills. On a boss it's just to kill the freakmonster.
All the character art for this game is straight-up ultra gorgeous. It's pretty amazing how much character they get out of a single image for your knights and the villains.
I really did enjoy the first half of the game and strongly recommend if you want to play the most hardcore-instant street cred game you can get. Fun fact: I had to explain this game to a nurse. They then said they enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII.
Getting to the POINT WHERE YOU SHOULD STOP is about 20 hours. Which is a good length. Though it's on portable systems, it requires so much concentration it's impossible to play if you're in a place with distractions or life happening. I guess the later half of the game somewhat soured me, though the first half is pretty great when you don't know what the fuck you are doing but you are trying to survive.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Hammerin' Hero (PSP)
Despite how little of this I have played, I like it a lot more than Prinny: Can I Really be the Hero? The controls are definitely tighter, where Prinny had really floaty jumps and made it awkward to do any attacks.
The theme for this game and previous games in the series is JAPAN JAPAN NIPPON ICHIBAN. You'll understand if you play it, and you should give it a shot. There are 4 difficulties though you can only select the middle two at the beginning. I went with the higher difficulty and you have 3 one hit kill tries to beat the level. Nothing in it is so difficult after a few tries. The game really doesn't activate my patience for whatever reason, and I will generally quit the game after one or two game overs. Prinny did a better job of holding my interest, where I kept hoping it would get better. This game is perfectly adequate.
The theme for this game and previous games in the series is JAPAN JAPAN NIPPON ICHIBAN. You'll understand if you play it, and you should give it a shot. There are 4 difficulties though you can only select the middle two at the beginning. I went with the higher difficulty and you have 3 one hit kill tries to beat the level. Nothing in it is so difficult after a few tries. The game really doesn't activate my patience for whatever reason, and I will generally quit the game after one or two game overs. Prinny did a better job of holding my interest, where I kept hoping it would get better. This game is perfectly adequate.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Ys Seven (PSP) and Ys III (Genesis) Conclusions
I went back and finished Ys Seven when I didn't think I would. The final boss's first form was a complete time draining bastard. I ended up leveling up mindlessly for an hour, thus making him slightly less time consuming. I also discovered I can charge attacks. I had made it through the whole game without doing as much. Charging attacks is the fastest way to get SP which lets you do special attacks for massive damage.
There's also parrying and blocking the game which I very rarely used, because I just used the dodge roll constantly. Their are a few bosses you are supposed to parry against, and I did use it against those, but parrying in games is for the most part a misguided science that eludes me most of the time. Given the camera angle and the way you move in Ys Seven , it's even more just not worth it (until you have too.) Because if you parry at the wrong time, you're going to take double damage.
That sound great to you?
Like everyone else, I found the game had too much anime/plot bullshit that I didn't care about and was distracting me from murdering giant monsters. It's actually pretty depressing the game doesn't even have a boss rush mode...or really any bonuses at all.
The first couple of hours are actually pretty great. With you murdering giant monsters while dodging their giant attacks. Then the game introduces a guy from Ys Six (haven't played), that the world is going to end, and that you need to go back through all the dungeons you just went through AND your warp system has reset. It's not quite as bad as Devil May Cry 4 in terms of repeating itself, but you can't help but feel gypped/getting jerked around.
The bosses in the second go around aren't nearly as good either. Also the overworld theme in the first half is this and in the second half this. Then there is this song, which is used way too little.
I hated going through the dungeons because they weren't as good as the boss battles, and J-RPG dungeon puzzles are always brain-dead. The story wasn't that good. Honestly the most impressive thing the game does is right after you get off the boat you can run up and the camera will pan down to show this skyline and a giant statue in the bay. You don't see it anywhere else and it isn't important. It uses this shot again in the same dock to show an island you know you are going to go to later. It was such an inspired camera angle that they really don't ever use again.
In other Ys news, I played Ys III (Genesis). That game is precisely 90% Grind. Ys III is the bastard child of the series, as a side-scroller as opposed to overhead. I played it mostly to decide whether I wanted to get Ys Oath of Felegana (PSP) a remake into a normal Ys game of Ys III. The result: I don't know maybe? Ys III soundtrack wasn't the god's gift I was told it was going to be, and I honestly didn't like any of the soundtrack that much. I thought Ys I and II and Ys Seven had better soundtracks. It wasn't like the soundtrack was bad, just completely unmemorable. The most memorable thing I gained from Ys III were some cool backgrounds to the stages, and YOU GOT HARB.
I'm pretty sure the PSP Remake don't got HARB. I'll pick you the Ys I and II PSP set though, because that has got to be excellent running into dudes times. No attack button, just running into dudes. And maybe they fixed the first 2 dungeons in Ys II which are considerably worse than the fantastic 3 dungeons in Ys I.
There's also parrying and blocking the game which I very rarely used, because I just used the dodge roll constantly. Their are a few bosses you are supposed to parry against, and I did use it against those, but parrying in games is for the most part a misguided science that eludes me most of the time. Given the camera angle and the way you move in Ys Seven , it's even more just not worth it (until you have too.) Because if you parry at the wrong time, you're going to take double damage.
That sound great to you?
Like everyone else, I found the game had too much anime/plot bullshit that I didn't care about and was distracting me from murdering giant monsters. It's actually pretty depressing the game doesn't even have a boss rush mode...or really any bonuses at all.
The first couple of hours are actually pretty great. With you murdering giant monsters while dodging their giant attacks. Then the game introduces a guy from Ys Six (haven't played), that the world is going to end, and that you need to go back through all the dungeons you just went through AND your warp system has reset. It's not quite as bad as Devil May Cry 4 in terms of repeating itself, but you can't help but feel gypped/getting jerked around.
The bosses in the second go around aren't nearly as good either. Also the overworld theme in the first half is this and in the second half this. Then there is this song, which is used way too little.
I hated going through the dungeons because they weren't as good as the boss battles, and J-RPG dungeon puzzles are always brain-dead. The story wasn't that good. Honestly the most impressive thing the game does is right after you get off the boat you can run up and the camera will pan down to show this skyline and a giant statue in the bay. You don't see it anywhere else and it isn't important. It uses this shot again in the same dock to show an island you know you are going to go to later. It was such an inspired camera angle that they really don't ever use again.
In other Ys news, I played Ys III (Genesis). That game is precisely 90% Grind. Ys III is the bastard child of the series, as a side-scroller as opposed to overhead. I played it mostly to decide whether I wanted to get Ys Oath of Felegana (PSP) a remake into a normal Ys game of Ys III. The result: I don't know maybe? Ys III soundtrack wasn't the god's gift I was told it was going to be, and I honestly didn't like any of the soundtrack that much. I thought Ys I and II and Ys Seven had better soundtracks. It wasn't like the soundtrack was bad, just completely unmemorable. The most memorable thing I gained from Ys III were some cool backgrounds to the stages, and YOU GOT HARB.
I'm pretty sure the PSP Remake don't got HARB. I'll pick you the Ys I and II PSP set though, because that has got to be excellent running into dudes times. No attack button, just running into dudes. And maybe they fixed the first 2 dungeons in Ys II which are considerably worse than the fantastic 3 dungeons in Ys I.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)