A quiet month as far as purchases, but a busy one for gaming. I had intended to begin writing my Retro Reviews for older games I had beaten, but I had to write out an unheard of (for me at least) 4 reviews for this month's blog. Backloggery made a change that allows you to break down compilation games into their individual games. While great for tracking progress on the individual titles of these packages, it did not have a pleasant result on my backlog as a whole.
March Gain +900 - 46 Achievements
March Gain - Level + 0 Trophies + 0
Backlog increased by 80 in March
Rank 13 on the MyGamercard.net RPG Leaderboard -4
Game spending vs. 2008 March (-73%) Year to Date (-48%) [Much better]
40:54
Tropp Village - Planet Roak
Didn't make much forward progress, but there is so much to do. (100/1000)
Completed the second DLC. Short, but I had fun with it. Seemed even shorter than Operation: Anchorage, but the hard decision you are forced to make adds a replay value that the first DLC lacked. The two new weapons are nice, the silenced assault rifle with scope in particular. Much like Anchorage and Knothole Island for Fable II, it is hard to justify the $10 price tag for a few hours of play. At least the arsenal gleaned from The Pitt will serve me well in the future. (1200/1200)
And we did it. Insane is complete. It was certainly rough in places, but not nearly as bad as expected. Longer, but it did seem a little easier than Gears 1 on Insane. (660/1175)
See Mini-Review below for my thoughts.
See mini-review in completed section. (345/1000)
(35/200)
Holy [censored]! I beat it! I took the time to make these fancy images with an X to mark each boss as I defeated it fully expecting to continue at my rough pace of 1 boss per month. I did not expect to blow through the last 4 bosses and take down Wily... Anyway, as usual my mini-review is in the completed section.
The World That Never Was
Sora Level 48 - 30:29
The end draws near.
First a disclaimer. I did not touch multiplayer and my thoughts are based on limited single-player and co-op. First off, co-op was poorly implemented. There are no saves in co-op, forcing you to either clear it in one sitting or have the stage you want to start at cleared in single-player. Not a problem for most gamers, but it is when you bought the game specifically for splitscreen co-op. The game itself was good. The American Pacific Theatre story was fairly run of the mill, let's get our job done and go home story, but the Russian campaign's story of vengeance was far more interesting. Reznov was perhaps the best character in the game. Perhaps it was too much Gears and Army of Two, but the quick spawning, one hit kills made me feel like I was in a shooting gallery waiting for the targets to pop up, and crouching is no substitute for taking cover. It was a decent game, but nothing special. Final score, 7.6.
The first Fire Emblem finally makes it overseas and with it a chance to finally see Marth in non-SSB action. While some of the more recent additions were not added, many of the Fire Emblem staples such as the weapon triangle and a pre-attack results box which were not present in the original were added. It felt no different than playing the GBA games with the top screen provided useful information on the fly. The story was certainly the weakest I've seen, and the cast largely forgettable. Even the ending seemed to come out of nowhere. The difficulty seemed milder than normal, which led to far less frustration and resets than normal. Not quite on par with the more recent games (perhaps due to the age of the source material), but still a good game regardless. 8.3
Stripped of the bells and whistles of modern day, Mega Man 9 is a game that relies on old-school charm and nostaglia to succeed. And it does. Through trial and error, what once seemed impossible slowly becomes possible (although quite a few of those challenges and achievements are close enough to impossibe). I tried to clear it without using energy tanks, but Wily forced my hand. Nine tanks proved to be overkill and what should have been the climatic final battle turned to a cakewalk. Mega Man 9 is several steps ahead of its previous titles. Going back to the series' roots was problably the best thing they could have done for Mega Man. 8.4
When I played the demo, I wasn't terribly impressed. Sure, it looked nice, but the stop, aim, and shoot mechanics, along with the A.I. turned me away. Thankfully, a friend was intrigued by that same demo, and bought it. Much like Army of Two, I think this is a game best played with a human partner at your side. Even on amateur, loaded with ammo and healing, death never seemed that far away (usually mine...). But the last checkpoint was never that far back and the ability to revisit your inventory and switch items in and out lightened the burden considerably. With everything the game gives you, especially as the game progresses, those 9 inventory slots quickly fill. Having never played any Resident Evil, the story never seemed beyond understanding. In fact, it would seem to have tied together much of storyline of previous games. Capcom has crafted a fine game that always has you wondering what lies beyond the next corner. 8.8
Kalafina - Oblivious
Kalafina was put together by Yuki Kajiura to perform the songs for the Kara no Kyoukai movies.
"one thing that I like about monthly blogs is that each one is different and each member puts its personal touch in his/hers, i know you like rpgs and this time I can really feel your personal taste in this mblog."
-jesus_knight
3 Pickups, 6 Additions
In the interest of conserving space and not having another two-post blog, this section has been removed. Suffice to say, if it is an Atlus title it is here. The new additions mostly consisted of turning to Amazon for the remaining Atlus titles Gamestop refused to allow me to preorder and Dragon Age to replace the Steal Princess SKU they deleted.