I just recently snagged myself a copy of the European version of Sonic Chronicles. Obviously, it's exactly the same as the US one, though it had the honor of hitting shelves first. IGN would tell you that the game is awful, but I can say quite the opposite with the time I've spent(roughly 7-8 hours and 5 chapters in). As far as RPGs go, this one is a very solid one, but really gets my attention due to the story and writing. It's obviously not the deepest story ever, but BioWare has once again written a very good script, for a very simple story. What's essentially is just a glorified Chaos Emerald hunt is made thoroughly enjoyable by the humor BioWare injected in many of the lines. Most notable is the fact that you can make Sonic act like a total dick to almost every single person he runs into, as BioWare provides various dialog options with every conversation.
As for the battle system, I don't really see where there's a problem. Some enemies are annoying(see Swat Bot Mk. II), but has there ever been a RPG without annoying enemies? As for the EBA-ish way of using POW moves, I don't see how you could consistently fail most of them unless you have no coordination at all, which would raise the question of how the hell you were playing games in the first place. I guess what I'm trying to say, in short, is that Mark Bozon is an idiot. Don't let that guy's review convince you, especially when various other outlets have given Sonic Chronicles 7's and 8's(which are quite good, mind you. I don't know where the idea of 7's being bad came from). I'll put up a full review for the game once I finish it.
Ok, seriously. All I have to say about this demo is:"What the hell, man? What.The.Hell.".I have no idea of why Namco Bandai would choose THIS to be a representative of their game to draw in potential buyers. Seriously, the difficulty was jacked up to ridiculous levels. I know, I know, there are some people that would argue it's not that hard once you think up a good strategy(which boils down to controlling Rita and spamming magic while in OverLimit), but let's be serious here. A demo is supposed to target those who aren't sure on whether they're going to get the game or not yet, and most Tales fans are not in that group. There's no excuse to make a 10 minute gameplay clip this stupidly difficult, especially considering I've had an easier time with Tales of the Abyss on Hard and Extreme than this.
In short: Avoid this demo and rent the game if you're not sure of a buy. Namco Bandai really screwed up on this one, and all it'll do is make you not want to buy the game, even though the final product is much easier.
I suppose I should get to posting blogs and such, considering the site is pestering me with "POST BLOGS! POST BLOGS!" every time I sign in. So, I suppose I caved in and decided I might as well post stuff from time to time. Not much to talk about in this edition though, I suppose. I finish Final Fantasy IV DS, if that's any sort of interesting news. Zeromus went down in 4 turns, it was kind of anticlimatic, but it was still good fun.
Speaking of Final Fantasy, I managed to track down a copy of FF IX on Amazon for only 15 dollars. Not too bad, and I'm needing a new thing to pass the time during the slow summer days anyway. After all, One Piece isn't really helping since all the fansub groups are going ridiculously slow as of late, which I find rather annoying. I suppose I can't fault them for it, though.
Lastly, a lot of my buds have gone to Otakon leaving Scion, Tylinos, and I pretty much all alone to our devices. In short: Pretty slow days lately. I've never actually been to Otakon, hell, I haven't even been to Anime Boston, which is RIGHT IN MY TOWN. I really should develop some sort of reserve of getting to these things.
P.S.
...Why have I been listening to Dancing Mad for the past 2 hours?
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