Star Ocean: The Last Hope International (PS3)

2/10

Before you even start, this game greets you with a graphically lovely, but sad animation that shows the destruction of earth thanks to nuclear strikes during World War III. After the cease fire, the survivors banded together to try to find a new planet to live on. Thanks to the development of warp technology, they can fully utilize their “Space Reconnaissance Force.”

Edge’s (he doesn’t look like an Edge to me, I might need to rename him) English VA doesn’t really match the look. After a short dialogue between he and Reimi a childhood friend, the game offers you a training sequence for the battle system. The basics are simple, a realtime system that has attack, jump/dodge and a few special attacks. However, learning how to do use blindsides and rush mode does take some practice. Afterwards, we get our first glimpse of Richard Kenney, presumably a forefather of Ronaxis Kenney hero of Star Ocean 1 and Claude C. Kenney from Star Ocean 2.

When the time comes to launch, you’re introduced to your lifeline back to Earth command named Welch, an… exuberant girl to say the least. After another call from a classmate from the academy, it’s time to launch the Calnus on its inaugural mission. At this point, I got a massive fail of a cutscene at launch. The screen was all black, the audio kept going, and the subtitles all overlaid and didn’t disappear. Eventually it fixed itself, but that was an inauspicious start.

After some problems during travel, you arrive at Aeos, and the game officially starts. The lush greenery of the planet makes it hard to see the enemies sometimes, but so far it’s not too bad. I’m getting a hang of the battle system, and it’s getting more fun the better I get at it. Lots of enemies to kill and areas to explore, definitely need to do some leveling before I stray too far from the ship.

2/12

About 12 hours in now, and I’m on planet 3 of the game. As I get more used to the battle system, it’s going faster and faster. The bonus board does make me feel like I shouldn’t play unless I have a lot of time to take advantage of it, and the battle trophies thing is tapping into my pokemon ocd. I’m trying to play through with the English voices, but I think I’d enjoy the Japanese ones more.

One of my party is a very small girl who is a skilled magician with emotional development issues. She seems a bit off, even for a little kid. From the spaces shown in the party menu, I have four people left to find.

2/13

Played 2 more hours today, finally have a fifth character so I can switch out people between battles if I want to. This third planet is dragging on a bit. I think I’m almost done with it now. Finally got the guy who will let me mine; so I’ll have to go back and revisit the other two planets to hit all the mining points I saw before. The Treasure Sense ability will help with that so I don’t wander aimlessly.

2/14

Went back to the previous planets to knock off some extra quests, running around trying to avoid the enemies on the map did make me realize that I wish you could hold the sprint button down and run fast instead of having to tap it all the time. Headed for the next planet and there’s more trouble for the crew. I dare a game company to have someone do part of a game without something going wrong.

Eventually, you pick up a catgirl to add to the party, and Welch starts making comments that she feels like she’s at an anime convention. Good to know that catgirls and anime have stood the test of time in this version of Earth’s future.

2/15

I’ve switched over to the Japanese voices for a while. For the most part, they match the characters better than the English voices, but Sarah’s voice and hyper-polite keigo are going to get on my nerves. The music gets a bit overdramatic at times, but all in all, it’s been pretty good so far. And the fact that the characters still yell their move names doesn’t annoy me as much as it did in previous titles. I guess nothing is as annoying as listening to Precis yell “Barrier!” and Claude say “Tear ‘em to pieces!” over and over again, though.

I do have one complaint graphically, sometimes the shadowing looks kinda funny, it’s not horrible, but it does catch my attention off and on during the cutscenes.

2/28

After a heinously busy week where I didn’t get to play anything, I got to pour in some more hours again. Have the full compliment of party members, but I feel like I’m a bit underleveled at times. I need to grind or synthesize more. Or both. I’m definitely liking the Japanese voices more, but I’m going to switch back to English for a while again to hear the voices of the new party members. I would play more, but the PSN has crapped itself.

3/6

Almost to the final battle. I don’t know why it took so long for me to notice, but Reimi and Lym’s faces are both kind of in that uncanny valley where they look kinda like creepy porcelain dolls. Starting to get tired of listening to Sarah talk, too. The English voice actress did a good job of keeping the feeling of the Japanese one; unfortunately, that character archetype annoys the crap out of me. Also, some of the last cut scenes take FOREVER and you can’t pause them. So make sure you don’t have to use the bathroom…or that you can hold it for like 20 minutes. There are still plenty of sidequests to be done, but I need to finish this up and move on. FFXIII is just around the corner.

Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)

3/9

This game is graphically beautiful. Let’s see if it’s enough to carry through the excessively linear opening area. Plenty of action in the opening sequence, where Lightning has moves that give Bayonetta a run for her money. I’m not sure how I feel about getting the star ratings in each battle. If I get a low rating against a boss, I might have to go back and replay the battle again. Sazh is great, definitely looking forward to his character in this game.  Snow reminds me of a jock, Hope already seems whiny and Vanille is way too peppy with people dying all over the place. Of course, she does tell Hope to “deal with it later” when sometime bad happens. She’s just a pro at internalizing, it seems.