Curse

Spooky · Mar 29, 2005, 06:35 AM // 06:35

It's been a while since i've done a game recommendation, but this one has earned it. You can find the official site here. The game came out recently (the 22nd) to nonexistent fanfare, and several unfair reviews ... which I simply can't understand. This game is frantic fun, with enough capacity for strategy to keep it from truly being a 'button masher.' The best way I could think to describe what it plays like.. is a cross between Secret of Mana, and Dynasty Warriors. That is to say, you'll often find yourself engaged by a ridiculous number of enemies all at once, in an isometric 2d layout. To make matters worse (or is that better?) you can only take two characters into battle. For the story progression battles, your first character is always Xion. The catch is, Xion handles differently depending on who your partner is, because of the Yin Yang theme involved in the Twin Dragon rings. For example, if you took Elwyn, who has a 'Light' soul into battle, you'd end up with 'Dark' Xion, who is something of a berserker. If you took someone with a 'Dark' soul, such as Volg, you'd go Light side, and be more magically oriented. On top of that, the different partners will affect the way you can approach a battle .. not only through their skills, link skills (ones activated by both characters together), but their passive abilities. It's enough to reward those that like to play strategically .. sure, you could try and mash your way through those 50+ enemies charging at you, or you could use a link skill to lure them into a trap, etc. Also, I believe there's something in the neighborhood of 11 endings, as the events and outcome of the game is affected by the relationships you maintain with your various partners.

The biggest negative that i've heard of the game is the loading times. And they are, indeed, a bit much. There's no reason that those shouldn't have been fixed when the game was being ported over for English speaking audiences. Perhaps Sega was just being passive aggressive about that whole 'our consoles flopped' thing, and decided to take it out on me by not fixing the load times. I'm sure that's it. Maybe not. Anyway, it's annoying, but patience is a wonderful virtue that more people should be possessed of. Besides, it's easy to overlook it when you consider the game's two best selling points..

(See attachment) Mao and Neige! That's right, it's got a kunoichi catgirl, and a wicked awesome ice mage. Even better, when replaying missions, you can say "To heck with Xion!" and just take both of them instead. Not that i'm biased or anything.

Anyhow, if this sounds even remotely interesting to you, I urge you to look into it. This game is already very hard to get a hold of (I think I bought the only copy on Long Island, heh) so, better to try it out now, as opposed to deciding you're interested later on, when the only way to get it is from some gremlin on EBay charging 80+ dollars for it. (Lunar, anyone?)

lllCo2lll · Mar 29, 2005, 07:06 AM // 07:06

Too bad there is no crying smiley. Or else I'd spam the ish out of the crying smileys.... I can't express the overjoyed feeling that I currently have for you introducing me a series of games to play. I am so greatful to you Spooky.

Thank you Spooky for introducing me to Shining force If you were here right now I'd give you a CoCo soda drink.