Poll of the Day > Pick the game I try to finish next.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just beat Valkyria Chronicles (PS3) -- 6/10 My save file is at about 43 hrs, but it probably took me closer to 60 hrs with all the mission aborts and reloads.

The first thing I'll say is that the music is very similar to Final Fantasy XII and the Final Fantasy Tactics games (same composer), so since FF12 and the FFTs have my favorite music in that franchise, I really liked the music in this game.

I started out really liking the game, but the more I played it, and the more the problems started compiling, around the 2/3 point, I was just looking to get the game over with. As the recent "This game sucks" topic on the game's board here states, "Why make a tactical strategy game where actually using tactics punishes you?" The game utilizes a ranking system for how "well" you do in missions, which completely comes down to how fast you finish the mission. It doesn't matter if you completely wipe out the enemy, you'll get much better rewarded for simply rushing to the objective. This wouldn't be so bad if it just gave you a grade, but you get massive experience and money bonuses for higher ranks.

You get to mix and match up to something like 50 troops in your 20 member roster, but I never found the need to do so. And then you only ever get to have up to 10 troops on the battlefield. Except for 2 or 3 missions, I used the exact same party -- and due to how the amount of Command Points you get works, you'll always have certain troops in your party, even if they have no real use. I found this to be extremely limiting and really disliked it.

The quasi-turn based system they used has some severe flaws. You get one action per move, regardless when you do it (with the exception of mine disarming, which you can do as many times as you want in addition to the action), but the opponent gets a theoretic infinite amount of interception fire of counter attacks. So, if you get hung up on the corner of a building or stuck getting around a teammate, you can get completely wiped out as the opponent pulls off several attacks. So, if you want to lose a mission real quick to restart it, just move Welkin into position where he can be shot at and just stand there. A much more logical system (and in strategy games, I expect a much higher level of logic than in other genres), would have the action take up Action Points (in this game, the actions don't actually use AP, but rather ONLY moving takes AP (the actions of crouching, standing up, climbing ladders, and disarming mines don't use any ACTION Points, either)), so you could perform more than one action -- the way it's setup makes absolutely no sense. If I want to stay stationary, there's no logical reason why I shouldn't be able to attack multiple times.

There also seems to be an issue of if you are too close to the enemy, you will not hit. I ran Welkin (in one of the missions where he's not in the tank) up to where he was making physical contact with the enemy and his entire reticle was within the opponent's head (which should be an automatic hit, according to the manual), and he missed every single shot. I did this several times to see if it was a fluke, and the same thing happened every time. I was able to use this to my advantage in the final battle, as I was able to run a tank up against him and his attack did 0 damage.

Double standards I came across: you must clear out a camp to occupy it, but it seems this doesn't apply to the other side. All the enemies with line of sight and within range are able to intercept you, but it seems that only your troop that it shows the point of view from can intercept them (unless maybe any troop(s) that the POV troop has an affinity with can also attack).

I did like the wide open and city stages, but for the later part of the game, several missions were boring gimmick missions (the penultimate one had me spending the last 3 turns with one character standing stationary shooting at the target, while an engineer would resupply him).
---

Mickey Mousecapade gets another try thanks to coming in 2nd place last time.
---

Quite a few good games this time around
---

Yeah, I guess it's evening things out from the last few. Grandia II even came up, but I want to play the first one first. From what little I've played of them when I was testing my copies, Jurassic Park would be the worst one (even though I voted for it). I understand the SCD JP is quite a bit different than the other versions.
---

if M&M8 is up there does that mean you recently played through 7? so you recently played through 6 and 7 back to back? if so, how do you feel 7 compares to 6 now?
---

Sahuagin posted...

if M&M8 is up there does that mean you recently played through 7? so you recently played through 6 and 7 back to back? if so, how do you feel 7 compares to 6 now?

Recently as in within the last two years, yes. I thought 7 was a better game than 6 (mostly due to the Secondary Skill limitations based on class), but I found it a lot more tedious. I did like how you'd sometimes come across different monster types in the outdoors fighting each other in 7. Some of the dungeons (meaning caves, castles, and other similar locales) in 6 are extremely impressive, and they're easily the best I've ever come across.
---

Blaqthourne posted...

I found it a lot more tedious

well, to me I don't see how anyone could think that anything is more tedious than 6...

6 did have great dungeon layouts, even if they were just filled with millions of the same enemies.

(all of 6, 7, and 8 sort of have that problem, though, of just clusters and piles and heaps of the same enemy, over and over and over, with nothing much else on a map or in a dungeon)
---

The only places I find tedious in 6 are Castle Darkmoor (those friggin' Eyes) and Dragonsand.

I still get the most fun out of World of Xeen, though.
---

Bedtime bump.
---

Ristar
---

Voted P3P, but Ristar is also great.
---

I chose something that's not an RPG. I find playing RPG's back to back to be too exhausting. Chill out with a simple fighting game before diving back into the grind.
---

I picked Zork I because it's a classic game. You'll probably want to find a manual if you don't have one, though; I don't think the game even explicitly tells you your goal. And don't feel bad if you have to look at the hints a lot; I've played a bunch of Infocom games (from the "Masterpieces of Infocom" CD), and I don't think I've beaten a single one without help.

Bump to break the tie. I have beaten Persona 3 FES on PS2, for what it's worth.
---

I voted for Jurassic Park.
---

Your vote put JP back into a tie. Since that's what I voted for, I went with it.

I caught up with some stuff I'd been neglecting for about a year that I really needed to do, which used up pretty much my entire night. The loud clicking sound on power up on my model 1 SCD, which I thought was a motor going bad, has miraculously gone away after sitting for many months. I played it for about 30 min and it seems to be a straight up point and click adventure.
---