Caught In The Whirlwind
Posts tagged nintendo ds
Must Collect More Stars…
Jul 13th 2009
I have been consumed by a game. Which is handy because this week is a pretty laid back/vacation-y type of week. That game is Suikoden Tierkreis for the DS.
If you're not familiar with the Suikoden series, the basic overview is that you play some hero type guy and you come across some wrong in the world that needs righting (usually they're politically based storylines. Warring kingdoms, that sort of thing) and eventually stumble your way onto a castle. Then you begin to gather your army with 108 recruitable characters hidden across the game world. Some you get automatically, some you can stumble upon…others are very hard to recruit.
I've played Suikoden 1 and 5 (wish I could play 2…but that's so freaking expensive these days) and really enjoyed them. So it was to my surprise that there was a new DS game that was released in the series. I actually stumbled onto it via browsing around gamefly…
I've been playing it pretty much nonstop all weekend It's very good. It's not exactly like a main Suikoden series game in several ways, most notably all the characters are different since they consider it a spin-off game. Other differences include a story line that's tilting a little more fantasy based although not much more than a normal game really. They also chucked the large scale army battles which is understandable and got rid of the leveling up of weapons in favor of a more standard inventory system. But overall…it feels very suikoden-y.
It isn't without it's problems. Mainly the voice acting is HORRIBLE. Why do companies keep insisting on trying to put voice acting on DS games??? It's stupid, serves no purpose and is almost universally horrible!
But the story is good and engaging, the battle system is fun and I'm finding myself pulled in enough to try to find all the extra hidden quest characters and stuff on my first play-through. Definitely think I'm going to be using the keep it option on this through gamefly.
Stumblings
Jun 8th 2009
As I mentioned I've been working on a new web site design for Wassy's gallery site. I was really hoping to get the basic header graphic all set this weekend, but I've run into a few snags. Stuff that work working I ended up not liking and I had to scrap a major element of the header unless I can rework it into something that looks good.
I was trying to play around with it yesterday evening to mold it into something I was happy with, but nothing was really working. Which resulted in me not getting as much (productive) done as I had wanted to. And now I'm trying to brainstorm some ideas that might work to fix it/replace the part I scrapped.
On the upside though, I finally finished Final Fantasy IV. I've been playing the DS version and after stopping and restarting twice over a period of several years (well one of the stoppings happened on the Game Boy Advance port, at the end boss) I finally managed to make my way through the evil hardness that is Final Fantasy IV. They don't make em like that anymore!
One More Turn…
Jul 11th 2008
It's civilization time! As you may or may not know I've been a HUGE fan of the Civilization series of games. The fun started back when my parents first got a CD-ROM drive for our old computer. It was back in the day…old clunky 1x external drive connected over the parallel port I believe. Anyway, it included a bunch of CD games, one of which was the original version of Civilization.
I played that thing for hours. I was totally hooked. And that continued when Civilization II came out. I loved Civ 2 just as much as I loved the first game. It was perfect. Then…civ 3 rolled around. It was good, but not up to the high standards that civ 1 and 2 set. It seemed they sacrificed gameplay for pretty graphics. Civ 4 got things back on the right track with good gameplay.
So, needless to say I was excited when I heard about the new Revolution entry. I was also a little aprehensive because it was a console version of the game. I was worried that it would be toned down too much and lose that civ feel. So it was with this mix of emotions that I purchased the game for my DS last night.
My first playthrough was kinda "eh". I was worried that I wasn't going to like it. But as I got going into my second game (they really shortened the games up) I started to get used to the new way of controling it and making things work. I'm really enjoying it. It's not going to replace my love for the PC version of Civilization, but it will do very nicely for a portable fix.
My only real issue with it at this point is you can't get a list of all of your cities so that you can select the one you want. You also can't tell one of your units to go to a specific city. But overall…things are very much the civ I know and love
Agents Are…GOOOOOOO!
Mar 29th 2007
I have been completely and totally sucked into Elite Beat Agents for the nintendo DS.
I bought it last week, they day after I got home from the DC trip after being told that Wassy purchased it as well. All she had to say to convince me was "It has multi player" really. I was interested in it before, but that pushed me over the edge. There's wayyy too many good DS games.
Anyway, I'm glad I did. This game is addictive, with a quirky sense of humor and some really, really random storyline elements.
Right now I'm on the last two songs on the third difficulty level. I'm really trying to get to the 4th because that unlocks the divas. I hear they're a good reason to play on the 4th setting all the time.
I knew I was playing it way too much when, the day after I bought it, I closed my eyes and saw lots of contracting circles with numbers in them, as if I was still playing the game. It's…eerie.
Two thumbs up and I can't wait for the sequel.
It’s Quiet…Too Quiet
Dec 28th 2006
There’s been some talk about a possible roadtrip with a couple friends down to Washington DC in March. I haven’t been on anything that could be termed as a real, live vacation in quite some time so I’m really hoping that this actually happens. I had no idea that there was an International Spy Museum in DC…or, well, anywhere for that matter.
Plans are in the early stages at the moment since I want to see what’s going on with school, but I’m looking forward to it already.
Nothing else that’s really new to report. It’s been a quiet couple days after the whirlwind of activity from the past couple weeks, which leaves me with not much to write about. I’ve just been playing a lot of Zelda for the Wii and Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time for the DS which is a fun, quirky RPG type game. The Mario RPG franchise of games has yet to disappoint me.
My Arm Hurts!
Nov 26th 2006
I spent most of yesterday with some friends at their place playing with their Nintendo Wii (as well as a little Guitar Hero II sprinkled in). I have muscles in my arms that are hurting right now that I didn’t even realize I had. But I had a ton of fun and it really sold me on the viability of the Wiimote for controlling games. I’m hopefully going over to another friends house to play some more. Rayman is definitely going to get bought when I get my Wii.
I really want a Wii. I’m thinking I’ll get one in January when the rush slows down a bit. Although if I happen to find one before then, I won’t have any problems buying it.
I also finished Final Fantasy XII yesterday. My final impression was that it’s a good game. The combat system ROCKS. More games need to use that combat system. Heck, every game needs to use it. And if it’s already been released, they should re-release a version of it that uses that system. It’s about as close to perfect a system as I can think of.
Now I’m working on Suikoden V which is being lent out to me. Oh, and the DS version of Trauma Center. I played the Wii version last night and had fun, so I bought the Nintendo DS version.
Don’t They Know I’m On A Schedule?!?!?
Aug 29th 2006
Just got back from my trip to Best Buy to pick up Score…my that certaintly was interesting. First, it’s raining out, so there’s some giant sized puddles on the back roads which were the quickest way between work and Best Buy, so I get to dodge puddles. Then, I get on the main roads and end up following the slow moving lunch people coming out of the bank that’s in the area.So I get past them…BOOM! Construction! 1 lane road, 40 miles per hour. Grrr.
So I finally make it to Best Buy and grab the CD, but I can’t find the DVD. They don’t have it on the shelf iin the usual position so I scout around and eventually find it on an endcap with the new releases. I also grabbed the new Starfox game for the DS…Starfox Command.
Anyway, I go to pay and the guy takes forever…sigh. Then back through more traffic and construction. End result was my lunch ran 15 minutes long. Guess I get to stay here for a little bit after 5 to make up for it.
But Score is in my hands! I can’t wait to get home now.
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