30 Days of Gaming: Day 30

Day 30: Your favorite game of all time.

Well, we made it. 30 days, 30 blog posts, 30 gaming-related questions answered. “Favorite game” is always one of those tough questions to answer, having to rate on enjoyment at the time you played it, but also taking into consideration the want to replay the game, or graphics and music, or characters and story…Anyway, I have 31 top rated games on my Backloggery, and picking just one of those is pretty tough. So, after some deliberation (read: 5 minutes) here’s what I think is my favorite game of all time.

Suikoden V! Barely edging out Suikoden II, mainly because of plot pacing and number of characters I liked. Even though I’ve only been through the game 1.5 times, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time spent on the game. I’m not one to replay games much anyway.

I’ll give some shout outs to other games, though.
-Star Fox 64 is a very good adventure/railshooter, and very much a game I’ll always come back to for a run through.
-Knights in the Nightmare still wins for strangest mechanics and gameplay
-Ever 17 is the best mindfuck
-Growlanser II is the most breakable RPG I’ve played
-Earthbound definitely has its charm as a quirky RPG. Not many go the real-world route, after all.
-And for all it has popped up in this list, it’d be a shame not to put Valkyria Chronicles here for having awesome graphics and story

Thanks all for reading! We’ll be back to no blog posts for a while -3-

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30 Days of Gaming: Day 29

Day 29: A game you thought you wouldn’t like, but ended up loving.

Y’know, I hated the Sakura Wars franchise for…oh, 7 years all because of the horrid TV anime. So when SLML was announced, I had a very lukewarm reaction. I knew the history of the series, how no games had crossed the pond yet there was a little fanbase crying out for it. As with many NISA or Atlus releases, it came with swag, and I planned to get it for the swag and maybe to resell when it got rare.

I didn’t really expect to fall in love with the franchise, eventually watching the rest of the anime OVAs (which ranged from good to utter trash) and importing the PSP ports of the first two games. I’m not as hardcore as other new fans, but I do like the series now.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 28

Day 28: Favorite game developer.

Atlus! Or as the haters say, Fatlus.
Really I didn’t pay attention to developers until 2004 or so, and even then Atlus caught my eye on the publishing side. But they did the SMT series and that makes them awesome.

Second place is Nintendo cause I grew up with ’em.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 27

Day 27: Most epic scene ever.

It’s totally the set of scenes you go through when defeating Luca Blight in Suikoden II. Three battles, a duel, and cutscenes inbetween…just to take down one guy.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 26

Day 26: Best voice acting.

JRPGs have the problem of pulling from the same pool of voice actors, which makes you hear the same people over and over, and sometimes those VAs end up “phoning in” the role. Despite this, Persona 4 has some of the best voice work that I’ve heard, even with a few new faces in the game. Obviously the voice direction was well done and much improved from Persona 3 (and a bit better than The Answer).

30 Days of Gaming: Day 25

Day 25: A game you plan on playing.

Gods I can’t just pick one. I’ve got whole wishlist of stuff I want to buy and a whole ‘nother list of stuff I haven’t finished or started. But a definite “plan on playing”…let’s go with the lulz option.

Oh I totally plan on playing Radiata Stories someday, it’s just a matter of when. I’ve owned it for 4.5 years. It’s going to be my last PS2 game that I’ll start and finish 😀

30 Days of Gaming: Day 24

Day 24: Favorite classic game.

I suppose this is classic enough, right? Final Fantasy VI is my first or second favorite FF game, and IMO the best of the SNES generation.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 23

Day 23: Game you think had the best graphics or art style.

Atelier Rorona. WHY WASN’T AT3 IN THIS STYLE. It’s so pretty!

PS3 games in general are pretty nice looking. More Valkyria lol.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 22

Day 22: A game sequel which disappointed you.

This gaaame. Valkyria Chronicles II did improve on the original in a few ways, with new character classes and streamlined controls, but it shed a few pounds of plot and characterization to fit it in. I disliked all the main characters, and while the side characters did get development, it wasn’t enough to save the story, which ranged from okay to godawful at times. I didn’t mention VC1 in my “best story” post yesterday, mainly because I think I’ve been talking about it too much, but it ranks up there with the two games I did list. VC2 took that and pretty much laughed at it in Avan’s stupid HA HAHAHAHA sound clip. VC3 looks like a big improvement, however.

Another one would be Ar tonelico III. It took a system jump just like VC2, but instead of going console -> handheld, it went the impressive last gen -> current gen jump. Which should’ve made it better, right? Nah. Even if I was a graphics whore I wouldn’t say so. The character models are extremely plasticy, not like you see them a lot in scenes since they usually fuzz out the background for the typical talking heads sequences RPGs do. The amazing battle system from AT2 is scrapped and replaced with a Tales-like action system…that falls utterly flat as all you do is mash button and do 10 damage. There’s only one type of magic, attack magic, and each girl only has one spell. You’ll be seeing it a lot since that’s the only way you can do any damage. I could keep going on but I did review it a while back, so just read that.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 21

Day 21: Game with the best story.

Well I’ve always liked stories with twists and stuff. So Valkyrie Profile ranks high because if you play through normally, you don’t get the whole story. And the whole story, when you get it, is pretty touching and awesome.

The same applies to Persona 3, though it’s a hell of a lot longer, and with an extra chapter to tie things up in the rerelease. Though the story was fine before they added that in.