Just finished Genji: Dawn of the Samurai.That twas a very short game. Good story, good graphics, nice music, fun battle system, and happily supplied with the original Japanese audio. But yep, very short, and also relatively easy. Once I got the hang of the controls, I died all of once and even then it was a pseudo death as I was immediately resurrected by a talisman. I never even used all my Essence of Amahagane pieces for enhancing Y (his full name is censored because it technically contains a bad word) and Benkai and never bothered doing any special weapon orders. Final game play time: 9 hours, 24 minutes. Y was at level 23, and I had 36,304 gold on hand at the end.
No idea what I'll play next. My only unplayed games now are the first three Devil May Cry, and I'm not really wanting to try the first one again.
I started Tales of the Abyss around April 30th. Talk about a long game! Unlike Final Fantasy XII of last year's misery, however, Tales of the Abyss had a great cast of characters with interesting backgrounds and personalities. Jade had to be my favorite though, with all the fun lines he throws out. The game also as a terrific story line from beginning to end, and the side quest stories tied in perfectly. Of course, their doing so meant it was almost a requirement to finish them to get all of the story, and the Nebilim side boss easily added a good 20 hours to my game as I kept having to level up, go to get the best weapons.
Even with that, it still took four or five tries before I beat that heifer earlier this evening. With that done, I finished the last few side quest trips that required it to be done to do, then headed to Eldrant to beat Van. Compared to Nebilim, it was almost too easy (as usual). My only complaint is that so many scenes were done as regular scenes rather than using the anime sequences. The few anime sequences were great, though, and I was glad that the ending scenes, at least, used them. Speaking of the ending, the first part was sad, yet fitting and hopeful. After the credits (gotta love those teasers), was kinda good and made me tear up, but also left me a little confused (was that Luke? was that Asch? was it both in one?)
Final stats:
- Total game play time: 111 hours, 15 minutes, 26 seconds
- Character levels: Luke - 76, Natalia, Tear, Jade - 75, Guy - 72, Anise - 71
- Encounters: 1066
- Skits viewed: 415/489
- Number of saves: 187
- Average battle time: 32 seconds
- Max number of hits: 53
- Max damage: 43,503
- Character use: Luke - 92%, Tear - 83%, Jade - 82%, Anise - 10%, Guy - 22%, Natalia - 68%, Asch - 2%
I may take a mental break for a day or two, then I think I'll start Tomb Raider: Legend for something shorter.
Last night I spent two freaking hours climbing up the last Colossi, falling down again, up again, down again, etc. Tonight, first time beat him in like 7 minutes. Go figure. People told me to keep at it after my initial complaints about the controls saying the ending was worth it. Uh, not even. Best I just found the whole thing to be rather blah and, storywise, it wasn't worth the frustration of the controls or the build up at all. Never find out who the girl is but I guess we're supposed to be glad she's alive again and all safe in her happy place with the horse (yay for the horse living), and the boy whoever the hell he was now a baby. But...why should we really care? Who the heck were they that the boy would bother? Who were the guys trying to kill them. Not gonna find out in this game. :-(
Total game play time, 7 hours, 54 minutes, 20 seconds.
As for what to play next...I'm undecided. I have Tomb Raider: Legend, Genji: Dawn of the Samurai, Shadows of Colossus, Tales of the Abyss, and the first three Devil May Cry games in my queue. Hmmm...
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