My brother just recently bought Super Smash Bros Brawl and within the past 35-40 hours we have probably played like 20-25 hours so needless to say we are hooked. Not only is it everything SSBM was it is a lot more it not only adds a massive roster of many more unique characters although it has a few clones still but also a long story mode with tons of things to earn and do along with many other features and modes. With the combination of me playing SSBB and World of Warcraft almost all of my gaming time is being consumed so until I hit 70 in WoW and our burning desire to smash it up dies down I unfortunatly won't be touching the Orange Box and/or Devil May Cry 4.

Soon I will be posting my review up of Splinter Cell for the Playstation and Fire Emblem for the GBA, I am too lazy to type them up today but I plan on doing it very soon. I really should start writing them on the computer to start off with but I usually write them while on the go so it really isn't possible for me. My workout is also going quite well, I have started doing strength training and running in the morning as well as my normal workout so I am quite sore but excited about it. I have 2 weeks free at the athletic club so I will see how far that will take me and see if I think I need the resources to acheive my goals.

Well how is everyone else doing? Whats new? and who else is playing SSBB?

Me and my brother have been playing a little bit of World of Warcraft together again I am playing my orc warrior "Kanowned" and having fun exploring the outlands and killing people. Hopefully I don't get too hooked into WoW that I quit playing other games, my buddy picked up a couple PS3 games including Devil May Cry 4 so I will probably start playing that as well. I have 2 new review that I have to pst besides todays Splinter Cell on the PS2 and Fire Emblem on the GBA both were entertaining games.

My workout has been going pretty good so far been jogging for about 2 weeks now and keeping it up so I don't think the 2 miles a day will burn me out although I hope to raise it soon. Someone I know won a 2 week free membership to a gym but they don't want it so I will probably have the chance to actually have full gym capabilities for a while which will be nice. Everything right now is going pretty smooth around here... Well hope you enjoy my Yggdra Union review!

- Yggdra Union -

Publisher: Atlus

Developer: Sting

Release: Nov 2006

In Yggdra Union you play as both the princess Yggdra and Milanor a thief she meets on her adventure. Yggdra begins on the run from a squad of troops after her family's kingdom was destroyed. Hiding in an old fort she seeks refuge from the troops lucky for her this fort is a thief named Milanor's hideout and he runs off the troops assaulting it. Yggdra asks for help and Milanor accepts on one condition that after it is over he gets her castle to replace his fort that is now in ruins.

Yggdra and Milanor now somewhat safe begin to head for the main force of what is left of her kingdoms army. On arrival they find it is in shambles only the leader remains holding the enemy at bay. Yggdra and Milanor save the knight and now as a trio fight back the imperial forces as best you can. Now hoping to get the help of the mermaids Yggdra and her followers head out on an adventure to reclaim her lost kingdom.

The storyline of Yggdra Union although somewhat predicatable to start off with the basic saved lone princess story turns into a well thought out plot. A nice tale of war and heroism as Yggdra and Milanor try to reclaim her lost kingdom. At first glance I had second thoughts about the game but once I began I found it to unique and entertaining. The unique combat system based off of clas*es, skills, cards, and unions is confusing at first glance but it is made very well.

This strange strategic card system is dramatically different from most SRPG systems. Each card has 2 numbers, a skill, and a weapon type on it the numbers are the amount of moves and your attack power. The weapon types show which clas* type will be the strongest for that round and the skill, which is sometimes usable only by certain characters, can be used when you fight enemies. The actual battles are squad based with your leader and a squad of troops against the others you must use your clas*s's advantages and disadvantages to win.

Combat is also based on Unions which allow you and your enemies to attack with multiple people each round. Male characters have an "X" formation for unions while females have a "cross" formation allowing you to plan your attacks carefully to your advantage. Unions and weapon types are what you must learn to exploit it you want to master combat in Yggdra Union. The graphic sty*e in this game is very anime based with many small sprites, it has some very interesting character art and looks very nice in battle. The music in Yggdra Union is somewhat generic you don't really notice it much although it isn't really bad either.

The unique system of combat in Yggdra Union was a nice change of pace for me I haven't played anything that's the same before. Although I warn you it may take some time getting used to it but give it a chance you will catch on more quickly than you think. Due to the interesting and unique combat system, cool storyline, anime sty*e sprites, and the 2 possible endings I would rate Yggdra Union a 8.5 out of 10. If you own a GBA I would pick this up it is a lot of fun, also if you own a PSP this title will be coming out later with more characters, FMVs, voice acting, and more so watch for it.

Kind of busy today so I am just posting up my Growlanser II: The Sense of Justice review which is half of Growlanser Generations a game that comes with both Growlanser II and III. Sometime in the future I plan to play through Growlanser III and review it as well but not now, sometime soon howver I will post up my Yggdra Union for the GBA review. Cya later and Enjoy people!

- Growlanser II: The Sense of Justice -

Publisher: Working Designs

Developer: Career Soft.

Release: Dec 2004

You are Wein a student at a military academy who wishes to become an imperial knight, unlike most you are skilled enough to use ring weapons. Ring Weapons are rings that sense your personality and form a weapon fit for you they require much talent to wield. When taking your test to get into the academy you are teamed up with Maxamillian another ring user and become friends quickly. Being ring users you quickly advanced through the academy and was offered the exam to graduate as knights.

Being in a state of war your final exam is actual combat, you and Max are sent out to a town to protect it from invasion. After you meet with your superior officer and the leader of the mercenaries you are suddenly attacked. The three groups split up the mercenaries head to the west gate, your officer guards the east gate, and you and Max go to help the villagers. After defeating all the monsters and clearing the towns safety you pass your final exam and are sworn in as knights.

Meeting in a familiar place Wein and Max say farewell now graduating as knights. Max shares his wish to create a peaceful world through politics in order to stop violence and Wein shares his life goal to become one of the few and elite imperial knights the most honored rank in the military. This is where Wein's adventure to try to become an imperial knights truly begins. Although a short title especially for a SRPG the story has some good spots and bad spots. It seems as though they near the end they try to speed up the game and end it more quickly. Overall for the length of the game it has a surprisingly entertaining storyline.

The Growlanser games have an interesting combat system similar yet very different from average SPRGs titles. Dependent on the characters type they are capable of different things such as a mage, archer, swordsman, thief, or many others. Combat is not based off a grid it has free range movement which is a unique and interesting change of pace. Every time your characters gain levels they get skill points allowing them to learn skills of their unit type. This allows you to customize your characters and learn new magic, skills, attacks, or other passive traits allowing them to become a stronger fighter.

The ring weapon system is also very customizable, each ring has 3 gem slots on it with different numbers. By equipping different ranked gems based on the numbers of the gem slots it has. With a massive variety of gems this allows a very diverse customization allowable for all of your different characters. Graphically Growlanser uses an anime sty*e graphics seen quite often in SRPGs and it makes it look very good and well made. As well as the graphics the sounds is also quite good with a lot of good tracks to listen to as you defeat your enemies.

This review will show up as a 8.0 due to Gamespot unfortunately not allowing a 8.2 to be selected.

I finally hit level 27, I am Shen Long! Mwa Ha Ha Ha Ha!

Today was my day off of my workout lucky for me since I had to drive up to Madison and back which took a lot longer than I had expected although it wasn't too bad. I finished my Yggdra Union review and started on my Splinter Cell one so I will have some more reviews to post soon. Well here is my review of Dark Cloud an RPG that I had played many times but always got too bored of it to finish it so I finally sat down and destroyed it just to see how good the game was in total.

- Dark Cloud -

Publisher: SCEA

Developer: Level 5

Release: May 2001

You unknowing of what the future holds for you are just a simple boy from a simple village. When a corrupt general unleashes a restrained evil genie from its slumber it rains death and chaos across the world including your small town. Visited by a fairy king he gives you a gauntlet with the power of Atlamillia which has the power to open atla.

Before the disaster occurred the fairy king sealed away all that he could into these small orbs called atla to prevent any harm from befalling them. To fix the world and your town you must venture into dungeons and open all of the atla and rebuild towns as they once were. In your adventure to stop this evil genie from its global domination you meet many people and visit many towns and grow much stronger than you once were.

The storyline of Dark Cloud is a very generic one it is the basic and overused kid from a small town saves the world from evil without any new twists. With a lackluster storyline you must then turn to the gameplay and combat to keep you entertained. Although simple the combat system of attacking and defending in an action based RPG environment is somewhat fun. The problem is that the combat system is that even with the various partners that you get it is still very repetitive.

The ability to combine and upgrade your weapons through various levels was one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. The game may be old but it didn't need to be made so quickly and so unprepared that it caused a lack or a real storyline, a repetitive combat system, and various glitches and problems you may run into the game. The one selling factor for the game is that it only costs about $8.oo to pick up which can make the game possibly worth picking up.

Graphically the game is somewhat kid-ish with bulky oddly shaped models. This is not always a bad thing in fact some games do it quite well although at best I would give Dark Clouds attempt a mediocre rating. The music in the game is also mediocre with various generic dungeon crawling music that you listen to as you traverse the annoyingly similar dungeon.

This review will show up as a 6.5 due to Gamespot unfortunately not allowing a 6.4 to be selected.

Lately I have been working out alot and dieting a little which has been sucking up alot of my time so I haven't been playing all that many games. The newest part of my workout regiment is running I had a lack of cardio so I decided that I will run a couple miles everyday and now I have been doing this for a week. Although it has been making me feel alot better and leaner which is needed for my goal my legs have been alot more sore than usual. Well hopefully it will make me lose a little fat to let my abs show some more and finish my 6-pack although I am not so keen on the diet thing I like food.

Enough about my workout and more about my review Haha! My brother has had this SRPG for a long time and I remember trying it once and ending up quiting it when I bought a new game. I decided that in a craving to play SRPGs I would pick it up and finish it to see how good it really is. I found this game to be alot of fun although at time it became a little repetitive overall it was a ton of fun. Hopefully you enjoy this review in a day or two I will put up my review of Dark Cloud if I am not busy.

- Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity -

Publisher: Atlus

Developer: Atlus

Release: April 2005

You begin in a small town training with your father's sword while your best friend Viser practices his alchemy. Viser swears that with alchemy he will rid the world of the miasma that plagues it and is slowly decaying it in the process. You Spero vow to help Viser in his quest to save the world anyway that you can. Then one day two generals from the imperial legion show up and demands Viser serve the legion with his alchemy.

Viser leaves willingly saying that this will open up more possibilities with his alchemy. Before they leave Echidna one of the generals overpowers you and steals your father's sword. In hopes to help Viser you sign up with the imperial legion and are assigned to hunting spirits for energy for Viser's alchemy. After meeting a shaman and being forced into battle with a crazed general from the legion you are left confused and alone. Is working for the evil legion killing spirits for Viser the right things to do or should you believe the shaman that killing spirits just spreads the miasma faster?

This is where Spero's adventure to stop the miasma and save the world begins. I expect a good game whenever I play an Atlus game and Stella Deus passed with no exceptions. Although not the most impressive plot it is very entertaining and has good character development. With this title being a SRPG a good strategic combat base is a must. It is fairly simple strategic combat besides support skills which dependent on your characters effect different radiuses. They can do many things from healing allies, hurting foes, causing status effects, raising your statistics, or even making you resistant to certain forms of attack.

With this good strategic core the combat is a lot of fun and not only do you get a lot of story characters you also get generic characters. Throughout the game you have a large catacombs you can go through to gain levels and money as well as doing missions to earn special items, skills, characters, and information. Along with all of this there is also a very in-depth alchemy fusion system where you can create a massive selection of items, weapons, and new skills from combining others.

One thing I enjoyed a lot about Stella Deus is the artistic way that it has. Many games have very generic graphics and are afraid to go outside of the box of normalcy. With this creative artistic graphics, and cool team attacks and animations the game is very impressive on the graphical side. A decent sound track and nice voice acting supports the game and its cast of characters as well.

This review will show up as a 9.0 due to Gamespot unfortunately not allowing a 8.9 to be selected.

Todays review is a title I have been planning on playing again and needing to re-review for a long time. I am sad to say I reviewed this game a long time ago when my reviews were on the... pathetic side Haha. Well I hope you enjoy the review of one of my favorite games Shadow Hearts: Covenant the sequel to Shadow Hearts.

Tommarow I will be putting up my review of Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity for the PS2 for those who are interested.

- Shadow Hearts: Covenant -

Publisher: Midway

Developer: Nautilus

Release: September 2004

You are Yuri a man with a unique ability you got from your father called "Harmonixer". This allows you to fuse the souls of demons with your own to gain their power and form. Some call you "God Slayer" from your adventures in the first Shadow Hearts where you subdued a god to save the world. You are settled down in a small town in the middle of a war zone, protecting its citizens and your friends from any harm.

One day a female captain invades your village with a squad of men. You transform and quickly dispatch them all and save the captain from a stray grenade then let her escape with her life. Then she returns with a man from the Vatican that has a holy artifact called the "Holy Mistletoe". When they arrive the man turns on her and says he will kill them both. Yuri in fighting gets stabbed with the Holy Mistletoe and after an incantation he screams and passed out. Saved by his friends and the girl Yuri must find out what curse this Holy Mistletoe has put on him and how he can stop it.

The storyline of Shadow Hearts: Covenant is a direct sequel to the first Shadow Hearts. With the same main character Yuri and a new and unique cast of cool characters the storyline is very entertaining. It is a nice length RPG with great character development and an amazing plot with many unforeseen twists and turns to surprise you. As a sequel to one of my favorite games I had high expectations but it surpassed them all.

The gameplay is quite unique from your average everyday RPG, the Shadow Hearts series uses a combat system based around the Judgment Ring. The Judgment Ring is a ring that appears on your screen whenever you select an action such as attacking, items, magic, combo attacks, or anything else when this happens you must hit "X" at the right time for your action to be successful. This system makes battles a lot more entertaining and much more unique than the over-used menu surfing. Pretty much everything in the game is based around the judgment ring they do a good job of keeping all the characters timings different so you have to get used to them until the point where you can challenge yourself further. There are also special effects you can get on your ring that make it go twice as fast, invisible, makes the targets smaller, and many others making the judgment ring more difficult.

One thing Shadow Hearts: Covenant does very well also is the amount of things to accomplish in the game and possible after the game. Even after you get to the end of the game there are tons of things that you can do. There are not only many side quests that delve you further into the characters storylines and collects special skills for them but also collecting ultimate weapons and armor, collecting all the magic crests and arranging them on Solomon's Key, finding all of the lottery members, and my favorite collecting all the different demon fusions for Yuri among other things. Through all of the game it will keep you fully entertained and interested much longer than most RPGs can do with such a large array of things to do.

The cutscenes were amazing to say the least, not only were they frequent but the quality was great and they were very entertaining. The rest of the game looks great as well with very smooth animations and cool looking environments for you to explore. The music of Shadow Hearts would probably be the weakest point in my opinion but even so that isn't an insult. There are a good variety of music you will hear as you travel the world as Yuri but it doesn't seem to quite keep up with the great quality of the rest of the game.

Possible one of my favorite games of all time Shadow Hearts: Covenant does not disappoint. It provides a great storyline with fantastic characters, an awesome battle system based around the judgment ring, and great cutscenes and graphics. Due to all of these great features that it has I would rate Shadow Hearts: Covenant a 9.7 out of 10. Anyone who plays RPGs would love this series it is a great change of pace from conventional RPGs, with its good sense of humor and fun gameplay you will enjoy it. If you have yet to try a Shadow Hearts game I would suggest you do so and start with the first one if you want the full quality of the storyline and characters.

This review will show up as a 9.5 due to Gamespot unfortunately not allowing a 9.7 to be selected.