Slowga update. Busy IRL.

So I have bought a house recently and will be moving in a couple of weeks, so all my free time has been taken up with arranging things and working overtime for some extra moolah. That means very little time for games. Thank god for Easter (literally) that I'll finally have a break to catch up on some much needed workout for my fingers.

Bravely Default: Made absolutely no progress on this whatsoever. I have the attention span of a 5 year old so games tat pique my interest out of nowhere also find themselves dropped after 5 minutes too. This explains why I have such an unashamingly large backlog. Look for yourself. 

Final Fantasy X-2 HD: So I have finally made it to chapter 5. I've missed a few scenes, but I may have just enough extras (as I did New Yevon before) to get to 100%. I am going for all Episode Completes. So far I've gotten most of the Episode Completes from areas that consists mostly of cutscenes, have about half of them left.

Right now I am working on Via Infinito trying to Oversoul all the fiends. Currently at floor 15. It's going to take a little while. YRP are still at their default starting levels. I have completed about 85% of the fiends, so not many left. I also missed 1 fiend where it's no longer available, so I won't be able to get 100% this play through. I have been using 2 fiends abusing Flare to get through most fights. Now I have a Chocobo and Tonberry, with Lulu supporting them with magic.

I am not sure if I'll Oversoul all the fiends, I'll try to get as much as I can. Once I've completed this play through the next game I'll use mostly YRP. I also want to get 100% completion so I can start Last Mission. Really looking forward to it.

Saint Seiya Brave Soldier: So I bought this game. I am a big Saint Seiya fan as I've grown up with this manga/anime series. It's mostly unheard of in English speaking countries (due to the terrible censored dub called Knights of the Zodiac), yet it's hugely popular in Europe and Latin America. It's created in the late 80s. I heard a good analogy of the series that describes it as "Sailor Moon for boys", which is kinda accurate.

The story is set in modern day with a heavy dose of influence from Greek mythology (with tactful creative liberties like all great literature of course). Basically the goddess Athena has been reincarnated and there are "Saints" (basically warriors) based off of the 88 constellations that fights on her behalf. The storyline is fantastic (don't forget this is from the 80s) and is dear to my heart.

So this is the latest fighting game based on the Saint Seiya story and characters. The "story" mode chronicles the 3 major storylines of the manga/anime. Sanctuary (the 12 Zodiac temples), Poseidon and Hades.... except the Hades chapter seems to be VERY abridged. I'm only halfway through the Poseidon chapter, but judging from the playable characters, several villains from the Hades arc aren't available, so I wouldn't be surprised if much of that chapter has been chopped out.

Anyway, the story is bare bones, which is ok, because I know the story anyway. As for gameplay... it's ok, not bad, but not great. But so far it pretty much consists of dashing in with a melee combo and chain it into a special, rinse and repeat. The supers, as per the last 3 Saint Seiya games, useless. Every single one of them seems to be like "Final Atomic Buster" (using a Street Fighter term here), that is, all are "all or nothing" moves with throw-like range, but it also has long start up and very predictable. It's not even good at punishing whiffed attacks, as 1, it takes so long the foe generally can recover in time and move away or hit you out of it, and 2, has literally no range, so if you get behind them while they're doing their melee combo, their combo will move them out of the way and you'll miss.

The game boasts as having 50+ playable characters. What they really meant was variations of of same character. There are 4 Seiyas, 3 each of Shiryu, Hyoga, Shun and Ikki, NOT even counting DLC. The gold and surplice versions of the Gold Saints count as separate characters, not to mention the game has no less than 5 versions of Gemini (empty cloth, Saga gold, Kanon gold, Saga surplice, Kanon scale). When that's considered, the total amount of characters includes is much much less, but still quite impressive and is the largest roster yet. I love how all Marinas are included (except Mermaid but she was a wuss anyway). I would have loved for them to include just a couple of Spectres, like Papillon and Pharaoh. Instead we only have the 3 judges, and the 3 gods, and the surplice Gold Saints. Orphee being included is awesome though. He's my favourite silver as a child.

I would have loved for them to include Lizard Misty (like the PS2 game) and some of the other silvers, like Algol. I long for the day a Saint Seiya game is made that starts from Galaxian Wars and includes every single saint from the manga (without the blah filler bits from the anime).

Grinding on the go. The Zodiac Brave-ly Default Story.

Work that apron like the rent is due!
Agnes' kitchen couture sends the feminist
movement back 50 years.
"This is what we burned our bras for?"
- Some Old Bag

Isn't Engrish fun? Throw two random words together and you have something new and cool. Try our new fantabulous game Fierce Menopause. How about Critically Herpes? Well I guess Bravely Default isn't that spicy. Funny, cuz here in Australia "default" is to be in arrears on your loan repayments, and a "default" is a black mark against your credit report for having a delinquent loan. Since I work in credit in my day job, every time I see the title Bravely Default I imagine some teenager taking out credit cards and never paying them back. Damn those teenagers, bring back Lay-Buy!

Well I guess it's a good thing the localisers haven't decided to include the subtitle from the Japanese version, "Flying Fairy". Not only is it advertising for the competition (hello Flying/Fairy type Pokemon and its sexy quad Fighting resist!) but I am sure I am not the only one imagining a game with flaming homosexuals prancing around. Oh wait. We've already had one of those. Shadow Hearts Covenant. Which also happens to be one of my favourite RPGs ever. I guess we should have more RPGs with flaming homosexuals! Bring on the Flying Fairy!

So I've been checking out Bravely Default, a Final Fantasy game in disguise. It was originally made

Known for Tizzy Fits. Uh oh, the diva is here!

to be a squeal-of-sorts to the DS 4 Heroes of Light, meh! But it's turned out to be more like FF3 DS mixed with FF5.

So impressions. Meh voice acting and even meh-er dialogue. I guess story is not where it's at. But gameplay is pretty cool. Love the return of the job system and love the FF5 type system except with even more customisation. Always a win. Who needs a boobjob when you can play with the FF5 job system.

So far making very slow progress. Just made it to chapter 1 believe it or not. I've kept everyone as Freelancers. Want to grind up to tat LV10 JP Up. Ahhhh old habits never die (good ol' FFT) even though I've been told it's not hard to gain JP in this game at all. So far grinding in front of the first dungeon in chapter 1. Tiz is about to reach job level 6. Yeah, how sad. But I've been playing this game during my trip to and from work, as well as lunch times and breaks, so I don't mind grinding on the go.

The other Edea.

Something I've noticed though, the difficulty ramps up every time a new dungeon opens up. I transition from mopping the enemies in one round to getting mopped whenever I move into a new dungeon. I realise part of the reason is my sub optimal job configuration and my cheap-arsedness in insisting all equipment needs to be provided by god.

So far the game is going good. But I am only early early early on. It hasn't bored me as of yet, but I wouldn't mind giving that Fierce Menopause a go.