Reloaded
Okay. I haven't really written any video-game themed entries in quite a long time. Sure, there's been the occasional quip here or there about computers; but I haven't gone off on a tangent about a game for at least three months.
Time is up.
Okay. So there's this guy at school named Jerry, he's pretty cool, I talk to him in Latin II all the time. We were talking about games a few days ago, one thing led to the other, and I let him borrow Silent Hill in turn for a game I had never played before: Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. Dragon Quarter is an RPG. I like RPGs, and I frequently try new ones on blind faith just because I love the genre so. I just have to say, Dragon Quarter is going to kill me. Me. The human being sitting on the couch in my room with the PS2 controller. It will kill me if I keep playing it. Don't mistake this whole rant as a me complimenting this game. Oh, no. Don't take it that way at all. You see, this game itself isn't bad. Its got cool-looking cell-shaded graphics, nice sound, neat-looking enemies to fight, the story is sort of sub-par, but that's easy to overlook while you're exploring catacombs of service tunnels underneath a massive BioTech building. Well, at least the first time your exploring. You see, Dragon Quarter seems to take it upon itself to make you restart the game every once in a short while. You read correctly. It makes you restart the game completely multiple times. Lets say you just won the hardest fight of your entire RPG career. You've got no healing items left, two of your three party members are down, and you're surrounded by baddies. By some miracle pure luck, skill, and clever footwork all come together to spell out victory in your favor. Its too bad that your "Dragon Counter" reached 100% during the fight. TIME TO RESTART THE ENTIRE DAMNED GAME. Yep. About an hour and a half thought the game you get this percentage at the top right of your screen that goes up about 0.01% every five steps you walk; and it zooms up at about 2.0% every second whenever you use your "D" abilities: incredibly useful skills that you're almost forced to use in order to advance in certain areas. And when I say "restart", I mean "restart". You go all the way back to the opening movie. You get to keep certain items that you obtained in your last game, but you lose most of them. You only get to keep weapons that were either equipped or stored in special "lockers" you find as you play. You also get to keep your "party exp", special experience points that go to a separate pool instead of one of your fighters. This is good, considering that the game drops you back to Level 01 when you get restarted. There's also something called "scenario Overlay" that lets you watch cut-scenes you didn't see the first time through, or explore an area that was locked the first time you saw it. These features are cool, but they don't skew the fact that you've just lost all of the previous games work and progress. Its a shame, too; Dragon Quarter has some cool looking places to roam around in, and the gameplay mechanics themselves are actually quite good. Its just too bad you'll be doing the same things over and over and over. Jerry says there's an ending movie, but he hasn't seen it. Considering he owns this game, and has probably played it a great deal longer than I have, and still hasn't finished it; I think its safe to say I won't triumph in the short while it will be in my possession.
I think I'll give it back to Jerry and tell him not to let anyone else borrow it. Ever.
Time is up.
Okay. So there's this guy at school named Jerry, he's pretty cool, I talk to him in Latin II all the time. We were talking about games a few days ago, one thing led to the other, and I let him borrow Silent Hill in turn for a game I had never played before: Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. Dragon Quarter is an RPG. I like RPGs, and I frequently try new ones on blind faith just because I love the genre so. I just have to say, Dragon Quarter is going to kill me. Me. The human being sitting on the couch in my room with the PS2 controller. It will kill me if I keep playing it. Don't mistake this whole rant as a me complimenting this game. Oh, no. Don't take it that way at all. You see, this game itself isn't bad. Its got cool-looking cell-shaded graphics, nice sound, neat-looking enemies to fight, the story is sort of sub-par, but that's easy to overlook while you're exploring catacombs of service tunnels underneath a massive BioTech building. Well, at least the first time your exploring. You see, Dragon Quarter seems to take it upon itself to make you restart the game every once in a short while. You read correctly. It makes you restart the game completely multiple times. Lets say you just won the hardest fight of your entire RPG career. You've got no healing items left, two of your three party members are down, and you're surrounded by baddies. By some miracle pure luck, skill, and clever footwork all come together to spell out victory in your favor. Its too bad that your "Dragon Counter" reached 100% during the fight. TIME TO RESTART THE ENTIRE DAMNED GAME. Yep. About an hour and a half thought the game you get this percentage at the top right of your screen that goes up about 0.01% every five steps you walk; and it zooms up at about 2.0% every second whenever you use your "D" abilities: incredibly useful skills that you're almost forced to use in order to advance in certain areas. And when I say "restart", I mean "restart". You go all the way back to the opening movie. You get to keep certain items that you obtained in your last game, but you lose most of them. You only get to keep weapons that were either equipped or stored in special "lockers" you find as you play. You also get to keep your "party exp", special experience points that go to a separate pool instead of one of your fighters. This is good, considering that the game drops you back to Level 01 when you get restarted. There's also something called "scenario Overlay" that lets you watch cut-scenes you didn't see the first time through, or explore an area that was locked the first time you saw it. These features are cool, but they don't skew the fact that you've just lost all of the previous games work and progress. Its a shame, too; Dragon Quarter has some cool looking places to roam around in, and the gameplay mechanics themselves are actually quite good. Its just too bad you'll be doing the same things over and over and over. Jerry says there's an ending movie, but he hasn't seen it. Considering he owns this game, and has probably played it a great deal longer than I have, and still hasn't finished it; I think its safe to say I won't triumph in the short while it will be in my possession.
I think I'll give it back to Jerry and tell him not to let anyone else borrow it. Ever.
written by panguan at 7:27 AM
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