Red Seeds Profile is...
otherwise known as Deadly Premonition in the West!
I just started playing this game, because it actually came recommended to me by people whom I trust more than IGN (there's people living in cardboard boxes whose opinion I'd value more, mind you), I'm about 2 hours in and I have to say...
It's f*cking
awesome.Don't listen to the retards at IGN who don't know quality when it comes up to them and pisses in their skulls. Instead, read the Destructoid review!
Deadly Premonition ReviewThey're right.Well, maybe that's exaggerating a little, but it's DEFINITELY a lot better than most people will have you believe.
Yes, it has a low budget so you get crappy graphics and lousy car controls and whatnot, but right from the get-go it is obvious that this game was made by people with passion, heart, and a great sense of humor.
Fans of Twin Peaks will LOVE it.
Fans of campy 80s movies will LOVE it.
People who understand that videogames do not have to be about state-of-the-art graphics, Hollywood-style production and lots of explosions will LOVE it.
People who love "different" will LOVE it.
The game's been a pretty straight roll of (intentional!) LOLs, and it's pretty fun to play as well (aside from some control issues, mostly relating to vehicles).
It was made BY and FOR people of "my generation" (ie early thirties), and there's shitloads of (optional) conversation/trivia on 70's/80's movies which is a total blast to listen to.
It's a shame the game only goes for full retail price in Japan. I love it, but I still wouldn't feel comfortable recommending it for 6000 yen...
It is, for all intents and purposes, a Budget Title: simple graphics, iffy voice-acting, completely warped directional audio and there's only 12 (!) achievements, so asking full price is a bit of a rip-off.
I'm guessing this one's going to win in the "Best Game Noone Played" category this year.
Xenoblade
I'm probably talking to myself here, but let's assume that there are some people here who are still using their Wii (is NOONE playing Mario Galaxy 2!?) and, God forbid, even into JRPGs.
You (and that's probably a singular 'you') will be happy to know that Xenoblade is, in fact, a very good game. It's been likened to Final Fantasy XII, which is understandable since the character design was done by the same guy and the battle system is rather similar.
Although you could just as well say the battle system is like most MMORPGs, indeed, it's quite close to World of Warcraft, with auto-attacks and a set of rechargeable skills that can be activated at will.
The game features large and lushly detailed environments, full of enemies and items and whatnot. It's not going to win any originality awards for its setting, but there are lots of tiny gimmicks in the system to make it stand out as an interesting and entertaining RPG.
What I like most of all so far is how low-stress the game is.
There's a quick-travel feature, and you can change the in-game time at any moment you please (to hunt for those elusive monsters/items that only appear at night), regardless of whether there are any enemies around, although obviously not during actual combat (still a great improvement over Oblivion/Fallout 3).
If your party gets wiped out, you will be automatically sent back to the nearest Landmark, keeping any progress you've made, so you don't have to worry about when you last saved, or anything else for that matter.
Saving, by the way, can be done anywhere and at any time, which is quite unusual for a JRPG I'd say.
Other than that, there's a trading system, a Bond system that keeps track of how close you are to your party members and to other people in cities (and how close they are to each other), loads of quests (the first city alone has dozens upon dozens, so I haven't even left the first area yet after 4 hours of gameplay) most of which, thankfully, are short and easy, although they are likely to increase in difficulty later on in the game, skill trees, item manufacturing, an in-game 'achievement' system that rewards you for fulfilling tasks by granting you EXP and the like, and loads more.
It's a very fleshed out, grand-schale RPG, and they managed to squeeze a lot out of the humble Wii. Also, no gimmicky motion control, so you can just relax your hands in your lap, WHERE THEY BELONG.
I've been having a blast with it, and it's already shaping up to be one of my favorite RPGs of this year.
Platform Peril: Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sands and Super Mario Galaxy 2
That's a long ass post title, right there.
Maybe it would help if I split them into 2 posts?
Yes, but that ain't happenin'!
So, let's start with Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands, the latest addition to the long-running wall-climbing pole-vaulting parcours games starring the Prince of Persia.
Man, it must be sweet to be the Prince of Persia. You never actually seem to do a lot of governing from what I can tell.
It's another decent romp through the kingdom of Persia, which seems to be perpetually plagued by some kind of disaster that involves sand at some point (not much else there, is there? Hur hur!), but there are some new gimmicks for the Plucky Prince to work with.
For one, there is the ability to freeze water in order to change waterfalls into walls and fountains into poles to run off and jump from. Secondly, there's the ability to create platforms that were there before but not anymore, but only 1 at a time!
Both new abilities require lots of switching back and forth in mid-jump/run/fall/whatever and it can get pretty hectic and challenging later on in the game.
The problem is though, the game's creators don't give you any of these new abilities until you're already several hours into the game. They must've figured the 5 people who've never played an Ubisoft Prince of Persia game before needed some time to get a hang of the controls, so in the beginning you spend your time pulling off some very basic moves which will be all too familiar to most people for what feels a bit too long.
Christ, if you've never played one of Ubi's PoP games before, there's better games to start out with, so you shouldn't be bothering with this one in the first place.
The new abilities add some new twists though, so it's definitely a fun adventure, but I'm starting to think that the formula is perhaps groing slightly stale.
The scene leading up to the final battle is pretty awesome though.
Second up, is Super Mario Galaxy 2.
And Super Mario Galaxy 2, like Super Mario Galaxy 1 before it, is all kinds of Awesome.
I never thought I'd say it, but they've come to the point where Mario just works BETTER in 3D than in 2D, which is insane enough in and of itself.
It's going to be hard to top this in the category "Wii Game of the Year", but unfortunately that's not saying all that much.
The only question I have is, whereto next!?
We've had Mario Land, Mario World and Mario Galaxy, WHAT NEXT!?
Where could they possibly take the plumber next, that is going to be better than Super Mario Galaxy!?
FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
