Video game post dump! As per the usual - me just rambling about my thoughts on the games. I've played more games than these throughout the year, but these were the big ones that left an impression on me. (Also the ones I actually finished ^^;;)
Fire Emblem: If (Hoshino)
I really, really, like Awakening. In fact, I need to replay it some day, but when Fire Embem: Fates was announced back in North America I was super stoked. And then I moved to Japan and Fates was already out and me, being me, picked up a New 3DS (used) and a copy of Fire Emblem as soon as I got my first pay check.
...I don't necessarily think the game lived up. This might sound weird, but I felt like this game just had too much. Part of it is due to the fact that it's actually three games so there are a lot of characters you need to keep track of. I've only played the Hoshino path, but you still learn the whole cast of Conquest and just... yeah. Keeping track of everyone is hard. I haven't done the research but I feel like Awakening's cast wasn't even half as vast? Not only this, but in general the game just had a lot of stuff in it. The village, your house, that weird... massage... game... thing... (let's just forget about that, I honestly did not get the point. Why).
Seriously though. The village. I collected food, upgraded stuff, got gems and what not, but I never really did much otherwise. Maybe it plays more if you do spotpassing and online battles? But if not, it's a pretty big waste.
Story wise... it was alright. Due to the cast I found it really hard to get into the characters and the story--and I really wasn't feeling the family turmoil at all. Maybe I should've started with Conquest, because I feel like that would've been more interesting? Destroying things from inside? Hoshino was just kind of like... eh... all though Ryoma is a bad-ass. Seriously. And I liked Takumi for the most part. But your step-siblings suck, except for the sister. But we all know what happens to her -_-;;. Your brother Marcus though is a grade-A jerk Yeah, you can tell I really could not get into the story. At some point I actually found it pretty tedious.
I found the new jobs kind of interesting though. Didn't... understand them, but interesting. Would've liked dragons and magic user, although the ninja class was pretty handy if you levelled the properly. For Hoshino the levels were pretty standard, I really only got stuck at the end (the two stage boss battle which oh my god did I get stuck. I got REALLY stuck). But beyond that... I never found any thing in the main game was too difficult. BUT I wasn't a tank like in Awakening either. Although, I also played hard. I remember switching to Regular just to see the ending after dying for the Nth time and was so surprised at how much easier it was. I'm glad I started with Hard right off the bat.
All I can say though, was that when I finished the game, I was glad to put it down. Yeah.
I think part of my lack of enjoyment may have been due to how text heavy Fire Emblem is as a game, and my Japanese is... good. Like, I understood most things and the story and everything, but actually taking the time to read through all the character conversations and side convos and pairing convos got really tedious after a while and took a lot of work and brain power.
Overall though, I think I might just stick with Awakening. I liked Chrom and the kids made more sense in that game (the kids didn't make sense in this one... why do people have grown up kids? What the fuck)? Anyway.
Mass Effect Trilogy
Okay. Okay. I know, you're probably like wait--you just started Mass Effect? And in my defence, I don't like shooting games and I always remembered this as being an Xbox game, which was a double "no" for me. I really should just make an entirely separate Mas Effect post, but laziness means I won't. So. Things to talk about for this game.
Mass Effect 1:
A lot of people shit on Mass Effect 1 for clunky and crappy gameplay, but I actually liked it? Yeah, it was kind of slow, but it worked considering I can't play shooters at all and am not used to playing shooters. Also the best thing about ME1 gameplay was that you had a separate crouch button and you didn't just randomly stick to things because the X button was your only button for doing anything. God the amount of times I died in 2/3 because I was trying to roll or run away and then accidentally stuck to a fucking wall. Or even worse, I'm trying to stick to something and then LEAP OVER IT AND DIE.
So in terms of button layout Mass Effect 1 hit it on the spot SO well. The menus were god awful. Ugh. The menus.
Also, story wise, Mass Effect 1 has the best story. It was exciting, yeah you only went to three worlds but I felt all the missions for the worlds were engaging and interesting. It wasn't just shoot up some people here and shoot up people there. The cast was engaging and fun. Also, Illos was beautiful. And that whole conversation you have with Sovereign was like... what the fuck?! I remember my jaw just dropping and being like "holy shit what did I get into". The reapers were scary and how was I supposed to beat this? HOW WAS I GOING TO BEAT THIS GUYS? Which of course, leads into...
Mass Effect 2
Which, contrary to popular opinion, is actually my least favourite game? The thing is, I love the cast of Mass Effect and the characters definitely make a lot of the game for me. I love the interactions, the friendships, which is why I loved Mass Effect 3 and all the little details they added with crew member interaction. The problem though, is that I also need a story. And yes--Mass Effect is a trilogy with an overarching story, I know that. Defeat the reapers. But within a single contained game, I also need a story and Mass Effect 2 had no story.
What was all the crap with the collectors? Where were the reapers? The opening was so promising, when my ship got blown up and Shepherd DIED and I was like "WHAT THE FUCK" and then it kind of just... stalled. I went and collected my crew, and did all their loyalty missions and it was at stage two that I realized.. wait... there is no fucking story. All I'm doing is building a team to invade the reaper base? THAT IS ALL I AM DOING?! Screw you TIM. Screw. You.
The suicide mission was cool though. I'll give you that. It wasn't too hard to figure out who went were and get everyone to survive, but it fun and actually made me feel like all my efforts paid out in the end (unlike ME3...). Also, I love, love, Illium. The Asari are just... such an interesting species, and no, not because they're hot or sexy. It's because they're so damn catty and fickle. Hearing all the conversations that occurred at Illium was hilarious. Favourite race besides the Salarians--and that's mostly because of Mordin. Whereas for the Asari, I just like the as a whole because... yeah. So bitchy. My god.
Mass Effect 3
This game was so great until about the time Kai Leng showed up. I loved, loved, loved, how you got to visit all the home worlds and see what they were like. I thought it was so cool. I loved the world in Mass Effect 1 too, and... I don't remember any of the worlds in Mass Effect 2 except for Omega and Illium (and the collector ship of course), but Mass Effect 3 I remember everywhere. Tuchunka was amazing--that entire sequence, even just going through the ruins.
Mordin =(. Mordin was one of the most memorable, amazing characters out there. I was so distraught when he died, I really did tear up. But damn, Tuchunka was hands down the best part of the game. Then... yeah, things just went oddly downhill from there.
Thessia and beyond was when it really hit rock bottom actually. I was so stoked for Thessia. The great Asari homeworld! We hit the ruins, find out there is a fricken PROTHEAN BEACON THERE... and then some Ninja shows up and just jacks the data and leaves. What the hell? Like. What was Kai Leng? WHAT WAS THAT? Then there was Priority: Earth, which in of itself I didn't mind. Yay, we finally get to go to earth and figure out what the fuck is up and destroy a lot of people a long the way. Cool. Fun.
...and then it just end? You sprint, go up to the light, have that annoying ass slow-mo moment and then boom. Star child and pick your path. What. The. Fuck. I didn't spend all this time saving the Geth/Quarians, recruiting the Rachni and uniting the entire fucking galaxy so I could pick a path. Also, I had no problem picking Destroy, just FYI. Why? Because I figured we could just make the Geth again. Why not - it's not like people lost their brains and all their data. It just made these things unfunctional for now. Why can't we just remake them?
And for people saying I'm missing the point and EDI and Legion became actual people due to their experience and bonds. Okay--sure, I buy that. But at the end of the day... wasn't the idea just to get AIs and Organics to get along? And we achieved that (presumably). Look, I get it, you formed personal bonds with Legion and EDI, and they won't come back, but the option is total annihilation, or annihilation something that came return. I pick the latter. I couldn't bring Ashley back, or Mordin, or Thane, but I sure as hell can remake the Geth.
So. Plus points for ME3 was overall the gameplay--as in how the game was structured, was amazing. But plotwise it failed bad. Also the menus. What the hell happened to the quest menu and why did they have to fuck it up like that? WHY? Ugh. The menus in ME2 were amazing and then they had to take a crap all over them. *sigh*.
Romances
I went Liara / Garrus / Garrus (although I kind of strung Liara along for a bit because I had trouble deciding). In the end though, the deal breakers was that I realized I was only hanging onto Liara because she was the person I picked in ME1 and I felt bad breaking up with her, because I really liked Liara from ME1. I thought she was very sweet and likeable, and then she gained some well-needed spunk in ME2 (Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC was so great). In ME3 though... a lot of things just felt really forced with her and I felt like all the conversations and interactions actually ended up feeling really awkward.
Part of it was the voice acting. I don't know who did her voice acting, but it sounded like Liara had lost all form of emotion. She couldn't even sound properly indignant when talking with Aethyta. Seriously. What happened? It was like the life got sucked out of her. Ugh. So in the end it was Garrus. Garrus was my bro.
If I were to play the game again though, I think I'd remain relationship less. Although I hate the fact that it's so easy to slip into a romance--especially if you are like me and try to talk to everyone. Also, man, some of the girls just throw themselves at Shepherd. Like. What. Why is everyone so thirsty in this game? I just don't get it. Liara in game 1 included.
Choices:
Saved Rachni Queen. Saved Wrex. Killed Ashley. Romanced Liara. Everyone survived the survival mission. Destroyed Collector Base. Romanced Garrus. Cure ghenophage, Mordin died. Saved and recruited Rachni. Brokered peace between Quarian/Geth. Romanced Garrus. Destroy Ending.
Also, no I did not have Javik or the Citadel DLC. I saw all the videos on Youtube though.
Also, also. This is really random and out of all the ships I could become obsessed with in this game, I got really attached to Benezia/Aethya. They're like... two pretty minor side-characters, but I just find that whole angle really fascinating. WHAT HAPPENED? WHY DID THEY SPLIT? It helps that they're so black and white and then you have Liara thrown in.
Also it helps that the first Mass Effect fic I read was Saving Nezzy and... man is it amazing.
So yeah. Mass Effect. What a ride. I would love to replay it again. :)
Journey
Final game I will talk about is Journey. My friend made me play it in like.. 3 hours and what I can say? It's cute, it's beautiful, and I really need to thank the dude online who helped me throughout the whole game. And it was just one guy. I'm sorry, you probably thought I was a total dumbass who had no idea how to follow you around. I'm sorry I got lost at the very last part when we had to go up the mountain. I was so distraught going up alone and then I finally saw you at the end and then you died and I got so distraught and confused.
It worked out in the end though :D
Journey is cute though. I can see why it got a lot of rewards. At the end of the day though, unless we're doing actual co-op where the other person is in the room with me, I do not like playing games online with other people. Journey is nice in that you just interact with musical sounds, but in some ways... that made it more stressful. I wish I hadn't known that he was an actual person. It would've been nice if I just assumed they were an NPC who just happened to guide you. But oh well.
Glad I got to try it out. ^_^
Also. So pretty.
