Kingdom Hearts 3 Review [spoilers]

So, I literally just beat Kingdom Hearts 3 about an hour ago and boy do I have thoughts on the game.

First, my overall one-liner: Fun, but very flawed game. Now. Onto the details. (Warning, spoilers!!)

I'm going to start with the flaws first, and then end on the positives because... I think you'll realize that is just going to make a lot more sense. Here we go!

My thoughts on the Dark Soul Series

Alrighty. For those who actually bother to read my posts about video games - you may have noticed I haven't mentioned games in a while and that is not because I stopped playing them. In fact, I have been steadily playing certain games - specifically, I've been attempting to get through the Soulsborne series (minus Demon Souls). Since I am not a great gamer, and I was very busy with school for a while (plus subbing 99.9 SII), this has taken me a lot longer than anticipated, but here I am, with Dark Souls 1, 2, 3 all finished for me to talk about. I will make a separate post about Bloodborne when I beat it :)

Warning: This is going to be a long post since it's pretty much three game reviews in one. Have fun!

Horizon Zero Dawn

I started this game in September and just beat it today.

Wow.

In terms of story anyway - wow.

The funny thing is, I already had the plot completely spoiled to me because I had looked it up in advance, but when I finally made it in to GAIA Prime and I knew what was coming, I was still a bit blown away. I could just imagine what it would be like for someone, who had no idea what was going to happen, to see all this and just have their mouths on the floor.

And then there was the scene at the end with Aloy, and it was just... so touching?

(Okay - Spoilers from here on out - you have been warned)

My thoughts on FFXV

I finally got the platinum trophy for FFXV yesterday (a couple of weeksmonths back - it's taken me a while to get this post out) and am probably going to box up the game disk now in favour of starting Persona 5, so I figured now is as good as a time as ever to write about Final Fantasy XV.

The good:

• I loved the chocobros
• The music <3
• Noctis' story
• The fighting

The bad:

• Not fleshing out any other character 
• Execution of the overall story (beyond just Noctis)
• Quests were pretty meh
• Open-world is too empty - only a few interesting towns

As you can see, there is an equal number of good and bad points, but I'll say this right now - I loved Final Fantasy XV. It's not a perfect game, not at all, but when I say that I loved the Chocobros and Noctis' story and growth in this game, I really mean it. Do I wish they had managed to flesh out the story even more - absolutely! But let me break things down. (WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS)

My Dark Souls playthrough

Dark Souls is an interesting game, as I'm sure anyone who has played any of the Souls games (or Bloodborne) already know, but this is my first time playing.

Usually I don't blog about games to note my progress - mostly because it's not necessary. Most RPGs are fairly linear and even if they do provide some amount of choice (such as Mass Effect) there aren't a lot of room for actual mistakes and failures and huge fuck ups. Dark Souls does have room for all this stuff though, and somehow this makes all the achievements I do get that much more awesome.

Dark Souls is the only game where every boss battle I go in to, I get a huge adrenaline rush and I realize after I win (or die) that my heart rate is usually through the roof. It's the only game where I would rather slowly sneak my way through an area holding my shield up in fear than just blindly run through and hack and slash my way through crap. Hell. It's the only game where I've even thought about using a shield to parry and have actually had to time my dodge rolls to a precise second. Seriously. This game was a huge learning curve for me, but I am learning.

And to track all the learning I've done - this is where this post comes in to play!

Currently: GAME COMPLETED WHAAAAAT

Fire Emblem: If / Mass Effect / Journey

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.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star + Child of Light

Ey-yo, it's been about a month since I last made any posts and boy are you going to get a lot of posts this coming weekend because a lot of things have happened regarding Arashi and I need to talk about these things, but first! The most important thing - within the month that I disappeared I have played two games and these are Paper Mario: Sticker Star and Child of Light.

They were both relatively short games, so I'm just going to be really brief with my thoughts which is why they're going to be squished in to one post. Ready? Let's go!

Bravely Default

I finally finished playing Bravely Default the other weekend - took approx 105hrs. I didn't 100% it, I was trying too (hence the extended hours) but partway through and with 4 or 5 jobs remaining I was like.. you know what, I'd rather just go and beat the boss now, thank you very much.

But anyway - let's talk about this game shall we? (This isn't necessarily a game review, I just want to talk about it).

*WARNING SPOILERS*

Final Fantasy X/X-2

Raising my head from the dead. Hi - it's been a while. I've actually been doing quite a bit on the fangirl front but the main thing I was focused on in January was Final Fantasy X/X-2. I watched my brother play FFX all the way through so I've never actually played it myself - but I literally watched him play the entire time so I know everything about it. So what triggered this return back to FFX? Well the release of the FFX/X-2 HD re-master.

So what I did in January was watch a playthrough of FFX because I thought it would be a good idea and it was terrible because I will never get over the end of FFX. Ever. And the music and just the entire god damn story of the game had me rolling around in tears from beginning to end. For some reason it was even more painful watching it knowing what was going to happen because you know from day 1 that Tidus is going to disappear and somehow that just makes everything worse. So yeah - got my heart ripped out and I decided that you know what, apparently he comes back in FFX-2 so I would go and check it out.

I honestly went into FFX-2 with no idea of what the story was - I totally thought the guy in the sphere was Tidus but then all this stuff about Shuyin started happening and I was like "what the fuck no". Overall I'd say the game was OK. Like. It was enjoyable as like a fun... add-on. Kind of like an expansion pack - so in that respect the game was fine. I liked the new cast of characters (Paine, Baralai and Gippal more so than the rest) but the whole thing between Shuyin and Lenne was kind of lacking. There was no way to get into those characters so their romance was like "eh" and you kind of just feel burned at the fact that they're not Tidus and Yuna and let's be real - that's the only reason I wanted to play this game.

Of course then I beat the game and Tidus does come back (I didn't 100% it but I honestly don't feel like trying with youtube around) and it was nice. I was happy. Yay. And then there's Last Mission which I didn't play but just decided to watch the cut-scenes of and WHAT IS WITH LAST MISSION?  Like. Why is Paine saying stuff like "This might be the last time we meet" like - oh come on guys you're supposed to be friends. And from the sounds of it Yuna is living it up in Besaid with Tidus so really both of you guys could just drop  in whenever you want and she'll probably be there. None of that "もう会えないかもしれない" crap.

But moving on - so I don't really know where I'm going with this post. I really just finished X-2 last week so I just needed to get all this out so then I can tell you about other things (my recent obsession with Jelsa (Jack x Elsa from RotG and Frozen)).

What I really want to end with though is that to be honest Tidus coming back in FFX-2 didn't satisfy me, I wanted to hear about kids and babies and stuff and then I found this amazing fic called Spira's Dream (and it has two sequels and a prequel about Shuyin) and it's glorious and it's become my headacanon. Like. That story is what I firmly believe what happened after he returns in X-2 and it's glorious.

So yeah. FFX/X-2. Tidus x Yuna - a new/old OTP of mine. This game is awesome. Next game I'm moving on to? Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance because I never beat it on the gamecube (was too dumb of a kid at that time) so I will attempt to now.... in Japanese. Oh god what did I get myself in to?

Rikki - 素敵だね

(Translation Index: Here)


素敵だね - Isn't it Wonderful

風が 寄せた 言葉に
泳いだ 心
雲が 運ぶ 明日に
弾んだ 声

My heart swims
In the words that are sent by the wind.
My voice echoes
Into the tomorrow carried by the clouds.

月が 揺れる 鏡に
震えた 心
星が 流れ こぼれた
柔らかい 涙

My heart trembles
In the mirror of the shaking moon.
The stars spill out like a stream
Of gentle tears.    

素敵だね
二人手をとり 歩けたなら
行きたいよ
キミの街 家 腕の中

Isn't it wonderful,
If we could walk hand in hand
I'd want to go
To your town, your home, into your arms.

その胸
からだあずけ
宵にまぎれ
夢見る

That heart,
entrusted into that body,
Is lost in the night.
And I dream.

風は 止まり 言葉は
優しい 幻
雲は 破れ 明日は
遠くの 声

The words that stop the wind
Are a gentle illusion.
The tomorrow which breaks through the clouds
Is a faraway voice.

月が にじむ 鏡を
流れた 心
星が 揺れて こぼれた
隠せない 涙

The mirror which blurs the moon
Is your flowing heart.
The stars shake and spill out
Like tears that can't be hidden.

素敵だね
二人手をとり 歩けたなら
行きたいよ
キミの街 家 腕の中

Isn't it wonderful,
If we could walk hand in hand
I'd want to go
To your town, your home, into your arms.

その顔
そっと触れて
朝に溶ける
夢見る

That face,
When I touch it gently,
Dissolves into the morning.
And I dream.

Fire Emblem: Awakening

I know, this has nothing to do with Arashi but I said this was a fangirl blog and I am fangirling Fire Emblem: Awakening. Well - fangirling isn't really the correct word but I'm pretty obsessed with this game.

When I first started I didn't realize there was a marriage system but once I did realize I pretty much spent all my time pairing people together just for fun, and then I realized they had children and the parents actually effected the stats of the child and I hit another whole new level of intense. I also realise I majorly screwed up with my pairings and a majority of my 2nd-gen characters aren't as strong as they apparently "could be". I currently have about 8-9 super strong characters that can pretty much 1HKO anything and then all my other characters are.. manageable but frustrating.

Chrom, MU, Lucina, Morgan, Lon'qu + Panne, Henry + Tharja... and Kjelle is getting there but when people get through her defense she goes down. Henry and Tharja are also a bit iffy, as they can IHKO but like Kjelle, once they're hit they go down pretty fast. Lon'qu  paired with Panne, neither of them ever get hit and MU is such a beast I can't even deal with how much of a beast she is. Morgan and Lucina as well. Chrom is lacking a bit compared to these three but honestly.

My other characters are just fodder and this is my "normal" file. I've begun a new one on Hard and mean to do this one properly and more logically (thinking more about stats, level-ups, and abilities) but I realised very quickly that Hard mode is definitely a lot harder and there is actually quite a big learning curve for me. Normal mode allowed me to beast through everything relatively easily without giving too much though, but Hard I really have to think as a tactician.

All-in-all I am loving this game and it's going to keep me occupied for a while. Which is good because I that means I can hold of buying new games which means saving money :)