Discussion Post - Recommendations and Reviews

[ishtar]

This is basically exactly what it says on the tin. A chance to review what you're currently playing, or what you last played.

What are you playing right now/have just finished playing? What platform is it on? What genre is it? Did you enjoy it? Would you recommend it? What's the fandom like? Anything you want to say about the game.

I'm currently playing Final Fantasy IV DS. I played the original, so the story isn't exactly new or surprising to me. I'm currently rather liking the new cutscenes though, that add a whole extra level of emotion to certain scenes for me. For those that have never played Final Fantasy IV, it was originally a SNES game that has been remastered for the DS. It is an RPG where you take the role of Cecil, a dark knight who is forced to abandon his Kingdom because of his principles. The plot seems to be about Cecil going around defeating bad guys and saving Crystals (similar to Final Fantasy III) but Final Fantasy IV also has a love story at the heart of it, and can be quite moving because of it. It's definitely one of the best of the pre-PS ones (just behind VI). It's recommended~

Comments

[lassarina]

The world is actually my favourite part of FFT/FF12 - the tactics take some getting used to, because I'm not that way inclined by nature, but I love Ivalice like burning. The layered politics, the LANGUAGE oh God I could roll in it, everything. (FF12, by the way, becomes immeasurably easier if you abuse gambits to set Protect and Shell on your allies at all times. Also, always go for Augments unless you are actively in the process of buying new equipment, spells, or Technicks.)

I did not like the MMO as much, but that might be my general distaste for the genre speaking. If you're looking to get into SMT, I personally would recommend either Persona 4 (which I know is out in the UK as a friend there has it) or Digital Devil Saga, which is rather hard to find.

Friend away! Hi! :)

[ishtar]

As a Brit, I find it too Shakespearian, and I don't think it needs to be that way. Whenever Fran opens her mouth (Or Ashe for that matter) I get overwhelmingly confused as to why they're saying 20 words when "There are monsters, be careful" would have done... The only thing that saved the script was Balthier, who's Brit-wit was made of awesome.

On my current game I've just got Belias but have been gringing like hell and have all the Augments (Minus Brawler for the Auto-Level hint) and now I'm concentrating on weaponry and armour...

I don't like MMOs either (or at least, I didn't like FF11) and so I'm reluctant. I've seen P4 and I can get hold of P3 for the PS3. DDS was quite readily available, particularly in the preowned section, but it'll probably be an amazon job. It can't be as difficult to find as FFVI: Advance I'm sure (£60 for a GBA game?!?!).

[lassarina]

I had a very hard time finding DDS - I think I spent $80 on the first and $90 on the second.

If you're going to do both P3 and P4, and you *know* you want to play both, I'll just point out that Persona 4 improved on many aspects of Persona 3, so going "back" to P3 after P4 might be hard to do. Also, P4 takes a lot longer to get started (the intro sequence is loooong), so it's easier to jump right into P3. I love both of them pretty much equally for different reasons, though, so take that with as many grains of salt as necessary XD

Ah, you're just ahead of where I am in my second replay :)

I can see your annoyance if you find FF12 too Shakespearean; for me, I find it gorgeous and I like the verbal complexities, but I must admit I'm also pretentious and a linguistic nerd. So. XD

[ishtar]

It's the only Shin Megami Tensei game to reach our shores so it got pretty heavily advertised over here. But that was a few years ago now.

I'll start with P3 and then move up to P4. My friend got me wanting to play it with the line "And then they shoot themselves in the head" and I was like "Hang on, whut?" XD

I noticed you're a history person. I'm a BA Ancient History major, so you might find my journal interesting when I start rambling about random things I've been researching XD Although there's not much Japanese/Chinese/Celtic history, you never know.

[lassarina]

Haha, my general one-liner description of Persona 3 is "Shooting yourself in the head with a magic gun to summon giant penis demons." Which gets me the most hilarious responses EVER.

I have enough knowledge of Roman and Greek history to make an ass of myself when I try to overreach my own limits, and a slight grounding in Ancient Egypt. I keep meaning to do more research on Mesopotamia, too. XD

[ishtar]

Oh wow, penis demons FTW. That just ASKS for tentacle rape.

Mesopotamia is my focus and my dissertation is on Mesopotamian/Ancient Near Eastern epic poetry so you'll probably get lots of me whining about ancient Sumerian/Babylonian on my journal XD Greece to me is my favourite European ancient society. Rome... I hate. Passionately. Barbarians the lot of them XD Ancient Egypt tends to be boring at an academic level though, no brains out of noses, mummies or bood of the dead but all how temples were built, the economic benefits of the Nile and memorising kings of nearly 30 Dynasties D8

I've never studied medieval history, apart from at school, and never really anything beyond the British Isles...

[lassarina]

Persona 3 is one giant tentacle joke, honestly XD Or at least I read it that way, but I'm permanently gutter-brained.

I took Latin for six years, and got a pretty solid grounding in Roman history. I find it all hilarious, basically, which probably makes me a terrible person but there you go.

My medieval history obsession was the Plantagenets, basically from Henry II to King John (so, covering the Magna Carta, one of the Crusades, Richard the Lionhearted who was epically awesome in a lot of ways and failboat ahoy in others, and Eleanor of Aquitaine who was pretty badass for a woman in that era). I haven't done much research since graduating. Maybe I should look into that. XD