Well, with my recent beating of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, I thought I would start this topic. The rules are simple, you can post reviews of games that you have played. I myself, shall only review games after: 1) I've beaten them; 2) I get so frustrated at the game that I trade it back in (I'll tell you the point which I got frustrated at) and 3) if I get a game that I think is crap (you wont see these nearly as much, unless the game is REALLY bad *cough Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon cough*. So then, lets get this topic off with my personal review of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days.

Gameplay:

The game runs very smoothly on the DS. I was actually quite surprised. They did a great job of transferring controls from the PS2 to the DS. The biggest issue I had was the camera at the beginning of the game (you hold R, then whatever way you're pushing on the d pad is the direction the camera moves) but you get to change it soon after, but if you change it, you have to hold R and L at the same time to bring up your shortcut menu, which can get a bit annoying, but with only 2 shoulder buttons, it works out well. Another thing I'm glad they did is they made magic useful again. If you remember, magic was great in KH2, but you got such insane physical abilities in KH2, that magic was more or less useless. Not the case in this game. Also, each level of magic does something different (Thunder hits enemies in a line, Thundara hits them around where you cast the spell, and Thundaga hits enemies in an area). Personally, I found the Fire, Firaga, Thundaga, Cure and Cura spells to be the best spells.

Story:

The story starts of quite slow. It doesn't really seem to have much of one until much later on in the story. But once the story picks up, it shoots off like a rocket. They also changed the formula back to the KH1 formula of having a single story line that just so happened to take place in Disney worlds, instead of you simply playing through the movie like you did in KH2. Xion made sense, and in fact left some questions for me, questions that can only be answered in Birth By Sleep...which I now want to play even more to learn the answers.

Music:

Another thing that transferred over well to the DS. The music sounds more or less like the PS2 counterparts, and they gave variety to the boss music. You didn't have just one theme over and over, you have about 3 themes, which is nice.

Difficulty:

I'm not going to lie, this was one of the harder KH games I've played. The bosses that stick out to me the most as being difficult are Leechgrave, Ruler of Skies, and the second to last boss (in particular, the second form). These bosses are quite hard, and the second to last one, if you don't hit them at the right moment, can heal A LOT of HP. I was thinking to myself "Well, that makes Dark Aura from KH1 look a little less broken".

Replay value:

If you have a bunch of friends close by with copies of this game, then mission mode can be some good fun for after you beat the game. However, if you're like me and most of your friends are online, then the replay value takes a hit. You can unlock some neat things afterwords, but unfortunatly, you don't get a real New Game +, which would have been real nice.

Final Thoughts:

If you're a Kingdom Hearts fan and own a DS, then pick up this game. Those new to KH will more then likely be lost, but go ahead and give it a try. This is my second favorite DS game (my first favorite being The World Ends With You...darn my friend for losing that game...). I give it a solid 9/10.

Oh! Oh! Pick me! *shot* Sorry. Anyways, I had a question...

Are we allowed to repeat reviews? Like, if I were to go pick up a copy of 358/2 right now (shyeah right) and beat it, I would be able to post MY review if it were *radically* different? (keyword being "radically")

Of course, this is for anyone to review any game. That way, we have a wide variety of reviews. So even if I do review a game, you can feel free to review it. My next probable review is going to be FF9 since I just picked up a copy of that game (may be a teensy bit of bias in that review though :P).

Sweet. And lol, I was gonna do FF9 when I got around to beating it. XD (I hope you didn't spend a ridiculous amount of money for it. $17 new on Amazon ftw. Hur hur hur.)

I just beat 358/2 today!

As promised (unless you all know) I won't spoil anything. I really enjoyed the game and I didn't find it that hard ( I had issues with two at the least) unless you did the challenges, then yes. I don't usually bother until my second playthrough anyway.

I would give it 9/10.

pros

gameplay

good story.

cons.

repetitive missions

camera issues

17 bucks on amazon, eh? When I went to find FF7 it was 140 bucks brand new and $40 used. As I said before, screw that option.

thus why having the PSN is a good thing, FF7 10 bucks on there.

(I was kind of referring to FF9 there--whether it was combined with FF8 I don't remember--but yeah, FF7 was a little harder to find at a good price.) On 358/2, I'm only on like...Day 117 or something like that. I hate school.

I just realized that no one did a Dissidia review here. (Do NOT believe GameInformer's review. They lied so much. Yet still I will use their way of reviewing lol.)

Concept: Throw the heroes and villains of the first ten FF games and have them all battle each other. Sounds like major fanservice, but somehow it works well--you see the interactions that heroes would have not only with different villains, but among themselves. A fan's dream come true and an interesting game to everyone else.

Graphics: Somehow these didn't really astound me, but then again this was my first PSP game and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. That's not to say the opening and ending FMV's were average; they were mind-blowingly amazing. At a decent length, too.

Sound: A good chunk of it is rearrangements from the past games, which give a bit of nostalgic feeling to players of the old yet make it somewhat new. Some are for the better (Clash on the Big Bridge/Battle With Gilgamesh, Blue Fields, and FF3's boss battle in particular stood out to me), and some for the worse (seriously what the hell did they do to Over That Hill. I was like "lol FF9 has a sucky overworld theme" and then I played the original FF9 and I was like "Why is this so much better??").

Playability: Could have been...harder. The overkiller's main goal is to bash the *** out of their opponent's Brave Points so that it -literally- "Breaks" them, giving your character a -usually- massive Brave boost (note: Brave points = damage you inflict with an HP attack, then it resets to 0). So basically it's "mash O, hit Square, mash O, hit square." (Although they're usually dead on the first cycle of this, so...) Outside of battles, you move on a chess-looking grid system. Opponents are there, you're there, and treasure chests are there. All ready for you to beat enemies and loot things. Your Destiny Points, which determine what bonus item you'll get at the end of a level and add (or subtract) your bonus points for the level, seem like a good idea at first...but you have to plan accordingly for what kinds of things may pop up (since the enemies are not always going to be laid out for you in later levels). It'd take a long time to explain it all, but another thing I'd like to point out is that it's ridiculously difficult to get some of those bonuses.

Entertainment: As dull as the above battle system is, it's fun. There are so many times you'll have to really be careful and plan out your strategies--not once, not twice, perhaps several times--and it's really a good experience. Then again, this is for story battles. When we get to GRINDING through Free Battle (or something like that, accessible from the main menu), it's boring. The best way to get EXP is by setting your opponent at the highest level (which is equal to your level without buying something at the in-game shop) and putting them at the lowest difficulty level. So you're basically killing over-powered, idiot AI's that don't know what they're doing. Dull stuff. But overall it's a fun game to play.

Replay Value: Moderate. You'll play this game for days when you feel like it, and set it down for months when you don't. Just like Street Fighter and Super Smash Brothers. -__-

General Stuff: And here's the part where I tell you about the epic fail that is the storyline. Sure, it's hard to set up a decent story with this many characters, but can we have a less cardboard mission? Get the crystal. Beat the bad guys. Kill the final boss. Usually a character's storyline will go a bit like this: FIND CRYSTAL! Bad guys appear; they taunt you and say something rational but mean DOUBT Cosmos appears and tells them stuff I HAVE RENEWED CONFIDENCE, I KEEL YOU. The only character's story that I can think about that deviates from that is the 589 trio. (Did I mention they're all interlinked? The stories take place on overlapping timelines.) Enemies for a story go like this: Minons Minions Bad guy from a different game Moar minions Bad guy from the same game.

There was a plot twist somewhere in there, but it was brought about far too early. Spoiler-free explanation, it didn't give anywhere close the amount of emotion or reaction from the player that it should have. There was also an element of the plot that seemed like it would be really, REALLY important, but it was never mentioned ever again. A bit of exposition, right in the middle of the climax. Yeah. That's a good place to mention it.

Then at the end of the game, we unlocked Cosmos and Chaos reports: I'd suspect this is more exposition that explains a lot about the game and why things happened in the "plot" the way they did. I haven't...exactly unlocked them yet. But trust me on this. :D (whatever, I'm going to gamefaqs after this to read them...)

Overall, I'd give it 7.75 out of 10.

If you read all of that TL;DR info, then wow. You really know how to have a good attention span. XD

As I sit here and watch the last scenes of FF9 I figured what better time to give my review.

Story: Unlike the previous entries in the final fantasy series (and by previous I mean 7 and 8) 9 doesn't take itself as seriously. It really is a throwback to the older Final Fantasies. The best one of the old batch that I could liken this to would be Final Fantasy 5. Although it may somewhat cliche at some points, the story on a whole is good. For someone like me who adores the older Final Fantasies, the throwback to the older story telling style is nice. Throughout the game there are actually a few references to the older FF games (the most noticeable being Vivi who is modeled after the original black mage sprite of FF 1), but I won't spoil those for all of you.

Music: It's Final Fantasy, it's Uematsu...need I say more? Alright, well, all in all the music for this game was very well done. The boss music conveyed urgency and the normal enemy music was well done. Some of my favorite songs from the game are City Under Seige and Vamo Alla Flamenco.

Gameplay: Well, you don't have materia like in FF 7 or anything else. Instead, all of your skills are learned through equipping items and earning AP. This system does work well, but for those of you who don't really enjoy grinding that much, you may be turned off by this system. Once you master an ability, you can then equip the ability (or use the ability) even if you unequip the equipment the ability is tied to. However, in order to equip abilities, you need magic stones, which you gain more of as your characters level up. For example, to equip Auto-Haste you need 9 magic stones. Well, Zidane had 40 stones, so after equipping Auto-Haste, Zidane now has 31 stones to use for the rest of his abilities. This makes it so that you can slightly break your characters (as I did with the ultimate combination of Auto-Haste + Auto-Regen + Auto-Potion) but you can't break them nearly as bad as in other FF games (I'm looking at you Freelancer and Mimic jobs in FF5). However, there is one slight complaint that I do have and it is with Trance. Trance is essentially your limit break, when a character enters Trance they gain a boost in physical attack power and sometimes a new command (like Zidane gains the Dyne command). However, you can't control when you enter Trance, it happens whenever the bar gets filled up all the way. This means that you may get lucky and enter Trance during a boss fight, or waste it on a normal enemy right BEFORE the big boss.

Graphics: Well, for the PS1 era, these graphics were quite good. The FMVs were well done and the game as a whole ran smoothly.

Well, there we go, on the whole, I would give this game a 10/10 easily. Its fun to play, doesn't try to bore you with every second trying to be serious, and is just fun to play with the only real problems being the trance gauge and the slight focus on grinding up for abilities.

Right now, I am planning on doing one of two games for a review next. I will either be doing FF8 (need to borrow the game from a friend) or FF10 (need to buy a copy of the game to play it again). So, you'll see what game I decided on after I beat it. So, on a final note...WHAT ARE YOU DOING STILL READING THIS?? GO TO AMAZON AND BUY FF 9 NOW (you know, if you don't already own a copy of this game or something)

Sorry Key, I think I'll steal X from you. Just because I absolutely hate AP Euro.

Concept: The tenth installment of the Final Fantasy series...duhhh. I think this was the last Final Fantasy before the Square Enix merge. Because my start-up menu still says Squaresoft and I don't pay attention to XI. You play as a guy named Tidus (pronounced tee-dus LOL), a star blitzball player. (For those of you who don't know, blitzball is the most laws-of-physics-shattering sport ever created. Yes, even more so than Quidditch.) In the beginning of the game, Zanarkand (his home city) is attacked by a strange...thing. (I have no idea what to call Sin--the strange thing--without it sounding like a spoiler.) Through Sin, Tidus is sucked into the world of Spira, where he accompanies the summoner Yuna on her pilgrimage to acquire the Final Aeon and defeat Sin. It's...definitely a different FF. I can't classify it with the serious ones like 7 and 8, nor can I put it with the older ones. It's one all to its own, really...The storyline was also amazing, with the plot twists (some of which were painfully obvious, but others that were like WHOA.) They weren't overwhelming like 7, which had plot twists firing off in every direction...so an understandable and well-done story.

Graphics: WOW. This was pretty much my first console RPG after Kingdom Hearts 1 (so I played it like, 2007)...at the time, I was really impressed with how realistic it looked. Now I know they're outdated, but still. Definitely NOT an eyesore like 7 was. The environments are fresh and vibrant. As for the people themselves, they're pretty detailed.

Sound: I don't care how much people hate James Arnold Taylor (Tidus's VA). At least he didn't sound like he was made out of plastic like half the VAs I've ever heard. He was what made Tidus sound like someone you could meet in your lifetime. And I'm astonished how much crap Yuna's VA DOESN'T get. (Yuna's voice is the only one that grated on my nerves.) Everyone else's voices sounded so fitting to their character; Auron sounds badass, Rikku sounds cute (Tara Strong ftw), etc. ...Oh, were you waiting for the soundtrack part? lol. The soundtrack is definitely a plus. Notably Uematsu didn't compose the entire thing, but Junya Nakano and Masashi Hamauzu, the other two composers, did an awesome job as well. There are so many tracks I could tell you I loved: Servants of the Mountain, A Fleeting Dream, Yuna's Theme, Otherworld (opening FMV), Calm Before the Storm, and who can look over Zanarkand? (I also have to mention, the Piano Collections version of Besaid is freaking LOVE.)

Playability: Just so you know, there's no overworld. It's a linear map--going one place will lead to another, and so on. A real pain if you're trying to backtrack for whatever reason--I suggest waiting for the airship you don't get until, like, the very end. (You don't backtrack much through the story anyways.) About the battle system...at first glance, it seems like they went BACK to the original setup (no time gauge). But if you look a little closer, your courses of action actually affect what order the others will go in. Example, if I had Tidus caste Haste on himself, he'd have more turns in a smaller timeframe, but everyone else would go as they normally did. There's a chart on the right that will tell you the turn orders and give you a preview of the changes. (Example, if I was setting Tidus up to use Haste, but I hadn't actually cast it, the chart on the right will draw an arrow pointing from an unchanged turn slot to the new turn slot...if that makes any sense at all.) There is no level up system, but we have the Sphere Grid. It's supposed to allow you to learn new abilities, gain HP/MP/Atk/whatever boosts, at the cost of a certain sphere you can get by stealing, at the end of battles, etc. (like, if I wanted Tidus to learn Delay Attack, I'd make my way to Delay Attack on the Sphere Grid and use one Ability Sphere to have him learn it). You move through the grid with Sphere Levels (of which you earn exp at the end of battles). So, battle get Sphere Levels Move through the grid, use different spheres to augment your character. Pretty straightforward.

Entertainment: This game is fun. Funfunfun. Except for the random battles; I mean the ones that are step, battle, step, battle. I'm looking at you, Kilika Woods. So annoying...So glad I don't have to go back there T__T If you wanted to play a minigame, there's always blitzball, but...you should probably only deal with it if you know what you're doing...because I understand the mechanics, and I still haven't won a match yet.

Replay Value: Low Chance. You'll replay this when you're bored. Because Yuna's voice is annoying. (You know that Burger King thing that Dane Cook did? Well, when he's imitating the people who can't speak up in the drive-through, that's a bit what she sounds like. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, it's on youtube. With KH. And it's funny.) And random battles are...random. Then again, you might replay it because Auron was just that amazing and you actually liked Tidus like I did.

General Stuff: .................I believe I have said all that there is to be said.............

Overall, I'd give it 9 out of 10.

I should probably stop going so in-depth on these...sorry for those of you who hate reading...

Oh but I am going to have fun with The World Ends With You when I get around to it...and Crisis Core...and *shot*

Well, I've decided to do a review for a game that I love. First though, just a little thing I want to put here. I hold no fanboyism towards any company OR series, I hold fanboyism to specific games, and even then some may not consider it fanboyism, just love for the game. And, for no reason what-so-ever, I'm going to put those games here. The games are Chrono Cross, FF 9, Fire Emblem (first one for GBA) and Final Fantasy Tactics. Some might say that after looking at that that I'm a SquareSOFT fanboy, but I'm not.

And now for the game I'm going to review and it is...Chrono Cross. Just a bit of background info for all of you. Chrono Cross is an indirect sequel to Chrono Trigger. The game takes place 20 years after Chrono Trigger and in (kind of) the same universe. However, you do NOT need to play CT to play this game (you get a few references here and there but that's all). In the RPG world, there is actually a huge debate about which game is better. Those that played CT first hate CC and those that played CC first (like me) don't really like CT that much. So now let the review begin for real.

Music: CC has some really good music. The opening song, Scars of Time, is one of my favorite songs in all of video games and the rest of the songs are all done well. The only real complaint I have is that the battle music isn't really the best.

Story: CC has an amazing story, it really really does. The only problem is that I can't really explain too much of it without spoilers because there are a lot of plot twists. However, the story moves at a good pace...until you hit disc 2. Once you get about an hour into disc 2, Squaresoft apparently thought that the story wasn't moving as fast as they would like and included the most plot twists in the shortest amount of time. I think I counted 3 (yes, 3) plot twists all occurring at the same place and around the same time. The first time I played the game, this is where I lost track of what was going on with the story and sat there with a blank look on my face. However, unlike most RPGs I play, I don't play this one for the story, I play it for what I'm about to tell you about next.

Battle System: Oh geez, how to explain the battle system (I tried to explain it to Akira over Yahoo once but I think I just caused more confusion there). Well, you'll be happy to know that there are NO random battles in this game, you can see the enemies on the map. Plus, on the world map, there aren't any enemies, so you can go from place to place in peace. However, once you get into battle, you've got quite a new experience waiting for you. Firstly I'll explain attacking. When you select attack you're given 3 options, a weak attack, medium attack or strong attack. Weak attacks (duh) to little damage but have good accuracy, Medium attacks hit harder but are harder to connect with and strong attacks hit very hard but have low hit chances. As you hit with attacks, the hit percentage for the others go up. For example, lets say I attacked with a weak attack that had a 90 percent chance of hitting and my strong attack had a 75 percent. After using the weak attack, the weak hit percentage would rise to 95 percert and the strong hit percentage would rise to 80 percent. Also you have to keep stamina in mind. You're given 7 stamina at the start of the battle and as your other characters attack, your stamina rises back. However, each time you use an attack, stamina decreases. A weak attack is 1, medium is 2 and strong is 3. So you could do 7 weak attacks or 3 medium attacks and a weak attack or 2 strong attacks and a weak attack or whatever combination you want to use. However, attacking is also important when using magic (known as elements in this game). Each character is given an Element grid that fills up as you connect with attack, up to level 8. So if you hit with a weak attack, you can use +1 level of elements, medium attack will give you 2 levels, and strong will give you 3. Once you build up enough power, then you can use the element. Unlike other RPGs, there is no MP and once you use an element, you can't use it again for the rest of the battle. However, the downside to elements is that they take 7 stamina to use, so if you're low on stamina, using an element will drop you to the negative range, and that character can't take ANY action until their stamina is back in the positives. Also, the level up system is very different. When you beat a boss you gain a star level. Star levels increase the number of elements you can equip (as well as the level) and also raise your stats (duh). However, after you gain a star level, for up to 3 battles your characters will gain stat up bonuses. The first 2 battles will mostly give HP bonuses, but the last battle will give you more magic and things like that. However, be warned that the stat gains are random so you may find yourself with a weaker character on one playthrough and a much better one the next time you play the game. But doing the level up system like this completely eliminates the need for grinding (unless you want to try to get an item drop or something like that).

In conclusion, this game is soooooo much freaking fun (I've beaten the game 3 times :P). Oh, a thing I forgot to mention, there are around 47 I think different recruitable characters. As you go through the game, you'll be forced to chose a path. Each path leads to new characters and things like that. When you go through New Game +, at a certain point in the game you'll be able to use an item that will give you all the characters you had from you previous playthroughs (I think you need to beat the game 4 times to have EVERY character in your party at once). Also, just like in Chrono Trigger, there are several endings depending on when you want to beat the final boss (when going through New Game + you'll have the item that allows you to fight the final boss so you can do it at any time and get a different ending depending on when you beat him). I believe there are 13 different endings possible, but I'm not 100 percent sure about that.

Like I said, this is just an awesome RPG with a great story (until disc 2 when the accelerator gets turned on, but it's still a good story....just moves to fast) and an awesome battle system (if you could figure it out from what I said congrats). FF9 made me love RPGs, Chrono Cross made me love Squaresoft. 10/10.

I recently found this monologue from the game...one of my favorites in all of video games.

There's nothing in the world as ruthless or impartial as death. All living matter ages over time and eventually dies... No matter how mighty or tiny its life force... So being alive means you're creeping closer to death with every second... But there's none of that here. No one and nothing ages. Nothing wastes away. This quiet, boundless, and beautiful world... An ideal world, straight out of a fairy tale, isn't it? A place and time that belongs to no one... Res nullius... It's because this is a future that was eliminated!!! History is composed of choices and divergences. Each choice you make creates a new world and brings forth a new future. But at the same time, you're eliminating a different future with the choices you didn't make. A future denied of all existence because of a change in the past... A future that was destroyed before it was even born rests here... condensed into the Dead Sea. -- Miguel

Confusing that battle system is...er...that battle system confuses me, anyways.

I actually meant to do FF7 here but I changed my mind. :D

So now that I'm done with the game at friggin' last, here is KH 358/2 Days:

Concept: I'm pretty sure we all know what it is, but for those of you who found it annoying that we talk about it all the time and wiped it from your mind, this is Roxas's time in the Organization, and it gives some insight on a lot of random things we REALLY didn't think we cared about...and of course, some stuff on what we DO care about. I for one am so glad that I finally understand the timeline as far as Roxas and Riku fights go...

...And we learn about this fourteenth member. She makes up a lot of the plot as a rather influential character (what is this, politics?) and is not a Mary Sue. In my opinion anyway. Also, apparently no one in the GAME knows how to pronounce her name. More about that in Sound XD

Graphics: WOW. Square Enix, you really are getting the hang of the DS, aren't you? (If FF4 DS was like this maybe I would have taken it a bit more seriously. orz) Basically, we have what looks like (early) PS2 character models and really BEAUTIFUL surroundings. Can you believe that they ported those worlds MOSTLY intact (they even added some new areas here and there! Not to mention a completely new Neverland) from PS2 to DS? It's sixth-gen console worthy. (I think we're on 7th. If not please correct me. |D) ...More about graphics, less about worlds...okay. That was just talking about the regular gameplay. I completely forgot about the nice cutscenes for a sec...the VA'd ones are really amazing as well. You know how on PS2, we have the weird looking cutscenes where the voice doesn't match up to the mouth and there's a blank face, and then the nice ones where they look a lot more alive with emotion? Yeah. The second one. KH2 graphics. It's amazing. 3

Sound: The soundtrack. I've always been a fan of the KH soundtrack, and while it's nice to hear the old themes, I wish they'd make some new stuff. ...Yeah, they did that too, actually. Neverland (Never Land? idk) has an entirely new environment; it's fitting to hear that it doesn't sound like all-pirates and no mystique. (Whatever mystique means.) I was really fond of it. Xion's theme, another new one, is ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL and I wish they would play it more than ***ing TWICE. Well, I guess that's what Youtube downloaders are for. Also, I was SO glad that they brought some of the music from the FMs of the series. You can hear a bit of Another Side in the final battle; Cavern of Remembrance was used for Mission Mode character select; the Other Promise (!!!) was used in a cutscene between Xion and Axel. I love those songs to deathhhhhh~! Uhh...anyways. Voice acting. It was generally really good. Xion's was definitely a good choice, I felt, and I've never known Quinton Flynn to fail (wellll except for FFX but that was a minor character). HE REALLY KNOWS HOW TO BRING AXEL TO LIFE HOLY CRAP. He really personifies him, it's amazinggggg. And Roxas...yeah, I always liked Roxas's voice, but again (as I felt this in KH2 as well) Jesse isn't exactly...great at making pained noises in cutscenes. I cringe every time I hear that...............Oh, and even if Demyx wasn't completely voiced, there was this one part that (in WEWY style--text-based with occasional voice-overs) made me ROFL so hard. You'll find it if you play through it/look hard enough for it on youtube. I'm sure. __

Oh, and the thing about Xion's name? I've heard it differently THROUGHOUT the game...haha. There was one part where Axel said in practically the most Frenchiest way possible and I just burst out laughing. Roxas pronounced it normally but after Axel he said it Frenchy, too. It was...really weird. (btw if you want to know how that's possible, it's Shee-oh. Making a nasally sound on the "oh" and not fully pronouncing the N.) Shee-on. Shee-on. Shee-on. *commits it to memory* (No it still sounds like French in my head. orz)

Playability: It was...a bit rusty. I'll admit that it was definitely a good way to port PS2 controls to DS. But it made me realize what a great system that CoM had. (The original. Oh god the remake...make the horrible memory go away D: ) A is select, B is jump, Y (top?) is scrolling through the menu, and X (left?) is combos and dodge roll/glide/block/all that fun stuff. L and R is camera. (This is for Type 2 controls--which are closer to KH1, and I found them a lot easier to use than Type 1 which I'm not familiar with...so I can't describe it. Sorry.) It's definitely doable, but dear GOD your thumbs get sore after a looooong battle. (You might have a better time if your hands aren't gigantic and you're not playing on...ahem...the brick. Hai thar.) Don't get me wrong, it's definitely good. It's just that it can get a bit uncomfortable and there's not really any way to improve it...too bad.

OH! I almost forgot, the panel system. Heheh...one of my school buddies absolutely despises this system. Too much thinking required, I guess...and if you're messy with this, things can go downhill pretty fast. You put things such as items, magic (ex. one Fire panel = one use of Fire WTF), abilities, accessories, and weapons here--basically all the things from those several menus in KH1/2 are here, in one shared spot. ...And your level-ups go here, as well. (If you level up, you get a Lvl Up panel. It doesn't do anything until you actually install it into a slot.) I thought this was the ODDEST thing ever, but I like it for one reason--the link system. If you have a link panel, it takes up a certain amount of space and you can put panels of similar type in there. (Ex. Magic Doublecast = all the magic panels you put in the panels linked to that will give you two casts of that magic instead of just one). They have some for Level Ups, too--Level Up Multipliers. Best thing ever. If you get all the ones in the game, you can actually arrange it all into one page of the panel system (there are more spaces as you progress, and there's too many spaces to fit on one page, you see). And if you have level ups to fit in all of them, you're at Lv. 100. ...Or so Tetsuya Nomura says.

...I feel like I did a REALLY BAD JOB explaining that.

Entertainment: WTF IS WITH THE MISSIONS. Thank goodness you can skip some after a while, but...ugh...Basically, it boils down to these categories: Recon (my favorite...and Demyx's too apparently :D *shot*...researching an area by going there), Collect hearts (aka kill things), Kill a big Heartless (BOSS/really annoying Emerald Serenades), and...other plot-related things like SPOILER and SPOILER. (ehehehe...sorry...)

...Is what I would say if I was someone else. I actually enjoyed the missions. o_O And the cutscenes after them of the clock tower, even if absolutely nothing happened in them. I'm just wondering how Roxas maintains a healthy weight.......

Replay Value: Moderately Low. By the time I got to the end of the game, I hated the mission system and wanted the plot to friggin' progress. Oh, look at this: we get to REDO missions at the end if we want...we had that option throughout the game, actually, but only now did it actually provide us with something to do. You'd just play it again to see the text-based unimportant plot stuff...except upon beating the game, you get Secret Reports and a Theater Mode. (Now give me my effing music box, Square, or I'll be sad. D: )

Hey, speaking of which, can anyone tell me how to get more Secret Reports?

General Stuff: I miss Traverse Town. I was praying they'd have it in here SOMEWHERE, for whatever reason. I friggin' MISS Traverse Town. ...Nothing I can do about it, though. And I won't have bias for that when I get to the score...I hope...Anyways, that had nothing to do with anything. Overall I really loved this game, and I was only able to think of terrible stuff about it when I wasn't playing it. Except the parts where my thumbs hurt. .............This review was a lot longer than it should have been. The TL;DR is below :D

Overall, I give this game 8/10.

...I totally wasted you guys' time with that review...sorry. D: Here's Final Fantasy VII because I don't want to start on my homework.

Concept: The seventh installment in the Final Fantasy series, best known for Sephiroth. Uhhh, I mean, it's best known for being the RPG that started the huge craze in America. That's definitely what I meant to say. VIII and IX fans can't argue that it has the biggest fanbase, anyways, and it's pretty much because of that. (Or people on the Internet LOVE to be sheep. But I like to think it's NOT that reason.) You play as Cloud, an ex-SOLDIER (the guys who fight for Shinra Company, aka the "bad guys") who has joined AVALANCHE, an anti-Shinra group. The plot of this game confuses the living daylights out of me, and I'm probably going to have to go back and play it again even though it's only been a month since I beat it. ...Anyways, one of the central conflicts is Cloud trying to find Sephiroth so he can get revenge for what I believe is a spoiler. Yeah, that's always been a good thing to teach the children.

Graphics: I really don't want to discuss this, yet I find it so ironically amusing that this is one of the most controversial topics between "hardcore" gamers and FF7 fans. The first side says that the graphics SUCK (I agree). FF7 fans argue that it's like that because games weren't exactly mainstream-ly made in 3D at that time (I also agree). The graphics drove me nuts because I was playing on a TV with broken color for Disc 1 and a lot of Disc 2, so I had absolutely no clue what was going on, what I was doing, where my character was, etc. It's definitely good for its age, but (even with an HDTV that I was playing on later) I still couldn't make out tons of stuff and strained my eyes constantly. So, uhh, beware if your eyesight sucks. But trust me, it's worth it.

Sound: No voice acting. Duh. BUT. It's original soundtrack makes up for it in full...no, double. Triple. A big number. This is one of my favorite things about the game...its soundtrack. (You know how passionate I get about these things XD this is over-the-top even for me orz) I'm listening to it right now, and it brings back memories about the game and how I felt throughout it. It is superb at bringing out the aspects it needs to. The song Trail of Blood played in a certain part, but I really wouldn't want to say anything more about that. The shock in-game will explain better. It is the creepiest f***ing song I've heard in my entire life...(maybe it had to do with what was going on? I'd be scared s***less if I was Cloud, lol.) There are also some extremely soothing songs such as Words Drowned by the Fireworks (3) and songs that I really love for some odd reason like Heart of Anxiety and Cosmo Canyon. The battle theme was AWESOME and...gee, there's so much to say about it. You can hear it for yourself if you go onto a youtube channel (SilvaGunner)--he has it in a playlist form.

Playability: Walking is sooooo slow in this game. You use the directional buttons instead of the analog stick, too, which I wasn't really all for. Good thing running (hold X) is...slightly better. XD ATB system is nothing new. If you remember that O = X and X = O (as in, O is select and X is cancel) then you're good to go. The Materia system: I wouldn't know seeing as I was 3 when this came out, but according to everybody it was something "entirely new." I really liked it, though. Basically, your weapons and armor have materia slots to put materia in. There are a bunch of different types: Magic (Fire), Summon (Ifrit), Out of Battle (Chocobo Lure), Ability (?) (Steal), and Support (?) (All). I'm going to hope that you can figure out what those types do by the examples I gave...except for Support. These are used through linking materia to one of the other types (Magic or Summon would be the ones to use it for). You don't have to worry about Linking, as the weapons/armor will already have certain slots linked, depending on what it is. You can tell because unlinked = O O and linked = O-O. Let's say I put a Support in one of the O O. It would do absolutely nothing. But if we put All into O-O and put Cure in the other, it'll allow you to cast Cure on all allies a few times. (Or all enemies I guess, but why the heck would you do that.) There are other Support materias, like Elemental and...I forget the rest. __ But one of those allows you to add elemental effects to a weapon, or elemental resistance to a character (depending on whether you link it in Weapon or Armor). Like, if I wanted to make Cloud Bolt-resistant, I'd link Elemental and Bolt under ARMOR. If I wanted him to have lightning attacks, I'd do it in Weapons. Also, materia can level up and allow you to do lots of nifty things...you can only cast Stop, for example, if your Time materia is at level 3(?). Yeah, it's annoying, but it's a really good system in my opinion.

Again, I suck at explaining things...

Entertainment: If you like random battles...:D Luckily, the battle music is amazing. I found myself...WANTING to get in battles...odd, eh? XD The plot kinda draws you in after a while, and there's just soooooo much to this game...getting all the materia (and being a total maniac about it like me...I mean, uh, Yuffie), doing the extra stuff because they *usually* provide tons of lulz, getting ultimate weapons...good times. *totally did not get 100% completion*

Replay Value: No, seriously, WTF happened in the plot. I have no clue. I think I HAVE to play it again...T__T

...Anyways, if you paid attention the first time through, I think it'd be Moderate. You replay a game like Final Fantasy to enjoy the story again, right? (Unless you're a nerd and like getting 100% completions.) And it WAS a good plot...if I understood it... ...Anyways, it really is worth it. If you can get your hands on a copy--borrowing, buying, stealing (okay, PLEASE not the last one. I don't endorse robberies ;D)--then PLAY IT!

Overall, I give Final Fantasy VII 9.5/10. (That was unexpectedly high considering the fact that I don't actually like this game...)

.........You know Akira, sometimes I don't like it when you do these, your reviews blow mine out of the water T_T *crawls into emo corner and assumes fetal position*

You know what I realized? All the games I've reviewed so far have gotten really high scores. Well, that's about to change with this review. I'm not sure if this is really a rant or a review, but since it features a score at the end...I'm counting it as a review.

The game I shall be reviewing will be Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (or if you want to say it abbreviated, then its SO: TtEoT...stick to the long name). So, lets begin. Also, warning, I don't give a crap about this game, so there will be spoilers just to show how BAD it is.

Battle System:

Lets start with one of the most important things of this game, the battle system. SO3 uses a real time battle system. For most of us, hearing those words brings up fond memories of the "Tales of..." series. SO3 killed the real time battle system that the "Tales of..." series and SO2 perfected. In SO3 you have a weak attack, strong attack and guard (sounds more like a fighting game doesn't it?). Now, this sounds really good. You can run around on a 3-D plain and it seems good at the start....then things go downhill because of one things...using skills. In SO2, Enix was smart and assigned skills to the R1 and R2 buttons. In this game, you have to press the X or O button harder to use your skills, and your distance from the enemy determines which skill you use. If I could be blunt...ON WHAT CRAZY WORLD DOES THAT MAKE ANY FREAKING SENSE????? You'll sometimes attack normally when you want to use a skill and visa versa. Was it really that HARD to just keep the system that worked so well in SO2?? Sure, in SO2 if you were close or far from you target your skill changed (things like some effects would be different etc.) but not an entirely different skill. So, you need to not only push the button harder (and hope you pushed it hard enough) and you also need to keep track of how far away you are from the enemy...W...T...F??? Now for another issue...Fury. You need fury to do ANYTHING. You attack, Fury goes down, you get hit, it goes down, items all of that. You recover Fury by standing still...in the middle of battle...again WTF?? Then you also have the when you reach 0 MP you die...I suppose this kind of makes sense since magic I guess comes from the soul, and if you run out of mp you run out of soul...maybe? But, the nice thing about the MP thing is that it affects enemies too.

Story:

...You're going to be seeing this a lot, but I don't care. WTF WTF WTF WTF???????? THIS GAME MAKES KATAMARI DAMACI'S STORY LOOK COMPREHENSIBLE!!! (and that story was just rolling people up into a ball to make them into stars!) Lets see, it starts off normal enough, you're on an island planet, parents and girlfriend get kidnapped (big surprise), you find yourself on another planet, leave that planet and go to ANOTHER planet where most of the game occurs. While on the 3rd planet your trying to stop a war between 2 countries...pretty basic stuff. Then you see those dreaded words pop up on screen "Please switch to disc 2"...and the story rolls down a 90 degree hill. In the second disc you learn that EVERYTHING you've just done has been in a video game...wait wait wait...what?? You mean I've been playing a video game about people IN a video game who didn't know they were IN a video game??????? WTFF???? How does that make any sort of sense?? And just wait for it, the final boss is the games creator...he wants to delete the game. That's...it. He's not trying to destroy the world or galaxy or enslave all humans...he wants to delete a game...just talking about the story makes me speechless...I...I just can't. With every story comes characters to go along with it. I'm going to keep this short. Main character likes to play video games, girlfriend...kind of helpless, you get a guy who THINKS he's awesome, a somewhat cool lady, an annoying little boy, a creepy man, an annoying little girl, a blue hair lady, another lady who is more or less a carbon copy of the guy who thinks he's awesome...and that's about it. No character development...none.

Other crap:

FF4 DS had the map completion system right. You have a small area that's fairly linear, complete it and you get some useful items like potions and things like that. The idea originated here...and boy was it bad. You had to complete an area 100 percent...and I mean 100 percent. As in you can't miss a pixel on screen. So you painstakingly wander all around the map looking for that last .01 percent, and when you find it and see you get the item, you're happy. You go to your items, you see its an accessory and you equip it thinking that you've just broken the game...WRONG, the game has just broke you. You see, the item you get REDUCES your speed in battle, but there is one upside, you can sell the thing for 30,000 gold, which is a good amount in the game even late game. Now, Square Enix knew the item would make you weaker, and they knew it would be worth a lot of money...so why couldn't they just GIVE you the money or...you know...a decent item? Did I mention the fact that these areas are sometimes HUGE? Yeah...pretty bad idea here Square. And now to tell you the most annoying part of the game. You're trying to get into this dragon cave place and you're given a flute. Guess how you play the flute...you press X softly for a short period of time or a long period of time or you press X hard for a short period of time or a long period...WTF...WTF...WTF...WTF...WTFF?????? I'm sorry if you're getting tired of reading that, but on what PLANET...no, what PARALLEL DIMENSION IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE, does that make any sort of sense????????? So, you stand in front of the door you want to open, you think you've pushed the X button the right way, the tune plays and its the wrong tune, you fight, you beat the enemy and you try again...guess what, hope you got it right this time...

I honestly can't talk anymore about this game. If I do I run a serious risk of getting brain damage, but I will tell you this, I did beat the game...I want that 50 hours of my life back NOW (I honestly think that me beating this game is what caused me to go slightly crazy...). I can't give this game a 1/10, I can't give this game a negative 10/10, I can't think of a score low enough for the game. Even negative infinity doesn't seem low enough. Just, next time you see this game...smash it, burn it, shred it, do the world a favor.

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