Being born as a french canadien, I grew up playing my games in a foreign language, english. Playing Super Mario World and wondering "Mario destroyed a castle, what does it say?" or playing through Pilotwings and not have a clue what to do ....... at first. I always found my way around just by STFUAJPG. Never ask what or why, just play, I'd eventually get it. Granted, SNES games weren't complicated to understand.

But I grew up. I learned english explicitly to understand my games. I now understand everything a RPG can throw at me. That's why the Quebec law on "french games or GTFO" pisses me off. We all played our game in english throughout the years, we never had a problem with that.

We play games because they're fun first. I thought about this while playing Tales of Rebirth on my psp. Before buying this title, I told myself: I played 2 weeks of "My Japenese Coach", I am ready for a full japanese JRPG, right? RIGHT? I was kind of right. I didn't need to understand the writings to enjoy the game. It is just plain fun. Just respect the usual JRPG formula: Stuck? Talk to every NPC and one of them will trigger an event, move on, lots of random battles, grind, and repeat. I feel like a kid again, playing this. The more I play, the more I understand. I'm a Tales games whore anyway. I LOVE IT.

The dialogs, I try my best to get one ounce of what's going on, I mostly understand the characters name, the city's name, and that's about it. The rest, I try to figure out what they say to each other. I mostly think random stuff though, like this:




Would I appreciate the game more if I understood everything about it? Surely, but it's not vital to me. I'm enjoying the hell out of that game. I just beat Geyorkias, it was intense, and awesome.

The wii comes out, I eventually buy one and ditch my gamecube. I can play me games on me wii anyway, right?

The only gamecube games I had been playing were zelda titles, worked fine. Today, I was in the mood to play some Resident Evil : Remake. "Your saves are corrupted." Pull out the memory card (1019), put it back in, still corrupted. Wait, don't tell me .....

I take out my whole gamecube collection, try them one by one. No luck. The only saves I can keep and copy before formatting are Zelda Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, and one save from Tales of Symphonia. The rest, RIP. let's give a moment of silence to the following losses :

- Resident Evil 0, 1, 2, 3, CV, 4.
- Zelda Collector's edition
- Smash Bros Melee
- FF Crystal Chronicles
- Paper Mario : Thousand Year Door.
- Pokemon : Gale of Darkness.
- Metroid Prime 1 and 2.

Hundreds of hours down the drain. Thank you Wii + GC memory card 1019. Now I look back at my GC collection and I feel a little empty inside. I thought I'd be more pissed than that. The truth is, I always finish my games. One way or another, I'll always start at the beginning. I lost all new game + stuff though.

Old third party memory card has RISEN FROM THE GRAVE.

I loved the first Mana Khemia, and I played the psp version................ yeah. Even with all the technical bugs and game crash, I enjoyed it a lot. So, I was pretty excited to play the second one, this time on PS2. It is actually a sequel based in the same universe, compared to the Atelier Iris series. In the package you get a somewhat big poster, and the soundtrack. Neat.

You get to go back to Al-Revis academy, years later. If you enjoyed your first trip, you're gonna love the little details. Old characters making a come back? Flay, OMG FLAY. Zeppel, teehee, he has a moustache now. Like the first game, you choose classes, you earn grades. You synthesize items to expand your grow book and with the fighting experience you gain you can level up based on what you have synthesized. It was a winning formula, it still is. The grow book is a lot simpler now. No need to scroll back and forth.




Combat wise, the system remains the same, but the looks have changed. It actually makes sense to me now, I dunno, the old card based system didn't sit right with me. There's surely more to it. I haven't played enough yet.



HELL YEAH, I WON................. a plant?

The gathering system changed. There wasn't much to it before, so adding depth is a good thing. But, a slot machine, really?

My impression so far is this : <3. You just wanna the game by the cheek like : "Daaaawwww, you're so adorable!". I fell in love with the details, the usual art style. It's a world I enjoyed before, and I won't mind going back. If you liked the first one, chances are you'll get this one. It's not for everyone. But I consider this game to be the last good PS2 RPG. Don't miss out on this one.

Thank you NISa.

Golden Sun

The RPG that made me fall in love with RPGs. I got through both games 6 times, and I plan to do it again soon.



With the announcement of Golden sun DS, I want to look back, as a fan, at what made me love this game so much.

The djinns : the search that spans two games.


I had a game on emulator just before Saturos and Menardi.

I wasn't using much psynergy, except healing ones. I was depending on Djinns to battle. It was an addicting challenge to use them, making yourself weaker temporally to get a lot more attack. You had to predict the outcome and the danger of your choices. Did you choose to keep Mia with full Djinn so she could heal more? Or did you use them anyway? I loved that way of battling.

Exploring to get them without a guide? That's a satisfaction right there. Exploring every corners of the worlds, random battle.......... a DJINN !!!! OoO Priceless. Kinda like rare pokemon hunting.

What were your favourite Djinn(s)? Across the 2 games, I choose Flash. Best. protection. evar.

The summons : Pretty but deadly.



Getting yourself vulnerable to unleash deadly attacks, it's awesome. The summons are great, especially in the Lost Age. I'd have to say I prefer Eclipse and Haures, they're easy and fast to summons. And the more you use them, the more powerful the attacks get. Iris KICKS ASS but she's more risky to unleash, as you get very weak in the process.


During epic battles, like Dullahan, safety comes first. If you gamble too much, you'll get Charon on your ass, expect a couple deaths. XD

What are your favourite Summons?

What else? It's charming, it's beautiful, satisfying to play. You care and wonder about the world when you leave it behind. Does Alex come back? How's Weyard going to change? Will it expand? I want to know if Lemuria will shine again. There's so much we all need to know. It actually pisses me off when I find lots and lots of used copies at Gamestop/Ebgames. How can someone not like this game? Then It hits me, I'm a Golden Sun fanboy. Well, a fanboy that STFU about it, so I'm good.

The sun will shine again very soon. The wait is almost over, wait, wut? The true wait starts now.......... wait, wut? Exactly, you know we will have wait another year before getting our hands on it. Time passes SLOWLY when you wait for something.

Damn, just talking about it makes me want to play right away. Screw sleeping, I need my nostalgia pill. :P