Wow, getting a house and two cats really cuts gaming time down a bit more that work usually does. I finally finished the Witcher, which I have been slowly playing on and off for since last November. One game off the stack of games I own but have not played through yet. These aren't the ones that my wife had before we met, but the ones I bought/received as a gift and got shelved for one reason or another. So, to help me possibly tackle some more of them and reduce the size of the stack, I will list them, along with the reason for the shelving:

1. Kingdom Hearts: Chains of Memories + (PS2)

-Turning button masher combat into a card based battle and going through all the old worlds totally kills my interest.

2. Persona 3: FES (PS2)

-I played through the original, that feels good enough. Plus, the extra story mode did not captivate me.

3. Rogue Galaxy (PS2)

-Feels too much like Kingdom Hearts, got to where you get a factory. Seemed too complicated, story not interesting enough to hold interest.

4. Lego Star Wars (PS2)

-Playing through the crappy prequel Star Wars trilogy killed interest quick.

5. Xenosaga II (PS2)

-Still a chance, but wow, that is some horrible voice acting. And the battle system seems overly complex.

6. Xenosaga III (PS2)

-Gotta beat II first.

7. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 1 & 2 (PS2)

-Got a quarter into 1, did not really get into the story, other games came around and stole my interest. And I gotta beat 1 to play 2.

8. Devil May Cry 3 (PS2)

-Got about halfway through, at hidden stage that frustrated me too much, decided to play other games instead.

9. Silent Hill 2 (PS2)

-My wife says its the best in the series, I tried playing it 10 years ago, decided to buy it a few months ago. Haven't really got the urge to play it again.

10. Sakura Wars (PS2)

-I keep putting it off, but the anime goofiness seems quite enjoyable. So many other games to get to first.

11. Mana Khemia (PS2)

-I am about half way through. Fun game, but the amount of alchemy and retreading in various places put it on hold for me. Am tempted to get back into it.

12. Suikoden III (PS2)

-I had this game a couple times, never played through. I have heard amazing things about this game, but never played enough to get hooked.

13. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (NDS)

-After playing the GBA golden sun games in less than a month, I decided I wanted this as well. Found it to be too much like the others and lost interest.

14. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP)

-Wow, I realized that the Kingdom Hearts games do not appeal to me as much as they used to. Maybe only the main ones are good to me. No urge to play.

15. The 3rd Birthday (PSP)

-At first, I liked it. As I played a bit more, I found myself wanting the original combat of the first Parasite Eve back. And other games stole my interest.

16. Bayonetta (XBOX360)

-I guess Ninja Gaiden and the first Devil May Cry spoiled these types of adventure games for me. The system seems great, but have not got the urge to play again.

17. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)

-I got it because I really enjoyed Odin Sphere. The combat seems too repetitive to me and there is a lot of retreading through old places. Hasn't been off the shelf in quite a few months.

18. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

-2 reasons for this on the shelf: 1: It felt too much like the first game for me. 2: The wii is hooked up in the basement of the house, where there are some big spiders. I may bring it back to the living room when getting Xenoblade Chronicles or the Last Story (UK or US release). I feel bad, since it is a great game, and my wife doesn't mind playing with me as well.

19. Ogre Battle (SNES)

-I always heard of it back in the early ninties, was never at the game rental place I frequented. Finally played it, and got massacred by the amount of micromanagement. Good collectible though.

20. Lunar 2 (Sega CD)

-Played the PSX version of this game before this one. Makes playing through it a big challenge (spending magic XP to save? Why?)

21. Grandia 2 (Sega Dreamcast)

-Got it since it was one of the few rpgs for DC, and the first Grandia was fun. Lost interest shortly in, due to the amount of awesome games out at the same time.

22. Skies of Arcadia (Sega Dreamcast)

-Played about a fifth in, found the treasure hunting aspect to be a huge hassle. A very high encounter rate, slow battles gave me further reason to put this down.

And this is hard-copy stack, not the digital game stack. That one will be for another day. As for this list, the games I see myself possibly going through sometime in the next year are:

1. Mana Khemia
2. Super Mario Galaxy 2
3. Xenosaga II

It will be a challenge though, considering the volume of good games coming out this year. Man, having less time to play games sucks. To those who have the time to blast a game out in a weekend (or weekday), enjoy it while it lasts. You have my envy.

So, Final Fantasy IV gets yet another remake on the PSP. Don't get me wrong, it's a really well done 'collection', with the advances of the GBA version (party swapping and extra dungeons), being able to use the original SNES music, and The After Years and Interlude to go with it.

But is it really necessary? I think that there are some classic games out there that could use a remake for more of a functional sense, more so that the game felt incomplete or rushed at the end. Or just too short and more could be added to foster a more robust experience. Here's what remakes I would like to see (and probably never will). Warning, there may be some spoilers.

Xenogears

One of my favorite RPGs, Xenogears is put together really well...until the 2nd disc. The first disc was long, but had a lot of content in terms of story and gameplay. Once disc 2 hits, the game becomes more of a narrative, with the main characters in a chair telling what happens between Gear dungeons. It is like playing a game, then you get the synopsis of the next part from a character, then on to the next part. And no more dungeons on foot at that point (except a side quest at the end, which is a bit pointless). A remake of disc 2 is more of what I would like, filling in the gaps of gameplay and boosting that part to the level that the first disc is at. And maybe some new voice work could be nice too.

Chrono Cross

Another game I really like, Chrono Cross was a lot of fun for me. No random encounters, little need to grind, plenty of game content. Not the best continuation to Chrono Trigger, but maybe that was due to the rushed end of the game, where an npc on a beach explains to you the rest of the story. Just text, not even screenshots or cg to illustrate the explanation. This could probably be fleshed out a lot better in a remake, given ample time to work out the details and craft good presentation for it. At least have the explanation in a cooler place.

The other thing that would truly help this game in my opinion is cut half the characters, give the rest double techs and triple techs to build synergy between them. Less characters also would mean more time to develop them and less clutter in the story. Having 30+ characters just seemed like they tried to do too much in too little time, resulting in a lot of poorly developed ones that just never get used, either due to being useless or too dull to care about.

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Ugh, sorry to cut this short, but my mind is fried from an 8 hour exam today (Fundamentals of Engineering) and I am barely staying awake. Later.

After about 30 hours of gameplay, I beat Pier Solar tonight. It was a very enjoyable experience, only challenged by some weird design choices. To review, Pier Solar and The Great Architects is a Sega Genesis RPG that has been in the making for the past six years by Watermelon Games and was released December 2010. For more information about the game (and for order information for the upcoming reprint), visit piersolar.com.

Graphics: For SEGA Genesis, the graphics were excellent. The sprite animation looked great, the environment were very detailed, and the cutscenes are of a quality close if not beyond that of the Genesis Phantasy Star games. It is easy to see the amount of detail put into the game, from the critters in the dungeons, to the lush vegitation in the forests. The spell animations are a treat as well, showing off the same quality.

Music/Sound: The way this game is made, the soundtrack can be enhanced by using a sega cd with a special disk that came with the game (both cartridge and cd playing at once). However, my model 1 sega cd, with the tray that comes out in the front, did not work correctly, so I settled with the soundtrack off the cartridge. Still, the music was great throughout. Most towns and dungeons have their own music, a huge plus to me. Each track fits their setting quite well and does well to set the atmosphere. The battle and boss music was really good as well, motivating without annoying. The sound effects were also very good. Again, the effort in the details is very evident. I hear that using the enhanced soundtrack cd adds ambient noise in town and improves the overall quality of the music, but again techincal difficulties kept me from that experience.

Gameplay:
World Map:
Basically a map with a cursor for choosing where to go. Works well for the game.

Towns:
The towns vary in size, some having two or three buildings, with others having four or seven screens, Lots to explore and see (and miss the first time through).

Dungeons:
Most are very big, with winding paths, hidden chests, and some pretty tough puzzles. The encounter rate is balanced well enough, so that you get a good twenty to thirty steps in before the standard blur into battle, making exploration a bit easier on patience. There is a lot to miss as well, considering how robust the developers made the dungeons. There are also some pretty cool puzzles along the way, as well as some neat minigame (such as sokoban at one point). All seemed to fit nicely and not be out of place.

Battles:
The battles are turn-based, with the standard attack/defend/item/spell ring. In addition, there is the Gather mechanic. Think of it as gathering energy, which helps boost attack and power spells. Gather takes one round and boosts a character's Gather level by 1 (max of five levels). Gather can also be passed to other characters, which helps get the bigger spells ready in less time. Getting attacked can reduce a character's Gather by a level, but it helps in the challenge. I liked the Gather mechanic, which is extremely useful in the intense boss fights.

Other items for battles:
-Two status status effects besides dead: poison and sleep.
-Five characters in party at a time.
-Poison also confuses your party members.
-Using a weapon that inflicts a status has a chance of inflicting it's user as well.
-Flying enemies can only be hit by projectile attacks and spells.
-Good variety of enemies to fight.

Challenge:
The battles require strategy in terms of which enemy to kill first and figuring the best way to utilize your party's attacks and spells. The challenge throughout feels balanced, not being too easy, but having some mercy as well on the player. The grind factor is little above medium, with the average amount of battles to level up to be about ten to fifteen, depending on the type of enemies around. I would say it feels to be between final fantasy and dragon quest, for both experience and gold. The puzzles also require some thought and time, which is very rewarding. I had to ask some questions at the official Pier Solar site, but most of the puzzles can be figured out without too much frustration.

Other Items:
-Healing items and spells work based on percentage, not fixed numbers. So an herb can still be useful late game.
-There are quite a few places in the game that you can not revisit after a certain point, so a second playthrough may be warranted to see what was missed.
-The game can be saved on most screens, however the save occurs when the screen was entered, This means that to save your current progress, you need to change screens to reset the internal checkpoint. Weird design choice to me but whatever,
-Story is very unique, with great character development and interactions. Though some things are slightly cliched, there are some great twists and surprises as the story goes on.
-Not every town has an inn. Sometimes, the game goes for a while without a place to heal up instantly. Having a good supply of healing items is very helpful.
-Some funny stuff: a character can equip a Ban Hammer at one point. The descriptions for some of the items are great.
-Great packaging, very professional quality for an independant game.

I had a lot of fun playing this game. I preordered my copy nearly twenty months ago, and it was definitely worth wait. If you are interested in trying it yourself, there is a demo rom floating around the web, and Watermelon Games is currently taking preorders for the reprint. Better to do it now before the only place to get it is ebay. I saw some copies going for three hundred dollars for minimum bet, while the reprint preorder is 45 bucks with shipping. Due to the game requiring a 64 megabit cartridge, emulation is not possible at this time as well, so Sega Genesis is required.

I hope this helps answer some questions, though piersolar.com has the rest of the answers. Good night and have a great week.

Pier Solar - Sega Genesis game released this month by Watermelon Games

Impressions so far after about 3 hours of play time:

Pros:
-Awesome graphics
-Good music
-Dialogue is entertaining
-Automatic Path Finding feature is nice (walk into a tree, party automatically walks around it)
-Hard but satisfying battles
-Great packaging and presentation
-Good amount of inventory space
-Great item descriptions

Cons:
-Status screen not explained well in instruction manual or in game.
-Grind level seems a bit high. (ex. battle yields 20-30 xp where I am at, need 500 to next level) I guess I am too used to the newer rpgs as of late. Not as bad of a grind as Ragnarok Online though.
-Some enemies are insanely cheap (but then again, more satisfying to kill)
-Though field cure spell animation is pretty, I wish I could skip it.

Man, bitching is easy to do. I'll post a better impression as I get further.

I got Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled for DS last week. I've got over 24 hours logged so far into my game and its been great. There are some annoyances I have, which seem to be shared with the people in the gamefaqs forum for this game. I've found some tips which may help better one's enjoyment of the game. They are either common sense or additional information the manual doesn't provide. Some aren't really tips either, just me saying stuff about the game, since the manual is not the best and a lack of tutorial. Either way, take these as you want. WARNING: some skill spoilers may be present.

1. Be prepared for high encounter rates. Your character's skill points (used for physical skills or magic) do recover a little (like a few points) each battle, so this can be a good thing.

2. Hold the B button to run. Very handy with the high encounter rate. Enemies will probably get a few hits in, but you should be fine.

3. Contrary to what the manual says, holding L during a character's turn allows you to move them around, while the R button lets you switch between characters.

4. Monster gauge on top screen indicates monsters 'appraised'. The skill 'Appraise' scans a creature for their hp and sp totals, and their weakness and strengths. Supposed to be permanent, but doesn't seem to be all the time. Glitch?

5. In the config screen, the battle speed is for the MONSTERS ONLY, not for you. In a way, its like a difficulty meter. I totally thought it was for your characters as well, but after getting pummeled a few times, I found it was not so.

6. When you change equipment on a character, the items you have equipped on them are automatically unequipped. Just keep that in mind for reference.

7. Most of the attack skills in the game are awesome. As far as I can tell, nearly all negative status inflicting skills also do good damage to the enemy.

8. See a random status on your main character at the beginning of battle a while in? Its not a glitch, its story related.

9. If you do not have enough money to stay the night at an inn, do not worry. You still can. You'll just have 0 money afterwards.

10. Be careful when saving. The load tab is right next to the save tab. I accidentally loaded my last game instead of saving at one point. Not fun.

11. To change characters in your party, you must be at a save point or on the world map.

Yeah, quite a few. But if you get past the annoying parts of the game and take the time to enjoy it, you will definitely be rewarded. The story is fantastic so far, the characters are very likable, and its very addicting. Reminds me of the time I read the Lord of the Rings books. Tough to get through all the detailed description of the setting at times, but was definitely worth it.

To sum things up for me, I enjoy playing through it much more than Legend of Dragoon, which has quite a few annoyances of its own.

I got my copy of Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne in the mail, one of the new prints. Tried it on both my ps3 and ps2 to find tons of load time and lag (waiting for 10 minutes between scenes). After sending it back, I got a used copy of the original printing that worked much better. Though I had a bit of hassle getting a good copy of this game, I am glad I did.

SMT3: Nocturne is probably one of the most brutal rpg's I have played, in both content and difficulty. The world got destroyed, your teacher seems to have had a hand in it, and you are now a demi-fiend. Everyone died, the world is inside out (and reduced to just Japan I guess), and yet your school friends are still alive (and are strange as the new world). Everyone fights to gain the ability to recreate the world the way they want to. Happy place.

The challenge lies in many places for this game: huge confusing dungeons, battles that punish mistakes, and very little pointing of where to go. A nice couple of walkthroughs from AIex and IKelley helped immensely. I don't know how anyone could get through this game without a guide, unless they have a huge amount of time or video game genius.

This was my second attempt getting through the game and I am very glad I got through it. The challenge makes each accomplishment in the game very gratifying. The battles against the fiends for example can be extremely frustrating even with a guide. But seeing those bastards go down after a few attempts is such an awesome feeling.

It's even better when you create them and have them in your party. Daisoujou is probably one of my favorite fiends to have in my party, due to how cheap he can be. These two skills of his make him a permanent person in my party. Meditation: costs 20 sp, drains 80 hp and 80 sp from most enemies. Prayer: 50 sp, heals everyone in party for all HP and removes status effects (except) death. His lack of weaknesses and nice amount of null/expel/drain stats are great as well.Put debilitate and other fun skills on him and he's wonderful.

It feels great to finally have beaten this game. Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier for DS is a nice break so far from it.

I tried playing Pokemon Diamond one more time, got 5 minutes of play and was done. I might try the DS remakes of Gold/Silver, if they don't add a ton of pre-quests to each gym. I guess I can only hope.

Last thing, Pier Solar for genesis is looking amazing so far. I can't wait until it comes out. The latest video on their site (piersolar.com) is showing some vast improvements over the demo. Nice to have a good classic game come out, especially after the harsh news of the Crimson Echoes C&D. I don't care if rom hacking is looked down upon by some. To have that much time and dedication put into a game, have it at beta level, and get shut down must be an extreme let down for those working on the project. At least the 3-d remake that got C&D'ed was not even close to that far. Grumble grumble. Anyways, happy gaming and good luck college students on finals!