I thought your nickname looked familiar... Great blog! I follow it even though I'm not a big Sega fan.

Thanks! It was just something I doodled for the header... alot of people seem to think it's from a game though heh!

It's pretty slow moving. The spell/special attack animations are pretty much unwatchable because of how long and ugly they are, but luckily it has an option to skip them.

The sprite work is pretty much great though.

I still really enjoyed playing through it again, for what that's worth.

"Die Siedler" is The Settlers. Should be more familiar now. ;-)

I'm playing the Gold Edition, which includes the expansion.

10 days later, I see your question...

3. Boring old SF2 on XBLA, SSF2T on 3D0 and SSF2THDR on PS3.

Where'd THAT come from? Did you look through my collection or something? There ain't much to respect there, but I'll take it

Most feral cat-hoarders don't punt the cat back out the door when it annoys or bores them, though....

PS2 Tales games are:

- Tales of Legendia
- Tales of the Abyss (this is a good game)

The rest of the PS2 Tales weren't import-friendly but worth

- Tales of Rebirth
- Tales of Symphonia (there's also a GC version released in the US)
- Tales of Destiny 2 (different from Tales of Destiny II/Eternia)
- Tales of Destiny Remake (some changes in the Original PSX version and new features were added, battle system is great)
- Tales of Destiny Remake: Director's Cut (a few additions and changes were made in the first ToD Remake)
- Tales of Fandom Vol. 2 (Heavy-text so may not suitable to those who don't understand Japanese)

Have you tried Star Ocean: Till the end of the Time?

Thanks!

And on another belated note, I decided to give away Summoner on TT, and the guy who responded seems like he'll be genuinely pleased to get it. That was a load off my mind.

And if I decide I REALLY want some early PS2-game pain, I still have Evergrace in my collection! I'll get to it someday... but probably not soon.

Thank You!!

I watched the intro video, and wow--just--bad. The most boring story imaginable told in very slow voices with uninteresting camera pans.

I guess they weren't hip to pacing back in 2000. Summoner has a similar problem--not giving you enough interesting to see and do for the amount of time you're spending in the game. You can see some decent ideas, but they don't come across in a compelling way. Maybe that's the charm you're talking about. But so many games do similar things better, it's hard to justify sticking with it.

That opens the question of why you were playing this in 2005, when far better things for the PS2 had become Greatest Hits?

The Fortune Cookie spoke, and I heeded its call....

Summoner was released in 2000--may even have been a launch title. Ten years ago!

No worries about my having gaming masochism or something. It was five bucks when I bought it, and if I don't feel like I'm getting five bucks' worth of entertainment out of it, out it goes.

(twenty minutes later) and... yeah. Out it goes.

Cool banner! It'd be a good one for winter--or the middle of summer, for that matter.

Why Gladius, you ask? I had asked on TT about introductory Western RPGs and someone recommended it. There were others, of course, some almost certainly more worthy, but Gladius was the one I'd previously put any significant time into, so figured there was a decent chance of being able to finish it.

So far it isn't that bad. Admittedly, the characters all look like zombies. And while the setting is something I hadn't seen before, its presentation generally feels half-assed.

But its "rock-paper-scissors with some twists" is interesting (the Gugnir mentioned in my header can shape-shift between a light ranged unit and a heavy melee unit at will), some of the scenarios are more interesting than "beat up these guys," and it's been awhile since a turn-based strategy game kicked my butt so much, and that makes me want to figure it out!

Yeah, MM1 and MM5 are the two worst of the NES-style games. MM7 and MM8 are just plain bad, and I'd easily pick 1 or 5 over those.

And you know, experimenting with different weapons on all the bosses was the whole joy of playing a Mega Man. Though if you're not invested in the series, I can see where it might be a chore.

You can't knock MM4's bosses or weaknesses. MM2 had air being weak to leaves which is completely counterintuitive, and in MM3, ninjas are weak to centripetal force.

The learning curve is very steep in the Oracle SCC because in the first chapter I couldn't equip poles. It's gotten a lot easier as I've become able to poke people to death from a distance. Random battles are much harder because I can't revive my own people. In the story battles I'd been using my guests to do that. I've hit a wall at the end of the Chapter 2 though as I've become very underleveled and grinding is slow going with how difficult random battles are.

Hi and I'm sorry for replying so late!

Shiren 4 was the most enjoyable game I have ever played. What's neat though, I can access a couple of new dungeons from the post-game ( 3 99 floors, 1 29 floor, 1 50 floor and a massive 100 floor dungeon located "somewhere" ), I had trouble one-time on a 99 floor dungeon on where I got berserk after the Oddish-like monster threw an herb that causes Berserk then then monsters corner mobbed me making and thus went over and over... *shudders*

As for recruiting new characters, there are 3 (not sure) characters to recruit but so far I managed to find 2 (one is in the village, the other is in another village but can be recruited while exploring the dungeon and for the third...haven't found yet) and also a new system where a weapon and shield levels up (gaining experience too) so all in all, a great game.