I completed Breath of Fire III on the Sony Playstation 1 this evening!

Breath of Fire III was a game I beat long before I discovered the Backloggery. I got my Playstation 2 around 2003 and I start playing PS1 games around that time. After the Final Fantasy games, I discovered other RPG's and Breath of Fire was one of the first because I had played them recently on my SNES. So, it had been 15 years since my first time playing through the game. I remember feeling the game was a little odd, but I do remember enjoying the game. It had been a while since I had replayed a long RPG to completion, so while looking over my PS1 RPG's, I thought it would be a good time to finally replay it after so many years.

Obviously, Breath of Fire III is made by Capcom, so of course the sprite work is amazing. The color and the details of every little graphic is stunning. It looks amazing and one of the best looking games on the console. Also, the game uses Smooth Jazz as its main motivation for music. It's a strange choice, but it works really well. It helps in the long dungeon and just walking around as you feel this rather serene feeling wherever you go. The game's story is much like the SNES ones with Ryu slowly learning that he is a dragon. His friends are along the way and they are all fun and unique.

But, they have very little character growth and aren't all that great as fighters. Also, the story kind of jumps all over the place and never really gets going. You don't have a main protagonist until the final part of the game. The battle system is fun, but Ryu is such the center of attention that all fights turn into the same fight. Ryu does all the work and your other characters help him along the way. The game looks great, but it also uses this isometric camera angle that makes moving a bit of a chore. Also, it is quite fixed, so it is hard to look around and see everything around you.

Overall, I slightly enjoyed my time with Breath of Fire III. When I replay a game, I'm battling my nostalgia and memory for the game along with doing everything in the game. I collected all skills and did some extra grinding and both of those kind of dampened my enjoyment of the game. Those skills were a complete pain, so I probably had better nostalgia for the game than enjoyment when I played through it. However, I still think the game is good and worth playing if you love PS1 RPG's. I just wouldn't collect everything in the game.

I completed Virtua Racing on the Sega Genesis this evening!

Virtua Racing is a groundbreaking arcade game that used polygonal graphics for almost all of its game play. It was quite stunning and something to behold back in the day. I never played the Arcade version, but I did rent the Genesis version a few times as a kid. It was a game that I would rent when I would want something short and simple to play a few times throughout the weekend. I had seen the game several times when I had gone game shopping, but I always passed it by as it was quite common. Well, after beating my Backlog and having zero unfinished games, sometimes you just wanted quantity and Virtua Racing came perfect for it. After the incredibly long games of Fire Emblem and Baten Kaitos Origins, I want something short and simple, so I figured Virtua Racing would fit that niche perfectly.

It is hard to compare Virtua Racing in the modern eyes. Back in the day, the game looked fantastic and was something I had never seen before. It was Sega's version to Star Fox and it really showed what the future of video games would hold beyond the second dimension. Many 3D racing games would be inspired by the game and it really changed the landscape. Beyond the graphics, the game play is short and simple. You have three tracks to race on ranging from different difficulties. The racing is butter smooth and the game runs at fervent pace throughout the entire experience.

After getting past the groundbreaking milestones, there really is nothing to the game. The game only has three tracks, so it is incredibly short. The tracks are small and offer hairpin turns which is quite difficult to do when it moves that fast. The computer AI is quite brutal as it is nearly impossible to catch up once you make one mistake. There is no music in the game as you just get jingles after each checkpoint. So, all you hear throughout the entire game is F1 engine car sounds and that began to give me a headache after a while.

Overall, after I got past the nostalgia and unique factor of the game, there really is nothing left to Virtua Racing. The actual game play is way too short and difficult to be enjoyable. The game is bare bones as almost the entirety of the cartridge is spent on the graphics and look of the game. I picked up the game for under $10, so if you like racing games and are interesting in gaming history, I would say that is the correct price for this kind of game.

I beat Baten Kaitos Origins on the Nintendo GameCube this evening!

Back in the spring of 2020, I played through the original Baten Kaitos and I ranked it as my favorite game that I played that year. I love Deck Building Card Games, so this was a natural fit and I fell in love with the battle system. Since then, I always wanted to check out the sequel. During one of my last gaming trips after beating my Backlog, I went to an out of the way gaming store that had a very nice copy of Baten Kaitos Origins just sitting there. Obviously, I picked it up and it became one of the big games I wanted to play this year.

Baten Kaitos Origins is a prequel sequel to the original game and I'm normally not a big fan of that storytelling as it doesn't advance the plot much, but I did like how it colored one much from the previous game. The world is so unique and rich that a prequel actually makes a bunch of sense as it is not your fairly standard world. For the story itself, it is mostly interesting though it gets a bit repetitive in the middle as that part began to drag a little. There is some overwrought parts that were a bit much, but it was very good overall. I really loved the characters in the game as the bickering between your party members was quite enjoyable. But, they were also quite unique and had very deep backstories that slowly unfurled throughout the game. The major change in the game play would be the battle system as they decided to create one giant deck of cards for all the characters instead of unique character decks. For the most part, I didn't mind this change as it made the game feel very different from the first part as it streamlined the system. However, it felt like a step back in complexity from the first game, which felt weird in a sequel. Also, because of one giant deck, most of the battles began to feel the same and lose their luster after a while.

Overall, I still really enjoyed Baten Kaitos Origins. I think I enjoyed the original more because of the battle system, the game had sharper graphics and it flowed more smoothly. In this one, the dungeons and the game itself can be quite long and tedious. For a sequel of a game, it felt like it took a few steps backwards instead of going forward. In a weird way, I would almost suggest playing this one first and then the original. Storywise and complexity, it makes sense to do it that way, but completely backwards chronologically. But, the game should still be played!

Hey, much appreciated. Thanks for noticing my update and for knowing that I usually always have one on my Now Playing. This is easily the largest gap in between entries, and it certainly shows. It's almost like riding a bike, but not quite! Now, to play 500 songs 4-5 times.

Thank you! And happy 12 years to you too!

I beat Prince Of Persia: The Two Thrones on the Microsoft XBOX this evening!

I have been slowly going through the Prince of Persia series on my XBOX. I beat Sands of Time back in 2015 and I beat Warrior Within back in 2018. I really liked Sands of Time, but I did not enjoy Warrior Within all that much. Wanting to finish the series, I purchased Two Thrones right after I beat my Backlog and I was looking for a XBOX game to play. I had heard some people say that Two Thrones was the best in the series, but I was a little hesitant after Warrior Within. But, I was craving some more of that Prince of Persia style of gameplay, so I decided to jump in and see what I found.

I was happy to see that Two Thrones was much better and ends the series on a high note. The game play is a mixture of the first two games. You still do a ton of platforming and puzzle jumping throughout the entire game while being able to manipulate time. Also, you turn into your dark self during specific parts in the game and the game becomes more combat focused. Thankfully, these segments aren't too long and none of them overstay their welcome. The main focus is the platforming and the puzzles that you run into within each room. Most of these are very enjoyable, though some of them can be very cruel and require the most precise timing. The combat as also been revamped as you can do almost stealth quick kills that trigger an almost QTE. When done correctly, they are very satisfying and helps alleviate the repetitive combat. If you don't do it correctly, then the combat falls apart and becomes rather annoying. The game offers little music and the graphics are maybe a slight better than the previous games. The story starts off a bit confusing because it had been so long since I played the other games, but that was soon patched over and I began to enjoy the character interactions throughout the game.

Overall, I would say that I mostly enjoyed my time with Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. Warrior Within left quite a large sour taste in my mouth, so I was happy to see that the series could do well here. This development team would go on to make the Assassin's Creek games and after playing the first, you could really tell how the games compliment each other. I would say Sands of Time was my favorite just because it never has any of the Dark Prince stuff in it. But, I would say Two Thrones is worth playing as well and an excellent final chapter to the saga!