I’m working up the nerve to resume the Star Fox retrospective, which will involve playing the stupid dinosaur planet spinoff adventure buggery game. I could probably chintz out of it by saying, “Oh, it wasn’t intended as a Star Fox game, so it doesn’t count,” but no, that would be too easy. So, look forward to that.

I’m burning out of my Armored Core binge of the past few… months, having plowed through the Portables and both 4’s, as well as starting 2 only to drop it because I was too lazy to find the receivers for my wireless PS2 pads, and wired controls are so 2007-ish now. I’ve reviewed and commented on them, and the unlucky few I call friends have been subject to me nattering on endlessly about how if I could tweak something just so, I could take down Moebius and rule the Arena or suchlike things, one constant kind of remained in the background; name dropping Last Raven as an awful, unfair experience that relies on cheap damage and outright cheating AI opponents. But, with time to kill here and there, and still in need of a fix, I wound up giving Last Raven another shot.

After all, I was spending a week in self imposed quarantine being devoured by insects and drowning in poison. Gotta have some distractions.

Much of it probably still stands- the game is absolutely unforgiving, and starting off fresh gimps the hell out of you. Even importing data from 3P or Silent Line doesn’t help a hell of a lot since the physics changed and everything was tweaked to be ‘techier’ (boosters have varying acceleration ratings, instead of ‘push button, go fast, for example), so my A and B-rated AC designs from the prior two wound up as C’s, and my lightweight hit-and-runner was suddenly rated ‘overweight.’ But with a lot of perseverance, trial and error, and of course, a gamer’s best friend (min-maxing), I started to make progress in the thing, and the more I got used to it, I came to the terrifying realization that I… may like it the best of the series now.

3 and its spinoffs feel to me like the games where your customization means the most, as parts are specialized and not everything is necessarily a weapon you’re strapping on. Returning to 4 after beating LR a few times, it was really a letdown to lose options like orbit guns or equipping shields to compensate for lowered defense on lightweights. Even though tuning was carried on, LR made it less of a chore by narrowing down the number of points and factors to upgrade according to your tastes.

Anyway, just wanna take a moment to thank everyone who’s reading this. Sorry for the lack of updates as has become sadly usual of late. I keep starting a bunch of things, but finishing them if the hard part. So, see ya next time. Which will be less than a freaking month from now.

In response to the prior piece, I am happy to report after playing with an in-store demo console, the 3DS’s 3D effects DO work for me. My eyesight is crappy enough I expected to fall by the wayside there!

Still not buying the thing until something really wows me software-wise, though. And considering Devil Survivor 2 is going to the regular DS rather than the 3DS (which is getting the first game with OOH VOICE ACTING), I think it may be a little while.

Cough. Legends 3. Cough.

In other news, I finally had time to get to the game store today (good god, I was off work this week and still can say that) and picked up the latest re-re-re-release of Final Fantasy IV. While the DS version attempted to bring clumsy looking polygons and monster-raising into the game (worthy additions, of course), the PSP edition has redrawn, 2-D sprites, the entirety of the formerly-episodic After Years, and even a little extra chapter to better bridge the two. Gee, I wonder what feels more authentic as a remake of an SNES era RPG.

Yeah, my DS is kind of neglected these days. I feel kind of bad about it, but it’s mostly just due to the convenience of being able to swap games on the memory stick without grabbing another off the shelf. If I’m on the go and need a break from Radiant Historia, my immediate alternate choices are Shantae 2, Ninja Karakuriden, or drawing obscene Flipnotes. If I get tired of whatever UMD is in the PSP, on the other hand, I can boot up an old PS1 game or one of the Armored Core Portables. So you see my dilemma. Sort of.

So, I’m working on making 3/2 more lively once again here, and as I’m currently downloading Hard Corps Uprising, there’ll probably be an addition to Contrapalooza! pretty soon. Now, if anyone here’s a long time reader and remembers my big-ass SNK memorial (before they turned out to not-really die, then get kind of sad), Contrapalooza’s a lot less… comprehensive, mainly since I never really felt especially driven to hunt down physical copies of most ‘modern’ Contras and I basically gave up emulating Playstation crap after I got a real copy of Misadventures of Tron Bonne (<3). So, I really don’t plan on filling in the C: The Contra Adventure/Shattered Soldier/Neo Contra gap, even if the latter two actually looked kind of promising.

(Mainly advance ass-covering here as I reviewed Contra 4 under said banner and will be continuing as if the other Playstation games and the Wiimake never happened- as CRACKTASTIC as it looks to be since it involves Lance in drag)

I’ve been digging into Radiant Historia a bit, since people kept name-dropping Chrono Trigger while it was in the dev chute awaiting intercontinental evacuation. Stop doing that, people! Don’t get me wrong, Historia is far from bad, it’s just not Chrono Trigger, and not every random encounter-less, time travel driven RPG should be compared to it. RH’s story is a lot more grim and grounded, and I like how right out of the gate they establish that Stocke’s ‘gift’ was given intentional, purposeful limits by some as-yet-unknown party. I also like the fighting system a lot. Course, I like any RPG where positioning means something beyond “enemies attack squishy mage slightly less.”

oh yeah i’m also moving soon too yeah woo hoo