I Haven't Talked About BLOOD DRAGON Yet

After you watch the above video, you'll know why this is a Bad Thing™ that I haven't yet.

So I'll give you some time to do that.

...
...

It's a bad thing because BLOOD DRAGON is every shade of fucking awesome.

I need only remind of my love for absurdity and I think it all becomes crystal clear since Far Cry 3:  Blood Dragon is quite possibly one of the most absurd things to happen to video games in a long time and that is a very good thing.  I mean, if someone does a Live-Action trailer for the game where the main character gets into a cyber katana duel with a robot while a shockwave from a nuclear explosion barrels towards them, you have to give it up for that shit.  Because that's not the craziest bit about the game by a long shot and it's still so fucking awesome that I cannot emphasize the point enough and I think you realize that by now.

If you don't know what Far Cry 3:  Blood Dragon is beyond the sparse ramblings of "it's fucking awesome" that I've put forth, it's....well, rather unique to explain.  Basically Dinosaurs got busy with the 80s and injected pure Neon into the baby.  If you think I'm joking then perhaps have a look at some of the more official things attached to the project, eh?

The Logo, plus some....endorsements.

The official reveal trailer for the game

A screenshot literally steeped in Neon Lights

I guess I can throw down some actual technical aspects of this thing since that's about the only coherent thing you'll get from me about it.  Blood Dragon is a stand-alone expansion to Far Cry 3 coming out for PSN, XBLA and Steam which means you do not have to own Far Cry 3 to buy and play Blood Dragon.  It's simply built off of the same engine which is fairly evident.  Of course, you -should- own Far Cry 3 because it was fantastic as well, even if Blood Dragon will literally be better than it in every conceivable way.  It's set for release on May 1st which means there is no reason it shouldn't be the very first game you buy in May, especially since it'll only be $15.  (I believe)  Being that it's built on the Far Cry 3 engine, it's carrying over a lot of tenets from that game, even if it paints them all with neon and badassness - people might've noticed a neon bow and arrow in the trailer, plus the knife which looked like a futuristic dragon dagger (like you eventually get in FC3), so those remain, as will at least some of the wildlife.  The free-roaming island won't be anywhere near as large as FC3's, but it'll still be expansive to be sure and similarly filled with things to do, like larger outposts to infiltrate and conquer.

I...really don't know what else I can say.  I really don't think there's anything else I have to say.

You want Blood Dragon.

Buy it.

fuck yeah Blood Dragon fuck yeah

Soul Sacrifice - Demo of the Year of All Years

In what continues to be a rather pleasing trend, I have picked up yet another something and found little to be disappointed with it.  Because of my whole snafu with the sickness thing, I didn't really get to put any time into Soul Sacrifice (given that afterward, I wanted to enjoy something light-hearted, which I did in Dragon Fantasy Book I as mentioned) and, in truth, I sort of forgot about it.  Earlier, I plugged in yet more time into Disgaea 3:  Absence of Detention, plodding Dinah closer and closer to Level 9999 (which it seems I might just have to achieve to grant her victory over a surprisingly difficult foe) and it was only after a random flip through my pages that I caught glimpse of the icon for the demo again.  And after some outside prodding, I decided to throw my hand back into it - after all, the only time I spent playing it was half-asleep and that's hardly fair to the game itself.

So I played the demo some more tonight....and I played and I played and suddenly an hour had gone by.  Let it be known that I was thoroughly entertained by this point, if that much was not already decidedly obvious.  Let it also be known that I had not a single clue of what the hell.

I don't mean that in a bad way, and it's understandable as I'm still a little hazy and sick because of sinus and allergy issues, but I can't effectively quantify what I experienced in the half a dozen missions I slammed through to draw closer and closer to a conclusion of the Ordeal.  It was intense, it was fast, it was chaotic, but most important of all, it was fun.  It was absolutely enjoyable and I have no earthly idea what ideas and executions are responsible for this, but I also don't really care.  To be honest, I feel an itching to jump right back into it now, but I will abstain for several reasons, most of which are completely responsible.  Totally.  Super responsible.  Unfortunately.

The basic gist, I have down and it's actually quite a bit refreshing in that it damn near reminds me of Phantasy Star Online which is a surprise that I never would have expected.  Not in so many ways, but in the particular binding of spells or offerings to the Square, Triangle and Circle buttons, where X is your dash and R switches to a separate palate of the same three buttons with different spells.  That's....where the similarities end, of course, but that momentary familiarity brought me immense pleasure and brought a level of comfort into the experience that I might not have had otherwise.  From there it gets more complicated, depending on the spell you're actually using of course.  Some spells require a charging time, others some aiming and then firing, while still others alter your attack pattern entirely for a duration, such as making a sword out of ice that you can either chain attacks with or hold for a long combo attack.

Perhaps because of the inclusion of "Soul" in the title and the tonal similarities with concept art and such, I think there were a lot of misconceptions about the game early on, thinking it would be a sort of "Souls" game (Demon's or Dark) in that it would be at least semi-open world.  In fact, it could not be more opposite, given that it seems every mission is an arena battle, basically, which is kind of a hard sell I should think.  Though, knowing that it was going to be that type of game also put illusions into some people's heads that it would be Monster Hunter + Grimdark which it decidedly is not either.  It is -far- too fast-paced and, er, responsive to be a Monster Hunter clone, of which I am quite thankful.

Regardless of what its intention was, what Soul Sacrifice ended as was an enjoyable thing to be sure.  The demo is something that I'm going to hop into several times between now and my purchase of the game, and I look for more entertaining fights the caliber of which I saw tonight.  For instance, one battle ended when a Ghoul (basically a large, undead bird) was zooming down towards me and I threw down the Stone Clod offering which brought a giant Stone Fist up through the ground.  The fist uppercut the Ghoul straight out of the air and killed it.  If that is not satisfying, friends, then I cannot tell you what is.

I seriously laughed so much....and then I made a "Flipping the Bird" pun which didn't end well

Back to Normal Soon, I Promise

So, this week has been sparse in terms of posting and the reason for that is basically that my sleep schedule has gotten progressively more and more fucked with every passing day.  When I started this post at 10:30 PM, I had been awake for 20 straight hours and as I near the 11:30 mark because I have been trying to collect my thoughts, well, I'm sure you can guess the divide between the 20th hour and the 21st.  It is a gap that is not meant to be crossed by mere mortals and I cannot help but wonder what actual insomniacs go through when they're on the 37th hour, the 48th hour and so on.  It cannot be pleasant, whatever it is and though I have sleeping issues, I dare not suggest I have that, even in jest, because it is kind of a serious thing and it gets thrown about far too loosely and too much for being something as awful as it is.

Moving away from that, I will instead spin a few little yarns to you fine folks about my adventures in Deus Ex:  Human Revolution.  You might have heard that it's getting a Wii U Super Port and you can thank me for that since I started playing the game on PS3 the day before it was announced.  Sure, I didn't get -far- into it, but I -did- play it and, well, that happened.  Sort of like Persona 4 Golden finally getting a release date literally right after I beat Persona 3 Portable.  Except that wasn't horribly depressing in a "oh god, am I going to do -everything- in this game -twice?-" sort of way.  Maybe 'depressing' is too strong of a word, but I'm sure you can gather what I am sort of shooting for here.

Rather than talk about the mechanics of the game, whether or not I'm enjoying it and the like, stuff that you generally save for a review or, indeed, just discussing the merits of the game, good and bad, I will pull from the file of stories I created today in my absurdly long session of play that I may entertain you.  Or at least entertain myself as I relive the memories because they are honestly pretty enjoyable for me if nothing else.  I dub the stories "The Adam Jensen Files:  Fun with Cyber-Strength".  I am pretty sure you can imagine -what- the stories entail, and I will try not to spoil things, but there are some things that are sort of vital to understand.

Now, at a certain point in the game, you're expected to go into a place known as Derelict Row, which is an area that is populated by one of the street gangs.  That's fine enough, right?  Except you're expected to go rather deep into it and not be detected in the process, which is a bit of a difficult thing.  What makes it doubly different, of course, is if you're playing like me, going full-lethal, and you haven't found a fucking silencer yet, seriously, where the fuck are they.  It degenerated, basically, into me picking off bangers one at a time while running back and forth from cover when they came over and started moving back to their patrols.  What I'm getting at is that it was a bit of a slog and I never wanted to go back to Derelict Row ever again.

So, of course, later on you get a mission where you have to do just that.  At first, I was annoyed.  "Guh!  This fucking place!" I exclaimed, and then I remembered, "Oh...I don't have to be undetected this time.  And I have a shotgun.  With the dual-burst mod."  As a meaningful grin crossed my lips, I made my way over to the area and, making use of one of the maintenance entrances where only two bangers were stationed, I decided to make it a little fun.  I would rile them up and get them all mad at me and then take them down with my awesome shotgun.  So I grabbed one of the (apparently heavy) tall crates and threw it at one of the bangers.  I expected it to sort of bounce off of him like most objects did for...some reason, but that is not what happened.  Instead, the crate just kept moving in a straight line and his face met the hard concrete of the room in a hurry.

He lay there motionless for moments and I crouched down to move up to him - he was dead.  The crate was so heavy and the throw so strong that it killed him and I was almost too shocked for a moment to do anything.  Dutifully, however, I grabbed his arm and tugged him around the corner, lest his partner see him.  "That had to be a one-time thing," I told myself.  "No way could that happen again."  So I grabbed the murdercrate and moved over towards his buddy.  Once again, I let loose and once again a body met the ground, sufficiently 'body' and less 'living person' as the time before.  Suddenly, I flashed to the guy calling me a 'cabròn' and telling me to get out and I remembered his buddies on the other side of the door I was heading towards.  I had an idea and it was not a very nice one.

"Fly fly, Cabròn!  Bring me bangers to shoot!" I exclaimed, throwing my latest victim several feet into the air and out into the area before the building I had just exited.  It may come as a surprise, but a corpse flying through the air at a sustained speed tends to draw attention, so I just pressed my back to the wall next to the doorway and waited.  Sure enough, they came to investigate and when one of them was sufficiently close to my little 'bait', I activated the dual-burst and popped out, giving him a little long-distance heart surgery before popping back in and waiting for the gunshot to alert his friends.  One by one, they filed over for something a little more close and personal, finding themselves standing in my doorway before being propelled back against the slight railing the platform had, as two or three steps elevated it from the ground.  When they were taken care of, it was merely a matter of moving further into the compound, barren of life from my earlier visit.  I entertained myself by whistling a jaunty little tune.

Later on, I found myself in a situation where an undercover cop I had been working with informed me that they had all the evidence needed - if I wanted the collar, or just to gloat to the perp before things were over, I was more than free to take a crack.  "Yeah.  I would like that," I thought.  So I went to his apartment building and made it the short trip there with ease.  The door was already open from my earlier excursion into there and I quickly took stock of my weapons.  Everything was...quite lethal save for my stun gun which I keep for moments just like this.  Fortunately for me, this one wanted to have a little chat before we ended things.  He knew the noose was tightening and thought credits would grease my palms enough to let go of the rope.  He was incorrect.

He drew a revolver, but I was faster and one shock later, he was a heap upon the ground.  Almost by instinct, I grabbed his wrist and started dragging him away, heading for the front door.  It was only when I was in the little open area in front of the entrance of the apartment, however, that I suddenly questioned what I was doing.  He needed to stay here to get cuffed.  Though I -knew- he wasn't going to get up, I wanted a little more....insurance, so I considered my options for a moment.  I just wanted to make sure he was properly captured and wouldn't be able to regain consciousness before the handcuffs found their way around his wrists.  Was that going to happen?  No.  But I'm Adam friggin' Jensen, I have augmentations and I'm going to use them, damnit.

So I grabbed the refrigerator, moved over to his prone form and promptly dropped the heavy appliance onto his legs.  He wobbled a bit and the entire thing ended up tipping over, laying flat across his back and, because of the way he had lay arched, his protruding spine.  "There," I thought.  "All secured."  I briefly checked to make sure my little antics hadn't killed him and, when I was amazed to learn that they didn't, I promptly left to report to my contact.  I informed the contact that he was, er, 'taking a nap' and assured them that they weren't going anywhere.  And as I walked away, I couldn't help the burst of laughter that overwhelmed me from the truth in my words.  I could already imagine them walking in on the scene and wondering how in the hell they were going to get the fridge off of him.  It was a good thought.

So, I submit to you the question that comes from all of this.  Adam Jensen:  Great Jerk?  Or Greatest Jerk?

Why Should You Be Excited for Drakengard 3?

Some games out there are just kind of a hard sell.  We like them, love them even, even though there are many, many flaws to them.  Many flaws.  Many.  Multiple.  They're not perfect by any stretch, nor can we even say "Oh, yeah, there's -this-, but you can ignore it" because the flaws are big ones.  Drakengard 1 and 2 each have their own which make them particularly hard sells in their own right.

Drakengard 1's combat is archaic, to put it lightly - the entire game about murdering things doesn't actually lend itself well to really getting out there and slaughtering by the tons.  Sure, you'll end up with bodycounts in the hundreds and thousands (Seriously one level in particular you can, oftentimes -do-, end up with a bodycount between 1,000-2,000 enemies) but getting to that point....wasn't that great.  It's unfortunate, really.  Drakengard 2's combat wasn't much better (though some outlets claim it was playable...perhaps I'm a bit biased against it) but it was, apparently, better.  Of course, the entire reason to play Drakengard 1 was for the story which got progressively and exponentially more and more batshit crazy as it went along.  Drakengard 2's story, on the other hand wasn't nearly as good and focused on a cast that was meant to be likeable in contrast to the original's group, yet ended up feeling hollow and annoying at best, going completely counter to point.

Nier, on the other hand, was much, much easier to recommend to folks.  Combat wasn't flashy and amazing, but it was far more capable than the two iterations in the Drakengard series.  Plus, as with Drakengard 1, the story is worth paying attention to, but not because it gets batshit, but because it gets more and more involving, touching and, at times, depressing.  The cast is wonderfully developed as well and remains the only instance in (Action) RPGs where they've introduced a child character that wasn't annoying in every facet of her existence.  Complaints ranged from vapid (as in meritless) - That whole fishing fiasco kerfuffle, whining that the game is ugly, uses too much bloom - to reasonable ones - trying to 100% the game takes forever and is not encouraged, nor worth it, a couple of the areas -are- a bit much, in terms of forced combat and length - but overall are mild enough that, even pitting the litany of them against the pros of the story, the characters and the soundtrack, it's still something we can easily describe as "Worth it" and have it fit a broad enough appeal of the phrase to be correct.

Nier is, however, a decidedly different beast than what Drakengard 1 and 2 were and while it may be the actual progression of that style, I'm not quite sure it will be.  Where Nier had a semi-open world to travel across, Drakengard had levels (Chapters and Verses, rather) that had a set-up for each and every one.  You are in a forest level for this reason, the sea temple for that reason, etc. etc.  It's very constricted, which is something that we've by-and-large out-grown in the games that have come out since.  Not saying that it isn't possible to make each of those levels wonderful so that it's not a problem, just that it's not immediately accessible to people.  Combine with the likelihood of Drakengard 3 following that, with the history of the first and second games and the idea that combat may be merely good at best, it's hard to tell you that Drakengard 3 is a game that will sit alone on a pedestal as a game you should look into, should have excitement for, feel -anything- for.

Yet, that is precisely the reason you likely -should- be excited, should be looking forward to Drakengard 3 for.  Some games have their over-the-top spectacle to fall back on, to be the thing that embeds them in your mind.  We'll all remember Uncharted 2 for that moment when you were inside a building that was physically falling over and God of War 2 where the tutorial was murdering the hell out of the Colossus of Rhodes.  Other games maintain that a tightly-controlled, polished experience will keep you coming back for more and more, and the technical workhorses that are the Call of Duty games (while we may groan, they -are- usually locked to a butter-smooth framerate and tuned to accentuate the shooting) are a good example of this as well given their commercial and critical success, no matter how many people who call themselves 'hardcore' or what have you roll their eyes.

Only a select few games really try to have a story or an experience that will burn itself into your memory.  Games like Heavy Rain do this by making the story personal - the ending you get, considering your actions, is -your- ending from then on, even if you go on to play it again.  Others do this by making the story something truly provocative, intellectually or morally, so that you paint things in other games by your freshly expanded mental toolset.  Games like Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, like Planescape Torment, made particular use of this tactic and because of that, you still hear about them to this day.  While I'm not suggesting Drakengard 3 will be in the same 'hallowed halls' as these games, I -am- suggesting it will likely be special enough to be singled out for a similar reason, as was Nier.  And, in a sense, Drakengard 1, given that it was an experiment in wallowing in Anti-Heroes in a terrible world that only succeeds in getting more and more messed up the further down the rabbit hole you get.

Drakengard 2 was just awful, though.

Drakengard 3 is Being Made, I Could Not Be Happier

Do you have that one game in your head, the game that uses ideas, characters or a world that already exists, and is simply some form of that?  Generally this is a "I wish there was a sequel" idea, like a lot of people pine for Mirror's Edge 2, Psychonauts 2 and the like.  I imagine asking if you have one of those is a little bit rhetorical - I figure we all have those.

For me?  I'd always held the possibility of a Drakengard 3 close.  While an almost impossible thing to consider, given that I don't think the series ever really had much traction -anywhere-, I still couldn't help it.  And even with the dissolving of Cavia, I wished, I hoped there was still some sort of faint glimmer of possibility.  Just let the Cavia dudes do what they do, that's all I wanted.

Every now and then, it happens.  You don't know why, you don't know how, but it does, and it is pretty much one of the best feelings.  You want these things because you think they're impossibilities, so to see them given life is almost surreal, but it's entirely pleasant.  Of course, the news that it gets better helps as well.  News like the entire team behind Drakengard 1/Nier are getting back together for this is something that almost seems to elevate the impossibility to an entire new tier, forgetting that that's nonsensical.  Seeing that Yoko Taro was the glaring thing missing from Drakengard 2, and given how it turned out, while he was present for Drakengard 1 and Nier, it's not a small comfort that he's directing this.  It's almost the perfect thing to assuage any and all early fears.

There are some slight details leaking out already, but I would like to wait until there's a bit more so I can expound on them fully, when I'm confident that we won't get a whole new stream of information directly after I present the initial bits.  For now, I just want to sort of savor the reality of the situation here.  Drakengard 3 is a reality and it's already looking pretty damn sweet from what's been leaked.

Things just keep looking up, folks.

Just So Much Persona

There's just so many screenshots that I've taken of P4G.  It's that good.

Lately, if I've been thinking about anything it's been...well, it hasn't been Persona 4, but if it's been the -second- anything, it's been Persona 4 Golden.  Which is to say that it is effectively second-place in what I've spent all my time thinking about, which is to say that I have been spending a lot of time thinking about Persona 4.  It is not unwarranted, of course - Persona 4 is every bit as amazing as I've been lead to believe it was, which is nice.  For once I go into a game with everyone telling me it's going to be great and then it is.  I don't have to wonder if there's something wrong with everybody, something wrong with -me- or just if there's just something that has gone awry with matters entirely as I have wondered in the past.  Since it is a valid concern to have, I imagine.

Come Game of the Year time, using the thing I go by, I won't be able to vote for Persona 4 Golden as a Game of the Year since it is a remake of a game from years past.  That restriction, not being able to include remakes or re-releases, has never been a problem for me until this year and specifically because of this.  P4G is every shade of wonderful, and if I'm being honest, it would have a very real shot of being in my top 5 list were it able to be.  It's honestly going to be a little painful to not be able to give it that recognition that it actually deserves, but I'll suffice for using this post that is gushing about it to do that.  It is close enough, at least, I should say.  Since there is honestly not a negative thing I could say about the game - even the parts of it I don't care for (the dungeon crawling, basically) are manageable at worst and I'm completely indifferent to their issues as a standard (the last dungeon I was in began to grate on me...then it was over.  So that was good.) so it's of no concern.

In fact, Persona 4 Golden is so good that it's in fact making me like Persona 3 (Portable, since that's all I played) even more than I liked P3P when I was playing it and beat it.  Admittedly, I took issues with some things in P3P, but it's a solid game overall, and like I said I'm being reminded of that by playing P4G.  I am retroactively liking P3P more and more as I play P4G.  You can ask me how that works, but my response will be "I have no idea" because I really don't; I just know that it is a thing that is happening.  As I'm playing P4G, I find myself thinking about P3, thinking about the characters and the story of it and it's all just fantastic.  Admittedly, part of it is me comparing the games to one another which is an unfair thing to do, but a lot of it is just good old fashioned reminiscing and it honestly is probably enhancing my playthrough a little bit because of it.

I think the thing about P3 that has stuck out the most as a result of all of this is probably what I like most about the game and is one of the only things I think it does better than P4, is the characters.  Now before you start, just hear me out, alright?  I haven't beaten P4G yet, nor do I think I'm that close - at the most I'm 3/4ths of the way through - but by this point in P3, the characters had all developed entire arcs, changed dramatically before the players eyes, and that was all done in the main story.  That is not to say that P4 doesn't do that, but if you take the likes of Junpei from P3 and Yosuke from P4 (the obvious equivalent) and put their character arcs (main story only) side-by-side it's no comparison.  That might be an unfair example, however, as I've considered that they sort of...well, not have the same arc, but really similar ones, but they're told in entirely separate ways over the course of the game.  Both have a loss aspect to their arcs and while Junpei's has a build to it, Yosuke's loss is almost immediate and the rest of the game is the after-effects of that, where Junpei's loss is his endgame.  So perhaps it's being able to see Junpei for so long before it, see what he's like before he deals with that, that makes it so different and so dramatic a change, but it's there nonetheless.

Of course, there's a trade-off to all of that too.  Persona 3's strength is in its characters, so much so that it overshadows the narrative, but Persona 4 does not have that problem.  Persona 4's main story is all about that and it's a compelling ride because of it.  It's a give and take thing as I sort of inferred because I don't think P4's characters are quite as developed as P3's, but they're entertaining all the same and their real development comes, unsurprisingly, from spending time with them one-on-one in the social links.  Because of that, I cannot say fully that they're not done well, nor would I suggest it, but I'm just saying that, well....I think you know what I'm saying, really.  Persona 3 was character-focused, Persona 4 is story-focused and they're both great.  It's all about build, about tension and drama and it's all about development in either case, so it's subjective to say the least, but to me, both games are just really good at what they attempt to do in their respective approaches.

In any event, playing P4G has been nothing short of a pleasure from start to where I am now, and I doubt that that is going to change in any facet.  I look forward to seeing the story continue to unwrap as I honestly still have no real idea of how it's going to end and that alone intrigues me.  I suspect it's either going to be a situation where I go, "Well, I couldn't have guessed that" or I'll say, "Oh well, -now- it makes sense!" instead of dreading that it will turn out one way and being frustrated that it did.  Because, usually, when I figure on where a thing is going and I'm right, I'm a little disappointed because as we all know, I am pretty bad at predicting things.  So if -I- can predict it, it's probably not all that strongly written.  Maybe I'll be able to develop theories closer to the end, but so far I've really got nothing and I like it that way.  No matter the case, I'm having a hard time imagining P4G leaving my Vita for the rest of the year (okay yeah, it's not that long but still) and that's saying something.

Okay, awesome, I made it the whole post without saying I miss Yukari

wait shit

Goddamnit, Atlus, I Don't Have Money or Time Part Two

Once again, in a situation that is all too familiar from a couple months ago, Atlus USA decided it was the perfect time to dangle the proverbial carrot from a stick before all of us by announcing a July-wide sale on....well, just about everything they've published and/or made on the PSN Store for PSP (and Vita by that measure) and PS3.  As you can see above, this is a large sale in both magnitude of the fact that there's fifteen titles half-off at the exact same time, as well as the stated fact that they are half-priced.  The games were pretty affordable already, but they've officially entered "I have to buy this for this price" territory for people like me who just cannot look a bargain like this in the mouth.  And I know I go on and on about how we should buy games from developers we like when they're full price so we're not cheapening their effort or anything like that, but I can buy Yggdra Union for five dollars, shut up.  And I mean, hey, this is kind of the point, Atlus is saying "Hey, buy our games while we're being nice and selling them for peanuts" and such.

As I've previously stated, all the Persona games will eventually be bought and in my care, or however you want to say it, and by eventually I mean as soon as I finish this post I'm just going to put the $70 in PSN Cards I bought in my Playstation Wallet and buy them as well as like everything else.  But the Persona games are first, no matter what, even despite the warnings that they haven't aged particularly well, specifically stating this with the original.  To be honest, I'm not even sure it's a matter of I want to buy them to actually play them, or just a matter of slapping down the cash so I can say that I have them all to sate the collector inside of me that we all know exists.  I mean, I'd like to give them both a shot, but given my apparent deficiencies in regards to Persona 3, I'm not so sure the Persona games are, er, well, my cup of tea.  Because my cups of tea don't generally like to punch me in the dick repeatedly like the chief of a little village in a terrible, terrible game.

Next up is Kenka Bancho:  Badass Rumble since it is most definitely the closest I'm ever going to get to playing a portable Yakuza game in English with no fuss.  It's not the same, of course, and probably isn't as tight of a game as I could hope for (if reviews are to be believed, which, when it concerns brawlers....I'll take them with a cup of salt), but beggars can't be choosers as they say.  Besides, the game has eye lasers which you use to stare down folks and/or initiate a fight with them which is just as cool as it sounds, considering you can just kinda walk around with the blazing, I believe.  Even if not, you can just sort of stand there and eye laser things for absolutely no reason and look, I just want that.  On top of the whole quirky angle that I'm sure the game will have by virtue of being an Atlus-localized game.  Also the whole beating people up thing.  You know how much I enjoy a game about beating dudes up and if the combat system can prove to be even half as fun as Yakuza's engine, I'll be a happy camper for $7.50.

The other game that's a sure-fire purchase from me is likely Yggrda Union, purely because it's $5 and reading the description of the game on the store has made me curious.  I'm not sure how you can mix turn-based strategy and real-time action effectively, but I'm willing to fork over five bones to discover how STING thinks one does that.  Also in the description are the words "Build your strongest deck of cards" which, as you know, elicits a very, very strong reaction out of me, since I'm not quite sure if it means something like trading cards or what.  But I'm damn sure going to find out and I am doing it fairly blindly which is either a really smart move or a really dumb one.  Or....you know, one that will end up mostly good but not great or something.  Really, I don't think I can lose out on this one and I probably can be proven wrong on that, but I'm not anticipating it.

Riviera:  The Promised Land, Knights in the Nightmare, Hexyz Force and Crimson Gem Saga round out the rest of the potential purchases and by potential, I mean "Look, I have $70 in PSN Cash, I'm buying them".  RPGs, the lot of them, I'm told they all have something rather unique or quirky to bring to the table that offers an experience unlike anything else.  Except maybe Crimson Gem Saga which is meant to just be a pure, simple RPG that harkens back to the days when RPGs were just fun things and not overcomplicated or anything like that.  Which, let's face it, is pretty unique and/or quirky in this day and age of gaming anyway, so there's that.  The only other PSP games offered in the sale are Persona 3 Portable, which we know that I have bought and played already, since I've talked about it at considerable length, and Class of Heroes which....I know absolutely nothing about whatsoever.  Except it says "Dungeons" and "labyrinths" in the game description, which are not words that invoke good things for me.  On the bright side of all of this, I'll have absolutely plenty to keep me busy in the near future!  Also things that I might be able to talk about.  Imagine that.