Back on the blogging scene!

First off I'd like to apologize to those who have been reading this, I've been rather busy lately with school and other things. Not much has happened since April 11th (wow, that's a LONG time). I have been messing around with Photoshop CS3 recently and I've been making templates for something I've been wanting for a few weeks now called the "Street Fighter 4 Tournament Edition Stick". For those of you who don't know what it is, you can read about it here (http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=162653).

I've really been obsessing over Street Fighter 4 recently, starting to take it more seriously now. There's actually funny reason why I got it, but that's another story for another day. Anyways, here's a template for the Tournament Edition Stick I was talking about



Hopefully it will look good on the arcade stick, we'll see how it goes!

He's drawing again!?

Well, about 3 days ago I finally got the inspiration I needed to start drawing again. It's been a little over two years since I've drawn anything and it feels great doing something I love again.

Here are some pictures that I've drawn so far, tell me what you think :D

eBay? More like eGay

So today I'm here to talk about my bad luck at selling things due to the fact that I MUST be a bad salesperson or something. For the past week I've been trying to sell my PSP on eBay.com and other sites, but the one that got me mostly mad was eBay. I kid you not, when I listed my PSP I could not find it anywhere on the website and not only that, but thousands of other people had the same title name as me. Which is retarded. How do they expect me to stand out amongst the thousands of other auctioneers if we have the same title? In order to be different they charge you from a different range of prices, from 99c to $5.00. Thanks but I'd rather use that money for other things like food or college supplies instead of trying to individualize my online eBay auction.



Hopefully I'll have more luck with Star Ocean.

Money for Playstation 3

Currently - $7
Goal - $320

Playstation 3 + Dre = Happy!

Well I had the opportunity to play this thing at my brother's house and I was simply amazed. I kind of figured this day would come where I would want a PS3 very badly. I was looking on Amazon.com (love that site) and I've found a 40 GB one for $269.95 + tax and shipping which will roughly come out to about $280. I have $16 saved up right now and am trying to sell my PSP for $200 on Facebook, wish me luck everyone!

Saved up: $16

Goal: $280

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

So to those of you who don't know this, let it be known that I am a HUGE fan of the Star Ocean series. From the late 90's - today the Star Ocean has been a big sucess in Japan and is now starting to try to do the same here in the States. With the remake of Star Ocean: First Departure and Star Ocean: Second Evolution (see my review below) the name is starting to become very well known around here. Now we have a new game out for the Xbox 360 called Star Ocean: The Last Hope, which is a prequel to the series as a whole. But does it live up to the hype?




Here's my review of Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Story

To start it off, this game has one of those stories where it's either you love it or hate it. The beginning starts off with a beautiful CG cutscene which explains that Earth had just ended World War III which was a nuclear holocaust, everyone that lived on the planet was forced to set into space and start anew. The story then shifts focus on a young man named Edge Mavrick, now let's stop here and look at that name again... Edge Mavrick? Seriously? What were they thinking? It's not that bad of a name, I've heard far worse but this is an RPG and compared to the other characters names in the game it just doesn't fit well. Anyways, there are 3 CD's in all and the first CD starts the story off pretty slow. With some mediocore voice acting this doesn't really help the overall drama that's trying to be portrayed. The second CD is where it really starts to pick up though, it seems like the voice actors were just warming up during the first CD because they really stepped up the voicework. Kudos to them for this. Finally the third CD wraps up the story with so much emotion that it closes the game quite well.

One more thing, there is a certain little girl named "Lymle" that seems to irk people whenever she talks, I'm not going to spoil anything but she could be the reason that makes or breaks the game. I didn't particularly mind her but from what I've read other people seem to hate her.

Overall the story isn't that great but neither is it that bad, their are a lot of things that could've made it better but altogether the story is fine and should keep you glued to your seat (literally, because some of these cutscenes run up to 30 -40 minutes).

7/10

Gameplay

This is where the game truly shines, the battle system (if you've never played a Star Ocean game) is not your traditional turn based game. It's active battle meaning the enemies show up on screen and you have the chance to avoid them, but I wouldn't recommend this because you will be missing out on an addicting battle system. Other RPG companies should definately take note on this and expand because it's this game's saving grace. You have your standard attacks using the X button, you can jump using the B button, and you can also map special moves to the Left and Right trigger. The interesting thing with the special moves is that you can string together different moves making for some VERY interesting and powerful combos. I found myself always looking for new moves to string together, trying to find that one perfect combo that worked with certain enemies and that was also powerful enough to cause havok, so in a sense this adds a strategic element to the game. You can also bring up a full list of spells and other important things by pressing A, this brings up a sort of half circle menu that list's Items, Symbology (magic) and Battle Skills (which are used for taunting, berserk and other things). There's so many things to do in the battle system alone that it would be too much to type. Trust me when I say this though, you WILL get addicted to this battle system.

9/10

Achievements

The achievements here are not for those looking for a quick 1000, these achievements will take some time to complete. Many of the required items for some of these achievements are missable which is kind of annoying once your halfway through the game and realize you missed a treasure chest or quest way back yonder on the first CD. You WILL need a guide if you want to get everything missable on your first playthrough and I recommend this site to do so. http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/showthread.php?t=126081

All in all the other achievements are very easy to get and with the help of a walkthrough shouldn't take more than a total of 200+ hours

8/10

Replayability

Most games don't really put much effort into a game's replayability, but this game has lots of stuff to do once you have finished the main story. After you have beaten the last boss there are two caves called "The Cave of the Seven Stars" and "The Wandering Dungeoun". Each of these end game dungeouns are packed with new items to collect, new monsters to fight, and higher levels to obtain. The only annoying thing is that The Wandering Dungeoun requires you do the whole cave in one playthrough meaning you can't exit to save or turn the game off. If you die, all of your progress will be lost and you will be left starting from the beginning. Other than this minor problem the game offers a very wide array of things to do.

9/10

Altogether the game didn't quite live up to the hype of us RPG players, with a subpar story and voiceacting that could use some work, the game didn't quite live up to standards. The game is amazing when it comes to the fighting and with many things to create and do, this game will offer so many hours of gameplay.

Total Score: 8/10

Let me start off by saying that Star Ocean: Second Evolution is hands down one of THE BEST RPG's I've played in a while, and this game is now 11 years old. This game has really held its own against the test of time, and I am just simply amazed. Here it is folks, my first official review.
Star Ocean: Second Evolution

Story



This is what can either make or break an RPG, if the story can't hold your interest in 30 minutes then there's no point in even bothering. Well that wasn't the case here at all, in about 10 minutes I was hooked from the end. To start off you have the option of either picking between the two main characters of the story, Claude or Rena. I thought this option was very cool because you have two different perspectives of the story, and this offers much replayability because once you beat the game with one character you can start off with the other character. Major kudos to Square Enix for this. Although the story does start off a bit slow, it will keep you on the edge of your seat after those moments. The voice acting is a mixed bag to say the least, it ranges from superb to just plain annoying, but that should be expected from a game that is translated from Japanese to English. Other than those few gripes, I would give this section a 8/10






Gameplay



The gameplay is really what sets this RPG above many others. It doesn't play as your typical turn based RPG, you can almost say that it plays like a fighting game. When you enter battles, instead of standing in one place (take Final Fantasy for example) you are able to move freely around the screen, pressing different buttons to execute different types of attacks. Pressing x is your standard run of the mill attack, and believe me when i say this, you will be using this alot. To the point where you will be wondering why they didn't use any of the other face buttons for different attacks. You can also set special attacks set to the Left and Right button, and once you figure out which ones work best, you can basically keep spamming it until you either run out of MP points or the enemy is dead. Those are probably the two biggest problems I have with this game. While it is nice to get away from the typical battle system, I just feel like more could've have been implemented with it. There is a saving grace though, this game has probably the most addicting creation systems ever. You can craft jewelry, use alchemy, pickpocket and MANY more things. You really get that sense of accomplishment creating new things because the items you create give you bonuses but can also have negative effects so it really adds a strategic element in one way that hasn't been done so well. Trust me, you will get addicted to this. I give this section a 9/10



Sound



While I talked about how voice acting was a mixed bag, I never really got into the music department. Basically it's the same thing as the voice acting but in a different sense. If you do not have access to headphones and have to play using the PSP speakers, you will be dissapointed at the quality. It comes off quite static in a sense, as in you can't hear every note that the beautiful music offers. On the other hand if you have headphones then your in for a treat, the music is amazing but is sometimes recycled. For some reason it never got old (to me anyways), the sound of hitting enemies with your sword or using magic spells to decimante your enemies is very rewarding to the ears. 8/10






All in all, this is a VERY good game that should be experienced whether your a newcomer or someone who has already played the PS1 version but wants to experience the game again. While it does have it's problems: slow story build up, voice acting, and repetitiveness. It's the overall quantity of the game that makes it so amazing. Oh, and did I mention you have the option of over 100 endings? :D I give this game altogether a 9/10