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Well, the Labor Day sale has come and gone (as well as my B Day) and I am spent. I picked up a lot of great games and am looking forward to many a long gaming session. However things certainly didn't turn out the way I thought it would. Hm, that was a bit ambiguous. Let me be more specific. While I did receive an iTunes card as a gift, it was a $25 card instead of a $15 card. Add that to the $8 credit that I already had and that adds up. Couple this with the awesome Labor Day sale (tons of .99 cent games) and I nearly had a brain hemmorage. Anyways, here are the games (in no particular order):
Paid Games
Across Ages - It's billed as a Zelda-clone, but is really just another KRPG. Fun, but not Zelda.
Silent Hill The Escape - a touch-centric title that I do not like. Out of the lot it is the only one I regret buying. Luckily, it was only .99 cents.
Zenonia Series (1, 2, and 3) - I had so much fun with part 3, I ended up buying the first two. All are fast-paced Secret of Mana-style games.
Illusia - another great Gamevil title, this one a Popful Mail-style game.
Dead Space - only .99 cents, and one of the best new gaming experiences I've had all year. It makes me want to grab the console titles.
Hyper Crush - A Mario-type platform based around an electronic band. I can barely describe it.
Zombie Infection - a Gameloft third-person shooter with zombies. I like killing zombies, and it was .99 cents.
Resident Evil 4: Platinum - I've read it's not the full game, more like a greatest-hits version. It controls well and was only .99 cents.
Vay - surprisingly, this was the only traditional JRPG that I picked up (and $5 at that).
Shadow Guardian - another Gameloft third-person game, this one clearly modeled after Uncharted. Fun, and .99 cents.
Gangstar: Miami Vindication - the second Gangstar game, this one quite good looking and fun. It was not on sale, but I had so much fun with the demo.
SNES Player - this isn't a game, but rather an app that allows you to listen to spc and rsn files (direct sound rips from SNES games). What can I say, I'm a dork.
Noise Entertainment System - plays nsf (NES) and gbn (Gameboy) sound files. Very cool.
Free Games
Aurum Blade Free - Yep, free. For the whole game. Cutesy-Diablo/Secret of Mana game.
Inotia 2: Eternity - Like Zenonia 3, there is a free and paid version of the game. Unlike Zenonia 3, there are a ton of ads in this game. If it turns out to be good, I'll buy the full version (like I did with Zenonia 3).
Guardian Saga - I must have picked this up the single day it was free, because it is now $1.99. It's basically a Dragon Warrior game, 8-bit graphics and all.
Fallen EP-1 - Third person survival horror with traditional controls and some touch-centric actions scenes (bashing open a glass window with a fire extinguisher). A bit annoying, but still fun.
Near Misses
GTA Chinatown Wars - Basically a port of the PSP version, but with touch. While I did buy both versions of this game (DS and PSP), I decided against this one. Not really for any problems with the game, but since I've already bought it twice...
Bug Panic - you wonder around a forest, blasting giant, cute bugs with bombs. Great controls, lock ons, and charging attacks make this game stand out. I would have bought it if was cheaper and had more content.
1112 - an episodic touch-adventure game. It was clearly made more for the iPad than the iPhone/iTouch, but it still looked nice. Far too short (from what I hear), a relatively large price tag, and the fact I kept getting stuck in the bathroom kept this one away.
Well, that's it (for now). I'm knocking around an idea for doing a semi-regular feature about iOS and Android games (I'll be getting an Android phone in October) to maybe give some more love to some of these great titles. I don't know. It'll depend on how bad my online class gets.
I really love the first Final Fantasy game for many reasons. First, it was my gateway drug into RPG games (not my first, but the first I liked). Second, it was the only Final Fantasy game for a long time (and this still stands) that doesn't succumb to the annoying number scheme (Final Fantasy III/6) or doesn't have an alternative pronunciation (Final Fantasy X-2/Ex-Two). Finally, while it has seen many upgrades and rewrites over the years, yet most of them managed to add something worthwhile to the mix. Because of these facts, Final Fantasy I is one of the few games (outside of the PS2 GTA games and the first Mario trilogy) that I've bought more than three times over the past twenty-one years. As you can see, I really do love this game.
Naturally, it didn't take long for me to find this game once I got an iTouch. I was extremely pleased to learn that this game was based on the 20th Anniversary Edition on the PSP (the only version of the game I never purchased), so I was stoked to try it out. What didn't please me, however, was the fact that the game was $8.99. This may not seem like a big deal (I did pay $29.99 for both FF Origins and Dawn of Souls), but considering that some of the best RPGs on the system are either free or less than $2.99, it seemed hard to swallow. Plus, I've already bought this game at least five times in the past. Luckily for me the game went on sale shortly after, so I snapped it up for only $3.99.
In short, the game is great, and entirely worth the $3.99 I paid. The visuals are great, the sound is great, and there is even a transparent D-pad with a single button that controls movement, interactions and running, and also manages to not get in the way too much. Menus can be reached by simply stopping movement for a moment and tapping the tiny stat box that pops up. A little strange, but not game breaking (or even altering, really).
However, there are a few niggles here, a few things that have the potential to annoy some of you out there in RFG Land. First, some of the controls. Remember the D-pad and single button I mentioned earlier? Those work great. What doesn't work great, however, is the touch control in the battle screens. That's right, no D-pad. To battle, you have to touch an icon, then touch an enemy. Doesn't sound bad does it? It does slow things down quite a bit, though, but in an old-school RPG like this it could sound a death knell. Fortunately, since this version is the easy-type, there isn't that much extra leveling involved (your Black Belts will hit multiple times right away instead of level 9, for example). This brings about my second complain. While I will never say I had fun buying 99 heals and 99 pures before the Marsh Cave, I would still have liked to have the option to choose either hard or easy. Lastly, I really hate the fact that exiting the game via the iPhone/iTouch's Home button resets the damn game! Luckily, I never lost a save because of it, but considering that many of my gaming sessions take place in the bathroom (at work), the ability to exit the game, listen to a podcast for a bit, then re-enter would have been nice (always assuming you are using a iPhone or iTouch v4).
In conclusion, I'd like to say that the game, despite my gripes, is still excellent, and if you never got to experience the visual glory of the PSP version, is a great way get do just that. While the price will make most iPhone/iTouch users narrow their eyes a little, it's still priced better than Final Fantasy III or Tactics!
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This is bombatomba's Blog.
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So I'm an odd ball. So I am usually the last to post on a blog/forum. So I only post about weird games on weird platforms. So I have a strange relationship with commas and parenthesis. So what? Hey, at least you don't have to car pool with me to work, right? So have a heart, eat a blueberry, and don't forget to drop the empties in the box on the way out. I get deposit on those. |
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