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Hey everyone. I thought I'd post something here considering I did something involving games...and this comic is kind of gaming related. So yeah...
Among my new place to live, the pair that have the lease for the place, Lucy and Vue, also own a PS2. Can you say w00t? I knew you could. So yeah. After rifling through their collection of games (like 5), I settled on Onimusha a few days ago. Playing it off and on for a couple days, I amassed around 5-6 hours of playtime when I beat it. I thought it was pretty good. Not great, but enough in there to make you want to get into it. My one problem with the game was that there is too much cinematic at the beginning. When I start a game, I want to get it on with the killing and deal with story a bit later. I think that demons attacking you is a good enough reason to kill them.
So yeah. Good game. Thankfully it didn't suffer from the Final Fantasy problem of being too fucking long. Yeah, that's right, every Final Fantasy that I've watched, played, or somewhere in the middle, has been around three times longer than I have patience for. I expect that many other people feel the same...where play times approach the HUNDREDS of hours if you're not careful. This tells me that for a game to ask you to spend literally days of your life JUST PLAYING, is pushing itself too far. Sure, you can play FPS games against your friends for days, but then again, I don't enjoy that either. I'm a games for diversion kind of guy, not as a reason to live or as a replacement for reality.
Shortly after beating Onimusha on Sunday, I notice that one of my roommates happened to rent Onimusha 2. Merely hours after I found about its existence from Annie. Crazy eh? I played it on Monday, and beat it just minutes before coming back to my computer and starting to update the comic. All the good stuff from the first one is still here, minus all the crappy stuff (having to upgrade your orbs to open a 'tougher' door,...), and a couple neat other features (charged attacks, special moves, becoming Onimusha, having friends through the use of gifts, all really neat). I didn't really use charged attacks much, mostly because those times where it would have been useful...I was already getting by ass handed to me. As a side note...Fortinbras at the end of the first one may seem easy with that super-awesome sword you can get...but if you switch to the green one (the wind one...I can't remember it's name), you hit so fast, he really just stands there and takes it like a bitch. I found that it took longer that way, but I also didn't take ANY damage.
To compare the two...in the first one, I really didn't use many herbs or medicines, it seemed easy. As well, I liked being able to upgrade herbs to medicines...that was sweet. I usually had an abundance of souls, good for upgrading (there was only a single door that I had to go back and upgrade my orbs for, and by the end, I had upgraded absolutely everything I could). In the second one however, everything takes so much to upgrade, I found myself hard-pressed to upgrade everything. Just going through the game like normal though, I managed to upgrade all of my armor, the first weapon twice, the second two once, and the fourth (the hammer, which is a shitload of ass) none. I was dissappointed in the lack of the fire-sword in 2...I used that one exclusively in 1. In fact, in 2, I used the first weapon you got at least 95% of the time. Those times I switched were for enemies where I needed to stay a bit away from (used the spear), were overhead (used the wind double-sword), or was on the ground and I wanted to use magic (the hammer). I'm not sure other peoples' opinions of the weapons were, but I found one good one and stayed with it for the entire game...upgrading it first, then upgrading other pieces of equipment. It's crazy, for weapons, 7000 souls for first upgrade, 14000 for the second. After finishing the games, both tell you how many souls you captured. In 1, I think I was up to like 58 or 68,000 (I could check, but I won't). In 2 however, I was up to 111,000. Yeah, doubled my soul requirements. Funny thing is that it only took me 7:09 to beat it...yet I doubled the souls. It seems like there was soul inflation between the two games.
So yeah. I liked em both...liked the second one more. And I like being able to beat a game in one sitting...I don't like coming back. I also am thinking that the decision to sell 1, 2, and soon to be 3, in such lengths is as much a marketing decision as anything else (if you get someone to only buy one...cool...but if you get them to buy the two sequels, you've tripled the money you've gotten from that one person...crazy eh?).
Speaking of games that are just about the right length...I have been playing half-life again when I'm bored. I'm a ways in, maybe 7-8 hours worth of play time. The nice thing about half-life is that it's long without being overly so. If you push yourself, you can beat it in one sitting of around 10 hours, though I don't think there will be "Half-Life Done Quick" anytime soon (in reference to Quake done Quick and its breatheren, the speed runs of a bunch of games...there's even a group trying to speed-run Fallout, buncha' crazies if you ask me *wink*).
Wow, I should go to bed...I've been at this 'updating' thing for like 45 minutes. Night all.
- web guy Josiah
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