What Are You Currently Playing?

[TempestOne]

Alunissage, I pretty much think you need to learn how to not let the cat out of the bag most of the time.

*moseying through Arc the Lad II still just 'cause I want to*

[Dark_Fairy]

I've been in a super Pokemon kick ever since playing through Pokemon Y, so I went ahead and decided to start playing through Pokemon Soul Silver again, because I somehow never got around to beating it the first time.

[Alunissage]

When we're talking about decade-old games, all available cats have already exited (exeunted?) their bags. Even so, you'll note I'm not saying anything about the events of Arc II, because it sounds like you're on your first playthrough of it. But the identity of the singer (not even of the character who sings, which you yourself mentioned) is hardly part of the plot. I suppose it could be construed as a spoiler of sorts that there's a song in Arc III at all, but you'll note I again say nothing about the context.

[Nobiyuki77]

Nintendo, why you gotta release Mario 3D World and Zelda: A Link Between Worlds on the SAME DAY?!?

I have to decide which to play first! >>;

[TempestOne]

I've actually been in this mood of completely trashing all of my video games and focusing solely on Pokémon. *serious*

I talked to a friend and they still can't believe I haven't gone through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It, once or twice, was left at my household and I completely, automatically always get "stuck" in that sole village and would get utterly distracted by the chickens. My save file would pretty much always halt there. The farthest I got was when you'd have to go to "Stage 2" or whatever. I remember being so scared when I was younger - I was like "Oh, Hell no. I am not playing this anymore."

So into Arc the Lad II, still. I freaked out + cracked out on it today and did a bunch of Jobchecks, etc. I feel so vacant when I am playing it, though, like I am missing some sort of key component to something but I am pretty much following whatever the strategy guide says... I feel bad they neglected the dog so I did too and I am just kind of marching throughout the video game following my guidebook. *covers eyes with flat hand* I feel like a tourist visiting a foreign land! *thinks disrespectful thoughts* LOL

[Zero]

I'm having an amazing amount of fun playing Killer Instinct. I knew I would enjoy the game but didn't think it would be to this extent - I am loving this game. Great soundtrack, fun combos, nice backgrounds with awesome weather effects... I'm enjoying it so much I even went ahead and bought the Ultra Edition. Playing Killer Instinct Classic, which came with the Ultra Edition, is a nice throwback, too.

So far I'm pleased with Crimson Dragon but I haven't spent an incredible amount of time with it like I plan on doing. As I've said before I'm nothing if not a diehard Panzer Dragoon fan, and with that I can already deduce that this could have been a better game based solely off of the few hours I played of it last night. My biggest gripe already would be the lack of that old 90 degree quick-turn; It's definitely still needed. You can tell they put a good effort into trying to let the camera guide you to where you need to be facing but, at times, it whips you around to a position that you simply don't need to be in and by the time you get to where you do, you've already taken one if not multiple hits. It's probably fine for a casual playthough, but for a game that encourages you to grind out levels and perfect stages for higher rankings and bonuses it's somewhat frustrating, especially for someone such as myself who wouldn't even think of playing on any mode but Classic. I'd be extremely happy if they could just patch-in that 90 degree turn. There are things to love about the game, though. It definitely feels like Panzer Dragoon. It's new, it's HD, but at the same time it feels retro (in a good way) and that's because they stayed true to the art direction and level design of the older games. The music is also classic Panzer and overall a really good soundtrack if you're a fan of the series' music; It's up there with the best of them. There's definitely some beautiful environments to be seen even if they're not cutting-edge next-gen. You might have to be a fan to enjoy them as much as I do but in my opinion some of them are quite breathtaking. Actually, I'm gonna go out on a limb and make a far-to-soon judgement call: I think you probably have to be a hardcore fan to enjoy this game much at all. The way I see it so far is that some aspects of it can be enjoyable if you're really into Panzer Dragoon, but even then it's basically only going to stave off your hunger for another really good game in the series. It's much more of an edible appetizer than a delicious main course. I know, shame on me for saying so after only playing 4 or 5 hours of the game, but I sincerely think that's how it's going to turn out. I'm not severely disappointed, though, it's already worth the $20 I paid for sure.

[Alunissage]

Zelda. So sleep-deprived.

[Kizyr]

I just started playing Grandia for the Saturn (first time; never got around to playing it even though I've had it for 14 years now). It's enjoyable but... man... it's very "90s".

...also now that I can understand it better, the voice acting for Justin and Sue in the Japanese version isn't particularly enjoyable. They're not bad, but I guess I don't have the same tolerance for the usual anime-style hyper voices that I used to. I heard the US voice acting was pretty bad, but I haven't heard it firsthand.

I'll probably pick up the new 3DS Zelda before too long though. I'd like to at least get another game off my backlog first, though. KF

[TempestOne]

I loved Killer Instinct Gold for the Nintendo 64. I remember spending countless hours in our second living room, or whatever that's called, playing it. The T.V. room.

Grandia is such a good series... I am so surprised you, Kizyr, haven't gotten in-touch with it since it was made or published, or whatever, by Game Arts. I thought the drawings in Grandia could have rivaled LUNARs, easily. The battle system + battle mechanics make that game so much fun and the towns, villages and continents you can visit feel as if the game was made by proud developers. Everything seemed so lively to me and it never seemed dreadly over-populated. I never thought the voice acting was ever bad. I saw it as the game was rich in content, basically. Plus voice acting to me is all about lines. When you can hear past what the sound someone is making and listen to what they're actually saying... that's what communication is to me through voice acting in games. At least here in the U.S. - since it's really one of the few, only examples I can make references about or toward.

So cool having the Sega Saturn version... I am pretty ghetto-fied and have stuck to my PlayStation and just lived with it but I heard, even though I have the console, that the Sega Saturn is more crisper in every department. Kind of weird... I feel the one thing the PSX had over the rest was reliability... you can rely on more games, inexpensive replacements, etc. The rest of the series is good to follow if you have a good time with the first!

Trudging though Arc the Lad II over here still, myself. I love it. I am definitely going to get a PocketStation because I heard that the mini-game was left in-game for us.

[Alunissage]

It's up to you whether you get a PocketStation, but I gotta tell you, the minigame isn't very playable. I don't mean in a sense of not being well-done... I mean it was left UNFINISHED by the developers. WD localized it without realizing that it wasn't finished. It's playable, but you'll never progress it very far.

I just finished the new Zelda. Yay me. Before that I played the downloadable episode of Ace Attorney 5.

We have the Saturn Grandia (and the guide for it) as well as the NA PSX one because my husband was curious whether the music is as notably better-quality in the Saturn game as it is for the Saturn Lunars compared to the PS ones. (He decided that any difference is negligible.) He replayed the PS game last year, which was the first time I'd seen it. It mostly didn't do a whole lot for me, in part because the visual presentation looked like late-90s websites made into a game.

[Sonic#]

Kizyr, I have thick skin for voice acting, but the English Grandia takes it to the limit. High-pitched, atonal. I like the game a lot though.

I've been playing Minecraft with a small group. Since I have less time than the others, I'll come back to my fortress dug into a hill and find skybridges to nowhere.

On the weekends I play a bit of Crusader Kings II, trying to build towards a good Europa Universalis IV save. I've returned to my Britannia save, since the recent update to troop levies makes it less ridiculous. The size of the levy no longer scales linearly with the size of the empire, so though I sprawl across half of the world from Iceland to Finland in the north and south to Mali and Jerusalem, excluding Italy, Anatolia, Egypt, and Greece, I can still levy only 100-150K. (As opposed to nearly 600K.) Most empires still cannot rival that, but they can get close, and multiple rivals and rebellions are both dire threats.

Also, particular for this week traveling, Nethack.

[phyco126]

Minecraft, Terrraria, EVE, Crysis 3, and the occasional Command and Conquer Red Alert 2.

[Kaiya-Sky]

Finally got a PS3 about 3 months ago now. So i finally got to play through the Atelier games. I did 2 playthroughs of Rorona, one play though of Totori and im currently on my Second play through of Meruru, i was going to move strait to Ayesha but i enjoyed playing Meruru a lot, and I'm having tons of fun with my second play through, was thinking of doing a third or at least a split save to see more endings, but at the same time i really want to try out Ayesha. I plan on doing a second playthrough of Totori, but i was disappointed and discourage with my first play through, but will do one eventually since i did really like that one. I am more than happy with all 3 of them, so much so it's hard to choose a favorite, they all have slight changes in the game that makes it hard to choose which one is best. Rorona has to be one of my new Favorite game characters, But i am very disappointed with what they did to another one of my favorite characters Pamela. First introduced to her in Atelier Iris, she quickly became one of my favorite characters, my favorite version of her being in Mana Khemia. But in the Arland series, she looks good, i like her role in the story, but just what they did with her personality, and the way she speaks and just her voice in general, is horrible, her personality would be more tolerable if she spoke differently. These games have consumed all my free time and im even starting to dream about synthesizing items. I bough Ni no Kuni when i got Atelier Ayesha, so i'll have to play that when i've got my fill of alchemy

[TempestOne]

You all play the freakiest-sounding games. LOL

I've always seen the Atelier series in stores but I'd be all "How do you pronounce that?" Everytime I would go up to the customer service representatives they'd be like, too busy rearranging something over there versus trying to make a sale or even pretending I exist. Sometimes I think I suffer from tremendous body odor or halitosis but I doubt it 'cause I get compliments on how I smell good all the time. What-ever! It seems like a fun title for a series but there's always so many and I wouldn't know where to start. Like, you'd think the, um, workers or servers would know when the release dates were, at least, so I'd know where to begin the adventure from. *shrug* They make me feel like as if I don't belong there and I can't understand why since I've been going into gaming stores since I was really young. The older gamers from back in the day were hecka nicer to me. These new ones kind of seem like they're working there just to get discounts...

I'm still playing Arc the Lad Collection and I'm kind of nearing the eighty-hour mark and it's something I like to put out of mind because I've never sat down to play a console RPG for this long before ever, I think. I usually get them done because I'm concentrating and focused but with a strategy guide in hand, official at that, it's taking forever it seems. I like longer journeys though, it makes every littlest thing seem that much more epic in retrospect and looking forward because you're all "whoa," haha - at least I am. I just got to the coolest part ever and it makes me love this game so, so much. It's really nearing + climbing up there in terms of personal favorite. The Japanese voices are, like, ingratiating... over time. I seem to feel like I'm starting to know what they're saying now. Makes me wonder why no one ever made a FAQ where they'd translate them into, I think it's called Romanji, but it's fine. The game was pretty expensive.

Oh, I forgot to mention: it totally helps in finishing a game when you make random blurbs!

[Kaiya-Sky]

You all play the freakiest-sounding games. LOL

I've always seen the Atelier series in stores but I'd be all "How do you pronounce that?" Everytime I would go up to the customer service representatives they'd be like, too busy rearranging something over there versus trying to make a sale or even pretending I exist. Sometimes I think I suffer from tremendous body odor or halitosis but I doubt it 'cause I get compliments on how I smell good all the time. What-ever! It seems like a fun title for a series but there's always so many and I wouldn't know where to start. Like, you'd think the, um, workers or servers would know when the release dates were, at least, so I'd know where to begin the adventure from. *shrug* They make me feel like as if I don't belong there and I can't understand why since I've been going into gaming stores since I was really young. The older gamers from back in the day were hecka nicer to me. These new ones kind of seem like they're working there just to get discounts...

At first i use to pronounce is as it's spelt, just sounding it out (at-e-lier) but then i some how found out it's more like (at-a-lay). I think in Atelier Rorona they pronounce it more like i use to, but then in Atelier Meruru theres a character with the same Dessier, and the ier in the name is pronounced with the same "a" sound as at the end of Atelier. I still get a little mixed up with it at times and just started referring it as the alchemy game to my friends.
They're all set up in to little groups. Atelier iris 1,2 or 3 for the Ps2, or Mana Khemia 1 and 2 for the ps2 and psp, and the Arland Series (Rorona,Totori, Meruru), they aren't connected at all. It's just has the pretty similar game play and alchemy element, all with there slight changes in how things work. l the Atelier Iris series is even pretty separated from each other, it's not the same worlds or character in them other then Iris being a recurring character in different forums, and not even a playable character in the first 2 (i've only played the first 2 so i don't know the whole deal about the iris series). The Arland series (Rorona,Totori, Meruru) on the other hand is connected by a lot of recurring characters and some similar areas. But each have different stories, goals to achieve, towns, and some new characters, even game play changes a little bit but it's still great. There is also the start of the next series Dusk, with just Atelier Ayesha out currently and another one coming out in March i think, and again they're not connected to any of the past Atelier (or Mana Khemia) games. I live in an area of small towns where they would be impossible to find so i just bought all mine off of the NIS America store, and playasia.

[TempestOne]

Well I was pretty much taught to pronounce the silent letters, at least when it comes to French, and that seems to look like it is. Isn't At-tell-ee-yare some sort of alchemy-related something? I remember having the same problem when it came to the Suikoden games because they'd be so hard to pronounce and being the youngin' that I was, subconsciously or unknowingly didn't want to look socially retarded when I was finally making a big purchase with my money in gaming stores. I think they should add those how-to-pronounce tables at least under the game title if they want it to be more approachable to the public a la Pokémon. I don't really care and I'd flub up wherever if I truly cared, though. LOL It probably goes hand in hand from the customer services representatives but I wouldn't know. It sounds so funny to be a videogame... what the Heck?

[Sonic#]

Atelier is the french word for a workshop - l'atelier. It also exists in English as an artist's workshop. In IPA it's /a.tə.lje/, which sounds like "a - tul - ee -yay." You can hear it pronounced here ( http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atelier ). Kaiya-Sky is close - the silent letters are silent, and it would rhyme with Dessier.

I'm getting ready to play Crusader Kings II with a group. I'm also trying out Starbound. So far... it's okay. Love the artwork, but it's difficult to find ore and I haven't figured out how to not die.

[Alunissage]

My sister visited this past weekend and played Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, so I started a game of Link to the Past (GBA) to keep her company. We were both playing on Zelda-themed handhelds, since I pulled out my gold GBA-SP that was bundled with Minish Cap in Europe. Which was fun just for keeping the theme going, but I think I'll switch over to using my DS Lite, which will be more comfortable for both my hands and my eyes.

[Old_School]

Playing Link Between Worlds and loving it. It successfully captures the feeling of ALTTP while still providing a new experience. The open-ended setup is great. This is the first Zelda game that I've really liked in over a decade or so.

[Nobiyuki77]

The 2D style of Zelda really does fix a lot of the pacing issues modern 3D Zeldas have suffered from (in my eyes, anyway).