My PS1/PS2 game march... uh... marches... on. I've polished off two, and am on a third. The quick hits:
1. Alundra -- Yawnfest. Probably a decent action RPG when it came out, but pretty generic in many ways.
2. Xenogears -- I was actually playing the PS2 sequel, Xenosaga I, which I was _loving_ before finding out my disc had an unrecoverrable read error. So I jumped back to this one while awaiting a new Xenosaga disc. You can tell this was pretty epic when it came out, but after having played so many games that have come out since this hit, and because it has no nostalgic value to me, I found it generic and bland. Too many super-repetitive random encounters, too much wandering aimlessly to chat to every generic NPC, a generic protagonist, meh. I'm sure the story get very good later on (reviews say as much), but after about 7 hours, I'm bored... So this one is gone.
3. Vagrant Story -- This action RPG shows a lot of promise. I _love_ the production values so far. It features a lot of what I loved about FF VII -- constantly changing camera angles, great use of short in-game scenes to keep you engaged and immersed, and just a lot of nice visual touches from the stylish speach bubbles and text overs to the great music. So I'm keeping with this.
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Meanwhile, back on Earth...
Played, and "finished", Demon's Souls. Meh. I reviewed it, gave it an 8, and have moved on. I liked it, and I have really loved other recent hard dungeon crawlers (e.g. Etrian Odyssey I & II on the Nintendo DS), but this one just stayed in "frustrating mode" for me. For about 5 hours, I was pretty hooked, trying to figure the strategies to play through. But just the constant restarting, occasionally getting too flippant on lesser bad guys and losing AGAIN, not being able to really level up until you've finished a HARD AS$ BOSS, I was done.
Playing Uncharted 2 now, and liking it. It's definitely a "great as a sum of its parts" game. The presentation (visuals, audio, overall directing, animation) are all fantastic, but I find the game elements to be good, but nothing special. That said, all put together so attractively, it's definitely one I'll finish.
Finished Professor Layton and The Diabolical Box today. Very good game if you like adventure/puzzlers. Nice ending, even if a bit over the top. Next DS game to finish is Witch's Tale, which is visually terrific, has a great overall presentation but is ultimately a very easy and fluffy JRPG. Likely won't finish it, but it's a light and airy ride for now.
Dragon Age: Origins looms on the near horizon... Can't wait! Okay, I can, and will, but... uh... I'm a Western RPG player at heart, though I do like some of the more intricate and unique JRPGs.