[Home]STanGameNotes

This page contains SeleneTan's notes on games, which ones are good or which ones she liked, which ones made her nauseous...

Games (with plots) that she has actually finished: (closely related to games that she really likes)

Wow, this list is larger than I thought I would be...

Games in-progress, with intent to finish (related to games she really likes):

LufiaII? is a neat game. A little on the easy side, but solid gameplay and a cute story, as well as one of the best bonus dungeons ever. It's a shame you have to play through it twice to get to "gift" mode....

You're certainly not the only person with the "started, took a break, can't remember where to go" problem :-) If you can find a walkthrough for the game in question, it's often easy to look through and figure out where you are (and hence where you're supposed to be going). There's a risk of spoilage, most particularly of the "oh no I missed <cool item X>" variety, but that may be preferable to replaying the first 10 hours of the game.

Games she's started and gotten a "significant" way through (note that "significant" may be redefined for each game), with no intent to finish

side note: SeleneTan gets very easily disoriented in games. Very. There are several games (especially FinalFantasySeven) where she had difficulty moving in a straight line. Also, she never managed to get through the first town in Xenogears because she couldn't find the exit and the spinning was starting to make her nauseous. She greatly dislikes getting nauseous from video games, since so many of them are ones she'd like to play (e.g. Deus Ex, where she was done in by the fourth training room or so)


notes about Minesweeper (I'm annoyed with it)

A lot of people seem to like Minesweeper, but as a game, I really can't see why. It's a decent finger-twitch absorber, but that's about it for me. Basically... Its learning curve is waaaaay too steep, and luck remains a significant factor even when you're very good. Luck? Well, if you're not lucky, your first click gets you a square that tells little or nothing - certainly not enough to get anywhere. Hmm. I think I'll get the furthest if I compare this game to FlashNet. Basically, in both, you deduce information about tiles from the information you have about adjacent tiles. The thing is, in Minesweeper you can make mistakes that end the game. And when you're first starting out, most of your moves are going to be mistakes. In FlashNet, there's at least no such thing as a fatal move. You'll probably end up with a low score if you're new to the game, or be forced to brute-force a solution, but you will win/complete it. And to me at least, that makes FlashNet infinitely more enjoyable than Minesweeper.

The thing with Minesweeper is that it takes a few random shots in the dark before you can start really solving the minefield. I usually start off by pecking away until I hit an open area, which usually takes about 3-6 clicks in a large minefield (you really want to be playing with the medium or large fields, the small one on Windows Minesweeper is dumb and involves more luck). Yeah, you do hit mines a fair portion of the time while doing that, but given that you will have been playing the game for about 3 seconds, who cares? Just start over. I find that once you get a starting patch cleared out, large portions of the field become solveable and those that can't be solved can be left for the end of the game when you start counting off how many mines are left. True, there is still a leap of faith or two that you have to take, but that's what makes it so intense, eh?-AlexBobbs (Ex-Minesweeper Addict)


=== GameBoyAdvance? Experiences===

When I was in Hong Kong, I got a shiny new GBA SP (only metaphorically shiny, I opted for a regular US-version black instead of Japanese silver so as not to have to fiddle with converters for the chargers), along with a discounted FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance? ("If I buy this with the game do I get a discount"? "Okay, only [~US$13] but without the box or manual.") and a flash memory card with reader. The flash card reader hooks up to a normal USB port and lets you copy ROMs and save files onto the card, so I've tried out MetroidFusion? and the three GBA Castlevanias. (As well as Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, and some other things I can't remember.)

In any case, I think MetroidFusion? starts easier than SuperMetroid but gets hard quickly. I like that it has a stronger story, and I like having a sense of direction. In SuperMetroid I felt like the goal was "wander around aimlessly for no apparent reason until you die. Painfully."

However, I've been playing Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance a lot more. It's easier than Circle of the Moon and Symphony of the Night. I wish for more plot, but monsters I can actually kill make for a big bonus in HoD?'s favor.

So... the reason for this rambling is because I think I know why I've liked the two Castlevania games I've played a lot better than the two Metroid games I've played a fair amount - levels, stats, and equipment. These are a GODSEND to mediocre players! Just because Samus gets more missiles doesn't mean I know or am capable of using them any better, but when Alucard or Juste gains a level or some new armor, he takes less damage and dishes out more, without me having to magically be able to press a gazillion buttons in exactly the right combinations to do a triple spin wall bomb jump charge shoot super missile power bomb doohickey. (Okay, so I don't think either of the Metroids I've played involves those, but as far as I'm concerned, that's the amount of coordination they require.) (Actually, I'm purportedly semi-decent at bomb jumping, but that's only because it involves timing on one button, instead of a gazillion. The art of wall jumping continues to elude me.)

Other than that, FFTA was going along peachy-keen until I realized that I was 2-4 levels behind the NPC allies in a plot battle. Then I realized that you have to cheese to get anywhere in the game. I went through maybe 2 or 3 battles of cheesing (3 Black Mages with Blizzard + party member wearing Ice Shield + Law banning Fire and recommending Ice = cheeeeese!) and decided it was getting waaay too boring. I keep running into problems with being under-leveled in RPGs because leveling up is so boring. Then I get creamed by the bosses. (Although in FFTA's favor, they did away with the whole spirit-turns-to-crystal thing, which makes it feasible to marginally win some battles.)

So, um, I tried playing Fire Emblem instead, which is another tactical game, but with a very different feel. There's less cheesing here, or at least it's not as abuseable. Or something. Units with attacks get experience for attacking; it seems to be related to the amount of damage dealt and current level and stuff like that. Clerics get experience for healing, but can't heal units that have full HP. Bards get experience for playing, which refreshes one ally unit so that it can take another turn. I don't have two bards yet, (I'm still in the tutorial missions) so I don't know if you can have two of them keep refreshing each other. But... yeah, there aren't as obviously exploitable XP generators like there are in FFTA, especially since weapons have durability ratings that decrase with usage. Characters who attack more often (and especially those who manage to strike the killing blow often) will still tend to end up higher level, but there's not the stupidity of "Boost/First? Aid/Blizzard? the guy with the ice-nullifying shield/Cure? the people who don't need it/Blizzard?/Blizzard?" in order to match the game. Granted, I may feel differently once I've gotten farther in Fire Emblem.

Oh, and backlighting is the best ever. :P


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Last edited October 8, 2005 20:02 (diff)
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