Project X Zone (Review)

 It's rubbish.

 Let's see, they had tons of complaints about the terrible tempo in Namcap and fixed it in PXZ by making battles faster and removing enemy attacks... and then went and made the tempo worse again by tossing in millions of enemies and multiple bosses per stage, each with a ridiculous HP count.

This is made worse because of the whole combo system which means no skipping attack animations. I understand how it's a fundamental part of the game but I'm used to Suparobo so this annoys me after some time. I never did clear Namcap or Mugefuro, but I just had to get this because of the series lineup (.hack! Sakura Taisen! Rockman X! Valkyria! etc.)

It's not as bad as Namcap, at least. None of the QTE for every single enemy attack (in fact non-boss enemies don't even have attack animations) or instant failure when dropping an enemy bullshit. Doing away with enemy attacks was a good thing, though some of their choices were weird as fuck (Makaimura mid-boss has an attack animation, BYAKUYA KAI DOESN'T? What the fuck?)  The crowds aren't too bad once your people learn the multi-target attacks, too. 

But it's still pretty bad. Pretty much every single stage boils down to kill everything, kill someone, kill someone THEN EVERYTHING ANYWAY, or do something else (like get to Aura in time) AND THEN  JUST KILL EVERYTHING FOR GOOD MEASURE. 

Kill everything. Oh, and the cocoon maidens from God Eater are in here, and like in the source material they don't (can't) move.  There are some stages where you mop up the bosses but the victory condition is to kill everything. And there's a single cocoon maiden on the other side of the map, which is five turns away for the closest character who'll be able to kill it in one attack. That doesn't sound too bad, right? Oh wait, because of the game system where units move according to speed you have to get your other guys to wait, one by one, once for each of those five turns. FUCKING RETARDED.

The story is rubbish too. So terrible that after clearing the game once I went back and did it again just to look at the credits and check if it really was Morizumi who wrote it. It was, and I don't believe it. Not only is the story disjointed and nonsensical, the characters, including the ones he made up (Reiji especially with his yelling Rom Stoll quotes even more than usual, at inappropriate times) act funny. It generally reads like a bad fanfiction. It's just difficult to believe that the guy who wrote Suparobo A has fallen to this level. Plus since there's barely any story there's also barely any interaction between characters. Isn't that, like, the WHOLE POINT of a crossover? 



I did like one thing about the system, though- the XP (cross points, not experience) bar shared by all your characters.

100 max.
-Hitting enemies gets you lots of points
-Getting hit by an enemy gives you 5
-Guarding an attack (half damage) costs 20, completely guarding (no damage) is 60, countering is 20 (but when you counter depending on characters you may be able to earn back way more than 20, especially considering how you still get that 5 for being hit)
-Skills cost XP too: 35 for boosting attack by 15%, 40 for boosting all stats by 10%, 15 for instantly breaking shields, 50 for a 15% defence stat boost or +2 move to all characters, etc.
-Finishers (used at the end of a combo) or multi-target specials (basically map attacks only they hit a specific number of enemies only, either 2 or 4) cost 100

If more than one character hits an enemy at the same time (cross hit) you can build up XP over 100, up to a max of 150. There are no other ways to get your XP to over 100 (getting hit by enemies and using items only get you to 100 max). Thus if you want to use a special move with a stat-boosting skill you need more than 100 XP. With multi-targets you need all the XP because the attack is activated immediately, with specials there's a bit of leeway because you can build up some XP before letting loose (if you have say 110 and use Zengar's nekketsu which costs 35 leaving you with 75 you can still build up the necessary 25 with cross hit combos in the ensuing battle before unleashing your finisher). Everyone sharing the same gauge means you need to think of who's coming up next and act accordingly.

By the way, a certain shitty English "otaku" site (hint: its name starts with "K" and ends with "otaku") has a review written by a stupid fuck who has seemingly never played the game up. Said review is utter bullshit FYI.

HE SAYS IT'S DIFFICULT. "An Unforgiving Difficulty Curve" to be precise. Hahahahahahahaha no. Only the bosses can scratch you at all, and even when they do so all the enemies drop so many healing items whenever you need to use one you'll find that you've been picking up so many that your inventory is full. The only way you can die is by forgetting to heal when at extremely low HP.


Other stuff from that review

>>Good — Filled With Insanity
What he's trying to say is "CROSSOVERS SO RANDUM LOLOLOL". Only yeah there's barely any story and thus barely any interactions between the characters which is the entire fucking point of a crossover. So it's rubbish as a crossover game (maybe I'm just used to Suparobo).

>>Good — Lots of Customization 
There is no customization you stupid fuck. You can equip two items and assign a solo unit to any twin unit, that's it.

He goes on to talk about the combo system using this as an example of  "customization" (what the fuck?) and manages to get it completely wrong too. Any attack that isn't a cross hit will send the enemy flying up into the air or to the left to bounce back towards you, and you can follow that up with any other attack. The combination or order doesn't fucking matter at all, dumbass.

>>Good — Complex Level Design
Now the guy's just pulling things out of his ass.

>>Mixed — An Unforgiving Difficulty Curve
See above. Yep he hasn't played the fucking game.


Anyway yeah this game is absolute rubbish and I want my money back. 

とりあえず某画像掲示板に貼った俺の感想とかをここにも貼っとくわ

今２７話だけどRocksを入れやがった
もうスパロボの外伝でいいよなこれｗｗｗｗｗｗ
いいぞもっとやれ


しかしいくらなんでも敵が多すぎるだろこのゲーム
しかもスパロボ以上のヌルゲーだから敵が多いと面倒なだけ…… 


やっぱり普段からスパロボをやってる人じゃないと色々と付いていけない気がするなこれ
余談だがハーケンが斬艦刀を「コロッサル・ソード」と呼んだが実はそれ英語版ＯＧの斬艦刀の正式名称
但し海外ではSuper Robot WarsではなくSuper Robot Taisen 


>>まだ10話だが、スパロボよりよっぽど難しいんだが
ないない
スパロボだと精神の掛け忘れとかボスの１％命中率で命中とかがあるのだがＰＸＺだとアイテム禁止縛りでもない限り死ぬことはないじゃないの？


>>これでナムカプばりの増援ゲーだったらもう変態的だな
ああ、その画像は増援後だわ
ちなみにたまに変な場所で出るから困る。
よし、そこの敵あと３体、そろそろ片付けるか！→突撃→キャラの周辺に敵増援３０体出現 


>>これはダメージ負った仲間の回復が楽すぎて死ねない・・・
これだな。スパロボだとボスに一撃でやられたりするからスパロボより難しいってことはない


>>スパロボが終盤でダレてくる俺には辛いかもしれん
これぶっちゃけサルファより酷い、２０話あたりから１ステージをクリアするのに普通に２時間までかかる。システム上、戦闘演出をオフに出来ないからな……その上敵１００体とかもう悪い冗談としか


>>どう違うのかわからん
スパロボはＳＰがすぐ尽きるがＰＸＺは回復アイテムが尽きない
俺意識してアイテムを取ろうとしたことはないが毎回アイテム欄を見ると数が尋常じゃない
ついでに言うとひらめきと不屈は一回しか効かないから敵ターンでボコられて死亡なんてこともあるし、最近のスパロボのボスはフル改造＋集中でも当たって来るからな


>>適度に休憩挟んでやらないとそのうち飽きると思う
どうでもいいが俺はCivをやりながらやってるｗ


んー、何か物足りないと思ったらボスとの会話がないな。スパロボからの習慣でボスに同じシリーズのキャラを当てているが別に何も起こらないからな……


やっとクリアした
これは酷い
ぶっちゃけスパロボ学園のほうが面白かった
どうしてこうなった 


酷い
スパロボのシナリオはずっとどうこう言われてきたけどそういうレベルじゃない
「シナリオ」と呼べるかどうかすら疑わしいほど薄い
戦闘はつまらない上いらいらさせる面が多い（追いかけっこ、護衛、タイムリミット、動かない敵、自軍の攻撃が届かないボス）。そして無駄に多い敵＋増援（上のセーブデータを見れば分かるよう一面をクリアするのに普通に９０～１２０分かかる）
それなら別にいいが、クロスオーバーの醍醐味である別作品のキャラの絡み合いがあまりない。戦闘前の会話がほぼすべて、しかも自軍同士の会話しかない（ボスと戦うとボスとの会話どころか　自　軍　の　会　話　も　発　生　し　な　い　）
とにかくまあ、うん、酷い 

>>糞ゲだったのか
>>３ｄｓだとこれくらいしかやりたいのが無かったが
>>もう買う必要も無いな
ＦＥ覚醒は幼女と子作りできる神ゲー！ 

Dishonoured

Stats from my second playthrough; First was kind of... messy.

But yeah. What can I say? This game is just simply fucking fantastic. Just a tad too short.

It's, like, Hitman, with Batman, and a bit of HOLY SHIT YOU CAN STOP TIME AND TELEPORT IN A FUCKING STEALTH GAME HOW AWESOME IS THAT

I KILLED THAT ASSHOLE (the final target) BY HAVING RATS EAT HIM THEN SETTING HIM ON FIRE WHILE THE RATS ATE HIM AND THEN BLASTING HIM OFF THE TOP OF THE FUCKING LIGHTHOUSE

HOW FUCKING AWESOME IS THAT

Idolmaster loot

Just a couple of my Idolmaster-centric photos together.

This (and last) week's loot (25th October 2012)

SHINY FESTA IS HERE. Also ZOE HD.

Have my PSP to HD converter hooked up and ready (photo is from before Shiny Festa arrived).

Also got the latest Namassuka Special which I forgot to include in the photos.

Anyway yeah, I've actually already cleared PXZ and Dishonoured. Dishonoured is fucking GODLIKE. PXZ is pretty rubbish. Anyway TIME FOR SOME IDOLMASTER

Project X Zone

Caution: LOL U MAD wall of text up ahead, you've been warned.

I saw (am still seeing) complaints around the English-speaking side of the internet about how PXZ totally won't be released in English even though it's still entirely possible (Atlus did bring Mugefuro over to the US).

First of all would it even sell? Mugefuro was brought over to the US. It sold so bad they didn't bother with Exceed.

And even if PXZ were released in English I'm pretty sure all we'd see would be complaints about the "bad writing" (because bad translations = bad writing), shitty JRPG gameplay, why are all the characters from shitty obscure Japanese games bawww, LOL TITS THIS IS A HENTAI GAME and WHY ARE THE VOICES IN JAPANESE THIS GAME IS SHIT HOW DARE YOU FORCE ME TO LISTEN TO A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

There are just way too many entitled cunts going on about how shitty Japanese RPGs are (when pressed for an elaboration they invariably present Final Fantasy as the sole example), and when you think something looks vaguely interesting (even though you've never played any of the games in the series and have no idea what it's like) you complain about how it's not getting localized because HURP DURP GREEDY JAPANESE COMPANIES NOT INTERESTED IN WESTERN FANBASE BECAUSE THEY ARE EVIL AND RACIST. It doesn't work that way, dumbass. Nobody's interested in bringing Japanese games over because you fucktards have made it clear that you don't like them, even though you've never played any aside from a couple of big-name landmines.

And of course the whole "OMG IF THIS IS TRANSLATED I WILL BUY TEN COPIES" "DO WANT" "TAKE ALL OF MY MONEY" → "GAME'S OUT WHERE'S THE TORRENT" "WILL THIS WORK WITH MY CURRENT FIRMWARE" "DOWNLOADING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT" attitude doesn't help either.

Just fucking die.

Edit: >>HURPADURP LOOK AT DEM TITS JAPAN IS SEXISTS

First of all, throwing a fit over a game you haven't played that hasn't been and probably won't be released in your country aimed at a demographic that doesn't include you, and over the parts that are exactly the same as pretty much every single game in the series for the past ten years (counting Suparobo and all) and isn't even that big a deal, is kind of just plain fucking retarded..
Yes, there is over-sexualization in a lot of Japanese video games (not just for the women, for that matter). But the reason isn't because herpderp sex sells WE HAS BOOBIES WE GONNA BE RICH. Japan is in general extremely tolerant (see, that's how to use the word) when it comes to this sort of thing and so media in general (not just games) has plenty of that kind of stuff. But it's not misogynistic attempts to get money from kids (there are plenty of better ways to do that, besides), but just as a bit of fun. And I might add that the Suparobo fanbase sees this stuff as jokes, in fact.

The thing is that some people think of "the gaming industry" as a single multinational entity which is exactly the same wherever it is. It's not. And then when other countries don't make games that cater to their country's social and cultural norms they complain about how they're ignorant xenophobic misogynistic sexist idiots. Either that or "lol the japanese is so weird xd".

The Japanese culture of conformation may come off as sexist to foreigners, just as how their attitude towards foreigners may come off as racist. After all, there are so many people who say the Japanese are racist and xenophobic and mysoginistic so it has to be true, right? But as a foreigner who actually understands the language and lives here, from experience I have to say that in the vast majority of the cases it's just the foreigners with their misformed preconceptions being a bunch of racist cunts. Not the Japanese.

And of course whenever I say this people call me a weaboo faggot because anyone who dares to support the evil sexist racist Japs is clearly retarded, also I'm lying about living in Japan and understanding the language because you have to study Japanese for a million years to be fluent in it and the country is filled with xenophobic racists who refuse to let anyone from outside in.

Just fucking die.

Edit: Oh, and it's this attitude that has lead to Japanese companies being more cautious about releasing stuff overseas lest a bunch of dumb-as-fuck retards complain about how a game that was seen as completely harmless in Japan is targeted by idiots proclaiming it to be racist, sexist, and promoting devil worship or whatever the fuck.

Edit: Also, I'd like to add that 90% of the time when I see someone talking about "Japan", the dumbfuck is not talking about the actual country Japan but the fictional land of xenophobic sexist racist perverts "Japan" that he made up in his head.  

Edit: I cleared PXZ yesterday.

I can still scarcely get over how terrible it was.

May do a write-up later.

Edit: Review here.