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Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS) by jp (Apr 27th, 2026 at 22:04:52) |
I got to that point where I hit a monster/boss that just wasn't that much fun, and then I got a bit lost in terms of where to continue making progress, and the backtracking started to get a bit tiresome...as I explored and searched for different paths. So, time to bail!
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Legacy of Ys Books I & II (DS) by jp (Apr 27th, 2026 at 22:03:27) |
Can you believe that I capped out on character level? I hit level 24, with plenty of game to go (I checked a guide, though I had reached the last 20% or so) and that's it. No more levels. It was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, and I also started to tire of having to backtrack all over the place to talk to different characters and so on. It was fun, and surprising to me in many ways, it's an action RPG with real-time combat, but no real challenge or interest in the combat - limited items and gear, no significant shopping or upgrading...there's boss fights (which are much harder than the regular game), but there wasn't much there to continue to keep my interest. So, I've decided to bail.
I did also spend some time on the Wikipedia page and it looks like the game has been re-released a million times across different formats, and rebundled with new content, and stuff touched up and more. I'm kind of surprised because I wasn't all that impressed to be fair. As in, the game was fun and I enjoyed it for a bit, but I'm not entirely sure that it merits THAT much attention in the re-releases? Maybe I'm missing something and this game really resonated strongly with lots of people?
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Legacy of Ys Books I & II (DS) by jp (Apr 26th, 2026 at 10:06:39) |
I need to look up more info on this. I had assumed it was a bundle of the two first Ys games, but upon starting the first one (Book I), the 3D graphics make it seem like it's a newer game? So I'm really curious what the backstory here is...
It started out pretty frustrating - because I wandered into a field outside of town and died immediately. I had to start over which was a drag - lots of text to skip past, and died again! Sigh. I eventually figured out how to save your game, which helped. So, I decided to then book it, dodge enemies and made it to a city! Here I bought a sword and some armor...and figured I wouldn't die again immediately but I did! It turns out I hadn't figured out how to equip the items and that solved EVERYTHING.
I've been playing since, and the game's quite interesting in its camera perspective - it's a very unusual sort of 3D isometric view, but it's not at an angle, but rather it's sort of straight? (like vertical/top to bottom). It's a weird perspective because there's lots that gets occluded (if you walk down towards a wall, the wall blocks you from seeing what's close to it when you come from the top part of the scree). I mean, it makes sense spatially, but it's a weird perspective in a game - you also cannot rotate the camera AFAIK.
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Pokémon TCG Pocket (iPd) by jp (Apr 26th, 2026 at 09:59:12) |
I'm still "playing" - I stopped going for the competitive ladder mostly because I was playing the same deck all the time, didn't have the cards for a new competitive deck and...well, it's gotten a bit boring.
That being said, the collecting part is still fun and there's a new set coming out so we'll see how excited I get. I've been opening packs from older sets hoping to finish sets from which I'm still missing a bunch of cards. No real luck so far. Sigh.
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Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (DS) by jp (Apr 26th, 2026 at 09:51:07) |
I've since played some 15 runs or so, I seem to get farther than ever on every other one or so. There's some cool and interesting things here, but also the randomness of the rogue aspects both works and doesn't. I've decided to stop playing mostly because it's getting a bit tiresome when you have to go over the same things such that it starts to feel like busywork. For example, talking to the guy at the bar in the first area always nets you a rice ball (yay!), but it's a bit of a drag to have to go through all the conversation and such over, and over again.
Perhaps the feature I've come to appreciate the most is a shack that has different "puzzle" levels for you to solve - you're supposed to do them one at a time (smart design choice, because you get a reward from each) and each time you do one you get reset to level 1 with no items, you also lose any progress you may have made (including items) inside each puzzle. But, you get a reward when you complete them successfully. The puzzle levels are smart because they act as a tutorial of sorts, but because you only really want to do them one at a time, it's a slow burn tutorial that shows you the diversity of items and what they can do. I've done 12 or so...with more than half left to go. Some might require using a certain staff, or require you move around diagonally. Stuff like that. So, I've had to use items I hadn't considered before (I tend to be a cheapskate when it comes to items, use only in emergencies!) and now I know how they work without having to "waste" them while adventuring.
Once unlocked, companions might appear in later areas - and join your team! I made some progress with a 2nd one (I wonder if you can have more than one?) and I think it's neat how they operate semi-independently. They'll sometimes run off chasing a monster. I haven't quite grasped how their health works because they'll sometimes disappear (dead?) and I lose them for the rest of the adventure which is a bit of a shame.
In all, it's been fun to explore and playthrough. Runs are longer than I'd like and how that I unlocked the special jar that lets you combine items...I REALLY get the feeling that the game wants you to meta-strategize to cheese. In other words, play lots of runs to boost items to then combine them, and do this over and over again until you feel confident you can go. Which is interesting, and risky.
Finally, at this point I'm also missing out on a neat feature wherein other players can "rescue" you if/when you die. But it's a connectivity thing - other people need to play and you can help each other out that way. At this point, since the game is way old, it's like there's zero change of that working for me... which makes me a bit sad, right? I mean, playing this with some friends would be really neat in that context.
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GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that
they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter
if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries)
for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.
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2323 registered gamers and 3356 games. 7893 GameLogs with 13386 journal entries. 5126 games are currently being played.
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Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories (PS2) by globaladdict |
| A personal favorite in the turn based strategy genre, Disgaea 2 follows in the grid based dungeon crawling rpgs that has its roots in the tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons, but with cel shaded graphics and a number of unique features that drawn people in for endless hours. |
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most recent entry: Tuesday 15 January, 2008
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Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories Gamelog Entry 2
Gameplay
For the second hour of Disgaea 2, I chose to go to the “item world,” where you can enter an item in your inventory. Doing so allows you to increase the strength of the item; a spell orb for a mage will give more spell points after clearing the enemies on each level of the item. This element of the game consumes much of the time the 100+ hours the game’s box advertises to players. When you enter an item, each level is randomly generated and the monsters get progressively stronger with each one, so the challenge factor never disappears because of overpowered characters so long as you enter an item that’s stated enemy level on the first floor matches your own.
Before entering the item world, one has to prepare carefully as one must either have an item called “Mr. Gency’s Exit,” which works like a town portal from other RPGs, or finish 10 levels of the item. As a result, the player is challenged to play strategically by bringing plenty of healing items and using prudence to ensure that valuable characters like the mage or cleric, who are very useful but die easily, aren’t taken out early on, which can dramatically reduce the player’s chance of survival. This rule structure forces players to play intelligently whereas one can be more reckless in situations where one’s party vastly overpowers the enemy, negating the challenge factor that makes these games so rewarding.
Design
Because the Item World is one of my favorite features of Disgaea 2 and provides the majority of replayability in this game, I will focus on the numerous elements that make this game so fun despite it being fundamentally similar other turn based RPGs.
As each item has 100 levels and allows you only to leave every ten levels unless you have an item that allows you to escape and come back, the game allows you to extend the usage you can get from much of your equipment. Each item can also contain a number of specialists, which one must “subdue” or eliminate on the level they are found; they give certain bonuses to the item they are in, like increased health or experience, and can even be traded between items. Along the fact that going through ten levels of an item often gives one lots of treasure and experience, there is a lot of incentive to go to the item world. Many hours can be spent getting specialists from items and trying to reach the 100th level one’s items, which leads to a fight with that item’s “item god,” who gives the item a large boost.
Within the item world, a number of other features become essential and help add enough variety to the game that I would bother to spend countless hours on it. The geo panel system of the Disgaea games adds an interesting layer of strategy. The battlefield can have colored tiles, and geo blocks on these colors can give characters on that color different attributes while on it. The attributes range from beneficial, like healing, to the perilous, like having one of your characters cloned for the enemy’s party. The blocked can be moved onto other colors of tiles, but they can even move on their own, which adds an unpredictable element that positively adds to the game’s challenge factor. Geo Panels have lead to some satisfying moments where I defeated enemies with no damage to myself by paying attention to the colored tiles, so they represent an innovative feature that isn’t seen in other turn based RPGs and adds to the game. The geo panel system also adds a puzzle element to Disgaea 2 because the blocks also have colors; when they are destroyed, they turn the colored tiles it was on into the color that it is. By making chains of destroying all the blocks in an order that makes all colored tiles one color and destroying the block that nullifies that color, one could potentially defeat all enemies on the field without attacking one (characters on colored tiles that get changed by the geo blocks take damage for each change) and increase the amount of treasure one receives at the end of combat.
Overall, the innovative elements of Disgaea 2 add to the gameplay and succeeds in adding strategy elements to the turn based RPG genre to the point that I’d spend a large chunk of my life completing it. The ultimate limitation of this game however, lies in the grinding aspect of the game. While it’s good that the game has a lot of replayability, things such as optional quests that reveal more about the story or perhaps a nonlinear storyline that lets players make actual decisions in the game beyond killing the boss and progressing to the next episode would be an evolutionary leap for the genre.
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