Record of Agarest War Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Ok, this game definitely has a target demographic. For you to find this review helpful, you probably should fall into most of these categories:
-You like LONG games (50 hrs minimum)
-You like STRATEGY RPGs (moving around on squares, turn-based)
-You like JAPANESE RPGs (anime style)
-You like JAPANESE styled stories (sometimes corny, slighty perverted romance-type)
-You DONT ABSOLUTELY NEED English dialogue (its all japanese, subtitled)
-You like VARYING ENDINGS based on your decisions throughout the game
Alright. So if you satisfy 4 of those traits, you don't want to miss this game.
Before getting into the specifics of the game, I'll say that Xbox360 doesnt have enough RPGs in the first place, so if you are like me, you will feel like you HAVE to at least try it. I don't think you will be dissappointed in most cases.
GRAPHICS/AUDIO/ETC
It's all anime style drawings. The graphics aren't impressive. The audio isn't impressive. It's all gameplay focused, and looks like you are basically playing Final Fantasy Tactics on a nintendo DS. The 'cutscences' are basically just a visual novel. You have to read a bunch to get the story.
THE STORY
It is what you expect from a Japanese RPG. One defining factor, though, is that you aren't the same hero the entire game. The story spans over several generations. Each new generation present a new hero. He is NOT the same guy as the previous one. You will like some of them and you won't like others. The story is DEFINITELY good enough for most people to get over the fact that its all text instead of cutscenes.
I am the kind of guy who hates the play through a game twice. I pretty much lose enough interest to play another 40 hours if I already know the story. But there is even enough variety in this game's story for me to play again. Thats saying alot for me.
Overall, you have to like the Japanese tyle of storytelling to really get into it. As long as you aren't taking it too seriously, you will love it.
THE BATTLE SYSTEM
With enemies constantly changing from area to area, the battle system delivers the diversity necessary to play a game for 100 hours. STRATEGY is extremely important, more so than brute strength. This is a very good thing, as it eliminates the necessity to grind levels before moving on. You can grind if you want to, and end up powering through your next few enemies, but it isnt at all necessary on easy or normal difficulty. That is even more important, for reasons I will get to later.
Basically, you are on a big field of squares, where you use action points(AP) to move and attack. Each turn is divided into a movement stage and an action stage. You have to use AP to move, and to perform attack skills. The amount of AP a character has is determined by their agility, weapons, armor, *and* the location of their teammates. Each character has a unique set of "extended areas," which give them more AP if one of their teammates is located in them. It is the main reason you must strateically think out every movement you make. In addition, you can do combination attacks with the teammates that are in your extended area. These are the most important attacks, and are absolutely necessary to defeat powerful enemies. In some cases, you will have to risk recieving greater damage by turning your back on the enemy in order to link up with your teammates. All things must be considered.
Throughout the game, you will even uncover new battle formations and fields, allowing you to choose a differently-shaped 'field of squares' that best compliments your battle style.
Overall, if you appreciate the strategic elements of the battle system, and don't mind that it looks so old-school, you will never get bored with the fighting.
THE OVERALL GAME SYSTEM
Your decisions are important. Some decisions that dont seem important end up affecting you later in the game in ways you didn't expect. You can make decisions that move you between the "dark" and "light" side of the guage. Unfortunately, sometimes you cant really tell which way a decision will send you. There are even some decisions that you must make during actual battles, such as not attacking a certain person. I did not fully comprehend the consequences of alot of actions until it was too late, but that is a good sign that you have to be thinking about more than battles to get the results you want.
Your actions affect how the female characters in the game like you. This is important because at the end of every generation, you have to choose a bride to make the hero of the next generation! You will choose your bride based on her strengths and yours, and that will determin the strength of the next hero. So if you like to use physical attacks, it is better for you to do the things the more physical heroine likes. If you want a magic user, then you need to get on the good side of the more mage-like females. It is more in-depth than it seems: That bride's level of affection for you also determines how strong the next hero will be, so you can't just ride the middle fence the whole time, or your son will not be as powerful.
Each generation, you have 3 brides to choose from, leading to 3 different next-generation heroes. The bride from the 1st generation, though, also affects your options for EVERY generation after that. The variety of possible end-game heroes, therefore, is unprecedented.
Throughout the game, you collect items, weapons, armor, and even monsters that can be upgraded, augmented, and converted into new items, with which you can create more powerful ones. The amount of customization in this game is impressive.
Back to the grinding issue. Every battle and even in the story consumes "1 turn." The game keeps track of how many turns you use. If you spend a bunch of turns grinding levels, you will miss some big events, and eventually change the ending of the entire game! Getting to a certain point in the game too late may cause you to miss a new partner, or a variety of other events. If you skip too many optional battles, you will find yourself underpowered in the next boss battle, or you may miss some powerful items. You have to consider all of these things with every move you make.
The story is not presented in a very interesting way. Basically, you just move from battle to battle, with various events mixed in between.
It's a stragy game, and RPG, a great story, and partially a dating sim. None of these elements are ground-breaking in themselves. But when you combine all of them in this manner, you have something that hasn't quite been achieved before.
THE GOOD
-Strategy based battles emphasize your decision-making instead of brute strength. (no grinding required)
-Decision system makes your decisions from every generation important for the entire game
-Immersive storyline holds the player's interest for the duration, and is interesting enough to play through multiple times
-HP is restored after battles, preventing the need to use recovery items outside of battle
-Plenty of different characters to team up with, allowing you to choose how to fight your battles
THE BAD
-All japanese dialogue, and no subtitles during battles. Archaic system of story-telling that you expect more on a handheld game without cutscenes.
-Sometimes hard to figure out whether your choice is going to be considered 'dark' or 'light'
-Characters have limited amount of slots to assign skills to, causing you to use the same attacks over and over again.
-Graphics and audio quality are mediocre compared to the console games of this era
-Relatively limited selection of the most powerful move combinations in battleCONCLUSION
This is a game that requires alot of strategic thought and patience. And there is no focus on impressive visual/audio effects. You definitely have to really commit to playing it, but if you do, you WILL NOT be dissapointed. You will be immersed, challeged, and satisfied.


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Story At the dawn of time, a terrible war raged between the forces of good and evil, ending in the destruction of the world of Agarest. After their victory, the Gods of Light unified the decaying bodies of the Gods of Darkness and created a new world. Now, the forces of darkness are awakening once again...Choose the path of Darkness or Light through a truly epic story, spanning multiple generations. Battle hundreds of different creatures using an array of character abilities, in a compelling and innovative turn-based combat system. Build your ultimate army of warriors and master extra skills, special arts and over kills to defeat colossal enemies. Unite with your chosen heroine and use the "Soul Breed" system to shape the fate of the next generation of heroes, that will follow in your footsteps.

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Fallout 3 with Expansion Packs Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Nothing to do with the game just this bundle.
Amazon also sell the "Fallout 3: Game of The Year Edition" for $10.00 less and it comes with all 5 expansions.

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Fallout 3 Xbox360 comes with 2 expansion packs. Fallout 3 is a singleplayer action role-playing game set in a post-apocalyptic Washington DC. Combining the horrific insanity of the Cold War era theory of mutually assured destruction gone terribly wrong, with the kitschy naivety of American 1950s nuclear propaganda, Fallout 3 will satisfy both players familiar with the popular first two games in its series as well as those coming to the franchise for the first time. Fallout 3 Game Ad-On Pack: Broken Steel and Point Lookout; BROKEN STEEL: Continue your existing Fallout 3 game and finish the fight against the Enclave remnants alongside Liberty Prime. Broken Steel moves the level cap for your character from 20 to 30, allowing you to experience even more of the game, including new perks and achievements. POINT LOOKOUT: Point Lookout opens up a massive new area of the Wasteland - a, dark, murky swampland along the coast of Maryland. So hop on the ferry to the seaside town of Point Lookout, for the most mysterious and open-ended Fallout 3 DLC adventure yet. Fallout 3 Game Add-On Pack: Operation Anchorage and The Pitt; The Pitt: The Pitt allows you to travel to the post-apocalyptic remains of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and become embroiled in a conflict between slaves and their Raider masters. Explore a sprawling settlement ravaged by time, neglect, nuclear radiation, and moral degradation. The Pitt is filled with morally grey choices, shady NPCs, new enemies, new weapons, and much more. Operation Anchorage: Enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe - the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders. Gain access to unique armor, weapons, and exotic gadgets while you build and command interactive Strike Teams to win the battle and defeat the Chinese base.

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Spectral Force 3 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I really, really enjoyed this game.
Let me preface this first by saying I am not a fan of JRPGs; the linear storyline ("interactive movie") doesn't appeal to me. And I confess I am a fan of strategy games. Simple strategy with lots of applications really interests me. I'm an avid chess player as well, though, so take my review with a grain of salt.
I loved this game.
Spectral Force 3 breaks a lot of conventions. Its non-linear storyline will keep you interested for replay after replay. Its character customization will put the burden of power on you. Its completely open-ended gameplay will frustrate you, and reward you.
The storyline is fairly basic - you're a boy, given control of a mercenary unit, and told to save the world. However, what "save the world" means can differ significantly from replay to replay. You have the option to ally with any one of the nine (!) kingdoms, or none of them. You can switch alliances mid-game. You, alone, decide which kingdom wins the ultimate battle - and, therefore, saves the world.
The gameplay is actually simple, and, like all good strategy games, can quickly add up to some fairly deep turn movement. Much of your turn will be used deciding which character to "teamwork" in to the turn. You'll also have to consider placement, status effects, and weapon types. There ends up being a surprising amount of complexity for a simple system.
I admit the graphics are fairly weak, although not as horrible as other people have made them out to be. The budget's been spent on animating movement, rather than cut scenes (and, lord, those cut scenes are horrible). But what animation exists is very tight. Archer units step back and brace themselves for a shot. Spear units lunge forward and strike solidly. Enjoy the bits of animation, and (please) ignore the awful cut scenes.
Finally, the instruction book is bad. Bad. Horrible. Bad. I can't-- there aren't enough words in the English language that I can call here to properly give you an idea of how bad the instruction book is. Throw it out; that's my advice.
Keep at it, though. It took me about four hours to really understand the battle system and the various implements I can bring to bear on the combat. If you persevere, you'll be rewarded with a shockingly good game.
I know it's not for everyone. I know it's difficult, and picky, and suffers from the anime-cliche. I know, furthermore, that the instructions are nothing short of a biblical atrocity. I know that this game won't sell very well. I know.
But Spectral Force 3 is good for gamers who want a choice; gamers who enjoy pitting strategy against a computer. If you're looking to get the powerup and win the game, this isn't necessarily the game for you.
If, however, you're looking for a surprisingly innovative and deep set of challenges with high replay value, this is a good game to pick up.

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Magic Era 996. The ten kingdoms of the land, seizing the opportunity provided by Overlord Janus's death, are attempting to unify the continent under their own banners. This is the beginning of the Great Neverland War. In order to bolster their defenses, kingdoms have begun hiring mercenary units. As new members of the Norius Mercenaries, you and your friend Diaz are eager to prove yourselves. When the squad's commander Judo is mortally wounded in battle, the mantle of leadership is entrusted to you, so the adventure begins.

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Deathsmiles Review

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(More customer reviews)The game is slightly modified from the Japanese version, running a bit faster (2 minutes overall), which means it's more difficult to avoid projectiles and such in this version than it should be. It's actually, Cave, the developers, who made the choice, rather than Arkys, the publisher, so maybe this version is as it should be but it would have been nice to at least have an option to revert the speed back to the Japanese arcade-perfect so everyone would be happy.
The fact is though, unless you own a Japanese 360, this is the best your gonna get. Who knows, maybe we'll get a patch eventually that gives the whiners what they want, but for now, we can enjoy a game that's different than what some people want, but still stands totally fine on its own.
It's just a really fantastic game that will eat hours of your time as you attempt to go through the game the proper way (no quarter-feeding), dying, restarting, getting further than you got your previous run, trying to top your previous high score. The people who call these games short don't know how to play them because it takes normal inexperienced people many hours just to master the game enough to finish it on one credit and even though the game has lolis on the cover, nothing feels more manly than getting your first perfect run when in the beginning you didn't think you could make it past the second stage.
EDIT: Patch is out NOW, ppl! Experience one of the best shooters of all time, now with slow-down identical to the arcade release!

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Enter the world of Gilverado, a kingdom plagued by hideous monsters and tortured souls. Choose from four angels with unique demonic familiars and battle against a storm of enemies pouring out of Hell's gates! Fight your way out of tight spots as you are surrounded by enemy units and bullets from both sides of the screen. The unique left and right shooting mechanic of Deathsmiles will keep you on your toes as you dodge and weave through complex enemy fire, beautifully crafted by the modern masters of shmups, CAVE.

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Star Ocean: The Last Hope Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)"Terrible graphics!!!"
That's what stands out when I read all of these reviews. I find nobody that thinks these are great graphics. Hmm. I'll get back to this.
Anyway, Star Ocean: The Last Hope is the fourth of the series. Its roots are in space and time travel, and often takes place on faraway planets, though its protagonist is generally from Earth. The first Star Ocean (Blue Sphere) never came stateside; instead, we got Star Ocean: The Second Story. During a time when the first PlayStation was hurting for role-playing games, this was a breath of fresh air. It introduced concepts that were new to gamers but taken for granted since: synthesis, cooking, and customization. In truth, The Second Story was really a 100+ hour game if you wanted to accomplish all there was to do.
What The Second Story also brought to the table was challenge. Other games were hard, but TSS is known even to this day as having one of the worst final bosses in RPG gaming history, a man known only as Indalecio. His original form was bad enough, but when you went to a certain private action, he became "Unlimited Indalecio", a true GOD that gamers were not worthy of. Being level 99 didn't do you any good either. That's not even counting the bonus dungeon's boss, Iseria Queen, who is even worse. Bottom line - the game was blatantly difficult near the end.
Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time was released on PlayStation 2, and it wasn't well received by gamers, mostly because for the most part it deviated from what made Star Ocean so good. But what gamers don't see is that the third game actually added a piece of gaming goodness to the overall series. It introduced a new character in Welch Vineyard, adored by fans, almost to cultish dimensions. It also had a lot of small "throwback" things like science centers named after famous inventors in the previous and subsequent games, and bonus dungeon battles with notable characters from the past. It wasn't a bad game really...and didn't get the fair shake it deserved.
Not too long ago came two PSP remakes: Star Ocean: The First Departure and Star Ocean: The Second Evolution, based on the first and second Star Ocean games, respectively. While the gameplay is identical, these are definitely remakes in that a number of things were changed, most notably the difficulty of the second game being toned down and the skill tree being a lot more friendly than before. For those that never played the first game, First Departure was a great opportunity to find out what the first game was about, and when you play it, you get a better sense of the overall storyline.
Enter The Last Hope. This story takes place prior to the events of the first Star Ocean (using First Departure as a reference point), so if you never played the other games, a lot of the things you'll notice won't go over with you, but if you did play the others, you'll hear music that will remind you of each game, and meet characters that you either recall from the other game or who must be related to others from the previous games. There's definitely a lot of fan service to be had here.
Your protagonist is Edge Maverick, a young crewman on the Calnus. A disaster on Earth has rendered the planet unsuitable for human life, and the SRF (the organization you belong to) has been ordered to seek out habitable planets to identify their viability as a new place to live. If that story sounds familiar, at least somewhat, it's actually quite close to the story in Star Trek III: The Wrath of Khan, and one of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes where terraformers are attempting to find planets that would be suitable for colonization. Unlike those however, a space "bubble" knocks you and your other ships off course, causing you to crash land on your first planet. While the plan appears to be quite like Earth, there is a darker side (this story is commonly seen on the original Star Trek). You can hopefully see where I'm going with this...there's also some instances of time travel that are quite interesting, yet infuriating at the same time. You'll end up hopping from planet to planet to achieve your objective.
Now that you have a sense of the basic storyline, let's get to the game itself. As mentioned before, it spans three full DVDs; that's over 13GB of data, for those too lazy to do the math. You can do the install to the hard drive, but be forewarned that there is a going speculation that doing so causes the game to freeze. I did experience a freeze, but I can't confirm for a fact that the install was the cause. I do installs to keep my drive from going out, and don't intend to stop anytime soon. Part of the problem with the spanned disks is that different planets are so large that they literally exist on specific discs. I know other games have the same issue. The problem is that if you wanted to go back to an older planet (and you will have to, for mining and such), you need to insert that disc. What I don't know yet is whether or not you can just install all three discs and avoid the disc swapping altogether. I assume you can, but haven't yet tested that theory. Seems though that you'd still need to swap discs, since the 360 requires the disc be in the drive in order to even access the stored data.
The music in the game is quite excellent, but for the fact that the tracks are quite short indeed. Older Star Ocean games also had short tracks, but keep in mind they were limited by the space on CDs during the PlayStation era. Either they kept the tracks short in order to emphasize the nostalgia, or they just didn't have the space left over to accommodate the music tracks in full. Of particular exception are the tracks from older planets like Roak (First Evolution) where the music from that game is playing, instantly inciting nostalgia. The extremely short, repeating nature of these beautiful tracks is the only issue here. As far as the voice acting, people are complaining about it, but I found it quite good, honestly. I mean compare this voice acting to Infinite Undiscovery or Tales of Vesperia...and you see there is no comparison. At least in this game, the personality of each character is brought to life extremely well, except for maybe Reimi (because she sounds like every other video game heroine). Part of the measure of good voice acting is whether you are emotionally moved by the character when they're speaking about something - and yes, some people don't get moved at all by game characters - but when someone like Lymle is expressing how sad she is, in a way a child definitely would in the same situation, you can't help but appreciate the voice acting that much more.
In terms of challenge, I found the game to be quite balanced compared to other RPGs of this style. Regular enemies for the most part are not difficult; you do get multiple difficulty settings to choose from, but even on the harder settings you can still reasonably work your way through the majority of regular enemies. They're aggressive, but your characters are even more aggressive. Once you master all of the nuances of battle, you will find yourself breezing through the majority of battles without a scratch. The challenge comes in when you encounter bosses though - these behemoths (and they're always behemoths, aren't they) will almost always give you at least a slight challenge, whether it's juggling you in the air, blasting you with flames or freezing you to death. But that's how it should be, in my opinion: regular enemies are moderately challenging, bosses even more so, but neither so difficult as to throw your controller against a wall.
Speaking of battle, the gameplay engine in The Last Hope is a throwback to the older Star Ocean games who really pioneered the action battle along with the Tales series...but The Last Hope threw in just a little bit of uniqueness to break the mold. Here you control your main character as he hacks his way to victory, and yes, you can take control of your other characters as you see fit. But this game offers some flavor. You can do some short range jumps in the four directions; so to the left/right, toward or away from your enemy. This is great if you need to dodge, or cut down distance to your enemy to effectively defeat them. You can also transition from the jump into the Blindside attack, which allows you to quickly run behind your enemy. If done correctly, not only will you dodge the attack, but you will surprise the enemy and do critical hits on their backside. From there you can throw regular or special attacks; even chain special attacks together if you've got a skill that allows you to do so, racking up major damage. Rounding out the feature is the Rush attack, which can be best described as a limit break. When executed, you and another team member will unleash a flurry of blows to one enemy to multiply the damage dealt. I found myself not really using this, simply because it takes a long time to build up the gauge that drives it, and the damage wasn't all that great compared to regular attacking and special moves.
As you fight and pull of special attacks, you'll build up slots on the Bonus Board, which gives you various bonuses such as Exp and Fol. It also can give you free SP which can be used to build up your skills, or HP/MP to heal you after each battle. But be careful; the enemy can destroy part of your Bonus Board if they hit you hard or frequently enough, so you really can't just bull rush every single fight. You need to pay attention and stay on the move in order keep the advantage. The Bonus Board also apparently disappears when you save and cut the game off, which I understand, but don't care for.
Making a return in a toned down fashion is the item creation feature. In Star Ocean 1 and 2, you could create...Read more›

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Star Ocean: The Last Hope is the latest release in the celebrated science fiction and fantasy Star Ocean RPG series. This prequel set during the aftermath of Earth's fictional World War III combines sci-fi and fantasy elements spanning multiple planets and the vastness of space itself to recount the origins of the Star Ocean Universe. Exhilarating combat expands upon the franchise's famous real-time battle system, introducing amazing graphics and next-generation visual effects brought to life on the Xbox 360 gaming system. Crystal clear graphics. Viewlarger. Compelling combat. Viewlarger. Classic RPG functionality. Viewlarger. Story A.D 2064...Planet Earth was on the brink of destruction as clashes between theWorld Republic Federation and the various nations that opposed it sparked theoutbreak of World War III. Weapons of mass destruction, deployed with completeimpunity razed the land in the blink of an eye. The dire situation forced thetwo opposing factions to negotiate a cease-fire and an agreement was quickly reached,but although the war may have ended, its effects remained. With the deterioratingenvironment, Earth's population was drastically reduced and those who survivedlived a confined existence trapped in underground cities. Eventually countriesjoined together to form the Greater United Nations and turned their eyes skyward,to space. With the establishment of the USTA, the Universal Science and TechnologyAdministration, man began to seek new worlds beyond the stars. AD 2087...The first year of the spacedate (SD) calendar. Thanks to the successof Professor Trillas Bachstein's warp drive experiments, mankind's dream ofa spacebourne existence has inched closer to reality and the USTA secretly beganto implement its SRF project, the Space Reconnaissance Force. Now it is SD 0010,and the first official SRF mission and your adventure has begun. Characters Players of Star Ocean: The Last Hope will meet and interact with a wealth of characters from different parts of the galaxy, each with their own history and weapons of choice. Just a few of the more prominent characters to familiarize yourself with include: Gameplay and Combat Although Edge Maverick is the main character in Star Ocean: The Last Hope,players will of course experience gameplay action in the form of a number of differentcharacters and utilize the signature attacks assigned to each. The game featuresa real-time combat system which allows for up to four party members to remainactive in battle at a time. Improvements to the game's combat system include 'RushMode,' where players can switch out active members of their combat groups forreserve members in real-time; 'Sight In/Sight Out' which allows for timed evasiveand counter moves against enemies; and the BEAT (Battle Enhancement AttributeType) system, through which players can change a character's fighting style atwill. Other actions players will master through gameplay include piloting of thespaceship Calnus, a first in the Star Ocean series; item creation in theform of weapons, healing items and accessories; and Private Actions (PAs), a causeand effect relationship between character in-game actions and the acquisition of new abilities andscenarios. Through the increased flexibility mastery of all these skills provides,players should be able to more easily increase their team and individual teammember's combat experience and status, and so unlock more advanced combat stylesand linked combinations. Key Game Features:
Series prequel - Star Ocean: The Last Hope is a prequel in the classic series, combining sci-fi and fantasy elements, spanning multiple planets and the vastness of space itself to recount the origins of the Star Ocean universe.
Exciting Battles - Exhilarating combat expands upon the franchise's famous real-time battle system, including the amazing graphics and visual effects only possible on Xbox 360.
Compelling Scenes - The game features breathtaking CG movies by Visual Works, the cutting-edge studio whose previous work includes cutscenes for the acclaimed Final Fantasy RPG series.

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