Catch-Up #1: School's Out

I have been sort of M.I.A. since a day or two before Thanksgiving, but that's just what happens when it nears the end of the school for the semester. Taking finals in order to either raise your grade by a letter or getting the bare minimum in order to keep the grade you have takes a lot out of you, especially when you're nearing the end of your school career. However, that didn't stop me from playing games, and I haven't really completed anything since my last post (unless I'm forgetting something), but I did play a lot of new things and came pretty close on a few occasions, so I'm off to the races discussing those now.

I played a game for the PS called Divinity: Original Sin, a game I had never heard before but resembled a ton of RPG's a had already played before. This time, however, which hasn't been all that common in my experience, I got to play a turn-based RPG with one of my housemates through Co-Op. It being the end of the semester, and therefore the end of what were the current classes, we didn't get a lot done in game, and in fact participated in less than 10 battles. The majority of the time we spent in town running around attempting to do side quests or at least get them started before we headed out. I couldn't tell you where the game would be going, however, because what started in a semi-standard RPG setting, with what felt like a normal D&D world, soon lead us into the future to the end of time where a goblin at a telescope told us that a dragon was devouring time. I would love to spend more time with this game and find out where its going, but we definitely need more time in order to effectively do it. As for completing an RPG, I usually just max stats to the best of my ability and finish all of the side quests, and for newer games, get all of the trophies/achievements in addition. I don't quite know how the trophies are though, as I didn't get to look at them all. With the second one coming out, which is apparently 4 player, that might be the game we are all playing in the near future, and I will certainly be trying to complete that.

Second of the four was Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed for the PS3, and I picked it up mainly as a joke. Like when you pick up Mary-Kate and Ashley: Sweet 16 for the GameCube and you just stare at it realizing there really isn't any occasion on which you would play it. Hell, I didn't think anything of it because I remember Sonic R. However, I LOVED the game and it was made even more pleasant by the fact that I went into it not expecting much. The game was so tight and beautiful looking, I ended up loving it more than I think any Mario Kart game that I've played. I should've expected more, seeing as how it's just a SEGA game, and I don't think a Sonic Team game. Yet, most anyone will know what you're talking about if you say that seeing Sonic on a game now makes you cringe. So many unlockable characters and mods, and an online community that is still thriving (I never once had trouble finding a lobby) gives way to tons of fun. I got fairly close to completing that, having every challenge in story mode completed on at least 3 stars, with every character unlocked and all but one mod unlocked. There are a ton of badges in game to collect and a fair amount of trophies as well. The majority of these are just for completing the badge set and the unlockables, but there are a few that are for doing special tasks. I''m fairly certain that all of the trophies overlap with the badges, but some of the badges expand past the trophies, so as long as I go back and play to collect all of the badges, then I will have all of the trophies by extension.

Rayman Legends for the PS3 was next, I game I had never played and it being years since I had even played a Rayman game, and with 3 of the 4 players being utilized, we had a lot of fun. To be honest, we played a fair amount of the game and collected all of the Lums and Teensies that we could, but we were having a ton of fun with the chaos that resulted from us playing it. For the first time in a long time, I was playing a game not to complete it, but just to be playing the game itself. Not to say I don't enjoy playing games or completing them either (I make myself do it, and wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it), but the game was so much fun I wasn't even thinking about those things. I have no idea what the trophies for this game are like, and know even less about how long it is, because every time we finished a level, it seemed like 5 more opened up. In fact, we enjoyed the Castle Rock level (which featured the song Black Betty playing throughout it) multiple times because we enjoyed it so much the first time through. The backgrounds, the sound design, everything together, it is a game that I would love to go back to and thoroughly complete, though I don't know if I would want to do it without others playing with me.

Finally, there was Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution. I checked that title 4 times before I decided it was correct, in all transparency. I'm not very familiar with fighting games outside of the Smash series of games, but I have played some others here in there. I loved, and still love, Dragonball Z: Budokai, but a lot of that stems from me watching and loving the Dragonball series growing up. Same can apply to Naruto, which I never watched religiously but did watch here and there, and so there was a certain level of familiarity going into this game. And, again, this game surprised me in how much I liked it, or rather, how well I think it was made. It stood out immediately to me compared to Dragonball Z: Budokai in that there weren't a list of Mortal Kombat style button combinations that needed to be remembered in order to succeed sans button mashing. The circle button is attack, there is a dodge move, and there are a few ninjutsu that each character can perform that all function differently, yet operate on the same combination of buttons (triangle circle, triangle(x2) circle, and triangle(x3) circle). It's easy to recall during battle and its fun to see all of the different things that each character can do. Even though there is a VS mode for 2 players (because why wouldn't there be?), the main mode and challenges are 1 player, so I would focus on completing this and boy howdy were there a lot of collectibles, unlockables, challenges, and trophies to collect. Compared to the other three games I have already mentioned, however, this one was definitely the closest that I'd gotten to fully collecting everything. There were a few collectibles left to get, though I don't know how I was to get them, but every single challenge and tournament in "Ninja World Tournament" was completed. I still have to go back in order to finish the jobs that are available, but I skipped them for the time being since there was no trophy based around them. I also got close on trophies, with only 2 left to collect before platinum, and they weren't even that hard, I just ran out of time to do so before coming home for the break (so back to Playstation for me!). The only trophies left on that game are to finish the Advanced League Challenges, and to survive Ultimate Survival for 30 battles. I attempted it one night and got to 22 wins, until immediately being taken out by Tenten. However, yet another enjoyable experience that I was able to use as escapism between studying for my final exams. That is so rare, that within 2 weeks I played 4 new games and enjoyed every single one of them thoroughly. Hopefully come next semester I can complete 3 of these 4 (no way will Divinity get touched next semester, not with my schedule) and come to love them even more than I already do. Will attempt to keep in touch more now that I'm on break, if I don't have anything that I'm in the process of completing I'm thinking about just going back and doing some throwback posts, talking about games that I've completed in the past since there won't be any way that I'm going at them now.