Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Anti-Matter I'm now curious enough about Gaist Crusher that I may do my own homework on the franchise. Though I suspect it's a game/franchise that really flew under the radar overseas, if it never made it out of Japan. It's fine that you picked up Ni No Kuni on the PS3; I suspect it's cheaper than more modern releases...or the Switch tax for that matter.

As for Megaman/Rockman Star Force: Pegasus, once again, good find! It's increasingly harder, at least in the North American and even aspects of the EU market, to find even used games at what I'd call a reasonable price. It make me happy I grabbed most of the 3/DS games I wanted pre-pandemic.

@Sunsy I did go watch Encanto yesterday evening! It was a very enjoyable movie, some very nice musical numbers, animation, and an interesting plot. Bruno is now my spirit human after Shota Aizawa from My Hero Academia. I did also end up grabbing a regular popcorn. Not that I needed all the salt, but it was delicious!

@MarioLover92 I really like animals in general, dogs, cats, and even some of the sorts people won't touch (reptiles, rodents, etc.) included. That said, I slightly prefer cats over dogs. They're more independent, they (usually) don't have a smell that requires constant bathing, and they're generally quieter in my experience. I really enjoy dogs too, though I do slightly prefer medium and large breeds over small ones.

@Snatcher First of all, hope you're enjoying the PS5! I may jump over to the PS ecosystem someday, but my Nintendo systems and low-end PC games keep me more than occupied for now lol.

I thought about bringing my own candy, but I don't try to eat it often (moreso now that we're past the holidays; as usual I went a little overboard. ). Plus, the theater frowns on that.

@TheJGG Costume gathering you say? Nothing I haven't fielded in a JRPG before, but I suspect that's made a little more difficult with the dated graphics. For some reason, I thought FFVII Remake was supposed to cover roughly the first 1/3rd of the original game? Or has SE backpedaled on that statement and expanded the release slate like you say? If so, it'll be interesting to watch what they do next. I confess I haven't kept up to speed on the FFVII:R releases since they're out of my reach for now.

I did receive Metroid Dread as a Christmas gift, and I look forward to the day I do get to it. Hopefully within the next couple of months, but that depends on how fast I get through XC2, my next side game (leaning towards Ori and the Will of the Wisps), and potentially Pokemon Brilliant Diamond if I cave to FOMO and get it for the limited time Manaphy distribution. You've touched on one of my favorite aspects of the Metroid series: the puzzles. The exploration, upgrades, and some excellent boss fights keep me coming back. Glad that you're enjoying your time with the title!

While I can't fully confirm your comments on the music yet - as I haven't played the entire game - so far I do agree. XC2 has some amazing tracks, but overall both XCX and XC:DE win over it in the music department for me. I love Nia's (and by extension, the Gormotti) Welsh(?) accent. As for my progress...none to report since my last post. I spent my gaming time the last couple of evenings wrapping up Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask to my satisfaction. I hope to dive back into Alrest this evening.

@tekoii Will do! I'm enjoying my time with the game so far, though as mentioned above I took a couple days off so I could wrap up Miracle Mask.

@Tyranexx
So far i played Gaist Crusher 3DS until mission 4, the game was heavily visual novel style for the storyline delivering with Japanese voiceover and anime style cutscenes. The gameplay was in a small area and some Gaist (monsters) around the area and you have to defeat them all. The gameplay was like standard action games (imagine Kingdom Hearts) with 2 different stances (Offensive or Defensive) as the character will draw their huge weapon when you change their stance.

About Ni no Kuni, was the Familiar much like Pokemon games style ? (Capture them, train them, use them in battle, take care of them, pet them)
(Checking from wikipedia)
Gosh !
There are 451 Familiars in Ni no Kuni. 😲

Been playing some more Paper Mario, and I just started chapter 2. Still love this game. Too bad I have to charge my Wii Remote's batteries soon, though. lol

@Sunsy Oh that's cool, the other strategy games I've played include the Fire Emblem and Advance Wars series. I just remembered another game I got a long time ago, it was called Starship Defense which was on the DSi Shop. That was a real time strategy game where you'd protect your ship from enemies. You'd do things like install turrets that shoot any enemies within their vicinity. It was one of the better DSiWare games. And of course, being a huge Nintendo fan that I've always been, I played the Pikmin series as well.

@X-Slayer Oh that's cool, and yeah I do like quite a few of Donkey Kong 64's ideas. It was quite the ambitious game for its time, and I like some of its worlds too. Some parts of the game were pretty frustrating for me though, most notably certain minigames that the game has you do.

@Tyranexx Same here, I do like animals in general too, and I'm also exactly the same way in regards to cats and dogs. Yeah, cats are generally more chill from my experience, and they are easier to take care of. Oh and glad to hear you also enjoyed Encanto - the more I think about it, the more I want to watch it.

Clifford The Big Red Dog was a lot better than I expected it to be. Was a fun and heartfelt movie to someone who grew up reading the books, still have a copy of the first Clifford book as well.

@Tyranexx Glad to hear Encanto was good. Hoping to see it one day. Sounds like you treated yourself to the popcorn, that's fine as it's not often one eats movie popcorn.

@MarioLover92 I actually bought the original Fire Emblem when it came out on Switch. Cool, never heard of Starship Defense. I was late to the DSi party and the first DSi game I played was on 3DS. I think it was a copy of Pro-Putt Domo I got from Club Nintendo. Starship Defense sounds really awesome. Surprisingly I haven't played Pikmin, outside of a GameCube that was set up in a local McDonalds (anyone remember those?).

@Tyranexx They do, but, its pretty much normal for people to do that, But I understand where your coming from.
@Sunsy I might need to give it a watch then.

@Sunsy Yeah, I wouldn't play those DSiWare games until later. I remember being unimpressed with the DSi when it came out, and stuck with my DS Lite at the time. Pretty sure Starship Defense is still on the 3DS eShop if you wanna give that a shot. That's cool, I didn't get the original Fire Emblem, only because I was content with the ones I got on the 3DS and Switch. I did hear the original game is really hard too, and that it's one of those games where if any of your characters fall in battle, they're dead for the rest of the game. Pretty sure I'd make very little progress if I played it. lol

Uh, when did SE say that, @Tyranexx .....? They revealed before release that Remake (part 1) went up to the escape from Midgar & that's less than 20% of the original Now, if Yuffie is just going to join the party, that cuts out the annoying recruitment bit you had to do originally & perhaps they've explained more so that later parts won't have to?

On phone so forgive any typos. Early treadmill session at work thanks to weird schedule today.

@Anti-Matter Done right, I'm not against visual novel style games with some action thrown in. I definitely wanna look into the series now, even if I just find a premise.

As for Ni No Kuni, I don't know how close to the Pokemon series it is. Though I do know there are some monster catching elements. 451 familiars?!

@MarioLover92 That's not to say I haven't come across a neurotic or grumpy cat, but they're few and far between in my experience lol. I also highly encourage you to watch Encanto when you get the chance.

@Sunsy We actually have a popcorn machine in the office, but usually everyone is too busy to make any lol. Plus we sometimes run out. XD

@BruceCM My information may be from way before release. I just think I recall they originally wanted to do a trilogy? Or maybe that was earlier in development before they decided to expand on content further.

Hmm, I followed it all pretty closely, @Tyranexx .... More likely some article about it, especially before release, got a slightly exaggerated idea? SE were quite careful in what they said themselves, as you'd expect As for how many parts the remake ends up being, nobody really knows, so it could potentially be 3 but I don't think SE are even sure yet themselves, lol

@X-Slayer Yeah, that's a cool theme for sure. I really like chapter 3's haunted theme as well, with the Boo Mansion. I love the aesthetic of Shy Guy's Toy Box too.

Those other DK64 areas you mentioned are Gloomy Galleon and Fungi Forest - always liked the latter since I love nature in general. Yeah, I wish the minigames were replaced with something like the bonus areas from the DKC games. The game did have some of those however, like swinging from vine to vine to collect those coins.

@Tyranexx Yeah, I did come across a cat who didn't seem to like unfamiliar guests. I tried to pet her, but she would try to scratch me. Thanks for the encouragement, too.

@Snatcher Hope you enjoy it. I was surprised by the movie.

@MarioLover92 Weirdly enough, I felt the same way about DSi, I ended up with a DSi because my DS Lite touch screen stopped working properly. Will check next time I'm using my 3DS. Yeah, they do stay dead, I lost one unit I think in the third chapter.

@Tyranexx Aside from being out of popcorn, cool!

@JaxonH Of course man, sorry. My best wishes out to you all.

@MarioLover92 For sure dude, don't hesitate to hmu!

@Sunsy Yes, thank you I am! And awh that's sweet of them and I'm sure you're happy! Ahh ur not too too far behind me even, and I started what feels like ages ago already xD. Thanks yea, I'm even more hyped to watch it.

@Tyranexx Ah I hear that.. but yea I tell you, you are in for a treat with XC2!

Random but, I wanna livestream this game called "Valdis Story Abyssal City", I haven't played since I beat it around its release. I feel like this game would be awesome on Switch ><; If you like Metroidvanias and got a PC check it out, its a cool and underrated game imo!

@Tyranexx
First impression when i get more things from Ni no Kuni, i felt the game was like Classic Final Fantasy style with Random battle but you can see the enemies, basic parameter (HP, MP, Strength, Defense, Magic, Magic Defense, Evasion, Accuracy, Evasion) with Speed as the character movement speed and attack speed, similar negative status, etc.
The interesting part was the Pokemon style Familiars and they can evolve and learn new abilities by certain level + they can only use 8 skills by maximum, but i think they have basic looking monster, not as intriguing as Yokai Watch design.
When i watched the anime style cutscene, i was wondering why the Ghibli style animation was like 15 - 20 fps animation with not so smooth movements ?

Looking at my PS3 games collection so far, i only have two JRPG games (FF XIII and Ni no Kuni) as i try to get more rated Everyone or Everyone 10+ games than Teen games as most of rated Teen RPG games on PS3 are not appealing to me since i have different interest, don't really like to follow the mainstream gamers. So when most peoples get excited with RPG games like Xenoblade or Tales of series or Rune Factory or Atelier games, i felt very indifferent toward those games like zero appeal for me from every single aspects.

@Blackrosewaifu9000 I stopped somewhere in Wano... are we talking about manga or anime? cause i only read the manga. It has been some time so i am waiting for the arc to finish and then i guess i will read the whole arc again since i forgot quite some stuff by now

@Blackrosewaifu9000 Ohh, then i can't really contribute sadly

@Blackrosewaifu9000 well, i would say you still got the best arcs ahead of you though

I am about to anger so many people by saying this: the only anime I've ever watched is Pokemon. Does anyone here have any reccomendations? I've already decided to watch My Hero Acadamia at some point, Full-Metal Alchemist I'm 50/50 on and I'm not really interested in the long running ones like Dragon Ball or One Piece (I know, coming from someone who likes the Pokemon anime), so any more along those lines would be cool. Thanks everyone! (btw no spoilers, if it wasn't obvious, thx)

@Blackrosewaifu9000 I have my reservations but I'll give it a try.

@Fizza I am no anime fan but I will give you some that I think are good!

1. Ranma 1/2 it is hilarious and very lighthearted!

2. Berserk both the old and the new one!

3. Hellsing both the regular one and the OVAs.

4. Vampire Hunter D and its sequel Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust - probably my favorite anime movies!

5. Dominion Tank Police

6. Shaman King - I know that it is westernized but I still love it!

@Zuljaras I really need to get Crunchyroll now, huh?