grandia II for the sega dreamcast...not a new game and certainly not a new system. this one comes across the sea courtesy of game arts (people behind lunar and many other games) and localized by ubisoft.
i'm far enough into this one that i can say with conviction that it's a pretty damn good game. the story follows ryudo, a "geohound" that has been hired to escort a songstress of granas (the god of light) to a ceremony that is supposed to stop valmar's (the god of darkness) rebirth. stuff happens during the ceremony that gets ryudo mixed up in the battle between light and darkness.
the plot is ok and it has a few interesting points, but it ends up going cliche about halfway through. that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if the story was the only thing this game had going for it, it would have fallen by the wayside. luckily that's not the case. what keeps my attention is the battle system. it's turn-based+. if you played the first grandia on the playstation, then the battle system is familiar. each participant in the battle has bar for timing attacks. the time it takes to go from "rest" to "command" is based on stats. at the "command" stage you choose your attack and then the turn progresses to the "act" stage, where the character does what you commanded. it's hard to describe, but it allows you to time your attacks so that they cancel your enemies' attacks, among other things.
as far as aesthetics go, the music is good and the graphics are great. one thing i had forgotten about this game is that it came with a soundtrack. being the video game nerd that i am, i actually used to listen to this cd quite a bit...right along with the soundtracks to the lunar games, final fantasies 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. even though the view is overhead 3/4, the world is nice and colorful and the sprites are pretty top-notch. during battles, special attacks and magical effects are nicely represented, but i sometimes want to skip the sequence on the more drawn out ones.
all in all i think grandia II is a well-rounded game. i'm having fun playing it and the battles are something i don't begrudge. in fact, i've actually cleared every "dungeon" i've gone through so far. that probably explains why my characters are pretty high in level already. i'd give this game a solid 9.
Ok, so this was basically already posted on the main site, but i figured hey! why not duplicate content...besides, reviews should have a house here. anyway, these are my thoughts on some comics i've read recently. beware of spoilers even though i try to be vague as far as the plots go. oh yeah, the grading scale on this is a, b, c, etc. i chose this scheme because i'm a little more subjective when it comes to comics compared to movies. i can put a discrete number on a movie, but can't seem to tie a comic down that much. more volumes later, i'm sure. on to the reviews!
Nextwave
well, as with anything written by warren ellis, i expect to be entertained and always look forward to the next thing up his sleeves. nextwave is no different. i've only read the first issue, but it was good. nice dialogue and humor, especially since these are lower-tier characters in the marvel universe. there's even some fun at their own expense. this team is part of h.a.t.e., a s.h.i.e.l.d.-like organization headed by dirk anger, a nick fury-esque guy. the art is good, the story is great, this is a grade a comic.
House of M
so this was the x-men's most recent giant crossover and i have to say that it was quite good. there were some nice twists to discover and some really good questions posed. for example, if you wake up tomorrow in a utopian world, but still remember the world you should be living in, should you do anything to change it back the way it was? everyone has what they always wanted, why change it back? but the problems went even deeper and the solution was something so drastic that the x-men won't be the same...unless they're able to "undo" everything. professor x is still missing with no leads on where to find him and the total mutants on earth has dropped from close to a million to under 1000. grading on this one is a little different since it had the main storyline and lots of minis to support. main storyline: grade a comic, supporting stories: grade b to c comics.
Spider-Man: The Other
this one passed me by and i had to play catch-up, but i'm glad i did because it was kickass. spidey's not feeling too good lately and he finds that his time is quite short, according to the doctors and his super-brained friends. to top it off, one of his most dangerous enemies is back from the dead to "feed" on the spider. spider-man sucks it up and accepts that it's his time to die and faces off against morlun, the enemy. after being beaten into submission (even beyond recognition...even had his eye pulled out), spider-man is saved by the paramedics and cops, who take him to the hospital. morlun bides his time and goes to see spidey and finish the deed. mary jane tries to stop him, but she gets smacked away and is about to be eaten by morlun, as well. in a last ditch move, spidey goes all out, showing some new powers, and takes morlun down. that effort was all he could take and he dies. the avengers take him back to stark towers and before anyone knows it, something crawls out of peter's skin and escapes (think of something shedding its skin). so spider-man actually dies, but comes back with some slick new abilities. he's embraced the spider and now has to face "the other," his antithesis that came back along with him. this one was partially written by j. michael straczynski, so i knew what to expect. this is definately a grade a comic.
X-Men: Deadly Genesis
this mini ties into "decimation" storyline that's resulted from the house of m. all of the energy from the humanizing of 98% of the mutant population has been shifted around and awakens an old enemy from space. this new villain is an omega-plus class mutant, so he's a badass. he knows the original x-men, but none of the members that joined after giant-size x-men. i'm about to give away a couple of major spoilers here. first, the new villain was actually kid vulcan, a member of an unknown team professor x assembled to find the original x-men that went missing (sparking the giant-size team...they were actually the third set). it sounds all well and good, but they add another twist that marvel's been using to tease readers forever. it turns out that the summers brothers have one more sibling. that sibling happens to be this new villain...he's the elusive third summers brother who had actually lived with the shi'ar race (because their father, corsair aka christopher summers, was taken by the shi'ar and that's what orphaned scott and alex). this series isn't over yet, so i can't give it a final grade, but at this point i'd say it's a grade b comic.