Now Playing #1

Given how slowly and how long it takes me to play games (ahem, Persona 4 — let me just say I’m at the HEAVEN stage now and I am very scared for what’s about to happen next), I don’t know how often I’ll make posts like this, but here’s what I’ve been playing! (Or was, I beat them already. Hah)

Fire Emblem: Fates (Birthright, Revelation)

I think I just have a thing for fostering relationships between members of my party. The support system is amazingly cheesy and perfect. I didn’t care about it at all in my first playthrough, to be honest… I married Silas and got really discouraged when a certain character I was trying to marry off died (wtf). Rest assured, I did not make this same mistake in Revelation and I think I dedicated 20 hours to grinding supports on top of regular gameplay:

Storywise, I feel like Fates leaves a bit to be desired. Birthright was a little trite and the royal fam, save for qt pineapple Takumi, was as interesting as a pile of rocks. Don’t even get me started on Azura — she’s annoyingly mysterious and she’s not interesting enough to justify it. But where the story lacks in meatiness, the game makes up for it in supports. There’s a lot of interesting details about each character to be learned in these interactions. For example, who knew Niles was (and could make everything sound) so naughty? LOL.

I think I got much better at playing these games after Birthright. I made it a point every extra challenge in between chapters, but in the beginning it took me an hour each and I dreaded it (hah). Now I can knock them out in 20 minutes, which is nice! I had every intention of playing Conquest, but I felt like playing these back to back to back would be a bit too much. I’ll wait for the price drop!

And can I just say Silas is the Best Guy? THE BEST.

. . .

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Things I liked:

• Hint coins that apply to trials. I just finished Dual Destinies in May — Ace Attorney games are generally not hard to follow if you’re paying close attention/following the logic. While I don’t see the need for them completely, I see how they can be very useful.
• Multi-witness cross examinations! It sounds like a cluster, but I thought it was refreshing.
• Some interesting side characters that I’d love to learn more about once the secret of Labyrinthia was revealed. Speaking of which…
• THE FINAL REVEAL. Holy crap.
• Knowing that Phoenix is back to his old tricks:
  
• Recaps every time you load your save file. Great if you took a long break from playing and don’t remember what’s happening.
• Funny writing that produced gems like this.
• HIGH INQUISITOR DARKLAW

What I didn’t like:

• After the very bright and dynamic art in Dual Destinies, some of the characters looked a little soulless. I guess Barnham was supposed to be dashing, but he looked a little dead behind the eyes. Some of the art was so cute though, like these two little siblings!
• Sometimes it felt like two different games/wish they implemented more characters from each series.
• If you saved in the middle of a witness testimony and turned off your DS (after saving), you’d have to start from the beginning of that scene/session. SO MUCH SKIPPING.
• All over the place voiceovers (some scenes had them, some did not)

There’s probably some other things I’m forgetting, but this game was freaking fun and I can’t believe I slept it on it for SO long! With that, I’m finally all caught up with the Ace Attorney games until the next one. That is, unless I seriously try my hand at Japanese and play the GREAT Ace Attorney…

I also preordered Pokemon Moon and Persona 5 awhile ago, but I was unaware that FFXV was coming out so soon! September?! I wasn’t planning on putting my pennies together for a PS4 until next year (for P5)… ugh. I think I’ll wait.