Saturday, May 26, 2007

Chrono Cross and Psx games

I just finished Chrono Cross and I'm sorry to say that it's a mediocre game. Compared to Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross is a disgrace to the original. The problem with these new games is the graphics, that's all it has to offer. Forget gameplay, just add a million polygons, modern gamers would consume it no matter what as long as the game looks nice. As a retro gamer and emu gamer, I find Psone games to be all flash but no substance. Can anyone recommend a good Psone game to me?

Anyway, I played this Psone game using Epsxe 1.5.2. My system is a 10-year old PC - PII 800 MHZ, 256 MB ram, Nvidia Geforce MX4000 64 MB ram. I ran the game from start to finish with minimal problems. If you are an emu gamer and you want to play Chrono Cross without any fuss, I suggest using PSXeven emu. Epsxe is great but you need to tweak it to play Chrono Cross.

I think I'll just stick to playing Snes games for now.

Tales of Phantasia is epic

I just finished playing Tales of Phantasia (ToP) for the Snes. It's in Japanese but was translated by Aeon Genesis. If you want to play it as well, just visit Fantasyanime for the rom and the translation patch.

I must say that ToP is an epic undertaking. It's one of those games where you can explore practically all the gameworld even when you're not properly levelled-up. It's not as great as Final Fantasy 4 or 6, but it has it's own charm and fun factor that the Final Fantasies do not.

Gameplay combat for ToP is real-time where you control the swords man Cless. You have no direct control of 3 of his companions but you can set up behavior and strategies for them ala Fallout. If you really want to play the 5 other characters, you can do so by putting them first in formation. This adds to the fun of the game.

ToP is an old game, so I can't really say much more about it. Although, there's a GBA remake of ToS that has updated graphics, so check it out if you have a DS or a GBA. This title is epic and loads of fun. I highly recommend it. Heck, I stopped blogging just to finish the darn thing.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Retrogaming - Diablo 1

So I've been going on a nostalgia trip when it comes to games these days. The oldie but goodie I have been playing is Diablo 1. I remember finishing Diablo during college but I'm ashamed to say that I only pwned the game with my warrior 'coz I cheated. Remember those cheat codes during the heydays of Diablo and Starcraft. Well, I used one on Diablo and when I met the last boss himself, I killed him with about two to three hacks of my sword. Not a very fun proposition.

Now, I made another character, a mage. I must say that mages are at a little disadvantage since some low level monsters are immune to magic. Meaning, no matter how powerful your charged bolt is, you won't do much damage to a low level creature with immunity. This in turn forces you to switch to brute force, which is pretty useless since you are a freaking mage. Now I remember why I used that damn cheat, yeah, 'coz it's frustrating to be killed by a freaking bat immune to magic. But no--hell no--I won't cheat this time. I'll try to finish it without any help.

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