Hero-of-Time

I love their retro stuff. I just wish they done more of it.

I honestly can't remember much about the original game's story other than the twist. Bravely Second I always got about 10 hours into it and then dropped it. I think that has happened on several occasions now with that game. Possibly one on my most played 3DS games but with me never actually get past the start.

This game was next on my hit list from my recent purchases. I started it on Monday but I'm still fairly early on in the game. I've only put 5 or so hours into it so far. This line made me burst out laughing. The serious delivery of it was brilliant. This fella also got a laugh out of me. I'm playing the PS4 version of the game and it looks amazing and runs great. It blows my mind what developers were able to get out of the thing. I had the same experience when playing Horizon: Forbidden West earlier in the year. I thought the game itself was very disappointing but from a technical standpoint I couldn't fault it.

Reached chapter 3 yesterday evening.

I get that. Thing is with Colin is that he's been in the industry for so long he has become quite jaded with the way things are and there's not a lot that he hasn't seen before. If he does get excited for something then you know it's a genuine reaction rather than the click bait that most other places do. Also, he suffers from depression and has done for a while (talks very openly about this and his counselling sessions) and so this also factors into his general negative attitude at times, which is something I can appreciate and relate to. It's crazy how many of the big outlets have either shrunk in size or collapsed altogether. Signs of the times, I suppose. I imagine a lot of these places had their numbers butchered by YouTube creators. How people get their news/reviews has changed massively over the past few years and it seems more people are less interested in having an open and honest discussion about the games they are playing and instead just want to listen hot takes. I think part of the problem with watching single YouTube creators (not just in gaming) is that it's easy to find someone that has the same views as you but then you end up getting tunnel vision and not getting perspectives on different opinions. It's why I think that the best gaming podcasts that I listened to were always the ones that had people on who had different tastes. This is how I feel as well. I mean no disrespect to them because they all have obviously worked hard to get the company to where it needed to be but both them and Damiani were the ones I feel could be replaced. Ben, Kyle, Huber, Brad and Jones were the core team for me and ones that brought good discussion, heart and banter to the table. The whole thing kinda reminds me of Top Gear. BBC may have the name but without the personalities of Clarkson, Hammond and May it's just a shell of it's former self and pales in comparison to what came before. Ben's discussions on Frame Trap were second to none and he is sorely missed in this industry. It's crazy how he left and just hasn't been heard of since. In some ways I respect that. In this day and age it would have been so easy to keep his followers up to date on a social media account but he chose to have a clean break. Good for him.

Not surprising, really. We've called this happening every time EZA got brought up on here. They've been in steady decline ever since Bosman and Jones left. Ben leaving was another massive blow and now this. The whole fiasco with Last Stand Media was hilarious. They have the most successful PlayStation gaming podcast (Sacred Symbols) out there and Dustin is a good friend of Brad's. The fact that EZA felt they had to apologise goes to show how fragile their audience is. I wonder if Brad will be heading over to LSM? He'd be a great get for them. When I last listened to them (early this year) their subscibers were continuing to grow at a fast pace and so getting more staff to help out would probably be on the table. Plus, with him being mates with Dustin, it would make for some good banter between the two.

I've continued to chug along with this, just putting a little time into it here and there between other games. I'm currently on chapter 2 but given how the story is going, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm near the end of it. The game really is a mess when it comes to how it runs. There's so much stuttering going on and I'm baffled by why this is the case. I mean, the game is hardly a visual showcase and it's not exactly pushing the hardware to it's limits. The battles are turn based and so that shouldn't be taxing the machine either. The lack of map in the dungeons continues to annoy me, even more so now that the game is throwing a large amount of treasure chests at you to find. If you are going to have the player look for 12 treasure chests in a dungeon where all the paths visually look the same you should at least give them a mini map to help them navigate where they have been. I'm still pretty over levelled, which pleases me. My plan of returning to the beach every time a new job pops up and then proceeding to max it out is still serving me well. I've still waiting for my strategy to just spam the Body Slam move to stop working but it continues to make short work of every battle.

Also, add trophies.

I've been reading the impressions over and Era and those playing it seem to be really enjoying it. I suppose it's a bit like Dragon Quest Treasures that released this time last year. The game wasn't a looker by any means and the optimisation was pretty rough, but it was a really fun game to play.

39 million views after only 6 hours. People be thirsty for the next GTA. Very happy with the return to Vice City but other than that I'm not too fussed. I just think I'm past the age of being able to enjoy these games anymore.

I will say that PS1 games can have issues on PS2 when using the Kaico adapter. This only occurs when a resolution switch happens in game, usually when going from gameplay to menus. This happens in Dino Crisis and a few other games as well (think Silent Hill is also one of them). It's not a deal breaker but it does mean the transition between menu and game isn't a smooth one. As far as I know the Rad2x fixes this but I'm not sure if this also happens when playing on a PS3.

This is still one of my favourite platformers and possibly one of the best that gen offered. It's such a shame the sequels sucked. Daxter on the PSP was amazing though. Baffling that it's still not part of the PS+ retro service.