Hard to say, as I haven't played the Crossbell games yet. There's definitely some references to it in Cold Steel, from what I understand, both stories take place at the same time.

I don't think that playing it before the Crossbell games hurt my Cold Steel experience significantly, but it's possible I was exposed to some spoilers and haven't realized it yet.

Comes with the territory I suppose I'm an RPG fan, and due to their length most of the time, they tend to be what remains in the backlog. I intend to mix it up a bit before too long, have my eyes on Super Metroid and A Link to the Past on the New 3DS VC. I've never owned a SNES, so my only experience with them is through emulation, and I haven't beaten either.

FYI, Trails in the Sky FC+SC should be considered two halves of one game. The first one has a lot of slow world building, and the payoff is mostly in the second.

Yeah, that's my main complaint about Berseria - it's even more "mash-friendly" than Graces was.

Which is a shame, because other than that I really like the game. It's my favorite cast since Vesperia, the storyline is good (at least by Tales standards), and it explores some themes you don't usually see in the series.

One thing that helps making the gameplay more interesting is controlling characters other than Velvet. She's the worst of them all in the "just mash buttons" aspect.

Yeah, I don't think Animal Crossing has a true ending. It is one of those games that is either or you make up your own ending. For me, after listening to some people on the site, I am going to decide for my own ending. Once I get out of debt from Tom Nook, then I will consider it . I believe that is a relatively easy goal and will let me see most of the game. I don't know how long that will take, but it is at least a start.

Didn't have much time to play non-portables these last couple weeks, but it's much better so far. I'm not completely sold on the cast, but at least Velvet is a massive upgrade over Sorey, I'm liking Eizen, and so far Laphicet seems like an OK take on the "emotionless child who starts getting more human"cliché.

Gameplay is better, with a decent battle system and far less of the battle camera issues that plagued Zestiria (though they're not completely fixed). I don't think it'll end up being as fun as Vesperia or Graces on the gameplay front, but at least it seems more promising than recent Tales games.

Hi, there. Just saw your status update about Ghosts. Idk why but I liked that game. haha. Maybe because it was my first ps4 and COD game...

Hah, I try to avoid bad games to begin with. Crysis 2, while impressive visually for the most part, was a huge let down compared to Crysis. To be fair though, I can't blame them for reaching out to the console audience as Crysis was rampantly pirated on the PC. Sadly, it doesn't seem that it was particularly well received on either platform.

Thank you, appreciate it! I picked it up here and there - have had it in high school, already had a bit of a head start thanks to computer games, but it didn't really take off until college, internet and talking with natives. That's where it slowly went from technically correct to flowing naturally. Only when written, though - when I speak it, my accent is far too heavy to fool anybody for more than a sentence or two. Written is fine, I guess I've always enjoyed communication. Slang's fine insofar as I've picked it up, sloppiness I don't do.

I enjoy it, though I've been busy with gaming lately so I'm falling even further behind.

I dunno how anyone can say Legendia had a good soundtrack. It was quiet and forgettable and aside from a few tracks it felt absolutely out of place.

Yeah, Shining is the series that was, regrettably. I did pull myself through Neo, but it left me without any appetite for more of its ilk. Whereas the GBA remake of the original Shining Force is excellent. Would love to play that again, but I'm currently without a GBA or pre-DSi DS.

Hoping to return to Silent Hill Origins soon. Ideally I want to leave my horror games for the winter season so it's sufficiently dark in the evening for atmosphere.

Ugh. I was really hoping that would not be the case.

Among mainline games I'd say Zestiria is the worst one, though some people feel it's still better than Legendia and/or Innocence.

If you include side games then there's stuff like Tempest that should have never been made.

Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from. As someone who believes (at least from what I've played of the series) that Tales of Symphonia is the highlight of the series, I wasn't expecting Zestiria to be BEST TALES GAEM EVAR, but at the very least I was hoping it would surpass some of the more recent entries. Which, to be fair, I did enjoy, especially Xillia, but they're not as good as past entries like Symphonia.

I too am reserving judgment until the ~20h mark, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed so far. I really want to like what I've played of it, but I think it speaks volumes that, when patch 1.4 came out and blew away my sweet 60fps/vocal opening mods, rather than re-applying them immediately and getting back into it, I moved on to other games. I'm gonna try to get back into it now that I've beaten Half Minute Hero--here's hoping it reaches the "substantial" level of entertainment you were talking about!

You know, I'm pretty torn on it myself. On the one hand, I love the battle system, and I think UI-wise there have been a few small but significant improvements that make the menus feel like they flow better, or at least better fit with the way I think about them. And 60 fps on the PC version with the unofficial patch (combined with the Japanese vocals on the opening--also through unofficial patch) is undeniably nice. I also feel like the translation and/or script has improved, or at least the VAs are delivering their lines more convincingly--something's definitely improved in that department. The general lack of angst so far is refreshing.

But all that said...so far I'm not catching that much hint of, you know, a plot...which doesn't bode well. I'm about 10 hours in and the best I've got is "there's a big bad about to bring darkness on the world, and we need to defeat him". I never finished Vesperia for similar reasons, so hopefully it picks up very soon or Zestiria might end up with a similar fate on my shelf.

Oh, the dialogue is fantastic. I always thought that Ogre was like the foundation and that FFT was the window dressing. If it wasn't for Tactics Ogre, FFT wouldn't exist. It's more bare bones and stripped down, but that was to be expected.

Hopefully, I'll have a comment this evening. I'm at the final boss of Atelier Iris 2 and I hope to beat it tonight. So fingers crossed!

Thank you kindly! I always like doing them as a way to wrap up the game and talk about the game that I just beat. It is nice to hear that at least somebody else is reading them.

I really enjoyed Tactics Ogre on the PS1 and my friend is currently playing that version on his PSP. It was such a great game and was interesting to see how Final Fantasy Tactics was made basically by the same people that made Tactics Ogre.

I started up PS1 ver bc my laptop couldn't handle PS2 emulator and now my computer broke so I can't really play either ><. I heard PS2 ver is way better and I would play that except iunno if my Jap is good enough and there is no Chinese patch for it =(.

Lots of patience, dedication and time!