Last game you finished, tell us about it

Akbaa is no more...

Finally.

After beeing stuck in the Crypts for a while, I stopped for a year or so because of that, I finished Arx Fatalis.

I hoped that Akbaa would be easy to kill, I mean, that it wouldn't take like a thousand hits to kill him. And so it was.
I cornered him in the entrance of the room and he just stood there and took a beating.

Don't have anything much to say anymore about this game.
Most of you have all heard about it and completed it.

What I can say is that I loved it and probably never will sell it.
I surely will replay it one day but it won't be for a while because I have a long list of other games to play before that.

Next on my list : Fallout!

Final Fantasy VII (10/10)
I believe this might very well be the longest game I ever played. I started to play the day after I finished Code Veronica X, exactly two weeks ago and I have played between 6-16 hours per day. I did pretty much everything there was in the game, except for chocobo breeding and the last two weapons (Emerald & Ruby). And what can I say... the brick-models did not look good, the RPG mechanics were pretty weak compared to the RPG's I enjoy... howevevr, I do not believe I exaggerate when I say that this game carry one of the best written stories of all time, one that every serious gamer should experience once in their lives.

Fable (9/10)

I loved so much about this game, the atmosphere, the progression, the economy, courting, buying and renting houses and shops. I took of 1 point because I thought it became just a teeny tedious by the end.

Very generous scores for both of those games.

I also gave Fable a 9. The mechanics are quite bad, and the humor can sometimes make you feel very very old, but the story was greatly told and kept me going.

I've never given a game a perfect 10 I think, but apart from that... both were games I greatly enjoyed, so there.

I've never played any of the Final Fantasy games, my only exposure to the franchise is the fun little movie from a few years back, I have it on DVD.

So what kind of games are they? I always had the impression that the FFs were fighting games like DOA and that the title had became an MMO. However, I've also noticed that JemyM has fairly narrow tastes, so now I'm wondering if Final Fantasy isn't more RPGlike?

They are Japanese rpg's with turn-based combat.

Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus (8/10)
Dirge of Cerberus (DoC) takes off 2 years after the movie, meaning 3 years after the game. The game is about the character who were not main characters in the first game, such as Caith Sith (Reeve) and Yuffie, but mostly DoC continues the tale of Vincent and Lucretia. In DoC, Vincent is given a role with as much depth and complexity as Cloud had in the original game. The story takes up on the loose threads started in FF7 as well as Vincents level 4 limit break (Chaos). They have really tried to take after FF7 when they did the new game. Many mechanics from the original game is reused in Dirge, including some of his weapons (such as Death Penalty), many items such as Elixir, Ether, X-Potion, Phoenix Dawn etc. Vincent also get experience and levels up and gains more hitpoints and more accuracy etc. I cannot really put my finger on why I cannot give the game a greater score, maybe it's because next to a well told story and advanced game mechanics, there is a game that is a pretty average shooter that feels very repetitive. After watching the very beautiful end movie I am satisfied with having played it, even if I had prefered to watch a video with all cutscenes prerecorded and thus spared me from actually playing the game.

Gig said:

I've never played any of the Final Fantasy games, my only exposure to the franchise is the fun little movie from a few years back, I have it on DVD.

So what kind of games are they? I always had the impression that the FFs were fighting games like DOA and that the title had became an MMO. However, I've also noticed that JemyM has fairly narrow tastes, so now I'm wondering if Final Fantasy isn't more RPGlike?

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You are thinking 'Final Fight' ... Final Fantasy is celebrating its' 20th anniversary this year. They are tightly controlled Japanese RPG's with (mostly) strong stories that are told AT you and some pretty cool turn-based combat.

Not being a console guy, I never played any of them until my wife bought me the Final Fantasy I & II GBA double pack along with my Nintendo DS for Christmas when the DS came out. Since then I have played I, II, IV, V and VI for the GBA and III for the DS.

VI is my fave of that group.

Final Fantasy VIII (9,5/10)
Many have told me to not mess with Final Fantasy VIII. That the game can be passed, that it should be disliked. I cannot agree. There are not many games that make me go up early in the morning, take an extra coffee late at night just to get more hours to play, and there are not many games that made me cry at the ending.
Except a few issues with game balance and mechanics (unbalanced and easily exploited) and a slow start (first CD) the game is superb, equal to only a few other games on the market. The story is fantastic and well written. The characters arent as developed as they are in Final Fantasy VII but alot more than the usual games on the market. I do not think I ever seen a such long ending either. It took me eight days to finish it. 6 days less than FF7.

Kweeeeeeh!?

Final Fantasy IX (9,5/10)
Yet again I have lost a few tears over a fantastic ending on a fantastic journey. FF9 took me 14 days to go through, including all sidemissions and lots of extra training. I still do not believe the main story reaches up to the previous ones, even if the characters are in the same level as the FF7 characters, but that's like comparing a legendary game with a legendary game+. I am still happy I have played it. I should have done it ages ago. Kupo!

JemyM, do you rate games on a scale of 8-to-10.

Let's see ...
- Time Ace (DS) - mediocre flight shooter and also way too short
- Death Jr. and the Science Fair of Doom (DS) - as usual a great start followed by a mediocre game, but this is the worst of the DJ games yet.
- Brooktown High: Senior Year - crappy dating sim will make your high school years look good.
- Crush (PSP) - really good puzzler, but too short.
- Scooby-Doo Who's Watching Who? (PSP) - despite the presence of Scott Innes as Scooby and Shaggy (same as the cartoon) and Jennifer Hale (Bastilla, Fall from grace, etc) in the voice cast, this is a lame port of a mediocre console game. The DS version is far better.
- NBA Live 07 (PSP) - mediocre port of a mediocre basketball game.

Others are in the upcoming 'Whole Game in my Hand'.

Jeez ... what a crappy list.

JDR13 said:

JemyM, do you rate games on a scale of 8-to-10.

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No. Games I finish I usually end up rating between 5-10 with 1-4 reserved to games I did not finish at all. And I stand by the scores for the latest games I played. 2007 is a special year. The goal this year have been to catch up on games that some people claims to be great. I started out with Metal Gear, then Resident Evil and now I am playing Final Fantasy. So far, theese games have been just great. Once im through with the good stuff, im probably back to play bad games again. I do not think I have had a gaming year like this since back in the amiga days.

Well, the FF's games are good so they deserve this good rating... acctually the gameplay is not that good but especially FF7 has an excellent story and lots of nice movies... it really depend on what you like in a game though I'd also rate them between 8-10 and they have lovely music too.. You gave that mess dirge of Cerberous way too high score though

Yet again I have lost a few tears over a fantastic ending on a fantastic journey.

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I just finished Painkiller, it was a surprisingly good game. Not an RPG but a FPS with dark fantasy-like settings.

Doomlike in its simplicity but nice graphics, and I found it in the bargain bin for about ten dollars.

GothicGothicness said:

Well, the FF's games are good so they deserve this good rating... acctually the gameplay is not that good but especially FF7 has an excellent story and lots of nice movies... it really depend on what you like in a game though I'd also rate them between 8-10 and they have lovely music too..

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I think the mechanics in FF9 was alot better than FF7 & 8. It was a very solid system, well balanced. I enjoyed the 5-slot equipment system. Lots of reason to experiment with different equipments. I liked the party, all characters well balanced to eachother and you did not find yourself with a few omnipotent characters early on like in FF7/8, all characters were useful for different reasons. The game "held back" when it came to XP/AP so I did not get to level 100, 9999hp and 999mp like in previous games, instead I ended up somewhere around level 70 with Zidane, 5000hp and ~350mp on my best mage. I also had to carefully select my abilities to have a chance to reach 9999damage per strike (only Zidane managed to do that). Still I trained my characters alot more in FF9 than I did in FF7/8.
I also felt that alot more of the combat mechanics was useful in FF9, compared to the previous titles in which you could just forget about 90% and still beat the game. In FF9 you had a reason to go through your combat abilities once in awhile and change them.

GothicGothicness said:

Spoiler

Well I have to say I hated that ending IT is a very nice CG MOVIE BUT HOW THE HELL DID HE SURVIVE BY SINGING??? LOL

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GothicGothicness said:

You gave that mess dirge of Cerberous way too high score though

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When it comes to mechanics, Dirge of Cerberus as a game was quite solid. The story was "ok". Some levels was very cool, some boring. It did not have any glaring weaknesses, but it did not have any real strengths either, or the games weaknesses was eased by the games strengths. I felt it was an ok timewaster, especially for a FF7 fan. It gave me a similar feeling to Halo or Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. Other games that I could surely have missed out on but had some fun with while playing them.

I also felt that alot more of the combat mechanics was useful in FF9, compared to the previous titles in which you could just forget about 90% and still beat the game. In FF9 you had a reason to go through your combat abilities once in awhile and change them.

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Did you defeat Ozma?? that is one tough battle!! unless you use some tricks.. I had the wrong characters at high levels so I couldn't do him.

GothicGothicness said:

Did you defeat Ozma?? that is one tough battle!! unless you use some tricks.. I had the wrong characters at high levels so I couldn't do him.

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I actually skipped Ozma as I did with Ruby/Emerald Weapon in FF7 and Omega Weapon in FF8. They did not seem rewarding enough for the hassle.