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I get the feeling my flist isn't much for console RPGs, but I loved this game so much I had to get all tl;dr about it anyway.
I suppose it sort of fails as a pimp post, considering people who haven't played it can't read it for fear of spoilers but they're what make it so awesome~ ars;dklfjlkw. Well, if you have a Gamecube/Wii but haven't heard of these games, they're probably best known for their unusual battle system (well, the first one is probably also known for its notoriously bad voice acting), usually called a card-battling game but it really isn't (in the usual Yu-Gi-Oh and various TCGs sense), it just uses cards as the interface between player and world, with attacks being cards representing weapons, defense as cards representing armor and shields, healing items as cards representing food, etc. You start out with a certain hand of cards with each card being replaced as it is used or discarded, and play the cards in ascending order (according to their number in the bottom right hand order), with consecutive strings of cards and other special combinations of attack and special cards doing more damage to the enemy. That's really just a really quick and dirty description of it but anything more thorough would probably be better just looked up in a guide. The character models are all right, but the backgrounds are hand-painted and absolutely gorgeous, while the music is good in the prequel and absolutely phenomenal in the first game.
And if you have played the first one but didn't like the battle system (which was original but had its flaws) or the story (which has some neat twists but is otherwise pretty pedestrian, I admit) this prequel really overhauls it and you can see how much thought went in to improving upon both these and other facets of the game. And though I did't really count the voice acting in the original a negative, horrendous as it is, because it crosses over in to so-bad-it's-hilarious territory and you can turn it off anyway, the voices in Origins are not only much better, but even generally excellent when most people would have been fine with serviceable. Really, I still don't know how it could have scored lower than the first one across the board unless the reviewers couldn't figure out the battle system or hadn't actually played the game (which is a possibility, sadly).
WARNING: Major spoilers for both games and the actual tl;dr under the cut.
( I am the light, dispeller of darkness... )
Anyone who liked the first one should buy and devour this game immediately. And even if you didn't like the first one the prequel is such a huge improvement over it that I'd recommend it on its own merits anyway as it can be played as a stand alone game (though you really get the most out of it from playing the first then Origins).
Yes, I really did write 3,681 words about a videogame. Uh, I really like it? Yeah ♥.
I suppose it sort of fails as a pimp post, considering people who haven't played it can't read it for fear of spoilers but they're what make it so awesome~ ars;dklfjlkw. Well, if you have a Gamecube/Wii but haven't heard of these games, they're probably best known for their unusual battle system (well, the first one is probably also known for its notoriously bad voice acting), usually called a card-battling game but it really isn't (in the usual Yu-Gi-Oh and various TCGs sense), it just uses cards as the interface between player and world, with attacks being cards representing weapons, defense as cards representing armor and shields, healing items as cards representing food, etc. You start out with a certain hand of cards with each card being replaced as it is used or discarded, and play the cards in ascending order (according to their number in the bottom right hand order), with consecutive strings of cards and other special combinations of attack and special cards doing more damage to the enemy. That's really just a really quick and dirty description of it but anything more thorough would probably be better just looked up in a guide. The character models are all right, but the backgrounds are hand-painted and absolutely gorgeous, while the music is good in the prequel and absolutely phenomenal in the first game.
And if you have played the first one but didn't like the battle system (which was original but had its flaws) or the story (which has some neat twists but is otherwise pretty pedestrian, I admit) this prequel really overhauls it and you can see how much thought went in to improving upon both these and other facets of the game. And though I did't really count the voice acting in the original a negative, horrendous as it is, because it crosses over in to so-bad-it's-hilarious territory and you can turn it off anyway, the voices in Origins are not only much better, but even generally excellent when most people would have been fine with serviceable. Really, I still don't know how it could have scored lower than the first one across the board unless the reviewers couldn't figure out the battle system or hadn't actually played the game (which is a possibility, sadly).
WARNING: Major spoilers for both games and the actual tl;dr under the cut.
( I am the light, dispeller of darkness... )
Anyone who liked the first one should buy and devour this game immediately. And even if you didn't like the first one the prequel is such a huge improvement over it that I'd recommend it on its own merits anyway as it can be played as a stand alone game (though you really get the most out of it from playing the first then Origins).
Yes, I really did write 3,681 words about a videogame. Uh, I really like it? Yeah ♥.
