G-pinions

So Friday and Saturday were videogametastic, to say the least. Friday was Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles night at Tom's place with Tom, Lanyon, Andy, Ryan, observationist Dan, and myself. We switched off, so I got to play a fair amount despite not owning a GBA (thanks fellas). A few thoughts on the game, you say? Well, sure, why the hell not. We got time, right? Short answer, it was pretty good. I got the idea I was the only gamer in the room who was a fan of story, or at least in that instance, so it was hard to judge the characters and such, but they seemed alright (just dumbed down for more easily accessible gameplay and less involvement). The co-op play was fairly well put-together, if not a bit chaotic. The GBA involvement was a nice addition, and once I understood it it was fairly easy to navigate, but it was definitely not something that needed to be required. They could have figured out a way to do without the hassle. And while four-player is always fun, in most any game, I think three-player would have been a bit less confusing and a bit easier to keep up with in this case. Keep up with successfully, that is - it's all well and good for people to split up the healing, spellcasting, attacking and bucket-bitch duties, but when you run into a couple tough enemies all hell breaks loose ninety percent of the time. But the chaos was fun while it lasted, I must say. One thing I did realize after playing it though, is that it shouldn't have the Final Fantasy name attached to it. It's different enough as to possibly alienate FF fans, but strong enough to have possibly become it's own action/rpg/adventure franchise, and Nintendo could do with a new franchise. Why waste this chance?

I also took the plunge and traded in 5 games to get $25 extra trade-in credit at EB and bought Champions of Norrath. It's pretty great, as you can tell from what Tom wrote. I've been craving it all day, but I'm gonna fight the geek power and hold off till I can play it with Tom later this week, cause we have a great co-op game started and levelling up without him would just be in bad taste. I also bought a Dreamcast for $15 (score!), and Seaman, with the mic, for $3 and some change (double-score!). Then today I went and bought a new controller and two vmus for $12 more, so I'm set, DC-wise (extra for a few choice games I will be locating shortly). Oh, and I bought Metal Arms online for GC for $20. The demo is great, so I assume it'll be the proverbial shit. The four-player shit, mind you. Word.

Time for me to go meet Seaman (I'm somewhat nervous - does my hair look alright?).