From the Symphonia manga. JUST TELL US LLOYD! …I still enjoy poking fun at that.

Anyways, my time on Vesperia has slowed to a grinding halt, aside from testing out a few things here and there. Went and beat New Game+’ed and beat it on Unknown, which was pretty easy going in with pretty much the whole Grade Shop bought out, combined with stuff I learned during my first playthrough. It might have been the lack of other worthwhile games, but I can add this to the short list of games in which I easily (and happily) dumped 100+ hours into.

(I’m not sure when I started writing this post… I’m thinking September 20something. Anyways, I’ll just leave it like it is now and make a new one.)

Repede has the best attachments. Seriously. You don’t have to go out and find a bunch of rare crap to make them either, although you do have to be pretty much near or at the end of the game to find the chests they’re in. They’re so worth it though.

I finished Vesperia a couple of days ago on Normal. I’d think of stuff to say, but really all I can say about it right now is “C’mon, its TALES.” If you’ve played a recent Tales like Abyss you should know what to expect out of these games, minus the horrendous backtracking that Abyss had. Humorous dialogue, nice voice acting (save some minor character parts), Sakuraba’s music, a slightly altered but still very Tales battle system… you know, that kind of stuff. Speaking of the music, I loved the Ring A Bell arrangements scattered throughout the game. They saved those for the best parts in the game, and it had a nice effect to the whole mood.

After I beat it, I ran around for a while doing sidequests, synthesis, and grade farming before I went back to the final boss and beat him again on Hard Mode with the special third phase unlocked since I brought the Fell Arms with me. I’ve gotta say, maybe I should have played the entire game on Hard because I really enjoyed that fight. It probably took me an hour or so just to get through all of it, but it was an hour of challenging, non-stop action and excitement that most games don’t seem to bring to me these days. Now I’m starting up the New Game Plus on the Unknown difficulty setting and trying to not get my ass kicked. I’ll still be streaming here and there during the usual odd hours, but I’ll also be skipping through the dialogue so be prepared to hear one or half a word sentences.

In other semi-gaming related news, I recently received two things of interest I’ve been waiting on: Grim Grimoire The Complete Guide and - wait for it… the Venus & Braves pre-order bonus CD ‘Must-Sees in Acral’! If you’re not familiar with it, it comes with some nice bonus stuff for your PC, which I will now oogle every now and again and possibly upload it and/or use some things to upgrade the blog visuals. Maybe the Gallery will actually be implemented with the introduction of GrimGrimoire art scans?! These are exciting times. Now that I think about it, it would be more appropriate for me to put up the Venus & Braves Special Visual Book art first…

eslkjglrkg It is getting late (early), I’ll be back later today to edit this.
EDIT: Or not. I’m so lazy.

Whee! Got this very late on the 27th. I’m about 13-14 hours in and it’s been good times so far, of course. Ring A Bell is awesome. Not much else to say, it has everything that makes a Tales game a Tales game, and that is always great. I’m loving the next-gen graphics and voiced skits. High five Estelle! Yay!

Sigh, been a little bit longer between updates. I’ve been streaming games when I find the time. After Symphonia 2, I got to work on Persona 4 which was AMAZING. I should have made a post about that long time ago but I guess I’ll fit it here. I don’t care who you are, but if you are reading this and own a PS2, pick up P4 when it comes out in December. Fans of P3 will be especially pleased I’m sure.

Hmm… I’ll add a bit more later. This is taking away from precious Vesperia time!