This weekend was a good one, I actually got to relax for once.

I played F-Zero, F-Zero-X, Star Fox, Star Fox 64, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Metroid, Super Mario 64, Ice Climber, Mario's Tennis, ActRaiser, and Super Mario Galaxy. Stole Katamari Damacy from my girlfriend as well, so I've been playing that a ton. Such a fun game.

Yup, it was a good weekend. Played a little of everything. Then the Giants won and that made it even better.

(That was a great game(the Super Bowl)...kind of tense at the end, but what an awesome end...whew.)


I stumbled across a beta-test game...I didn't realize it until I got to the site, but it was a Nexon game(publishers(makers?) of Maple Story), and I actually went into it.  Beta-Testing is only open at certain times however(for Eastern, about 5pm~12am), and it ends on Tuesday with full character-wipes/deletions.

It's called 'Mabinogi', kind of emphasizes this sort of 'do whatever YOU want' mentality, but ultimately everyone seems to still end up fighting at some point, and more than likely buying a lute to try to play(but I can't seem to).  It's an okay game, but I have a bad feeling that instead of being 'free, but you have to pay for awesome-looking items', I'm almost sure it'll be a subscription type of game just to connect since I never noticed any sort of pay-shop listed separately.  If that's the case, it's definately not a game worth paying for if you ask me....it's more or less an anime-version of WoW(which I haven't played, but I know some of its features), but VERY VERY watered down in terms of content.  Otherwise it's cool...just probably not worth paying for.  I'll see what the deal is once the beta-testing ends, whether it's pay or not, and how much it is....but yeh, even if it's just 8~10 bucks a month, it might still be too much.


Otherwise, I dug out Smash Brothers 64 and started playing that(yeah, guess why, huh), and I hafta say it's still a very respectible game, although sharply limited in features even compared to SSBM, let alone Brawl.  Still pretty cool tho'.  Worst part is, I'm getting my butt kicked even on Normal difficulty...that's not a good sign for Brawl really.  I'm gonna hafta dig out Melee and play through that a little too...but then, I want to finally finish getting 120 stars in SMG(11 to go), so I dunno.  We'll see what happens with that...

Nifty. It's never too late to play a great game, and Mother 3 definitely is a great game.

Even though I still have trouble seeing the GBA as a "Legacy System," I suppose most people consider it so now (and I believe Hen said it is as far as these boards are concerned, and it's her board after all), so, feel free to discuss your playing through it in this thread as well. While I'm definitely not an expert on it, I can try to help a bit if you get stuck anywhere or anything too.

It's, as I said, a spectacular game. Glad you got the chance to get it and play it.

Yeah, I love Mother 3, and it's a spectacular game, but, there were a couple of areas where I felt that it fell short of Earthbound, and didn't give quite the same experience. Not that that means it's a bad game, of course. After all, Earthbound is my 2nd-favorite game ever, so, aside from Chrono Trigger, for every other game released I feel that it falls at least a bit short of Earthbound. It's a tough game to live up to. Still, regardless of that, it's still a great game, and, especially toward the end, it really does get its Earthbound connections going. We can discuss all of that more in detail once you finish the game though.

In any event though, yeah, for anyone who enjoyed Earthbound, it's really a game that shouldn't be passed up. Yeah, it being in Japanese makes things less convenient. Still, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and, as I said, having played through it a couple of times now, I'm enjoying it without even giving much thought to the language issue (although, believe me, if it ever did come out in English, I would be there on the first day to get it).

Oh, and just a random note which I didn't know until my previous time through, which would have helped me immensely if I knew it: In battle, you can press Select on any of your items to get a description (and picture) of it like you do outside of battle. Previous to realizing that, in battle, I had just been relying on my memory of where particular items were and my limited ability to read Japanese for the item names. Being able to see the descriptions and pictures makes things so much easier.

Oh, don't worry about that. I mean, there is a "What's running across your screen" thread on just the general Gamer's Basement board (which was the first gaming board to be here), but then, when this board got created, I made this thread here, and, as one would imagine, this is the place I've spent most of my time. It's not like there are any really hard-set rules about what can be discussed where (don't think Hen's going to come in here and ban us all for off-topic discussion or anything  ), so, most anything that I've been playing I've been discussing in here anyway.

Yeah, needless to say Chrono Trigger is my favorite game ever, so, while I talked about it being hard for any game to live up to Earthbound, Chrono Trigger's the only game that even comes out on top of that. So, while I love everything about Earthbound very much, Chrono Trigger is just that one notch higher.

As you said, most RPGs (or turn-based ones anyway) do have it where battle is on its own particular screen, so, while it is of course very nifty that Chrono Trigger does it the way it does (again, just being that extra step above everything else, for that and many other reasons), I'm just used to battles being on their own screen where I don't really think about it too much. If one likes the battles to take place right where you were fighting though, I'm sure there are other games which do it, but, as far as turn-based RPGs go, can't think of another one off the top of my head. (Well, Dragon Warrior 1 kind of. The enemy pops up in its own screen, but, it's just overlaid on top of where you were exploring. Also, some Tactical games, like Shining Force and such will have things laid out where you were exploring. Other than that though).

Other than that though, if you're not as into that sort of standard RPG mechanic, yeah, Earthbound really wouldn't really be the sort of thing which would do anything dramatically different to set it apart. It does some other things, like having enemies visible on screen (which Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG also do, but with the majority of RPGs just being random encounters), but, other than that.

Regardless though, RPGs of this sort just aren't the sort of thing that appeal to some people, and there's nothing wrong with that. Everyone has different tastes in games, and, if one just isn't fond of that type of game, it could be the most wonderful game in the world to people who like that type of game, but for someone who doesn't, it still might not be appealing; and, as I said, there's nothing wrong with that.

After buying the first two(like an idiot), I just didn't really want to get the "third" one......but I wish I'd just gotten Turbo and THEN The New Challengers instead of getting World Warrior at all(I didn't know if they'd release anything really, so I got the first one that came out).  The New Challengers I want if only for Cammy, although I don't even know if she plays well for me or not(I just like that it's more 'complete' than the others since it's practically the most 'recent' SFII).  It's sad(?), but I always play with femme-fighters, so having at least one more might help I guess...?  I dunno.

Confusing text-order-and-parenthesis aside, I don't QUITE have as many SFII memories myself, but I seem to like the game pretty well.  I don't know one fighting game that I'm especially GOOD at though...I frequently float between being able to pull off moves and not being able to do them at ALL, especially stuff like spinning-bird-kick's button-pattern...I never seem to do that until I do it by accident.

I dunno, maybe if I ever got a stable income some day I'll go for it...I hear it's not as fast as Turbo however, but ah well..

Anyone here heard of/played Torneco? It's in the dragon warrior/quest family of games.

Alex has been playing it A LOOOOOOOOOT lately. It looks pretty cool. I like watching the baddies die