Rose Cross Review's of Video Games and Anime (etc.)

Well I am going to start with the most recent game I completed,

Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk

When I first got the game I was kinda skeptical of it, fearing that all the reviews of it were true and the game would suck. While the game is not as amazing as its predecessor it is still a game worth playing. You play as Emil Castagnier a boy whose family was wiped out in Palmacosta when Lloyd, the hero of the previous game led an assault on the city. He ends up living with his Aunt and Uncle who despise him saying he is a dreadful child. The town, Luin, that he lives in at the start of the game practically worships Lloyd. Emil is saved by Richter, a traveler, from being bullied for refusing to swear allegiance to Lloyd. He then follows a monster howl down to the riverbed to meet Marta a girl with a strange red jewel on her forehead, the story then picks up from there.

The combat system keeps with the typical Tales of Genre, with the same basic system with the addition of the element board. I found it to be a well made addition because it affected who could attack in the unison attacks. I also liked the Overlimit system being based on the unison attack bar rather than an overlimit bar that would make the character invunerable to being stunned during the activation of the bar. It added an additional challenged that I liked. The monster capture system will make you feel reminecent of Pokemon, which kinda got on my nerves because it made me feel like I was playing Pokemon rather than a Tales of game.

Emil while being a weak character grows on you towards the end when he begins to stand up for himself. Marta is an okay character but she becomes slightly shaken toward the end of the game due to plot reasons. Richter was okay but he was too generic almost and reminded me slightly of Kratos. I am not a big fan of some of the changed they made to the returning cast, specially in regards to Lloyd. The game overall is good and I would recomend playing at least one time. I give it a fair 7 out of 10

Alright now for an older game. This time I am reviewing The Legend of Dragoon for the PS1.

Overall I bought this game on a whim, I hadn't even really heard about it, this was before I was a major gamer. But on playing it I found the game to be AMAZING, before you ask no the game is not in anyway shape or form related to Final Fantasy.

The beginning of the game has a village burning down, at first I was lost, then it goes to the raider camp, with this badass dude in armor, standing over a girl they had seized during the raid. He holds a sphere over her head and it glows doing something to her forehead. Then a man in a cloak approaches and says nothing. The general, armor man, asked if the raid was necessary, all the cloaked man said was that the Emperor of Sandora ordered her capture and that the reason was none of his concern. Anyways, The Empire of Sandora, IS not your cliche evil empire blah blah blah over used rpg evil empire. They are just a nation on the penisula of Serbia, moving on, the game actually starts after this introduction. It has a overview of a large forest with a woman in black watching it for something. In which a dragon comes out of the forest and begins to head towards a specific direction the woman follows. Enter our protagonist Dart, generic sword wielding main character, kind of different considering he is not a teenager. Dart is returning to the village of Seles, the destroyed village, when he is passed by Sandoran Soldiers who threaten him thinking him to be a mercenary. They run when the mantis, in appearance, dragon appears and thrashes at them, Dart begins to run and is barely getting away from the monster, when the woman shoves him off the road behind a rock. The mantis dragon losing track of its prey leaves, Dart thanking the woman, leaves immediately when she mentions a village being burned down. Arriving to see his hometown destroyed, he ran down to try and save some villager's and gets in a fight with Sandoran Soldier's and their Commander who are occupying the city. After saving the few surviving villagers they tell him that Shana, the girl that was kidnapped, was taken by a cloaked man to Helena prison. Thus begins his quest to save Shana from the prison. The story expands from there. This is roughly the first 30 or so mintues of the game.

The combat system, is pretty good. The addition system is amazing and adds some interactivity into the combat rather than just pressing the attack button constantly you have to time attacks to build combos, they allow you to get more money, exp and better item drops. Some of the bosses at times prove to be bitches. The hardest boss roughly will be the Virage's you fight roughly 5 of them in all if you do the optional one. My only bone to pick with this game is the antagonist switch out toward the end of disc 4, to put it bluntly you will not see it coming no matter how good you are at predicting typical surprises in games, The game is good because it goes away from a lot of the typical cliches and tries to explore some new better ideas, and does a good job of it. I highly recommend this game to anyone, I give it a 9 out of 10.

Here's a shot at an Atlus game for the PS2: Steambot Chronicles

I got this game when I seen it in a game magazine. It looked kinda neat its a mech game and I thought hey it might not be too bad.

You start off you answer a couple questions to kinda decide your starting clothing and effect your ending. Then the game starts, you are on a beach and this girl is standing over you, my first assumption is maybe your on vacation but then I see the smoking ship and that kills that idea. You get up and apparently you don't remember who you are, yes the generic amnesic protagonist but he is not silent which was amazing considering its an Atlus RPG. Well you talk to the girl a couple times and then go to leave and a mysterious blue mech shoots a bolder and traps you there. So then you have to find another way out, thus you get your mech with the girl following you. You find a mech and move the boulder, once you leave you end up finding out you have to take the girl farther to the nearest town for her to get to a concert or something (apparently shes a songstress or something).
You fight a massive mech that some bandits planned on using to attack the town your heading for and move on.

This game is not so bad except for the interesting names of the characters, you play as Vanilla Bean, the heroine is Coriander or Connie, along with a whole cast of people that are named oddly in correspondence with spices or plants. You really don't have a primary rival in this game. A good point about this game is you basically can make a variety of choices, you can be a total jerk or be the generic RPG Hero, or you can be the primary Antagonist. Either way the one man that you probably wont be able to beat unless you are very lucky would be Elder. He is a mysterious man you encounter multiple times, white clothes and mask, he is probably your toughest opponent though you only fight him if you can get to the top of the tournament event which happens at the mid point of the game.

The controls are okay, dual joystick movement can make the game a tad bit challenging to play but in all its not all that bad, combat is amazing, and customization of your mech also adds to the fun of the game. But not alot of the parts are all that great and alot of the good parts you can't make till free mode.

Overall the story I would say is about average, the heroine is always hoping that you are someone you aren't and keeps trying to cast the image of her dead friend on you. There are times that she is definately annoying (big surprise there an annoying heroine). Then even after you regain your memory of who you are she still continues to compare you to a dead person. Then when and if you confront Elder and discover his identity, and no he is not the dead person, she freaks out and rants about the his identity till the cutscene ends and when you come back a year later after traveling, begining free mode, you end up having to hunt her down if you want access to the rest of the sidequests, too bad she couldn't even see you off when you left. I give this game a 6 out of 10 there are some cliches and moments that annoyed me too much to be able to enjoy this game but at the same time there are times the game is amazing.