I don't get how Arithmeticks works. I have a character who knows a ton of spells but no matter how much Arithmetick I teach him, he can't use any of it Belias keeps beating me and I have no options to just leave and train my characters and come up with some kind of strategy...I'm about ready to just quit

Ha, I was getting helped out by a friend already. I managed to start to enjoy the game until I kept losing to Belias even though I'm 10 levels higher than him I'll finish it eventually.

Nah, I believe you're thinking of the PSP port of the first game. I'm playing the sequel to the first game on PS2.

Thanks for the review! Yeah, some of the gameplay sounds like something that would make it a game I play when I have nothing else to play - like you said, not a must-buy right now. I do think it was one of the underrated series from Square. I wish they'd done more with it earlier.

Yeah, I mean, I just take my time with it. By "marathon" I don't mean like a rushed playthrough or whatever, it's just more like a theme for the year. My friend and I have been sitting down and playing through various Zelda games dating back to last November, and as of now we've really only beaten the first four Zeldas - Z1, Z2, LttP, and LA. Ocarina of Time I did on my own since I got the 3DS remake and we've both played the game before.

I've beaten Majora's Mask before - in fact, it was just last year, but my friend hasn't ever played it, so I want to play through it for him.

Yup, you just described Redemption's predecessor, Red Dead Revolver was pretty lame. Not because I was expecting Rockstar to pull a sandbox on that game, mind. Even as linear, mission-based third-person shooter, it had a lackluster mechanic and controls. Not to mention the setting felt like a parody-gone-wrong of the Wild West, the opposite of Red Dead Redemption.

I don't know that many western games to call it the best of its kind, but it's a pretty fun game. A bit repetitive, still more fun than those other sandboxes.

Thanks for the link!

How was the 3rd Birthday compared to the other Parasite Eve games?

Yep, but the guy says "Nanaki is Nanaki," regardless of what you name Red.

It would be even sillier if you changed Red XIII to Nanaki. Cloud would act confused for no reason.

Yeah, there is a lot of "side" information, but it is what makes it interesting imo! You learn about the characters but some dialogues gives you info on other stuff... like that painting of the dog!!

Phoenix Wright was my first game of this type, so it kind of have a special place in my memory. I was hooked right away!! I'm taking my time doing the whole serie, and I should be starting the 4th one pretty soon... although if it doesn't have "Nick" in it, I dunno how I'll feel about it! Meh...

Alright, so maybe you won't hurt me if I don't end up liking them. But I'm still wearing metal gloves just in case you do feel like breaking my fingers. Not only will it protect them, but that'd be one super effective counter neck chop.

200 to Plat FFXIII? Took me 80 hours :X Although I sure as hell didn't get every variation on every Ultimate Weapon and max them out, but I might try it when I get around to playing it again in the future.

Usually when playing RPGs, I'll always try to go out of my way, talk to every single person, explore every single nook, cranny, and then when I see nothing else to do, continue on with the main story. Then as the game wears on, I do less and less of it. Worse is when games have timed events, so after every minor plot point, you have to go back and talk to every single NPC again to make sure you don't miss out on anything. I always found permanent missables as bullshit, even if you try to use the 'replay value' defense.

As far as a single file is concerned, I believe the RPGs I've put the most into was FFVII, Oblivion, and all 3 Disgaeas (and certainly the 4th one in a couple of weeks *squee*), Pokemon Pearl. Of course FFVII's timer maxes out at 99:59, so I don't know my -true- playtime, but I know Pearl I think I have a 235hour file. But collectively, across all of time, I believe FFVII certainly holds the crown for the most time spent playing. I played it through from beginning to end countless times. And I even had the PC version, so although I really had unlimited save space, I kept writing over the first save file.

Yeah, I'm amazed I even managed to beat DW7 when I did, because when I did, we didn't have internet. So I went it solo the whole way through. Took me about 80 hours, which is about the longest I've ever taken to beat a single game. Well, when I first played Chrono Cross, I was around the 80 hour mark, and still only on the first disc. I got lost as all hell and gave up. Only after picking it up again later did I ever beat it.

I'm hoping to enjoy alot of the games we've been talking about. I usually end up hating almost everything, but I won't judge it until I give it a fair playthrough (although "fair playthroughs" for truly terrible games can be as long as 20 minutes lol) But when / if I ever do around to those games, I'll be sure to let you know what I think (or maybe not, if you're one of those people who are overly defensive about games you really like. I still like having my fingers be not-broken.)

I had Dark Cloud 2 at one point, but I traded it and a couple other games for a replacement PSP and some PSP games, and never got around to picking it back up.

I picked up both Steambot Chronicles and Radiata Stories a long, long time back. Back when if a game didn't hold my interest long enough after the first half hour or so, I just stopped playing it. Well, I've yet to ever even touch SBC, but I played a touch of RS. I'm not saying RS is bad, I don't remember it being bad, I would remember something like that. It just... I dunno. Hard to explain. This of course doesn't mean I'm never going to get around to playing them. I will. Just a matter of when.

And as far as Level-5 games, as far as I know, the only one I've ever played and beaten is Dragon Quest VIII. And that game was sex on a stick. (Although that can mean two different things, whether you're the stick or the one having sex on it.) It was great. I played a wee bit of Rouge Galaxy, but like RS, I didn't play it long before not touching it again. I believe someone's gifting me White Knight Chronicles 2 for my birthday (You're only 6 days late; not too late to send me something too!) I'd be more inclined to pick up the first, but the trophies are stupidly hard D: But WKC2 has WKC1 in it as well, so perhaps I won't miss anything.

But yeah, apologies I can't give any real opinion on those games yet :P I usually like to play only a console or two at a time, and those are currently Wii and Xbox. I'm sure PS2 will come up soon. Way too many games I bought for it I've yet to ever even test to see if they work.

Thank you, good sir. I always try to please. Although usually attempts to please usually follow with people saying 'Please get away from me, creep'. How did they see me? I don't know, I tried to conceal myself in the shadows. But no luck.