Ok, so first good thing : the gameplay is adequate, and menus are rather easy to browse, now here comes the pain...
With age come realizations, like when you understand that Japanese cartoons are made of cliches and stereotypes recycling themselves worse than the plot of a Steven Seagal or a Chuck Norris movie...
Anywhere you look, except some rare cases, too scarce to be counted on more than 10 fingers, Animu is about angsty teens (sometimes looking and acting like fashion-starved faggots) saving za warudo from a very evil Evil while whining about the meaning of life and friendship and weakly enduring humiliation without never imagining that strength also comes from kicking those who insulted you in the nuts before crushing their jaws, teaching them once and for all that NO, you're not cool with just forgetting he took your wallet and shot you on your back before you saved his ass from a 10-stories-tall flesh-eating mutant.
Add to this that your hero is an orphan and at most has his younger sister to care of, and you have the perfect Japanese hero :
a whiny ***** reluctantly forced into responsibility that will stupidly follow a predictably linear, predictables checkpoint-ridden predictable adventure, with "originality" only coming from some vague details, like how he will fight (summoning retarded proto-pokeymans, swinging giant swords in abandoned fields -how convenient, using elemental karate to harness the power of fire -PROTIP : if your hero is not wielding Fire, then he is NOT the hero, also dress him in red).
I might sound jaded, but the fact that the Japanese buy games to always do the same -aka repetitive treadmill-like quests starring angsty bitches whining they're not perfect enough while they're making meteors fall like rain, complete with the spunky, yet oh-do-feminine sidekick and predictable love interest acting as a support character ready to heal everyone and other cliches I won't list for fear of turning huge, green and starting to scream "NERD SMASH" while thrashing around the city...
It's annoying that, no matter what game you play, you feel like it's always the same, just the names and settings change ?
Well, welcome to Phantasy Star Universe, an MMORPG released on PC, PS2 and X360, aka "MOAR of the same bullshit, with more contempt from the developers".
First of all, the games demands an extra subscription in addition to XBL To play online. First bad move. Then the parties are limited to 6 characters. Too small... But I'm just criticizing from outside, I don't have XBL nor would I want it for PSU.
I'll just rant and foam at the mouth like a rabid Klansman seeing black people being successful on the first chapter of Story Mode, which basically incited me to find a bunch of Asian people and go apeshit on them.
The first chapter was a collection of all the angst and linearity of a lukewarm JRPG cliche, but with the same level of contempt for people who want to play than MSG4. I KID YOU NOT !
I had to wait almost half an hour before I could really play, instead of just watching painfully slow cinematics broadcasting mercilessly selfless characters using all the cliches you can imagine (down to the 3 bad brothers that are mainly weak cowardly retards acting tough, and that WILL FORGIVE YOU from teaching them a lesson for having stolen your sister's wallet, and you'll be OK with that... SRSLY WTF ?). Ethan, the "hero" hates the oh-so-cool GUARDIANS (some kind of super-cop-soldiers serving and protecting) because his dad was one and died on duty, and his mum died while birthing his sister (this cliche is so old and moldy that not even vultures wanted a bite out of it).
So here's your brash, 16yo fashion angsty kid trying to be a hero, but turning out to be a strungable retard that needs people to tell him what to do. Hooray, another irritating average plot...
Then the game hates it when you want to play, after all, it's so much cooler to throw in static tutorial screens written in a small font with an unintuitive navigation scheme... Oh by the way, the subtitles are WAY TOO SMALL during cinematics. Not that I needed them, but it's another proof of laziness and contempt...
And as such, everytime you learned something, the game stole the controls and had you sit and read painfully previsible dialogs and explanations... THERE IS A FUCKING MANUAL, I HAVE READ IT, STOP THAT !
Basically, the chapter is one-hour long thanks to around 40 minutes of hollow dialogues and a shoehorned, delaying tutorial...
So you're thrown into pedestrian, menial fetch quests involving killing OVER 9000 times the 3 same kinds of enemies until they drop the keycard, then progressing between infuriating loading screens EVERY 5 GODDAMMNED MINUTES.
Oh and of course, 2 of the 3 "bad dudes" (of course the 2 less evil, more retarded ones) will join you, asking you to play cool since you all need to escape, and after hesitating for about .0000000001 second, Ethan will yield and act like nothing happened.
A logical approach would have been punishing them first, teaching'em who's the boss, then only let them tag along, or maybe I'm just a bit too vengeful ?
And of course by the end you apologize to your tutorial instructor, a Guardian, by saying you were too harsh because YOU PARENTS ARE DEEEAAAAD, and he hints that you might make a fine Guardian yourself (yeah, just join the ranks and be a functional member of society, friendly, helpful, happy, productive, not drinking too much, A PIG IN A CAGE ON ANTIBIOTICS !).
And you save your sister who sobs "I knew you'd save me, I knew you'd be there, dear Brother".
Please, more stereotypes frosting on your cliches cake ?
If anything I could say that this game feels rare, but I thought "There's no way I'm riding this one to Bel-Air".
As I was typing I think I may have forgotten about half of what I wanted to say, but you caught my drift.
For a first impression, it was a terrible one that made me scream bloody gore, and feel like criticising EA is sometimes hypocritical, since the Japanese do EXACTLY THE SAME FOR TEN GODFORSAKEN YEARS NOW (for sceptics, read Encyclopedia Dramatica's articles on FF7 and FF8 -PROTIP : NSFW) !
PSU feels like another proof that since the death of the Dreamcast, SEGA has taken the solemn oath to half-ass every single game they make, to make it clear that they're as resentful as an emo kid being called a wimp on the intarwebs (ie SOOOOOO HUUUURT, I mean, WORDS ARE TERRIBLY HURTFUL MAN, WORSE THAN CURB STOMPING -yeah right, wanna compare ?)...
Thus, their games are disappointingly shallow, or unfinished, or even more ridiculous (I have no words describing Shadow the Hedgehog, except maybe EMO GANGSTA WHINY CYBER FURRY BULLSHIT)...
I can't see much to redeem the game, the protagonists are stereotypical cardboard-cutouts, the graphics feel soulless, the acting is flatter than a 2x4 and the gameplay is just bland, even the speech bubbles punctuated with portraits shocasing "emotions" feel tacked on, and displaying EXTREME emotions over menial details... Overcompensating is hard when you have nothing at all, and even if I'm having a hard time enjoying mumorpugers, at least there is no laughable, fighting-game bad plot... There is just a vague setting and you're set loose, on this regard, PSO was a much better experience, since you could play the race you wanted offline too, not a damned human with all other races reserved for online mode, which is another case of video game fascism... But I won't dwell on that, I've already sparked enough arsons, right ?
I like playing The Club every now and then, though, but that does not mean that SEGA is not looking like they're willingly humiliating themselves in public with every new release... And this... is the sign we should maybe euthanize the poor beast, it's obvious it's suffering too much...
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to playing other cliche-ridden, but less irritating games.
BONUS ROUND : if you identify all the references I have made, CONGRATURATION, A WINRAR IS YOU.
With age come realizations, like when you understand that Japanese cartoons are made of cliches and stereotypes recycling themselves worse than the plot of a Steven Seagal or a Chuck Norris movie...
Anywhere you look, except some rare cases, too scarce to be counted on more than 10 fingers, Animu is about angsty teens (sometimes looking and acting like fashion-starved faggots) saving za warudo from a very evil Evil while whining about the meaning of life and friendship and weakly enduring humiliation without never imagining that strength also comes from kicking those who insulted you in the nuts before crushing their jaws, teaching them once and for all that NO, you're not cool with just forgetting he took your wallet and shot you on your back before you saved his ass from a 10-stories-tall flesh-eating mutant.
Add to this that your hero is an orphan and at most has his younger sister to care of, and you have the perfect Japanese hero :
a whiny ***** reluctantly forced into responsibility that will stupidly follow a predictably linear, predictables checkpoint-ridden predictable adventure, with "originality" only coming from some vague details, like how he will fight (summoning retarded proto-pokeymans, swinging giant swords in abandoned fields -how convenient, using elemental karate to harness the power of fire -PROTIP : if your hero is not wielding Fire, then he is NOT the hero, also dress him in red).
I might sound jaded, but the fact that the Japanese buy games to always do the same -aka repetitive treadmill-like quests starring angsty bitches whining they're not perfect enough while they're making meteors fall like rain, complete with the spunky, yet oh-do-feminine sidekick and predictable love interest acting as a support character ready to heal everyone and other cliches I won't list for fear of turning huge, green and starting to scream "NERD SMASH" while thrashing around the city...
It's annoying that, no matter what game you play, you feel like it's always the same, just the names and settings change ?
Well, welcome to Phantasy Star Universe, an MMORPG released on PC, PS2 and X360, aka "MOAR of the same bullshit, with more contempt from the developers".
First of all, the games demands an extra subscription in addition to XBL To play online. First bad move. Then the parties are limited to 6 characters. Too small... But I'm just criticizing from outside, I don't have XBL nor would I want it for PSU.
I'll just rant and foam at the mouth like a rabid Klansman seeing black people being successful on the first chapter of Story Mode, which basically incited me to find a bunch of Asian people and go apeshit on them.
The first chapter was a collection of all the angst and linearity of a lukewarm JRPG cliche, but with the same level of contempt for people who want to play than MSG4. I KID YOU NOT !
I had to wait almost half an hour before I could really play, instead of just watching painfully slow cinematics broadcasting mercilessly selfless characters using all the cliches you can imagine (down to the 3 bad brothers that are mainly weak cowardly retards acting tough, and that WILL FORGIVE YOU from teaching them a lesson for having stolen your sister's wallet, and you'll be OK with that... SRSLY WTF ?). Ethan, the "hero" hates the oh-so-cool GUARDIANS (some kind of super-cop-soldiers serving and protecting) because his dad was one and died on duty, and his mum died while birthing his sister (this cliche is so old and moldy that not even vultures wanted a bite out of it).
So here's your brash, 16yo fashion angsty kid trying to be a hero, but turning out to be a strungable retard that needs people to tell him what to do. Hooray, another irritating average plot...
Then the game hates it when you want to play, after all, it's so much cooler to throw in static tutorial screens written in a small font with an unintuitive navigation scheme... Oh by the way, the subtitles are WAY TOO SMALL during cinematics. Not that I needed them, but it's another proof of laziness and contempt...
And as such, everytime you learned something, the game stole the controls and had you sit and read painfully previsible dialogs and explanations... THERE IS A FUCKING MANUAL, I HAVE READ IT, STOP THAT !
Basically, the chapter is one-hour long thanks to around 40 minutes of hollow dialogues and a shoehorned, delaying tutorial...
So you're thrown into pedestrian, menial fetch quests involving killing OVER 9000 times the 3 same kinds of enemies until they drop the keycard, then progressing between infuriating loading screens EVERY 5 GODDAMMNED MINUTES.
Oh and of course, 2 of the 3 "bad dudes" (of course the 2 less evil, more retarded ones) will join you, asking you to play cool since you all need to escape, and after hesitating for about .0000000001 second, Ethan will yield and act like nothing happened.
A logical approach would have been punishing them first, teaching'em who's the boss, then only let them tag along, or maybe I'm just a bit too vengeful ?
And of course by the end you apologize to your tutorial instructor, a Guardian, by saying you were too harsh because YOU PARENTS ARE DEEEAAAAD, and he hints that you might make a fine Guardian yourself (yeah, just join the ranks and be a functional member of society, friendly, helpful, happy, productive, not drinking too much, A PIG IN A CAGE ON ANTIBIOTICS !).
And you save your sister who sobs "I knew you'd save me, I knew you'd be there, dear Brother".
Please, more stereotypes frosting on your cliches cake ?
If anything I could say that this game feels rare, but I thought "There's no way I'm riding this one to Bel-Air".
As I was typing I think I may have forgotten about half of what I wanted to say, but you caught my drift.
For a first impression, it was a terrible one that made me scream bloody gore, and feel like criticising EA is sometimes hypocritical, since the Japanese do EXACTLY THE SAME FOR TEN GODFORSAKEN YEARS NOW (for sceptics, read Encyclopedia Dramatica's articles on FF7 and FF8 -PROTIP : NSFW) !
PSU feels like another proof that since the death of the Dreamcast, SEGA has taken the solemn oath to half-ass every single game they make, to make it clear that they're as resentful as an emo kid being called a wimp on the intarwebs (ie SOOOOOO HUUUURT, I mean, WORDS ARE TERRIBLY HURTFUL MAN, WORSE THAN CURB STOMPING -yeah right, wanna compare ?)...
Thus, their games are disappointingly shallow, or unfinished, or even more ridiculous (I have no words describing Shadow the Hedgehog, except maybe EMO GANGSTA WHINY CYBER FURRY BULLSHIT)...
I can't see much to redeem the game, the protagonists are stereotypical cardboard-cutouts, the graphics feel soulless, the acting is flatter than a 2x4 and the gameplay is just bland, even the speech bubbles punctuated with portraits shocasing "emotions" feel tacked on, and displaying EXTREME emotions over menial details... Overcompensating is hard when you have nothing at all, and even if I'm having a hard time enjoying mumorpugers, at least there is no laughable, fighting-game bad plot... There is just a vague setting and you're set loose, on this regard, PSO was a much better experience, since you could play the race you wanted offline too, not a damned human with all other races reserved for online mode, which is another case of video game fascism... But I won't dwell on that, I've already sparked enough arsons, right ?
I like playing The Club every now and then, though, but that does not mean that SEGA is not looking like they're willingly humiliating themselves in public with every new release... And this... is the sign we should maybe euthanize the poor beast, it's obvious it's suffering too much...
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to playing other cliche-ridden, but less irritating games.
BONUS ROUND : if you identify all the references I have made, CONGRATURATION, A WINRAR IS YOU.
