Is there a collectors edition available?

Good For you! You bought it! :D
/Phaethon360 joins Blue Dragon Party
/Level Up

:)

I'm starting to feel that this game is hurt really badly by poor animations in the cut scenes. Anyone else annoyed at how often they are reusing animations, for Kluke especially? They keep using that animation where she holds her hands up to her chest for EVERYTHING. They also aren't animating the eyes enough to get across correct emotions most of the time (ex. Jiro always looking pissed off even when he's trying to be polite).

Damnit, they have done so many cool things with this game but it looks like amatuers were responsible for important things here and there.

On a more positive note I think they have done a pretty good job with Maro, hes cool hehe.

Nah i just think thats the way they wanted her to be, showing a kind of shy, innocent look.

I do agree that facial animations can be a bit static though, but the faces are flat with textures, so there are no way of having moving polygons because eyes and such are just painted on.

Well that is a good point.. I think it would have been smart to look into other possibilities for facial animations then because it really hurts some of the more serious scenes thus far.

I too want to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are intending to create that image for her through reusing 1 animation over and over, but like Shu, I think they are beating you in the face with such surface level qualities in their character.

I dunno, I'm gonna keep playing but so far I think they are missing the mark badly in their acting abilities (except maro).

ok in blue dragon, anyone know where the medicine is that you have to find for your new companion murimuro or something like that in the ancient ruins in the medicine lab?

No worries I will be getting Halo 3.., its one of the few FPS I don't mind playing.

Wasn't there suppose to be a dungeon creator added to the game through DLC? Or am I thinking of something else?

No there was a random dungeon download thingy, but so far i think it is only avalible to Japan.

Holy shit is the gamespot review just the most unfair BS ever?? A 6?!?! Cookie cutter and with and bland environments? No way! It's very detailed and the graphics are nice. I have to say it isn't that great of an RPG game, and can be repetitive at times, but that review makes it out to be worthless game.

Man such an awesome damn game. Reviews couldn't have been anymore wrong about this one.

The story is more than fine so far there is always a very good reason to progress or continue on from what I've seen so far. They made it seem like there is absolutely no context to go with the crap you are doing in this game. It seems they were going for a pixar like story and they totally nailed that and then some with strong japanese flavor.

The characters are most definitely not annoying or unlikable (playing in japanese with subtitles) not sure why a number of reviews said such things. Marumaro is pure gold so far. There haven't been any major revelations in the story thus far yet, but at the same time it makes total sense for there not to have been any as of yet. I'd still say I'm pretty early into the game and the ramp up I'm seeing so far is pretty nice. The difference between the wasteland type area where you fight your first boss and everything I've seen afterwards is such a drastic difference almost night and day I'd say. Wasteland seems more tutorial than anything. It just always feels really good and refreshing to arrive at a totally new village or destination. Just that fact there is a nice plus for this game.

Disagree just as much with that 10+ hours to get to the good stuff comment from IGN and other sites as I did before.

Maybe what they meant to say was the game in its later hours is better than the game in its earlier hours, but those earlier hours certainly aren't a bad jrpg experience and certainly not boring. The game is very easy, but it isn't affecting my enjoyment of it in the least because I'm just having a lot of fun with the game. Love playing around with all the different abilities as I get them or adding new accessories to the characters. Really addicting to say the least.

It's almost as if the demo and this game honestly isn't even the same game. The way they just gave you so many damn abilities and stuff to mess around with in the demo totally took away the satisfaction of earning them on your own. None of the crap in the demo feels like its yours because it isn't. Far more fun to shape your characters as you see fit. The problem with the demo is it gave the impression that everything is totally the same. Nothing felt different enough. Plus of course there is the reward of arriving somewhere new.

Hell even from the very first moment you see Nene early on in the game there is a very simple comment he made that has significance to a major event in the game later so it really does feel pre-calculated as opposed to make up as you go. If one weren't paying attention or just couldn't stand the game from the get go some would've totally missed it. Nothing super deep, but the game is great so far and the little interactions between the characters more than add to the experience.

Thank god there are some reviewers out there that actually understood the game and didn't write it off. At first its addicting to go around to and fight every enemy or check just about everything, but once you get that out of your system you'll settle in more. I just started thinking about it in the sense that I don't go around looking for fights in ff7 or ff8 so why should I in this game? When I feel like grinding to improve some other classes I'll do just that, but before then I don't see the need.

Another big surprise for me is the performance. In the wasteland area at the very beginning there was the minor hiccup, but nothing at all that detracted from the experience I thought. (likely due to all the fog and what not), but since leaving that area performance has been damn near flawless. So i totally understand when some people say the performance problems are rare or not a problem. Who knows I may run into areas later on that aren't so smooth, but if I do it isn't too big of a deal since as I said doesn't take away from experience.

Not sure if its just from not touching my friends japanese version in quite a while, but the us version seems to be more smooth for me thus far. Areas where I expected to see some tearing or sign of slowdown.. they were nearly non-existent in the us version and if I spotted any it didn't last very long. The game is totally as expected thus far. Played for 3 and a half hours straight before having to stop to take care of some stuff :)

Also a very big plus love to see that some of the character dialog seems to purposely make fun of the certain things said. When Shu says something that seems as if its a bit of a desperate attempt to look cool kluke calls him on it.

Music thus far is fantastic as well.

Can someone sign me up with the unfair review team? Thank you.

I am playing this on hard and kinda wish I wasn't. It is certainly more of challenge, but I find myself wishing I could progress faster as it has taken me 25 hours to get to the end of disc 1 and I am not sure I can finish the series of boss battles there without some more grinding.

Yea hard is a bit TOO hard.

Easy is just right because what I've noticed is that unless you fight enough enemies you'll only get away with easy battles for so long until you find yourself in some serious trouble.

This game is just so nicely done.

What I dont seem to remember is did we have the option of selecting hard at the beggining ? I dont remember. anyway, Im up to 40 hours now and I can feel the end is near! awesome, Im enjoying the game so much! :D

Yep if anything the very beginning wasteland part after you crashlanded your mechat is the weakest part of the game. Was just talking to phaeth on xbox live. He was having trouble with that boss on that area. Just told him to bare with it cause that entire section to me feels as if it was made by a different dev team. Compared to what comes after that first boss fight the quality is leaps above the earlier sections pretty much.

I wouldn't blame someone for thinking little of that first wasteland section even though I enjoyed it quite a bit. Once I got myself out of fighting every enemy in sight and checking every tree or rock it was all good from there :)

Everything after the first boss fight is awesome to me and shows just how amazing the game is. It didn't take me too long at all to get past that area, but it apparently took phaeth 4+ hours so I'm guessing it took IGN or those other sites just as long too which is why they have such a heavy negative view of it? Because they were stuck in the least impressive part of the game (atleast in my opinion so long?) I my case I wasn't in that area very long at all.

The game is just full of surprises. Loving it. Microsoft better greenlight a sequel to this game. It's so amazingly well done for a first attempt. It needs to officially become a series because the potential for this thing is huge. Its already obvious how this game will be different from Lost Odyssey, but if Lost Odyssey.. just get excited thinking about it. I've loved what I see from LO so far though.

I was pleased to see how much the momentum picked up at the end of Disc 1. Now onto disc 2... which btw I'm wondering, will I need disc 1 for any reason later on? Is there nothing stopping me from letting my brother barrow it to start the game?

No probs at all your bro can use disc 1 to start the game. You'll never need disc 1 again unless you decide to start over.

The entire game world is on all 3 discs.

well ok, finally got the game earlier today. Been playing nonstop, and I've come to the conclusion that Marumaro is the F'in stuff and anyone who bad mouths him will be cut by a thousand blades.

Also, any previous post of mine that was speaking negative about him in anyway was not typed out by me, but by hackers. Evil hackers.

YAY! kenshin joins the party! :D

Thats another thing I really like about the game and it doesn't usually get credit for.

For everything reviewers complained about the game itself made sure to point it out make fun of it as well. In a number of situations Jiro or kluke surprised me by asking the exact same questions I was wondering about at the time. Kluke asked maru that question at exactly the right time lol.

There is a part in the game where Shu gets all overly dramatic and is like everyone stick close to me in a situation where such actions weren't immediately necessary and Kluke is like "Stop trying to act cool" and I instantly thought thats exactly what I was thinking lol. Its subtle, but enjoyable. Even shu makes fun of himself from time to time without realizing it.

Oh and Phaeth definitely take advantage of rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings they add so much power to characters.

I got some really nice accessories early on and they've been a major impact for me thus far.