The Insane Asylum

Winner of the 49th round of Articles of Excellence. Originally a 360 release, Eternal Sonata made its appearance on the PS3 and Gamecube Guru gives us his insight on what makes this such a compelling RPG. A colourful vision backed by a more involving battle system and classic staples of the genre. Check the source to see more.

 Eternal Sonata     Score: 4.7/5
 Genre: RPG
 However, with an epic soundtrack, colorful anime-inspired visuals, coupled off with an
 excellent story and a very engaging battle system, Eternal Sonata comes as
                  recommended to anybody, especially those into JRPGs.

quote Gamecube Guru

Haha, 360 loses another exclusive.
Ported from the 360 over to the PS3, Eternal Sonata manages to maintain the awesomess from the 360 version, and add a few big drops of awesomesacue to the PS3 version to make it worth your money if you have both. Now, the PS3 isn't that loaded

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Winner of the 48th round of Articles of Excellence. Vergil Ties dives into one of the most well known RPG series with a review on the PS2 game Final Fantasy X. Amidst the lengthy cutscenes, turn based magic fueled battles and over the top special killer techniques the resulting opinion provides a hesitant recommendation. Check the review to see the full reasoning behind this.

 Final Fantasy X     Score: 3.5/5
 Genre: RPG
 That’s not to say that Final Fantasy X is a BAD game,
 but rather, just a boring one.

quote Vergil Ties

One game that the PS2 needed to carry Sony’s legacy of excellent RPGs over to a new console was Final Fantasy X. It had everything: Cutting edge graphics, seemingly epic storyline, excellent soundtrack and some high quality cutscenes amongst a different sort of leveling system and old school turn based gameplay. It could’ve utilized what it had to make a game that wil

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Winner of the 47th round of Articles of Excellence. Dark Arcanine gives Neoseeker's book section some much needed attention with his review of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. His impression is a largely positive one that recognizes the improvements made from previous books in the series but with note of certain writing flaws. Go to the review to see his full reasons.

 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban     Score: 4.4/5
 Genre: Fantasy
 Overall, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is an excellent book which unlike the other two, even has an acceptable length.
 As such, it’s a welcome addition as the best book yet in world of Harry Potter.

quote Dark Arcanine

Introduction:

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third instalment in the Harry Potter book series. Having now survived Voldemort three times, Harry is developing quite the reputation. The question is will

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Winner of the 46th round of Articles of Excellence. Having already sampled the SRPG waters of the DS with Luminous Arc I opted to play this PS2 upgraded port after hearing some rather good things. It's a good game too, but some odd design choices weaken the final experience.

 Disgaea DS     Score: 3.8/5
 Genre: Strategy
 The campaign mode itself is quite large, and then throw in the bonus Etna mode and the multiplayer
 battle system and you have a worthy game in your hands.

quote Insanity Prevails

I'd already heard a fair bit about Disgaea DS before I picked up the game. It has been praised for being a witty excellent take on the SRPG genre, with various gameplay features cited as defining factors that separate it from the crowd. So my expectations were put a bit high when I slipped the game card into the DS and turned the power on. My conclusion? It's good but not as great as I had hoped, as

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I love RPGs. Perhaps the idea of taking turns like gentleman to attack may seem odd to those more involved in more action focused titles, but the genre holds great appeal to me. However, even I must ponder what lunacy drives some of the genre's more common traits. Today I would like to discuss the concept of having allied player characters snatched from you.

This blog post will contain spoilers for some rather old games.

Techincally I could use spoiler markup, but I don't want to.

Anyway, some RPGs seem to have this rather annoying trait of snatching allies right out of your hands, and often without warning. It may be an important plot point, a test of skill or done merely for the lulz on the part of demented designers. It almost doesn't matter why though, because the very action almost wants you to dive in and start smashing things personally.

Some RPGs are on the lesser end of this frustra
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The last time I played a Castlevania game it was way back on the NES. Can't remember exactly which one but I do remember getting stuck on a boss that had a head-like thing that bounced around. It was a hard game I never finished.

Now on the DS I hear about these newer Castlevania games. The series is said to still be quite hard so I decide to try it out once again.

Well, the game certainly is difficult. Perhaps not 8 bit difficult - especially since I can easily spam healing items simply by stockpiling cash and unloading it all at the local shop - but it's certainly a step up from other DS offerings. I died. I died a lot. Every boss so far has killed me at least once, but usually more. Even generic enemies can be quite challenging when you're being rushed by mobs of them and that has led to a few deaths where I got careless.

One irritating aspect is when fighting enemies near the edge of an
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Figured this might a nice addition to my user reviews - providing some thoughts on first impressions I get from playing games, and seeing if my opinion stays the same as I continue to play.

The one thing that concerns me right now about Rune Factory 2 is the fairly poor NPC interaction. One of the strengths of Animal Crossing was that the NPC villagers were varied. There were limitations, but they did cycle through quite a number of phrases and would randomly mention different items or people. By comparison Rune Factory 2 feels very weak, as most people so far just seem to repeat the same phrase or two all the time. Granted they do say other things if I give them something or pick a bulletin board task, but I want more variation when I just chat to them, so that chatting to them feels more than being something I have to do.

Must admit that the actual range of tasks seems more impressive th
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2004, the year of the monkey for the Chinese calendar. This year was home to many important and memorable events. Facebook was first founded at Cambridge, Massachussetts, which would go on to be a big factor on the Internet of today. The New England Patriots defeated rivals Carolina Panthers 32-29 at Reliant Stadium to win the Super Bowl. NASA launch MESSENGER, a probe whose purpose is to study the various aspects of Mercury. 2004 was also home to another important event, as it was this year that Kokoro (formerly Rikkulover) deigned to register at the Neoseeker website; a member whose contributions to the website in many forms have been most welcome.

To begin with I feel compelled to discuss the visual style Kokoro comes with, and this can be broken down to several different aspects. First of all is the choice of graphical style Kokoro blesses the site with. It's fair to say that appr
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