2010-07-30, 01:33 AM
I played Betrayal a couple times at least beginning to end. It was actually my first real PC game as a kid afaik.
I've been really enjoying Grandia lately. The artwork anyway is worth putting up with the usual CRPG monotony. The NPC count is really high. It feels like the place is really alive but it's probably the first such RPG like this where I've not made a practice to exhaustively seek out every bit of NPC dialog. The NPCs almost never say anything important anyway, so it's not like talking to NPCs is required by any stretch (except when it's obvious)
Because of all the NPCs and because it's available in the US PSN store I purchased the translated game and am playing that one. The voice acting is not weird but it feels like random people were just pulled off the street and given one shot at each line. I don't know if that is more distracting than a crap voice actor trying to act or not. The atmosphere is really un-japanese, the character names are English even in the Japanese game more or less and it doesn't totally feel like a Japanese game that much. It could've been an 80s saturday morning cartoon in the states (even though all of those were also made in Japan!! Even GI.Joe for example afaik)
I will play the Japanese game if I play it again sometime. Funny thing is, after I did the research/decided if I want to buy/play this game or not, like a week later even though the game had been in the US stores for a long time, a promotional trailer was released as a movie download. So I would've ended up playing Grandia either way it seems?! I love PSN because I like spending 6~10$ on a game that'll probably be at least 80hrs of enjoyment. I wonder if the game industry has lost its mind though, outright giving people 80hrs of a good game for 10$ (in Grandia's case) when really they want you to be spending 60$ apiece for three 20hr games instead
I've been really enjoying Grandia lately. The artwork anyway is worth putting up with the usual CRPG monotony. The NPC count is really high. It feels like the place is really alive but it's probably the first such RPG like this where I've not made a practice to exhaustively seek out every bit of NPC dialog. The NPCs almost never say anything important anyway, so it's not like talking to NPCs is required by any stretch (except when it's obvious)
Because of all the NPCs and because it's available in the US PSN store I purchased the translated game and am playing that one. The voice acting is not weird but it feels like random people were just pulled off the street and given one shot at each line. I don't know if that is more distracting than a crap voice actor trying to act or not. The atmosphere is really un-japanese, the character names are English even in the Japanese game more or less and it doesn't totally feel like a Japanese game that much. It could've been an 80s saturday morning cartoon in the states (even though all of those were also made in Japan!! Even GI.Joe for example afaik)
I will play the Japanese game if I play it again sometime. Funny thing is, after I did the research/decided if I want to buy/play this game or not, like a week later even though the game had been in the US stores for a long time, a promotional trailer was released as a movie download. So I would've ended up playing Grandia either way it seems?! I love PSN because I like spending 6~10$ on a game that'll probably be at least 80hrs of enjoyment. I wonder if the game industry has lost its mind though, outright giving people 80hrs of a good game for 10$ (in Grandia's case) when really they want you to be spending 60$ apiece for three 20hr games instead