Status: Completed Alone ending and all Souji Okita endings

My weakness for feudal Japanese tales always gets the best of me. Slap in the “Choose Your Own Adventure” twist and a bevy of hot samurai and you have won my love.

Set in the late 1800s, Chizuru sets out from Edo to search for her father. Their letter correspondence ends suddenly and worried for the only parent she has, Chizuru makes her way to Kyoto hoping a friend of her father’s can shed some light on the issue. When she finds herself witness to one of the shogunate’s dirty secrets, Chizuru finds herself a guest in the home of the Shinsengumi, defenders of Kyoto from the unruly ronin who now roam the country.

The Shinesengumi are not only trying to protect Kyoto from the unruly ronin, they are also fighting to keep the ways the Japanese have always known. The world around them is shifting to adopt the ways of the Westerners and heading towards a purely Imperial rule. They soon discover a supernatural force is aiding the Imperialists, demons who seem to know something about Chizuru that she doesn’t.

The setting for Hakuoki may seem like something out of a Lian Hearn novel but it is important to remember that this game is ultimately more about the wooing than anything else. You may be disguised as a young man to keep you safe, but you are living with some of the hottest men Kyoto has to offer. There are five men from the small handful who know your true identity for you to cozy up to: Hijikata Toshizo, the commander of the Shinsengumi; Souji Okita, master swordsman always ready with a joke; Sanosuke Harada, a real softy under is tough exterior; Hajime Saito, the quiet Iai master; and Heisuke Toudou, the youngest and most headstrong of the Shinsengumi captains.

Chizuru’s tale follows set events that will be slightly altered or presented differently depending on which actions you choose for her. Certain potential suitors will prefer one response over another, with positive actions for that particular man highlighted with cherry blossoms floating before them. For example, one of your first choices in the game will be to either find a way to escape or attempt to explain your situation to the Shinsengumi captains. Choosing the first option will help sway a couple of the men to your side and the opposite will do the same for the other two. It is important for you to decide who it is you wish to pursue early on so you can focus your attention on that person. I also recommend saving right before making your choices (which is easy to do seeing as you can save at any time after you’ve been captured).

For my first time through, I didn’t particularly focus on any specific suitor, although I had been making some progress with the boyish Heisuke before trying to see what would happen if I switched focus halfway through. Needless to say I ended up with the worst possible ending: being alone. There is nothing worse than getting the worst ending possible, but I looked at it as getting that one out of the way early and picked a target for game number two: Souji Okita.

With Souji in my sights (and with the help of a poorly translated walkthrough for a couple of scenes), I was able to weave my way to his various story endings. I started with the happiest one, and then went back to make changes where I needed them to see the others. This time through I met characters I hadn’t in my first attempt at happiness and learned new things about Chizuru. I was more than satisfied with this happier ending.

There are up to nine chapters for you to experience in Hakuoki – determined ultimately by the choices you make in men. At the start of Chapter Four you will find yourself traveling with the person whose ending you will most likely see. Because of my choices in my first game, I ended up traveling with the one non-Shinsengumi love interest of Chizuru’s, but due to the path I took, I did not get that character’s ending or unlock his Chapter Six synopsis in the Records of Service. The Records of Service are located in the main menu and show you which stories you’ve unlocked along your way. Souji’s story went seven chapters long; the longest is Hijikata’s at nine.

One of my favourite features of Hakuoki is the ability for the player to “rewind” a scene to a certain point in the chapter, allowing them to replay an event or backtrack without having to save to quickly change the decision you just made. It also helps if you’ve been button mashing to scroll the text faster and end up missing some dialogue because the line is shorter than you think. That happened to me quite a bit, seeing as I am a fast reader and letting the text load itself was slower than I liked.

Hakuoki also proves a handy encyclopedia of terms of the people, places and Japanese words used in the game. You’ll notice that as you experience different versions of the story, new words will be added to the glossary. Another bonus is the Theatre in the Media section which allows you to re-watch endings you’ve unlocked.

Overall Opinion

There aren’t many visual novels available in the North American market for consoles or handheld systems, as what few there are tend to be PC/MAC only, so Aksys took a bit of a risk in bringing Hakuoki over here. Not to mention that this is a game geared toward the female otome genre fan, narrowing it down a touch further. But otome fans who are starved for English translated games will enjoy having a portable game to keep them entertained for hours as they explore the various relationships available to them. And it doesn’t stop there, as there is a whole slew of anime which spawned after the release of this game in Japan for us to watch as well.

Which I will get around to, just as soon as I finish unlocking every ending.

Purchase Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom on PSP from Amazon

I just can't get away from spiders in video games

Status: Finished all levels on Casual and Regular (unlocked Hard-core mode), finding that I am awful at earning Medals (I have 2 of 24)

PixelJunk Monsters was one of the first PSN demos I gave any time to. Thanks to my time as a part of Sony’s now defunct Gamer Advisory Panel, I’d been aware of Q-Games new tower defense title for the PSN and was anxious to try it out. The demo gave me a small taste of what life would be like if I owned the game and I was excited for more. But I was working in video game retail at the time, and the amount of new games I told myself I needed every week kept pushing PJ Monsters to the back of my mind.

But I never forgot about it completely. It was on my video game wishlist on Amazon for a reason – even if years had passed, I still wanted that game. I was lucky enough to finally get my own copy of PJ Monsters Deluxe for my birthday, and promptly popped it into my PSP where it remained for 3 and a half months. I played it in the car, on the couch while watching TV, and even in bed instead of reading a book to help me fall asleep. When I wasn’t doing housework or playing Persona 4, PixelJunk Monsters was all I had on the brain.

PJ Monsters features three islands and a combined total of 47 levels, with difficulties ranging from Easy to Hard as you progress on each island. By clearing a stage without losing any of the little Tiki babies, you’ll earn a Rainbow. You’ll need  these in order to open new areas on each island. Earning rainbows isn’t always easy, but play a level a couple of times to find the best  spots to place the towers you’ll need to take out the enemy. And if you become obsessive about it as I did, you may just find yourself striving to perfect every stage because you’re just that anal about it.

So many towers!

The backbone of any tower defense game are the towers you have at your disposal. At the start of each level, certain base towers will be unlocked, such as the Arrow, Cannon and Anti-Air Gun. Other towers in your building wheel need to be unlocked by collecting blue gems dropped by the enemy or hidden among the trees. Once you have the gems you need to unlock a new tower, head over to the Tiki hut to unlock it. You’ll have to unlock these towers every time as they are not a permanent unlock. Some of the more unique towers will require completion of a particular level before they will show up in your building wheel, so don’t worry if you think you’re missing something.

Upgrading your towers can be done two ways: spending blue gems or dancing in front of them. Spending your rarely obtained gems will help you power up towers quickly but takes away from your ability to unlock new towers. Dancing takes more time but helps you save up for those more powerful towers. Each tower’s flag has five stages: base blue, yellow, red, purple, and finally black. Once you hit black, you’ll have the most powerful version of that tower with the best range it can get. Depending on the sort of level I am playing, I may power level one or two towers early on immediately around my hut as a last line of defense. The only way to figure out your best move is to play often and watch the movements of the enemy. A tower will also get a small boost of leveling when it successfully kills an enemy.

Some levels in the main section of the game will throw challenges at you, like the monsters won’t drop coins or gems so you need to be wise with what you have. This really enforces some creative strategizing with tower placement and getting the optimal range in the designated level. I love the challenge, even when I have to restart the level six or seven times because I placed a tower in a bad spot.

One challenges dares you to not cross the bridge

And then, if you haven’t driven yourself crazy trying to get rainbows on every level, you can venture to the Tiki Hut from the main menu and take on up to 24 different challenges. These challenges unlock once you’ve cleared the level in the main game. So far I’ve been able to knock out two of these – one which dared me to complete the level without a single flag upgrading to yellow, the second a Scrooge challenge where I was tasked to clear the level with over 10000 coins. Sadly, I haven’t figured out the winning formula to the other twenty two challenges just yet.

Overall Opinion

Even after spending hours upon hours with PixelJunk Monsters, I find that going back to it for “just one level” ends up turning into hours. I believe that is a sign of a truly enjoyable game. There are few of these more casual style titles in my “Completely Addicted” list, Ninjatown and Plants vs Zombies being the other two. And just when I thought I had weened myself off of the PJ high, Q-Games went and put a version of PJ Monsters on Facebook . Needless to say that just pumped fuel back in my fire tower.

(As of posting this, PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe for PSP is on sale for $3.99 on Amazon. $3.99!!!! You cannot go wrong here, people.)

You can buy PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe from Amazon or the original game and the Encore expansion on the Playstation Store

Watch out! The snowy levels are slippery. You don't want to slide into the monsters.

Status: Starting 3rd movie Coop, playing 2nd movie single player
Achievements: 15 of 40
Gamerscore: 252/1000
DLC Purchased: None

There is just something so perfectly nostalgic about LEGO. You never really grow out of playing with them, building castles, ships, or giant dinosaurs. When LEGO first gave us LEGO Star Wars, I wonder if they thought it would become this successful and lead to such a library of titles. Now here we are, playing LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean barely a week before the fourth movie hits theatres, doing my best to avoid playing On Stranger Tides so as not to spoil the movie for myself or my husband.

For anyone unfamiliar with the LEGO video game library, these games take family friendly movie franchises and LEGO-fy them. All characters are created using the standard LEGO body shapes, while piles of blocks can be destroyed and/or rebuilt to make items that will help you in your environment. There is no voice over work, just grunts, shouts, sighs and other generic audio clips to convey the story alongside cut-scenes and key in-game moments.

LEGO Pirates can be enjoyed as a single player or by playing cooperatively on the same console. I’ve always wished that LEGO titles could be played via Xbox Live or PSN, but they like to stick with single console play. All four movies (Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End, On Stranger Tides) are included in the game, each one broken into five chapters. When you begin a new game, you will automatically start with the original movie adaptation. Once a chapter has been completed in Story Mode, it will open up Free Play and allow you to take whichever characters you have unlocked with you to scour the level for items you may have missed (or had been unavailable).

For the most part, LEGO Pirates is straightforward. Smash stuff, build with loose LEGO bricks, fight off the bad guys, look for hidden areas, recruit new characters. Each level also contains hidden Mini-Kits (10 in each) which, once all 10 pieces have been collected, you can set afloat in the Port area. Some of these Mini-Kits will require you build or destroy X amount of a certain item in a chapter, so always be on the lookout for jumping bricks or unique destructibles. As Jack, you can search for 8 unique items in each level, some of which you will have to locate to progress the game, others which are just there for fun. To do so, pull out Jack’s Compass and follow the trail to discover these goodies. And of course, there is the title of True Pirate, which is earned once you reach varying Stud totals in each level. Finding all Compass Items, earning True Pirate, finding all Mini-Kit pieces and completing a chapter in Story Mode add to your Gold Brick pile, enabling you to build gadgets around the Port, and open up new areas for you to explore.

You will want to collect as many of those Gold Bricks as possible, as there are Red Hats littered all over the Port for you to discover. These Red Hats offer in-game perks that you’ll need to remember to turn on at the start of every gaming session you play. From multiplier Hats (I currently have a 768 times multiplier in my coop game), to Invincibility and Water Breathing, switching on the right Red Hats can be the extra bit of help you need in finding that last Compass item or opening a secret area filled with treasure.

Playing with Will and Bootstrap Bill Turner (Dead Man's Chest)

Almost every character you collect in LEGO Pirates comes with his or her own special ability. Jack can use the Compass, Will can throw axes, Bootstrap Bill and Clanker can ooze through green barnacles. Some can walk underwater without fear of oxygen loss, some have big guns and others can shatter glass with their “singing”. Knowing who has what special ability is crucial for unlocking some of the secrets contained within this game. And make sure you’re collecting those Gold Bricks so you can gain access to the Custom Editor.

LEGO Pirates is definitely not without flaws. Other than the fact that Xbox Live/PSN multiplayer is still not supported, there are a couple other problems I have with the game. First of all, the split-screen gets down right ridiculous at times. Depending on where you are on the map in relation to your partner, the screen will divide in half either horizontally or vertically (normal enough) or on a weird diagonal, making it almost impossible to figure out where you are. Not only is this awkward to look at, but if one player is aiming at a target on one side and the other player moves even a tad, the first player’s aim is lost. There have been many occasions in which my husband and I are yelling at the other not to move so we can target something.

Another big point of contention is having too many playable characters on the screen at once. This became a huge issue in Chapter 2 of Dead Man’s Chest and navigating Calypso’s swamp. With five characters on the screen all trying to do the same thing at the same time, it becomes super frustrating to move. As an example, there is a narrow walkway that you create at one point and everyone jumps onto it at the same time. If one character gets stuck at a junction and is at the front of the line, everything comes to a halt and you need to force others off the walkway or try to jump over them. This can lead to a lot of “dying” in the marsh and is just poorly done. Another spot you need to jump across to perform a task, which would be easy enough if the AI wasn’t trying to force every other character to go with you and push you off the extremely narrow floating debris you are using to cross the gap.

And then there is the camera angle. It’s fixed, meaning you can’t control what you see on the screen. So if you can’t quite make out how far you need to jump to land on the next floating chunk of wood, get used to “dying” until you get it right. Frustrating for sure, but once you get used to the fact that there is nothing you can do about it (and enable the Invincibility and Fall Rescue Red Hats), you can stop threatening to throw your controller at the wall and just do your best to figure out how to finish the level.

Jumping With Jack (Curse of the Black Pearl - Chapter One)

Overall Opinion

While it hasn’t really done anything new for the LEGO game series, LEGO Pirates has been a great coop game for my husband and I to play together. We’re fans of the movies, so replaying them in this fashion together is an enjoyable experience. I feel more compelled to pop this game back into my system than I do LEGO Batman, and I was really pumped for that one when it first came out. There have been some rough patches in figuring out what to do next and trying not to hit up a strategy guide for help, for sure. But I know that once my husband gets home from work the first thing he talks about isn’t what’s for dinner but when are we going to play some LEGO Pirates.

Purchase LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean for your favourite system from Amazon

Status: Maxing out the Archer Uberhero skill tree, have unlocked other skill trees

It was beginning to feel as though it would be months before I would have a review of sorts for Patapon 3 together, what with the whole PSN debacle. With no Playstation gaming service and no one around to play ad hoc with, my poor Patapons were being worked to death, replaying low levels over and over again, grinding for cool weapons and attempting to level up as many classes and skill sets as I possibly could. But with delay after delay on PSN services coming back online, I figured I would stop waiting for it to happen and just write about what I was able to do with the game. So here it is.I’ll be completely honest: I skipped Patapon 2. It wasn’t available on UMD and at the time the memory stick I had for my PSP was extremely tiny. I also prefer physical media formats, but since I couldn’t afford to import a disc from Japan I just never played through the story. Which meant that for this third game, I needed to do some YouTubing.

The Patapons opened a mysterious box that turned the tribe to stone. You, the Great and Almighty Patapon savior, manifest yourself as one of these lovable eyeballs in order to free them from this cold entombment. Thanks to a silver Hoshipon, you are now the Uberhero, ready to defeat the Seven Evil Spirits unleashed from the box. You will have aid from Tan, Kon, and Chin (three Patapons that were freed from the stone) and Hatapon, your flag bearer. When you begin a new game of Patapon 3 you will need to select the primary weapon style your Hero will wield. The available options are Spear, Sword and Ranged. I chose Ranged weapons for my Hero to start adventuring with, and eventually was able to access all three types of arms.

Sword: Orange / Spears: Blue / Ranged: Green

In addition to the three weapons styles, you can also learn classes within each discipline and unlock new skills that can be combined to make your team powerful. For example, as a Ranged Patapon I started out with the Yumiyacha class, the basic archer wielding a crossbow. As I leveled up this class, others in this discipline unlocked for me. Like the horn tooting Wondabarappa who blasts sounds from his horn as his attack, and the Pingrek, a healing Patapon who can freeze enemies but more importantly heal your party when you use the right combination of songs. Leveling up each of these classes will unlock more classes and open up more skills you can equip. Let me tell you, having Antifreeze or Fire Resist skills in levels that are freezing or desert-like sure do come in handy.

Patapon 3 remains true to it’s rhythmic roots and plays just like it’s predecessors. Banging out the correct drum combinations, you’ll direct your Patapons to march, attack and defend as you visit new locations. Most of these missions can be played solo, however there are a few special missions that will require you to team up with other Heroes via ad hoc or PSN play. As well as your standard missions, there is also the added Battle Ground locations, where you will take on the evil Dark Heroes you’ve been chasing and fight them using mini-games: Race, Missile Range and Capture the Flag.

New to Patapon 3 is accessorizing. Before you created Rarepons by making them with rare materials, but now you can choose what weapons and armour your little eyeballs march around in. New items can be found in chests in each level, sometimes for clearing the level, others for taking down the enemy. Weapons and gear can be upgraded using Ka-ching and materials at the Blacksmith, and upgrading one type of weapon in your own Smithy to level 11 will make it an Uber Weapon. You can only have one type of these at a time, so if you decide that you want to change from an Uber crossbow to a sword, your other weapon will drop back down to level 10. However, weapons upgraded at other Blacksmiths when joining a multiplayer game will retain their levels, encouraging you to get together with friends. There are some items that cannot be upgraded in the Blacksmith and only obtained in battle. These will have an orange background in your menus and have special names.

Treants really don't like fire....

Another important change to make note of is that when in Fever mode you no longer invoke Miracles. Instead you call on Djinns, who will resurrect any fallen comrades, heal up the party, and provide some groovy Fever music for you to bang on the drum to (not all day, just for 10-20 seconds or so). You’ll bang out some powerful attacks with lots of Oh!s, Yeah!s, Ah!s and Uh!s to launch at offending monsters. Out in the open, your Uberhero will rejuvenate himself over time when he is defeated, but in dungeons using the Djinn is the only way to bring him back. Inside and didn’t summon a Djinn before you finished a floor? No worries. Your unused summons stay with you, meaning you can have up to three of them for the last floor in a dungeon with three levels. Outside you’ll only have one summon, so make sure you use it wisely.

Now for the not-so-fun parts. There will be grinding – lots and lots of grinding – in order to level up your classes, unlock new ones, and get loot. Once you rank higher than the recommended level for some missions, you won’t earn any EXP for successfully completing it. If you have little to zero patience for grinding, then do not play Patapon games. The other downer is that you won’t learn the Pause Song right away. You have to find it. The song can be found in the March and Jump Practice at the Practice Grounds, but you need to march those Patapons pretty far in order to obtain it. I’ve made several attempts and just can’t seem to reach it. I really wish they hadn’t made it so tough to get.

Overall Opinion

While it really is more of the same, Patapon fans like myself will devote hours to leveling up our Heroes and farming for loot and items. The humour is still here, the story continues along the same path it has been for the past three and a half years. It remains a catchy, fun and sometimes frustrating title that is appropriate for all ages and really evolves with the multiplayer addition. Since the PSN went down shortly after I was able to get my copy of Patapon 3 connected to the service, I haven’t had enough time with the multiplayer to talk about this game mode. I hope to rectify this as soon as the service is stable and back online and will share my thoughts on it at that point in time.

Purchase Patapon 3 from Amazon

Multiplayer supports up to 4 Heroes

Status: Completed one playthrough on Easy reaching level 21 in 11hrs 37min, the second on Normal reaching level 29 in 11hrs 21min

Over a decade has passed since gamers last saw Aya Brea and her clone/daughter/sister Eve (a relationship that confuses many). 3rd Birthday begins with Aya having no recollection of her past, found in a blood stained wedding gown outside St Peter’s in New York. She is recruited by the Counter Twisted Intelligence team and using her special Overdive ability, they hope that her special skills can help the world defeat the Twisted Invasion as she relives past events, that with each Dive she alters history for the better.Fans of the Parasite Eve franchise have been impatiently waiting for this third installment for years, and I fear that with the exception of the most hardcore PE fanatics, 3rd Birthday didn’t resonate with me the way I was hoping it would. I was expecting a spattering of puzzles and upgrading all kinds of cool abilities…. What I got was something way too repetitive, lacking in variety, a substandard and predictable plot, and a scantily clad heroine with a voice that got on my nerves quickly.

Let’s start by getting down and dirty with the story behind 3rd Birthday. At the start of the game, all Aya can recall about her past comes in the form of a dream – a couple standing up in a church as they exchange vows, a girl standing in the front pew watching as the bride (supposedly herself) and groom are gunned down. Aya doesn’t know who these people are, if they really exist. The outbreak of the Twisted began shortly after Aya was found in the street, taking over New York City first, then spreading all over the world. With the Overdive system now ready to use two years later, Aya jumps into the past taking out as many of the Twisted as she can and slowly unlocking pieces of her memory, right up until you finish the incredibly short game.

Obviously, as Aya recalls more of what happened that fateful day, the world around her changes. People who died during her Overdives no longer exist even though Aya remembers them clearly. Some of them even have completely different histories than those Aya remembers. The key people in her life have been taken over in these dives and are eventually referred to as High Ones, entities fighting off the Twisted for their own survival. They have strong interest in Aya and her abilities, trying to stop her from fully piecing together the truth.

When you read all of that, it sounds like there is a lot of substance and material to work with. And there is. It could have been a really great story. Instead, it was a mere six episodes, with the majority of the story telling limited to the very beautiful cut-scenes. The big twist (insert groan here) in the final scene was something I had pretty much gathered by the time I’d finished Episode 3. Maybe it’s just because I watch a lot of Japanese TV and read a lot of translated fantasy and science fiction, but I was hoping for so much more. Plus, it’s a Square Enix game. I love Square and the writing is usually so top-notch. It breaks my heart to find that this time they let me down.

The second most important aspect to a game is always how it plays. What are you doing in the game and how many neat things can you do keeps us engaged and looking forward to what move or ability we’ll discover next. Aya has two abilities: Overdive and shooting things. Shooting things should be pretty self-explanatory. You have access to handguns, automatics, sniper rifles, satellite cannons – all available for a price. Aya always carries her issued handgun and you can choose two more weapons for her to take with her.  Spending the BP you earn defeating the Twisted to upgrade and purchase weapons as you level up is imperative. Some upgrades will help you fill up your Liberation gauge sooner which helps with Overdive attacks.

Aya vs Roller

Overdiving can be a blessing or a curse. Since Aya’s consciousness is sent into the past and not a physical body, she dives into the men and women available on the battlefield. In order to stay alive, she needs to jump from one body to another before the host dies or to access different areas of a map. Each body offers a fourth weapon to Aya’s arsenal and sometimes that fourth weapon is what it takes to blow the Twisted to smithereens. The Liberation Gauge (like a Berserk meter or Limit Gauge from later Final Fantasies) can be triggered once full, making Aya’s attacks stronger until the gauge runs dry, great for taking on some of the tougher non-boss Twisted. Aya can also perform an Overdive attack. When the enemy has taken a certain amount of damage, an orange triangle will appear in front of them. By diving into the enemy you can rip large chunks of health from the inside out. This type of attack also gives Aya the opportunity to find new chips she can place on her Over Energy circuit board, customizable circuitry loaded into whichever apparatus Aya is using to relive the past. Placing chips on the boards and combining them to enhance Aya’s battle techniques is important. Some combos will replenish health or make it possible to heal allies while some chips can cripple her.

Then there is the voice acting. Not the worst voice acting I’ve ever heard in a game, but not the best, either. The three central characters, Aya, Eve and Kyle, are all voiced over by actors I watch on a weekly basis during the regular TV schedule. My biggest problem with Yvonne Strahovski’s Aya was all the moaning and groaning she makes during battle. It quickly gets on your nerves when all you hear from her outside of cutscenes is that noise. If it wasn’t so dominant, if they had scaled it back a lot, it would not have irritated me so much. But there is just too much of it in the game, and it is a real turn off. I’ve heard Jensen Ackles do better (Batman: Under the Red Hood, anyone?) and some of his lines just sounded choppy. The surprise was Molly Quinn (Alexis from Castle). For her first foray into voice acting, she did a decent job. A bit rough around the edges but that’s to be expected. Nothing against any of these fine actors, but I wish the gaming industry would stop pursuing screen actors for voice over roles. Not all of them can do it well. Sure, they might be huge gamers themselves, however that does not mean they can pull it off.

Aya’s support characters weren’t a hell of a lot better. It’s another one of those times when I am left to wonder just how many times the script was read before everyone was thrown into recording and if a voice director was even present. You know, I bet if that moaning and groaning had been cut down to a third of what there was Square probably could have left the Japanese audio track in.

Seems like so far all I’ve done is rip on the game. Why did I bother playing it a second time if there were so many flaws, you ask? Well, like I mentioned at the beginning, I am a Parasite Eve fan and I wanted to make sure that I give a fair assessment of the game I just convinced my husband was worth pre-ordering. It’s not like there is zero fun level. If that was the case I definitely would not have attempted another run. 3rd Birthday has several unlockables, most of which will require playing through several times to collect. There are the fanservice-y outfits that take damage and overtime make Aya look like she ran them through a paper shredder before getting dressed. A shower scene you can access if you perform certain feats in each Episode. (Oh, those shower scenes!) Cheat codes for bonuses you can purchase with whatever BP you haven’t put towards upgrading your arsenal. 3rd Birthday is chock-full of reasons why multiple playthroughs are the main reason for purchasing it.

Overall Opinion

Knowing what I know now, I would still have purchased 3rd Birthday at launch. Yes, it was a disappointing story, I was once again let down by sub-par voice acting and no Japanese audio track. But the replay value of 3rd Birthday and desire to have every single weapon maxed out is what keeps me going back for more. If this had been a console release, I would be screaming at you to avoid it until it dropped in price. Thankfully, I don’t have to do that. If you’re not a fan of the Parasite Eve franchise you really should pass this over. Unless you love mindless shooting and checking out hot video game girls who wear Santa suits into battle. In that case, you might be able to enjoy the game for what it is – fanservice.

Purchase 3rd Birthday from Amazon

By day, you are a typical high school junior. You go to class, make friends, participate in school clubs and work part time for some extra spending money. By night, you and your dorm-mates enter into a time known as the Dark Hour where you battle your way up the looming tower Tartarus in hopes that you can right wrongs belonging to those who came before you. The story of Persona 3 still holds up as one of the best and most enjoyable titles I have had the pleasure of wasting away my time with the JRPG category over the past few years.

P3P strikes a wonderful balance between grinding in the randomly generated levels of the Tartarus dungeon and enhancing your Persona-wielding life-style with extra-curricular activities. Exploring Tartarus and defeating the Shadows lurking around each and every corner brings you closer to ending the Dark Hour for good. Making friends and creating strong bonds with them is what brings additional power to the Persona you create to assist you in your quest.

Unlocking Personas is like catching Pokemon. Once you start, you just can’t stop! When you first enter Tartarus you’ll only have the inherent Orpheus available. As you defeat Shadows you’ll be able to hold more Personas acquired by obtaining special tarot cards. The further you climb to the top of Tartarus, the more powerful the cards you can find. Visiting the Velvet Room, a mainstay of the Persona franchise, you’ll want to fuse as many new Personas as possible, with some instances requiring up to six Persona cards in a fusion.

Featured in this new handheld version of the game, P3P now allows you to chose between a male or female main character. Social Links with classmates and other residents around Port Island will differ depending on which you choose. While the overall story is the same, it’s the little things that impact you will remember your high school days.

Social Linking with Yukari strengthens the Lovers Arcana

This being my second time through the story of the SEES group, I chose to experience life at Gekkoukan High School as a female student. Choosing the female option, your cursor and other icons are a soft shade of pink as opposed to the blue for the male option. I joined several clubs, including the volleyball team and student council, making a lot of wonderful female friends. I also spent time after school hanging out with fellow SEES members Junpei and Akihiko in an attempt to get closer to them. With the female character, you can also choose if Igor’s assistant in the Velvet Room is the beloved Elizabeth or the new male option, Theodore.

The one aspect of playing with the female character that I was most interested in exploring was seeing if it was possible for her to date the guys around her much as the male character could in the original. I spent nights slaving at Chagall Cafe either working or just having the Pheromone Coffee so that I could increase my Charm to a level that would allow me to build my Social Link with the dreamy and sought-after Akihiko-senpai. Sadly, there was no smooching or hand holding to be had. Once I had maxed out the Social Link, Akihiko was not to be found in his usual spot Monday and Friday afternoons in the Lab Hallway. I was unable to find any information to see if I had done anything incorrectly, which means my poor high school crush on Akihiko will forever remain just a crush.

Atlus has also included the part-time job option which allows you to earn some money while increasing your Academic, Charm and Courage skills. Before you could only enhance these skills by studying, correctly answering questions during class and spending money at certain establishments. While you can still simply spend some money and do so, working at a shop helps boost two of these areas at a time as well as pocketing some money to help by that fancy new weapon you’ve got your eye on.

My favourite new additions to P3P are the outrageous outfits to stuff into my wardrobe. It’s an added bonus that your characters really do wear these in Tartarus. My favourite was the Battle Panties, a white bra and panty set with matching knee-high stockings giving the wearer a plus two stat bump to their Magic skills. Santa suits, bathing suits and maid outfits are other special apparel you can collect.

Other tweaks to P3P include bringing two new difficulty modes, meaning you now have five degrees of difficulty at your fingertips, as well as the much desired battle command control as was offered in Persona 4. Using the Tactics option from your in-battle menu, you can now set parameters for those members currently part of your team. This option can only be accessed when you are controlling the main character and gives you a much better handle on those tough bosses.

Use the Battle Menu to set Tactics for your AI characters

P3P is not a perfect port of the original PS2 title. Due to the limitations of the PSP disc, the anime cut-scenes have been replaced with game graphic voiced over scenarios. I do miss them, but it is a small sacrifice to make in order to have everything else introduced to this version of P3. Also excluded from P3P is the additional content The Answer which was released with Persona 3: FES.

Overall Opinion

Since P3P arrived at my doorstep I have done nothing aside from spend all day on my PSP. Even in my sleep, I am thinking of what extra-curricular activities I want to do over the next school week, figure out how many floors in Tartarus I want to climb and which types of Personas I need to create so that I can get the best of the best for the inevitable final battle. Looking for something to waste countless of hours on? Then this is your game, as you can grind and grind to your heart’s content. There is so much content on this disc that it’s about to burst at the seams. Do yourself a favour and buy this game now. Buy it for a friend, too. Share the love of the twisted darkness that is Persona with as many people as you can.

Buy Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable from Amazon today!

Hexyz Force provides you two main characters to play through the story with: Cecilia Armaclite and Levant von Schweitzer. Both characters are Hexyz, re-incarnations of divinities from the dawn of Berge’s beginnings, and each have their own unique story leading them on a quest to tip the scales of Berge’s fate. Atlus truly provides a 2-in-1 roleplaying experience with this amazingly fun and humourous title.

And while Cecilia and Levant each have a unique story, they are not completely separate of each other. At several points throughout their journeys, the two Pillars will meet as they share a similar goal. One story told by the actions of two heroes. Both sides with vibrant, lovable and friends and family fighting for their futures.

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Cecilia’s Story

My first playthrough was with the lazy and slightly ignorant Cecilia, a cleric in the Temple of Palfina who’d rather spend her time staring up at the sky than studying. Her destiny confronts her one afternoon when a thick miasma descends on the Temple, bringing with it monsters and a mysterious evil creature leading them. Suddenly, she is enveloped in a magnificent white light and transported to the Holy Vessel, the source of Force, and informed that she is a Hexyz – a reincarnation of the divine Palfina. She inherits the Staff of Palfina (Holy Riafalt) and is given the task of tipping the scales back towards that of Creation in order to save Berge.

Cecilia reluctantly sets out to gather Force from the Monoliths that keep Berge’s enemy sealed away, with her furry friend Ralu and another Hexyz, Raffi, as her companions. Along the way she will cross paths with races unknown on her side of Berge, meeting both friend and foe from both sides of the Black Precipice.

Levant’s Story

On the other side of Berge, someone kills the fiance of Levant’s ruler, destroying hope for peace with all races on Dark Berge. The death of his beloved suddenly changes Axel, and he commands his armies to purge the land of the Elves, Lycans and all others who seek to destroy him. Levant cannot understand what has happened to his friend, and when he assists those Axel accuses of killing his fiance, Levant is marked and sentenced to death for treason.

Spirited away from the dungeons by Irene, half-sister to Axel whom Levant swore to protect, and a Lycan named Greik, Levant seeks out the truth of what happened that night in the Elven Forest. For he is one of the Pillars, wielder of a holy Ragnafact hidden and protected by the Elves for centuries.

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One of the key components of this game is the use of Force. Force is the energy of Berge, both Creative and Destructive, that flows naturally throughout the world. The Hexyz can utilize this power to search for hidden items, strengthen weapons, open doors and create walkways using Force Scan. Force is gained along with Experience Points at the end of each battle.

The Hexyz characters also wield special weapons bestowed upon them by the divinities they embody. These weapons, Ragnafacts, can be strengthened by infusing them with Force, enhancing three developmental properties. Each Ragnafact can learn a wide variety of combat, healing, and support actions. These are automatically designated as you infuse more and more Force into them. Of course, the tougher the enemies you fight, the more Force you will obtain. At times, not all characters in your party will have Ragnafacts, either because you haven’t located them yet or that particular character cannot wield them.

Additional weapons and accessories are created by combining various materials, sometimes with a dash of Force for good measure. These materials are collected by enemy drops after battles, looting chests and finding Harvest spots. From the Fusion option in the menu, you can create Forcefacts (disposable weapons with limited durability), accessories to protect your characters from head to toe, and special materials used for making stronger items.

Cecilia uses her Ragnafact's healing powers in battle

Hexyz Force utilizes a turn based battle system, featuring Force Burst as a special technique for the Hexyz you control. When equipped with a Ragnafact that has a strong bond with your Hexyz these Force Burst abilities are accessible. In order to use them, the Burst Gauge must have reached the minimum level required, ranging from Level 1 to 3 (the max), which slowly fills as you attack or take damage in battle.

Upon completing each Phase (aka-Chapter) of the game, Creation and Destruction points will flow into the scales of the Holy Vessel. Your actions during each Phase are tallied up and will add to the weight on both sides of the scale. Completing side quests and selecting the correct dialogue responses during conversations are a part of the scoring. General rule of thumb – the first response leans to Destruction, the middle for neutral, and the last response adds points to Creation.

Hexyz Force features several fully voiced over anime cut scenes, as well as an intriguing story filled with informative and entertaining dialogue. Everyone knows that a good roleplaying game needs a solid storyline and engaging characters, which Hexyz Force truly brings to the table. They also did an amazing job ensuring that both stories meld together harmoniously, with no discrepancies between the two that I have encountered thus far. I find myself so easily lost in the story that my PSP battery dies often. There hasn’t been a PSP title that has had that affect on me in a while, and it was an absolute delight to spend so much time with a fresh roleplaying game.

Rafael admonishes Cecilia for acting impetuously

Overall Opinion

This is definitely a game hardcore JRPG gamers will want to invest the time and money into, as well as gamers looking for a great new RPG title for the PSP library. With two stories to play through and several sidequests and areas to explore for rare items, you are easily getting at least 50 hours of game time out of Hexyz Force. Aside from the usual repetitive battle cries from the characters, the overall voice cast is pretty decent. However there are a few characters who are a bit too over the top for me. There almost always seems to be one or two of those in dubbed games. If space had allowed, I would have liked seeing the Japanese audio track with subtitles as an option, but this is a PSP title, so space is limited. For $30 US you can’t go wrong with putting Hexyz Force beside Lunar and Persona on your PSP game shelf.

You can purchase Hexyz Force on UMD or a digital download code from Amazon now

Review product (code) was provided by Atlus and does not affect the outcome of this review.

That pack of werewolves is looking awful hungry

Status: Enjoying it & having fun dying often

Purchase a Dracula Undead Awakening code from Amazon

The third game in my PSP Minis collection comes in the form of a top down shooter. Dracula: Undead Awakening puts me in the shoes of a vampire hunter and has me mow down monsters swarming from all sides.

There are three major settings to choose from: Grave Park, Frozen Earth, and Castle Hall. You’ll be moving about the screen with either your analog nub or the arrow keys and using the buttons on the right to shoot either up, down, left or right to destroy the oncoming hordes of ghouls. Shooting is pretty standard; hold down the button on the right that corresponds with the direction you wish to aim and hold it down.

Enemies defeated will leave behind health packs, new weapons and ammo that you will need to stay alive and rank up. Every once in a while, you will will see a Perk has become available to you. Depending on which weapons you have and the level of your character you will be able to select one special bonus. These range from more powerful shots, earning extra points or health, and a wide variety of other upgrades.

If there's a princess in this castle, odds are she's Undead

Dracula: Undead Awakening has a few different types of game modes. No matter which mode you choose, you will have to stay alive as long as you can. There are no extra lives to pick up, and staying alive is the only way to level up and claim the top scores for each mode.

I quite like having a mindless shooter to play and kill time with while waiting for doctors who are running late or sitting on airport tarmac in Atlanta during a snowstorm (worst plane trip ever). It really is all about luck and skill, but even for myself, never getting past Level 1 didn’t matter so much as just seeing how many points I could rack up. Think Geometry Wars, but on the PSP and with vampires and werewolves. Pretty amazing for only being 13 MB large.

*Review code was provided by Chillingo, and does not affect the outcome of this review.*

(Reviewed for GamingAngels – March 8, 2010)