Spruce, I love it man! I like how we seem to be on the same thought process.. I was JUST thinking that shortly after I typed my response. Reminds me a lot of the .Dot Hack series. Anime was so great in that series. Obviously good enough as when you buy the game, you get the full first 4 disc's of hours of episodes on each one. It's great!

I've never touched a Dot hack game. You recommend? I'm still working my way through Tales of Xillia which at first I was not a huge fan of, and the story is still meh at best, but the tales series style of action battle is enough for me to give a positive rating to any of their games.

Well I'm caving in and buying Lightning Returns and the hardback guide tomorrow. Will occasionally share my spoiler-free thoughts on the game. Reviews never skew my willingness to try something and the gameplay videos I've seen thus far have genuinely peaked my interest. Pseudo-job system will be interesting.

I'm with Spruce on this one. I WILL buy it as it has a spot reserved on my collection wall, however due to all the negativity I foresee this dropping in price very quickly. My guess is within a couple more weeks it will be 39.99, and 29.99 shortly there after. Although I very much want to support my JRPG producers I think I'm still going to hold off. Besides I'm already playing a few different games atm anyway. So there is no rush to run out and pick this up just yet. Now if this got all the hype as Xenoblade did and I had to worry about a lack of supply I would pick it up now in fear of the price sky rocketing. However with Final Fantasy series, you never really have to worry about that. Especially when one receives the kind of negativity this one is getting.

BTW Spruce,

The Atelier series is a great series! I love them! The reason the fan base is always 50/50 is many of the people that walk into the series aren't 100% sold on the Anime style RPG. The ones that are, fall in love with the game right away. The trend in JRPG's is you have to be a little patient early game for it to really shine by mid/late game. Gamers this day and age expect immediate gratification within the first 1-2 hours of gameplay, at which point write an illegitimate/premature review without having invested much into it. At least that's just my experience. Not all, but many.

This post was edited by GordyK on Feb 20 2014 12:27am

I passed. Im gonna be stuck at a wedding all weekend...I think I can finish xillia tonight or tomorrow assuming I can finish the paper I'm working on so I bought the humble bundle this week, and downloaded an iso of dragon quest 8 and ff x.

Great choices right there. Both are wonderful games with excellent stories to keep you invested. My only complaint with FFX was that the game really forces you to obtain the higher end weapons for the characters as well as the OP skills in order to beat the game. At least in my experience, and that to me says a lot as I've played countless RPG's. Forcing someone to obtain specifics in order to beat the end-game boss IMO isn't fair. Shouldn't have to feel obligated to play with a player's guide or walkthrough guide to beat a game. That has NEVER been my style, ever! Dragon Quest 8 kind of incorporates that mechanic, but it can be weighted by power-leveling somewhat from the Metal Slimes in the mid/late game.

No game should ever force you to obtain the legendary equipment in order to beat it. That should always be an option for the diehard min/maxers (which I definitely am not) I play games for the story and fun of the gameplay mechanics.

This post was edited by GordyK on Feb 20 2014 09:01am

anyone still play rage of bahamut?

I've beaten ff x with just auron and Yuna's epic weapons I think. I know I never beat that Damn chocobo race. Never played dq8 but people seem to like it.

Playing Baten Kaitos right now for Gamecube, so much fun! Kinda feels like a Hearthstone RPG. I played it about 5-6 years ago, back before I was collecting games. I was also addicted to MMO's at the time so I gave up on pretty much any console gaming. Really missed this one, can't believe I ever fell into the MMO darkness. Never again will I slip back into that! Haven't touched an MMO in almost 4years.

Never owned a gamecube. I always meant to play Eternal Darkness, but never did.