It’s been some time, I know. Last week was chaotic. My fiance and I spent mucho time working (10 and 1/2 hours for 4 days), so I had little motivation to get online.

Since my last post, I’ve beaten two games and continued on two others. I’ll have reviews of the two I’ve beaten later (Psychonauts and Devil May Cry), but inside are some impressions of DMC3 and Kingdom Hearts, as well as some other musings and such.

Devil May Cry 3 SE (PS2)
After beating DMC, I hopped right into this. Bad things first - the attempt of making Dante a smug badass usually works against liking this younger version of him. And what I mean by that are the little quips he says to try to make players think he’s so cool. It doesn’t work all that often…the scene after he gets the scythe guitar perfectly echoes my point. I like the Dante in DMC a lot more…he was more convincing at being a badass, at least. I also dislike the music compared to the original. The battle music is maddening (feel the blood, taste your face…or is it fate, not face?…bleh), and it never really goes away. Changing it up from time to time would have helped, but after listening to it as my fiance played all the way through it and now I’m playing it…oy. It won’t be on my Top Songs Ever list, that’s for sure. At least the boss theme is better. The last poo-poo I have on it is that the enemy designs don’t seem as fresh as DMC’s. Several of the basic enemies and harder foes wield scythes. I believe they are supposed to represent the seven sins, but still, a little more variety (like the Marionettes in DMC) would have been quite welcome.
However, I am enjoying the gameplay and graphical improvements a lot more than the original’s. I thought DMC had a rather bizarre button layout, and DMC3 fits what I would think is an ideal setup much better (although the transition has been a bit rough…going from jump on Triangle to jump on X has been a little odd). The gameplay lets you switch weapons on the fly and the combo system has improved a lot, making battles quite a bit more fun. The graphics also look better, since DMC and DMC3 have at least 3-4 years of space in between them.

Kingdom Hearts (PS2)
To be honest, I don’t understand all of the hoopla about this game. It has some fun combat, it’s still rather pretty and has some great music, but the gameplay component is not up to snuff to me. Jumping is floaty. When Sora is trying to pick up boxes or barrels, Goofy will screw that up with his height if he’s right next to you. The in-game menu system is a bit unwieldy, especially in combat. The camera isn’t perfect, nor does it go through walls. The platforming isn’t too much fun. And the Gummiship levels are exercises in tedium.
That being said, there is a fun game buried underneath the small problems. Combat is pretty fun, I like the game’s worlds, the voice work is pretty solid (what happened to Hercules is all I want to know), and there’s plenty to do, that I can tell. However, I doubt I’ll be one singing its praises when I manage to get through it.

I expect some arguments on Kingdom Hearts, but that’s alright. ^_^ It’s just not my cup of tea. Anyway, I enjoyed Psychonauts immensely. It’ll definitely be one of my Top 30, but probably not in the Top 15. It had a few glitch problems and some iffy design choices (the part chasing the evil father was a nightmare), but I still loved most of the game. DMC is great, too. I didn’t like the button layout, but otherwise it was very fun indeed. Reviews for both will pop up here in the next few days.

I recently bought the Groundwork of FLCL art book. It’s pretty cool, and different than most. It has some awesome color artwork and the mono art they used for the DVD covers, but the bulk of it consists of the anime’s frames, some of which are amazing to look at. If you loved FLCL, I recommend a purchase.

For those artistically inclined, I have an art contest going on for my website’s 5 year anniversary. I posted a blog about it before, so head there for more info. It has about 2 weeks left until it ends, so I hope to see some entries! ^^

Hm. Not much else to say, really. I’ve got a ton of art going up on my website’s comics this and next week, for those interested. Snow Dragon is this week, Shi Kurai is next week. Comments are welcome about either, past or present. ^^ Til next time my friends!