new home greens.

I'm not particulalry sure what the literal opposite of the blues is. White seems too obvious, so green it is.

Onto disc 2 of Lost Odyssey now, and it's been great fun this far. It's one of the most difficult Final Fantasy clones that i've ever played - around 3 or 4 times now i've seen the 'game over' screen, one particular boss requiring 4-5 attempts to best. This kind of difficulty is what keeps me engaged more than a storyline ever could, harnessing my masochistic perseverance to conquer a sticking point.

In a way this is opposite to the reason why I loved Eternal Sonata - sure, ES' second playthrough gets tough, but how many people are likely to attempt it? ES was a breeze to run through, which allowed the narrative to keep pace; LO is more content with showing you extended pieces of non-interactive dialogue book-ended with dungeons and boss battles.

And it's in this architecture that Lost Odyssey has encountered the most consternation; I however recognise that this type of gameplay is a genre in-and-of itself, completely seperate from strategy or "active battle" avenues. It is almost halfway between the two; the strategy element comes with choosing what to do before the round starts, with the active battle element at a higher level comes with the changing strategy between turns and the trigger-activated target ring.

beautiful katamari impressions.

I'm pretty disappointed with it. I completed all of the requests in two nights of casual play and i've already unlocked 500 gamerpoints from just dicking around - far too easy. The DLC is absolute thievery too, apparently the extra levels are on the disc already.

The only real improvement over the previous games is being able to go from a couple cm to star sized in one level, although the loading gaps are too noticeable to make it really feel that way.

The present/cousin collectables are just like any other game with pointless fetch-fests, and it even has the token ridiculous achievements - 100 hours playtime? Get tae fuck.

Here's the ultra caveat: if you enjoyed any previous Katamari title, you'll go completely balls deep with this. Just don't expect them to have tried.

beautiful katamari released today.

to my surprise and delight, beautiful katamari was released today. i know it's not supposed to be as good as the previous two, but i can't wait to roll up some garbage in hd.