[Obviously an old post (3rd January 2010), now appearing here because of site crash and recovery. Happily enough I managed to play every single one of these games]

Finally finished Xenosaga Episode III, and with it the whole series. I thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay in all three games, even the undoubtedly inferior II. I also liked most of the characters, except that stubborn, idiotic, moronic Shion. People talk about how fresh it is to have a female character as the lead, but Shion only makes girls look bad, being dumb, weak-willed, dishonest, helpless, only finding meaning in and being redeemed by the males in her life (Kevin, Allen, Jin).

But apart from her I enjoyed all the other characters, especially chaos. Throughout the series I was hoping he had a really unique backstory and interesting powers, but we find out everything about him in the last 30 minutes of the entire series and it’s not that interesting either, so…yeah. I learned a lot more about him from reading wikis than I ever did from the game itself. That’s the sure sign of bad writing and an overly-complicated plot.

Real life kept me from playing a lot of games last year, so I’m going to be much less ambitious in my gaming plans this year. There are only a few major games I want to finish, and then I’ll leave the rest to chance, or to whenever something I just *have* to play comes out. Here’s what I want to get done, ASAP:

1. Saga 2. I just killed Apollo, I think I have just one more boss to go.

2. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey – I’ve had it for a while but I haven’t even started it yet.

3. Harvest Moon: Twin Villages. When it comes out, I’m gonna be all over it!

4. Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2: Almost done with 1, I just went back to kill a few side-bosses and now they’re kicking my ass.

5. Angelique Special 2: Old game for PSX, but it’s been on my mind lately.

6. Dragon Quest 9: I’m a few levels into this. It’s interesting, but not especially gripping. But I’ll get to it sometime.

7. Atelier Lina: Lise and Annie were pretty much fail as far as I’m concerned, so I haven’t been in a hurry to get to this one. I wish they’d go back to the pure alchemy-centrism of the older games.

If I manage to finish just these by the end of the year, it’ll be enough for me. Yeah, I’m that busy.