I’ve been spending the past two weeks burning my way through a long list of backlogged games I want to clear before school starts and I lose my NEET badge, including Shadow of the Colossus, Red Dead Redemption, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2 and L.A. Noire.

Valkyria Chronicles 3 is one of them. And this time I am actually reviewing it in an almost timely fashion and nowhere close to the release date of the next game. Go me.

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Read the rest of Valkyria Chronicles 3 (1,801 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: psp, sega, valkyria chronicles, vc, vc3

So I have been clocking a few hours into Atlus’ horror puzzler Catherine on my PS3 because Rie Tanaka was tweeting about it and I am easily influenced by Twitter. Surprisingly, it is actually not a bad game, but it takes a lot of patience to overcome the rage-inducing learning curve, and ultimately at the end of the day the puzzle stages are not what people play the game for, or maybe that is just me.

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Read the rest of Catherine (635 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: atlus, catherine, horror, nightmare, ps3, puzzle, sheep

So I finished the new Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai game for PSP. Well, I didn’t 100% it but I saw all the “true” endings except for Manami’s and that’s good enough. It’s not a bad game if you are into AVG but its primary purpose is basically fan service.

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Read the rest of Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai Portable (1,566 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2011. | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ayase-tan, bandai namco, galge, kirino kousaka, kyousuke kousaka, oreimo, psp, review, tsundere

Sony just announced PSP2. Dubbed the Next Generation PlayStation Portable (NGP), it looks like a slightly-tweaked version of the original PSP design. The most obvious change is the inclusion of two analogue sticks — actual analogue sticks similar to the DualShock’s and not whatever nub thingy the original PSP had.

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Read the rest of Next Generation PlayStation Portable (471 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2011. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ngp, playstation, psp, psp2, sony

With the release date of Valkyria Chronicles 3 for PSP less than two weeks away, I figure this is the perfect time (by my usual standard of procrastination) for me to write up my thoughts on VC2, a game which I had only recently completed.

In my defence, I only got to play the original VC three months ago after finally caving and buying a secondhand PS3. Also, Valkyria Chronicles 2 is the most amazing game ever created for the PSP and everyone with two opposable thumbs should play it.

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Read the rest of Valkyria Chronicles 2 (2,205 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: psp, sega, valkyria chronicles, vc, vc2

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Read the rest of Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright (95 words)

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Post tags: 3ds, capcom, gyakuten saiban, level-5, nintendo, phoenix wright, professor layton, youtube

So, I caved and bought a second-hand PS3 Slim for S$300 (about 220 USD), partly because the PS3 has finally been successfully modded with a hacked debugging dongle reminiscent of PSP’s Pandora battery. (I am a cheapskate…) The awesome part is that my ancient Dell monitor has secret HDCP-via-DVI support through a HDMI>DVI converter and displays 1080p perfectly, so I don’t have to wander out of my room into the great unknown that is my living room to forage for a Barvia.

I finally get to play that (second-hand) copy of FFXIII I bought in Japan five months ago for cheap. Having skipped right passed all the Final Fantasies released during the PS2 generation (because I am such a cheapskate that I didn’t buy a PS2 until the PS3 was released), FFXIII comes as quite a huge leap forward from my perspective. I’m a FFVIII guy, so all this tech futuristic stuff is just right up my alley. After all, there’s no real difference between magic and sufficiently advanced technology.

Anyway, some first impressions after sitting through the tutorials.

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Read the rest of Final Fantasy XIII – First Impressions (747 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: final fantasy, final fantasy xiii, first impression, lightning, playstation, ps3

Plants vs. Zombies is a great game, possibly one of the best works from casual-game maker PopCap Games. You can check out the tons of positive reviews online if you don’t believe me. For those who have played the game, you have to agree with me that the end credits roll (YouTube link) was pretty damn awesome, somewhat reminiscent of GLaDOS’ solo performance from Valve’s Portal.

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Read the rest of Plants vs. Zombies in Japanese (80 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: laura shigihara, plants vs zombies, popcap, zombies

The fifth entry in the Ace Attorney (Gyakuten Saiban) series of GBA and NDS games has the player take on the role of Miles Edgeworth (Reiji Mitsurugi), the public prosecutor with an ice-cold exterior and a boyish heart.

Ace Attorney has always been one of the sole reasons why my DS Lite is not yet lost forever in the jungle death trap that is my storeroom. But having played through Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, which I shall refer to as Gyakuten Kenji because its Japanese title is so much shorter and more sensible, I am starting to question the future of this franchise. This is indeed foreshadowing.

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Read the rest of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (951 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: capcom, gyakuten kenji, gyakuten saiban, nds, nintendo

Long-time acquaintance Soulshift is looking for beta testers for a game project he is working on. The game is a strategy/hacking game. Currently it is still highly incomplete but I’ve tried the alpha release and found the idea behind it to be quite interesting.

Please contact him at ltan@epicentrix.net if you are interested in helping out. He needs around 10 testers.

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2008. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: beta, indie