And so it begins.....

25 RPG's in 2 years is actually going to be tougher then I thought, seeing as I work a full time job as well, but I've worked it out to about 1 RPG per month. To start off with I chose the 2 games I got recently, one I'm about half way through, the other I just started. I'll give you a quick summary of the two now.

First off is Xenoblade Chronicles. It's an RPG for the Wii that was only released in Europe and Japan due to Nintendo of America being a bunch of idiots. It's actually an amazing game, made by Monolith Soft, the creators of Xenogears and Xenosaga, as well as the Baten Kaitos series (which I will be playing later) The game has a very well told story, amazing music, and some of the best graphics you'll find on the Wii. The areas you explore are absolutely massive and have a lot of interesting things to discover as well. And on top of that theres a fairly addictive battle system. I'm probably a bit over half way through now and it's honestly one of the best RPG's I've played in a long long time.

Persona 2 Innocent Sin is a game made by Atlus of Shin Megami Tensei fame. It's the first in a two part duo of games for the PS1, the latter being called Persona 2 Eternal Punishment. It's a really unique game set in modern japan. The basic premise is that a demonic presence known as the Joker is granting the wishes of those who call for it, all the while for some mysterious reason, whenever a rumor is spread it becomes reality. This actually comes up in gameplay to and you'll find yourself spreading rumors like "the ramen shop sells weapons" and then the next time you go there, they do. On top of all that is the actually battle system which is very unique in itself. You've got your standard attacks but then you've also got your persona attacks, which are used by summoning your "persona". You can gain many different types of personas to gain different skills throughout the game. Then there's the fusion skill system which activates if you use certain spells in a row, and instead takes the 2 or 3 characters and has them all attack at once for crazy damage. But even then, that wasn't enough for the developers and they decided to throw in something else. Something really unique. It's called the contact system. Basically you go into battle and instead of fighting with the demons you encounter, you talk with them. You can choose to make them scared so they run away, happy so they help you out with items or information (which can lead to new rumors) or even excite them and have them give you new tarot cards, needed to summon new persona. It adds a whole new layer of depth and also helps keep battles from getting stale because you have more then one way to do things.

Just a little history lesson on Persona 2 Innocent Sin. It is the first half of a two parter but North America never saw it before just recently as a PSP port. Until now we've only had the 2nd half, Eternal Punishment which I played before and it quickly became one of my favorite games of all time. So naturally you can see why I'd be so excited to finally play the first half of it. If you're curious why the game never came here...well.. it dealt with some interesting subject matter. The main ones being people dying in a school (the game was set to release around the time columbine happened so they scrapped it) and also..... and I don't know the context to this yet.....but Hitler makes an appearance. Why? I don't know. But I look forward to finding out, thanks to Atlus's decision to finally give us this gem of a game. I just started it, so we'll see how long it takes, and then I'll go back and see how it all ends once again with Eternal Punishment, a game I haven't played in years, and don't remember quite a bit of.

25 RPG's in 2 years

So I was inspired recently by a friend of mine to try something, something that should be a challenge but also should prove to be quite interesting. 25 RPG's in 2 years. That's essentially an RPG a month. I have a list of games, a list that may or may not be subject to change, of 25 RPG's that I have either been wanting to play for years now, are coming out in the near future and I want to play, or were recommnded to me and I figured "why not". This list is comprised of games over many different consoles, and many different generations, to try and help keep it varied and interesting. And so here are the 25 RPG's I plan to beat over the next couple years.



1) Persona 2: Innocent Sin (PSP)

2) Persona 2 Eternal Punishment (PSX)

3) Final Fantasy Tactics (PSP)

4) Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2 (PS2)

5) Legend of the Dragoon (PSX)

6) Star Ocean 2 (PSP, though I own the PSX version as well)

7) Tales of Eternia (PSP)

8) Breath of Fire 4

9) Suikoden 2 (PSX)

10) Xenoblade Chronicles (WII)

11) Final Fantasy 9 (PSX)

12) Paper Mario 1000 Years Door (Gamecube)

13) Baten Kaitos (Gamecube)

14) Pokemon White (DS)

15) Chrono Cross (PSX)

16 Valkyrie Profile (PSP)

17) Super Mario Legend of the 7 Stars (SNES)

18) Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask (N64) (Technically not an RPG but I wanna play it so I'm leaving it)

19) Dark Cloud 2 (PS2)

20) Diablo 2 (PC)

21) Dark Souls (PS3)

22) Borderlands 2 (PS3)

23) Y's I and II (PSP)

24) Grandia (PSX)

25) Parasite Eve (PSX)

So that's my list. It may change a little, it might not, but these are all games I've been wanting to play or replay for quite some time, or are games I'm highly looking forward to when they come out. I'll be giving quick reviews of these games once I beat them, with progress reports as I go. Next post will be about the two games I'm starting with! I look forward to continuing this list and finally getting around to some great RPG gaming.