Okategoriserade

This will probably get a longer post later but this week I finally took care
of a long postponed project, sorting out all the unwanted japanese Playstation
games from the collection! As you guessed I found a total of 176 games that
don’t belong in the collection. Far too many of them are sports games,
pachinko simulators and other “crap” games. So far around 20 of them are
sold and the ones that no one wants will just be sold in a bulk.
I will give it a couple of weeks.

Sure I still have the games but just getting them out of the collection
felt really nice, now there is enough room to complete the PS2 collection, woho!

Speaking of the PS2 collection, I just recieved and added my most wanted item:

Very few seem to even know about this box, an odd box for an odd game.
Besides the game you get a Haseo figure (main character) and even better than
that a special disc that summarize everything from the first four games and
also tells some intresting information not found anywhere else.
If it’s not enough to find this rare disc you also need to unlock
parts of it with data from your memory card… wow.

I am really happy to finally have it even if most of it is of
course available on youtube.

If you want to see the 176 games here they are:

The title says Dark Half but first I must share my joy over finally beating
Harvest Moon!

Yes, Harvest Moon is finally over, the SNES version no less.
My biggest mistake was to play more than one entry in the series but since
many say that the SNES version is the best one I had to play it.
For me this seems to be one of the cases where the game lives on nostalgia,
I believe that the Playstation game Back to Nature is better and improved in
every way even if that too has the same problems. The main problem is of
course the length of the games, it doesn’t have a clock but my guess is
around 70-100 hours which makes it the longest SNES game I have played!
Using a guide and plan ahead would really save a lot of time, not aiming
to get the best “score” would also help a lot, hehe.
The goal is to live on the farm and make it a good one in 300 days,
I had basically done everything necessary in the first 200 days so
then it was just a matter of waiting and keeping the cows happy for the
last 100 days, a real chore and far from a good game to repeat
the same thing 100 times…
Oh well, it is finally over and the game called me a Master Farmer!
I will not return to the series.

More SNES, Dark Half was one of the very first games that I bought to the
collection and ever since then I knew it was an interesting game. Now, nine
years later, there is finally a complete translation of the game thanks to
dedicated fans! Like most games that are released late in the console’s life
Dark Half has some really impressive graphic, I usually prefer the more
classic RPG style but sometimes an isometric view works better and this
is one of those times, good choice Enix!
The interesting part of the game is of course the fact that you both play
as the “good” and “evil” party, a concept I really like in games
(Breath of Fire 4, mmmm). You play one chapter good, one chapter evil,
alternating the entire game, both of them have a soul meter that you need to
keep up, if it hits zero it is game over and this is a quite stressful part
of the game sometimes. As the good party it is quite an ordinary RPG,
you get equipments and some party members, no levels or skills tough,
all magic is used via items and stats are also increased with items.
The soul meter is filled by defeating enemies or paying money at the church
and depleted by walking around outside towns, as the good team it is never
a big problem luckily. The evil team on the other hand need soul energy for
everything, all attacks use energy and also walking around and
solving some puzzles!
There is only one party member in the evil team and no equipments, instead
you can recruit monsters and learn skills from them, it is vital to learn
heal early, be warned! I usually don’t like to recruit monsters but it works
good and you change them for better ones constantly, no breeding or complex
systems etc. To gain soul energy you can defeat enemies OR take the souls of
ALL the NPCs of the game! That is the most interesting part, walking into a
village and just murder everyone, when you return to the village as the
good party next chapter, everyone remains dead and of course you can’t
speak with them anymore. I absolutely love that part!
Sadly some of the dungeons feel a bit messy and I recommend
save states/ a guide, it’s just to easy to waste all your soul energy
trying to solve a puzzle or walking in circles. Overall a solid game,
not a spectacular story or the masterpiece music from Terranigma,
but definetly a game that deserved to be played, and now in english!
No clock in this game either but it felt like a standard
SNES RPG, around 15-20 hours.

I said that I had three more games on the way to the collection but somehow
that number grew to 10 games!

First up we have some PAL games, not that intresting titles maybe but I
plan to get them all after all, the PAL version of Summoner
doesn’t appear that often:

Next up, the intresting games:

The US version of Star Ocean 3 is something that I always wanted but just
never bought untill now, Metal Saga is also a game that I have wanted to
play for a long time. Wild Arms Alter Code F has become quite rare and I look
forward to play it as well even if I doubt it will be better than the original.
lastly Wild Arms 5 is unopened and finally in the collection where it belong!

This was a really big step towards the goal!

As promised I will keep you updated on the cleaning/repairs project.
This time I wanted something easy and decided that the Megadrive controllers
where the best choice. Except the one I posted a while ago I don’t have a
before picture but here they are, drying after a long night of cleaning:

Today, the fun part of putting them back togheter and testing them all:

Ah, the classic test setup, my megadrive collection is sadly quite small and at
the moment I have more consoles than games… Anyway, Toejam and Earl has
become my test game, it uses all buttons and is funky after all!

Somehow all 10 controllers actually works, one of them is a third party
controller and one may need new rubber for the D-pad but still,
far over my expactations! …I need to make an inventory and find a
new way to store all controllers and accesories.

Yes, another one of those has passed, one more year before the midlife crisis
where I will sell my collection and move out into the woods, hehe.

As usual for me the day was celebrated at home with my family, pizza and
meringue(?) cake! It’s the best and really simple to make, just buy (or make)
some meringue layers, put mashed bananas between them, cover everything in
whipped cream and add some grapes or your favorite topping.

I don’t know what I have done to deserve it but I did get a really
good gift from a friend:

The freaking Ni no Kuni box!! This is probably on my top five gifts ever,
really generous, it is one of the boxes I really miss in the collection
and he knew it. Of course I gave him one of my finer duplicates as a
counter gift, hehe.

As a bonus these two are added to the PS2 collection:

Not in top condition but good enough, two more off the list and the next
post will probably be all about more PS2-games!

I’m currently trying to finish up Harvest Moon (SNES) but it is really
slow, I still have around 90 days left of feeding, milking and brushing
my cows, ugh.

Just a short summary today.

First up we have Wild Arms 4 which I actually beat a while ago. It was quite
a pleasant experience all in all, the best part is probably the combination
of RPG and platforming even if it never gets very advanced it is still a fun
way to mix up the gameplay. The rumored HEX-battle system also works really
well even if one of the characters is totally broken and absolutely DESTROYS
any enemies within one turn, I even ended up defeating the final boss
with ONE counterattack.

The only real problem I had with the game was a rather silly part of the
story where they keept talking about adults like a different species or
something. Oh well, the ending is worth mentioning as well since it’s
not at all like the usual RPG ending but I won’t spoil why of course.

Next up is Mega Man X Command Mission, I already mentioned it earlier but
now that journey is over as well. Not to much to say besides what I already
said, great battle system here too, I did have some trouble with some of the
bosses since strategy and planning before the battles is important.
Just having the right elemental armor equipped is the difference between
an easy and impossible fight. I was a bit disappointed how easy the final
battle was after all the trouble earlier. As a whole a good and overlooked
game but there is 50+ better games to play on the console!

Lastly, you can finally take a look at all of my limited and collector’s
editions in the 100 boxes section! I will keep adding information about
all of them but feel free to take a peek.

I know, posts two days in a row! I still lack my energy though, I planned on doing THINGS yesterday but I ended up sleeping for 11 hours instead…

At least this a good start for the PS2 collection:

Both Full Metal Alchemist games arrived today and I must say that I am glad to finally have them, I don’t know if they are good games but I will try to play them in the near future! Currently I’m giving Mega Man X Command Misson a chance, a game that I have heard very little about. So far it is decent enough, as expected not the best of stories and far to many random encounters even if it is quite a sight to see that in a Mega Man game. At least the battles work really good, just like in FFX you get to see the order in which the enemies will act and best of all you get to switch party members freely.

There probably won’t be to many new PS2 games for a while but I do have
3 of the more expensive ones on the way already…!

As the title say, I have been low on energy the last couple of days and
haven’t done too much. I finally rewatched the best of best animes:
Legend of the Galactic Heroes!
It is still the best and sadly the reason why I almost never watch
anime anymore… Some happy news regarding that anime: it seems like it will
finally get an offical english release after all these years!
I still can’t believe it but Sentai Filmworks have apparently
bought the license for the show and plan on translating it! Amazing.

A friend who also likes to fiddle around with old consoles paid me a visit
and helped a bit with my mountain, we “only” had time for three Megadrives
but we did get two of them to work and sparkle like new, the third one
probably needs some new components but 2/3 is not bad.
The only picture I have for today is this one:

Some controllers drying after a well needed cleaning, today the SNES
controllers work perfectly, the NES ones both need new rubber
for the D-pad, oh well.

Lastly, I now officaly collect PS2 RPG:s! I have decided to finally start
filling out the gaps in my PS2 collection, it will take a while but it is
not at all impossible (I hope). The focus is every RPG that got an english
release, about 130 titles that is. I have added a list of the missing ones
in the Buy/trade/sell section so feel free to take a look!

I was worried that too many of my posts would be about Xeno…

Oh well, here is another mountain of defect consoles, controllers etc!

This will take a lot of time to fix but I have at least sorted everything and
started the testing, it’s mostly PS1 consoles (12 of them!) but also a lot
of Megadrive/ Genesis controllers and power supplies which I really need!
This loot was actually a form of payment from helping a friend last summer,
quite generous even if it is a lot of work.

Two newly cleaned PSones and one PStwo, later today comes the fun part,
putting everything togheter again and see how it works!

It might be a bit boring post but this is something that I have been
wanting to buy since it was first announced in 2013:
The Drag-on Dragoon 10th anniversary box!

This might even be my new favourite, so beautiful, and best of all
is the front art that includes the main characters and their dragons
from all four games, yes even Nier and his dra- book!

The box is massive and only has one small logo in the corner, ahh.

A close-up of course.

I really like this design of the box, just lift up the top and everything is
hold in place by these trays. no risk of damageing anything when you open it.

First we have the normal game and some codes to get Nier costumes and some good remixes of Nier music.

Then we have a case with one CD and one DVD, the CD contains some intresting chips music (haha) from all four games, some Nier tracks I hadn’t heard before! The DVD remains a mystery for now.

To the left is a postcard book with art from all the games, to the right a novel that talks about the events before Drakengard 3.

The postcards have ridiculously high quality.

This is probably the highligth of the box’s inside, a book with 300+ pages filled with art, information about all four games, interviews etc.
There is even a mysterious page that says Drag-on Dragoon 4 and has has the PS4 logo… it might be a joke or a very obscure way of revealing a game?

One of my favourites, Caim making the pact from the first game.

These two are “just” the script from Drakengard 1 and 2, a really cool material even if it dosn’t show in the picture.

Lastly an overview of this crazy box, in total 5 different books, wow!

Let’s do it like this, number one was Environmental Station Alpha.

I finally beat Dragon Quest VI, the DS verison. It has been a long journey that
started in christmas 2013 when I got the game. This is the third one that I
have played, the other two are Dragon Quest 4 on DS and Dragon Quest 8.
I have never been a big fan of the series but I think that I like it more
and more after every beaten game!

It has been the same with all three games, in the beginning they are quite
boring with the same old story and characters but as soon as the worlds start
to open up it gets really fun to explore and find the perfect spot to hunt
metal slimes, hehe. In total it took about 55 hours to beat but I did explore
almost everything and was lost for quite some time, in the end a solid game
and I might even play the far more beautiful SNES version one day.

Somehow I needed more Dragon Quest and couldn’t help but to try the
SNES version (emulated) of the very first game… I ended up beating it
in one sitting! I was surprised by how small the game was and the fact that
you only play as one character, VERY unique in turn-based RPG’s and
something that I really like. To me the game actually felt more like Zelda 2
or something than a Dragon Quest and I did enjoy it.

Next time I will return to world of Dragon Quest it will either be the
SNES version of Dragon Quest 2 or maybe 9 on the DS, hmm.

For now I will focus on Wild Arms 4!