Wasting Time: Week of January 23rd

Anyone who has taken a peek at my Backloggery page will easily see how massive my backlog really is. Adding any new major games to my collection isn't a great idea right now due to how many games I have to still finish. The issue here is that this week the highly anticipated PS3 exclusive, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, released with universal praise. It seems that Ni No Kuni was released in low numbers and has been flying off of store shelves fairly quickly, so I fought temptation to buy yet another big game and easily lost due to the high demand and the anticipation I've had for this game. So this week I have quite a bit on my plate. Lets take a look:

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

The current generation of consoles have not been too kind to the JRPG. Many that have released have failed both critically and commercially and many others have been massive disappointments. The only two to have seem to make any sort of impression on gamers this generation are Lost Odyssey (an Xbox 360 exclusive by Final Fantasy co-creator Hironobu Sakaguchi) and the Wii-exclusive Xenoblade Chronicles that US gamers literally fought to have ported over state-side. With the current generation about to fizzle out, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch comes out to give the JRPG genre one last hurrah and attempt to give fans a game worthy of such classics as Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Quest VIII.

Ni No Kuni is a Level-5 (Dark Cloud series, Dragon Quest VIII) developed JRPG that partners with Japanese animation mega-giants Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) to create a new yet classic styled JRPG to the Playstation 3. The game has achieve high praise among gaming critics and fans alike. It seems as if Ni No Kuni may be one of the best, if not the best, JRPGs in recent memory. I could not pass up on the opportunity to play this game so I picked it up and put about two hours into it so far. I have not played enough to really determine how good it is, but at the moment everything seems pretty fantastic. The visuals are gorgeous, the story and characters thus far are very strong, and the music is fantastic. Ni No Kuni has quite possibly one of the best overworld themes I have heard since Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. My only concern is that the battle system will wear out it's welcome and rely too much on grinding in order to proceed further into the game. I fully plan on making this game my primary game to play and will report how the game fairs as I dive deeper into it.

Persona 4 Arena

In anticipation of my arcade stick to arrive, I have been grabbing cheap fighting games as I come across them. Persona 4 Arena has gotten a lot of praise last year for being a very unique and fun fighting game and I had the opportunity to grab it very cheap recently. I popped the game in and played through the tutorial (which was more helpful than most fighting game tutorials) and a bit of the arcade mode. The game's fighting mechanics are fairly unique and require a lot of button combinations to memorize, many of them requiring three simultaneous button presses on the face buttons. Seeing as many of the counter and evasive moves require these intricate button presses, I am going to wait until my arcade stick arrives before I really learn how to play it. That being said, the game has some gorgeous 2D graphics and some impressive animations. The game has quite a deep story for a fighting game and takes place after the events of Persona 4 (which I'm currently still playing so I do not understand a lot of it). The game has found it's place into many gaming tournaments lately and the online play is suppose to be strong, so hopefully the online community stays afloat.

X-COM: Enemy Unknown

I have not played the previous editions of the X-COM series, and I typically do not play turn-based strategy RPGs due to not quite grasping the concept of them very well. X-COM: Enemy Unknown, the revival of the classic series, has found it's way on many "game of the year" lists and the reviews have been fantastic across the board. I gave the demo a spin and was quite impressed with what I played. I was able to snag a copy of the PC version cheaply so I started playing the game over the weekend and can easily see what the fuss is about. X-COM simply eases the player into the gameplay mechanics and gives you all the necessary information to properly play and understand the game before the game stops holding the player's hand. The missions are fast and fun, which makes the game a fantastic choice when you want something to play in small bursts. I'm only four or five missions into the game but I can honestly say I may have finally found a game in this genre even I can love. We'll see how it goes as I play more.

That is all this week!