I hadn't played them since blockbuster has a VERY limited selection of obscure games (read ALL JRPGs) to rent in their tiny game section. I finally tried hollywood video, and surprisingly they have almost all of them (IU, star ocean, Lost Remnant even weird games I didn't even know existed).
I really wish I hadn't found Infinate Undiscovery. I wish I could undiscover that game forever. At least I got it at a discount so only wasted 5 dollars on the rental but wow is IU ever horrificly bad. I mean I thought Blue Dragon and the like was the low point for JRPGs this gen but I had no idea. IU is Ephemeral Fantasia bad. I mean its like Vagrant Story (in that it has an active battle system and more action oriented combat) but it turns the awesome VS idea into a puddle of raw sewage. It has countless cutscenes with text below the screen where there should CLEARLY be dialogue, it has awkward and/or pointless combat; you can only control the main character other then using a god awful proxy system to control the other characters...I mean I thought the new Star Ocean wasn't quite as good as the old ones but it was at least playable and reasonably entertaining.
I say it without hesitation, IU is the worst JRPG I've played in at least 7 years and is in the competition for worst one ever. It doesn't even look good with awkward animations, poor color and badly designed enviornments. I mean it looks just a shade above a mid range PS2 game, its just horrid. Again Star Ocean looks WAY better (though still not good compared with...say....mass effect).
I can think of nothing redeeming about IU, even with the bad graphics it has slow down, the characters are some of the most annoying I have ever come across especially Crapello...I just couldn't have been more disappointed with Square Enix. I used to be a bit annoyed that IU wasn't coming to the PC or PS3, but not anymore.
As to Last Remnant I might play it on the PC or PS3 where slowdown hopefully won't be as big an issue as most of the reviews made it seem to be on the 360.
Seriously though, I really WANT to like these games, as much as I dislike the 360 I used to LOVE Square. I mean I have probably purchased at least 50 Square games over the years, and thats at the low end. On the Playstation alone I had at least 20 (even the weird ones like Brave Fencer Musashi or however its spelled). The clock continues to run on a Square game thats really worth playing (even Star Ocean, despite being pretty decent, was nowhere near as good as any of the mainline Square PS2 games much less the PS1 or SNES classics).
If you want to RPG on the 360 may I recommend playing Mass Effect 3 times once on each difficulty level (its that good easily), then Eternal Sonata, Tales and Star Ocean (though I would recommend not paying full price for Star Ocean if you can help it, its decent but not OMG I want to pay 60 bucks great, I'm glad I rented it personally)
One last thing, wtf is with all the annoying little kids in these friggin SE games with grating voice work. Lymile almost singlehandedly ruined star ocean for me kay? If I wanted endless autistic commentary from little kids I'd hang out around a middle school kay Edgie?
Is it too much to ask to just make the characters adults of various ages again like in Final Fantasy X? I mean really, every game does NOT need some retarded comic relief character with an annoying voice that has not gone through puberty (IU was even worse where almost every character was an annoying kid, especially Crapello)
PSN ID: ChosenOne feel free to add me
