I'd Kick Your Ass But Your Armor From God is Preventing Me

For some reason, off the top of my head, I can't recall what games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre are called (probably have a "tactics" in it). It's sort of a weird time to be a gamer. While I do have the expendable income because of my job (and not paying rent might helps), I find that I like to spend my money on other things like clothing and DVDs. The clothing comes from the fact that I have to look decent for work (respect?) and also as the season changes it might be a good idea to change a little. The DVDs come from the fact that I have recently become a NetFlix member and with all the TV shows that I'm watching it helps to get the box sets when they come out (Ugly Betty and Heroes ahem).

Anyway, I'm not very good with my money (I need to grow up), so I have to wisely chose what games to buy. Tuesday marks the arrival of Metroid Prime 3 for the Wii, and I'm definitely getting it I just don't know when. But I'll post a half-assed review once I get it and play around with it.

In the meanwhile, my busted up PSP currently has the RPG Jeanne D'arc. Now I really enjoy Strategy RPGs. These are RPGs that have your characters line up on a gridded battlefield and you take turns moving your characters against the opponent. The really good SRPGs have you think alot before you even begin a battle and allow you to micromanage skills and weapons. I'm probably, at most, 8 hours into this game, and so far it's adequate.

The story is horrible mainly because it takes liberties with the real history of Joan of Arc. What bothers me is that I cannot feel for the main character: she starts off as a nice girl and then all of a sudden gets bloodlust after her whole village is destroyed. She doesn't even respectfully seek justice, she's just gungho about wanting to kill the enemy. She's so lucky she has special armor from God or else her ass would be wasted. Also, so far, there's not much in terms of micromanaging. All the ingredients are there: weapons, skills, and magic. But so far, only one character is getting juiced up and that's Jeanne, the main character. My other 10 characters are just variations of people with swords, lances, and axes. I mean, c'mon, I only have one person who can even be remotely considered as a magician/mage and she can only cast a healing spell and fireball. In fact she's the second most powerful right now since she's been getting so much experience from healing my party.

Maybe I'm not far enough into the game? Well, at least it kills time. The enjoyable aspect is that certain characters have armlets that let them transform into "super" forms that have better stats and abilities. These super form can only be achieved by some characters. The great thing is that these forms are really powerful. For example, if you kill an enemy while in this form, you get something called "godspeed" and are able to move that character again. If you time them correctly, you can kill many characters in one turn.

So I'll be playing this game here and there, but I'm definitely waiting for more advance SRPGs like the remake of Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSP or even its sequel for the Nintendo DS.