I've noticed I become somewhat obsessive about the games I play. For the most part I keep every game I buy no matter how many times I've beaten it unless I thought it sucked.
Well anyway everytime I buy an new game I play it endlessly until I've beaten it and go back through some of my older ones. So once again I've gotten over being anal about collecting everything on Dark Cloud 2 and I'm back to being addicted to Digital Card Battle.
DCB is another rant all together, when I first got it right after it was released in America I absolutely loved it. Mostly this is because I love the digimon trading card game but admittedly I don't have the patience to play it (or have anyone to play with) so I just collect the cards. But now here I've got DCB and I figure if I'm enjoying it this much why don't I go rent some other card battle games to see if there's something worth buying.
Fast forward a couple rentings later (PSO Ep. III, Yu-Gi-Oh Duelist of the Roses) and neither had topped DCB let alone coming close to being fun IMHO, just repetitive. Of course the first thought I had was that I'd gone completely fanboy and was dealing with that when my brother started playing the two games and before I took them back he commented to me that PSO was okay but shouldn't have been included in the PSO continuity due to it's weak premise and he thought the Yu-Gi-Oh game sucked ass compared to the real thing. Now my bro's not all that into the digimon games (series fan though) but he watches me play them all the time and he agreed that DCB is so far the superior card game we've seen in action.
Okay so fanboy or not at least now I know I wasn't alone in my opinion of digitized card games.
I know how you feel about DCB. I won't feel like I've beaten it until I'm a true master. That's 500 wins, 0 losses, on two different memory cards (1000 wins total).
I could tell the YuGiOh video games weren't going to be any good. With the normal cards, you actually have total control of yourself. You know that your deck is shuffled, and so is your opponents. Plus, there's a good feeling knowing that you're playing a real person. You know your opponent (normally) and can tailor your deck to have fun with them, or obliterate them. My friend and I play it, and we screw with the rules a little, to maximize the playability and fun. "Oops... can I take that back?" "Er... this card wasn't supposed to be in my deck, can I draw another?" "Ha! I summon two monsters 'cause I'm special!" That last one I let my friend do, because I normally kick his ass badly.
Can't say anything about tournament play. I'd rather goof off.
I have to agree -- the Yu-Gi-Oh video games do have a lot of bad points, particularly the completely random shuffling (a real shuffle isn't completely random -- the deck is split into two halves then shuffled together, optimally with one-one distribution from each half after the shuffle, but it varies because of individual tendencies and how well worn the cards are, etc.) and a lack of a real strategy on the computer's part (essentially they take the premise and attempt to use it fully without strategy).
Now, if the programmers could make a really good Shuffle program where it runs something based on two halves of a deck being intermixed... And then some half-way decent Dueling AIs for the characters, maybe based on their strategies in the show (where applicable)... then the games could be good. But without that, they can't compete to a real duel (and I hate my little brother always challenging me to a duel and thinking he'll win, and making me rematch him when I win... Gueh!)
As far as PSO3, I can't say much -- I ended up cancelling my pre-order so that I could get FFXI Of course, this comes with another card-battlign game pre-installed to the Hard Drive, Tetra Master, which is very fun to play, whether against the server-side computers or against other people.
Good call on the pre-order cancel, PSO3 is definately a rent first type of game. Ep I & II is another game I get hooked on so I thought I'd really enjoy it and while it's got a lot of good points how repetitive it is really kills the premise. Basically for most of the game there's only 12 different opponants you play against so that got old fast for me. Oh and you can't use your ep. I & II avatar right away, you have to remake them.
Oh and for DCB I finally got around to beating "A" three days ago on my main file and now I'm enjoying the second half of the game. I've got something like 228 battles, 218 wins, 10 losses, nine from "A" (didn't care since he doesn't take your cards) and one from the second Myotismon just because I'm a little obsessive-compusive and had to have the loss count be either even or divisible by five. I know kind of stupid but OC's a little demon in your brain that won't shut-up until it's satisfied.
I like the yugioh video game cause I don't have anyone around to play and like most card games it usally will come down to what cards you can get so I just get the codes for the cards then put them in the game
WereGarurumon actually gives you a little hint for beating A (or Analogman) when he gives you a hacking card. This happens in my favorite spot in the game, Wiseman Tower.
If you assemble my special deck for A, you'll beat him every time. Here it is: Seraphimon (2X), MagnaAngemon (2X), Angewomon (2X), Angemon (3X), Unimon (3X), Tentomon (4X), 3 partners, Hacking (4X), Silver Ball (4X), Warp Digivolve (2X), Special Digivolve (1X). Of course, you have to use the support techniques right.
I used to be obsessive like that, wanting to discover every damn corner of every damn game I played.
If anyone engaged me in a StarFox64 duel even after all these years, I would totally fuck them up, I swear to your god. That's how hard it got integrated into my system.
Nowadays, though, I've matured a little. I just finished Knights of the Old Republic as a light-oriented Jedi, and if I were me four years ago, I'd jump right back in and play dark-side just to see what happens. But now I don't want to burn myself out and end up hating the game in the process of trying to master it. I did that with a lot of games.
I beat KOTOR a few months ago and never got around to playing past Taris on a dark side game. Video game or not I don't have the stomach to make evil choices, I got so uncomfortable doing it I only managed to play twenty minutes at a time before have to stop from being disgusted with myself.
Anyway back to DCB, I made a counterattack deck with a hacking card; (made the mistake of only keeping one of each card for awhile and that boned me.) On pure dumb luck I was able to beat "A" with nothing but rookie cards on my 10th try. There's something very satisfying about beating that hack-happy bastard with nothing but the lowest available level digimon in the game.
Hey does anyone know why Bandai changed Miyako/Yolei's name to Keely in DCB? Was that her name in some other dub? Right now I'm just confused as all hell.
Though it's not like that's the only mistake in the game, in it Black Gatomon's a rookie instead of champion, Tekkamon is a champion instead of ultimate and then there's some things that just defy (my) logic.
The Orange MetalGreymon is called RealMetalGreymon while the virus version is called MetalGreymon, They could have called it Vi-MetalGreymon or BlueMetalGreymon.
The Champion Gatomon is called R-Gatomon (I assume R stands for real) when it would have made more sense to call the rookie partner version R-Gatomon (R for rookie) at least they got her lack of tail ring right.
Last "A's" deck is called the Darkness Wave Deck but in all the battles I had with him I didn't see one LadyDevimon card, strange. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on this last one.)