This has possibly been my most busy month of Gaming yet, I had a lot of games I wanted, some games such as Metal Gear Solid HD Collection have to wait.. but I don’t really mind about it as I have played those games before, but I will get it eventually.. possibly when it hits the £20 mark or even lower.

So the games I got this month are..

• Final Fantasy XIII-2 Crystal Edition
• SoulCalibur V
• Catherine Stray Sheep Edition
• Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend Limited Edition

These are all the games I couldn’t say no to.. (you know how hard it is to say no to any of your favorite series).

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Thoughts

This was really fun, for a good few days I couldn’t unglue myself from it, I just really enjoyed it, more so than the first part, I was really thinking this was going to be just like Final Fantasy X-2 and would pale in comparison to the original game, but no, this actually was a lot better than the original Final Fantasy XIII, the story started to get interesting a lot faster than it did in FFXIII, the whole monster recruiting reminded me of Shin Megami Tensei series, I don’t feel like I wasted anything on the Crystal Edition, which was awesome, Artbook, T-shirt (that actually fits), Lightning 3D image artcard, more artcards, and then I ordered with Game so I got the best preorder deal, Episode 0 novel, Omega Weapon and Outfit DLC, more artcards (can’t have enough of those, right?), all packaged in a steel case.

This right now is sitting along with Final Fantasy VIII as my 2 favorite games of the series.

SoulCalibur V Thoughts

Basically once Final Fantasy XIII-2 came which was the next day, this was kind of forgotten about, but I did do the story and defeat Harada TEKKEN, I like this one better than IV, and the online from what I played of it was awesome too, a lot better than most Fighters online.

But I am actually a bit disappointed by its single player after playing it more, the Arcade Mode does not have endings for everyone, and the Story didn’t exactly have every character in it.. I don’t know why they did this, but playing through Arcade and getting each character’s individual endings is one of the most fun things in a Fighter game, there is a “Ghost Battle” mode in it.. but those always get boring after so long.. so in a way, after playing more of this game, it’s just turned out to be a big disappointment when it comes to Single Player which is what I look for most in any game, I do like the new fighting mechanics of the game though, it’s just the lack of story for some characters annoys me.. Ivy hardly appeared in Story mode! :( ..and that’s not including some characters who didn’t make an appearance at all.

I think Tekken will always remain my favorite 3D fighter, nothing seems like it’s going to surpass SoulCalibur II.

After playing the Quick Battle mode and mastering a character (Natsu), I did really enjoy this game, my stats at the end of it were near to what my SCII stats were, but that’s mainly because there was two grind-fest achievements.. I’m not really into those types, what kind of achievement is it if you just have to grind, you can actually have the controller do the work? I would have preferred something like “Perform every character’s Critical Edge”, you know like Astral Finishes achievements in the Blazblue series? That would have actually been a lot more enjoyable.

I’m lucky to have got this game, due to the fact it was a sort of late Birthday present, otherwise I would have never got it for this month anyways, I got all the Preorder Bonus too (ShopTo.net did everything).

Catherine Thoughts

I have been waiting for this game so long! At a point it was looking unlikely this would have made its way into Europe which would have forced me to import the PS3 version, I have been waiting for this game ever since it was announced just as a Japan game, and the wait was so worth it, I loved the interactive story this game had, it reminded me of playing Persona or generally any Shin Megami Tensei game, it really shown the potential a Persona game would have on the Xbox 360 or PS3, the graphics also looked nice as well, its rare now to see that style except for in the standard Naruto game, I wish more games used it, the gameplay was also fun, and I’m not even big into puzzle games, the whole this game is impossibly hard didn’t stop me from going near it either, and when I played it, I was disappointed with the difficulty hype.. it’s not that hard ..wait until you see me try Hard mode.. I may take my words back, generally I was really hyped for this game, expected a lot due to who the creators were, and was even given more of what I expected, it was truly a masterpiece of a game in my books.

Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend Thoughts

Well this is a first.. a Blazblue game came to Europe without any delays! But I actually had to wait over a week for mines to arrive, I went with Zavvi, they clearly had no intentions in getting it to me by release day (only dispatched it the day after..), but I couldn’t cancel as they had it awaiting dispatch and had taken the money off me for ages, the customer service was also very bad, I don’t recommend going to this company at all, cheap prices, but bad service, don’t seem to care about their customers staying with them.

When my copy did actually come, I played it the whole day, Blazblue is one of my most favorite fighters, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to give the fighter genre a try, it is a load better than Street Fighter, this game actually includes the story of the first game, so you don’t even have to go out on extra money just to understand the story at this point, for a fighter, Blazblue has a very in-depth story, its much like one of those visual novel games (that stay in Japan only), so far, I’m going through the remastered story of the first game, because its been so long since I played Calamity Trigger’s story, the remastered story is a bit short in a way compared to the original, but it still gets to the point, the game really impresses me, it’s really been improved since Continuum Shift, compared to Capcom’s “Super” versions of games, I think this qualifies to be a better second purchase over those any day, there is so many modes added, it does not require you to buy previous DLC, that is all included, as well as extra stuff such as story mode for those characters, whereas in the previous version, they were only playable in Versus, Online and Challenge mode.

So that was this month, I don’t plan in buying anymore games until April.. that will be Devil May Cry HD Collection if it stays the price it is now where I’m planning in ordering it.. rest of the games are gonna have to wait.

• Street Fighter X Tekken: I hated SFIV.. and apparently this is using the same engine, but I will give it a try at one point.. a demo would be nice to tell if I should get this or not and just wait for Namco’s version which is obviously going to be much better, technically on PS3 this game isn’t even Street Fighter X Tekken anymore.. with all the extras they’re adding in, it might as well be called Capcom X Namco, all the DLC that has already been announced is very off-putting as well, typical Capcom at the moment, they just can’t let you have the whole roster when the game comes out, I bet, someone will discover all of it is on the disc anyways locked away until you give in and pay for them.
• Anarchy Reins: Again.. this is gonna be a game I’ll be holding off but will definitely get, it’s just seems like Online Multiplayer is its main focus, so I will be waiting until it’s halved in price before I get, Platinum Games is one company I can’t say no to.
• Tekken Tag Tournament 2: This will be day 1, Tekken’s one of my most favorite series, I’ve been playing it since.. uh it’s a been a while anyways.. since the first original Tekken on PSX anyways.
• Resident Evil 6: Will be a wait again possibly.. as I don’t like the idea of both Leon and Chris being in the same game.. I follow Leon’s story.. this is why I didn’t like Resident Evil 5, and the whole run and gun thing is sounding bad to me.. when will they bring back the original controls instead of the over the shoulder semi-third person view? It just seems like the series is turning into action rather than Survival Horror, the reason why I’m waiting as I want a guarantee that Leon and Chris keep their distances.. but I know it’s coming ..eventually.
• Metal Gear Rising Revengeance: This is a definite day 1 buy, I am glad the development got handed over to Platinum Games, they are awesome at hack n’ slashes, and the trailer looked very much like the gameplay of Bayonetta, I’m also a very big MGS fan, its one of the rare shooters that I actually enjoy, during the whole of MGS4 I was wanting to play as Raiden instead of Old Snake.. so I’m glad he’s getting his own game again.

So yea, that will be my gaming for this year.. one of my New Year Resolutions were to not buy any game I didn’t want, so there will be no more easy games on my list, I plan in working on my completion while not playing any of these new games coming, and I hope to reach 100,000 gamerscore by the end of this year.. hopefully I do.. right at the moment, I’m not too far off.