I can’t speak for the first two PS2 games, or about their Japanese PS1 predecessors, but I think Atelier Iris: Grand Phantasm is pretty charming… even if, for the most part, a lot of the charm has charmed us before. For all its many separate systems, Atelier Iris 3 is fun to learn and play, but understand that the greatest enjoyment of this game is had in completely exploiting the systems on an individual basis. Ignore any aspirations you have for a high-spun yarn and great technical merits, and be freed to mess around in a story vacuum and still accomplish something, as through the very addictive item mixing. With no random encounters and rarely any cutscenes to jar the flow, you’re free to take quests as you please or not; free to care, or just enjoy the challenge of the dungeons till your time is up.

Atelier Iris 3 combines the best of past innovations in quest-based dungeon-crawlers in a non-threatening, pleasant balance–not too tedious, and not too pushy towards your advancement. The RPG elements feel hand-picked with replayability foremost in mind, so although it really won’t win awards for originality, Atelier Iris 3 is a familiar sort of good.

If you’ve ever seen a captive marine mammal who reflected a small galaxy in its bulging brow, you had better go back to Sea World and Free Ecco. There have been several examples of the star-speckled-dolphin-turned-world-savior phenomenon, mostly dating from the Genesis era, when Ecco would do battle against the enigmatic Vortex in the world’s present and future oceans. These games held their appeal in casting the player as an acrobatic, lively, and decidedly free cetacean in a loosely-motivated, largely-undirected, but very daunting quest. A mystical, unnervingly-realistic entry into a scene full of anthropomorphic avatars, Ecco stood somewhat aloof and not fully understood for many years after the Genesis bowed out.

Like its predecessors, the latest (if now not-so-recent) Ecco the Dolphin game, subtitle: Defender of the Future, features endless blue skies and labyrinthine blue depths, where a lot of aquatic folk hang out but only a lone hero dares fight evil. That’s because evil consists of sharks as big as an oceanliner and eels that look like brontosaurus necks. It’s OK to muck around in Ecco’s first few levels and even later to take a moment and smell the sea lilies, but to linger unprotected in the open waters is essentially to become giganticized-sea-creature bait. But an empty air gauge and utter disorientation will kill you more than anything.

As you can see, this game is fun beyond compare disguised in an unexpected survival-horror nightmare It is very important you play it.

So over the past 10 years, you’ve somehow avoided owning the three Metal Gear Solid games and their respective expansions (that’s VR Missions, Substance and Subsistence). That’s understandable–they’re pretty content-heavy, psychologically-demanding affairs, and full of those lovable, unpausable cutscenes the length of a short feature film. But have you considered that your act of evasion might have been your way of fulfilling the need for Tactical Stealth Action we all have in our lives? …cause that’s what it is.

So maybe you wisened up, got the ones you could find, and you just have some holes in this lineup of admittedly rare games. Well, as beloved as they are for their intelligent, slightly-futuristic-but-still-believable stories of covert missions, interpersonal drama, and philosophizing on the fundamental nature of humanity, it’s not hard to believe that people don’t resell ‘em. So what’s one to do?

It’s all in Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection now. You already know it and love it, or you just have yet to discover you do. This release is serious, fan-respecting business befitting the nature of the games–it even bears a PS1 reprint of the original game for full authenticity.

I’d talk more, but I’ve got a date with Solid Snake, now.

With all the talk of voting coming out of the States, I’m glad to see another good decision made for the Highest Rated product here on the site. This vote may only pertain to a video game, and said video game may hinge its artistic value on squishing Disney productions and Final Fantasy characters into one whacked-out storyline, but sound judgment is sound judgment.

Some people formed another opinion, avoided the earnest little Action-RPG in 2002, and continued to disrespect our candidate, Kingdom Hearts. To those people, I say you’re right–but ONLY about the second game. The original, conceived in a Japan elevator by two spontaneous company reps–one Square, one Disney, and ostensibly sans alcohol–wasn’t slated for great success, but did achieve it. People opened their hearts, took up an oversized keyblade, smashed the tar out of Sephiroth right alongside Captain Hook and summoned Simba instead of Shiva, all without a second thought.

An island youth named Sora rose to fame as he discovered, and we rediscovered, the worlds of the anthropomorphic animals we all know and love. You can sense a childlike sincerity, a candor about this game that says, “Please like me–and for crying out loud, don’t take me that seriously”, but that was forgotten by the sequel. Still, the first really, really makes you feel like you’re in a World of Magic. Good voting, guys, and maybe KHIII will be better.

As most everyone in the know already… erm, knows, the Wii is set to receive an update of a certain game by the now-defunct Clover Studios. But as I understand it, there’s not a lot in this update that you can’t get with the original, still-luscious Okami for PS2. A game that encourages the player take it seriously as well as have a few laughs, Okami has a bold, authentic art style derived from proudly Japanese culture, but an art game from the makers of Viewtiful Joe still finds time for the comedic in its drama of gods and mortals. Romping around as a wolf, which should bring to mind the Twilight Princess’ Wolf Link, you’ll also have to paint broken or missing parts your world back into being — think a bridge over a grand river — and this you’ll do in natural-looking style with your analog sticks for brushes. (I’m being serious — it does FEEL pretty natural, at least.)

Okami is a fairly long adventure of a breed hard to come by these days. You still won’t be able to look away from one of the most timeless games on PS2.

Hard to believe St. Patrick’s (a.k.a. Drinking) Day is almost upon us again this year. Harder to believe is that a one-time popular drinking pastime, even among non-gamers, was to stand on a plastic square and stomp arrows and call it dancing — that being Dance Dance Revolution. I say that with all the hypocrisy I can muster, because right at the height of DDR popularity, about 5 years ago, I was enjoying Konamix on PS1 in a perfectly unaltered state.

For me, DDR was akin to EverCrack for online gamers. I loved it hard. But now, 10 years after the first machines popped up in arcades in 1998, this portent of the rhythm/music game craze has given way to less embarrassing rhythm/music games. These I now play with an unheard nostalgic sigh for the DDR days.

SOME people must still be into it as I no longer am. New people every day should discover the leg-searing, sweat-pouring, toe-stubbing joy that was once my own! They keep making the games, and tomorrow, I’m even going to play the latest and greatest in feet games for the first time. To commemorate all this wonderful … stuff, here’s a product I may be needing, as I have not tested my soft dance pad in quite some time: the Naki World Dance Pad Non-slip . Naki is a good third-party brand that has never failed me, unlike Mad Catz, whose pad gave out after 2 weeks’ use. It’s also more affordable to get into DDR now than it ever has been, as you’ll see if you follow the link.

If the last post brought to mind this particular game for me, this one should draw even more comparisons. Whether it’s the likes of Okami (obviously) or The Simpsons Movie Game (uh, what?), many can claim Shadow of the Colossus as a source of inspiration, but few can truly boast the same… feel.

SotC is the kind of game that requires the player enter into a kind of meditative wanderlust, with all material preoccupations set aside. Now, as I prepare to type the next sentence, I can almost hear the allegations launching as I plagiarze something unbenownst to me, so I’ll cover my bases. “It’s sorta like that Eagles song — riding through the desert on a horse… named Agro… well, the man is nevertheless unnamed, and the quest vague, and there are only so many things you can say about it” (SomeReviewProbablyMyOwn, 2005). You can’t be thinking too hard, or trying to name that graphics blitter or lighting effect, if you’re ever to get truly immersed in the ride (it’s a long one) between the fighting. The game makes you think in its own way, if you let it.

Which is to say, it puts you in a state of reverent belittlement. The colossi are so colossal that I must have some kind of… colossophobia, preventing me from playing on my very large TV. The voiceless, heartless-looking behemoths are rather frightening. Imagine that the Wanderer is a pixel on your screen, and they’d be THIIIIIIIS big (you kinda have to turn your head on its side… also works better in lower resolutions). Unlike the current example, SotC probably exhibits the finest 3-D graphics on the PS2. If you look really close, you can see their fleas… oh wait, that would be you, clinging and flailing for dear life.

This is a good game. LESS people should be selling it and more owning it, so buy one.

The rain is pouring down this Sunday night. Uninspired, I decide to look up a game to cover. A few clicks of “Next Page”, and there’s a familiar sight: Harvest Moon: Magical
Melody. I prepare to wax nostalgic that I played it so much, my Gamecube’s laser burnt a hole
through the disc, or melted it, or some other lie about it, but then I notice something. Everyone seems be up on how great this game is. Little guy Natsume’s effort to rise up on any console, regardless of its prospects, wielding nothing but faith in a good formula and never altering it for
image, popularizing it in the conventional ways, or even localizing it fully out of the original
language, is rewarded as it should be with glowing reviews in just about all cases.

JUST about. One of them has no reviews. It doesn’t even have an image! And that’s a real shame for Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon, being shunned just because it’s a bit different. I’m going to give you fellow simulated farmers the benefit of the doubt, here, and say you just didn’t hear about it, or recognize it underneath the new banner and the hi-tech fantasy coating. Just look: I have to text link to it! I never have to do that. It’s boring. Not like Innocent Life, which is neat! Pretty! And portable!

I find this situation so dire, I’ve decided to embed the trailer that came out almost a year ago, just to convince any naysayers. It may be in Japanese, but if you know Harvest Moon, you know that’s just how puritanical and culturally-unadulterated it is
(note my efforts to distract from the bad translation, the only drawback of HM). Won’t you be the first to review Innocent Life?

Having played Phoenix Wright games 1 through 3 on the Nintendo DS and gotten quite sucked into the whirlwind of legal drama and the fight for justice, I started looking forward to the game adaptation of a Hanna-Barbera TV show unbenownst to me, called Harvey Birdman. Surprisingly, I find now that instead of a Wii game showing up here on PriceGrabber, there’s a PS2 version! Not that I mind, but something that made the other bird-man’s game more interactive were the touch screen controls (and it really needed all the help it could get, there). A Wii version would preserve that feeling to some extent, but I’m sure that I’ll cave and try out whichever one shows up for rental sooner.

Giving a little info about the game requires what little knowledge I have of the show. The comedy stars a lawyer-slash-superhero, whose side luck isn’t on nearly as often as it is off. Playing as the super attorney who best plies his trade when it becomes apparent that his clients are guilty, or stupid, or are having hot tubs installed in the courtroom, Harvey Birdman sounds like an opportune property for Capcom to use to parody itself, attracting fans of the stern-faced, righteous Phoenix fellow in the process.

Let the gavel fall and the good times roll, I say.