damn, i'm seriously getting excited again after your write-up!

been a while since i've played it.

I just really really hated the fact that that D-ratio gauge kept crawling up during the entire game. Puts way too much pressure on you.
What kind of idiot puts a time limit on an RPG anyway?
No wait, let me rephrase that: What kind of RETARD puts limited saves in an RPG anyway!?

Later on, bosses all have some kind of shield on them that you have to slash off with an insane amount of hits every single time you attack or you won't even be able to damage them at all, and using D-ratio too much WILL get you killed.

The concept was great, the soundtrack was great, the atmosphere was great, the ending was definitely worth the trouble, but damn, the gameplay was sadistic.

I liked the old fashoned BOF's though I'll be the first to admit they were rather dry. Last time through IV I couldn't sit there and hack at it hour after hour, more like peck at it an hour here and an hour there.

I did pick up III again so (maybe in a few years) I eventually give it another spin. Rather horrible at playing things the minute I buy them anymore.

I thought BoF IV was awesome.
I really liked the laid back, calm atmosphere, and the rural Asian setting.
Plus, it's probably the only game in the series that didn't piss me the hell off with insane encounter rates and cheap bosses.

I liked BoFIV... but after a while, the game's length started to wear me down. I think I finished with 54 hours. I also had a hell of a time with the final bosses. I remembering spending forty minutes on the first one, hoping that I'd make it through... and then the game tossed an even NASTIER one at you! Completely uncalled for.

True, but hearing "A Raging Emperor's Banquet" totally made it worth it.

I've tried (and failed) to get through DQ a few times, but I've heard the first batch of disks Capcom US put out glitched and would not play the ending at all, and before I devote myself to its completion I'd like to have some way to tell whether my copy's bugged first.

And I enjoyed BoF4 as well; I think each of the first four BoFs is better than its predecessors. On the claim of 'no cheap bosses' though, I submit to you Fou-Lu's dog.

Well, that time limit didn't much bother me on my playthroughs, I knew it was and I used my dragon powers sparingly, and at the end, I had like 40% left.

And limited saves is probably partly done because of SOL-system, which again I liked, though limiting saves did make few parts a tad harder.

Actually, the end bosses which have those shields can be easily done with first making a trap with Nina, then using Rin to pull that boss to trap and then making some damage with Ryu. Though, I did use D-ratio on Bosch at Electricy power factory to be able to finish the battle.

But then, maybe it's just me who's grown tired of easy rpgs and stuff like this and Shin Megami Tensei-games are just a bliss to play.

Whoever put it into Valkyrie Profile?

The sole blemish on an otherwise perfect piece of work.
Besides, VP only limited you in the amount of times you could visit towns/dungeons.
BoFV limits the actual duration of the game.

But yeah, I guess if you like your RPGs hard, you'll have a blast with this one.
If we're going to play this for the Gaming Club, I'll just take a rain check

In somewhat similar circumstances, I really disliked how practically all the downs where blocked on in FFVIII due to time compression on the fourth disc and in by gnarly roots in IX. I've always wondered if this was solely mandated by the story (more likely in XIII) or if it was a disc data saving "feature" (more likely in IX.)

Can't be as bad as SaGa Frontier II. You can only visit a town if the event your tackling takes you there.

If allyourbaseare will forgive me, I thought I'd take a bit of initiative. Is this a good time to entertain a new conquest?

I dunno..... With the holiday gaming rush about to begin (with Demon's Souls, Uncharted 2, Brutal Legend, and A Boy And His Blob heading up these first two weeks), I wonder how invested any one of us will be in another timed endeavor right now?

Myself, I'm trying my best to wrap up Arkham Asylum and Bowser's Inside Story before the aforementioned titles above hit.

Maybe we can play one of the new games coming out (like Uncharted 2). We'd have to be more careful with spoilers but it makes more sense than trying to pull out an older game while we're all trying to catch up with the new.

(But don't pay too much attention to me. I never beat Resident Evil 4. )

No forgiveness required!    Initiative is always a good thing and if there's something you've been jonesing to go through again, odds are a few of us have as well.  What game is it anyways?

I'm always up for new requests but as Angela said, there's a slew of new games coming out in the upcoming months.  I will be busy with Uncharted 2, Ratchet & Clank and Terranigma (finally got the European SNES working and found a suitable TV!!) and that's a good month of gaming right there. 

However, I would love to do another play-through with everyone again. 

Looking at the list of upcoming releases, after October it looks like I'm not going to be buying anything (seriously!) until 2010.  Thus, would everyone be up for a new game on or around November 1st?

I dunno, man.  Modern Warfare 2 (11/10), New Super Mario Bros. Wii (11/15), and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (11/27).  Especially MW2, which threatens to eat away at the rest of my gaming year.

What game did we all decide on?

...

In response to everyone's earlier musings about Breath of Fire V, I has a salution: GameShark.

That's what I did.

Just for the plot, characters, and setting. If the plight and dire-ness of all those people suffering in that hole doesn't get to you, you're just not human.

For that matter, I recorded all of the plot scenes, in order, on VHS. A fun fan-based thing to do with it might be to make voice-overs for it...

Oh yeah, and don't forget the soundtrack! Some delightfully bleak stuff, there!

...

Otherwise, only PS2 games I have to finish up are these:

Castlevania ~ Curse of Darkness
Drakengard 2
Final Fantasy XII
Okami
Persona 3
Persona 4
Poison Pink / Eternal Poison (U.S.)
Radiata Stories
Soul Nomad
Suikoden V
Valkyrie Profile 2

Wussies use that, the game isn't actually so hard if you just get hang of the battle mechanics fast. Then it's just putting traps with Nina, pushing/pulling with Rin and doing damage with Ryu. And for some bosses, slight usage of D-Ratio fixes a lot. Easy. :P

But yeah, I'm always up for new thread as long as it's a game I can play on my consoles.

Too much work

Ugh, don't get me started on the sheer ride of masochism that is BoF5.
Yeah, the setting and atmosphere are great, and the soundtrack is Sakimoto's absolute best, but the gameplay is unforgiving and unnecessarily hard. An RPG with limited saves? No thank you.

As for the Gaming Club, I'm on Angie's side here, there's just TOO much good stuff coming out in the next 3 months. Plus, I still have a backlog the size of Mount Everest, so I think I'll be sitting the next one out if we decide to do something.

It's not that I had anything in mind per se, but I enjoyed the social element the first round brought to RE4 (a game I'd kept putting off beforehand) and wouldn't mind doing it again. If people are busy lately though, that's fine, too.

Let's not choose a game that will take many dozens of hours to play.  It would be impossible to maintain group cohesion for the duration of the game.

Well, from that list Suikoden V and FF XII can be finished somewhat fast (especially Suikoden V with New Game + and skipping scenes), but Persona 3/4 would take ages. Heck, my save for the Journey-part in Persona 3 FES was around 120 hours, and that's not counting all the time I enjoyed the game.

Will be fun if I someday start doing my blog about playing the games I own and I'll replay Persona 3. Especially if I'll try to make so called perfect save for it. "Tried again today to fuse the ultimate persona, but after canceling the fusion nth time, I though that maybe it was time to try to summon my own Persona with Evoker, especially if I'm gonna go through this again someday".

But now that I got my braincells moving around, wouldn't something sweet and short like Metal Gear Solid-series with for the next thread? Or maybe even Shadof of the Colossus. Psychonauts would be nice, but then I would have to buy it (yes yes, get in line, I know I should have bought that ages ago :P).

The action genre lends itself well to these sorts of group playthroughs just because they're not 80+ hour grindfests that some games are (I'm looking at you Persona 3).  I have yet to go through MGS2 although I just finished the first one (for the first time!) awhile ago.  If we do decide to do this again, that one gets my vote.

Anyone interested in starting this up again?

I'd be game.  As of right now I'm just going through and working on Platinum's for the games I already own.  Finished up Uncharted last night!

It kinda depends on what we will be doing next.
There's a pretty steady stream of interesting games coming up in the next couple of months, so I'd prefer a short game if we're going to do this again.

Maybe Silent Hill 2?
I'm always up for that!

I like the way you think.  I've been meaning to replay Silent Hill 2.

I've been meaning to play Silent Hill 2 PERIOD.  A semi-short title that's one of the best (if not the best) in the series?  Sign me up.

I'm in for some Silent Hill 2 action. Gotta play with my sanity yet again.

Gonna have to bow out on Silent Hill 2 -- and any PS2-related title for that matter.  I lent my PS2 out to my cousins for an indefinite period of time (they are loving Klonoa 2 and Gitaroo Man!), and I've not a backwards-compatible PS3 to play on.

Silent Hill 2's a great choice, though.  If it comes to pass, I'll likely play through it again at a later time, and offer a retroactive write-up then.

they should've done more merchandising on that game. Don't any of you tell me you wouldnt buy a pyramid head bottle opener. its like the perfect shape.

Seeing as how there's been a renewed interest in wanting to play/replay The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, I thought I'd take the reins this time in hosting a new edition of the STC Gaming Club.  Are we all cool with Zelda?

Thing is, I'm not sure if we'd even want to consider this an "official" Gaming Club entry -- that is, in the conventional sense where we'd be locked into timed schedules to finish the game.  The Minish Cap isn't an especially long game, but unlike the linear, action-adventure outings of Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2, there are more inherent opportunities to explore, go off on the beaten path, and do some personal leveling up.  Having a deadline of sorts could put a damper on the experience.  On top of which, I'm sure there are folks here like myself who are pressed for time these days; how committed are we to seeing this through in a timely manner?   

What do you guys think?  Should we try for the traditional 'Gaming Club' way, perhaps even conceding to a more liberal time frame for completion, or should we just make this into a regular Gaming thread, and let people come in and out at their own leisure?

I would prefer the latter, especially considering I actually need to buy the game first.