Antonio

I don't remember Grandia II much, but I certainly don't remember the final boss being all that tough. "Kill the healer" is a fairly common strategy in fights with multiple enemies. The whole game was easy once I got this accessory that allowed my fighter to attack multiple times in one turn.

Also, GameFAQs was certainly around in 2000 and it likely had a FAQ for this game at the time. If not, you could've posted a topic and someone would've answered it.

"After all, who wouldn't want to play a JRPG with the look and feel of Okami?"

Judging by the sales of the game, a lot of people.

@Startbuttonnews

Yeah, but Capcom has announced a 'tournament mode' update that will allow players to upload their gem selections from a USB stick. After that, I expect tourney organizers will at least give the mode a shot.

I have to disagree about the gem system being a waste of time. It's wayyyy too soon to rule out anything at a competitive level. Frequently what's accepted as "optimal play" by the competitive scene gets blown apart when one guy wins a tourney using new tactics everyone else overlooked.

For instance, most people considered Rocket Raccoon a low-tier fighter in UMvC3, but someone just won a major tourney with him, taking out many top players along the way. I'm not saying the gem system will be the bee knee's, just that's it's IMPOSSIBLE to know how it'll play out until all the competitive scene has had time to explore its intricacies.

I never made past like level 7 of the DS game :-\

Castlevania: LoS may not have the "traditional" sound, but it's still friggin' awesome. The final battle music is one of my all-time favorite tracks.

I, too, don't care for vocals in my Sonic games, but I guess kids don't mind. Still, try a little harder, Sega.

Is Mario Kart Wii a pack-in game now? Or is it really getting that much love?

@Vic Fontaine

Damn dude chill out. I never see anyone saying that SA1, SA2, or Heroes were all that great. The Sonic/Shadow portions of SA2 were great fun, but everyone else was pretty bad. I stopped playing Heroes 3 levels in because the characters were annoying the shit out of me.

The physics in S4E1 were poor. It's pretty sad that I can pick up one of the GBA or DS Sonics and get a better gameplay experience than on a 360/PS3/Wii Sonic game. If you don't see people bitching about the physics in Mario games, it's because Nintendo, ya know, actually got them right.

@Boomaga

Well I did say I only played through it once.

Nostalgia definitely plays a role. I played Mega Man 9 and didn't find the music nearly as appealing as previous entries. I think there are two things going on there. First of all, the bar for 'good music' was a lot lower when I was 9. Secondly, I only played through the game once, so the tunes can't sink in like in the past when I played through games like 15 times due to lack of options. Or maybe the music just wasn't that good.