#162 – Mega Man X3 (SNES)
This is where the Mega Man X series take a turn for a darker Storyline and I loved that about it. Although the following games did a poor job of cashing in what could have made the MMX series’ story reach epic proportions, MMX3 did a great set up for it. MMX3 also has IMO the best overall music from the series. The music also has that Dark feel which I felt was highly suitable for MMX3’s environment. Apart from that MMX3 plays just like its predecessors. The Mega Man series are notorious for being almost the same game and MMX3 doesn’t do much better except add Zero as a playable character (And did a poor job at that). The bosses from MMX3 are more memorable to me somehow than the ones in MMX2 but apart from all that MMX3 is just about the same. I can’t deny I didn’t have a blast with MMX3 but like the previous entry it didn’t bring that much to the table for future purposes.
#161 – Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (PS2)
You can’t say you’re a fan of RPGs if you’ve never even played a SMT game. My main reason for playing this game was not because it was SMT but because I’ve heard from many that this game has the hardest super optional boss in an RPG ever. They were not exaggerating. Demi-Fiend (I won’t spoil the name of the Demi-Fiend to people who haven’t played SMT: Nocturne or this game) makes optional bosses from the Final Fantasy series look like random encounters. Here’s my story. With a max level party and high stats the Demi-Fiend bested me over 20 times before I finally got lucky on him. Believe me, you do not wanna underestimate a SMT’s super boss or its difficulty or else you’re in for a rude awakening. Be ready for many cheap deaths and game over screens if you just play it casually. Enough with the Demi-Fiend, let’s analyze the game itself. The music is just fantastic; I personally love the music in DDS1. The story while not the best is fairly decent, it isn’t anything epic but gets quite good in the latter stages of the game. Now the gameplay is where it is unique in itself. While DDS plays itself like most SMT it has a few tweaks. I don’t wanna get into detail about the mechanics of the battle system otherwise it’s gonna take a wall of text to cover just that. However long story short: exploiting weaknesses and guarding against it still remains the key to victory in battle just like every other SMT game. What’s best about DDS is its demon conversion system which is known as the hunt system, a far more friendlier system compared to Nocturne’s. DDS saga is a moderately challenging game like any SMT game is and any RPG fan should at least give it a spin. Who knows you just might like it as much as I did.
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