PS3 - Cross Edge

[Big Sexy Hair]

Here is a game that makes me less bitter about purchasing a PS3.  (The sour taste is still in my mouth, but its a good sour.  Like biting into a big juicy lemon and then realizing it numbed the soreness of that cankerr sore that had been plaguing you for days on end)

Cross Edge (X-Edge) is essentially a console JRPG.  Its credo is that it combines characters from *other* JRPG's into a world all their own.  The whole combining of franchises has had mixed results in the gaming market.  There's Super Smash Brothers and Kingdom Hearts which got much acclaim - but the only people who like those are brainless morons who enjoy clapping their hands at bright colors and rubbing their testicals to the thought of what samus might look like under those 200lbs of metal armor - Trust me.  She's ugly as shit.  And sweaty from lugging that thing around.  And then there were the unsuccessful mix-em-up games like Ehrgeiz and that one on the dreamcast which nobody remembers.  So when I heard about this game's inception, I had mixed thoughts.  Much like when I first heard that Barack Obama was running for President.  I loved the idea, but would it really pan out?  Hope I can believe in.

Cross Edge takes characters from the following games:  Mana Khemia 2:  The Fall of Alchemy, Atelier Marie, Darkstalkers, Ar Tonelico:  Melody of Elemia, Disgaea, and Spectral Souls.  You may be wondering to yourself:  Hey BSH:  I haven't heard of any of these titles - except for Darkstalkers.  And only that because I used to pleasure myself to pictures of Morrigan and Felicia.  Well peachy.  This game isn't for you then.  (Keep in mind that only a few of these were even *licensed* stateside)  The niche market on this game is one for only the most 'hardcore' gamers.  The ones who would sooner gouge out their eyes for just one more achievement point.  Even at the starting screen the game tells you that unless you start on 'Hard' difficulty, you'll never be able to unlock everything.  Because they know exactly who their audience is.  Did I mention that the game is comprised mostly of drool-worthy female characters?  And that one of its aspiring features is unlockable 'costumes' to dress your characters up in?   Yea.

Can you enjoy the game if you've never played any of these titles before?  The game expects right from the start that you at least have a minute understanding at who every single one of the characters are and their relationships - by making constant puns that only people who have played the games would understand.  But I suppose you could get into it without all that.

This isn't a review by any means and I'm not going to try to rate it.  The people who made it know exactly who will buy it, because those are the people that will enjoy it.  And those people are definitely *not* IGN:  who gave the game a 3.5/10 because the reviewer played all of 5 minutes of the game and found it to be too hard ('convuluted' was his choice of phrase)  http://ps3.ign.com/articles/988/988422p1.html

My verdict is:  if you played through any of the Disgaea games from start to finish, you may not enjoy this one.  But if you played through them and got to level 9,999 and scored a 50,000 hit combo doing 80 bajillion damage after spending 600+ hours at the game:  Then yes.  You probably will have yourself a jolly little nerdgasm everytime you turn on Cross Edge.  I'll probably be spending the rest of my summer in that euphoric state too.

[Marlin Clock]

Is there any point to the crossovering, like how in Kingdom Hearts everyone had their own world and shit, or are they just there to be there?

[Big Sexy Hair]

They give you a plot, an evil organization accumulating souls which you must free - you are one of said souls but for one reason or another you have a physical body and can't return as easily as these latent souls.  So you have to do your best to put the bad guys down while in the mean time rescuing souls and dissolving the fissure that connected your worlds together in the first place.  Like KH, it tries to give a plot for why things exist - but it doesn't fall over itself with establishing believability.

Because to be honest?   Its not believable.  The gamer would rather be amused at the absurdety than jostling their brain every 5 minutes whenever they see Donald and Goofy butting into the conversation with some quip about how things were so much better in the world they live in.  A world of smiles and ass-raping pedophiles.

[Marlin Clock]

Do you always type in that font?

[Poltergeist]

I like the comment about people liking smash brothers being nerds/easily entertained/perverts and yet this is a game combinging characters from JRPGs

I mean it includes Darkstalkers. It's like Fanfiction: The Game

Nevertheless, I'll look up some gameplay videos

[Big Sexy Hair]

So after a spell to get myself used to the gameplay - I have to say it has everything a completionist like myself could want in a game.  As I might have already stated in the intro, you're pretty much forced to begin the game on hard mode.  Because you miss out on parts of the game if you don't, and you'll never be able to up your difficulty on a new game+.  First few hours of the game was spent trying to get to a save spot.  First random encounter killed me every time.  I worked out some strategies, fiddled with combos, and prayed to any diety that might answer my call.  And eventually, my efforts panned out and I was able to actually SAVE the game.  They had me reading out of the instruction manual like it was my bible.  I don't even recall the last game that made me do that.  This is a callback to the era of:  when games are difficult for the sheer sake of being difficult.

This was not a bad time.

Later on in the game, I was informed that if I didn't go back and discover random events during timed 'intervals', that I would never be able to go back and get the true ending.  So I eventually had to start over AGAIN on down the road.  Now that I've gotten into the meat of it though, it plays really nice.  Combat takes forever, and you've got more going on the screen than that chess-playing computer could tackle at any given moment.  They did however give you an option to skip past the battle animations, but this actually amps up the difficulty a bit because everything is based on chaining combos as quickly as possible.  Without the battle animations, you have practically no time to decide on your next move.  


And in response, yes - this game caters to drooling otaku-minded fanboys.  My costume collection is sizing up, and issuing commands to Erie or May whiel they're in their elementary school swimsuits is as delicious to me as the 53 hours of grind it took for me to get to level 20.

Game's not for everyone, but its sure as hell for me.

[TequilaClock]

Why is Morrigan there? i thought she was from Capcom.

[Big Sexy Hair]

Why is Morrigan there? i thought she was from Capcom.

Nippon Ichi Software, Capcom, Namco Bandai, Gust, and Idea Factory got together to make this game.

[TequilaClock]

Nippon Ichi Software, Capcom, Namco Bandai, Gust, and Idea Factory got together to make this game.

Ah, ohhhhh... sounds funky, I should check it.

[peyoteclock]

haha the sexual comments you're making about video game characters is priceless.

god bless.