Localisation Complication

I like JRPGs. Between my weekly Final Fantasy IV episodes, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, Xenoblade Chronicles X—which I’m still playing—and the recently released Tales of Berseria, I have quite the number of Japanese RPG titles to keep me entertainment.

But while I love the games and most of its tropes—except for the truly annoying ones—there is an aspect of them that I’ve grown to dislike over time and that is how the localisation teams translate words and concepts in ways that make them much more complicated than they should be, taking simple terms and translating them using strange terms that muddle their comprehension. Continue reading Localisation Complication

Tales of Zestiria – It’s a Wrap!

Tales of Zestira is finally done!

After 8 months, 110 episodes—and many more I either deleted accidentally or lost due to file corruption—and hours of footage, the game is finally done and I’m very proud of it. What started as a regular playthrough of a massively long game ended up being the first game I created custom thumbnails for and now at the end it’s the first of the LawfulGeek plays series to have extensive video editing done on them. Continue reading Tales of Zestiria – It’s a Wrap!

Houston We Have a Problem…and an opportunity!

You may have noticed that there weren’t any Tales of Zestiria episodes live on the YouTube channel yesterday. In fact, my plan for the Tales of Zestiria week derailed spectacularly during the weekend, leaving me with this current situation and forcing me to make the decision I’ve made and will be telling you about now. Continue reading Houston We Have a Problem…and an opportunity!

Spoiled Rotten – Elements I now want in all JRPGs!!

As you know, I’ve been playing and recording Tales of Zestiria, the latest in what is apparently a very long series, though I had never before played any of them. Another game I’m still playing and which you might know of is Xenoblade Chronicles X, of which I’ve written in the past, particularly how much I loved the world and the gameplay elements.

Now that I’m playing another major JRPG for a review in the coming days, I keep thinking back to those games and the convenient mechanics they brought into my gaming life. And while it may seem unfair, I keep waiting for those mechanics to show up in this new JRPG, and I will admit I’ll be partly disappointed if they never pop up.

You could say Xenoblade Chronicles X and Tales f Zestiria have spoiled me. But once I tell you about these features, you will probably understand why they’re so good and how game changing they are in JRPGs—not so much in western RPGs were at least one of them has been around for a while.

Continue reading Spoiled Rotten – Elements I now want in all JRPGs!!

Darksiders Week!

Last week, I mentioned I wanted to do a few things differently with the YouTube channel, and at some other point I mentioned I would be leaving one of the LawfulGeek Plays slots empty for a while as I wanted to do a few more edits and prepare videos more thoroughly.

To that end, and because I’m a bit impatient and want to move things along as fast as I can, I’ve decided to use this week to air the remaining episodes of Darksiders. Continue reading Darksiders Week!

The End Approaches – LawfulGeek Plays

I know the title is a bit alarming, I’m sorry about that, it’s nothing bad, but I’m finally getting close to the end of Tales of Zestiria. You might be wondering why I’m talking about it instead of just keeping things going until the last episode but this is the first of my Let’s Play series to go over 100 episodes. When I sat down to play it this weekend, after months of inactivity because of the country hop, and saw the endgame zone, I was ecstatic.

You can’t believe how long I’ve been waiting to get here. Because even if I left it very close to the end before moving, there was still so much to see to actually meet the final boss, Heldalf. Continue reading The End Approaches – LawfulGeek Plays

LawfulGeek Plays Rescheduling!

For the past few months, I’ve been pumping out videos for a series of Let’s Play videos I like to call LawfulGeek Plays. I’ve run these episodes in various formats and schedules, the latest one being a Monday to Friday schedule with three episodes per day, one for the games I’ve been playing.

For the past couple of weeks I haven’t had any episodes, as I’ve just moved to another country and I’m not in my own place with the proper internet to upload them in bulk. But the break has given me time to think and I’ve realised that the schedule I have right now isn’t working. It’s not attracting more viewers and it’s very time-consuming for me, as I need to record dozens of episodes ahead of time to keep up to date. As much as I love recording and playing the games, it does cut into the time I need for other projects, considerably so. Continue reading LawfulGeek Plays Rescheduling!

Top Five Bad Tropes in JRPGs

Yesterday I spoke of the best things in Japanese Role-Playing Games aka JRPGs. I spoke of the scale, the length of the video games and how complex they are no matter their audience. But not everything about JRPGs is good and there are some common elements that annoy me to no end, so this time around I’m listing the five things I wish JRPGs stopped doing! Continue reading Top Five Bad Tropes in JRPGs

Five things I love about JRPGs

A couple of days I go wrote about the common elements in RPGs that I wasn’t really fond of, and JRPGs—that is Japanese RPGs—popped up a few times, both for good and bad reasons. Some people disagreed with my statements and we had a lovely discussion about it, but I realised today that no one argued the JRPG points.

So in contrast to the, mostly negative, overview of RPGs I gave on that article, I thought maybe we should take a closer look at JRPGs. What are its virtues and vices? If the phrasing seems familiar, then you probably read a similar article I did on adventure games some time ago. If you haven’t, go check it out, it’s a good one.

For today, I’m focusing on the positive aspects, the virtues of JRPGs. And to keep the list succinct, I’ll just explore the five things I like the most about JRPGs. Tomorrow, I’ll speak about the five I dislike the most! Continue reading Five things I love about JRPGs

Let’s Play – Jade Empire – Complete

If you’ve kept an eye on The Mental Attic’s YouTube channel, you’ve probably noticed the three on-going Let’s Play (or more accurately LawfulGeek Plays) series: Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Tales of Zestiria and of course, Jade Empire.

I first picked up Jade Empire with the intention of playing it during my Twitch broadcasts on the old channel and review it afterwards, but after just one night in which I forgot to turn on the mic while playing (happens more often than I’d care to admit), I abandoned it. When I decided to push harder on the YouTube content, as part of the LawfulGeek rebrand for Twitch and the revamp of the YouTube channel, I decided to continue this playthrough. Continue reading Let’s Play – Jade Empire – Complete