Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen has been added to the review section. Ogres have the most intense battles.

I just beat Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. This is one of the hardest games I've played in my entire life. I was sweating bullets the whole way through. During some sessions with Tropical Freeze, things would get so intense that I'd have to change my shirt afterwards. There were even times where I gripped the controller so hard that I bruised myself. Losing to the same infernal stage thirty times in a row makes my blood pressure go up by at least thirty points. Aside from the ridiculous difficulty, the game is really good. It's basically the same exact thing as the first one, but that's not at all a bad thing. I just wish these games were a little easier, because I don't think I can take the extreme stress associated with these insanely difficult games anymore. I'm getting too old for this.

Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis has been added to the review section. As of this writing, there have only been two Tactics Ogre games released, so this wraps up the Tactics Ogre series. Also, it's been a long time since I've done a review for the Game Boy Advance. In fact, it's been well over four years! Let's see how long it'll take me to do another one.

I'm back to report my completion of Lightning Returns, which took around 45 hours. I don't like this one. I think it's an improvement over Final Fantasy XIII-2 due the battle system, but that's about the only good thing Lightning Returns has going for it. Just about everything else in the game sucks, and by everything else, I mean side quests. Square Enix should have called this Final Fantasy XIII: Boring Side Quest Simulator, because that's all you do in the game, boring fetch quests. All the side quests are of the MMO variety, where you collect a certain amount of drops from beating monsters. I would have skipped all of them if it weren't for the fact that they make you stronger, basically making them a requirement in order to beat the game. I did skip a good deal of them, which made the final leg of the game unnecessarily difficult. I should have skipped this game instead.

I decided to take a brief respite from writing reviews to play Final Fantasy XIII-3. Well, the official name is Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, but you get the idea. It's been a really long time since I played a game on the PS3. I think the last time I booted up the system was back in 2012. Time sure flies when you aren't playing PS3 games. To be fair, most of my modern systems have become dust collectors as of late. I've still yet to make the jump to the next round of consoles, the PS4 and Xbox One, because I haven't seen anything particularly eye catching on any of them. I also still haven't gotten a Vita for the same reason.

Anyway, back to Lightning Returns. My first impressions of the game so far: bewildering. I have absolutely no idea what's going on. The story is confusing, the dialogue is confusing, the gameplay is confusing, and I don't know where to go half the time. This game is strange, even by Square Enix's eccentric standards. I kind of like the battle system, since it's more action oriented than previous iterations, but even the battle system is bewildering. There's also this time element thing going on that's reminiscent of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, where you have limited time to complete the game. If you run out of time, I guess that ends your game prematurely and gives you a bad ending. I'm not digging the time thing. It's certainly unique, but I don't like feeling pressured into attempting to speed run a game I've never played before.

Also, the only way to get stronger, besides equipment, is by doing side quests. Side quests increase your base stats permanently, and they replace leveling up. To be honest, I thought of something like this around eight years ago, and back then, I thought it was a good idea. I'm starting to have second thoughts about that now. I absolutely hate doing these annoying type of fetch quests, but because they're the main method of getting stronger, I don't have much of a choice. That's unless I enjoy getting my butt kicked by random enemies. I don't.

I can't form a complete consensus on the game yet, since I haven't done much in it, but my first impressions have certainly been mixed. The whole thing feels extremely scatterbrained.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together has been added to the review section. Tactics and ogres don't mix. I mean, ogres aren't very tactical. I don't think there are even any ogres in the game!