One of my anticipated games of the year is about to hit, and we waste no time tackling the first case. This is the version that has live commentary in it, and I will upload a silent version later today if you do not want my narration. The MC from the first game returns here to investigate a school being haunted by a spirit known as the Departed. In this first case, we are going to face a spirit known as Hanako who lashes out at people who enter her domain. Luckily, she is fairly easy to appease, so she makes for a decent tutorial even if there is very little room for error. Unlike the previous games, I do not know if there is a way to botch the exorcism that leads to the demise of your partners. I am not sold on Hanako being the first ghost as similar to Taro back in NG, I have a moment where the "scare" backfires horribly and I have to break the video so I can stop laughing. While I understand that Hanako most likely hung herself using a garden hose, it does not make for good horror material. Since we are dealing with a "pianist" victim for the first case, I was wondering if there would be piano wires or something instead. The major changes from this game compared to the others has to do with navigation and the "health" resource that you use to do things. I am still on the fence about how you navigate, but the health can help you know how many turns you have left and may give you some room in the event you want to try something random during the exorcism. Anyway, I am dropping everything to cover this game as I did not realize it came out this early. Better yet, I did get this copy 2 days before street date, so hopefully I can knock out another case to help people decide whether or not they want to pick this game up for themselves. Otherwise, what better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than with a new horror game? ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-spEsNM9bM

The day of the trade conference has arrived and before we can get started with it or the quests, we need to do a round around Crossbell and talk to everyone. To keep the video at a reasonable length, the areas that have one of the side missions will be covered in that side mission video. Basically, we learn what everyone has been up to for the past few days and how disappointed they are that the tower is locked down. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwbBdeAH4_g

I'm arriving a lot later than I wanted to, but I opted to start covering this game due to the kickstarter for a spiritual successor (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublekickstarter/armed-fantasia-and-penny-blood). It has already met its funding goal, but there are still a few days left in it to hop aboard if you want to bring its successor or Shadow Hearts into reality. As for the game itself, I am going into this blind, having no familiarity with the series at all. I know there are wild west themes present that would make Vash or Sundown proud. Seeing as this is the digital version available on PS3, I can't comment on whether the load times or anything has been improved here, but we can see what is available for most people to still acquire. In this part, we get to meet the various characters, and I have left the random battles in tact so you can see what they're like. Sadly, the encounter rate can be a little punishing at times, and it is going to make editing some of the future parts a bit of a chore. I like the premise of the puzzle elements, but we will need to see where they go with them when we have more tools at our disposal to get from one side of the room to the other. There is a copyright claim on the video for the opening song, so there may be ads. I am hoping it will be the only one. As for long term, I want to work on this when I have some down time. With Zero right around the corner, I will be giving it priority, but I am hoping to get some of these out periodically so we can bring a piece of gaming history onto the channel. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm-zd4iEUfk

We make our way to Sai, which is not that far from Conning Creek. While there, we are able to get the Warrior subjob, head out of town to get a Warrior EX Skill, then go back and loot the place. It is important to have a lot of leaves here as the equipment upgrades available are a huge leap from what we had prior to this. There are better weapons and armor available, so we can score some upgrades at a discount from the various NPCs, then fill out the rest of gaps by buying at the store. Having a NPC who can lower buy costs with Partitio is very important here as this stuff is expensive. Odds are from here, at least for the remaining chapter 2s, we will be looting the town upon arriving then doing the story missions. We're starting to reach the point where we don't need the EXP and resources from the chapter to get what we need and can instead use the loot to power through those. I am expecting a jump for the chapter 3s and 4s, but we will need to get there before I can verify that. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1jnqlTE8qA