the sony playstation 2

[lynnedrum]

okage: shadow king is among my favorite games, particularly because of its art style. (my cousin owned it, i didn't have a ps2 but i visited her every weekend growing up.)

damn what the hell i'd only ever been familiar with the english boxart for okage so i didn't realize it had spindly bitches like this. amazing.....

[turnip_juice]

God, I really should try Skygunner, it always looked like absolutely my kind of game so i think this year it is.
I also downloaded Stella Deus, always loved looking at its screenshots and with how its enviros look i really need to lay my hands on it now that i try to do some 3d enviro art myself a little bit...

[ogre_battle]

I've been playing the Zodiac Age version of Final Fantasy XII for PC, and I've definitely got grievances with how they remastered it. Gnarly upscaled textures, 'quality of life' features that cheapen the experience, and loads of ill-considered little rebalances. It's nothing compared to how Square-Enix massacred Tactics Ogre and Front Mission 3 in recent years, though. Thankfully, a few good modders have made it possible to largely restore the PS2 experience. The tech behind Zodiac Age is solid, so it's not a bad way to play if you install like 8 or 9 mods.


Zodiac Age with PS2 texture pack and custom UI installed.

I'm playing the Steam version, but the PS2 version holds up very well. About seven years ago I played the Japan-only 'International Zodiac Job System' version from 2007, and it's still gorgeous. It's a pretty impressive showing of what the PlayStation 2 can pull off.

I view FFXII as the David Lynch's Dune of Yasumi Matsuno's career. Squeezing something interesting out of a big budget sci-fi picture with loads of studio interference. An intersection of ambitious scale and handcrafted beauty. The story itself feels compromised, but you get to be in an amazing world for awhile.