Play Log: Quality phone time

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans
For whatever faults IBO has, the one thing I really must praise it for is how consistently it delivers on the fights.  This series has pretty much never gone more than one or two episodes without some kind of battle scene, and this frequency combined with the high quality of the choreography make it really entertaining to watch, regardless of anything else.

Cowboy Bebop
I just watched episode 15 today, which was a Faye-centric episode.  I didn't find Faye to be that interesting up till this point so I had held off on watching it, but it was better than I thought it would be.  I guess I shouldn't have been so quick to underestimate this show.

Train Conductor World
I installed this a while ago but never got around to trying it.  It's actually really fun!  It kinda reminds me of Flight Control, a game from the early iOS App Store days where you had to manage incoming flight traffic.  Train Conductor World gets incredibly hectic and challenging, but in a sort of exhilarating way.

Fire Emblem Heroes
Well, this is a thing.  It's okay, I guess?  The core gameplay is definitely Fire Emblem, but heavily simplified.  The in-app purchases seem exorbitantly expensive, but at least for now there's enough to do without spending anything.  To my surprise, it also has a bit of a story, though it's not like Fire Emblem games have a history of engrossing tales, so I'm certainly not expecting a lot here.

Grandia
I never had a PS1 or SNES so the often-called "golden age of JRPGs" was mostly lost on me.  I'm not on some quest to fix that, but I do like JRPGs and wanted to try something different from the modern fare I'm used to, so I popped in Grandia.  I'm already impressed, it has such a lighthearted, easygoing tone.  And it has voice acting, which is surprising.

Muramasa: Rebirth
I played several hours of this game closer to when I first got my Vita.  There's even a brief writeup about it somewhere on the site, I think.  Anyway, it's been on my mind a lot lately so I decided to come back to it.  After spending a couple hours playing it, I already feel like I remember what eventually drove me away from the game in the first place.  The combat is cool and challenging in a way that's just right, but the game pretty much has nothing else going on.  You're just running from place to place, killing enemies and sometimes talking to people.  I had the same problem with Dragon's Crown, but that had the excuse of being a beat 'em up.  I'm starting to wonder if this is just how Vanillaware operates.  Makes we want to try Odin Sphere, and soon.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel
The story in this game is getting pretty interesting, and the combat's reasonably fun too.  Yet something about playing it feels a little monotonous.